Hi, I‘m Lorena and welcome to The Stress Less Pencil. Together, we create art to make us feel good, not to make it look good. All weekly prompts are designed for total beginners and experienced artists alike, so come join us.
This week is the time of the Winter Solstice, the moment the days will finally begin getting longer again. At least for us in the Northern Hemisphere, it means the end of the darkness, the return of the light. The cycle begins anew, and it’s the moment of change and renewal.
As the light wins over the dark, we can also ask ourselves what we want to leave behind in the darkness on a personal level. So today, we invite the flame of a candle to burn away all the things we no longer want to carry with us.
The Activity: Let it go and burn it
Step 1 - Let it go list
Take a pen and a paper and write a list of all the things you want to let go of in your life. These could be bad habits, ways of acting and thinking that don’t serve you, or maybe even people.
Smoking, not speaking your truth, making yourself small, that friend that only ever calls when they need something and makes you feel like crap? Put them on the list. Of course dare to think big, but also list the small stuff.
Step 2 - Put it on a candle
Using a permanent marker, transfer the items on your list onto a candle. You can either write them out, or make little doodles and drawings that represent the things on your list.
Step 3 - Watch it burn
Now look at all these things you want to let go off, the things that have weighed you down and held you back. It’s time to kill them! Kill them with fire! Light your candle every day next week and watch that extra weight you’re carrying just literally melt away.
My Example
Among other things, I want to let go of wasting time on my phone, (stress) eating too much sugar, buying stuff I don’t need, and holding myself back too often.
How about you? What are you leaving behind in the darkness?
Have a bright week and a great Solstice!
Lobe, Lorena
I've always loved a good "emotional purge" of listing things to let go of. What I love even more about this take on it is that a candle is (relatively) slow to burn, which in a sense helps remind us to not be discouraged if we slip back into old behaviors or thought patters. Rewiring our brains and how we relate to the world is surprisingly quick, but it still takes some time. The time that it takes a candle to melt down (assuming you light it consistently) feels like it's a good match to that process.