Expressive Arts

Why Expressive Arts Work

Expressive Arts can give you a perspective on your life that is like the dawning of a new day. The beautiful sunrise gives hope that your stressful emotions can be transformed. With Expressive Arts, you can depict these stressful emotions and transform them just as the colors of morning transform the sky. All thoughts start first in pictures and imagery. In order to make changes, you must access the mind’s imagery. Art is the expression of the body’s inner language. In an Expressive Arts session, you do not need to be an artist. Often simple pictures reveal the imagery. Ruth will help you access the images that your body, mind, and spirit need to heal painful emotions and physical symptoms.

Life has challenges that cause grief and painful emotions. Time alone does not always heal these painful emotions. Professor James Pennebaker (University of Texas) says that at about three months, people stop talking about a painful event. These unresolved feelings are internalized and become toxic and spread until another painful event reveals these and other buried feelings. Expressive Arts can help you process and transform your feelings before they are tucked away inside. For example, a young mother composed meditative mantras and verse to deal with the death of her three-year old son. Because she consistently recited the verse and mantra daily, she progressed through all the grief stages and reported that she felt healed in fifteen months from her son’s death. She was able to return to a productive life.