Powerful Passionate Exhilarated YOU
- Petrina McGowen
- Nov 14, 2018
- 2 min read
As a therapist and a professional creative, I have learned and teach the vast health benefits of making art. I cannot call myself an artist. I am not. I can call myself a professional creative because I have found my passion and purpose within and without my creative flow. I know that my physical and emotional body changes when I am practicing the craft of my art. I also mean to say the crafts of my arts. I have never been able to make a definitive choice between theater arts and writing arts...and then I discovered visual art! Imagine just how happy I was when I also learned about the science of the brain and how the brain is so completely influenced by creativity.
Some of us are those who tucked away our personal, powerful, passionate yearning for artistic expression because the flow of life at one time or another didn't support us in such an endeavor. Others of us have been at home making art secretly, never sharing and holding on to the unvoiced feelings of sadness and fear; joy and love. Some make a living with art. Others of us have never thought about art at all; others use art each and every day as a way of living life wholly and purposefully. I choose to be in that last category. I didn't know, in the beginning of my passionate journey into the arts that it was healthy.
Here is what I knew/know: engaging in the arts makes me feel good. Whether I am making visual art, writing a poem or a script, reading a poem in a theatrical production, directing, singing, doodling, painting, playing with mixed media collage, in the middle of an improv, acting a character, or writing a news story, I feel good. My self esteem is higher, I have a lighter feeling, I have more of an engagement in the present moment, I am in relationship with others, myself and my Source. I feel authentic. I feel my truth. I feel my voice. I feel myself expressing a beautiful expression of Self. I feel alive. I feel on purpose. I feel vital.
And now I know that as a therapist, I watch my clients become vital as well, when we embark on a creative assignment as we are working on core issues. Together and individually exploring and discovering the aha moments, the present moments of pure joy and a new perspective of a whole Self. I shout it out…Pick up a pen and write; work some clay in your hands; sing loudly from your belly; dance across a stage (or even your living room) and feel the exhilaration of YOU.
