by Joyce White
Exploring creativity and creative expression in the arts are catalysts for healing & therapy. Research by Professor Semir Zeki demonstrates that even looking at art stimulates our brains; creating the same chemical response as when we are in love. This is just further evidence that creative expression like art and writing may prove beneficial for those that are feeling down or depressed.
It occurs to me some might wonder if being creative is something we are or something we do. I imagine trying means not doing but we all use our creative license differently. In reality, many of us may have to pull from our guts a word or image, while another may seem to pull it out of the air. In any regards, practice makes perfect.
Many of us must have to work hard to find our secret place; and sadly, some never do. I’ve heard it said "Don’t let yourself die with the music still in you. " The Creativity-Portal at http://www.creativity-portal.com/howto/writing/creative.html, tells us and I agree, that “we are creating new worlds and reinventing ourselves through the details of existing ones.”
Since I am most interested in the healing aspects of Creative Expression, I write articles and book reviews for Global Healing Exchange at http://www.globalhealingexchange.net/index.php/component/search/?searchword=Joyce+white&ordering=&searchphrase=all. This is a good site for sending all kinds of healing articles like art therapy, poem therapy and articles about the psychology of man. There are even chat rooms and public forms of all kinds that welcome our questions and input.
In a sense, we will never be able to stretch our wings and fly free as artists and writers, if we let supposed ownership keep us from gifting our uniqueness to others. It takes faith in us, our gifts and our Creator to move through mental blocks like fear, negativity and self-doubt.
When it comes to writing, I think it is important we never write something that hurts your head or our heart. We need to take ourselves and our craft seriously whether we write once a week or every single day. Release is the magic word for creative expression.
Sylvia Plath says, “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Albert Einstein says, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Enjoy my imagination and poem below:
As a writer I often play the "what if" game. When I'm shuffling through less than colorful thoughts, I imagine I wouldn't know if I were winning or losing with a deck of white cards, I wouldn't know when to stop, to slow or go,
I think about a white butterflies with their beauty invisible, and white clouds rolling around in a sky I couldn't see, I'm thinking about white pigeons cooing and cawing, hiding from white cats, hurling themselves into the air, all for naught,
I'm thinking about white birds looking for white worms crawling around in white grass, all white bellies hungry for their prey cannot be seen, I'm thinking of white sea-caps on white rolling seas, and a white sailboat in distress, how would it be seen? How could we help?
How would we rake white leaves on white grass? How would we learn with white chalk on a white chalkboard? We can live without many things around, but who can happily and safely live without colors like red, yellow, blue, green and brown?
It is our dark side that wants us to remain in the shadows instead of sparking light and love out into the world. Even if our dark side tells us we are bad or bad at what we are doing, we must fight for being “bad” with conviction and trust your innate needs. It is good to remember there is a crack in everything; and that is how the light gets in. We are all artists from the inside out.
We creative beings must remember we can predestine failure when we give it power over us before it even happens. It is ironic our human bodies sometimes have difficulty knowing what is imagined and what is real.
