ART THERAPY REFLECTIONS: Reflecting On: Showing up to Practice

Monday, December 6, 2010

Reflecting On: Showing up to Practice

I have been reflecting a lot on the value of practice. If I want to feel physically healthy, and have energy for the day, I have to make time to run or workout. I don't always want to, but I feel so good after and I don't think it is any different in other aspects of my life.

If I want to grow spirituality, be more aware and awake, I need to make time to meditate each morning. If I want to be emotionally healthy I need to practice Focusing with my partner. If I want to grow intellectually, I need to read each day and do something stimulating, informative or interesting to do with my therapy work or talk to someone about my ideas and thoughts. If I want to stay inspired and passionate in my life, I have to feed my inner fire by by creating art, writing and exercising my imagination.

Emotionally Exercising:

Practicing Gratitude. To shift emotions to positive feelings, each morning and evening say one thing to yourself or another about what you feel grateful for in your life.

Physically Exercising:

Practicing movement. To shift the body to feeling more fluid, each day do some form of movement (Yoga, walking, running).

Intellectually Exercising:

Practicing curiosity. To shift your mind to curiosity and interest, each day read books, articles, or blogs that cause you to reflect, think differently or question.

Imaginatively Exercising:

Practicing creativity. To shift into experiencing more imagining and creativity in your daily life, make time for creative play and exploration.

Spiritually Exercising:

Practicing meditation. To shift into experiencing more awareness and consciousness in your daily life, make time to be Present and mindful.

For myself, what is important is that I show up to practice. I don't care if I am the best runner, creator, meditator, or emotionally balanced person but I am showing up and doing the practice. This practice helps me check-in mentally, emotionally, physically, intuitively and spirituality to see how I am, where I am, and who I am.

2 comments:

nacherluver said...: What a wonderful and helpful post. Thank you for sharing this. I have been thinking on these lines lately. Oh how it helps to have it all laid out before me rather than jumbled in my mind where I am trying to untangle the thoughts for one solid thread to focus on. You have done it for me!; December 7, 2010 at 7:56 AM
The Creative Beast said...: I second that this is a wonderfully helpful post, as so many of your posts have been for me lately...

I'm currently working on a 40 day meditation to shift my energies and making time to do this meditation daily can be a challenge but I'm hoping for a great outcome when I have completed it =-); December 7, 2010 at 10:58 AM

What is Art Therapy?

Art therapy is typically referred for situations in which words are difficult (ex: grief and loss), if there is a mind-body relationship to the nature of a person's trauma (ex: sexual abuse, PTSD), or for clients who are inept with words (ex: children, persons with a communication disability). Art therapy is also often sought out by clients who seek a more tangibly productive therapy (literally “rolling up your sleeves”), enjoy expressing themselves visually (artists, architects, crafters, etc.), or for whom talk therapy has not achieved the desired outcome and want to try something new. Art therapy is generally described as a highly illuminating, enjoyable, and unique experience.

In my work I see individual clients who are exploring issues such as depression, anxiety, stress, life transitions, abuse and trauma. I use psycho-education, cognitive behavior techniques, solution-oriented and expressive therapies.

I draw on a wide variety of theories to create an integrative approach. I am client centered and use techniques and theories which 'fit' the client. I am a practicing artist and combine theories in a very creative way in my practice to facilitate clients' journeys through change.

Some of the tools I use in my work are sand tray, all forms of art making, life mapping, goal setting, relaxation techniques, guided visualizations, journal and creative writing, movement, somatic experiencing techniques, stress reduction techniques, reframing, EMDR, Focusing, mindfulness meditation techniques and play therapy.

Focusing Oriented Expressive Therapy

Focusing Oriented Expressive Therapy
Do you want to learn how to:
· Be a better listener to yourself?
· Make clear choices?

· Be calm and compassionate to yourself?
· Support yourself through change?
· Feel relaxed and stress free?

Focusing helps you learn how to be Present and listen to yourself so that you can move ahead in your life in an empowered and safe way. Focusing brings you closer to wholeness and allows you to access your inner wisdom. This helps you move in the direction of your potential. It can help you move beyond blocks and get in touch with your goals. Focusing is a gentle and powerful way to develop a deep interpersonal healing relationship with yourself. Awareness of sensations in the body can be blocked through habits of dissociation and repression. This is because the sensation maybe uncomfortable or painful, and we are not trained to focus on this inner knowing and awareness of the body.

Learning Focusing to Help Free the Artist in You

Do you want to learn how to:
· Be a better listener to yourself?
· Make clear choices?

· Be calm and compassionate to yourself?
· Support yourself through change?
· Feel relaxed and less stressful?

Focusing helps you learn how to be Present and listen to yourself so that you can move ahead in your life in an empowered and safe way. Focusing brings you closer to wholeness and allows you to access your inner wisdom. This helps you move in the direction of your potential. It can help you move beyond blocks and get in touch with your goals. Focusing is a gentle and powerful way to develop a deep interpersonal healing relationship with yourself.
In this workshop we will work with:
· artist's blocks
· money issues that we may have around our art
· time issues that we may have for our art making
· why we can’t get into the studio

What is Focusing?
Focusing is "direct access to bodily knowing." It is a practice that takes a person towards a state of conscious perception that goes far beyond knowing something on a mere conceptual level.

As with Somatic Experiencing, Focusing refers to this bodily knowing as a felt sense. As the Focusing Institute's website explains, "You can sense your living body directly under your thoughts and memories and under your familiar feelings." Focusing happens at a deeper level than your feelings. Under them you can discover a physically sensed murky zone which is concretely there. This is a source from which new steps emerge. This murky zone "opens" as you learn to stay with it longer. Being with it increases the ability to sense feelings behind words or images, even when those are not yet formed. Eventually, you can learn how to let a deeper bodily felt sense come in relation to any problem or situation. It is a subtle process, hard to define in words. Focusing was developed by the philosopher Eugene Gendlin in the late 1960s and early 70s, while he was working with the famed psychologist Carl Rogers.

ART THERAPY REFLECTIONS

Monday, December 6, 2010

Reflecting On: Showing up to Practice

2 comments:

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