I want to thank those of you who attended last night’s The Tao of Art II: Comics workshop, and as before, a very special thanks to Katharine Houpt of Katharine Houpt Therapy and Counseling for her wonderful guidance.

Just like the previous workshop, we started off with a short talk about Taoism and the principle of non-contrivance as applied in the creation of art, and a brief meditation to set the tone for artistic creation. Katharine then led the way by giving us a series of writing and drawing exercises to get us under way to creating our very own comics!

The end result was amazing, and everyone who participated shared their comics after the drawing portion was over. Everyone had the most intimately profound stories to tell about their work, mostly autobiographical, and showed that the creation of comics can be a very powerful form of therapy.

In this workshop, I learned that comics can be used like a journal, a non-linear form of story-telling to record your deepest, darkest, and most intimate thoughts. Or, in my case, it can be used as a silly way to teach a lesson. Here’s the comic that I created last night:

If you can’t read my writing…

Me: Hey Mr. Popsicle, I’m getting good at meditating.
Mr. Popsicle: “Good?”
Me: Yeah, I can stop thinking.
Mr. Popsicle: Umm…
Me: Check this out…
Mr. Popsicle: Dude, a car is about to fall on your head.
Me: …no thoughts.
*car falls on my head*
Mr. Popsicle: How’s the not-thinking thing working out for you?
Me: Shut up.
Mr. Popsicle: Find your inner peace yet?
Me: Go away

It’s a lesson that I always teach my patients who want to learn how to meditate. Meditating is not about not-thinking, because that’s what our brains do in order to survive. Meditation is learning how to no longer become controlled by your own thoughts.

See how fun comics are?!

I’d like to once again thank everyone for participating in this fun and enlightening workshop, and stay tuned for more!