Though our inner experience does not always match the outer world, our energies, sensations, feelings, and thoughts are also real parts of what we go through every day. And it may come as a great relief, and supercharge our healing, when we begin to bring self-trust and self-compassion to the realness of our inner workings. What can you tell yourself right now to offer your own heart reassurance that what it is going through is real and matters?
[image description: A sad heart with a tear running down its cheek sits in a green field with a sunny sky, birds flying overhead, and a blooming flower nearby. Above the heart is a thought bubble filled with stormy, lightning rain clouds. Text reads: "Your experience is real. 24 MAY 2020"]
Throughout the pandemic, I have posted messages on my Facebook wall that I needed to hear myself or that I imagined others may be needing to hear. Again and again, these messages spurred collective online processing of a range of challenges and lows and bright spots of living through the pandemic. This series of cartoons is intended to reflect on and illustrate some of the process of dealing with life by leaning into the intersection of technology and community. |
[image description: Screenshot of a Facebook status that reads: "Your experience is real." One comment reads: "Or it's all made up. (a very Anna response)" Anna responds: "Maybe they're the same thing." Another comment reads: "But no guarantees about your interpretation of it." Anna responds: "Perhaps compassion is one guarantee." They respond again: "Always the perfect seasoning!" And a final comment reads: "Thank you! I needed that!"]
#MindfulHearts retrospective.
On this day 2020.
On this day 2019.
Celebrating two years of daily cartoons.
On this day 2020.
On this day 2019.
Celebrating two years of daily cartoons.