Embracing Clarity & Calm: Clearing the Clutter

By: Kelsey Marks, LCAT, ATR-BC

Spring is finally here. With the change of the seasons and the gentle pull away from darker colder days, I find myself falling back into many familiar habits. Like many others, I followed my urge to begin my yearly decluttering and Spring-cleaning process.While working to organize and clean my space, I came across my treasured keepsake shoe box. In this time capsule were dozens upon dozens of cards, notes, and my own personal collection of Zentangles I created years prior. 

Zentangles are a meditative, nonrepresentational, and spontaneous art directive. The participant creates structured patterns or tangles on a small piece of paper or tile. The artists engaging in this practice are free to create what they wish, experiencing the emergence of their art in that very moment, while rotating and changing the placement of their tiles as desired. This art practice requires very few materials and no formal art training or skill. What a Zentangle does require, however, is an openness to explore art-making anchored in the present moment. This art practice invites you to slow down and supports the cultivation and strengthening of mindful “attunement.”

Incorporating a creative mindful practice allows us to slow down and help us stay rooted in the present moment. Being present allows us to focus on one thing: one task, one conversation, or one thought at a time.

“Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.”

 —Jon Kabat-Zinn

Aside from offering opportunities to promote awareness of the present moment, Zentangles and other mindfulness-based practices offer many benefits, including stress reduction, enhanced focus and concentration, self-expression, and artistic exploration (Schuman-Olivier et al., 2020). Making mindfulness practices an intentional part of your day has been linked to better physical health outcomes, with studies reporting reduced blood pressure and improved immune function (Creswell, 2017).  Mindfulness-based practices can support a top-down approach of emotional regulation, thereby allowing the body to more accurately assess the emotions and sensations encountered (van der Kolk, 2014).

Mindfulness not only makes it possible to survey our internal landscape with compassion and curiosity but can also actively steer us in the right direction for self-care.
—Bessel A. van der Kolk

While our days can be busy and overstimulating, we can perhaps become more intentional by building in daily meaningful self-care practices. Implementing daily self-care practices as part of your everyday routine has shown to lower rates of anxiety and stress, improve your mental and physical health, help create and sustain better relationships, and build social support networks (Creswell, 2017). The research demonstrates what we already know instinctually: when we slow down and have closer connections, it improves not only our physical health, but our mental health as well.

Springtime seems to be a natural time to approach self-care practices with more intention, allowing us to prioritize the decluttering of some of the tangles that inhibit our mental well-being. For many these actions can help us feel more in control of our spaces, help us feel more organized, and contribute to a greater sense of clarity.

A simplified life means that what has to get done will get done. And when we pare down life to its simplest, most beautifully basic parts, we’re left with room to enjoy each other, to rest, and to truly savor life with all our hearts, minds, and spirits.
—Emily Ley

As we move throughout Spring, we should move with the core components of mindfulness as our guide: with curiosity, with self-compassion and love, without judgment and with a deep appreciation of the present (Kabat-Zinn, 2003).

References:

Creswell J. D. (2017). Mindfulness Interventions. Annual review of psychology, 68, 491–516.

Ley, E. (2017).  A Simplified Life: Tactical Tools for Intentional Living. Thomas Nelson.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-based interventions in context: past, present, and future.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2023). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. Hachette UK.

Schuman-Olivier, Z., Trombka, M., Lovas, D. A., Brewer, J. A., Vago, D. R., Gawande, R., Dunne, J. P., Lazar, S. W., Loucks, E. B., & Fulwiler, C. (2020). Mindfulness and Behavior Change. Harvard review of psychiatry, 28(6), 371–394. 

van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York, 3.