Your Expression, Your Resolve
DEALING WITH MENTAL HEALTH
Have you ever felt sad, alone, maybe even felt like no one understands you? Everyone has felt these feelings at one time or another whether they care to admit it or not. But for some, these feelings never go away and last for days, weeks, even years. Mental Health Issues have been ignored by a lot of people in the past. For some people like me, it’s easy to hide your feelings rather than talk about them. Some might say that it’s a sign of weakness, especially if you’re a male in society. It’s been long documented that men are supposed to be strong, in charge, and take care of things. Showing no emotions is the key to fighting thru problems and being the one to take care of the situation at hand, rather than deal with the real situation that is making you feel this way. But, at the end of the day, our emotions are still with us, even though we may not know it. Out of sight out of mind, so to speak, that if we don’t think about it, it’s not there anymore. Trust me, it’s still there.
Have you ever said, “I guess I must have been thinking about it subconsciously and didn’t even know it?” Well, it’s there more than you think. A subconscious mind makes up around 95% of our brainpower and handles everything your body needs to function properly, from eating and breathing to digesting and making memories. It causes you to feel emotionally and physically uncomfortable whenever you attempt to do anything new or different.
Mental Health and Anxiety issues have become more common in society and have been making headlines that we can finally talk about without feeling alone. As for a lot of us, including myself, we say, “I’ll just go to the doctor so he or she can prescribe me something. We all want a “quick fix” for our problems without actually getting to the root of the problem. In a way, out of sight, out of mind, solution once again. We are all busy in today’s fast-paced world and it’s easy to take medication to relieve those symptoms so we can go about our daily lives. But, for some, not all, medications make things worse. They might help relieve the symptoms at hand but, in time, create a magnitude of other problems that we have to later deal with. It’s a compounding effect, a vicious cycle, that never really goes away. So, how can we find the root cause of these issues naturally without the use of medication?
Especially since the beginning of the pandemic, people have turned to other means of resolution, such as art therapy.
WHAT IS ART THERAPY?
Art Therapy is a technique used in the idea that creative expression can foster healing and mental well-being. People have been relying on this method for arts for communication, self-expression, and healing for thousands of years. But, Art Therapy didn’t start to become a formal program until the 1940s. It is an effective treatment for persons experiencing developmental, medical, educational, social, or psychological impairment. A key goal in art therapy is to improve or restore the client’s functioning and his/her sense of personal well-being.
Research has shown that individuals living with mental illness often expressed themselves in drawings and other artworks, which led many to explore the use of art as a healing strategy. Some suggest that going to an art class or another environment that puts you in the mix with other people to share your feelings or being around another dealing with the same issues as yourself is a great way to comfort you or start the healing process, that way you don’t feel alone or know that you’re not alone in your fight for mental clarity.
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”To put this in context, art therapists also reported that they were hearing about high levels of anxiety, stress and worries from clients. Nearly all art therapists (92.0%) surveyed reported that their clients were experiencing anxiety due to isolation during the Coronavirus pandemic, and two in three (62.7%) said that their clients raised these concerns frequently. In addition, clients were particularly worried about their existing medical illnesses or those of their loved ones: four in five (80.7%) art therapists reported it was discussed in sessions.”
- Art Therapy is Particularly Effective in Times of Crisis
The Beauty of Art
Now, if you feel better going to an art class and joining a program to help with mental health or seeing an art therapist to help heal, that’s great! But, that’s the beauty of art! You don’t need a program to help you heal or deal with problems that surround you. While programs are widely used and very successful at helping one heal, you don’t necessarily have to join a program to start your process with mental health. If you want to stay home and paint on a canvas, or take up sculpting, or signify those feelings with a pen and paper and sit down and scribble, you do it! You don’t have to be an artist to help you cope thru art therapy. Be you and be creative. You set the tone for your success and healing treatment. The ultimate goal in any process is to be better than when we started our journey. It’s easy to put things off and deal with them another day. Just get thru the day and deal with it tomorrow. It becomes who we are and a normal part of our lives. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Stand up and face your problems. Be better than you were yesterday. We all like to blame our failures on someone else from time to time, and sometimes it’s valid but, at the end of the day, those problems still exist, you are still here and you still have to deal with the issues at hand. We all have a story. We all have a past. Tell that story from beginning to end. But, don’t focus on the past, focus on today, and making a brighter future, for yourself.
