From the time we are born, we begin to explore our surroundings by observation. Then we become ENGAGED in our surroundings by creating our own interpretation of what we see/hear/taste/touch/etc.
This is life at its best … just as the bird sings for the sheer sake of singing … the flower blooms for the sheer “pleasure” of being … we all seem to exude a sort of “divine expression” whenever we express creatively about our lives.
Healing: So too do these creative outlets allow us to express things that we wouldn’t normally want to express to anyone else. Creative outlets can allow us to express our anger, our pain, our disgust, our fears … by shaping clay, slapping some paint on a canvas, journaling our deepest fears, or even throwing ourselves into the act of manual efforts!
We can VERY often “heal” from the simple act of “telling our story!”
Theoretical vs. Actual: Now that some time has passed though, I can tell you that my initial plan incorporated creative expression in Claire’s schedule every day. But I soon learned that it was ME who had to ASK her to “create” every time.
Is that true “creating” … or is it “busy work?”
Claire had a very creative personality by nature, yet she did not CHOOSE to do any creating when left to her own devices.
She DID seem to LOVE to create whenever it involved other people though, so I wondered if it wasn’t a greater need for her to learn other things first.
I think that creative expression is ALWAYS a way to inspire individual growth, and that opinion hasn’t changed. But at the time now, looking back on it, I saw that what she REALLY needed was to learn to love herself.
Because it was at this time when I only BEGAN to understand the depths of her fears … that she might not be perfect, that she might not be loveable, that she might be so many of the horrible things SHE thought she was!
And it was perhaps around THIS understanding that I finally began to understand more about HOW her healing could MAYBE emerge …
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