Mental health, mindfulness and a crochet along

Perhaps for many reasons, or perhaps for no reason at all, I've been having a few challenges with my mental health recently.  I have become very anxious and a little depressed.

Life has been busy and I put myself under a lot of pressure with deadlines and schedules to design new patterns.

I realised that I needed to take a step back, slow things down and give myself some time.  As much as I love to design and make, trying to meet my own unreasonable goals is making me ill.

I know that I'm not the only person facing this sort of challenge.  I know that we all find ways to cope and manage.  Many people practice mindfulness and I've always struggled with it, but I thought what if I was to use crochet in my mindfulness practice?

So, for 15 minutes a day, I will be working on a very simple crochet project, focusing on being aware of making each stitch, the feel of the hook, the movement of my hands, the tension of the yarn, my breathing as I yarn over, draw through, yarn over, draw through.

I would love to have company on my journey.  Just hop on over to my Facebook page here and let me know that you're joining in.  We can share photos of our mindfulness project, ask for guidance (both crochet and mindfulness) and support each other.

I will be making a blanket using Stylecraft Sundae DK in Coconut Ice, because I love working with this particular yarn and I find this colourway soothing.  I have only bought one ball.  I know that I'll need more, but I'm not concerned about the dyelot being the same for this project (and this particular yarn is very forgiving with it's tonal variation anyway).  I want it to be about just this ball, this round, this stitch, without the weight of however many balls it might take sitting in a bag waiting to be worked.

I hope you'll join me.  Share your yarn choice and project with me.  I'll post the pattern I'll be using soon.