Try This Creative Exercise to Pick Yourself up From Low Mood
Expressing and sharing your struggle gives it meaning and shows you that your experience can have an impact on the world
COMIC JOURNALING
Expressing and sharing your struggle gives it meaning and shows you that your experience can have an impact on the world
Whether you are in a low mood for no obvious reason or you are experiencing grief and trauma, this simple creative exercise can immediately lift you up and give you the strength to continue fighting your enemy. You can use any negative emotion you are feeling as a source of inspiration for a drawing, a short text, or even an Internet meme. By creating something out of this emotion, you will feel that it suddenly has a purpose — the purpose to be a piece of art or to be shared with others and communicate an important truth. Validating your low mood this way will immediately make you feel better and ready to take action on whatever it is you need at that moment.
Crucially, creating anything at all is a powerful way to make yourself feel more in control of your reality. Drawing and writing are the easiest ways to create something and we can do it with no more than a pen and a paper, even when we don’t have any artistic skills. If you also feel strong enough to share your work, you get to feel that your experience matters and this is an immediate blow to any depressive state. Your struggle can tell a story and leave an impact on the world.
This exercise should be done in one way if you are depressed for no “obvious” reason, as explained in the first section, and in another way if you are currently going through trauma or grief, as covered in the second section. Keep in mind that I am not a professional psychologist and these are techniques that worked for me in those two cases. Every individual experience is special and you might need to adapt my advice to find what works for you.
1. If your life is otherwise ok and you are not experiencing trauma
First, you need to find a contradiction in your beliefs or actions. If your life is objectively going ok and you think you probably don’t have a good enough reason to feel sad, the chances are you will find such a contradiction. Most likely, your depressive reaction is disproportionate to how things really are. This contradiction is just a comparison of two inconsistent beliefs or actions, for example, you might want to stay in touch with a good friend but you are not messaging her.
Comic Journaling for Mental Health
Did you know that making comics can make you feel better?medium.com
This contradiction can be as dark as appropriate for your situation, depending on how you are feeling. For example “I contemplate suicide, but then I am afraid to fly because the plane might crash”. Once you have this contradiction, write it down (you might add some exaggeration to make it funny) and add some visual context to it. You can make a super simple drawing, turning it into a comic with my Comic Journaling method, or you can find a meme that would fit your text. At this stage, you should already feel more accomplished and meaningful than before, with humor helping along the way, but the magic comes from the following.
If you decide to share your creation either on social media or via private messaging with a few selected friends, you will immediately give meaning to your struggle. Sharing our experiences with others is an extremely powerful tool to feel validated, heard, and like we matter.
This is exactly what happened to me just the other day. I was in a low mood, unmotivated to do anything, and frankly, I felt useless, just scrolling on my phone and not doing what I had planned for that evening. Then I suddenly thought “I should make a comic about this, this is so stupid that it’s actually funny’’. I shared it on Instagram (see the comic below) and something insane happened.
Even before I got any likes, I got up, did some yoga, made myself dinner, and watched a movie to analyze its screenplay. I wouldn’t have done any of these things if I stayed in my initial state, which happens on most days.
My struggle finally had a purpose: To be in a comic! And to be a part of a larger conversation about mental disorders. I gave my struggle a meaning and that gave me a reason to get active and stay in control of my reality.
2. If you are going through grief or trauma
If you are experiencing grief or trauma, first of all, I am very sorry, and please ask for help if you are in danger.
Unfortunately, by virtue of being human, we all experience trauma in one way or another, some of us being slightly more and others less fortunate. But the fortune is outside of our control. The only thing we can do is decide how to honor our grief.
First, think about your role models when you were a kid. Who were the adults that took care of you, who told you what the world is like, and shared their wisdom with you? What would they tell you now, seeing how you suffer? What memories do you have with them that can honor them and the truths they shared with you? Write down what they would say to you right now.
By asking your role models these questions, you make yourself look for a universal truth about your condition and what you could learn from going through it all.
After writing down what your role models would say to you, put it into a textual or visual form that you could share with others, publicly or with your family and friends (or under a pen name!). You will find a way that feels most comfortable to you, but the key is to share your suffering because that will give it meaning and leave an impact on others. And this will propel you to continue existing and fighting.
When my grandma passed away, my first feeling was that existence was meaningless. She had suffered during her life more than any other person I know, living through two wars and an abusive relationship, and dying with dementia that didn’t allow her to fully remember those closest to her. It seemed so unfair for no reason. And maybe that is true, but that’s not what she would want me to think.
She could find humor and beauty even during the harshest of times, and I wanted to honor that. I wanted to tell her story in a way that captures her outlook on life, and I wanted to be able to be like her one day. Inspired by these emotions and what happened during her funeral, I created a comic “A cosmic joke” (see an excerpt below).
A Cosmic Joke
Or how I found humor in tragedy.medium.com
Writing about my role model this way allowed me to pick myself up by plunging deeply into these negative feelings and accepting them. They are strong but they need to be that strong to honor my grandma fittingly and to fuel my inspiration to tell her story to others.
You see, by telling your stories to other people you create meaning. If anyone ever learns something through the wisdom my grandma passed on to me, my grief and her suffering and courage will have a special meaning extending beyond her lifetime.
All this is not to say that there is no meaning to the stories that are not shared with others. All experiences have their inherent value. But when you take action to tell your story, you will suddenly feel that your grief has more meaning and purpose, and you will feel better. It’s a simple trick of the mind but a very powerful one.
Go on, create your story! Leave an impact on the world, we desperately need it…
Check out my other articles about how creativity helps with mental health:
Comic Journaling for Mental Health
Did you know that making comics can make you feel better?medium.com
A Comic Journaling Exercise to Kickstart Your Day
Try this simple journaling technique for mental healthforge.medium.com
How to Reason With Your Emotions Through Comic Journaling
Beat procrastination and other struggles through humor and visualizationmedium.com