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.
I'm putting on the polishing touches to the talk about art therapy benefits the traumatized child. My God, the power and awe of what seems to be the perfect therapeutic tool for children in trauma- hushed with the overwhelming burden of having witnessed something so scary that the thought to tell it shuts them up before they open their mouths to speak. Research shows that art, along with other therapies, is one of the BEST ways to heal hearts.
Whats gotten me riled up is that I know this place as both survivor and healer. I relate to these kids and know the screaming quiet, so for those of you who don't know this already, I was/am one of these children. My family had happy years, but many of those alternated with a thick cloud of un-namable fear and dysfunction. And at its worse, I was the only sober person in my house. I was 8 years old. Domestic violence was the rule, not the exception... and altho it was my normal, somehow I still knew it was something to be ashamed of and kept quiet. Afterwards for a long time, I couldn't talk about what was happening, describe it; it lived in an amorphous cloud in the back of my mind that came out when something "triggered" emotions and feelings. Later, the name PTSD was attached to the experience. I'm trying to cleanse the stigma attached to it for other people. Its survivable.
I'm OK today and have come to terms with the things can't be erased or totally healed, but instead come to a peaceful place because they can be watered down in potency~ and what is left over can then be used as fuel to heal others. But this isnt' about me.
If this research helps kids to decrease the fear they carry within themselves, that was FLUNG upon them by whatever force crossed their paths, (Katrina, dysfunction, accidents) what a blessing. Clair Evangelista and I had a whole discussion the other day about what the role of artist was in today's society: she thought the role is to offer hope and to heal and I wholeheartedly agree.
Now we know why the abstracted-amorphous cloud couldn't be talked about! Trauma shuts down brain areas, particularly Broca's area and then elevates activity in the amygdala~ the area responsible for encoding memory emotionally. The person stays in the hyperaroused state (aka anxiety disorder) because of the amygdala and the memories cannot be stored in a linear, rational way, but instead are stored in a sensory/emotional area- a right brained area.
Left field tangent: Hmmm... maybe thats why most artists are pretty sensitive, we're righbrained. We also usually have this uncanny thing in common: BAD MEMORIES. We can't remember much of anything, ha ha. But seriously, since many artists are extremely emotional~ many memories are stored in this abstracted area for us... so, maybe our amygdalas are more active than most.
But in treating trauma, the act of the trauma is trapped in an area that can't talk. This area is a sensory modality, one that can't be articulated, but will be expressed with motion like dance, the act of writing (sometimes) and the act of painting and drawing. The body moves, you hear the charcoal grind acrosss the paper and the scratch of the brush into the grain of the canvas. You see marks being made. Change pressure or release by hitting the canvas. Brain works, moves into the place where you feel what happened and your body follows and eyes, senses, body motion and brain become one.
Sounds romantic, right? Not that I'd want it differently, I wouldn't trade being an artist for a Beaver Cleaver upbringing any day of the week, but ptsd isn't any fun. You can't change a constitution of a person, but changing the nature of someone who remains in a traumatized state of being is a must. Depression and suicide are real threats to these people.
Research back into the pasts of artists, writers, singers and dancers (right brained people) and you will usually find one of two things: that there is a history of trauma or a history of sensitive constitutions who could be traumatized more easily by seemingly normal happenstances by others' descriptions.
But for someone going through the very real and frightening effects of unhealed trauma, take it from someone who has seen the very damaging and serious other side of the coin, once you get to a place where articulating the event is possible, (whether its Katrina, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence) you own the experience, it doesn't own you. You have the power.
This research has proven why, on a neurophysiological way. ART HEALS and we now have proof. Isn't it amazing that wisdom was written millinea ago that said, "Physician, heal thy self"? I think that when we tap into the Spiritual gift of creativity and acknowledge what it means to be made into the image of the Creator, we transform ourselves and create our own reality.
Next, we'll get into *how*.
And who better to heal and speak of the abstract, amorphousness that trauma brings? Artists.
Healers and hope offerers.
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