Spontaneous art and writing offer a mirror of your inner world and can help you to express, release, see, and heal your emotional pain. For self-healing expressive art and writing classes, I warmly invite you to visit my online classroom HERE
For a free tour of 100 of my free resources, I welcome you to sign up for my Expressive Arts Learning Library.
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Many of you who have been connecting with me for a while know that I love to do a form of depth journaling called "Focusing." I have written about this depth journaling process quite often. This, however, is the first time I have actually demonstrated it online.
I love this revelatory journaling process, and I have been practicing this method of going deep within my body for deeper insight for over ten years. It was so fun to share my method of depth journaling with Alexis Cohen and to demonstrate how I visually symbolize my inner experiences. And, I am looking forward to sharing my most personal method of diving deep inside - with you!
You can download your worksheet for this demo HERE.
You can watch my art demonstration with Alexis here:
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Week 43: Healing Collage - Blessed
Quote:
“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.”
~ Elizabeth Gilbert
Poem:
Participating.
Manifesting my own blessings.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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Week 42: Healing Collage - Determined
Quote:
Keep your dreams alive. To achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.
~ Gail Devers
Poem:
Determined to dream.
Faith.
Vision.
Dedication.
All things are possible.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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As promised, here is the creative activity I contributed to Rayne Lacko's new book for Teens, Dream Up Now!
I share more about my personal life as a teen in the book.
"Teens feel a wide range of sometimes-overwhelming, often-fluctuating, intense emotions. To help teens understand, manage, and channel their emotions into passion for the life they want to live, this guided journal with a convenient lay-flat design includes 36 creative activities. Crafted by community leaders across North America, these activities encourage teens to create, draw, listen to music, and put pen to paper as they process emotions, discover more about themselves, and pursue what they want out of life."
I FEEL . . . PERFECTIONISM
insecurity / unreasonable demands on self / comparison with others
I Feel . . . Perfectionism
The purpose of this exercise is to create a piece of art that represents the “perfect” face that you show the outside world to try to fit in—your social mask. The face you choose will be decorated with words and images that show how you present yourself to others.
Choose a face from a magazine that represents perfection for you. Also look for another face that represents your authentic self. (You will need to have two faces to alter and expressively draw on for this activity and the next one. Set aside the face representing your authentic self for now.)
If you prefer to create your own face, draw an oval. Then draw eyes, a nose, and a mouth inside the oval.
Altered Magazine Photo I—Perfectionism
What you’ll need:
Magazines; scissors; a glue stick; permanent black, colored, and white markers for doodling and coloring (permanent markers work best for altering magazine photos)
What you’ll do:
1. Cut out the face you chose that represents perfection and glue it onto a piece of paper
2. This “outside face” is the perfect face you show to others. Consider all the ways you try to gain approval from others as you work on altering this face.
3. Expressively draw and color on your face in any way you like. Add patterns, words, and symbols to represent what your public self looks like to the outside world.
4. Suggestions: Glue on other magazine images and words to illustrate your theme. Outline and draw over and around
your magazine collage with a black permanent marker. Color your doodles. Embellish your altered drawing with a white paint marker or gel pens.
I FEEL . . . WORTHY
self-acceptance / positive self-image / courage / self-respect / honor
I Feel . . . Worthy
Create a collage/drawing that represents the authentic face you express when you feel safe or when you are alone. The face you choose will be decorated with words and images that show how you genuinely feel on the inside. Your “inside face” expresses
who you authentically are. This activity can help you increase self-awareness and self-acceptance.
Use the second clipped-out magazine face you set aside in the I Feel . . .Perfectionism activity.
Or, if you prefer to create your own face, simply draw an oval.
Then add eyes, a nose, and a mouth inside the oval.
Altered Magazine Photo II—Self-Worth
What you’ll need:
Magazines, scissors, a glue stick, permanent black, colored, and white markers for doodling and coloring (permanent markers work best for altering magazine photos)
What you’ll do:
1. Cut out the face you chose that represents your authentic self and glue in on a piece of paper.
2. This “inside face” will be about the private face you do not yet show to others. Consider these questions as you draw: Who am I? Where do I belong? When do I feel fulfilled?
3. Expressively draw and color your face in any way you like. Add patterns, words, and symbols to represent what your private self looks like to your inside world.
4. Suggestions: Glue your magazine face onto your backing paper. Glue on other magazine images and words to illustrate your theme. Outline and draw over and around your magazine collage with a black permanent marker. Color your doodles.
Embellish your altered drawing with a white paint marker or gel pens.
I'm featured in DREAM UP NOW: The Teen Journal for Creative Self-Discovery. This journal offers teens 12-18 36 fun, creative activities to process emotions, and transform darkness into light.
I had so much fun creating my creative activity for this book!
For 35 more expressive arts directives for teens, you can purchase the book on Amazon HERE!
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Week 41: Healing Collage - Kindness
Quote:
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
~ Lao Tzu
Poem:
Profound kindness,
Creating love,
Kindness creates confidence.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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Recently, I just finished my own book, and I am excited to share that I am also featured in another book by Rayne Lacko!
Rayne is a young adult author and an advocate for the arts as a form of social and emotional well-being.
I'm featured in DREAM UP NOW: The Teen Journal for Creative Self-Discovery. This journal offers teens 12-18 36 fun, creative activities to process emotions, and transform darkness into light.
I had so much fun creating my creative directive for this book! I am going to share some sample art for my expressive arts exercise with you soon.
You can purchase the book on Amazon HERE!
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Week 40 Healing Collage - Dynamic
Quote:
In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
~ Igor Stravinsky
Poem:
Love is my dynamic force.
Potent.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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I have spent my summer editing my new book, and I have been longing to create some expressive art! I recently went to the thrift store and bought myself some old books to alter and expressively scribble in!
Expressive Art Process - Messy Collage
These free and messy collages are by artist Jean Bergeron. What wonderful fun to combine imagery, paint, and expressive drawings in an expressive messy collage!
For this expressive art process:
~ Create your own expressive collage papers by scribbling and painting on various backgrounds.
~ Also be sure to save all of your painting and drawing experiments.
~ Gather a pile of your expressive drawings, expressive paintings, printed tissue papers, labels and found imagery.
~ Tear and cut up your drawings, paintings and collage imagery.
~ Choose a collection of various created and found papers and freely glue them down.
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Week 39 Healing Collage - Patience
Quote:
“Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.” ~ Brian Adams
Poem:
No anxiety.
Patient confidence,
brings eventual success.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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Celebrations! My book is available on Kindle today!
If you did not have a chance to see my interview with my friend Dawn Montefusco, we had such a great chat about my ten-year journey writing my feminine and nurturing interpretation of the 365 lessons in A Course in Miracles - available HERE.
The interview is up on my YouTube channel HERE.
A Course in Creating Confidence will support you to:
1. Clarify your intuition for higher insight into your dilemmas and problems.
2. Heal your heart to be able to give and receive more love.
3. Invoke spiritual solace to encourage you through your difficult emotions.
You can purchase the book HERE!
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Week 38 Healing Collage -Passion
Quote:
"True creativity is impossible without some measure of passion."
~ Teresa Amabile
Poem:
Passion opens,
breathes
brightens
And invites creativity.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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I am releasing my new book only on Kindle, and so many of you have written me to say you prefer paper books! So, if you have been resistant to trying Kindle books, this article is for you.
I became a "Kindle-Convert" because I love to read books here, there and everywhere. Before I became a Kindle reader, I used to carry at least two heavy books wherever I went in my giant purse.
Still, it has taken me a long to become a devoted Kindle book reader.
Living in the very expensive housing market of Vancouver, Canada, where the average house sells for a million dollars or more, my partner and I have moved 5 times in the last ten years, and our rental homes became smaller and smaller and smaller.
So, as you can imagine, moving so many boxes of books became a heavy chore! Unpacking, and packing books eventually felt too taxing, so we boxed up all our paper books and put them in storage.
The good news is, our quest to buy a reasonably priced home eventually led us to a smaller city, and of our paper books finally came out of storage boxes because we own a home!
Now, I have the best of both worlds, I carry my digital books in my pocket and read them on my phone while in coffee shops, in the park, and as I am waiting in line at the grocery store. I also always have a stack of paper books by my bedside to enjoy on the weekends.
A paper version of my book will be coming in about a year or two. Right now, the best way to get my Kindle book onto your device is to download the free Kindle app.
Benefits of using Kindle
Kindle apps are available for Android, iOS, Mac, PC, and web. You can read your Kindle e-books on any device.
FREE KINDLE APPS TO DOWNLOAD
1. Kindle for Android
Download the free Kindle app on your Android tablet or smartphone through the Google Play Store to get instant access to all your Kindle books.
Sign in with your Amazon credentials. You will find your Kindle books under the “All” tab.
The app seamlessly connects with the Kindle Store. You can download free samples or buy books right within the app.
The Kindle app provides features to help you study - you can highlight passages, add margin notes, search for keywords, etc.
2. Kindle for iPad and iPhone
Download the free Kindle app from the App Store and sign in with the credentials you use for your Kindle e-reader or Amazon Fire tablet.
The books are available in the Kindle app home view, under the “All” tab. Tap the book you want to read, and the download will start automatically.
However, compared to the Android app, Kindle for iOS lacks one major feature: you can’t buy books inside the app. Within the app, you will be only able to download free samples or access free books from Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime Reading.
If you want to buy a Kindle book, you can still do it on your iPad or iPhone, but you have to use the Safari browser. When you complete the order and switch back to the Kindle app, the book will be downloaded there.
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Week 37 Healing Collage -Wisdom
Quote:
"Wisdom begins in wonder."
~ Socrates
Poem:
Wonder!
All wisdom begins in wonder!
A Year of Healing Collage!
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Did you know that I have created a compendium of 365 Self-Love Healing practices inspired by A Course in Miracles?
I love to think about, write about and practice emotional healing techniques. This one, #274, from my book, "A Course in Creating Confidence" is such a beautiful healing practice, inspired by spiritual luminary John O'Donohue.
A Contemplation from A Course in Creating Confidence
You will feel fear whenever painful emotions arise for healing. And, fear grows exponentially, the more you follow its directives. So before crawling too far into a dark hole of fear, you can ask Love to enter your emotional wounds and heal them instead.
When you focus on Love, the toxins from the past can be healed. Unconditional Love for your emotional pain will warm, soften, relax and expand you.
Spiritual scholar John O'Donohue writes about inviting Spirit to heal your inner wounds:
"Behind the play of your image and the style you cut in the world, your wounds continue to cry out for healing. These wounds are the core of your identity and cannot be healed by the world or by medicine, not by externals of religion or psychology. It is only by letting in the Divine light to bathe these wounds that healing comes.
The tender kindness of the Divine knows where the roots of our pain are concealed. The Divine light knows how to heal their weeping. Every inner wound has its own particular voice. It calls from a time when we were wronged. It holds the memory of that breakage as pristine as its moment of occurrence. Deep wounds evade time. Their soreness is utterly pure."
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Week 36 Healing Collage - Hope
Quote:
“In a time of destruction, create something.” ~ Maxine Hong Kingston
Poem:
Create something!
In dark times,
Create.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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I recently had such a good deep conversation with my friend Dawn about why I wrote a book about Self-Love.
If you would like to listen to my interview about my new book with Dawn Montefusco, it can be easily accessed for one week. You can sign up for free HERE.
A Contemplation From A Course in Creating Confidence
Many people live their entire lives unconsciously enslaved to patterns of childlike dependency. In order to heal, you will need to develop discernment to determine the difference between genuine adult needs and the unrequited feelings of childhood neediness.
An unwillingness to process your painful emotions will keep you dependent upon other people to meet your needs for love, approval, security and survival. When you avoid processing past hurts, you will unconsciously expect other people to make you feel safe, take care of you emotionally, and reparent you.
Ungrieved losses from the past will keep you feeling as helpless and dependent as when you were a child. When you finally face what you have been afraid to feel, you can invite spiritual love and strength into the human parts of yourself that feel small, unloved, rejected and unsafe.
With love,
Shelley
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Quote:
“She found joy and wonder in every little thing. And joy and wonder always found her.” ~Katrina Mayer
Poem:
Joy
always finds me,
As I find wonder in every little thing.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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Week 34 Healing Collage - Bold
Quote:
“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Poem:
Emboldened,
To dream and do!
A Year of Healing Collage!
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I had such a wonderful time talking with writing coach Dawn Montefusco this past week. While I have been introvertedly and deeply contemplating my finally finished book, Dawn has been on extroverted fire with her mission to offer healing through words!
This writing interview series starts tomorrow, August 17. My interview airs on August 25!
Dawn shares: "Whether through a book, a blog, on social media or in your journal, writing has the potential to help you and others feel better, heal past wounds, and restore a sense of love and connection."
I so agree!
This interview series will give you tips and strategies that will help you….
● Learn why NOW is the most important time in human history to write.
● How words can heal past trauma, depression, grief, and anxiety.
● Find out why it’s important for your inner fulfillment to honor your calling as a writer.
● How to find inner peace and allow your intuition to guide you when you write.
This 10-day writing series is engaging, deep, inspiring — and it’s FREE!
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Week 33 Healing Collage - Admiration
Quote:
"When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator"
~ Gandhi
Poem:
Seeing the wonders in the world.
Expands my soul.
A Year of Healing Collage!
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