Last week, the Celebration of Wellness artivity was to embrace your curiosity. Ideally, it would be a chance to look at how your mind works, but I pointedly ignored that.

I know how my mind works. It's a source of near constant tension in my life that my brain bounces around like a gummi bear on speed. I don't want to waste a week dwelling on something that seems negative in my life. Eventually, I'll find a positive. But for now, I decided to explore curiosity in a far more fun way.

I have a confession to make. I love mixed media. I think that the people who work in mixed media art are amazingly intuitive and creative. I envy them their ability to create something so vibrant and wonderful from a variety of scraps, paints and inks. I wish I could create such beauty. I've always been curious about how they manage to do so. So here, instead of a work of my own (my computer is playing up, and it's not loving my photo files), is a list of sites that have inspired me this week to embrace my curiosity:

Artsyville Aimee is an amazing artist. I love the brightness of her doodle art. Without fail, when I'm net capable and feeling less than glowing, a few minutes of looking through her blog cheers me right up!

The Art of Collecting Yourself If you're participating in the Celebration of Wellness, you'll already know who Rae is. I stumbled upon her blog while looking for creative challenges, and stumbled upon a rare chance to find myself in the most creative, fun way possible. Rae's honesty inspires me every single day.

All I Did Was Listen Lordy, I love this. It reminds me of one of my favourite books: The Persistence of Yellow. Lots of beautiful thoughts surrounded by colour. Rachel is a psychologist, which is a career I'd love to have. I always worried that I'd take on all of the sad rather than being able to focus on the amazing strength and courage found in every person.

The Empty Nester Grammy is a beautiful soul who inspires me constantly with her wisdom and conviction to live life in as meaningful and positive way as possible. Sometimes, looking at how other people stand up and make a change in their life is a perfect way to learn how to make changes in your own life. I hope that one day I'm as wise and wonderful as Grammy is.

ABC Creativity Choc full of fantastic creative journaling prompts, this is the place that encouraged me to try creative journaling. I'm intrigued by the idea of archetypal self portraits; I can't wait to settle down and try a few!

Jenni Horne makes me question what new techniques I can try. Reading through her posts made me deeply curious as to what I can try to enrich my creativity. What can I use in a way I haven't before?

There's dozens more sites and blogs I could mention, though I might stagger it some so as not to get too overwhelming.

Enjoy! I'm off to try working with texture paste for a while.

Stillness. Peace. Tranquility.

I long for these. I imagine life to be so much richer, more enjoyable and fulfilling with these three virtues in your life. What scares me, though, is the idea that it may never happen to me.

All my life, I've been told my brain flits around subjects at a mile a moment. It's been a constant source of tension- things that seem perfectly understandable to me can be incredibly hard for others to follow. I'm always in some kind of motion, always doing something. More often than not it takes at least an hour for me to fall asleep: it takes that long for my mind to stop rushing from idea to idea, and settle enough for me to sleep. It's exhausting.

I've tried to meditate, but I've yet to manage more than a few seconds of quiet. I feel as though the more I try, the more my mind rebels. Thing is, I'm tired of flitting. I'd love to be able to just put my focus on one thing at a time; to start something, finish it, and then move on to something else. At this point in my life, I think I'm seeing life stillness as the ability to devote myself to one thing at a time, wholeheartedly. Stillness is slowing down the constant frantic motion of my life, lowering the stress and calming everything down so that life flows more smoothly for myself and those around me. It's removing from my life the things that don't work but I feel duty bound to keep. It's choosing where my energy goes, and learning to stop giving my power away to non-deserving causes. It's setting clear boundaries, and sticking to them. It's guarding my time so I don't have to try to catch up later on.

Stillness, it seems, is a commitment to live my life in a way that makes serenity possible, rather than inadvertently making it unlikely or downright impossible.

It's a tall order, though, so perhaps I'll start off small.

1. Continue to start each day with a cup of tea and no distractions.
2. When I remember something I have to do, write it down and go back to what I was doing.
3. Start new things only when I've finished what I've already been working on.
4. Stop trying to meditate. Try and create quiet moment every day and enjoy them, rather than trying to force your mind to still.

When I was in high school, I took a subject called Early Childhood Studies. Part of the assessment involved working at a school based playgroup.

I hated it.

The reason for my loathing came from the fact that I got stuck refilling paint, scrounging more paper, dicing fruit. While I took care of the work, everyone else was outside playing with the kids. To make it so much more hurtful, instead of forcing the others to participate in the less fun parts of running a playgroup, my teacher just marked me down for not interacting as much as everyone else.

At first, I cried. I worked my butt off, and I was in trouble? After an hour or so of self pity, though, my anger took over, and I made a decision. I decided to play. Let someone else take care of the boring stuff: it wasn't my responsibility. So for one day, I played. I laughed with the kids, I enjoyed myself. Kids were laughing, happy, gravitating towards me to show them how to use the monkey bars and showing me their sand castles. I loved every second.

The paints began to run low. I told the student who came to tell me this where the bigger containers were, and how to refill them. As a bonus, I told them where the paper was kept. I played. I had fun.

One of the kids put a sparkly silver hat on my head, and I told them I'd wear it with pride.

My teacher took me aside, towards the end of playgroup. It wasn't running as smoothly as it usually did. It looked bad to the parents, apparently, because my teacher was upset. She lectured me, but one of the things that stays with me even a decade later? She told me I was scaring the kids.

No, really.

One thing I know about young kids? They're not great liars. If they're scared, they don't laugh and ask you to help them reach the monkey bars. If you scare them, they go and hide behind their parents- they don't come and ask you to paint with them. They avoid, not approach.

For everyone, the day was a struggle. I think part of the issue was that I'd been looking after kids since I was eight. I already had experience with keeping kids amused. I already knew when to start prepping fruit for morning tea, or to look out for the paints running low. No one else in the class seemed to have that same life experience, and I didn't think to let them know that there were hints and tricks. I should have let everyone know in advance that I was no longer prepared to be alone in taking care of the boring stuff.

Instead of asking me to share those hints and tips with the others, my teacher wanted me to 'put the playgroup first', accept a lower grade, and stick to the shadows. Thinking myself a failure, I did what she asked of me. Once more, I played the grown up, when all I ever wanted to be was a kid.

Play was already an issue for me. Before I was 13, I was looking after young kids. In a lot of ways, my childhood ended when I was 8. I had to be a grown up, had to be mature and responsible for young lives, had to carry an awareness of the bad parts of life long before I should have.

Play, for me, is a foreign concept.

I don't want it to be. I want to be free and fun, i want to not be so grown up all the time. I just don't know how to get there. I feel there's a gap between where I am and creative freedom. Not an impossible distance to jump, but an uncomfortable one. I find myself running to the edge, ready to jump, and then I stop. I freeze. I panic.

Maybe my teacher was right: maybe I'm better as the boring behind the scenes type? What if I am scary? What if play and creativity make me somehow bad? I can list dozens of examples of the people around me treating my creativity and playfulness as something hurtful. It made others feel that they're were somehow lesser; less creative, less fun to be around, less everything. It was unhelpful; playing doesn't feed kids, or clean the house. You can't make a living out of it. It's a hobby, nothing more. There were so many ways in which I became tangled up in other people's issues.

I think that's why I freeze. Since I was too young to stop them, people have tied their beliefs and issues to me like lead balloons. They are so heavy I worry I can't make it across that divide, that I'll fall into the nothingness between where I am and where I want to be.

It's time to start freeing myself, one piece at a time. Today I think I'll start with the idea that creativity is a hobby, not a lifestyle. I'll give myself time to work up to the idea that play is scary.

This one was a shocker. Looking at where I'm at with the different aspects meant seeing that my excitement about progress may have been a little bit early. It was actually really depressing to realise just how small some of the areas are.

The trees, of course, are meant to indicate where I'm at. Lets be honest here, that doesn't look great. The good news is, even though where I'm at seems a bit bad right now, it's not through lack of trying, more through a random series of setbacks. There's lots of things coming up that have been planned and worked on. Even if the above ground measurements seem far less than what I'd like them to be, the root systems are huge. Hence the purple and silver area. Every silver and gold line represents actions that are working towards the healthy growth of each area. They merge and tangle, working with and benefiting the other trees. It's depressing to see how little physical progress has happened, but it's pretty good to see that there are signs of life.Trees need strong roots to grow. Hopefully it's the same for areas of wellness.

When I looked back at the painting, I realised there's symbolism aplenty in this. The spirals remind me that things change constantly, that just because you're somewhere now doesn't mean you'll stay there. Onwards and upwards, as it were. Trees are strong, powerful living beings. They bend instead of break, and are long lasting. Originally I was going to use waves, but they seemed wrong. I like that they're a way to remind myself that trees take a while to grow (it's a journey, just like the Celebration of Wellness is a journey), but they're stronger and more lasting because of it. Trees learn as they grow: their shape alters depending on their surroundings. Strong winds, and they lean to one side, their branches growing as though giving direction. They grow around obstacles if they can't go through them. It's one of the reasons people talk about trees in terms of wisdom gaining. Taking time to learn, to make things stronger and better rather than just rushing in blind? That's something I need to remember. It would be nice to wave a magic wand and have everything be perfect. But it wouldn't last. Change comes from effort.

Purple is a colour I love, mostly because it speaks to me of strength and courage. Pink is a colour of calmness; there was a theory that painting cell walls pink would lessen jail violence. While a lot of people associate black with monsters and scariness, I tend to associate it more with growth and new beginnings. So many creation stories begin with darkness that gives birth to life. Blue is a colour of creativity, gold and silver represent solar and lunar energies (both of which can be useful in reaching your goals), and white is a colour I associate with spirituality and faith- including the faith in things getting better. All of it seems kind of appropriate.

For now, this is a work in progress. It's almost barren right now, but through the year I plan to add to it, to add leaves and flowers and new growth as it happens, until one day (however long away it may be) those trees fill their space and move beyond it, blending together into one big knot work.

I'm a bit late with the challenges for the Celebration of Wellness blog party.

Originally, this challenge was to create a time capsule to show where I am at this point in my life. As is becoming quite usual this year, my original grand plans ended up as something completely different.Originally, I imagined a box filled to overflowing with representations of the different aspects of wellness: physical, social, emotional, intellectual, environmental, spiritual, and occupational. Instead, I got the idea of Persephone's ascent from the Underworld stuck in my head, and painted how it related to where I'm at.

I feel like I'm walking my way up a million stairs to get out of the darkness, and into the light. It's rough sometimes, and for a good long while it was hard to imagine that there was something bright and beautiful ahead. Life gets that way sometimes. It's easy to get scared by the darkness, to begin to feel as though it's all there is. Like somehow the world got sucked into a black hole last time you blinked. Sometimes you manage one or two steps a day, sometimes dozens. Still, it's darkness.

Lately, though, I've been starting to see the end of the tunnel. At first it was the slightest lessening of the darkness. Now, I can imagine it as a world; all bright colours and fresh air.

You realise quickly that, even though you can see the outside world, even though you can imagine the feeling of cool fresh air, there's a long way to go before you actually get outside. There's still hundreds, maybe thousands, of steps to go, and the ascent is getting steeper each and every day. Eventually, though, it'll get easier.

It's like that, healing. I remember seeing on a forum once an analogy that seemed so utterly perfect. Healing is like being in a basement full of hot coals. It hurts, you hate it, but you're still scared to leave. After all, whatever is up the ladder could be so much worse than where you are. Change is scary, and even if you hate where you are, it's still at least a bit comforting to know it's twelve steps to the ladder and that it's half a degree cooler in the far right corner.

Sometimes, you go running towards the ladder. You decide there's nothing worse then where you are, and you'll take your chances with whatever is up there. But a metal ladder in a hot environment? You make it up maybe two rungs before you let go. It's too hot, too painful. Suddenly where you are doesn't seem too bad.

One day, though, you have to get out. Something happens that makes it impossible to stay, and you force yourself up the ladder. It hurts like hell, but you somehow make it all the way to the top. The next room is cooler. The next ladder doesn't hurt as much; each and every time you move forward, you're also moving further from the heat. Eventually, you're not even in the house anymore.

I haven't quite gotten away from the hardest part of the journey. But it's coming. An until that day comes where I step outside, I'm just going to be happy I can see the outside world again.

I've decided to participate in the celebration of wellness challenge over at The Art of Collecting Yourself. If you haven't heard of it, give it a look. It's a nine month challenge to creatively explore the different aspects of wellness: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual environmental, and occupational.

There was a challenge for Valentine's Day; we were asked to create a Valentine for ourselves. An affirmation of love towards ourselves. I figured, meh, easy. Right? Make myself some cutesy card full of love hearts and adorableness, and be done with it. Scribble in some random 'things I love about me' list, sign it with a flourish, post a photo here. Easy. Done.

Not so done.

I find in life that it's all the simple things, the ones you shrug off as obscenely easy, that knock you on your butt with their difficulty and profound learning experiences. If I think I can breeze through a challenge, it's normally because I'm not aware of something. I tried a few times; walked towards my craft supplies inwardly listing things I could do. But every time, I turned away, and found something else to do. Last year, I read The Art of Extreme Self Care by Cheryl Richardson. It's a good read, and a great book for people who tend to just say yes, putting everyone elses life before their own. One of the activities, though, I could never quite manage. It was a simple activity; every time you saw a mirror, look yourself in the eye and tell yourself 'I love you'. Again, it should be easy.

Creating a Valentine for myself seems a lot like staring into my reflected eyes and saying 'I love you'. I feel guilty, as though in taking time for me, I'm somehow denying someone else that time and energy. I've fallen into that mindset for years, if I'm honest. It's taken a while, but generally, I've managed to reduce it to white noise in the back of my mind, unnoticed until I do something big for me.

Truly acknowledging and believing that I'm worth the effort of treating myself well might take a while. Still, I wanted to do something, something that I love, something that makes me happy and slowly teaches me to believe in my talent. So I spent Valentines Day (or at least the part where my partner was at work) creating, working to decorate a book I've been meaning to do for ages. It's not finished yet, parts are drying and things need tinkering with, but when it's done I'll post a picture.

Until then, I hope everyone else had better luck with the challenge, or at least enjoyed their baby steps as much as I did!