There's no easy, one-size-fits-all solution to dealing with the hard stuff in relationships. Sometimes you need to deal with a toxic person, or a genuinely difficult situation. Sometimes you have to face a really crappy truth. Here's a tool that helps me stay aligned while I move through it.
A Technique I Learned From Jennifer Michelle Price
I learned this practice from Jennifer Michelle Price, in an art journaling class of hers. When I'm stuck on a relationship, or just a life issue I can't think my way out of, I use art to help me move through it.
The instruction she gave me was simple: just put paint on the brush, and touch the paper. Then see what comes from it.
How It Works
You don't need expensive supplies. Inexpensive watercolors and paper work fine. And it doesn't matter what comes out of it, because art is anything you create. It doesn't have to be for anyone else's consumption. It can exist purely so your brain gets to experience a multi-sensory process while you're sitting with whatever's actually challenging you.
Sometimes I use watercolors. Sometimes it's coloring pages, washi tape, clay, or some other medium entirely. The point isn't the finished product. It's giving your brain something to do with its hands while it works through something underneath the surface, passively, almost sideways. It's a small neuroscience trick, really: engaging multiple senses at once can help you process something you can't quite get to with words alone.
This Was Show, Before I Had a Name for It
I made this technique part of my own practice years before I ever named the Hart Habits. Looking back now, this is Habit seven, Show, in its earliest form: taking what's internal and giving it a shape you can see, touch, and hold, even if nobody else ever sees it. I didn't have the language for it yet. I was just doing it.
If you want to go deeper on Show as a full Habit, you can find that on the Hart Habits Framework page.
Recommended resources:
Jennifer Michelle Price, artist: jennifermichelleprice.com
Question of the day: What do you use to process something you can't quite put into words?