The Art of Coming Back to Center –When Life Is Full, We Look for What Holds Us

“Centering begins before form.

It’s been a while since I last wrote here. Life has been full in the way life tends to be—children, work, care, travel, and the many emotional gradients in between. When the year slows toward its end, I often find myself taking stock of the small things that kept me steady.

One of those things, unexpectedly, has been pottery.

A Studio Full of Quiet Invitations

A table full of quiet companionship.

During our recent family holiday in Germany, I visited a pottery painting studio—rows of bisque-fired bowls and plates arranged like blank invitations. Shelves held jars of underglaze; brushes stood in cups; and families gathered around long tables painting in companionable silence. It wasn’t the finished objects that caught me, but the atmosphere. There was something quietly therapeutic about hands at work—parents and children choosing colours, adjusting patterns, making small decisions together.

A personalised breakfast plate for my niece.

A simple tactile way of bonding without screens. A moment where relationships were shaped through marks rather than words. Many future breakfasts will be eaten from those bowls—small, durable vessels of memory.

Returning to Clay, Returning to Self

A quiet invitation.

Back in Singapore, I returned to pottery—not painting but the clay wheel. It has slowly become my form of self-care as an art therapist: 2–3 hours in an open studio, a quiet refuge with other potters who are patient and resilient in ways that feel rare. Perhaps this is what clay teaches most of all—things collapse, things crack, and yet things can be remade. A material lesson in repair and acceptance.

“We do not make objects. We make meaning through the act of making." — Shoji Hamada

The Body Remembers What the Hands Know

Clay works on the nervous system in a way that feels both ancient and somatic. The cool weight in the hands, the spiral of the wheel, the slight resistance of the material—everything brings attention back to the body. The present moment becomes tactile. Breath slows. Time stretches.

Sensory-based art making has long been observed in therapy to support regulation, especially for clients who struggle with language or heightened arousal (Haeyen et al., 2018). Recent studies continue to show that repetitive, hand-based creative tasks can activate parasympathetic pathways and reduce physiological stress markers (Kaimal et al., 2016). Clay also provides deep proprioceptive input—something occupational therapists note can help the body re-establish a sense of groundedness and safety through the sensory system (Stuckey & Nobel, 2010).

In trauma-informed practice, this matters. Regulation often begins in the body before it can reach the mind (van der Kolk, 2015). And clay invites that journey gently—through pressure, rhythm, and form.

From Research to Real Life

My two boys immersed in clay during a pottery session.

As an art therapist, I appreciate the research. As a mother, I witness it firsthand. Whenever I have a break from work, I take my two highly active boys to a pottery studio. Children who can declare “I’m bored” every few minutes at home can become completely absorbed in clay for three or four hours.

The simple acts of squeezing, rolling, and shaping seem to help them become calmer, more focused, and more regulated. Given the choice, they would often choose pottery over screen time.

For me, clay is more than an art material. It is a powerful invitation to slow down, focus, and reconnect with ourselves.

The Quiet Company of Process

A collection of work-in-progress, each carrying a lesson.

But beyond the research, pottery simply feels good. It absorbs worry without asking for perfection. Even on days when nothing turns out, there is comfort in being around clay and people who also find meaning in trying again. Potters are naturally patient, quietly resilient—attuned to process, familiar with uncertainty, generous about mistakes.

Perhaps that is what drew me to it. The work of art therapy is deeply relational and emotionally porous; it requires witnessing and metabolizing stories that are sometimes heavy. Pottery returns me to something simple: slowness, rhythm, heat, time. A small recalibration of the nervous system. A reminder that form only emerges after centering.

Practices That Help Us Come Back

I think we all need practices like that—things that help us return to ourselves without demanding explanation.

If you ever find yourself in a pottery studio, notice what your hands do without thinking. Notice how the breath changes. Sometimes we bond most deeply when we’re focused on something other than bonding.

And sometimes a handmade bowl holds more than soup. It holds memory, patience, and the soft work of becoming.

“The bowl is the most generous of objects. It holds things.” — Edmund de Waal

Reference:

Ascenso, S., Perkins, R., & Fancourt, D. (2018). Making music for mental health: How group drumming mediates psychological wellbeing through emotion regulation, synchronization and social bonding. Psychology of Music, 46(3), 410–429. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13612-016-0048-0

Fancourt, D., & Finn, S. (2019). What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review (Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report No. 67). World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe. https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/329834

Haeyen, S., van Hooren, S., van der Veld, W., & Hutschemaekers, G. (2018). Promoting mental health versus treating mental illness: Art therapy as a form of emotion regulation. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 59, 111–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2017.10.003

Kaimal, G., Ray, K., & Muniz, J. (2016). Reduction of cortisol levels and participants' responses following art making. Art Therapy, 33(2), 74–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2016.1166832

Kaimal, G., Walker, M. S., & Herres, J. (2020). Art therapy and emotional regulation in children with behavioral and emotional difficulties: A qualitative study. Arts & Health, 12(3), 263–278.

Kerr, C. E., Sacchet, M., Lazar, S. W., Moore, C. I., & Jones, S. R. (2013). Mindfulness starts with the body: Somatosensory attention and top-down modulation of cortical alpha rhythms in mindfulness meditation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, Article 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00012

Stuckey, H. L., & Nobel, J. (2010). The connection between art, healing, and public health: A review of current literature. American Journal of Public Health, 100(2), 254–263. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2008.156497 van der Kolk, B. A. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.