I think of creativity as an opposite of depression. As the driver in my life that connects and communicates, it represents everything I cannot do in the midst of the illness. Yet there was a time when it led to panic. Creativity is usually discussed in connection with the arts, and the idea gets overblown […]
Creativity
Peak Experience in Depression
So much is written about peak experience, the feeling of oneness, the effortless flow of energy as you feel yourself at one with what you are doing. I often struggle with myself to achieve these moments, but depression has its ways of blocking them. If you’ve ever played a sport that involves hitting a ball, […]
A Teacher of Imagination and Resilience
I once knew a gifted man, a born teacher of imagination and play. He taught children as a natural part of his instinct for life, and he taught the rest of us resilience in the face of illness. Steven and his lifelong friend Maria arrived in town one day, found an old office space they […]
Revisiting: Recovery and Creative Experience
All that I am, all that life has made me, every past experience that I have had – woven into the tissue of my life – I must give to … new experience. … [The] past … has indeed not been useless, but its use is not in guiding present conduct by past situations. We […]
Writing, Creativity and Healing – 2
Thanks again to isabella at moritherapy and her post about Mental Health Camp, I’ve been reading Louise DeSalvo’s Writing as a Way of Healing. She discusses at length not only the healing power of the writing process but also the need for a writer to care for the creative self. Her own breakthrough in becoming […]
Writing, Creativity and Healing
Some Rights Reserved by tore_urnes at Flickr Thanks to isabella, and her recent posts on writing and healing (like this one), I’ve been thinking more about the way writing, creativity and healing fit together. From the beginning of this blog, I had no doubt that creative expression of all kinds, and writing for me, could […]
Many Selves, One Mindful Direction
1. I walk around with a crowd inside – so many selves wanting to go in different directions. Too many voices are talking all at once, and it’s hard to pick out the one I need to listen to right now. Here’s the intuitive talker, waking up with the big picture and the ideas for […]
Facing My Double Again
catatonickid recently published a post about facing your double, reaching a place where nothing can be explained, a place where no choice could possibly be right. She calls that the “ideal argument for healing,” or, in the quoted words of Marie-Louise von Franz: “the beginning of the process of individuation” – the joining of the […]
