A New Way To Get Out Of Your Head And Into Your Body

Want a drug-free change in perspective? Teach your conceptual know-it-all brain a lesson and learn how to draw. 

I finally learned how to, after decades of frustrated longing. Rather, I learned how to draw what I saw, not what I thought I saw. Your brain thinks it knows what a chair looks like, but if you believe it, you will draw crap. 

My brain broke that day. Felt like a pinball machine going tilt. Even cried. But heading home on the subway I suddenly saw the world reduced to light and shadow. I saw reality without commentary or interpretation. Years later I can still shift my perceptual frame at will. 

So if you need a shift in perspective or to just get out of your head, here's something you can do instead of meditation or trance or weed. 

Take something from nature — a pear, a sour gum seed pod, a pine cone. Tell the conceptual part of your brain to scram. Smell the object. Run it over your palms. Palpate it. Shake it and listen. Stick it on your tongue and taste it. 

Then gaze at it. Either draw or write down everything you observe. No detail is too small. If your attention wanders, bring it back, time and again. Do this for at least fifteen minutes. 

Did you feel wonder or awe? Gratitude that you live in a world that can produce such marvels? Congratulations! You are now grounded and in a better head space.

Image credit: Paul Cézanne, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons