If you’re a caregiver taking care of someone at home, you probably feel like pulling your hair out. It’s tough, especially if you or your care partner, or both of you are experiencing anxiety or stress.

Here are a few things you can do by yourself and with your care partner.

“Art Exercises for Caregivers” by Meg Carlson, chapter 11 in my book Calmer Waters: The Caregiver’s Journey Through Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

1. Making an Inside/Outside Box

Materials:

• Boxes-shoe box, tea box, metal tin, etc.
• Mixed media-crayons, paint, markers, glue, feathers, felt, rocks,

Decorating a box allows the artist to reflect his/her persona or face that is shown to the outside world on the outside of the box. Decorating the inside of the box is an opportunity to express the internal feelings and conflicts that are private or feel too big to find words to express. Use whatever materials that are available to decorate the outside of the box, and then the inside of the box to express these feelings.

Outside Box: How do you experience being around others with your loved one? What do you share with the outside world about your process/how do you share?

Inside Box: What is really going on inside of you each day? What isn’t shared with others that have an impact on you?

What has this process, or your imagery expressed to you? What kinds of responses are you having?

2. Daily or Weekly Mandalas

A mandala is a circular image. It begins with a circle drawn on a page. It can be any size and any media can be used.

Materials:

• Paper: Bristol, Watercolor, or mixed media (6×6 is a great size)
• It is small enough to be done in a brief sitting, and large enough to have room for several images or areas of focus.

Pencils, markers, watercolor, colored pencil, pastels, or crayons are all great.

A version of mandala exists in many spiritual traditions (rose windows in Cathedrals, Navajo and Tibetan sand paintings, Buddhist imagery, etc.) Mandalas can be used to support focusing attention, as a self check-in tool, to express emotions in a contained space (circle), for establishing a sacred space, and to aid in mindfulness and mediation. Carl Jung, through his own art process, came to realize that mandala paintings enabled him to identify dysfunctional emotional patterns and work towards integration and wholeness. 

3. Color-Texture-Pattern Feelings Portrait

         This process is about awareness of how much is going on in each of us at any given moment. It is an opportunity to just GET IT OUT through color, movement, and expression. The imagery is usually abstract. It is the process of expressing that is beneficial here, not the finished product. Feelings are difficult to have, and when they are expressed visually they can be difficult to look at. But that is okay. If you use this process, when you are finished, take a moment to witness it like a loving friend. Then just set it aside. If your image invites a redo or edit, you can come back to it and work with it, even tear it up and re-create it. If not, let it go. The materials will support you to express emotions and that is their purpose sometimes …. to help you create something that is not necessarily pretty, but honest. That is their gift to you.

Materials:

• Small to medium paper, mixed media paper is sturdy. Taped to surface is best. When you prep ask yourself, What size is my expression today? That will tell you what paper size to use.
• Pencils, markers, watercolor, colored pencil, pastels, or crayons are all great.
• This can be done between 5 and 25 minutes. It is simply the process of choosing colors and making textures and patterns that express the layers of feeling present. Let the speed and movement be an extension of your expression. It will be unique every time.

4. Two Inch Window Drawing

The goal is to work with detail and discernment to create a bird’s eye view. Another way to use this tool is one of magnification, to zoom in to one aspect of something larger; examples could be to feel a single sensation, filling a small (contained) space with just what is magnified. Used as a daily or coping practice it may serve to redirect concentration or focus energy and attention, provide containment while titrating an intense sensation. They take between 1-10 minutes to complete. Think Macro and Micro… what would be most helpful, to step back or lean in?

Materials:

• • Paper: Bristol, watercolor, or mixed media (2×2 or 4×4)
  • Card stock scraps come in several colors, and can usually be found at craft stores.
  • This drawing is small enough to be done in a brief sitting, and can even be a single set of colors.

5. Process: Journey Drawing

Materials:

• Paper: Bristol, watercolor, or mixed media (6×6 or larger)
• Collage materials, or a material you enjoy (fabric, craft papers, natural materials, etc.)
• Chalk/oil pastels, pencil, watercolor

Where are you in this journey? Emotionally … physically . . .personally . . . socially? Is there stuckness . . . is there movement? What colors, shapes, textures represent where you are right now? What colors feel supportive of your journey or give you strength? What emotions are present for you about your current life, about being a caregiver? Can you think of any supportive guides/helpers that you have met along the way? How has your identity or personality been challenged or changed in this process? Who in your life is accepting these changes, who in your life are having difficulty accepting the changes?

What has this process, or your imagery expressed to you? If you had a chance to respond to it, what kinds of responses are you having? Are you in a different place in your journey than you assumed/thought/hoped? What are the qualities of where you feel you are in your journey as a caregiver? As you have moved through different stages, what has each stage offered you?

Lastly, choose a color that feels strengthening, a color that will help you move into the next stage of your journey. Now create a final piece of you drawing that will offer you strength and power when you look at it.  Be one of the helpers for yourself in this moment of your journey.

6. Process: Breath Drawing

Materials:

• Oil pastels or chalk pastels
• Large paper
• Your breath
  With one color in each hand, draw your breath. Notice the qualities of your in breath (short, stunted, deep, long, interrupted, fast, shallow) and allow your hands and the colors to express it. Same with the exhale. What are the qualities present in your out breath? Move each hand/arm in a circular motion with the expression, notice how the lines change over time. Notice similarities and any shifts. Follow your own breath with soft awareness.

What has this process, or your imagery expressed to you? What kinds of responses are you having?

Barbra Cohn cared for her husband Morris for 10 years. He passed away from younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2010. Afterward, she was compelled to write “Calmer Waters: The Caregiver’s Journey Through Alzheimer’s & Dementia”—Winner of the 2018 Book Excellence Award in Self-Help—in order to help other caregivers feel healthier and happier, have more energy, sleep better, feel more confident, deal with feelings of guilt and grief, and to ultimately experience inner peace. “Calmer Waters” is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Boulder Book Store, Tattered Cover Book Store,  Indie Bound.org, and many other fine independent bookstores, as well as public libraries.