Make a Handbag - Discover Inner Peace and Stress Reduction

Have you ever considered sewing a handbag as an act of meditation or as a way to get in touch with your self and reduce stress? Let's look at the process In order to see the connection to inner peace.

To make a handbag, the sewer needs to focus on the immediate - you need to be precise and concentrate on what you are doing at the present moment. There are no distractions tolerated and your mind calms because it is focused - the breathing evens out into a regular rhythm. The previous stress you may have experienced fades into the distant past as you look at this perfect piece of fabric in front of you; something you have lovingly picked out from the vast array of other fabrics, making a special bond between you and this beautiful organic object waiting for your unique input.

You carefully place your handbag pattern on the fabric and focus on cutting as evenly as possible around the outline of your purse. The anticipation builds as the faint beginnings of your new bag take shape. Diligently, you focus on the task in front of you, cutting in careful precision with total deliberation.

Sewing your handbag is where the actual shape starts to form and you realize you are close to finishing. Keeping the line of stitching straight requires your full attention as the row develops with the edge lined up perfectly and each stitch attains harmony with it's neighboring stitch. Be aware that there is great peacefulness in this degree of full intensification of thought.

As the bag is nearing completion, you may start thinking about how the fabric texture suggests a pleasant memory such as the feel of your Mother's dress against your skin when you were little or a soft Summer day. Your mind peacefully wanders to that special time when you were younger and life seemed so simple.

The calmness and inner peace you attained through the process of creating your own handbag changes to happy pride as you display this unique work of art to friends and family and bask in their words of praise for your talent and dedication. You now have a physical reminder in the form of your bag that you are special and talented with a gift of creation. Look at your new handbag and remember the calmness you felt when you were in the midst of evolving this piece of fabric into a special work of art and know that you can carry this peace with you always.

Henrietta is a handbag designer and author who specializes in handbag history. Her informational site is located at http://henriettashandbags.com

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Put the 80/20 Rule to Work for Your Life!
Perhaps you've heard of the 80/20 rule, but don't know where it came from or how it was adapted. Please allow me to give a bit of background on the 80/20 rule before I jump into the way you can put it to work for you.

Dynamic Guide - How to Recharge Your Mind With A Refreshing Recreational Activity!
Let's face it! The majority of our time is either spent sleeping or working. The demands of our employers and our workspace means that we are all highly stressed.

Stress Management: How to Avoid the Ruts and Holes of Life
Have you ever noticed how we keep falling into the same holes and ruts in life? We know something doesn't work and yet we keep doing the same things over and over again.Have you ever wondered why we do this? And more importantly, how do we stop doing it, how do we stop "digging"? And how do we get out?As I've studied and searched over the years for ways to help people get the changes they want, quickly, gently and effectively, I've stumbled across a poem that seems to capture well the process of change.

The Power of Five
Do you ever fret? In today's materialistic age, sometimes fretting is inevitable. With so many goals to achieve and needs to meet, fretting has become the "official emotion of the generation.

7 Successful Stress Management Techniques
Everyone needs successful stress management techniques. Easy to learn and easy to implement, you can use them for your own stress management or teach them to help others manage theirs.

Keeping You Stress Free!
We function at our best when we are free from stress, relaxed, confident and focused. Feeling the adrenalin flow and achieving a deadline by the skin of our teeth may be exhilarating in the short term but as a way of life can be detrimental to both health and happiness.

Training Your Mind For Better Business and Leisure
Training Your Mind For Better Business and LeisureModern life moves at a very fast pace. At least, that is how many in Western society describe their existence whereby they rush to work, rush everything they do at work, and do so in a fixed routine which allows for little deviation.

Journal Your Stress Away
Writing down our thoughts and feelings, as in keeping a journal or diary, is a proven method to relieve stress and improve well being. The expression achieved through writing in a journal on a regular basis, or during times of high stress, helps to clarify and focus what we are actually feeling and experiencing.

Stress Secrets: How To Remove Hidden Sources Of Stress
Most people find it easy to identify the sources of stress in their lives. Ask Maggie M.

Bite-Size Chunks! The Power Of Daily Actions
There may be so much you want to change in your life to make it less stressful. You can do it all, just not all at once! Feeling in control is an important part of saying Yes to Less Stress.

Ease Your Stress ? Change Your Life!
Feeling stressed? Who isn't!! In today's society, feeling "stressed out," overwhelmed and exhausted is the norm. However, moderate day-to-day stress takes its toll on our minds and bodies.

Stress: Daily Self-Care Habits to Manage Stress
Today we have more stress in our lives than ever before - good stress, bad stress, red stress, blue stress (my little ode to Dr. Seuss).

Five Tips to De-stress Your Life
I recently received this e-mail message about stress management (author unknown)?------------------------A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?" Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter.

Seven Simple Steps to a Stress-Free Start
Most of us lead busy lives, trying to successfully juggle the responsibilities of home and work and personal interests into one cohesive happy life. There is nothing that could better start your busy day than having a smooth stress-free morning.

Stress Management and Mastery: Practicing Perspective
Q. I wonder if you could help me with a problem that just seems to be getting worse.

Is Worry Necessary?
Who hasn't experienced "worry" at one time or another? Almost everyone I'm sure. As a result many if not all consider this to be not only a normal human "emotion" but also a necessary fact of life.

Mindfulness and Panic: Ask Your Anxiety
Panic.Heart racing.

Stress Managment and Mastery: Progress vs. Perfection
David Bowie once sang, "Ch-ch-changes, tryin' to face the strain."And though working on changes in our lives can be difficult at times, it really doesn't have to be such a strain.

Stress Management: Problem Land or Solution Land
In my experience, most of us spend a lot more time living in problem land, griping and complaining, than we do in solution land, working hard and enjoying solving problems.It's almost become a national past time.

Need To Stop Worrying?
I once worked with a woman whose zest,joy and enthusiasm lit up the room [and it was a big office!]I remarked that it was lovely that she was always such uplifting company."Oh,I wasn't always like this", she replied.