Shelley Klammer

Expressive Writing Exercise

I recently shared this post on my Depth Therapy Blog. I hope you enjoy it. This is a writing exercise that I use often.

 

You might be going through your life feeling numb, distracted or out of touch with how you feel inside. This is very common. If you have a hard time identifying how you feel, here is a great daily check-in exercise that you can track in your journal each day from David I. Rome, the author of "Your Body Knows the Answer."

 

If you easily abandon yourself when you are with other people, you will find this exercise very helpful. You can do this exercise in your mind several times during the day. This emotional check-in exercise invites your deeper self-knowing by repeating a question three times. 

 

Noticing "Something"

1. Begin by simply asking yourself, "How am I?" Say whatever comes mind. "I am fine...tired...sad...happy...excited and write it down in your journal.

 

2. Now ask yourself, "But how am I really? This time ignore any words that arise quickly. Instead, hold in mind the question, "How am I really? Allow there to be a gap, and sense into your body with an attitude of friendly attending.

 

3. Do not answer from your head - that would be what you already know. Look for a response to the question in your body. Find that unclear sense of "something." You might sense a strong sensation in a part of your body. You might see images, colours or symbols. You might hear music or words.

 

4. Don't rush. Go slow. Stay present. Be a friendly witness to what comes - even when nothing comes.

 

5. At first, feelings tend to be quite shy. They are not used to being seen and need time to feel safe enough to show themselves.

 

6. When you notice something, simply welcome it and be with it, and do not look for anything else to happen right away. Write down what you are experiencing.

 

7. After a while, ask for a third time, "How am I really?" and notice if the feeling alters, becomes clearer or disappears. Write down your felt-sense impression in your journal.

 

7. At any point in this process, you may experience a fresh insight, or something unexpected. These qualities come with a sense of Oh! or Aha! or Now I see! Make a note of your deeper insights in your journal.

 

Create a Surreal Collage

I love visual inspiration. Part of my "visual food" is going on Instagram and Pinterest when I can find the time, and revelling in images that uplift, intrigue and inspire me. I love thinking and dreaming about art!

These collages are by Marcelo Monreal. He is a Brazilian collage artist who collages flowers and foliage with faces.

Expressive Art Process - Surreal Collage

The word "surreal" describes something that's a bizarre mix of elements, often jarring and seemingly nonsensical.

For this expressive art process:

~ Choose a face from a magazine and cut it into two or three pieces.

~ Separate the face on your backing paper. Do not glue down the face fragments yet.

~ Choose images of foliage and flowers (0r anything else) and arrange in the gaps between the face fragments.

~ Glue down the foliage and flowers

~ Glue down the face fragments on top.

I invite you to follow me on Pinterest HERE.

 

Four Expressive Mandala Prompts

I spent several years creating 365 free-form mandalas as a way to help me to relax and meditate. Along the way, I discovered many expressive ways to vary my mandala practice. Below, I have created an infographic that illustrates four easy methods for you to begin creating free-form mandalas.

Intuitive Mandala Meditations

I also created a video module, documenting my mandala journey in my year long expressive art and writing course.

In this mandala healing adventure you will:

~ Learn how to create spontaneous free-form mandalas by sensing for symbols that match your inner experience.

-  Practice playing, loosening and freeing up your mandala process to allow for surprise and insight.

~ Practice deep rest in your intuitive mandala making process.

~ Learn how to "give" worry silence, and restore your mind to peace.

~ Practice the art of keeping your mind open to intuitive insight.

~ Recalibrate your nervous system to calm, confidence, and self-love.

 

Emotional Processing with Collage

About a year ago, I discovered an older and sometimes glitchy collage app online, and I began processing my emotions through digital collage. Being an empathic person, I find that I can easily get emotionally accumulated by the energies of other people, and I was amazed at how much "emotional debris" I was able to process through my daily digital collage practice.

It is challenging for many people to be socially honest. For this reason, self-to-self expressive art practices can support you to get comfortable with being honest with yourself about how you feel, what you like and dislike, what your boundaries are, what your dreams for your life are and much more.

In the past year, I have created over 300 collages! You can view my collage gallery HERE

Shelley Klammer on Pinterest!

I LOVE the visual world. Being a collage artist, I collect pictures from books and magazines. I am also an avid "visual collector" on Pinterest.

Maybe you are too? 

If so, please join me on Pinterest for some rich visual sharing! I invite you to follow me HERE.

 

Discover Intuitive Collage Facebook Group

If you are a collage enthusiast and would like to share your collages in my Discover Intuitive Facebook Group, I warmly welcome you to join us HERE.

If you would like to learn how to create an intuitive paper collage, I am reprinting an article that I wrote about magazine collage from many years ago.

How to Create an Intuitive Collage

Intuitive collage involves is sitting down with a pile of old magazines and choosing images, textures, and colours without thinking or judging.

It is easy to gather an overflowing abundance of images that can be recycled into opulent, personal works of art. Glue down anything that excites or intrigues you - in fresh and spontaneous ways.

When I sit down in my studio and start to flip through old magazines, I keep my mind relaxed and my eyes soft. My breath is deep and gentle as I look for anything that catches my eye.

I don’t ask myself why I am drawn to images of old wooden doors, a red bird, the carved bust of a king, a hot pink lotus flower. All I know is that I am delighted with what I find.

My fingers get sticky with glue and as I lay down the backgrounds and the collage begins to come together like the mysterious pieces of a puzzle. A blackbird drops a seed into a pink flower. Eyes become clocks. A cathedral ceiling evokes the expanded state that I am in.

My collage unfolds with a force greater and more generous than I could ever plan for. The patterns and colours are instantly opulent and richly detailed. I find a warm red Celtic scroll, a verdigris fossil.

I look for small finishing details, a wing from a bird, a ladybug, a church steeple. Finally, it feels finished and I feel complete, more whole than when I began. I look up at the clock. Where did the last hour go?

I put my collage up on the window ledge and I look at it throughout the day. Insights and ideas come to me as I do other things. I communicate with my collages and with the deeper, more mysterious parts of myself. The carved door feels like a possibility. The king’s imperial head feels like strength.

Suddenly, I have an answer to something I have been wondering about. I could act with new strength as easily as I could open up a door and walk through it. Yellow orchids seem to bloom and applaud my insight. My life suddenly feels more vivid and rich with possibilities.

The next time you pick up a magazine try looking at it with soft, relaxed eyes. What jumps out at you? Is it a word, a colour, a shape? Cut it out, glue it down and then add more images. What does it tell you about yourself? What we notice provides clues to who we really are. There is a true self within all of us that is always waiting to be more profoundly discovered. Anyone can touch into their deeper feelings, insights and desires through spontaneous collage.

Identifying Your Developmental Blocks

Many of us get arrested at various ages and stay stuck in a developmental stage that could have us feeling like a child in our 20's or a teenager in our 40's or a young adult in our 60's.

This is because, during each stage in your lifespan, it is possible to have a psychosocial crisis that could have a negative outcome for your personality development.

A psychosocial crisis involves a conflict between your psychological needs (psycho) with the needs of society (social). At each stage, there is a crisis or a task that you need to resolve.

To see where your developmental impasses are, I welcome you to take a look at this article on my Depth Therapy Blog that details all the stages of human development. 

When you can identify an unhealed personality part's age, you will better be able to see what kind of emotional healing work you need to do in order to progress in your life.

 

Free Support Group for Expressive Arts Facilitators

If you regularly create expressive art to further your creative freedom and emotional wellness, you might be considering facilitating the expressive arts for other people at some point in your journey. 

I am a REACE (Registered Expressive Art Consultant and Educator) with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and I am an avid encourager of Expressive Arts Facilitators!

Having facilitated expressive art and writing for many different populations for many years, I now guide a free Facebook peer support group for Expressive Arts Facilitators at all stages of practice.

This peer learning group is for expressive arts facilitators of all backgrounds and experiences. I warmly invite arts facilitators to share knowledge and experiences in a way that is encouraging and inclusive.

Join us HERE!

 

Emotional Awareness Journaling

Loosening the Stuck Places

"Focusing is a path of self-inquiry that welcomes nuanced experiences that we often overlook. We gently bring awareness into our bodies, which is where feelings and sensations reside. We allow and befriend whatever we are experiencing in a way that permits the stuck places to loosen …moving us toward greater peace, freedom, and wisdom."

~ John Amodeo

Listening to your body for 15 minutes a day can help you to become friends with your emotions. I share a journaling method to support you to recognize and name your emotions. Sit quietly with your journal on your lap. Close your eyes. When images, words and body senses arise, record them in your journal.

1. Clearing a Space

Take a moment just to relax. Pay attention to your body. See what comes there when you ask, "How is my life going? What is the main thing for me right now?" Sense within your body and let the answers come slowly.

When some concern comes or a bodily tightness or pain arises, do not go right inside of it. Stand back from your problem, and say "Yes, that’s there. I can feel that...there." Let there be a little space between you and what is troubling you.

Then, ask what else you feel. Wait again...and sense. Usually, there are several things happening in your emotional world at one time. Write down all that you sense in your body, such as, "I also feel the tension in my throat, "flutteriness" in my heart and upset in my stomach."

2. Felt Sense

Select one discomfort or problem to focus on from those that arose. Do not go inside of your problem. Stand back from it and witness it in a friendly way.

There will be many parts to that one thing you are thinking about – too many to sort out cognitively. But you can feel all of these things together on a "felt sense" level.

Pay attention to where you feel the most major concern in your body, and sense what the entire problem feels like. Let yourself feel the unclear sense of all of that.

3. Handle (Naming Your Felt Sense)

What is the quality of this unclear felt sense? Let a word, a phrase, or an image come up from the felt sense itself. It might be a descriptive word, like "tight, sticky, scary, stuck, heavy, jumpy," or it might be a phrase. An image or a memory might come to mind instead. Stay with the quality of the felt sense until something fits it just right.

Try to avoid simple labels such as "sad, angry, mad." Keep in mind that your inner bodily felt sense might offer up a much more creative name or an image. Allow the descriptive process to be unusual if it wants to be. Your felt sense descriptions do not need to make logical sense. 

4. Resonating (Checking if the Description Fits)

Go back and forth between the bodily felt sense and the word (phrase or image). Check how they resonate with each other. See if there is a little body signal that lets you know there is a fit. Hold the felt sense in your body and the word/phrase/image in your mind at the same time. 

Let the felt sense change if it wants to. Also, play with the word or picture to see if it wants to change. Allow your body feeling, word and/or inner picture to change until they capture the quality of the felt sense just right.

5. Asking (Inquiring More Deeply)

Now ask: what is it about this whole problem, that makes this quality so...that which you have just named or pictured? Make sure the quality is sensed again, freshly, vividly (not just remembered from before).

Feel into your body and ask, "What makes the whole problem so ______(tight, sticky, stuck, etc?)." If you get a quick answer without an inner body shift, just let that kind of answer go by. Return your attention to your body and freshly find the felt sense again.

Then ask it again. Be with the felt sense until you feel a slight "give" or release in your body. This feeling of release usually indicates that a new insight or understanding has arisen. Often a deep breath will indicate that the felt sense that has emerged has been fully heard.

 6. Receiving

Receive whatever intuitively comes (or does not come) in a friendly way. Stay with this sense of inner relief for a while, even if it is only a slight release. Whatever comes, this is only one shift; there will be others. Linger for a few moments in this inner shift.

You may not always feel a body-shift, but may notice you simply feel emotionally better from paying attention to yourself. The main aim is to spend time sensing into an unclear holistic body-sense for a dedicated period of time. 

Your inner world offers an endless parade of spontaneous words, images, colours, sounds, tones and textures to reflect upon.

Simply naming these inner felt senses invites the rich dawning of emotional awareness. Emotional healing happens when you pay loving and curious attention to your inner landscape.

 

The Specificity Principle

"The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates."

~ Jacqueline Woodson

As a creative person, it is so easy to get distracted, and lost in many things. Yet, I think we can only have one main passion, and maybe a few others on the side. There is so much to learn about even one thing. And, even if we do many things, at the root of everything that we do - there is likely just one main theme. 

The Specificity Principle states that exercising a particular skill primarily develops that skill. It is good to choose to be devoted to one thing and then get onto the job of focusing on it intently.

For a few years, I have been observing many genius-level spiritual and spiritual teachers online, and I have noticed that each one is very niche-oriented in their true work. Each genius-level teacher basically delivers one thing to the world, specifically and excellently.

I have long pondered how little time we actually have to do even one thing really well on a genius level. When I think about the spiritual teacher, Michael Beckwith, as an example, he really only has one message - Visioning.  And, he focuses on delivering that one principle in every sermon, on every radio program, in every book and article that he writes.

When I think about my specificity, I am clear that, for me, all roads of fascination lead to "the art of emotional healing." I am intrigued by the somatic, psychological and spiritual mechanics of deep emotional healing. I am a therapist that supports people to emotionally heal. I create and facilitate expressive art directives to invite emotional healing.

This is such a powerful day to contemplate your specificity. On this 12th day of the 12th month of the year...I wonder...what is your specificity?