Today I want to talk about knitting to relieve stress. Lion Brand Yarn posted a story about knitting in the waiting room of ICU and surgery rooms. The story is about a woman named Carol and her infant daughter who wound up in neonatal ICU and having surgeries for years after that. Today her daughter is doing fine and has a career in the healthcare field the story ends well, but waiting in the ICU waiting room, unable to go and comfort her daughter, she could not read. She couldn't watch TV. She could just sit there. Until she remembered knitting, which she had done before and so she knitted while her daughter was in surgeries and while her daughter was being cared for in an ICU that she was not able to enter, except during visiting hours. Luckily those days are gone when our loved ones are in ICU and we are not allowed to be with them as much as possible. Now we understand that being with our loved ones during their time of stress is very important, not just to us, the relatives and friends to see how they're doing, but to them as well. Knitting for wellbeing, knitting for health, knitting for healing. It's a concept that I can fully support. People may think you're crazy for knitting or making your own yarn, but the truth is yarn is very relaxing. It's a way to focus yourself and regain control especially when you feel like control has been taken away from you.
Www.projectknitwell.org
Take a look at their website. Maybe you can participate. You can donate money, you can donate supplies and you can volunteer to teach others how to knit during their times of stress. In my mind it's not just the loved ones of the sick, it is anyone who has to wait, including the patient.
Pass on what you have learned. Teach someone to knit, spin, weave or ride a horse. Someone taught you, so pay it forward. And what better way to pay it forward than teaching a worried parent or spouse to knit? Helping others is therapy for you, too!
This rooster picture is just because he's gorgeous!
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