How Art Heals

I've always known art in any form was a healing force. Starting at age 8, I began to learn at least one new craft every year until I was 16. Some of the things I learned were: knitting, crocheting, tatting, thrushing, stain glass, decoupage, mosaic, needlepoint, embroidery, crewel, piano, and voice etc. Some of these were taught by teachers, some by my grandmother, but most were self taught. Amazingly enough, some of the ones that were self taught I became good enough to teach adult courses when I was in my early 20's.

I found that listening to concerts, walking through art galleries, or through beautiful gardens to be healing places. Listening to great music and reading beautiful poetry is healing as well. However, there is something special and healing in the art of creating.

How art heals: mind- body physiology

A re-print

http://www.artashealing.org/ahfw3.htm

*Scientific studies say that art heals by changing a person's physiology and attitude. The body's physiology changes from one of stress to one of deep relaxation, from one of fear to one of creativity and inspiration. Art and music put a person in a different brain wave pattern, art and music affect a person's autonomic nervous system, their hormonal balance and their brain neurotransmitters.

Art and music affect every cell in the body instantly to create a healing physiology that changes the immune system and blood flow to all the organs. Art and Music also immediately change a person's perceptions of their world. They change attitude, emotional state, and pain perception. They create hope and positivity and they help people cope with difficulties. They transform a person's outlook and way of being in the world.

In fact it is now known by neurophysiologists that art, prayer, and healing all come from the same source in the body, they all are associated with similar brain wave patterns, mind body changes and they all are deeply connected in feeling and meaning. Art, prayer, and healing all take us into our inner world, the world of imagery and emotion, of visions and feelings.

This journey inward into what used to be called the spirit or soul and is now called the mind, is deeply healing. For healing comes to us from within, our own healing resources are freed to allow our immune system to operate optimally and that is always how we heal. This is the contemporary version of freeing our healing energies and is now recognized to be crucial to healing. We go inward on The Creative Spiral together through art and music.

Healing ourselves with art.

The essential process of healing ourselves with art, music, or dance involves our own personal change. When we are ill with a physical or mental problem or when we need to grow, we start to heal ourselves with art by opening ourselves up to our inner voices of change. We allow ourselves to listen to those voices and to let their messages to us emerge.

The first step is to see ourselves as an artist. Choosing a medium is the first priority. That may be done already if we have made art or played music before or if we saw ourselves as making art in our daydreams. Or we may have to ask ourselves what we want to do. Am I a painter, a sculptor, a musician, a poet, a storyteller, a dancer? Have I ever wanted to create something and been afraid or too busy to do it?

Clearing a space as a studio or place to practice is next. Getting materials together, orienting ourselves to this new world, looking at art, listening to music, being with friends who are artists, puts in the space to create.The most important step is to make the first movement, to draw the first line, to make the first sound, the raise your head and dance, to write the first word. We do that from a place of no judgement, from a place of letting go, of trust, of love. And we let the process happen by itself. As the lines increase, the sounds connect, the movements join, the words add up, a piece of art emerges and we see who we are. The art becomes a sign of our healing, a visible or audible representation of our own transformation and healing

As we see the art appear outside of us, it looks almost like it has been made by someone else. Its beauty and wonder are almost beyond us and its message more than we could have known. Yet we see it and are witness to its message of growth, change, and transformation.

source

Promoting Understanding of Chronic Illnesses

Source

There are millions of visible and invisible illnesses out there. There are even ones that medical science hasn't even named and which they are totally baffled by. I should know it took years for them to diagnose me. 

My symptoms reared their ugly heads when I was a teen and then went into remission. Periodically they would pop up and then go away. In October of 2006, they came to stay. However, I wasn't until 2012 that I was finally diagnosed with Mixed Connective Tissue Disorder. Mixed Connective Tissue  Disorder has overlapping features of Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sjögren's, Polymyositis, and/or Scleroderma. 

Over the years, I've been told that I have been faking my disease by some people. I've also been told it is all in my head (yup, that's where Chronic Migraine's resided). I have been told by a dear friend, "I don't think you want to be well". Still others have told me that I don't have enough faith. Still others want to lay hands on me to be "HEALED". And when I wasn't, it was because my faith wasn't strong enough. Doctors have argued in my presence as to which of a variety of diseases I have and then because I was an RN have them say, ""which one of these do you think you it is" I must seriously consider never going to that ER again)? 

Yet at at some point or other for whatever reason, somehow someway the person with disease (me) is found defective, guilty, and/or lacking in some way because the medication/treatment isn't working and according to the assumptions of friends and family members you should be well. These statements, although said with the best of intentions and are made in order to motivate us to health, are hurtful. Until now I hadn't found a good way to explain chronic exhausting long term pain to them.  That was until I came upon a video which explains Lupus and other chronic illnesses through the story of Spoon Theory. I hope it touches your heart and the hearts of your loved ones as it did mine. 

Character picture and video are provided by Christine Miserandino. The video is available in this format on youtube and a slightly differnent format on the website butyoudontlooksick.com