The Reclamation Journal-
Every 24 hours, we are blessed with a fresh canvas to paint onto it what we can. Accidents happen and sometimes the paintings turn out the way we want, but thankfully, we have a fresh canvas arriving again tomorrow morning!
This was an inspired invitation to study what it means to you to be alive, to be aware of what gives you joy and what it is to be whole, feel the wonderfulness of your experiences, no matter what they bring.
Its intent is to enhance your wellbeing and to guide you into what gives you well being. Its the cats meow of mental health :)
Today was the second part of a project: We had a SILLY Party in group therapy in honor of all that is fun and what was missed out on, what can be reclaimed and what can grow and flourish... and it was silly! We had birthday hats, funky glasses, kaliedascopes, ice cream cake (thank you, Tina!!!!) and face painting. Even some fingernail painting. Glow in the dark, of course.
The inspiration came from one encounter with a client.... she so eloquently articulated a question... what is it to be alive? She asked point blank, I've gotten past this, but now what? I really want to live.
The phenomenon that many in a therapeutic environment experience: living through a traumatic relationship (be it childhood, adult abusive relationship) into a feeling that one is merely surviving, not thriving. She expressed what we all want, the desire to be happy, to really live.
This kicked up a lot of my mental dust. How wise is that, and isn't it a fact? For any of us who have survived beyond controlling environments, long past the brainwashing by the abuser and the games we had to play to survive with a person that toxic, we are faced with the reality of 1. reclaiming our thought processes, 2. living in the world on its terms amidst the clinging fears and insecurities the survivor skills gave us and 3. having to teach ourselves how to be alive within our own lives instead of being passive observers.
One begins to understand that being alive isn't only avoiding being hit or cursed. Being alive isn't the time taken up by attempts to avoid fights to make sure the children don't see them. Being alive has much more to it than walking on eggshells to avoid another drunken binge or aggression taken out on your pets and children. Or starting something just to get smacked so it will be over and done with so the tension will ease up, for a little while anyway.
After all this energy is relcaimed for one's self, children and healthy pursuits, the quiet sets in and survivor is placed in a sense of confusion- lack of placement in the world- and a question of what is life now to you?
I just want to be happy. But when most of your time has been taken up avoiding being smacked around, getting high or hiding out from your own anxieties--- its hard to know what that might be.
A. This project, the Reclamation journal, is a journal that has two purposes, on a multi layered approach. First, it is to write down, acknowledge the opportunities that have been missing, messed up or lost through unhealthy relationships-- and to grieve them by writing them down- in the back of the book! Its sad to know your 8th birthday was messed up with family alcoholism. Its not fair. Some days have been shadowed by the bad memories ever after.
Then to reclaim it, literally. Go down your list and do them NOW on your own terms, with the people YOU choose :) We can grab back what birthdays mean to us in the present and turn them into experiences we want to have. At some time in the past, our choices may not have been our own, but with the ability to reclaim our causes for celebration, we affirm our worth.
By consciously taking the time to re-do some of the things messed up by toxic relationships or simply bad luck- ie, learning to swim if someone has scared you out of the water, we can become empowered and steer our own lives. Go bike riding if it was a source of contention long ago. Go and revel in walking the mall by yourself and leave your mind open for what this experience has to offer and relish in the fact that it is yours to enjoy. It can be anything. Celebrate anything. Celebrate your right to say no. Celebrate your right to say yes. Celebrate being able to walk, breathe or cry--- and laugh, too.
B.Now that the past had been acknowledged and you've experienced something else, what was it like? What was freeing about? Surprising about it? Write down what it was that brought you joy, peace and what didn't work. This is your key to what is good for you :)
Pay attention to what makes you feel whole, worthwhile, loved and valued. Those will keep you on a healthy path.
Now how about if we take that pursuit one step further and journal what is it that you'd like to try that is completely new? Needlework? Dancing? Belly dancing? Belly button piercing? Go to Disney? Get a job as a consultant for a marketing firm? Be quiet if you're too stressed? Yoga classes?
This is your opportunity to teach yourself every day what makes you feel whole. Daydream in your reclamation journal and just think about what your world would be like if you decided to take a small step in a new path. Try a new recipe. Drive a different route home. Wear red. Go a slightly different direction. Experience yourself in a new light, under new conditions, stressors and even failures.
They can't steal our happiness unless we allow them to.... and life begins new and fresh every day. Today was a good one.
(Above photo is courtesy of the mandala project)
Mandalas--- what do you know about them? Probably much more than I did before looking them up.
Roughly, the general idea is that we are a circle. Our interests, our loves, our sorrows. We walk within a circle-- our street, our families, our friends and jobs. That circle is within another circle- our neighborhoods on upwards to our society, our country. That circle is within the larger circle, the Earth. That one is part of the Milky Way, a larger circle. But to go lower, the spiral will continue to shrink to include flowers- circles and spiraling petals, octagons of the fly's eye that sits on top of the petals and the round cells microbes attached to its wings down to the atoms and the particles that fly around each other from magnetism that resembles our own solar system, yet once again.
We are all interconnected and hopefully, all of us experience this interconnectedness as a wholeness to our existence that without, we would be emotionally, physically and spiritually void of life.
Our circles exist elsewhere- time, space, (this post!) where the circle of life ends as it began (if we live long enough).
Maybe the mandala is an invitation to contemplate and experience this sense of wonder? To create one, what would it look like?
Hmmm... this is our new question and latest emotional revelation for group :) (And me)
Life is forever a learning experience- which means there are always mistakes to be made, from which to learn. We did the coping skills bags and it dawned on me that this group, except a few, have no idea who I am. =:oO
Its a new group, mostly, but an old me and I just took for granted that they know. I'm laughing now- but at the time its a wonder they gave me the time of day. Thank Goodness they've at least seen me before, but you know they've gotta be wondering who the hell I am and what I do. So I'm gonna introduce art with heart and give the spill.
The coping skills bag project that Art with Heart helped fund was turned into the hands of the ladies. The bags had different items to choose from: word puzzles and soduko (sp?), rice bags to heat up and put around stressed necks, flower squishy balls to squeeze in hands when dealing with the likes of DMV (no offense DMV workers, its just the system :), art pencils, drawing tablets, decorate your own ink pens for the gratitude journal, paint your own yo-yo's, fun toys.
In times of stress, overlooking the necessary-ness of stress reducing activities is easy to do- sometimes the most healthy thing is to just get away from "it" mentally for 15 minutes, long enough to brig chemicals back into less toxic levels. Especially dealing with situations in which you are powerless~ court systems, ongoing illness, and other long standing stressors. Can't change it, but bringing some relief is possible.
I wonder what life the de-stress objects take on now? May they bring the richest blessings to the hands that touch them.
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