processing anxiety: white strokes

WHITE STROKES

I think National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is great in providing supports for people who otherwise could not afford support. Nevertheless...

I have not registered with NDIS - not yet. I have colleagues who have, and many of them find the processes to take a lot of time and energy. But the good news is that I am able to provide art therapy for self-managed / self-managing NDIS clients which is great. Currently, I am providing art therapy at clients' homes but this will decrease once I will have my own clinic up and running - hopefully by the end of September in Springwood. (Springwood is about 20 kilometres south of Brisbane, Queensland.)

I have not attempted to start the registering processes to become an NDIS provider because I am in the middle of another process of applying for the mental health social worker accreditation (AMHSW). One process at a time is enough for me! I need the AMHSW accreditation in order to become service provider under the Better Access scheme with Medicare. That's going to be another process... and it will take time to get an approval... months yet again.

It is such a long journey to become an accredited provider of mental health support, a therapist in private practice. I spend more time doing administrative work and thinking of marketing plans than actually doing what I have been trained to do for so many years at tertiary level. I think universities should create post-graduate courses that would help budding private practitioners in social work and psychological therapies to set up their businesses. And the Australian governments should provide incentives and grants for that.

That's another issue... and that's enough of me complaining. I suppose I had to get it out of my system somehow... Which reminds me of the benefits of creative arts therapies.

Creative ways are great in "getting things out of the system"... For instance, I have always found writing things down very beneficial. When I write, and then read what I wrote, I am able to see what I actually think. Another creative way is to go for a walk. Look at the nature. Stop every now and then. Smell the roses. Take photos. Mindfully, mind you. Wait for the right moment. Clouds to move, wind to stop, butterfly to land. Stop, look, in-breath, out-breath, take a photo.

Another way to release anxiety for me is to paint or draw.

I have a "painting" at my backyard. It is hanging on the wall. I painted it for the first time in the early 2000's. I used a lot of baby poo colour for some reason. Soon I started really disliking the colours on the image. Some time after I started painting over it.

The painting is heavy with past anxieties that I have loaded on it over the years. Just the other day I painted white stripes over the previous wild vortex of colour palette. It took me half an hour to paint the white stripes. I had found a bottle of white acrylic paint past its due date, and a sad, unhappy looking brush. I went to my backyard and started painting over the vortex painting. Stroke, stroke, stroke. Stroke... stroke... stroke.......With every - slower than slow- brush stroke I also practiced mindfulness. Slowing my hand whilst painting I slowed down my breathing. Thirty minutes later I felt calm.

Those strokes were reflections of my anxious feelings about indecisiveness and uncertainties, and they helped to calm my mind. My emotion and feelings were emptied out on the hard board that has a history of almost 20 years of visual regurgitation.

It's a good board. It can take anything. It will be with me for a long time to come.

Keywords: "self-managed NDIS", NDIS and art therapy, National Disability Insurance Scheme, creative arts therapy, Springwood, Logan, Brisbane, anxiety, processing feelings .