How Neurographica Can Help You in Your Every Day Life

From healthy habits, to making decisions, tough emotions, perfectionism, taking action, Neurographica can help with all of it (and more).

In my last two posts, I introduced you to Neurographica and explained a bit about what’s going on in your brain when you draw.

Click HERE to go back to the first post.

But how can this drawing process help you in your everyday life?

There’s a lot that goes into it, but at the end of the day, Neurographica gives you TIME to THINK about what’s important to you and PROCESS those thoughts as you're drawing.

Let's say you want to explore how to...get a better night's sleep, for example.

So no, it’s not some kind of magical process where you do a drawing and then POOF. You get 8 hours of sleep tonight.

I mean, that'd be pretty great. It might happen. But probably not.

It's more likely though, that through the process you realize there's something you've been avoiding thinking about.

You struggle with sleep because this thought creeps into your mind when it's still (while you're cuddled up under the covers ready for sleep, without your daily distractions and busyness).

You realize the trouble sleeping isn't about the act of sleeping - it’s about dealing with that thing you've been avoiding (which honestly, you already knew. But now your subconscious has shone a light on it).

Again, it's about getting still and listening.

Keeping with the sleep example, maybe you’re entering perimenopause and you're dealing not just with sleep issues, but weight gain, and a bunch of other fun changes no one talks about.

The drawing process may bring to light that you'd meant to make an appointment to talk to your doctor like a month ago and it just never happened. And now you're realizing how important that call is because a bunch of areas of your life are being impacted and you want some help navigating these, oh so fun, hormonal changes.

So you pick up the phone the next day.

Nothing magical here. No slight of hand.

Just listening and following through. You're going from art, to action.

A little more about the "art" part. As you draw, you drop into a flow state where you feel more regulated, switching out of fight or flight and feeling less stressed. One of my clients described Neurographica as "like meditation, but without feeling pressure to empty your mind". Love that description.

It's true. Parts of the process are super meditative and can help you manage stress and feel more present.

So if you want the benefits of meditation but traditional meditation isn't your jam, this might just be your thing.

(And if you love traditional meditation, this can be a great addition to your process.)

Back to the action part of Neurographica.

I talked about it with the sleep example, but let's say you're struggling with a decision.

Have you noticed the harder you try to figure something out, the more stuck you feel? The pros and cons list seems to keep going back and forth. Some people tell you to do this and others tell you the opposite is the way to go.

Both sides seem like viable options and you end up, confused and no further ahead.

But it's because you're probably just recycling the same thoughts.

When your draw with Neurographica, you:

Approach decisions from new angles.
Find and create new pathways as you draw lines.
Have the opportunity to be still and listen (reoccurring theme, here, I know).

Usually, you know exactly what you need or want to do. That’s not the problem. The problem is with actually doing it. With...

The fear of judgment.

The fear of failure.

And the potential trickle down effect (that may or may not happen)

It’s in the moments of stillness, with your thoughts, that you know the right decision. You know what you want to do, and why you haven't done it yet.

You just need space to hear it and a nudge to finally listen. Because as I'm sure you've realized, no decision is still a decision.

Listening to yourself and trusting yourself is a huge theme in Neurographica and we practice following that intuition with each drawing.

With Neurographica, you have to choose where shapes go, how large to make them, how to draw the lines, which colors to choose… all with guidance of course, when you're just getting started.

But YOU get to decide.

All these little, seemingly insignificant decisions, are small, low-stakes opportunities to listen to your intuition and trust yourself. So when there’s something bigger at stake, you’ll have built up a sense of trust in yourself. Plus, it builds your confidence and your creativity along the way.

A message to my fellow perfectionists:

I only realized a few years ago just how much of an impact my perfectionism had on me.

Yes, it helped me to accomplish lots of things in my life, but it also cost me approximately a million hours over the years.

Re-doing things
Proofreading, and still finding mistakes, and proofing again (I'm sorry about the typos I'm sure are all over my site - it's me letting go of some perfectionism, so I choose to embrace it)
Recreating things from scratch, even when I already have a perfectly good version
Researching for lessons, continuously, because what if there was a better video I just didn’t find yet?

This showed up for me, mostly at work and was one of the contributing factors to why I burned out a few years ago.

Who knew? Burnout can stem from perfectionism.

Anyhow, Neurographica has a way of shining a light on your perfectionism, in a gentle...heyyy, you... kind of way.

Even after many, many drawings, I'll still find myself wondering if it's good enough.

Should I add more?
Do more rounding?
Add a few more colors?
Did I just add too many colors?
I should have stopped after the last color lol.

And then I'll catch myself, thank the process for the reminder that my perfectionism still has some room to grow, and move on.

There's so much I love about this modality - how it helps with deep stuff like processing emotions. But also practical stuff like building healthy habits and setting goals (that's where most of my drawings fall).

I love that Neurographica is completely accessible and you don't need the fanciest supplies - just paper, a marker, and something to color with. I love painting but I hate washing my palettes and brushes lol - art with no clean-up is extra attractive to me.

You can draw on just about any theme you can think of which makes it super practical in your everyday life.

But what about the time commitment?

If you've noticed my Sketch and Flow classes are on the longer side of things, usually a couple of hours long, once you're familiar with the process, even 15 minutes at a time can help you feel calmer and create shifts.

What matters more is that you’re open to exploring the process and being honest with yourself and whatever comes up.

But if time really is a concern, Grab my free checklist to free up 3 hours this week to make more space for your new creative hobby.

Categories: : Neurographica Basics