Good morning beautifl...

This spray painted greeting is sprawled across a driveway out the front of a local block of apartments.

Walking past, I couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to be the recipient.
(Yes, technically, the paint is also vandalism - but bear with me for a moment).

Imagine waking up and then driving or walking out of your home, into the wider world, and being ‘spoken to’ like this before your day out there begins.
Imagine being wished well every morning.
Being supported.
Remembered.
Acknowledged.
Loved.
Imagine seeing – knowing – that you’re not alone in this world. That someone was thinking of you. That you matter. Perhaps even that you belong.

Amazing that such a small message can impart so much. Only two words, yet they’re potentially whispering many more.

So what about the beginnings of your own days?
What might you be whispering to yourself in the mornings, consciously or not, before you head out into the world?
When you first awake.
When you catch yourself in the mirror, cleaning your teeth.
When you pass the threshold of your front gate.
I wonder what just noticing these moments might reveal…

For instance, what tone do these words, these self-spoken messages, speak to you in?
Are they supportive, demanding, depressed?
How might that be impacting other parts of your day?

If you woke up tomorrow morning and found your ‘notes to self’ were sprayed across the street outside your home, would you find them uplifting (‘Good morning beautifl’) or offensive?
Would you be tempted to leave them there or scrub them out?
(And if they’re not fit for public consumption, how have they managed to make it onto your inner canvas?)

There’s an unwritten code amongst graffiti artists, apparently. If you can create something better than the existing stuff, you have the right (and possibly even an obligation) to paint over it and claim that bit of wall or whatever for something new.

So what about your inner spaces?

Is the stuff written inside a little dated? Are you sick of seeing it?
Do you want to add something / change something / paint over something / reclaim something?

And if you could paint your own morning greeting anew, what might it be?


(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010

Get well soon...

This ad stands on a busy intersection, silently sending its well-wishes into peak hour traffic and the hundreds of people that scurry past on foot. It almost seems to be commenting on the kind of mad rush we’ve built into our society. Wishing us well collectively.

Usually, though, ‘get well soon’ applies to one person at a time.
And usually when they’re obviously sick.
(And usually to someone else).

Which got me wondering…

What exactly does wellness look like to you?
Is it just an absence of obvious illness or pain? Or is there something more to it?
(Something about flourishing or thriving perhaps?)

What might the markers and measures of wellness be for you?
How could you tell if you were feeling it? What would the signs be?
(And where might that put you on your scale of wellness at the moment?)

What about the ‘get’ part of ‘get well soon’? How might you ‘get’ this sense of wellness or invite more of it into your life?

If you’re feeling a long way from well, what might you write on your own ‘prescription’?
Maybe you’d prescribe more of the things that enliven you.
Or less of something that drains you.
Maybe just ‘take one quiet cup of tea, twice daily.’
Perhaps you’d let more spontaneity in (‘take a course of anti-robotics’).
Maybe it’d be about healing your relationships.
Or asking for support.

Whatever it is for you, I wonder what it might feel like to take some steps towards it?
To get closer to your wellness soon.

(And how often might you want to do an internal ‘check-up’ to monitor its progress in your life?)
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(c) Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar 2010