A good day, a bad day

welcome to 2021! (posted on huffington post in 2021)

The healing of the soul is a very big thing I hummed when I saw the 2021 calendar of the Agios Charalambos clinic entitled "a Good day, a Bad day". Mental health care there also goes through art. Each drawing in the diary is a deposit of the soul, where the artist/patient captures his feelings and communicates them to the rest, gaining the "rare pleasure and tranquility that he offers to any patient who wishes to participate in any type and form of occupational therapy, for the enjoyment of both of him, as well as an environment that is quick to praise his effort".

A Good day, a Bad day

What does a good day look like today and what does a bad day look like for all of us? It is impossible that it has not happened to you... During "the good day from the morning it seems", there are days when everything seems from the morning to go wrong. And I don't mean just having a “bad hair day”. Nevertheless, we try to move on without being affected. But the setbacks continue or are so intense that we now feel that they have taken over our day and our mood.

Paints and brushes

Capturing the experiences of patients through visual creation expresses all of us, in the difficult times in which we live and operate. What colors would we choose to describe our good and bad days? Our health has come to the fore and everyone's concern for our loved ones is revising our priorities. All day long on a screen, we hear and read about the outbreaks of the virus and the shaking of the global economy. We all have mixed feelings of survival, insecurity, fear but also hope. With colors and shapes, let's try to achieve the desired union with hope. As Nikos Kazantzakis wrote "you have the brushes, you have the colors, paint paradise and enter it".

This too shall pass, we said. And his time has come. Happy 2020. Despite the times, I choose to paint 2021 with the colors of the rainbow. I choose to trigger an optimistic feeling with green and yellow colors. I prefer to rest from worries with shades of blue. I heighten the feeling of romance with red. I pick up a pencil and draw lines, write words, draw whatever comes to mind and I assure you I am not one to "hold their hand". But I desperately want my brain to start working differently: optimistically. To focus on this complex deep-seated function and let the negative emotions recede and give way to the positive ones. Yes, that simple! "After all tomorrow is another day!" blurted out Scarlet o' Hara in the legendary Gone with the Wind.

The joy of life and creation

This is how I want 2021 to be. With some bad days (yes, welcome!) and many good days. With colors and music. To stimulate the emotions and "awaken" the senses. And with countless New Year's Resolutions that will lead to failures and successes, on Bad and Good days! And this is the joy of life and creation.