Journaling Through Crisis: Inner Child Work with Youth

There is a great need for mental health tools for children and teens during this time of global crisis. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic is confusing and traumatic for adults, I think it is even more so for youth. It’s important to give them age appropriate tools for dealing with their feelings and experiences. Our guest blogger, Esther Rappaport, is one of our candidates for certification in Creative Journal Expressive Arts Training. Like many of our CJEA practitioners, she is working with youth, sharing time-tested techniques for expressing emotions, releasing stress, and becoming more self-aware.

Journaling Through Crisis: Inner Child Work with Youth

How are you making sure not to get overwhelmed, anxious or depressed during this chaotic time? Everyone is going crazy. Are you, too? What emotions are you feeling? Which parts of you, which subpersonalities are taking charge?

I think everyone is reacting based on their own previous stories, traits and disowned selves.

For example, I am currently working with a teenage client who is really lonely. She doesn't have friends and almost no social life. She attaches herself to her work and her studies all the time. She’ll stay up late and wake up really early to study. Studying is the only place she feels safe and valued.

Now, all of a sudden there is no school. She is at home and has a phone conference for a few hours a day and the rest of the time she is free. This teenager is thrilled. She doesn’t have to deal with the social pressure. She doesn’t have to feel left out. She doesn’t have to deal with rejection.

However, she realizes that most of her classmates aren’t too excited about this arrangement. “They come to school for the social part,” she notes.

So although she’s glad she’s got this extra break, she realizes her void. She realizes it's up to her to change things and have a better life. But how can she do it?

Lucia’s Creative Journal Expressive Arts methods to the rescue! My client is working her way through the Recovery of the Inner Child book and is currently spending a lot of time journaling with her Inner Child. Especially her Lonely Inner Child.

There have been many realizations, painful truths and action steps that have come out of her dialogues. For example, after being rejected and hurt so many times in the past, she no longer wants to put herself out there and try to make friends. She’s afraid she’ll get hurt again. She has also come to realize that she put her self in a vicious cycle. She thinks no one wants to be friends with her, so when she puts her self out there she is expecting them to ignore her and then they really do. Then she’s only more hurt and doesn’t want to try again.

This sweet client of mine is making the most of this opportunity and is learning about herself on a very deep level.

What are you doing to improve your life in this chaotic time?

 

Esther Rappaport
Relationship Photographe
Host of the LifePix Relationships Podcast: https://anchor.fm/lifepix-relationships
Candidate for Certification in Creative Journal Expressive Arts 
Email st@lifepixphotography.com

-----

Lucia

Let us know what you think of this post in the comments below. Follow us and be updated by email when new blog posts are published.
 
www.luciac.com
www.visioningcoach.org
Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com

Healing Conflicts with Others through the Non-dominant Hand

One application of non-dominant hand drawing and writing that my clients and students are using more and more, are the relationship prompts in Chapter 8 of The Power of Your Other Hand. This chapter focuses on interpersonal dynamics and gaining deep insight into where the other person is really at. In written conversations, the "other person" speaks through the writer's non-dominant hand. These prompts are to be used when you are in conflict with someone or where there has been estrangement. Going past our own ego and the ego of the other person seems to be a precious gift that our non-dominant hand gives us. The words that come out always have the ring of truth, provide insight into hidden meanings in the conflict, and bring about empathy in the one writing the dialogue.

Jack Jimenez, a candidate for Creative Journal Expressive Arts Certification, was able to resolve an argument with his adult daughter by doing such a dialogue and some drawing with his non-dominant hand. Here is his account of how he used his non-dominant hand to get past a block to understanding and loving his daughter during a family crisis.

Healing Conflicts with Others through the Non-dominant Hand

Journal entry: 1/10/2020

As I write this I am waiting to go to my 48-year-old son-in-law’s funeral this afternoon. He died of a massive heart attack, unexpectedly, four days before Christmas. He leaves behind my 39-year-old daughter, a 15-year-old son, and a 12-year-old daughter.

My son-in-law was a big tough Marine with a heart of gold. He was universally loved by his family and by most anyone whose lives he touched. There are many shattered hearts that will gather today to honor and show respect for this fine man. Through the tears I don’t know how we the living will handle it.

The short version of this tale is as follows: my daughter and I had been estranged for over a year and had not spoken. I received the call that AJ had passed out at work and then died on the way to the hospital. We rushed to the hospital where my daughter and grandchildren were.

I have been with my daughter either physically or by phone ever since AJ’s death and as she struggled making the necessary arrangements for the funeral. Then, two days ago we got into a heated discussion. I did my usual and shut down and became mute. I was very hurt, but it came out as anger and I was completely unable to communicate with her.

I called my mentor in Creative Journal Expressive Arts training, who told me to journal and gave me some prompts. I did, and channeled what I needed to know from my daughter using my non-dominant hand.

The wonder of this work is that it turned me into a crying mess, walking in my daughter’s toes and heartache. Right after I finished I texted her that I loved her and said I was sorry for adding to her burden. She texted me back with a very loving response.

I now understand the incredible power of this work and have made a huge shift in my mindset and approach to communication and conflict resolution.

Jack Jimenez
Life Coach, Grief Recovery Specialist, and Candidate for Certification in Creative Journal Expressive Arts
oldrthndrt@msn.com
Southern California

-----

Lucia

Let us know what you think of this post in the comments below. Follow us and be updated by email when new blog posts are published.
 
www.luciac.com
www.visioningcoach.org
Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com

Scribbling it Out to Save a Marriage

When I was enrolled in a gradate program through Goddard College becoming an art therapist, a close friend of mine was setting up her private practice as a Marriage and Family Counselor. Jane and I had met through Tom Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training programs, as we were both teaching Gordon’s methods for improving communication in families. My background had been Child Development, Jane’s had been raising six children. 

Jane attended one of my first "practice" workshops in which I presented the idea of drawing and writing with the non-dominant hand. These workshop activities eventually became part of my master’s thesis. Jane readily took to the idea of scribbling her stress and powerful emotions out onto paper. She also kept a journal and started creating deeply felt art work of her dreams. She shared these drawings with me along with writing and dialogues with dream images. 

What really got my attention were the pages and pages of graffiti-like scribbles (with 4 letter words and all) that she said allowed her to dump her anger, frustration and stress out onto paper instead of carrying it around in her body or throwing it at someone else.

I also knew her husband, Jack, who was a Parent Effectiveness trainer as well. At a party all attended, Jack pulled me aside to thank me.

"What for? “I said."

"Why, for saving my marriage, of course."

"What do you mean, Jack? How on earth did I save your marriage?" 

"Well, you know we’ve been married for many years and we’ve raised six kids together. For a long time Jane used me as target practice. If she was pissed off about something, I got the heat. If she was frustrated, she took it out on me. Franky, I was ready to bail out of the marriage." 

"I can understand that you’d be pretty put off by that," I replied. "But, I don’t understand how I saved your marriage." 

Jack explained. "Well, when Jane started coming to your workshops and using your method of scribbling her feelings out with her other hand, all of that stopped. I mean, I was amazed. The blaming and dumping stopped. I was really surprised. I mean, it just stopped."

He laughed. "Sure, she kept on name-calling and dumping, but it went into her journal instead of being aimed at me. She showed me some of her journal pages after she'd been doing this for awhile. Pages and pages full of crayon scribbling in black."

Jane had shown me, in confidence, some of these scribbles, or what I termed Graffiti art, so I knew exactly what Jack was talking about. 

He continued, "And, yeah, she called me every name in the book, and then some. But she did it on paper. She put it in a safe place, in her journal. Which as you know, is confidential and very private. She only shares certain things with me." 

He thought for a moment and then added. "You know, Jane learned to own her own feelings using this method, instead of making me responsible for everything she felt. You know, as if her feelings were my fault."

Jack gave me a big grin. "So, do you see, Lucia? I have you to thank for saving my marriage. What a relief to walk into the house and know that I’m not going to get yelled at or dumped on." 

That was when I realized how powerful the non-dominant hand was for expressing explosive feelings. It not only relieved stress for the person who had the feelings, it calmed the waters. It let off steam in a safe place. This is important in relationships where strong emotions can do damage by being dumped out impulsively in words of blame and recrimination. 

Contrary to the old saying about "words can never hurt me," words can and DO hurt. They can leave lasting emotional scars and wounds that damage or destroy relationships. We know this from the phenomenon of bullying, which has become an epidemic in our society and in our schools. 

So next time you want to yell at someone, indulge in name-calling or blaming, try scribbling it out on paper. Use your non-dominant hand and a crayon. The bigger the crayon the better. Or use a big fat marker. Let the paper have it. Do your name-calling and blaming in writing. The words may be barely legible, but that’s okay. Think of it as graffiti. You’ll feel better. You’ll own your own feelings without using someone else "for target practice," as Jack put it so perfectly.

With relationship issues it is also important to draw images of the dynamic within oneself. Especially the interaction of the male and female within. Jane did just that in her journal, drawing various images of how the masculine and feminine aspects of herself were relating to each other. In one drawing a "pot" emerged, with two faces pointed in opposite directions. 

She also created a classic yin yang symbol, the traditional Chinese image for balance of the masculine and feminine energies.

Artwork by Jane Murphy shown here appears in the new color edition of The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself, 35th Anniversary Edition, Ohio University/Swallow Press 2015.

Lucia

Let us know what you think of this post in the comments below. Follow us and be updated by email when new blog posts are published.
 
www.luciac.com
www.visioningcoach.org
Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com