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Knitting For Meditation And Relaxation – Some Surprising Benefits

Personal Growth through the Akashic Records, Past Lives, Human Design and more with Sarah Lawrence

Knitting For Meditation And Relaxation – Some Surprising Benefits

knitting for relaxation

With all the stimulating and sometimes distressing news and social media out there, it can be hard to relax – but relax! Knitting for relaxation is here and can have some oddly unexpected benefits.

Knitting for relaxation – isn’t knitting stressful?

knitting for your brain

Have you ever picked up knitting needles and tried knitting for relaxation?

For some – myself included – knitting can become a whole new way of viewing the world.

I began knitting as a way to recover from trauma and traumatic repeating visions after a family tragedy.  Here’s the post about how I got started with knitting.

Over time, I have come to rely on this seemingly simple activity to: –

  • get my mind off repeating thoughts.
  • Think things through.
  • Clear my head.
  • Enjoy creating something disconnected from any other life concerns.
  • Think creatively.

When I knit I become calm and the activity helps me to ruminate over decision making.

Sometimes, you end up with a beautiful end product! Or not – but it’s the process, not necessarily what you produce, that counts, with knitting.

Knitting’s positive impact

Research shows that knitting and other forms of textile crafting such as sewing, weaving and crocheting have quite a lot in common with mindfulness and meditation.

All these activities and knitting for relaxation are reported to have a positive impact on mind health and well-being.

In an online survey of more 3,545 knitters, by Betsan Corkhill, a UK-based knitting therapist who has done research on the therapeutic effects of knitting, more than half of respondents reported that knitting left them feeling “very happy.”

Many said that they knitted solely for the purposes of relaxation, stress relief and creativity.

The study found a significant relationship between the frequency of knitting and respondents’ perceived mood and feelings.

Frequent knitters (those who knitted more than 3 times a week) were calmer, happier, less sad, less anxious, and more confident.

Corkhill’s study concluded, “Knitting has significant psychological and social benefits, which can contribute to well-being and quality of life.”  Source: Why Crafting is great for your brain.

MindBodyGreen

Find your knitting jive

knitting for your brain

You can keep knitting simple, or go for it with bigger challenges over time, whatever suits you will work best. And remember, it’s the activity that gives you the benefits.

Getting caught up in ‘what great thing can I produce’ is just more of the same thinking that got you stressed in the first place.

My main interest so far has been learning lots of different stitches. 

I started by knitting almost all the scarves in one book! (45 Scarves to Knit: The Best Collection of Warm & Cozy Scarves Ever!-Techniques Include Cables, Lace, Fair Isle, Simple Pattern Stitches, and Felting).  I’ve given most of the scarves to friends who I hope love them and wear them.

As I was knitting, I thought about all the happy times I had with my oldest daughter, who passed suddenly in 2017.

Sitting with this activity and focusing on the happy times has helped me redirect my thoughts away from the distress of losing her, and towards the happy times we had together. 

Knitting as an activity is a process that I am finding both positive and healing.   The fact that I use my mother’s old knitting needles is also a great comfort. I use her row counter, too.

I have discovered that I love doing patterns that involve slip stitching and different textures and combinations of wool. 

Following those creative routes, I also found an excellent book that enables me to create modular pieces and turn them into shawls (Knitting Modular Shawls, Wraps, and Stoles: An Easy, Innovative Technique for Creating Custom Designs, with 185 Stitch Patterns).  You never know where knitting may lead you!

My main recommendation is, if you find a pattern or approach you love or resonate with, repeat it several times and creativity will spring from it.

Knitting can turn us into philosophers

Over the last Christmas season, I started knitting a pair of lacy gloves but just couldn’t seem to get the pattern right. 

After two or three starts – knitting is also a great way to learn to stay patient – I discovered that the pattern had two or three misprints in it. 

There I was, thinking that the mistakes were down to me, but they were down to errors in the original pattern.  There’s a lesson in focus and self-esteem if you like.

I tried one or two more times with my corrections but was still not happy with the results.  So I unwound it all and let it go!

Being me, I may well revisit the pattern in the future after more rumination and find a way to turn it into a success.

For now, I have let it go and have added a new frame of reference to selecting a pattern – check for errors first.

Knitting can become a curiously philosophical practice.

As your hands learn to create a whole pattern, you will get a sense of how the stitches depend upon each other to create the whole. If you have the wrong number of stitches on one row, one error like this can cause a mess for all the stitches further up the line.

Knitting and the entanglement theory

knitting for relaxation

The scarf I am starting right now (see above) is one I have knitted once before with a reasonably easy yet very interesting slip-stitch pattern. 

It’s one of my favorite patterns to date and combines two different patterns of wool.

When I’m knitting, I sometimes find myself thinking about my Akashic work and find myself looking at knitting as a metaphor for the entanglement theory (stick with me here).

When I read for clients, I often explain the Akashic Record as an individual data thread, which can be tuned into energetically speaking when I work with you. 

Now, imagine that thread as the knitting wool, entangled with other people’s data threads.

You have more going on than just your present life (and your past lives, if you believe in that concept). 

Your Akashic ‘thread’ is entangled with everyone else’s lives, just like knitting.

The Lattice looks like knitting, says Lee Carroll

When Kryon (channeled by Lee Carroll) discusses the field of energy, he says it looks ‘like knitting.’

Imagine your thread, Soul trajectory, or Akashic Record being one of many different colored threads in a long, knitted scarf. 

When you look back, you can see your special individual Soul thread.  You can also see how it is permanently in contact with many other threads, or Souls, and entangled with them.

We don’t create our lives in a vacuum, they are all entangled with each other, just like knitting. 

Now perhaps you can see, just by thinking about knitting a scarf, how complex karma might be, both genetic karma and soul-level karma.

All because you took a few minutes with me to entertain the idea of knitting for relaxation.

2 Responses

  1. Brian says:

    Great article, meditation has changed my life dramatically. I have been practising Global Light Meditation. This is a meditation done from the space of our own homes, collectively we all meditate simultaneously! Bring love healing and light to mother earth. In this time of isolation. Its completely free join us in our group https://chat.whatsapp.com/FKbWAudziQ85hbAKWcEqfz

  2. […] These types of kits, plus the beautiful variegated yarns now available really can open the knitter up to new and creative ideas, as well as the health benefits of the activity of knitting itself. […]

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