Wind-Up Castle Of Wonders: Self Discovery

Expressive Art Activity # 17 - Expressive Self-Portrait Materials: - Acrylic paint - Collage papers and magazine clippings - White glue and sponge brush - Heavy paper or journal page Method: It is intriguing to create an expressive self-portrait that focuses more on your inner state than your outer appearance. This expressive art exercise is good when you feel like one stage of your life is ending and you do not yet know where you are going. Reflect on the question. "Who am I right now?" Or you might ask, "Who am I becoming?"  Paint a loose representation of a face in acrylic paint. As you let your paint dry, gather and cut out your collage items. When your underpainting is dry, quickly and spontaneously glue on your imagery by painting both sides of the image liberally with white glue. The white glue on top of the image will waterproof it so that you can paint or glaze over top of it. When your collage items have dried you ca...

I think it is such a beautiful thing to witness that moment of recognition and connection.  When a client arrives at a place in their art where there is utter truth and complete bareness.  When the compassion for  pureness and innocence fills every corner of the room, and a tilt of the head conveys absolute resonance.  “Here I am.  I feel it, see it, sense it. “ When we arrive at this place, hanging out here requires tenderness, compassion, and tolerance for all that this experience evokes.  So, yes, it is intense vulnerability for both therapist and client. Sometimes, finding the signposts or the door to vulnerable expression is not that easy.  We have sentinels, deflectors, limiting beliefs, etc that mix up the signals and cause disorientation.  So, I decided to try and use the art as a treasure map.  And, taking one clue at a time, trust that it would guide the work into that place where creativity, change, and innovation happens. Usi...

Thanks to Expressive Art Workshops ! Materials - Felt pens - Journal page Method: Draw Your Anger Instead of letting anger eat away at us, we can express our anger by vigorously scribbling and swearing in our journal or by drawing a portrait of our anger. If you are going through a challenging time or have a great deal of anger to process, it is helpful to start a dedicated anger journal. Our anger is not all of who we are, but we can practice allowing our anger to move and create change in a daily anger processing journal. Anger holds tremendous energy. The aim in processing anger is not to get rid of anger, but to get our emotionally stagnant energy moving in order to see what we are not looking at within ourselves. When we begin to feel our anger we can know that we are starting move stuck and repressed energy, and that change needs to happen. Anger that is safely expressed and mobilized can invoke the passion and power to grow. In order to process ange...

Its kind of funny. My strong, uncanny hatred and repulsion I have felt towards the outsiders and their way of living (people that aren't me, lol) is beginning to transform into a beautiful selfless desire to be apart of their world. Not only become a part of it, but contribute to it. I want that to be where I find my most inner happiness and accomplishment..the key to my personal gratification and satisfaction with the life I have chose to live while I was here on Earth. The fact that I had become the person I wanted to see in my world is the most rewarding and satisfying feeling I could ever achieve. I could honestly die happy & proud.

My problem is that my perspective, what I feel like I need/want, and/or just merely my opinion on your decision that you made to limit our friendship to phone and internet is that your decision doesn't include my POV which I find immoral and I feel betrayed, forgotten, and sincerely unimportant as your friend. Do I have valid reasons to feel the way I do? Does you know that your decision to not see me in person is (to me) an infallibly friendship? Are you saying that you are staying friends with me because of some other reason other than our commitment to be friends forever? Do I misunderstand or maybe not even know your true values are in life? Did that part of you change as well? If it did, I was not aware. The reasons why do not matter in the grand scheme of things because the truth is I've been blind sighted this entire time until right at this moment. I never have acknowledged the idea that your values or morals could apart of your dramatic change in yourself (after co...

I've met another amazing human being, despite that he is living smack middle among drug heads & sincerely lost souls. He takes it upon himself to create & maintain a comfort zone for anyone with problems in their life. I have  much to say about him, how I felt when I first met him, and the immutable effect it is and has upon me. I will elaborate later but for now I felt it was important to just get out what I have already came to understand. He is guiding me back to my inner spirit where my faith, intuition & hope lies and has led me to a new type of  perception. Within that perception, there is a  multitude of wonder , irrefutable logic , and a different sort of empathy towards human kind.  Update: Unfortunately, this kind & loving individual passed away due to drug overdose a few years later from writing this post. R.I.P. Brian Richardson   Louisville, KY T o every good situation, you better believe...