The Power of the Other Hand in the Face of Injury

Our guest blogger is Beth Batinnelli, who is currently training in Creative Journal Expressive Arts. She has a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University. Her areas of professional interest Include Health Psychology, Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Neurodiversity. As a psychologist in corrections she saw thousands of inmates with ADHD and that experience led her to understand many different aspects of the ADHD brain. She founded THE ADHD Project - an educational program designed to teach inmates about the brain behind the behavior that led to incarceration.

Here is Beth's post:

The Power of the Other Hand in the Face of Injury

Currently I am expanding my curriculum to introduce Creative Journal Expressive Arts methods to the population with which I work. I am very excited to be a 2020 CJEA Candidate for Certification!

My formal relationship with Creative Journal Expressive Arts began in October 2019, when I traveled to California for the first week long intensive training on my journey to certification.

I was immediately fascinated with The Power of the non-dominant hand. The efficacy and efficiency of the techniques are amazing.

Using the Creative Journal prompts, I found myself understanding my mother in a different way than I had before - that her criticism of me was fueled by her own inner critic. Looking at my sketch, I felt content. Peaceful.

I see me as both baby and mother to both baby and mother.

It is fun to see what other parts of me have shown up in my journal.

 
This self portrait above shows the scar on the right side of my scalp. Prior to CJEA and using non-dominant hand techniques to access my creativity, I had brain surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. The tumor was embedded in the bone behind my right eye. The sketch includes words. ‘Express’ presses on the back of my right eye.

After attending CJEA Instructor Lisa Brown’s weekend workshop in early December, and celebrating my 65th birthday, it was time to prepare for the holidays.

It was a cold Tuesday night. Freezing actually. As I parked the car in the Home Goods parking lot, I remember the thermometer on my dash read 32 degrees. Brrr!

I walked across the lot and as I stepped up onto the sidewalk I slipped and fell on both hands and knees. Oh! It hurt! I felt like I was five years old!

Part of me was upset that my injury would interfere with my training to become a CJEA facilitator and another part of me (probably the clinical psychologist) wondered if I was unconsciously trying to sabotage my progress.

I just decided to ask my non-dominant hand what it wanted to say about the fact that it is injured.

The tone with which my hand answered seemed very impatient, as if it was waiting our whole life to be heard.

"Give me a break, Beth!...even though you have a lifetime of emotions to access, it isn’t as if you haven’t done any work on yourself before this. I am glad you finally found me, but don’t put me on a pedestal.

There is no reason for you to be stopped by this injury. As a matter of fact, take this as an opportunity to focus on a different aspect of your work with CJEA.

Concentrate on getting the work out there.

The power of your non-dominant hand comes from within you.”

It was as if my non-dominant hand had a voice of its own.

My non-dominant hand basically told me to just “Get a Grip.” So I did!

I enjoy my non-dominant hand! My new friend is Powerful and Colorful.

This last colorful image was actually the same photo of my non-dominant hand; I made the edits on my phone and actually used both hands to apply filters and to Pixelate. I have to wear the cast for a couple of more weeks.

Beth Lanes Battinelli, PhD
theadhdproject.com

-----

Lucia

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Spiritual Guidance through the Right Brain

Although most of my inner guidance comes through my non-dominant hand drawing and writing, I have found that this practice has made it possible for spiritual wisdom to come through my dominant hand as well. This usually happens spontaneously and it expresses through poetry and art. Both of these forms of expression rely heavily on right brain functions, so it makes sense. There’s no question in my mind that the right side of the brain has the advantage when it comes to finding inner wisdom and spiritual guidance. I’ve explained in other posts and in most of my books how the hand that didn’t learn to write is free to access the right side of the brain. I’ve also written about how developing access to the right brain through the non-dominant hand enables the dominant hand to tap into deep wells of inner wisdom, spiritual awareness and creativity.

After having drawn and written with my non-dominant hand for quite some time, one day I was drawing with my dominant hand in my journal. Without intending to, I drew a design that resembled a top view of the human brain. The connection between the two hemispheres was a continuous pair of figure eight loops with a sunburst at the center point.

Drawing and poem from The Creative Journal: The Art of Finding Yourself (Ohio University/Swallow Press, 2015

Then suddenly a poem poured out spontaneously. It felt like automatic writing, with no conscious intent or editing. The poem was written with my dominant (right) hand, but the words flowed with the same ease and simplicity typical of my left handwriting. This is the poem that that appeared on the page as if from nowhere:

Hold me, echoes the whisper from within
Hold me near you
Hold me close to your heart
as the apple of your eye

Through the distant chambers of time
our hearts beat
as the wings of doves
brush against the skies of eternity

We were never parted
for we are one through infinite
space and time

You have embraced me in shadow
unbeknownst to my daytime self,
always present behind me, above me, beneath

You are the ground of my existence
forever with and within me.

Here is how I described the experience in the last chapter of The Power of Your Other Hand.

Sublime peace filled me as I completed the last line. I heard the “whisper from within” coming from my Inner Self. I acknowledged a divine power within and felt its presence. It was still “embracing me in shadow,” yet I could say, “Yes, I know you are there.” I remembered the film about Jung, the images of his inner guide, Philemon. Now I understood what Jung must have felt when he first contacted his inner wisdom voice in the form of that white-haired sage. Although I didn’t see a form, I certainly felt its presence.

Later, I also came to understand how essential it is to develop a personal relationship with the divine Inner Self. I encounter many people seeking “quick fixes” from intermediaries channeling information from disembodied spirits. For me, the only message worth channeling is the truth of the Inner Self, the God that Dwells Within. To channel messages from disembodied entities with doubtful credential seems like the little leagues compared to the pure gold of the Inner Self.

The Power of Your Other Hand: Unlock creativity and inner wisdom through the right side of your Brain (Conari Press, 2019)

I still write my Inner Wisdom or Spiritual Guidance dialogues with both hands, asking questions with my dominant hand and receiving answers through my non-dominant hand. However, sometimes a poem will come through my dominant hand. It is usually spontaneous and unplanned, like the one above. Whichever hand writes it, I simply allow the poem to express Inner Guidance in any way it likes.

Sometimes I ask for guidance about specific issues in my life. A good example is the process of completing the writing of The Power of Your Other Hand. When I got to the last chapter, I asked my Inner Self to tell me what to say. Naturally, I turned to my other hand. Here is what it said. They are the last words in the book.

Just say that the deepest
well of inner knowing
and of peace is within
everyone. It can be
reached in stillness,
in quite, and in
solitude.
I am here in everyone
and everything and
the glory of being
human is that you
can know and
experience at-one-ment with
Me. For we are one.
When you are afraid,
lost, doubting – be
still, go inside and
find your True Self.
I will be there – where
I’ve always been –
waiting for you to
recognize the truth
of who you really
are.
I will speak through
everything that is so
human in you – your
feelings, your wishes,
your body, your
relationships.

(Dominant hand) How do I know I’m not just making you up out of my imagination? How do I know that you really exist?

You will know. If you
don’t recognize me at
first, eventually you
will. Sometimes when
you have lost your
way and are far away
from your true self,
you may doubt that I
exist. That is when you
have forgotten who you
really are. But if you
will speak with me,
as you are now, I will
respond. Later on
when you read our
conversation, you will
recognize my realness.
You will see
your own doubting
mind, and you will
feel my essence
and know it to be
yours. You will see
the difference between
your small, fearful,
anxious self and your
true, beautiful and
peaceful Self. And
since you have
written both voices,
you’ll realize
that they both came
from you. Then you
will see that the
Highest Truth and
Wisdom resides
within you. Everything
else is illusion. You
will see that you’ve
had it backwards
all these years.
You thought your
self was the little, scared,
confused “character”
that doubts and worries
and defends itself. That
is the figment of imagination.
That is the thing you made
up with your mind.
I am the Real You. I
am your True Self
reminding you to
wake up, come home
to the bliss of your
Inner Self. 

Lucia

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www.luciac.com
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Bilateral Drawing: Balancing and Relaxing with Both Hands

In Chapter Five of The Power of Your Other Hand, I introduced bilateral drawing. That is defined as drawing done with both hands at the same time. Since the book was first published in 1988, many therapists and art therapists have applied bilateral drawing with clients. One of these is Cornelia Elbrecht, who has written a whole book on the subject entitled, Healing Trauma with Guided Drawing: A Sensorimotor Art Therapy Approach to Bilateral Body Mapping (North Atlantic Books, 2018). I recommend this book for anyone interested in either trauma work or the benefits of bilateral drawing.

In this post, you will see some examples of my own bilateral journal drawings and a video by Amanda Joy Wells, a graduate of our Creative Journal Expressive Arts and Visioning® Coach Training programs. Some of these drawings illustrate techniques I introduced in The Power of Your Other Hand and later books. You’ll see these in the video below. Other drawings show new variations on this method from my own journal. I will also discuss benefits of bilateral drawing based on my observations of clients and students for over 40 years.

I started the journal session illustrated here by putting some relaxing music on. I suggest using music that you enjoy and that relaxes your mind and body. Music can help to soothe a busy, over-active and chatty left brain and stressed out nervous system. The first drawing shows a single page in my journal (8 ½ X 11 in.) on which I drew with two crayons in 2 different colors. I had been stressed out due to many professional responsibilities I had been carrying at the time. I realized later that the drawing resembled graphs I’ve seen of the human brain. I had not intended this. It just happened. The connecting fibers, the corpus callosum, seem quite clear in this drawing. I was not trying to draw recognizable objects or symbols, but noticed this brain image after the drawing was completed. Somatically (in my body and brain) I felt more relaxed after doing the drawing. That was my goal.

This kind of pattern is called mirror symmetry and is the first prompt in Chapter 5 for bilateral drawing. In observing clients and students, I notice that when asked to draw with both hands simultaneously, this is the most common pattern they make. It is spontaneous and apparently very natural. That makes sense because the human brain and body are actually a mirror symmetry design. So is the common symbol for the human heart. Think of making Valentine cards as a kid by folding paper in half and cutting half a heart. When you open it, a full heart appears. That’s how you can tell it is mirror symmetry. The halves mirror each other. We also make paper people cutouts this way. Why? Because humans are constructed in a mirror symmetry design. So are butterflies, another image that often appears spontaneously in bilateral drawings.

I decided to continue drawing with both hands at once and expanded onto 2 pages, also known as “a double page spread”. Each hand held a different color crayon and even changed colors from time to time. Each hand was drawing the same pattern, but as a mirror image of its “partner’s” drawing. I felt more and more relaxed with each drawing.

On another day, shortly after this, I did a single page drawing, again using both hands, each with it’s own color. Again, this was accompanied by relaxing recorded music. This time I used another prompt from Chapter 5 of The Power of Your Other Hand. In this prompt, you draw with both hands, using 2 colors, and each hand “does it’s own thing.” I found this quite energizing and relaxing at the same time

Then I drew a “duet” with both hands, using 2 different colors. In this case, my hands wanted to draw the same spiral pattern collaboratively. I found this spiraling motion very relaxing and could feel a balancing happening inside my brain. Later I shifted to using 2 pages in the journal for more Bilateral Drawing. My hands spontaneously created multi-colored mirror image drawings. These were more textured and involved and I spent more time drawing them. The result was a relaxed state, but I also noticed a decided increase in energy.

I hear this a lot from people doing bilateral drawing. Regardless of which particular prompt they are using, drawing with both hands seems to help people slow down, relax, enjoy the moment (mindfulness) and what is happening in the now. The report a feeling of freedom, playfulness and urge to be more creative in many ways.

Amanda Joy Wells created this excellent video of bilateral drawing. It demonstrates the benefits and the amazing experience of drawing with both hands at once. Enjoy!


Lucia

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www.luciac.com
www.visioningcoach.org
Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com

Visioning® through Collage and Non-Dominant Hand Writing

In my book Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams, I present my method of life and career creation, which I originated and share in my private coaching practice. The Visioning® process includes the making of collage Vision Boards followed by Creative Journal writing to remove blocks and deepen one’s understanding of the images. Almost all of the writing prompts involve using the non-dominant hand or both hands alternately.

I have observed that we all have natural intuitive abilities to sense what is coming next in our lives. We have hunches or premonitions. We may even have a nocturnal dream that plays itself out in our daily life. This intuitive ability is often buried inside our heart’s desire, which is the core of Visioning®. That is what we are illustrating with our Vision Board. Intuition and the ability to sense the future can be developed with a combination of collage work and non-dominant handwriting. By writing dialogues with the images and words in the Vision Board, we often find much deeper meaning in the visuals than we ever imagined when we tore them out of the magazine. In reviewing our Vision Boards a few weeks or months down the line, we frequently find images and words that are specifically prophetic about what was to come.

A great example is my Vision Board for 2019 and how it manifested.

When I started putting this six-panel Vision Board together in January of last year, I was thinking about a spring and summer book tour for The Power of Your Other Hand. I knew I would be going all over California as well as Texas and New Mexico. Two panels show southwestern scenes as well as seaside areas near where I live on the central coast. That all made perfect sense. It was already part of the “plan.”

I also had some thoughts about a possible vacation later in the year in a favorite spot on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. People having fun on beaches and in swimming pools conveyed that idea, as well as couples dining out. Again, it all made perfect sense.

However, as the process of selecting photos and words for the Vision Board evolved, I found myself including other images that, quite frankly, surprised me. But they “felt right” and I knew I had to include them. One was the image of Helen Mirren, one of my favorite actresses, along with the words.

 Love who you see in the mirror
Look closer and you’ll see
Renewal happens
Get brighter eyes in a blink
See for yourself
Just as you imagined

In an adjacent section of the collage there is a woman and little girl painting and a palette with many colors. At the time, the palette seemed very important to me, but I wasn’t sure why. I hoped I would be able to do more painting just for fun in the new year, although I didn’t know when I’d find time for that. There were also images of gardens and gardeners in a nearby section. I took that to mean that my garden, especially my pride and joy - iris garden - would flourish this year.

I did go on the book tour, as shown in the Vision Board, which was very successful and most enjoyable. And we did go on a short getaway on the central coast and a longer one in Cabo San Lucas, also shown on the Vision Board. No surprise there. But wait, there’s more!

New eyes

In the spring after I made this Vision Board, at a regular check-up with my optometrist, I was told I needed to have cataracts removed. When I made the collage I never anticipated needing cataract surgery. I got the surgery, which was highly successful, and no longer need distance glasses, only glasses for reading and computer work. After revisiting my collage, the words in the first panel I did took on a whole new meaning.

Love who you see in the mirror (I can literally see myself better in the mirror now.)

Look closer and you’ll see (I no longer need distance glasses, and only have glasses for reading and computer work.)

Renewal happens (I can see color in a way I hadn’t for years: without the yellowish caste that cataracts cause.)

Get brighter eyes in a blink (The surgery was painless and fast, each eye done a week apart.)

See for yourself (I am amazed at my “new eyes”.)

Probably the most amazing aspect of cataract surgery for me was the new intensity of color. Without realizing it over the years, white had become yellowish, blue had become dull and greenish, purples looked maroon, and reds looked brownish. I felt like a I had a new wardrobe. Certain articles of clothing were very different in hue than I thought when I bought them. Get brighter eyes in a blink became a reality, in the sense that I got brighter colors in a blink.

And that brings us to the image of the color palette in the collage. Here’s what I wrote about color in my journal while reviewing my Vision Board on April 8, after the surgery:

New eyes, new colors,
New blues, new reds, new purples, new whites, new pinks.

One day while driving around town on errands and marveling at how blue the sky was, I found myself singing the old song, “On a clear day you can see forever.” I hadn’t really seen the true color of the sky and white clouds for quite a few years, it seems. With my non-dominant hand I did a lot of journaling with and about my “new eyes” and what I was seeing. Without realizing it, all those words about seeing had been a preview of coming attractions,

The artist within

Based on the prophetic images in my collage, there was another surprise in store. In the spring I heard about some masters of Chinese Brush Painting who were coming to our area. I immediately registered for classes and workshops with them. This was the manifestation of the image of the woman and girl painting together.

Why is the girl there? I had wondered, when I selected the image. Why not just the woman? As it turned out, taking these art classes took me back to when I began studying art in the 8th grade at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles on Saturdays. My collage really reflected this experience of being a novice in this particular genre of art. As a teenager I had discovered Japanese and Chinese brushes, and I have painted with them all my life (see my earlier post on Zenga Art). However, I had never taken formal instructions in how to use these particular types of brushes. Nor did I know much about Chinese art. These traditional techniques of Chinese painting were new to me. So I did feel like that 8th grader starting all over again.

A new garden design

In relation to the garden section of my collage, we had another surprise in the spring. This one wasn’t pleasant at all. When the irises started blooming, they were eaten by wild bunnies invading our property from the nearby pine forest. They were chewing on the stems and destroying some of the plants. In all my years of growing irises, this had never happened before. I was beside myself about the damage these bunnies were doing. We sprayed the plants, powdered them with cayenne pepper, and tried every deterrent on the market. All to no avail.

 So we redesigned and rearranged the placement of some of the plants, and built a fence to protect them. As pictured in the collage, we did do lots of gardening in 2019, but not the kind we had anticipated. I’m happy to say that most of the plants survived and we are looking forward to a “renewal” in the spring.

If you are interested in learning this process, contact me about one-on-one Visioning® Coaching via Skype.

Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams by Lucia Capaccchione (Tarcher/Putnam, 2000)

VisioningCoach.blogspot.com

Lucia

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www.luciac.com
www.visioningcoach.org
Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com

The Role Non-dominant Writing Plays in My Life

Over the years many readers have written to me about how creative journaling with their non-dominant hand has put them in closer touch with nature. Some of them have done written dialogues with a tree, a plant, or an area in nature has spoken to them through their non-dominant hand. They've received guidance from how these elements of nature have been wanted to be respected and nurtured. They've also received messages that seemed to come from their soul through the element in nature they were communicating with. They have received wise guidance, comfort, and inner peace from these dialogues with nature.

Our own Shiila Safer, a graduate of Creative Journal Expressive Arts and certified instructor in my methods, has specialized in nature applications of my work. She has included nature work in workshops and even authored books on the subject. Here is Shiila's story about her discoveries of the power in nature through her non-dominant hand.


The Role Non-dominant Writing Plays in My Life 

I was in the second graduating class of CJEA. At the time, non-dominant writing was a healing tool for me personally. I wrote volumes processing my divorce, my dreams and my aspirations for future relationships. Soon after graduating, I began teaching workshops, and it was an invaluable tool for assisting people to express their emotions and shadow voices.

In my own journaling, non-dominant writing became my avenue for writing poetry. It opened a portal for channeled messages to come through. Messages from the trees or the creek, or the wind, or my Higher Self. I still use it this way after more than 20 years! My inspiration always comes from Nature. And Mother Nature speaks to me through my non-dominant hand.

My first book, Born of the Earth: Your Journal, Poetry and Meditations in Nature, published in 2010, is an introduction to non-dominant writing. It is a journal, with beautiful nature photography, poetry, meditations and blank pages. I encourage people to try non-dominant writing in response to the meditations. This book was also the first book we published in our publishing company, 2nd Tier Publishing. Since then, we have published about 25 books. If you have a book in you, I am happy to assist you in giving birth!

My second book, Intimacy with Trees, published in 2015, is a compilation of poetry, stories, channeled messages and meditations by authors and illustrators all over the world. Once again, my poetry and messages were received through my non-dominant hand.

This is a message I received last week from Grandmother Oak, I call it Oak Wisdom. I am happy to share it here with you.

There will be many corrections in order for Earth to find balance. Many lives will be lost. Floods, fires, tornadoes are becoming the vehicles bringing this balance. It is more important than ever before for you to keep your heart open. Listen to the messages coming to you. Stay connected to the trees, plants and water. Cultivate your relationships. Be like a strongly rooted tree; solid, stable, connected. Humble yourself. You are part of the circle of life. Embrace your fellow travelers with lovingkindness. 

My current forms of creative expression are nature-based creativity coaching and Eco-printing and Eco-dyeing silk scarves. I am in partnership with two other women in our business Eco & Indigo Fiber Arts. We print directly on silk with leaves & flowers. We present our products to you as a co-creation with Mother Nature, hoping you feel her embrace when you wrap yourself in a scarf. In this way, we invite you to explore a joyful and more intimate connection with all the trees and plants in your daily lives.

Shiila Safer
Shiila@CreativityinNature.com
Wimberley, TX
To see our scarves, visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EcoIndigoFiberArts/ and Instagram @ecoindigofiber

-----

Lucia

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www.luciac.com
www.visioningcoach.org
Order The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019) at Amazon.com

Creative Journal and Nature: Co-Create a Spiritual Experience by Liberating the Inner Child

Our guest blogger this week is Charlotte Yonge from England. Charlotte is a Certified Creative Journal Expressive Arts facilitator and Visioning® Coach who works with individuals and groups of all ages. She has done a great deal of work in nature, as reflected in this post.

Using the Non-Dominant Hand to Hold the Imaginative "Stretch" of Visioning®, Accessing Deep Levels of Grief with Nature as my Inner Teacher

Left and right hands play together in Creative Journal: "Life must be lived as play." ~Plato

These Creative Journal activities are part of my journey to recover my Inner Child and restore some effective Inner Parents. They are all created from experience, rooted in dreams and memories and, like stories, take on their own life as anecdotes in conversation becoming shared understanding of common human issues.

Early in my CJEA training I depicted my Inner Critic and told it to go using my non-dominant hand. All around the picture are the words I remembered from childhood that made me feel shame and guilt. I realized that they came from adults and my parents and I contemplated their own dilemmas of bringing me up in an alien continent: Africa.

My mother's sharp tongue was crafted from the deep vulnerability she felt with two toddlers alone in a house while my father was on the road. At our first house I was 2-3 years old, and she reflected on the garden she created which became an oasis for birds in that very dry landscape.

My mother died in 2017, and a month or two before that I had shown her the Wilderness Mother collage card, although by then she was not responding well and I did not know what her reaction was. Her last words to me were to tell me she loved me.

My grief processing with the non-dominant hand brought to memory her love of dance and Nature. I found I could reflect on the gifts she gave me of her love of gardening, wild nature and of woodland. I tapped into my own Inner Artist, so long rejected, and began creating many cards, one of which was called Wilderness Mother.

So I tapped into the wild in England, and brought all my early experiences to bear upon my sense of loss for it to become a part of my new Inner Artist persona. A big stretch of self-affirmation was fueled by grief and gratitude together, and a whole pack of 67 cards.

As I dialogued with Nature, and the memories of wild gardens in my African childhood, all sorts of metaphors arrived in my intuition about the direct experience of Nature and its challenges. The difficult emotions were represented in the landscape for me, and so I became more familiar with my own gut responses as creative allies.

For me the vision of my artistic self became real after dedicating my dialogue with Nature to my mother’s fiercely held dream of life cracks you open, and her positive response by growing new life. Through my non-dominant hand I drew a witch face for my Inner Critic, and this helped me explore how my difficult relationship with my mother’s fierce interactions with me as an adult were necessary survival behaviors that had kept me safe in very disruptive times of living in two continents.

I was brought up in Africa as a semi immigrant, loosely connected to a home country (UK), but deeply bonded to the African wilderness. Over time my mother created gardens in semi desert areas; her courage made her a fierce life affirming person with early experiences of dance and movement before the war threw her into facing the worst of challenges in a hostile, primitive environment.

Charlotte Yonge
creativeliteracy@gmail.com
www.cliacoaching.co.uk

-----

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
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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

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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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Enter the Dragon: Inner Critic as Sparring Partner

Where there’s a creative muse, there is a dragon lurking right behind. Whenever I am inspired, feel the urge to create, or try something new in some area of my life, then boom! Fear and doubt follow right behind. My brain starts chattering: “I can’t do this. What makes me think I can succeed? I’ll look stupid and others will laugh at me or at what I create. I’ll just fail, so why bother. This is a waste of time. Stop now.” That is the recipe for a creative block of any kind.

I’ve lived my life chasing after new ideas, and making most of them a reality. As a pioneer in the arts, education and psychology, I’ve had to take on the dragon of inner criticism and self-doubt on a regular basis. Whether I am making art, writing a book, creating a new school curriculum, or starting a new business project, I’ve learned that the dragon of inner criticism and self-doubt are inevitable. Taking on the dragon has become a way of life, a necessary part of the game. It is a form of mental martial arts. Fortunately, I found my Inner Bruce Lee years ago. My dragon has become my ally.

The martial arts metaphor came to me in a journaling session. I was curious as to why we needed the dragon of self-put-downs when engaging with novel ideas and new directions. It had become clear that this was an inevitable part of the creative process. But why? I turned to my non-dominant hand for the answer. My inner guide (writing with my left hand) told me that my Inner Critic is my “sparring partner,” just as boxers have a sparring partner who prepares them for the ring. That is how they get tested and toughened up.

Like sports, and like Life, the Creative Process is not all sweetness and light. Brilliant ideas and inspiration are not enough. The creative process is not for the faint of heart. Giving birth to the new is not for sissies. There will be labor pains. There will be gut punches. But most of them are coming from our own critical mind.

If we understand how the Inner Critic operates as a character assassin, destroying our self-worth with negative thoughts, we can combat it. If not, it can obliterate our creative urges, block our creativity and contribute to depression and low energy. In my private practice as an art therapist, I’ve found that creative blocks can cause depression and anxiety. Not the other way around, as is commonly believed. Once the blocks are removed, using my method of inner martial arts through journaling, the depression and anxiety disappear.

By standing up for ourselves and defending our creative urges against the dragon of self-criticism, we open the floodgates to huge amounts energy. Our natural life force moves us naturally into the flow of the creative process. This is our birthright. Like little children, we regain our inborn ability to experiment, and we explore new territory within ourselves and out in the world. Our souls guide us with a message of light and new possibilities. We gain the strength to grow and express our true Creative Self. We take the risk of being our authentic selves and not settling for less.

The Dragon’s Agenda

In the creative process, the dragon’s agenda is the opposite of adventure and new growth. It follows left-brain rules, colors inside the lines, and sticks with the same-old-same-old. It describes our new ideas with words like strange, crazy and too “out there.” It hypnotizes us into blindly believing its judgments. Creativity is dangerous territory. Do NOT venture forth into places others have not gone before. Forget about pioneering anything. Innovation has no place in a tidy, safe little world. It goes nuts at the thought of breaking new ground and predicts the worst possible disasters. If we veer off the trodden path by flirting with the idea of an entirely new career, a different lifestyle, or starting a new business or hobby, it warns of danger at every turn.

The tricky part is that this dragon may start out sounding benevolent, like a well-meaning friend, a protector who has our own best interests at heart. It says stuff like: Things are fine the way they are. Why rock the boat? I’m just trying to protect you from being hurt. Just stay with the tried and true. Taking risks is too dangerous. All kinds of terrible things could happen. I’m only saying these things for your own good.

But if we persist in following our heart and our creative urges, this self-styled “friend” becomes our “foe”. It resorts to bullying, name-calling and doomsday prophecies. Who do you think you are anyway, thinking you can pull this off? You’re not smart enough. You’re too old (or too young). You don’t have enough talent or education or experience (or whatever). You’ll fail and be disappointed. You don’t have what it takes to do what you dream of. You will look stupid. Others will laugh at you. Worse yet, you will be rejected. If that doesn’t discourage you from moving ahead, it often returns to posing as your friend. I’m only saying these things for your own good. 

If we let the dragon of self-criticism control us, our lives shrink and we are severely diminished. The dragon will suck all the juice out of our existence. We stagnate, risk being depressed or even getting ill. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can literally unmask the dragon of self-criticism and inner bullying and get to the other side of self-doubt and paralyzing fear.

Mask making and journaling with the dragon

Materials: paper plate (plain white) or large brown shopping bag (big enough to fit over your head). Fat markers or crayons. Optional: scissors, glue, colored paper. Your personal journal or 8 ½ X 11 bond paper, pen and markers.

Make a mask depicting the face of your own personal Inner Critic dragon. Portray the character behind the voice that puts you down and discourages you from trying anything new or creative. You can draw it with your non-dominant hand or make a collage with colored paper or both. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Only YOUR way. Make this mask as fierce as you can. This is your sparring partner that tries to stop you from being creative, from trying new things, from venturing forward in life. Enjoy creating this mask.

Put your dragon mask on and look in the mirror for a few minutes. Be aware of how you feel being looked at by the face of your inner dragon.

In your journal or on bond paper, using your dominant hand let your dragon mask talk. What critical things does it say to you? How does it stop you from being creative in life? How does it block you from following your heart’s desire? Let it talk.

With your non-dominant hand, let your Creative Self talk. How does it want to be creative, adventurous and innovative in your life? Is it a new project? A different direction in life? A hobby you are drawn to? A new travel adventure? Let it say what it wants.

With your dominant hand, let your Inner Warrior speak on behalf of the Creative Self. What will your warrior do to help you be more creative, adventurous and innovative in life? How will it help you from letting the Critic dragon get in your way? You may even want to draw a picture of your Inner Warrior. Maybe it looks like a favorite sports star, warrior or superhero, like Bruce Lee, Serena Williams, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.

For detailed information and procedures for making more elaborate masks, see my book The Art of Emotional Healing (Shambhala 2006), chapter 9 – Facing Ourselves: Mask Making and Inner Dialogues. For more on breaking through creative blocks, see The Power of Your Other Hand (Conari Press 2019), Chapter 3.

Lucia

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Mapping Your Ideal Career: Guidance From Your Other Hand

As an art and expressive arts therapist, I did career work for years with private clients who needed help with career and life direction. Some of them had done Inner Child work with me and benefited greatly. They had healed many of the wounds of childhood and removed blocks to listening to their true heart’s desire. They had learned how to confront their Inner Bully, the self-critical thoughts in their own mind that had inflicted low energy and sometimes depression. Armed with these tools, they were ready to move on with their lives.

The first step was to listen to their true heart’s desire about the life and career they truly wanted. I included those exercises in Chapter 3 of The Power of Your Other Hand. These journal prompts involve answering back to the Critic and standing up on behalf of one’s heart’s desire in the face of blocks such as perfectionism, pessimism, self-doubt, and pressure from within to perform.

I later taught them the Visioning® process, which is the focus of my book: Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams (Tarcher/Putnam 2000). This involves creating a collage of one’s true heart’s desire, often called a vision board. This is followed by journaling with inner blocks and dialoguing with images in the collage using the non-dominant hand to allow the pictures to speak.

In using the Visioning® process in job and career development we start with a focus phrase that represents the true heart’s desire. It might be something like “getting paid to do what I love to do,” “being creative and enjoying my work,” or “loving what I do, doing what I love.” This focus phrase becomes the title of the collage or vision board and provides the hook on which picture selections are made. In finding images and words in magazines, or in one’s own photo collection, the question we ask is “does it illustrate my focus phrase?” If not, it gets tossed or saved for another collage.

What makes the Visioning® process different from techniques like “treasure mapping” or simply making a vision board is the journaling. We dialogue with the images using the non-dominant hand to speak for people, places and objects that appear in the collage. In right-hand left-hand interviews the dominant hand asks questions and the non-dominant hand answers for whichever image is being focused on. The levels of meaning that emerge from these images are nothing short of amazing. My clients and students report that they had no idea what the true meaning of these images were in their lives until they began giving them a voice through journaling. Many have commented that is was a lot like doing dream work because they were exploring areas of their creative unconsciousness that they were not in touch with before. For example, dialoguing with the image of a personal hero often brings deep inner guidance and encouragement for the individual embarking on a new career direction or project. People’s lives are often transformed in the process of engaging with their collages through journaling with their non-dominant hand.

This process has worked effectively in corporate and organizational settings such as schools, business, and industry. For example, in 1983 I was hired to do career development work for Walt Disney Imagineering, the division responsible for designing and building Disney theme parks and retail stores. I was asked to work with the creative division in the company where hundreds had been laid off after Epcot and Tokyo Disneyland were completed. The company brought in outplacement consultants to assist these recently terminated employees with career development and job finding skills.

In my work with these creative individuals, I suggested the idea of creating vision boards. The technique attracted them and was helpful in their career transition. Many of them started new businesses or went into entirely new fields of endeavor.

After 8 months of doing outplacement work I proposed an "in placement career development program" for the survivors of this traumatic experience. I was hired to offer weekly sessions and one-on-one consulting with managers and staff. My program lasted for 10 years in which we constantly created new programs for changing needs. Our goal was to maximize creativity, and I introduced Visioning® and dialoguing with the non-dominant hand in many workshops for managers and staff. The division not only survived layoffs, but also built back up to several thousand employees in 10 years. Imagineering came back to life, built EuroDisneyland and California Adventure at the Anaheim Disneyland, and created the Disney retail stores during my time there.

The woman who brought me into Disney, the late Peggy Val Pelt, and I worked together the whole time at Imagineering to create programs that were relevant for each stage of new growth after the 1982-83 lay-offs. We trained managers and oriented new hires to the work and culture of Imagineering. We went on to co-author Putting Your Talent to Work: Identifying, Cultivating and Marketing Your Natural Talents (HCI, 1998) in which I first introduced the Visioning® technique. I went on to author Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams, and more recently 2 workbooks: The Talent Workbook and Talent2Work for youth (field tested in our local middle and high school).

Please visit VisioningCoach.org for more information on the Visioning® process, and a list of trained, certified coaches using my methods.Visioning® Coach Training is a graduate course open only to Certified Creative Journal Expressive Arts Instructors.

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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