Healing Collage: Two-Handed Dialogues with Images for Healing

Our guest blogger, Kathy Lee Bryant, was a Minister when she trained as a practitioner in my Creative Journal Expressive Arts Method. She was later certified as a Visioning® coach, teaching my Whole-Brain, Two-Handed dialogue Method of creating a collage and interviewing the images. I resonated deeply with Kathy’s journey through knee surgery, because I used these techniques while going through two hip replacements seven years apart. Written conversations with bones, athletic bodies and dancers moving freely helped me to a new reality in my 70s: a state of pain-free, flexible movement I hadn’t enjoyed for a several years. Here is Kathy Lee’s tale of healing.

Healing Collage: Two-Handed Dialogues with Images for Healing 

I created this collage as a journal entry prior to total knee replacement. The desired outcome for the collage was successful surgery and physical therapy. I first interviewed the seven images seeking information and wisdom for the healing needed for this surgery. I am now three weeks out of surgery which went very well and am progressing well in physical therapy.

Interview with the Collage Images

Using the non-dominant hand to answer the dominant hand’s questions.


Strange Face on upper left of collage.

Who or what are you? Do you have a name?

I am Discombobbled.

What are you feeling, Discombobbled?

Frustration and fear. Nothing seems to work out lately-the eyes, the chair, mattress, computer-some costly mistakes and frustration. How am I feeling about the knee? Fear about the knee? Will it work? Will I get an infection, will I be able to move freely and well, will be able to move freely enough to find new adventures with friends.? These fears are welling up and it is not helpful.

What wisdom do you have for me?

Trust that below that fear and frustration is a calm wisdom that will make things happen. Trust your Doc, he is good-one of the best. Trust the therapists, they will get you there. You won’t be in this state forever.

What do you need from me?

Breathe, stand firm. Believe all will be well. Scribble, scream, sing- let it go but not with Don—then breathe in - stop worrying - fret not, I am with you.


Woman in center holding the younger inner child

Who are you?

I am woman - the one who creates. See in my hands I hold a new you—what you are going to become.

How do you feel?

Powerful - the creator. I am the inner wisdom and peace you are hoping to be—all is well when you tap into my inner creative power.

What wisdom do you have for me?

Breathe deeply until you tap into this power that heals, brings peace and confidence. The healing is most important.

What do you need from me?

Seek your greater power - divine healing of body and soul. Sing tomorrow knowing that the Holy One, is within. As you allow this Holy One in healing creative power through you and out of you.


Little Girl with balloon - lower left

Who are you little girl? What is your name?

I am sweetheart—your inner child. I am trying to get you to let me soar – like the balloon – releasing the heart to soar.

Feelings, my sweetheart?

I am happy, light hearted - get in touch with me! Lighten up. Play, laugh, enjoy. Let go.

Your wisdom?

I just gave it - get in touch with me.

What do you need from me?

Let go, trust what brings joy. Lighten up, you will heal.


Flying Person with glasses mask

Who are you?

I am soaring. I am the future you. Moving freely –something you long for.

What are you feeling?

Light, agile, able to go wherever you want.

Do you have any wisdom for me?

Let the little child lead you. Don’t look at what is disaster but remember the work you do will make you a new person-able to go and do.

What do you need from me?

Trust that through the dark will come light. Limp to leap, hopelessness to joy, fogginess to clarity.


Two Skeletons

Who are the both of you?

Left - I am the crocked achy bones.
Right - I am the smooth operator.

How do you feel?

Left—stiff, stuck, creaking, tired
Right—Smooth, straight, leveled -energized

What wisdom do you have?

To move from feeling like the left skeleton to moving like the right bones, it takes time and work to get there. Do your part, Doc will do his.

Is there anything else you need from me?

Think positive, envision new energy and functional movement even through the pain. You will get results. Pay attention when you need different therapies.


Oh, The Places We Will Go book cover top

What are you?

A top made from Dr. Seuss book - Oh, the Places we will go.

How do you feel?

Wee! Moving freely across the floor, joyful, excited.

What wisdom do you have for me?

The top spins by pushing the handle up and down and letting it go, spinning in freedom. Where it goes depends on how you push down the handle. Think about how the handle needs to be pushed down to bring about the movement you desire.

What do you need from me?

Do your pushing. What are the questions you need answered in order for the handle to be pushed down so that the freedom you desire will come true. What info do you need to make good decisions from the docs, the nurses and the physical therapists. Keep pushing and then let go.  


Dancing Lady

Who are you?

I am a floating flexible woman.

How do you feel?

Amazingly free.

Do you have any wisdom for me?

You will be able to move again in a way that looks effortless but there is so much work behind the scenes to make it happen. Do the work and you will get to a place you want to be. Remember it is through the pain of the therapy that got you there.

Anything else you need from me?

Be persistent –you will need it in order to get through the work that is needed. You will move with grace, dancing with joy.  


Image Writing

I made a list of the images and the words used on the collage and put the collage in front of me. The following writing emerged describing the meaning of this collage.

Oh the places we will go, when envisioning a better tomorrow. 
Trusting those with skills, giving allegiance to the tasks ahead- 
Gives way to moving like a little child who follows the wonder and awe of a heart released, 
Moving freely through life--soaring to new heights. 
Like a woman holding the image of a child ready to embrace a new world, 
You are no longer discombobbled by the problems that weigh you down. 
Lighten up, let go, release the tensions and fears--healing emerges. 
No longer a skeleton with creaky joints, but bones connected moving freely, dancing through life.

Seeing clearly with eyes wide open, no longer vailed or masked— 
A winner emerges in hope, birthed from new life envisioned. 
Oh the places we will go.

Kathy Bryant
email pastorklb@gmail.com
phone/text 620-352-0073
Consulting, Visioning Coaching for groups, non-profits, churches and individuals

-----

Lucia

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The Path of the Firefly

Tatiana Naranjo, our guest blogger, is a candidate for certification in Creative Journal Expressive Arts. In keeping with our motto, "You can't take anyone where you have not been yourself," Tatiana keeps a Creative Journal. In her journal pages she works thorough day-to-day problems by drawing and writing using both hands. Here is her contribution to our blog.

The Path of the Firefly 

We are like the fireflies; our true beauty is our inner light. Fireflies in the fields resemble the stars in the sky. 

I have always been fascinated with these beings which seem so insignificant and unattractive in daylight. Only in the deepest, darkest of the night do they reveal their magic. As a child I enjoyed chasing fireflies. I was very inquisitive about these beings which were able to light up without being connected to an artificial source. Their hesitant flight attracted me, and I wanted to grab millions of them to light up my room.

Time passed and with it came many trips, learnings, new experiences, projects, and life landed me in the city. Shortly before graduating as a psychologist, I went to the Amazon. That trip brought one of the most memorable experiences I have had. It was a warm, dark night enveloped by a particularly clear sky in the Amacayacu National Park[1]. Suddenly, a cloud of fireflies resembled the star-populated sky. I had the feeling of floating in the middle of the galaxy. I saw nothing but the fireflies and the stars flickering around me in the heavenly vault.

In my own spiritual quest, the flashback of that magical night often replays. At times I try to give it an explanation, but it is a fleeting memory like the light of the firefly. When I was in times of trouble, when I asked God, the Universe, the Holy Spirit, or my spiritual guide, to give me a light, I then remember these little luminescent beings.

The path to reach this point has been long and productive. I arrived at the creative journals through a process of research, trial, and error. The first time I experienced the healing and therapeutic use of a journal was due to a chronic pain that I had for more than 7 years in my right foot. I refused to take anti-inflammatory painkillers, but every night my last steps were a torture that forced me to give up in tears.

After trying many therapies, exercises, shoe changes and various things, I had a consultation with an orthopedist who offered me two alternatives. The first was to do an Orthodox treatment with medicines or an alternative approach. I chose the second option. According to her calculations with my date of birth, she made a diagram of my body, in which she located each of the Mayan symbols, and told me the significance they had for me. She pointed out emotional difficulties that were related to the symbol. It corresponded with my right foot and its correlation with other points in my body that had also been affected. At the end of the consultation, her prescription was to buy a notebook and keep a diary. She gave me a few guidelines, suggesting that I go to the point in my life where the pain had commenced.

I did my assignment, bought a notebook, started my diary, and after a month, the pain that tormented me so much faded and never came back. I did not contact her again, but my interest in the journaling’s healing effect became an obsession. I read as many books I could find about artistic diaries and journaling; I enrolled in online courses and researched blogs. But I could not find a method, a guide or more information that would enable me to understand how journaling could be a healing element.

"When the student is ready, the teacher appears." 
Zen Proverb

“Every casual encounter is an engagement made beforehand.” 
Jorge Luis Borges

After many years and many readings, one day a book came into my hands. The book was "The Creative Journal" by Lucia Capacchione PhD, ATR, REAT[2], which I devoured in one sitting. To each paragraph, I said to myself, “This is what I was looking for!” By coincidence, I read this book on a flight to Santa Fe, NM. I was going to a conference called “The Gathering of the Creatives.” When I arrived and registered at the conference, I received the program. To my surprise, I found out that Dr. Capacchione was scheduled to give one of the lectures! I felt this urge to attend her lecture, as if it were calling me.

That is how I met Lucia Capacchione and learned about her method. I was astonished that in her books and in her lectures, I found the answers I had long sought for. And so, I enrolled, without even questioning it, in the CJEA[3] training course.

Following the instructions of some of the Creative Journaling exercises and writing with my non-dominant hand, I did the following entries of my journal, in which I found the meaning of the firefly:

We all have the light inside 
and when we shine from within, 
we not only show our beauty, 
but we are also beacons for others 
who in the midst of darkness, 
also seek for a light. 

I have spent many days mulling over this proposal, and it was thanks to my Inner Guide that I identified my purpose. My desire is to bring sparks that will help to ignite the interior light of many more people.

The following are examples of my journaling process that show part of my dialog with my Inner Guide.

 

Hi I'm your Creative Self who lives within you and I come out all the time in life to help you see life and its circumstances in color.

I help you find solutions in all the difficulties in your life.

I help you with a high level of imagination and you can see what you hear and read.

I am the voice that speaks to you when you write, when you paint I am always awake and attentive for you.

My Creative Self is like a seed of light that comes out of my interior and transforms into colors that show the beauty of life and my interior. My Creative Self manifests in everything I do and in the solutions I find in life's challenges.

In the center of my being (my trunk) creativity is the white light that forms my core and is dispersed in different facets of my life, filling all of my being and my world with color and energy.

Tatiana Naranjo
Candidate for Creative Journal Expressive Arts Certification
Tatiana@germovi.com

[1] A national park located along the Amazon River in the Amazonas Department in southern Colombia. 

[2] Lucia Capacchione PhD, ATR, REAT. Best-selling author of 23 books, including: Recovery of Your Inner Child, The Creative Journal and The Power of Your Other Hand. A Registered Art Therapist and pioneer in Expressive Arts Therapies, she conducts workshops and professional certification training in her innovative methods.

[3] A program for certification to teach and coach others using Dr. Capacchione's Creative Journal Expressive Arts Method.

-----

Lucia

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Hold the Moments: a book is born with help from the non-dominant hand

This post was contributed by Lisa Brown, M.A., CJEA Instructor & Visioning® Coach. Lisa is also an artist and published author.

Hold the Moments: a book is born with help from the non-dominant hand

Lisa teaching a workshop

I am an art teacher working with all ages. I have been teaching children for over 35 years. Most of my students come after school during the school year and start studying with me at age 9. They often continue until high school. Because they return each year, I have gathered ideas for hundreds of art projects for working with children and youth and have constantly dreamed up new ones. Once in a while I discovered something that turned out to be spectacular, not for me but for what the children produced from their imagination.

I had taken pictures of student work along the way and, as I entered the Creative Journal Expressive Arts certification training, I realized one of my dreams was to create a book of the projects I had created. I began to see that parents and grandparents didn’t quite know how to entertain children without the use of a screen machine. I wanted to help them with easy to do, fun projects that would bring joy to grandparents, parents, and children.

Around the same time, one of my son’s friends came by and said she loved a book she had as a child in which she kept the names of her friends, of places she liked to go, etc. I then realized that this concept could be added to my art project ideas as a way to save those experiences that adults shared with their children and grandchildren. I was also thinking about those relatives who live far away and therefore don’t have many opportunities to be with children in their families. If they kept a journal, took pictures, or wrote in the journal about the experiences they did have together and with whom, they would have those memories forever. (I have to say the thought of keeping a journal certainly coincided with my CJEA training where we were trained in the practice of Creative Journaling.)

I was getting this all together when my life got rocked up-side-down due to my young son succumbing to drug addiction. This put the book project on hold and it was years of struggling for the whole family. We all struggled with his addiction and in the end, my son overdosed. After some time and deep grieving, I began to put the final draft together.

Each time I got stuck, the way I unblocked was to dialogue with both hands to find my answers. I never would have finished the book without Lucia’s methods for opening up creativity and her techniques for breaking through creative blocks. It was finally happening. Now, I just had to find a title. Once again, I looked inward to find the wisdom of my other hand and what do you know, here’s what she said. “Hold the Moments: Creative Experiences in Parenting.”

And that was perfect! Thank you Lucia!

Finally, my dream came true and I published the book.

Lisa Brown
Regional Coordinator for CJEA
art-as-therapy.com
gardens-of-hope.net
lisa@art-as-therapy.com
Hold the Moments: Creative Experiences in Parenting
Book information appears on the front page of art-as-therapy.com.

-----

Lucia

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Cancer, Faith, and Kindergarten Art: Pat Clark’s Journey Through Cancer

In August of 2015, my dear friend and colleague in our Creative Journal Expressive Arts community, was diagnosed with stage four cancer (lymphoma). When I heard the news I was in shock. I’d lost a friend to lymphoma years before and knew her condition was considered incurable. But Pat is a warrior woman and she took cancer on with all the tools she had: her faith in God, her two-handed journal techniques from CJEA training, a pile of old faded construction paper, scissors and glue. She also had a wonderful support system in family and friends and treatment at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas, where she lives.

After a career in broadcast journalism, raising a family, and serving as a Presbyterian minister for over two decades, Pat entered a new chapter in her life. She embarked on a journey through cancer leading to her book, Feeling the Shift: Cancer, Faith, and Kindergarten Art.

Her deeply moving story of a courageous, creative and faith-filled approach to this dreaded disease started in her own journal and expanded as entries in an online support community for people dealing with cancer. I was honored to be part of her support team at Caring Bridge, and was moved by each posting, which included writings and drawings done with her non-dominant hand and bold, child-like collages expressing her feelings and challenges with cancer and chemotherapy. We were allowed to witness what it’s like to live with cancer, from the inside out.

Like most people, Pat felt she was no artist. As she says in her book, “My artistic skills stopped developing after I marched out of preschool at 4 years of age because a teacher criticized my choice of colors for an art project.” It’s a too-familiar story of how we get cheated out of our natural birthright as inherently expressive, creative beings. While still working as a minister Pat had done expressive arts training with me, which she admits changed her life. She knew the power of “getting it all out on paper” and showed others how to do that. It became another form of her ministry. She helped others give themselves permission to express their innermost feelings and wishes. Yet Pat still had an Art Critic living in her own head. As she says in her book, “The work is crude, but gentle, and if I can silence the powerful inner critic that lives within me, it becomes valuable and healing.”

Drawing of body with cancer

She had taken classes with Lisa Brown, an accomplished collage artist, art teacher and instructor of Creative Journal Expressive Arts methods. Pat couldn’t go out to buy art materials due to her immune system being severely compromised, so she made do with old faded construction paper lying around the house, left overs from her days of raising young children.

About her Tree of Life collage, Pat wrote that she was “surrounded by love on all sides, held securely and protected where the loving God alone is enough, my source and my strength.” She later described this collage to me as a form of prayer. Her faith and her art were coming together. She knew then that God was at work in her behalf and the energy had shifted within her body. God worked through her friends as well. Art paper started appearing at her door and in her mail box. She began receiving the supplies she needed to continue her journaling and "kindergarten art."

Tree of Life collage

Pat underwent chemotherapy at MD Anderson in Houston, where she lives, enduring all the challenges, physical pain, and emotions that such an ordeal brings with it. On the Caring Bridge posts (and later in her book), she gave us an inside glimpse of what it’s like to be diagnosed and treated for a condition that is considered terminal. In facing death, Pat’s two-handed journaling, her “kindergarten art” and her connection with God all combined to teach her a lesson about life: How to live in the eye of the hurricane and not be swept away by it. How to not be a victim, but to find serenity and inner peace in the midst of chaos.

Eye of the Hurricane

I personally felt the shift when Pat shared on Caring Bridge a written dialogue with her Inner Critic. As I read her non-dominant hand confrontation with the voice of self-put downs, I literally felt a shift in my gut. It was physical, tangible. The words came to me: There it is. Pat just beat cancer. She stood up to the critic. She’s not taking this lying down. I was so sure of it that I wrote to Pat and shared my reaction to her post. She later told me she was really shaken after doing that dialogue.

She did, indeed, beat cancer. However, it came back a couple of years later. This time cancer had a lesson to teach her about boundaries, saying Yes to herself and No to others. She entered chemotherapy again and resumed her journal work. Her journaling revealed that she had gone back to life as usual after the first round of treatment, and had abandoned her creative expression. She had to learn to say No to things that interfered with her inner life, creative self and inner knowing. The message was that she could not live without creative expression. Pat got the message.

She asserted herself with doctors, following her gut and body wisdom, and discontinued the second round of treatment. In the face of everyone else’s opinions, professionals and family alike, she persisted in listening to her inner guidance. Her first oncologist had himself died of cancer. The second oncologist informed her that there was no research showing what would happen if a second round of chemo was discontinued. She stood strong. “Then I’ll be the first case study,” she told him. That was two years ago and Pat is cancer-free. She continues her inner work through journaling, prayer and self-care. And she has a new ministry: a truly precious guide to cancer from the inside out in the form of her book.

For those of us who have lost a loved one to cancer or any terminal illness, or anyone diagnosed with one, this book is a treasure. Pat succeeded in what she set out to do. She shows us how to find peace and serenity in the eye of the hurricane. And, hey, come to think of it. You don’t have to have cancer to need this book. We all face hurricanes of confusion, doubt, chaos in daily life. Thank you, Pat, for this powerful road map.

Lucia

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Everything Can Be Fixed

The following post was contributed by Lay Peng Tan who is currently in training to become a Certified Creative Journal Expressive Arts instructor and coach. In the process of working with my methods she discovered an Inner Artist who had been buried for some years. Here is a story about her most recent adventures in allowing her artist self to emerge and express fully.

Everything Can Be Fixed

“There is no need to cry, everything can be fixed!” There was this little boy perched on the stool staring at me as I took my place next to his, in front of my canvas at the local Muse Paintbar.

Since completing the Recovery of Your Inner Child series by Lucia Capacchione, I have rediscovered my inner artist. By now, I am a regular at the Paintbar. For someone who had hidden paintbrushes more than thirty years ago, to become an ‘undercover artist’, I consider myself doing quite well if I look at my collection accumulated in less than a year and the progress I have made.

Indeed, there is no need to cry. After learning the Creative Journaling techniques in Lucia’s books, life did become more manageable. There was a time when I thought being able to cry was a luxury: after I lost my dad, was assaulted, lost my opportunity to go to medical school all in a few months, I remembered walking around like there is ‘nobody inside.’ That went on for many years. New age techniques e.g. crystal, shamanic and equestrian therapies enabled me to cope at work and get back to normal life. Deep down, I had a longing to be like ‘normal’ people. I was unable to tap into my feelings or distant memories. I had become a version of the Grinch, who has a heart “two sizes too small.”

Whether my heart was held prisoner, buried or stolen, I had no idea. All I knew was: joy has also fled from my life. I had thought that being ‘emotional’ was the ill. It was when I learnt Lucia’s techniques that I fully appreciated the notion that it is not about hoping for no rain, but to be able to continue and take joy walking in the heavy downpours of life.

Who does not want the life skills?

I had thought that after all those lost years, art and I are not fated to be together. I was pleasantly surprised that far from having the critic voices in most art classes I attended as a child, in Lucia’s sessions and books, there are techniques to deal with these critics dressed up as well-meaning individuals, including myself.

I also really enjoy putting my feelings down on paper. And guess what? I even found my heart in one of the exercises in her book, The Well-Being Journal, page 37, "The Body Parts Speak."

By using my non-dominant hand to dialog with my dominant hand, I was amazed at what I got to uncover within. This helped me make necessary changes:

Dominant Hand: You seem to be very unhappy?

Non-Dominant Hand to represent the Heart: You bet I am. Yes, I am sad and pissed off at the same time. I am sadness. You always let anger steal the show and that makes me upset.

Dominant Hand: What are you sad about?

Non-Dominant Hand: I am sad because you do not always do the things you said you want to do.

Dominant Hand: Like what?

Non-Dominant Hand: Like writing down the proposal for staff training. Like making time to draw. Like taking me out to play more. Like eating healthier. Like drinking more water. Like stop doing so many unimportant things.

The Grinch’s happy ending and parting words, “To kindness and love, the things we need most," sure resonate with me. Having rediscovered my inner artist, “There is no need to cry, everything can be fixed!” has become a favorite affirmation of mine.

Being in the CJEA (Creative Journal Expressive Arts) community amidst many artists, I found my own heart was not much different from theirs: I learned to see the beauty in everything around us, the good, the bad, and with the knowing that spilling paint is just an opportunity to allow another form to emerge from the canvas. Most of all, I like putting my feelings on paper so they haunt me no more.

Lay Peng Tan

-----

Lucia

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Inner Healing: Jill's Story

A student of mine who started a deep inner healing process through dialogues with a physical discomfort is Jill. As a child, Jill wanted to become an actress when she grew up. But emotionally she wasn't able to follow through with her childhood dream and take it into adulthood. Instead she did what was expected of her: got married and had children. As she puts it, she became "Mrs. Somebody" and "Somebody's Mother."

After years of taking care of everyone else while ignoring her dream, Jill took a stand. She started seeing a therapist and also took one of my weekend journal workshops, where she discovered the healing power of her Inner Child through a right/left-hand dialogue. "It was a major breakthrough in my life," she recounts. Her first dialogue was a conversation with her headache. As she wrote, she soon contacted the Little Girl within who had been silenced for so many years.

HEADACHE DIALOGUE
(italics: non-dominant hand)

Who are you?

Your head.

How do you feel?

I feel pressure.

Why do you feel this—Are you saying pressure or pleasure?

Pleasure creates pressure.

Do you feel guilty when you are too happy?

I feel scared that something will happen so if I hurt it can't happen.

You hurt a little now. Would you like to tell me why?

Brain feels nice feeling nice is bad.

No, it is not nice to feel bad. It is not bad to feel nice. Who told you that?

Mommy said don't like your body it is naughty to love yourself.

Mommy was wrong about that. Anyhow she is not around anymore.

Yes she is in me I am her in your head.

Can I do something to help you so you won't hurt?

Yes you can tell me not to be afraid.

There is nothing to be afraid of. I will help you. I will take care of you. But I get angry sometimes.

If you are angry Mommy won't like you.

If Mommy doesn't like me because I get angry, then she doesn't understand. We can't control someone who doesn't understand.

It is OK to be angry but we need to find a way to express is that doesn't hurt you.

I am afraid.

What are you afraid of? Can I help you?

I want to be free.

What would you do if you were free?

I would hit and bite and scream.

Maybe we can go into a room by ourselves and do this. Would you like that?

Yes.

Are there other ways you can express yourself without really hurting anyone else?

I want to dance.

Years ago we used to play music and dance when we were alone—would you like that?

Yes I don't care how I look. You care how I look. You make trouble for me. You tell me I am clumsy. I want to be graceful but I am scared and scarred.

You have scars from the freeway accident. Is that why? Does all this go that far back?

Everybody always said use your head. I scarred myself to get attention because I am special and I wanted you to know me.

Were the migraine headaches a way of getting attention, then, too?

You wouldn't use me so I had to remind you. I want to think and feel together. You are Libra the balance. I am unbalanced you have to balance me.

How can I do that?

You must love me and respect me. I feel and think too, not just thinking.

Are you saying that I didn't consider your feelings enough?

You want to be a thinking head only feel somewhere else. Not right. Head does think and feel both. You say feel is bad so I feel bad.

If you believe feeling is good, would you feel good?

That is not exactly right.

What would make you feel good? I notice you hurt now.

That's right I hurt. Let me cry. Daddy never let me cry. I know Daddy isn't here any more but you sometimes carry him around. I want to cry when I'm sad.

I will let you cry when you're sad. I will try not to worry what people think or say. I will love you even if you hurt.

That's right. I only hurt to get your attention. I love you and want to work for you but you need to listen to what I'm feeling. I will give you warning signs. Tune in. Listen.

I feel more relaxed now. I will try to work with you.

Don't try. We already have too much trying. Just be you and I'll be me and now what someone else wants. Just let me flow in to the stream that is the bloodstream and I will be in natural rhythm if you don't disturb it. You pick on me too much. Leave me be and let me flow the way I am supposed to. Goodbye.

In this dialogue, Jill (the adult) became a Wise Counselor and Nurturing Parent to her own Inner Child, who was "trapped" in her headache. She discovered that she had played victim all her life. Actually, her Inner Child was the victim and by repressing its existence she had unwittingly perpetuated her own limitations. She decided to stop being a victim, started paying attention to her own goals and following through with them. Jill studied acting, became a professional, and has appeared on television. It all started with a headache, but it led to making her dreams come true.

(Chapter 6, The Power of Your Other Hand)

Lucia

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A Life Changing Experience: Brad's Story

Since I began teaching and lecturing on the subject of writing with the other hand, ... I have met some individuals who were forced by circumstances to write with their non-dominant hand. A broken arm or wrist, a stroke, or some other sudden injury or illness led to a temporary or permanent switch to the other hand. Many of these individuals experienced deep inner changes, opened undeveloped dimensions of their personalities, and uncovered buried talents. Brad is a case in point. An attractive and energetic young man, Brad was in his early 20s when I interviewed him. He discovered a whole new world because of an accident, forcing him to write with his other hand. Here is Brad's story:

As a young child I wrote stories and had a large imaginary world to play in. My neighborhood appeared to be a boundless garden of adventure, mystery, danger, and fun . . . . .
 
I had an obsession for games and a terrible fear of losing or being rejected. As a young boy I ran away from my first baseball game crying because I had run the wrong direction around the bases. At an early age I was made to realize that if I wanted to play men's games I had to learn the rules and pay attention to detail. I saw that a man's world is very critical. Judgments are made with large consideration to the end goal, and the means are carefully restricted to the straightest line toward the goal.
 
So I set out to learn the rules, and I learned them better than anyone else, to the point of being able to tell my coaches when they had made mistakes before they recognized them. I learned to direct all my anger and desires toward the goal: winning.
 
I lost sight of my fluid, youthful world as I grew up and became more and more rigid in body and spirit. I tried to take on the outer appearances and inflexible standard of a winner. I was quarterback and team captain at school, a leader on the field, a sacrificer of my body. I could throw a football 75 yards at age 15. I pitched on the baseball team and developed a keen jump shot and hook in basketball. My right arm spent long days reaching, throwing, and extending. I did little reading but did well in school, especially in math and sciences. My language skills were poor. I always worked hardest in this area and received my worst grades in English and foreign languages. At 15 I had many male friends in high school and almost no female friends. In those days I preferred a good dirt-ball game to a date.
 
It is still very vivid in my memory, the day I fell to the floor on the basketball court of my high school with a pain so strong in my right shoulder and arm that somehow I knew instantly my dreams were shattered. I knew I would never play professional football as I so fervently desired. In fact, later I found out that I would never be able to throw any kind of ball again.
 
A week later I sat at my final examination in English with a dislocated right arm. I was very angry because the teacher was forcing me to write my essay with my left hand. My right arm was tightly bound to my body and totally immobile. I had been confident I would get off without writing any essay that day, which would have been fine with me. Soon I found out that if I didn't write one I could fail the class. I spent almost three hours completely absorbed in my new and arduous task. I found myself using all the pent-up anger and frustration as fuel to write a very long, barely legible and somewhat sarcastic essay. By the time I turned my paper in I had forgotten how enraged I had been or that so much time had passed. Taking charge of my emotions had required great effort.
 
Afterwards I felt vulnerable, exhausted, and close to tears. Yet I wouldn't dare let these feelings out. I couldn't ride my bike so I walked home three miles. My shoes came untied many times but I got great satisfaction out of tying them with my left hand. At home I became completely fanatical about keeping my life's routines as normal as possible with the use of only my left arm. I cooked, wrote papers, made telephone calls, drove a car, and performed personal hygiene with my left hand. Every little detail became intensified, important, difficult, and exciting. Everything in my life became a challenge which was solely designed to teach me a lesson: that I could do something which I had thought I couldn't do. This in turn gave me new self-confidence and opened a previously unknown world to me.
 
I received a "C" grade on my English essay. I hadn't given enough, the teacher seemed to be saying, but that essay was the beginning of a major transformation in my life. I couldn't use my right arm for six weeks, and just after getting the cast off I injured it again. During this time I became totally focused on reading and writing. The more I read the more my child-like curiosity surfaced. My visual imagination overflowed in long and insightful reports, essays and poetry. My grades in English went from "C" to "A."
 
As my inner life expanded, so did my friends and surroundings. During the recuperation I was separated from my jock friends who, it turned out, were not very good friends after all. So I had to create new friendships, most of them with women. I found I could talk to them more easily about my new feelings. And I fell in love for the first time.
 
Along with these changes, I also wanted to move out of the city. I really felt the need to get in touch with the natural rhythms and patterns of life, with my body and spirit. So I went to live in the woods until I entered college to study another physical discipline: dance.
 
Brad opened up to his own creativity and entered the arts world when he turned a catastrophe into a golden opportunity. He went on to become a performing dancer and instructor of Contact Improvisation, a new movement form. His unique style combines fluidity and strength: power that expresses a balance he has attained between the active and receptive aspects of his personality. Brad attributes the beginning of this major life change to the day he dislocated his arm and was forced to use his other hand.
 
Words have continued to be an important outlet for Brad, who later studied acting. As he told me: "When I started focusing on acting, I found myself writing in mirror images with my left hand. It was spontaneous and completely unexpected. I feel it has stretched my awareness in exciting ways."
 
(excerpted from Chapter 4, The Power of Your Other Hand)

Lucia

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Pre-order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com