Hi gorgeous,
If you’d like to see in the New Year with some soulful, no-pressure creativity, join me online Wed 8th Jan 2025, for Art & Chai.
6pm AEST (Brisbane time).
It’s a really low key, relaxed session together to make art together, sip your fave tea and listen to your fave playlist while we create.
No experience necessarily.
BYO art supplies (you choose!)
Neuro and identity affirming 🌈 🫶🏽💫
All abilities welcome.
Pop over to my website to book 💖🎨💝
🫰Is Curiosity the key to softening into our Life & Art? 💞
For me, curiosity is
an opening up a leaning in
a softening of stomach and chest and shoulders.
an opening of eyes into beauty
What if? allowing all of this onto the page as I create.
how might we approach things differently?
Instead of asking What if
from an anxious place …
What if we asked
What if from an expansive discovery place?
🎧 I am very excited to share my recent podcast interview with @shannon.a.swales on the *When Burnout Becomes Reality Podcast*
In this interview, really unmask and talk about my lived experience of burnout as an Autistic ADHD’er, including:
😥 my personal experience with Autistic/ADHD burnout
😱 how becoming a parent dialled up my burnout experiences, and why
🥰 how I turn to art, nature and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) to help me manage and prevent burnouts
🫥 how being neurodivergent has it’s own set of burnout triggers due to our sensory profiles and nervous systems
🤗 how the process of self-discovery and accessing supports, helps us recover and lean into our thriving.
To watch the full interview, pop over to my blog for the vid-pod … or search Burnout Becomes Reality Chrissy Foreman on YouTube / wherever you listen to podcasts.
I hope you enjoy it and find some gems and insights. Pop back here and leave me a comment about what you found most interesting or helpful 💫
Months ago, I booked a weekend away in a log cabin for myself, to celebrate completing my Masters in Therapeutic Arts Research.
There was no TV or Wi-Fi and I actually really needed that simplicity, to be able to drop in and process the year that I’ve experienced (which has been really quite massive in so multiple ways.)
I give thanks to my Past Self for organising this getaway to reconnect, recalibrate, process and relax.
Wanna see what it’s like inside my ADHD 🧠 and body, when I make art?
Living with an ADHD brain is actually really helpful when I’m making intuitive, emergent art!
I have learned to trust, and mindfully follow the intuitive prompts that I 👀 in my mind’s eye, hear in my 🧠 or feel in my body.
It feels like a jazzy, exploratory interpretive dance with creation!
It also really helps that I love playing with art materials- So important with an interest-based brain!
What are the workings of your brain like, when you’re creating and relating?
Use this as a guided meditation next time you take a nature break 💚
I know it feels hard for a lot of us right now, but nature is always there to remind us that we will be ok 🌿
✨Today I’m going to share how differently a neurodivergent brain processes 💫
For me,
I can’t just process in my head.
I need to draw.
I need to paint.
I need to write the words out creatively.
I need to find things that I love, to regulate and get to the point where I can actually explore a feeling.
Art materials help me explore feelings.
Writing words and turning them into poetry, help me explore who I am.
And in this way, I live more of a poetic life.
It’s hard to fit in.
Things don’t always fit together, like in Minecraft (but maybe that’s why Minecraft is so loved by so many of us?!)
For me, it’s about grabbing all of the fragments of experience and somehow bringing them together artfully … so that I can understand myself and what I need.
👉 What is your experience?
Are you able to process instantly in your brain?
Or do you need time, art, music, nature, singing, movement or poetry, to help you process authentically?
Recently, I’ve been using LEGO and coloring to explore my own boundaries.
🌿 With LEGO, I’ve found that building helps me think about structure—what feels solid in my life and what might need to shift
🎨 With colouring, I notice how I approach the page. It’s such a simple act, but it says so much about how I manage boundaries in my daily life—when I hold them firm and when I give myself permission to expand.
Art-making has been a safe, creative way for me to reflect on how I show up for myself and the people around me. It’s reminded me that boundaries aren’t just rules—they’re acts of care and self-awareness.
Today marked some harrowing news for the Australian Art Therapy profession and our wonderful clients …
Funding that makes Art Therapy accessible for many people with disabilities (NDIS) has been massively cut, leaving many Art Therapists impacted and potentially losing their livelihoods as of 1st Feb, 2025.
Myself included.
Not to mention the impact on those who need art therapy to process, communicate and thrive.
A big part of me freaked out at this news, but something else also rose within me … a deep-felt connection to my core and Country, gently asking me to remember my own timing, the seasonal and cyclic nature of change and Nature.
There is much transition ahead, but I feel that I can best handle that from a place of honouring my need for a slower pace as it all unfolds.
I get to choose and have agency, even when the outside world hustles me/us otherwise.
Learning about my neurodivergent brain and sensory needs, as well as accessing professional, Neuro-affirming therapies myself, has contributed to me avoiding a meltdown in this time … instead, I’m able to navigate a different way.
Yes, I’m angry, I’m upset, and I’m also grounded and clear. This feels better place to take aligned action from.
You’re invited to my final uni presentation/workshop of my Masters in Therapeutic Arts Research, where I’ll be sharing my thesis: Sensory Street … a comic about my autistic, ADHD experiencing, via therapeutic arts.
I’ve love to see you there if you’re free to log on and cheer me on x
Sunday 24th Nov @10:55am Brisbane time (goes for 40 mins)
Message me for the zoom link x
There’s this buzzing, constantly vibrating-feeling energy, both in my body, and surrounding me. It reminds me of when I flicked between our old TV channels as a kid and came to the in-between, fizzy channels. Sometimes, it gets too much and my chest and tummy feel whelmy, like there’s static filling me up, and I can’t seem to clear the picture. My thoughts and feelings fluctuate with intensity and the channels keep changing with my experiences, but the static feeling stays.
Sometimes, this static can feel really good, too. Like overflowing excitement about being alive and amonsgt all the awe and beauty. And just as easily, it can shift channels into anxiety —chaotic, restless, and always on.
There are many ways I’ve learned to channel this energy, like making art, talking it out, or moving my body ... But sometimes, all I need is to remember to pause... take a breath... to accept myself in this moment, realign with my values, and help bring the picture back into focus.
A little science behind what happens to your brain when you’re overwhelmed 🧠
