New Dimensions

Museum: Art as Therapy for Teenagers and Adults

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One of my favorite things to do with my mother, who was born in 1934 and turned 80 years old last year, is to go to the De Young Museum which is located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, USA.  My mom loves to go to exhibits with art from all parts of the world.  My mom and I as well as other friends have seen sculptures of sub-Saharan Africa, American artists, art of the Olmec people of ancient Mexico as well as European artists – Mattia Preti, Domenikos Theorokopolos (also known as El Greco), Claude Monet, James Mc Neil Whistler (the painter known for  “Whistler’s Mother”), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh – and modern artists, like Keith Haring and Jackson Pollock.

My mom had a series of strokes that began in 2006.  These strokes made it very difficult for her to communicate at first.  I later realized how much she was able to learn and understand when I took her to the De Young Museum.  I asked her if she wanted to rent the device which would allow her to listen to a description of the art.  My mom said, “Yes.”

I pushed my mom in her wheelchair through the exhibit as she listened with her headset.  I would roll her to each painting, paying careful attention to what she said she wanted to see.  At her request, we stopped at virtually every painting for 3 to 5 minutes.  She listened to every recording – the entire recording – about the artists, the paintings, and the history of when the paintings were created.  Often, we would enjoy a delightful gourmet lunch on the patio, looking out at Golden Gate Park.  These visits were wonderful and have been some of my most joyful moments with my mom as we took the time to absorb great works of artistic masters.

Art has the capacity to transform us.  Symbols are very powerful and can affect us deeply.  A movie such as “Schindler’s  List” or a painting, like the “Mona Lisa” moves many people very powerfully.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  Just one flash of an image can have a profound effect on our emotions and thoughts.

Silence is also very powerful.  We are often afraid of solitude in our American culture.  Our iPhone or television can drown out silence all day long, all year long.  For a lifetime, we can be cut off from our interior life.  We may wake up at 3:00 in the morning with an anxious dream – sweating.

In silence, we can find our compassion and creativity pouring through us.  Once we thought we would never find creativity, then it comes through us like a burst of fire.  The embers of creativity always lie within us smoldering.  This creativity inside us is just waiting us to notice it and express it.  Join Sue Renfrew in this video and learn how to meditate and contemplate about a painting, whether you are at an art exhibit in a Museum or anywhere else.

 

 

Depression and Music

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Some of the symptoms of depression include low energy, irritability, sadness, physical pain, low self-esteem, self-criticism, hopelessness, crying, and changes in eating and sleeping. The source of these symptoms can be biological, psychological, social or spiritual. One can suffer from low blood sugar or a low level of testosterone. Our beliefs can contribute to symptoms of depression. A bad marriage can lead to these symptoms. We may be in a spiritual crisis, lacking meaning in our life. As we transition from one set of beliefs about reality to another set of beliefs, we often feel loss.

When we experience loss, consciously experiencing and expressing our sadness enables us to integrate the loss. Expressing anger is also a part of the process of grieving loss. When we resist our feelings, we may feel numb. When people experience depression, they often describe their bodies as feeling numb. Often we avoid consciously experiencing our emotions and expressing them, when we fear being overwhelmed by them. When we fear being overwhelmed by emotions, we find ways to block our feelings. Often, these are not conscious choices to not feel.

Most often, we learned early in our lives to control our feelings by developing defenses. We may breathe in a shallow way and tighten our muscles to resist emotions. These defenses to consciously experiencing our sadness or anger can lead to depressive symptoms.

Unfortunately, feeling depressed is pretty awful. Depression is not good for our physical health. We can learn to express our feelings. One way to do this is with another person who is comfortable with emotion and affirms your experience of your emotions. In this way, we have a corrective emotional experience which enables us to learn to consciously experience and express our feelings.

Music is an outstanding way to consciously experience feelings. “When the time comes that you’re ready to begin facing your emotions, music that speaks to your heart can help you begin to release your pain,” writes Maureen Draper.

I can pick music which enables me to cry. The process of crying enables me to move forward with my grief and integrate the reality of my life without my beloved. When I hear a John Denver song, I often think of my dad. We can associate certain songs or musicians with a loved one who has passed on. Maureen writes: “Music that reminds you of a loved one brings to the surface whatever may not have been finished or unsaid between you.”

Art of all kinds, be it paintings, poems, stories, film or music, can evoke emotion. Great art reaches us emotionally, and we vicariously experience something important to us. This is why we can be so drawn to a certain author or musician. The beauty of art can move us in countless ways. We can cry with awe when listen to Adagio with Strings by Barber. We may experience exhilaration or hope when listening to Mozart or the Beatles.

Listening to music can be profoundly comforting. The music from our childhood can bring us feelings of being protected and nurtured by our parents as a child. I can remember the song, “Puff the Magic Dragon” from my childhood. Many songs from this era remind me of the emotions of my childhood.

When we are alone with our grief in the middle of the night, music can help us feel the comfort of being in our mother’s arms as a child. Music from early in a relationship with our husband or wife can bring up the emotions of falling in love, which are very healthy for our bodies.

We can use music to – in a sense – move backward in time to recapture hidden emotions and memories. Some may wish to feel the feeling of safety by imagining being held by the divine during our darkest hour of pain. Music can remind us of this kind of love.

Perhaps, finding the core of who we are is the most powerful dynamic to resolving depressive symptoms. Music is a powerful elixir to find the essence of our self. Please watch this video by pianist and author, Maureen Draper, about music and depression:

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Grounding Skill

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I love having my feet planted on the ground as well as being connected to the deepest wisdom. This kind of balance is rare, and yet I aspire to find this type of inspiration and effectiveness inside of myself. Affect Management Skills Training (AMST) has a key skill to help me become my best. It is called the Grounding Skill.

AMST enables a person to recognize and name a range of positive and negative emotions. Our emotions are not good and bad, but some emotions are more pleasant while others are more painful. My emotions give me important feedback about what is going on inside and outside myself. Outside of myself, there is an environment with people, places, things, and events. Inside me, I have reactions to my environment as well as overreactions which I call projections. When I can see objectively and stay aware of my emotions, I am able to navigate life with more grace and effectiveness.

We can confuse emotions or not know what were are feeling, even though we know we are upset. Alexithymia is the inability to recognize emotions as well as express emotions with words. Some people walk around unaware of how they are feeling. They are mad but do not know it. I ask my friend, “are you upset?”

And he answers, “No, but if you keep asking me questions like that, I’m going to get mad!”

AMST teaches us to uncover and name the physical sensations we feel as we experience specific emotions. When I am mad, I feel a rush of unpleasant hot energy in my arms and face. AMST skills enables us to link the emotion of anger with being grounded in our bodies. When we are rooted in our body, we can sense how we feel. Grounding enables us to remain aware of the present moment, including what is going on with people, place, things, and events outside us as well as our thoughts, feelings, and other sensations inside of us. As we us these AMST skills, we automatically link emotional responses with staying grounded and present. This keeps us in an adult state of mind and enables to be at our best.

The Grounding Skill gives me the tools to stay grounded and present when I feel anger. The AMST tools enable us to stay conscious, instead of unconsciously and compulsively “acting out behaviors such as bingeing or purging, substance abuse, and verbal or physical violence.” writes Dr. John Omaha who created AMST.

The Grounding Skill helps us learn to tolerate a range of emotions as well as regulate a range of intensities of emotions. Our emotions are like a heating and air conditioning system. Could you imagine living in a house with no thermostat? The air conditioning may come on in the middle of winter when there is snow outside. The heater may come on during the hottest day in summer. Wow, this makes life so difficult! When we can lower or raise our emotions with AMST skills, we feel empowered. When our emotions are beyond our ability to influence, we feel powerless.

These AMST skills enable us to heal from painful psychological symptoms of accidents or violence, sometime called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We can heal from the traumatic events, because we have the capacity to stay grounded and present while we recall upsetting events from the past. We are also able to identify how we are feeling and reacting in a variety of stressful situations and talk about these responses which enables us to heal more rapidly.

These AMST skills are like the skills we learn playing sports such as soccer, playing a music instrument like a guitar, or singing. The more we practice the skills, the better we refine our use of the skills. Practicing skills enables us to eventually apply the skills without thinking about them. We can become unconscious and competent – at the same time. “Repetition is an important element” in AMST, writes Dr. John Omaha. We learn “to construct new neural networks and that repetition facilitates the process” of learning.

We learn to change our physical brain with our willpower. As Dr. Daniel Siegel says, “our mind changes our brain.” That is encouraging! Please watch this video and learn how to stay grounded and present as you feel a variety of emotions, like anger and fear:

Collage: Art as Therapy for Teenagers and Adults

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We are all artists.  An artist is often defined in a narrow way.  We see an artist as someone who creates with colors, shapes, music, dance, writing and so on.  Yet each of us creates every day.  Mathew Fox writes, “Our life itself becomes a deep expression of who we are, what we care about, what our values are.   It is our great work.  To survive and thrive, in ways small and large, we depend on imagination.  We call on our wellsprings of creativity to give what we have to the world, to our families, to future generations.”

Much of my life, I must make up as I go.  I need to invent solutions every day, to meet the challenges of my work as well as the conflicts I encounter with those I love.  Our modern era seems to value obedience more than creativity.  We have given up on our creativity and say, “I can’t draw.”  “I can’t paint.  I am not creative.”

When we begin with the end in mind, we are able to accomplish much of value.  Making a collage enables us to translate a vision that arises within us to a concrete form.  It is like making a drawing of a dream image.  I can make a character from my dream a companion by drawing it and putting my dream image up on my wall.  The drawing allows me to remember my dream and how it felt when I was dreaming.

If I have a conflict, I can feel emotional relief when I draw it or express it with images that I find from magazines by making a collage.  I can make a collage of or a vision for my life.  Studies indicate that when we are creative in any way, our body releases chemicals in our brain that help us overcome sadness and depression and stress.

The word collage comes from the French word, which literally means – to glue.  A collage is a piece of art made up of different materials: paper, fabric, wood, photographs, and pictures cut out from magazines or calendars.  These materials are glued to paper.

In this video, Sue Renfrew, M.A., demonstrates how to collage.  Get out your paper, magazines, scissors, and glue.  Join in the joy of creation.

Watercolor Painting: Art as Therapy for Teenagers and Adults

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Matisse said, “Creativity takes courage.”

I can remember being in Miss Santich’s kindergarten class at De Vargas Elementary School in San Jose, California, USA, in 1968.  Sitting on the ground, I colorfully painted on large sheets of butcher paper with my friend, Scotty.  There was no critic inside me that I could hear.  In kindergarten, I had not needed courage – just paper and paint.  As I grew up, I endured many years of criticism from parents and teachers as well as my siblings, friends, and neighbors.  “Sit up straight.  Don’t talk with your mouth full.  Say please and thank you.”

I received grades in school.  I was even cut from a football team in the eighth grade at Manuel Rogers Junior High.  A few moments before my first game in the eighth grade, I was enjoying a wonderful conversation with a beautiful young woman named Jenny, on the sideline.  I was in ecstasy.  Suddenly, I heard this booming voice of my coach, Mr. John Hennig – “Davis, where are you?” I was supposed to be in the huddle hearing the call for the first play.

On Monday morning, I read the list of those who made the football team.  I was not allowed to play anymore with the team.  For the first time in my life, I was cut from an athletic team.

I learned to be on time.  I learned to listen to those in authority.  I learned to do my duty – my homework, my chores, and later, the tasks of my job.  I developed a critic inside me to help guide me.  When I was older, the critic got very loud.  It got so loud at one point in my life that I could hardly hear anything else.  When one surrenders their creativity, one becomes dead inside.  Emma Jung said, “Tell the judge on your shoulder to do something else.”

“Where there is creating, there is progress.  Where there is no creating, there is no progress.  Know the nature of creating.  Where there is joy, there is creating.  Know the nature of joy.  Where there is the infinite, there is joy,” says a passage from the Upanishads.

In this video, Sue Renfrew, M.A. demonstrates watercolor painting.  Please get out your watercolor paints and find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted.  Join in the fun and joy of creative expression.

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