The Creative Arts help us to become more engaged with our creative spark in every aspect of our lives. It is not just about the arts or being an artist. The arts are a path to living more creative and joyful lives.

Allowing a sense of play allows curiosity to awaken. “Playing” with clay, paint, words and music can give us courage to experiment, to take the risk to create. Courage is needed to attempt to throw a new form on the potter’s wheel; or to pick up a brush and explore our idea of a painting. With practice, once back in the everyday world at work or in relationship, this new found courage might allow one to take a new step, to see something in a new way, and to experience a new sense of freedom.

In this time of Covid 19, anxiety and depression are common in our changed world of today. Many of us are trying to cope with either anxiety or depression, or both. Often that coping means trying to find ways to continue functioning by pushing oneself too hard, by not listening to one’s needs. Or, coping can mean trying to hide the symptoms with food, alcohol or drugs.

There is a way to live without the burden of such symptoms ruling one’s life. That way is to learn to listen to body-felt sensations, instead of ignoring them or covering them up. This is called mindfulness. Bodies do not lie. Minds can give us rationales for doing something that does not serve us. Bodies tell the truth. If one is eating and the mind is saying, “more, more, more” while the body is saying, “enough, enough” which is more likely to be true?

Creative work can teach us to listen, to be more mindful in our lives.

As well as being a lifetime practitioner of the Creative Arts, I am a retired licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. (LMFT30430). I have many years of training and experience. In my teaching, my training and experience often help me to deeply listen to a student and understand her needs.

Acknowledging and honoring what is true offers the space to truly know ourselves, to make new choices. We can begin to feel what is true for us in this moment… and the next…and the next.

I will be teaching classes in the Creative Arts locally. These will be posted on my site. If interested in a class, you are welcomed to contact me and I will give you the details. You can contact me at art@rhaeamaurel.com.