🌸 Creative Self-Care
The Creative Self-Care series is a section of the Emily Lupita ❤️🔥 Creativity Series that features illustrated activities to promote creativity + wellness, plus provides links to three things I love online this week.
S.O.B.E.R. Stress Response
Today’s creative self-care activity is to make our own “S.O.B.E.R. Stress Response” sketch. This is a helpful tool to take a moment before responding to stress.
Here’s what it stands for:
Stop whatever you are doing.
Observe what’s happening in your body and mind.
Breathe in and breathe out, and focus on the present moment.
Expand to your whole body and your surroundings.
Respond mindfully with awareness rather than on autopilot.
I like to think of the 5 steps as petals on a flower.
Activity
Let’s use this black & white blank version below of the outline of a flower. Grab a few colored pencils, your watercolors, some markers, highlighters…whatever you have within easy reach. Or use your phone / tablet’s “mark up” to digitally color.
Number the petals: 1-5.
Write down the 5 steps of the stress response tool. Say each word aloud as you write it. Choose a color to signify what each word means to you.
Visualize yourself going through these five steps the next time you experience stress. Practice saying this stress response in the mirror a few times. Keep this drawing with you to help you get started.
How Was It?
Let me know in the comments.
Lupita Artwork
This is the artwork I made from today’s activity:
Lupita stops when she’s confronted with a really stressful moment. She picks up her stress flower and counts the steps of the S.O.B.E.R. stress response tool. Each petal symbolizes a different step. She Stops, Observes, Breathes, Expands, and then Responds. This helps her have a moment of pause to respond mindfully instead of on autopilot.
What I’m Reading & Watching
I love looking through photos on National Geographic like these:
Fresh Air archive - So I Told Terry Gross:
Morning music to start the day:
Good journey,
❤️🔥Emily Lupita
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Yeah, it works! Let me know if you get this message EM!