Broken but Healed by Art & Creativity

With all the losses and other things I've been through the last four years I see the therapeutic benefits and necessity of art, of creating something, anything to let it out. A poem, painting, scribbles, anything. Right after the loss of my brother I literally couldn't think. I couldn't read, I couldn't even watch TV because I couldn't fallow what was going on, it was gibberish. But I could knit. Some may not see this as art but it is creative, it is zen. I find myself looking for my paints or typing away when hit with more stress or pain than I can bear. I feel the need to express it in some way. Cry yes, I needed to cry but I needed other outlets.

Right now I want to paint, I want to write, I want to play with my web designs, make graphics and I will and am and have. Those who are already artist's or creative types know what I'm talking about. You do it too. But those who may not be right brained like us, I encourage you to try it. Find ways to express your pain. It is so healing. There is a reason why the loony bins have arts & crafts, music therapy and tell you to keep a journal. So lets do all that before we need to be locked up! Ok, the last part largely applies to me but it makes sense to do what works for even the worst cases, art and therapy!

What are the ways you deal with great losses or everyday stress? What do you do when you feel broken like I do now?

Great Loss

I was writing a book. Words flew and flowed, ideas, characters, and plots. But then my world came to an end and I suffered a GREAT loss. For a long time I felt like I would mourn forever. That I would never stop crying or hurting, it hurt worse than anything I’ve known. When I got the news that he was in a comma my world came to an end, I knew that he wasn’t going to make it and unfortunately I was right. A week later my brother was taken off life support and his body died along with the brain that had died a week before.

I can only talk to my family and my mother about this. Everyone else say the wrong things. I can’t stand to hear them talk about it, to try to console me. When someone dies everyone should shut the fk up! I need the sympathy and support but in as few of words as possible. Just hug me. Tell me you love me. Say, ‘I’m so sorry.’ then shut up. This sounds so awful but that is how I feel. Each word wounds if it’s the wrong one or from the wrong person. I am so fragile that your breath could collapse me.

Art. I would have thought this a great time to write my pain out or paint. I’ve thought of it but haven’t wanted to. I don’t want to be in life when he is gone. I haven’t been able to think for the last few weeks. Even the simplest things that I never get wrong I couldn’t do. I think all the time, my mind never shuts up but since the first call I would sit for long moments with nothing in my head, just silence. I couldn’t think if I wanted to.

I started reading. I do it slowly and not every day. The book is about a mother who loses her little girl and per her mother’s advice she takes up knitting and joins a knitting circle. The repetitious movements of knitting some how get her out of her sorrow and gives her a break from pain. This book, The Knitting Circle, has inspired me to knit again. It does help, the repetition is soothing like rocking back and forth. I can’t write, I can’t paint, not today but for now I will knit. That will be my art.

Soul Food

I’m not much of an artist to tell the truth, as I’ve been told. But I don’t say this because I’m not good at painting but because it isn’t an abiding passion. It is a passion but one that flees from me while another comes in. But am I still an artist when one artful passion is temporarily replaced by another?

What is art? I think one way it can be described is creative ways we express ourselves outside of logical linear thinking. When I was young it was truly an art to apply my make up. I took time to consider tones and hues, how to make the contours I desired, how to make me more beautiful. It was art when I would make beautiful resumes for my job applications. The effort I put into its form style, font, balance, and spacing. Also the words, how I described myself, what I had done. When I described my years as a house wife with a baby I called myself a ‘domestic engineer’ and used big important words like negotiator, manager, accountant, etc. One woman thought I was employed (as if it were a real job outside of home) another waved it in her husbands face reminding him of all the things she really does. That was creative, thinking outside of my box.

Now what makes me an artist? A creative person? My current medium is the pen. Or more truly my keyboard! I am writing. May not sound impressive. I don’t seem to write very well here. But that isn’t the point. Weather I am a genius or suck doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I feed my soul. The soul’s food is art! This is art, writing. Mine may be bad art and that is ok. But unlike some people out there I am happy, content, Sometimes even blissful when I am doing and being art! I write because I love it, because it feeds my soul. NOT to please the ‘critics‘. NOT to receive the ‘critics’ approval. But only to feed my soul and that is ‘following your bliss’ my friends as Joseph Campbell was fond of saying!

What is your soul food? What feeds your soul, makes you happy, content, blissful? Do it and stop for NO ONE! No mater what they say. What do they know? We all know that ‘critics’ don’t know anything!
Now dig in!!