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Art Therapy, Part 2

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Here is another art project I made at Timberline.  This one was supposed to be specifically about Joy.  I think this was shortly after I started playing the piano in the dining hall, so music was on my mind.  I used a piece of cardboard to start and covered it with wide black ribbon. The white piano keys, pink “staff”, and green note were also of different kinds of ribbon. For the word Joy, I untwisted a three-strand black cord.

It looks really simple, but I wasn’t able to finish in one session; I had to work on it the next day in our open session. I like how it turned out.  It’s interesting how the artwork, the act of making it, working with your hands, and then explaining it to the others is cathartic.  It’s easier to express some things through art than to talk about them.  Those projects were harder to explain to the others than this one was.

Some of us had to challenge our perfectionism during these sessions.  Our instructor liked to say, “art is imperfect. It’s not about perfection, but expression. Mistakes make art.”  I understand what she’s saying; it’s just difficult sometimes to show your work to others when you don’t like how it turned out.  For me, almost more frustrating was not being able to finish!  On a different project I told the instructor, “I know it’s not perfect.  That doesn’t bother me.  I just want to finish it!”  Interestingly, that project was about speaking out instead of holding all my thoughts inside.  She let me stay for five minutes (because I had my white hat and because I asked!) such that I could finish the last three lines.

Art Therapy

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With the Christmas season keeping me busy, I’m planning to take a break from the DBT Modules and post some shorter (maybe more interesting!) items.  One of the sessions everyone at Timberline was required to attend was Art Therapy, twice a week.  The first session was a guided class where each person was asked to make something based on a prompt. The second session each week was open; we could finish our project from the first day or we could work on something of our choice. At the beginning of each session we went around the table, stating our name and what our emotion was at the moment. At the end of each session, we shared our art work and described how it fulfilled the prompt and what it meant to us. And, once again, we had to share our emotion at the moment.

As an aside, Timberline was built on an old family farm and takes up 43 acres. It’s a beautiful wooded site in the Chicago suburbs, and when you’re there it’s hard to believe you’re in the city.  The farmhouse, a century old stone building, was turned into the art studio. It’s a very neat building. The wood floors are intact. The stone walls still show inside and out.  It has tall, very narrow windows and exposed ceiling beams. We sat around one long table made up of smaller tables, all of which were covered with multitudes of paint splatters.  The floor was spotted and the sidewalk leading up to the door has more and more spatters as you approach that door.

The art instructors were interesting people, and had their introductory speech down pat.  Because the client turnover happened every week, we had the same instructions every week on what to do and how to take care of the studio. Our specific instructor had a large ceramic vase full of paint brushes with bristles so hardened by paint they were like rock. She called this the “vase of shame” and emphasized every time about washing out our brushes.

We had almost every kind of art supply available – not always in abundance, but always available. There was canvas and many, many kinds of paint. There were drawers of magazines for collage. There were drawers of markers, pens, crayons, etc. There was clay, glitter glue, old books, and small wooden boxes.  My personal favorite (besides the Sharpies!) was the cabinet she called “Hobby Lobby.”  I’m sure you know what I mean – buttons, ribbons, pompoms, wooden beads, pipe cleaners, cardboard, etc.!

One of the first items I made was out of clay. Our prompt for the day was to “make something depicting one of your values.”  Here is a picture of how I depicted Partnership…

They are intended to be the same
size, shoulder to shoulder.

More art projects are on the
way this month!

Mindfulness – “How” Skills

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Last time I detailed the “What” skills, what we do to practice Mindfulness.  Now, I have HOW to do that, and again, there are three parts:

Non-judgmentally
One minded
Effectively

The first goes along with Observe and Describe – it’s all about the facts. No judgments.  Here is a list of instructions we were given…

  • Accept each moment.
  • Don’t think in terms of good or bad, just IS
  • Acknowledge the difference between helpful and harmful, but don’t judge them.
  • Acknowledge the difference between safe and dangerous, but don’t judge them.
  • Acknowledge your values and wishes without judging them.
  • Acknowledge your emotional reactions without judging them.
  • When you find yourself judging any of these, don’t judge yourself for judging!

 

One-mindfully is to be completely present in the moment. No thought of before or after. No thought of multitasking. No wishing you were elsewhere – mindfulness is being present NOW. There was a list in our DBT handouts…

  • When you are eating, eat.
  • When you are walking, walk.
  • When you are worrying, worry.
  • When you are planning, plan.
  • When you are remembering, remember.

This can be especially helpful if there’s something distressing, something to worry about.  One of the instructors, said, “It’s normal to worry. It’s human to worry.  With mindfulness, you can take time to worry, spend a little time thinking about the situation, what might happen because of it. After worrying about it a little, move on.  Then do the next thing mindfully without worrying.”

 

The third part, Effectively, is a combination of advice that helps do the three parts of WHAT and the other two parts of HOW…well, effectively.

  • Be mindful of your goals.
  • Focus on what works.
  • Play by the rules.
  • Do what is needed for the current situation.
  • Stop sitting on your hands.

Below is a great layout of how mindfulness works “in the moment.”  It’s about situations on the job, but I think it can apply to many other situations.