At a recent art opening where I had a piece of work, a friend inquired “What is the connection between the your art work and your healing work? I don’t see how they are connected.” I was a little taken aback especially because we were at the annual Women’s Art Show at the Orillia Museum of Art and History. As I walked around and looked at the work, and read their brief stories I could sense for many women how therapeutic it was to express themselves artistically and have their work shown.
Then I reflected on my own practice. I had been doing a variety of healing work for the past nine years and in 2013 returned to my art practice. As I asked myself how had this been healing for me, I came to the surprising realization that I had not had any headaches since I started back into my painting and sculpture work. That had been seven months without a headache. In the past few years I had had a headache about once a month. I was blown away, and further relaxed into the fact that returning to my art practice was good move.
So now that I reflect even further I recognize that any kind of self- expression could be healing. There is something about allowing a flow of something to come through us- it could be writing, art, movement, music something we love to do where we can get lost in the process of creating something. In a way it is all a process of saying yes to life flowing through us.
Both art and healing are part of a process of integration that I also referred to in my last blog on art and focusing. Stay tuned for more articles around the theme of connecting the dots and integration.
TRE and Focusing 