Using Art and Creativity for Healing and Fun
Art and creativity can help you reduce stress and have fun. It can also help you express your feelings and heal from life’s adversities.
Humans are hard-wired to express themselves and their experiences through art. Man created paintings and sculptures long before making even such revolutionary discoveries such as agriculture and metal-working. Art has been created for religious reasons, as a way to describe and make sense of our world, and to express how we feel. Many artists use their art for political reasons, for example. Throughout history, much artwork has been made just for the simple purpose of producing beauty. To behold and to admire. Many people have an emotional experience by just enjoying the beauty and appreciating it. That alone is a beautiful way to experience art. I want to encourage you to use art for healing and fun too.
What I want to focus on is to encourage you to use art and creativity to express yourself, have fun, reduce stress, and even help you heal.
Choose Your Creative Project and Have Fun!
I want to encourage you to begin taking time for yourself regularly to work on a creative project just for the fun and joy of it. This alone reduces stress. Expressing your creativity and getting in that flow state reduces the stress hormone cortisol and increases dopamine – and that feels good! I’ve taken up several regular creative and artistic hobbies that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed over the years. Some of the creative hobbies I enjoy are interior design and decorating, creating mixed-media collages made with painted papers, and found objects. I’ve recently been experimenting with creating digital art collages, which I find really fun! I also love to sew and enjoy designing and creating these beautiful rag quilts made with designer quilting fabric from time to time to sell or give as gifts. I also love creating digital scrapbooks for our family photo albums. But! Even though I know what creative projects I love to do, I STILL struggle to make time to regularly do these things, which is why I am going to encourage YOU and ME to do this regularly together. I’ll be reminding you to take time for your creative projects and to share them with me in our Private Facebook Group. I will also share what creative projects I’m working on. I want to encourage you to have more fun creating!
Express Your Feelings with an Art4Healing® Class
I’d also like to introduce you to the life-changing Art4Healing® art classes that can more deeply help you get in touch with what you are feeling in your life that you may be having a hard time expressing. When we do not express our feelings and emotions, they fester. Feelings and emotions buried alive never die. There’s actually a good book about it with a similar title. Here: https://www.amazon.com/Feelings-Buried-Alive-Never-Die/dp/0911207023/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1623467153&refinements=p_27%3AKarol+K.+Truman&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Karol+K.+Truman
Repressing our emotions and feelings is not good for the body. It is literally like drinking poison. Some of us drink or smoke our feelings away. Some overeat, stay constantly “busy,” watch too much television, or do anything else to distract us from actually FEELING. Our computers and phones are on 24/7 and act as a constant distraction if we let them. It’s a big problem.
Sometimes our feelings and emotions are much too challenging to process ourselves, and we do need to seek help from a licensed therapist or counselor if we don’t think we can deal with them ourselves. It’s vital to get the level of support you feel you need if you are dealing with overwhelmingly difficult feelings. Sometimes, life can deal us crushing blows, and we need someone to steady us and walk us through a difficult time. Therapy has helped me personally through many challenging seasons of my life. But as much as I believe in therapy, I found that talk therapy wasn’t quite enough for me to process everything that I was feeling.
Sometimes, Words Are Not Enough. This Is Where Art Can Help.
Sometimes words are not enough to express how we feel. Specifically, this is where Art4Healing® classes helped me. Art4Healing® classes allowed me to get my feelings out onto canvas with paint. Art is healing because it forces a connection between your mind and your body. It gets me in a meditative flow where my mind and body are working together. I literally moved those stuck and trapped emotions out of my body and onto the canvas for me to see and process, and integrate. It was a cathartic mind-body experience that was hard to explain. It took away the emotional charge from the problematic issue I was processing. I felt a lightness in my spirit after taking my first class. Some classes helped me realize there were more layers underneath that still needed exploration. The Art4Healing® process gets the thinking and talking out of the equation and really lets your heart speak. After a class, I find it helpful to reflect and journal about what I had discovered about myself and, more importantly: what I had let go of in my Art4Healing® class. These classes have been healing for me and are a part of my regular self-care routine.
You can take an Art4Healing® class to help you reduce stress in your daily life or to help you express your feelings about the much more complicated issues in your life. There are many different classes. And many of them can be done again and again with each new issue or problem you’re facing! Kids can do them, too (depending on the parents’ discernment).
Think of Art and Creativity as Your Dear Friend
Art and creativity have been like a dear friend who is always there for me throughout my life. It’s helped me have fun, reduce stress, and express and process complicated feelings from my past. Not to mention the difficulties of the present. http://artforhealingandfun.com/how-art-can-help-you-and-your-family-cope-with-the-pandemic/ Art and creativity have brought so much joy and healing into my life. I want you and your family to experience that too.
