A beach holiday is definitely my favourite kind of holiday.

A chance to step out of your life for a bit and watch the world go by instead of hurrying to try and keep up with it.

Days filled with time at the beach and the pool and no more complicated decision to make in each day than what to have for dinner.

Bliss.

This always gives me a bit of perspective on my life. 

I like to walk on the beach at sunrise and sunset. I love the way the the rising tide smooths all those footprints and holes and leftover sandcastles. It clears the deck ready for the new day.

I always think that all the fretful, worried or anxious thoughts I have had that day are just like those mounds and indentations on the beach.

They are not permanent, they are just thoughts. They can be swept away and I can choose new ones, if I try… 

Besides a trip to the beach, one of the easiest ways I have found to smooth away all the jumbled thoughts of the day is by painting.

Paint something simple, like an empty beach landscape or something even more engaging, like figures on a beach and all other thoughts, even the troubling ones tend to slip away for a while, without much effort at all. It’s a vacation you can take just about anywhere, almost anytime.

Painting is magic like that.

(By the way if painting figures on a beach is something you’d like to do - click here for just the help you need…)

Painting from beach holiday snaps also gives you the added benefit of reliving the happy memories. And that’s definitely another stress buster!

Relive memories like this…

I love to watch my children, totally absorbed in this moment, this wave, this sandcastle - right now.

That’s more like it.

Anxiety and depression are symptoms of being worried about the future and stuck in the past, respectively.

Personally I have known them both, perhaps you do too.

This is why learning to be present (as you naturally are at play on a beach, or when painting) is so important. While you are in the present moment you cannot be worrying about the future or ruminating on the past.

It's funny how starting out with such well meaning intentions, like trying to be prepared can end up in a panic state if you don’t notice what is happening. Because that is where my anxiety comes from - always trying to be ultra prepared.

To me this means running all the possible worst case scenarios I can think of so as to come up with a possible solution. I am naturally risk averse, which I then compounded by becoming an auditor which is really just intense training for figuring out what could go wrong.

By now, I am pretty brilliant at it. 

But painting taught me a thing or too about that too. We can usually fix the sort of things that end up going wrong. We know that deep down - it’s why we run the scenarios in the first place.

Better to just trust that we will fix what we need to as it happens. Just like when you are painting with watercolour.

Because yes, you can fix mistakes in a watercolour painting.

(Ignore those who tell you otherwise.)

90% of the thoughts you have today are the same ones you had yesterday, apparently. So if most of those were worst case scenario sort of situations and these are the thoughts that are constantly repeated, a sense of impending doom is bound to be colouring your entire view of the world. 

So I picture the sea, or even better I paint it, and remember that I can let those thoughts be washed away.

By the way, if you would like to try this easy mindfulness practice of painting for yourself, this bundle of step by step watercolour painting tutorials with done-for-you drawings might be just what you are looking for - even if you are a total beginner!

For every worst case scenario that crosses my mind I am now trying to train myself to come up with a best case version.

For every ebb, there is sure to be a flow.

One of the most helpful things I found is a hypnosis track that came with a book called Control Stress by Paul McKenna - I have had it for years. The best line for me in the whole thing is the part where he says he would like to thank that part of my mind that worries for all the good it is trying to do.

Funny that such a simple acknowledgement from a voice on recording should bring such relief but it did.

Does it make you feel better? 

I hope so.

Because given my realisation that it is my worrying about the future (aka things that haven’t happened) that creates the anxiety I find it is easy to start feeling a bit foolish about what would then seem a self inflicted problem. Acknowledging that it came from such a good place helps me feel less ridiculous.

In this hypnosis track, Paul McKenna not only thanks that part of the mind that is worrying but also thanks the mind for coming up with new ways of doing this good work that don't involve worrying. He even says you don't need to know what those ways are. Seems a bit odd, but somehow it really helps. 

If you are curious, this is the link to Paul's book on Amazon (affiliate link). The book comes with the hypnosis track that I have been talking about.

Of course, my favourite anxiety buster (beach trips aside) is painting.

Best therapy ever.... please give it a try!

If you need a little help getting started with your own painting adventure, I have a free supplies class for beginners

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