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Violet

@courageousviolet

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Psychology & CBT nerd.
Anxious artist living life with or without healing, on a mission to help others in the process 🩷 🧠 🌺
@etsy CourageousVioletArt

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Currently attempting a bold new experiment called: making animations while actively ignoring my internal perfectionist screaming in the background. 🎬🫠
Most people I know absolutely hate the cold, so I made a little animation of all my favourite woolies.
Frame by frame, I’m trying to embrace the slightly wonky, unfinished, totally imperfect bits instead of tweaking one detail for four hours.
Consider this official proof that art doesn’t have to be perfect to be worthy of existing.
How many times do you think I almost deleted this before hitting publish? 🧶🧤

#creativemindset #imperfection #creativeburnout #mindfulart #overthinkinghelp by @courageousviolet

I spent a year trying to fix panic attacks, get to the root cause and figure out my emotions the second my chest tightened.
Learning ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) changed my approach to living life. I stopped fighting the physical sensations and rolling panic and learned to let it pass.
How I live alongside panic now:

* I stop trying to “solve” it. A racing heart is just an old alarm system firing off, not an actual emergency.
* I drop the escape hatch. Staying put instead of running out teaches my body that I’m actually safe.
* I bring my life along for the ride. I stop waiting for a “panic-free” day. I go to work or out on a walk anyway. I take one small step.
* I live a values based life. I let my goals and the things that are important to me drive my life, not my panic.
When you stop fighting panic, it loses its power. You don’t need a calm nervous system to start living, just carry the wave with you. 🌿

All my love and care,
Violet x

#acttherapy #panicattackhelp #overthinkingeverything #acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy #anxietyrecovery by @courageousviolet

I’ll be at home, being an iPad kid practicing how to get animation right, reading books and trying not to spiral into seasonal affective disorder by romanticising ‘hibernation’.
No but seriously I’m going to try to get more time to chill this winter. It always feels like this time of year can be rushed, trying to cram in loads of plans when I 👏 need 👏 more 👏balance.

#hibernation #bramblyhedge #cosynightin #wintering #anxiousmind by @courageousviolet

Ok. I always loved Halloween. Until…
I started to experience Halloween as someone with an anxiety disorder. (Scroll past if not relevant, or don’t, you might learn something as a human also experiencing anxiety from time to time).
Halloween can actually be quite triggering for those experiencing anxious thoughts and feelings/sensations.
Here are some themes that make me panic a bit inside:
The crowds and groups of people scaring eachother
The themes of blood, murder, villains and monsters
The potential for people you don’t know to knock on your door.

I’m actually a little scared of all of these things, even as someone who is recovered. Halloween presents an opportunity for lots of “what if” thoughts, especially relating to previous experiences with themes of violence or control.

Halloween is a good chance to try small exposure therapy exercises by just existing and being around some of these themes. If you’re not comfortable - that is normal. For kids, it can be fun to feel scared. For adults with experiences and memories buried in our minds that we’d rather avoid, it presents ample opportunity for worry and panic.
Here’s something I keep in mind that helps me on Halloween.
The props, people and movies exist just as they are. They don’t carry any special meaning and the way they make you feel is based solely on your interpretation of them.
Thoughts are not facts.
One small step to allow the experiences that scare you and not avoid situations can make a difference in your long term brain chemistry and help you work with your anxious feelings, not against them.

I make art that reminds me to do hard things. I’m not a therapist, but I share advice inspired by the therapists and professionals who helped me.

#mentalhealthhelp #anxietyrecovery #ocdrecovery #seasonalaffectivedisorder #exposuretherapy by @courageousviolet

Tbh, two years of my life I always felt I’d lost to life struggles and I always said thing wouldn’t get better. I said I wished things never happened how they did. A gradual change in perspective has made me see it differently. Now I know how to approach difficulties and I’m so proud of how far I’ve come! Can we normalise saying that please? 🦋

#mindfulart #selfcompassion #discomfortisgrowth #anxietyrecovery #mindfulquotes by @courageousviolet

Am I the only one who’s terrible at doing the relaxing part? Somehow if I don’t feel like I’m being productive, then I feel like I lose my value. I’m using this as a reminder to myself that it’s ok to rest sometimes, you don’t need to wake up early and do a hike in a morning, but it’s ok if I want to do that too.

So this is a reminder to myself and to anyone this helps that you can do both. You don’t have to earn your rest by pushing yourself to the absolute limit.

I make art that helps me remember this. When I create it, it feels more meaningful to me. I hope this helps someone else too 🫶🏻

#creativemindset #perfectionismrecovery #selfcompassion #mindfulart #mindfulquotes by @courageousviolet

October had barely started, and my brain already decided I need to handcraft Christmas from scratch, learn two new hobbies, and print bespoke wrapping paper. 🙃

I do this to myself every single year. My creative brain takes a season that’s supposed to hibernating and cosy and turns it into an obstacle course of self-imposed pressure…

I try every year to be chill and I’m sure my family always discuss doing secret Santa or not doing presents at all. Of course in order to combat that I start thinking of ways to do cheaper but by hand, when my least abundant resource is time!

⁠#creativemindset #overthinkinghelp #creativeentrepeneur #acttherapy #creativeburnout by @courageousviolet

Weekend plans :) I’m not always like this it’s just sometimes I want to be lazy and not do the hard things and that’s ok too.
That’s all x

#anxietyrecovery #anxietymanagement #exposuretherapy #erptherapy by @courageousviolet

I spent years building up my expectations of the perfect life, and this song has always resonated with me. A common goal, but strangely something I could never truly achieve was a sweet happy life. I used to want to feel calm, to be one of those women who were unphased by things.

I was spending so much energy fighting my mind and waiting to be ‘fixed’ that I missed what was sitting in front of me.

In ACT (Acceptance and Committment Therapy), Steven Hayes talks about building a valued life. Not a life free of hard feelings and discomfort, but rich with what matters to us as a guide for prioritising where to spend our efforts. I realised I was letting my feelings dictate my actions, and by extension, my life - when all along I had the power to decide.

I now ask myself the following regularly:
1. Does this actually matter to me? Strip away what others expect, what do I value?

2. Where is my energy going? Towards what matters, or towards avoidance of feeling difficult feelings?

3. What is one tiny next step that I can take right now, while carrying uncomfortable feelings with me?

I don’t have to wait to feel calm and happy before doing things that are important to me, and I don’t need to run from my anxiety, I can bring it along with me.

#anxietyrecovery #acttherapy #sitwithit #innerpeacequotes #healinginprogress by @courageousviolet

We watch the seasons change and we don’t try to manipulate them. They just are. Why doesn’t this come so easily when we feel something we don’t want to feel?
Let the emotions move like the seasons, spring always comes back around. In the meantime, Autumn is beautiful.

#acceptanceandcommitmenttherapy #autumnleaves🍂 #sitwithit #wintering #cocooninghome by @courageousviolet

Earlier I was reading a healthy recipe book and before I even get to the recipes, I read 50 tips on how to be healthier and how to eat 7 fruit and vegetables a day. The attitude you stop reading with is ‘I’m obviously not doing things right’. I’m not blaming the author, he’s trying to make a living. I won’t name names :)

Earlier I also wrote a much better caption, but instagram deleted my progress so here’s what I’m trying to do, plainly (see? Being open about a little mess up here).

There’s a lot of advice online trying to do the same, making a living from people’s insecurities and suffering. Sometimes you need to filter out the s**t.
I spent years listening to advice online, without checking my sources and the credibility that came from certain influencers.
I feel passionate about this because there are a lot of people who spread inaccurate and unhelpful advice that can actually exacerbate anxiety disorders.
Listen to the therapists. The people who are qualified!
The role I play here is digester of information, which I translate into visual frameworks you can choose to follow if it fits for you. It helps me to drown out the noise sometimes.
What I hope to be here is a sharer of information. Not the expert myself.

All my love and effort and courageousness,
xx by @courageousviolet

…and here’s why!

Doesn’t it just make sense that you aren’t supposed to magically apply some nervous system regulation skills, and as long as you keep them up you’ll always feel calm? It took me years to realise this.

There is a lot of misinformation online convincing you to practice deep breathing, just “think” your way out of an anxious state, or join a 12 step program and you’ll be magically ‘fixed’. If it were that easy, wouldn’t we struggle much less as a nation with anxiety? Let’s give ourselves some credit and ease the pressure.

When we learn a new skill it can take months and years to craft and get better at, and we face our inner critics and perfectionists along the way. It’s been exactly the same with anxiety in my experience.

It’s a beautiful thing that it isn’t so easy and here’s why: we need anxiety, it’s part of our normal range of human emotions, and we don’t need to fight like hell against it.

It’s hard though. The reason being that you can’t just decide you’re going to have a break, our brains make sure we keep working at it every day.
Obviously, what comes with that is periods of tiredness, wanting to cop out and resort to comforts and avoidance of situations that feel difficult and scary. It’s gradual and that’s ok. There’s no rush to have everything figured out.

Anxiety ‘healing’ and recovery is not linear, it’s a messy, twisty turny process. And that’s all part of acceptance and commitment therapy.

#anixety #recoveryprocess #healing #nervoussystemregulation #anxietyrecovery by @courageousviolet