Art Therapy

Art, and generally being creative helped me along the way to recovery from anorexia, and I am certain that it can help others too - not only those suffering from eating disorders, but from any form of stress or depression.

Shortly after beginning my cognitive behavior therapy sessions, I discovered a new hobby.

It started with my playing around with craft knives and bolsa wood, but quickly became a full-blown passion for working with wood, and bigger and better tools.

I began by making abstract sculptures by feeling my way through and around the wood, and allowing my emotions to guide me. It was incredibly exciting to see the results of pure passion in those creations which I, alone, had achieved.

Along with the excitement of this creativity itself, I began to experience a real sense of peace and calm, and a new self-awareness began to poke through. Click here for information about art therapy and some of the people who are helped by art therapists. I continued to learn for a few years, exploring the wood, and the things I could do with it. It was a tremendous de-stresser, allowing me to cope with a job which I didn't enjoy, being a single, working mother, and the stresses and strains of everyday life.

After a while, I started to sell a few of my sculptures, and my work was really starting to improve.

I began to realize that this was more than therapy for me. It was what I really wanted to do. I wasn't enjoying teaching anymore, and the yearning to do something creative, and earn from it was becoming overwhelming.

The stress of doing something day in, day out, that I didn't enjoy, was affecting my health and happiness, and most importantly, my relationship with my son.

I now exhibit my sculptures locally and am successfully selling them. I've also been doing a lot of photography and exhibit my photos too.

Work forms a large part of our lives, and it is so important to enjoy it and have scope for movement forward. We each have our own special talents and gifts and we all have the right, and perhaps even a responsibility, to find these, and offer them to the world.

I think it is safe to say that we all have a creative genius within us, and that to nurture this is to cure ourselves of all that ails us.

Whether this is takes the form of an eating disorder, depression, boredom, or just general discontent with our lives, art can perform miracles for us all.

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