I Tried Pottery Classes as a Way to Better My Mental Health—Here's What Happened

One of the best gifts of life is being able to constantly learn. Pottery is something I've been wanting to get into since I first saw the movie Ghost. The iconic scene with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore gliding their hands together through clay just did something to my soul and still does. Considering that I'm always looking for new ways to challenge my body, mind, and soul, I decided to try it out. I started off by signing up for a six-week course with a local pottery studio—Good Dirt LA. I had high expectations since it had rave reviews on Yelp.

The first class was amazing. My instructor played disco music, and it wasn't intimidating at all. We started off with hand-building, which was therapeutic. As someone who lives in their head 24/7, having two hours a week to just lose myself in the clay was helpful with calming the gazillion negative thoughts that run through my mind. As the weeks went on, we learned how to wedge clay, hand-build, throw on the wheel, trim our pieces, fine-tune them, and glaze them to really bring the pieces to life.

Although there were challenges along the way, I left my classes with more than I bargained for. Here are a few things that I learned to embrace with pottery.

Too many times in my life, I've chased after perfection, and I found myself doing the same thing when I started to learn pottery. It was hard to center my piece on the wheel, and my classmates were way better at throwing on the wheel. I remember posting on my Instagram Stories how bad I was and how frustrated I was, and one of my co-workers said, "Be kind to yourself. We have way too high expectations of ourselves." My instructor also encouraged making mistakes because that's how we learn. Her small-but-mighty message made me realize that all good things take time and that failing at something can be beautiful. The pieces that I originally hated actually turned out to be quite beautiful in the end. Embrace failure—it will always teach you something.

When I first started taking pottery classes, I went into it thinking I would be a master in six weeks, and if I wasn't, I wouldn't be successful. But when I learned little things like how to hand-build, make a coil, or trim my piece successfully, I realized those were wins for me. There wasn't an occasion where I left and didn't feel complete. When I challenged myself and went to another pottery studio, the instructor inspired me to keep going, to have grace for myself, and to not be afraid of the clay.

Being creative has always been an anchor for me and my mental health. I've taken up running, doing nails, and writing before to express myself and relieve myself from the stresses of regular ol' life. With pottery, the sound of the machine and the feeling of my hands in clay gave me so much freedom to get lost in the activity. Pottery helped me clear my mind, and it's definitely a mood booster.

Pottery definitely proves the statement "If you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand" to be quite true. When I had my fingers in the clay, most of my creations came from something that I imagined in my mind. The things that looked funky or strange actually ended up being the pieces I liked the most.

The biggest takeaway from pottery was how to be mindful when creating. As a constant overthinker, it's always a challenge for me to live in the moment. With other activities, it's easy to get distracted, but when throwing on the wheel, getting distracted isn't an option unless you want to destroy your piece. Having to be focused on one thing for two and a half hours made me feel still and grounded.

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