Working with the Inner Artist: Allowing Expression

I’ve got some great questions after an session where we were working with our younger inner artist/playful selves and inner critic/overthinking parts, about how to start, or continue doing expressive work when there’s a part of us telling us that our ‘art’ or expression not good enough or comparing what we’re doing to what others are doing. Even after we learn that expressive arts is not about creating a finished product, but about the process and the expression itself, it can be difficult to let go of the inner critic and perfectionistic voices in our heads.

The fact is, that when we engage with something – no matter what it is – cooking, yoga, writing, meditation – we will get better at it, simply by the fact that we’re practicing it a lot. Being proficient at something, means that we will enjoy it a lot more, since we will be able to forget about how to do it and just enjoy the ride (such as with driving, or speaking a language).

It’s hard to be a beginner at anything. It was a lot easier to learn things when we were younger and our brains were set up for it. As kids, not only are our brains programmed to absorb learning, but if we’re young enough, we’re not yet at the stage to be self-conscious. Unfortunately, we learn to internalize criticism pretty quickly.

To make it even more difficult, our culture puts a lot of emphasis on either ignoring artists and allowing them to ‘starve’ or doling out extravagant material rewards and placing a kind of mythological greatness on creativity as some talent that only a rare few are born with, and deciding at any given time how that particular era (or whim?), will define what that is, exactly. Art, especially, has had so many iterations and opinions placed on it as to feel dizzying, IMHO.

Expression can be a mark on a page, the sound of your voice, the way you tilt your head, your fingerprint. Can you really, then help your expression? Can you even define what makes you, you? You choose an image, you place it on a page, glue it down, add some marks, write some words. If you choose to do this for a long time and enjoy it, and you may get good at some aspect of drawing or painting or sewing journals, poetry or expressive marks, or art journaling .

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. Letting go and being less self-conscious, and letting our inner, less constricted selves step aside, may (and probably will) allow more expression, which is what some people value more in what they call art. This is what has actually happened to me as I’ve done this now for about five years. I’m getting the feedback that what I’m doing is more authentic, freer, and more “me.” A part, of me, of course, is delighted to hear that, but of course, I was only able to really get to a point like that by letting go of any part of me that cares.

So who is judging? Are we judging ourselves? Are we caring about who else is judging us? Since it is natural to pay attention to, and care about what others think, this process, like Internal Family Systems (IFS) work, is an ongoing process, of inviting these parts to step back, as we embody Self, and work from the non-part Self and express from a different place.

This may also bring up a discussion about ‘talent’ versus the enjoyment, which can also be about whether we deem ourselves good enough to do something. A few examples might be useful. I enjoyed singing when I was younger. I thought I might be able to ‘really’ sing. I tried performing when I got older, for a band. (this is funny, just the way I put this since I was singing, so what’s the difference if I’m doing it in front of people or not?) I do not believe that I have the kind of voice to perform, nor do I have the talent or voice for that kind of performance. But I enjoyed creating a few recordings with my partner in a studio and having that kind of experience. There were some painful moments coming to that realization, though.

I thought I wanted to be an art major in college. I did not receive high marks from academic college professors. I was intimidated. I gave it up. I think that they wanted me to be a certain kind of artist. I’m still not sure because no one showed me – no one told me, mentored me or showed me what was expected. Maybe in these cases, the parts of us that offer judgment are helpful. We need to listen and know when to push ourselves or not, when something is possible or not, so that we don’t fall to far down and get crushed.

None of this, however, is relevant here because none of it matters. There are no grades, expectations, or linear judgments placed on expressive art. We are removing that from the entire equation!

The parts that have spent their entire lives living within this system can probably hardly believe it! There may be other parts that are here as well, that actually want to make something pretty. These may not be the ones that are trying to make art for some unseen audience though, and to get some kind of approval.

The entire IFS approach is about checking inside of you and seeing who is there within your system, and acknowledging who wants to be heard and listened to, and who would like to work with you to express something. I allowed my inner playful part to be front and center when we were working with that part the other day, because that was the focus of the session, but she feels seen and has been listened to, since I’ve worked with her before.

The one who actually comes forward and likes to make things pretty, and finds that outlet in my art, grew up in a very ugly environment (I grew up in an extreme hoarding environment – probably one of the worst I’ve ever seen), and she loves to make things really pretty. She has loved art since I was really small and it has always been her refuge. We all have talents.

I admire my friends who can cook from scratch, throw large parties, sew and are extroverts, and who have strong singing voices that carry across a stadium. I know that this is not me. But it doesn’t stop me from cooking from a book, having a small dinner party, or continuing to explore art as the refuge it’s always been for me.

Your system knows what it needs and will always carry the wisdom you seek, when you go inside and listen to it. You can listen to the part and let it tell you what it needs you to know. No one else’s system, expressive work, talent, place on their healing path, or offering in life is any less valuable than anyone else’s, and your expression is just as magical, valuable and beautiful as everyone else’s, just as you are!

Consistency with your Art Practice: Picking up where you left off

If you have a break in your habit, especially if you have had an intention of doing something consistently or you’ve just gotten started doing something you made an agreement with yourself to get going on, and then something happens that causes you to stop, it can be a vulnerable place for you. It can then be more difficult to go back to doing what you intended than if you had never gotten started.

It's even more important to keep going without being hard on yourself for stopping. Just go back and keep going. Consistency is one of my intentions for moving forward with my art practice and also posting here. My goal is to practice my art every day and also to post every day. But I also have a day or days where I can’t meet one or both goals. And I’ve grown to have grace for this. I used to be hard on myself, and that made it harder to get started again.

I realized also that there was a part of me that wanted to be perfect, and that since I had broken my intention of doing something every day, I had somehow already failed so now there was no point in trying at all. I’ve reframed this and now view each day as a day to show up and do the best I can. Stepping back and looking at my overall progress helps. Am I going in general where I want to go? Am I getting better in general and doing my art and posting as much as I can? Yes! I’m moving in the right direction, and it doesn’t need to be perfect. In fact, my perfectionism just gets in the way of my enjoyment and being able to move forward. I can be with this part of me that has a need to want to be perfect and I can send her some love and support. And then I can do what I need and want to do on this new day and start moving forward again.

Part of why I’m not able to do what I intend to do every day is that I struggle with chronic migraines and also hormonal changes and intensity, which I have managed for a long time. This makes me tired and also is a challenge for me with focus and show up how I’d like to. Having compassion for any part of you that struggles with health issues or being busy, trying to make time, get everything done, is important to. That’s why it’s important to keep trying. Each day will be a new chance to try again. Maybe doing something every day isn’t the right cadence anyway. Maybe for now, three days a week works better. Have room for that and celebrate that this is where you are right now, and that that’s a lot.

How is this for you?

This piece is the final image from the lesson I presented for the Soulpages mentor program focused on the topic of transformation. The blue and house image represents what to let go of, the figure on the right represents what I’d like to bring in and the tree represents the bridge between the two, and transformation itself. She allows healing with the lines and colors and I found that the process of drawing those lines allowed me to work through giving up stories from the past, including perfectionism, self-criticism, internal expectations and rigidity like what I’ve described here. This kind of thinking can come up in the process of our art making and our art process itself, whether you’re new to art making or you’ve been doing it for a long time.

Visual Journaling: Keep Finding Inspiration

Visual Art Journaling Page

We can keep finding inspiration, from books we love and that might have been on our shelf for a long time, other artists, supplies we haven’t used in a while, or combined with supplies or techniques that we use all the time. If you’re feeling out of ideas, just look around.

I’m really ‘behind’ on the online courses I’ve signed up for. If I could, my art classes would be at the top of my list, wouldn’t you agree? But unfortunately, other things in life tend to compete for our attention and then thankfully we get a break and time to catch up.

I recently created this mini journal for Rakefet Hadar’s SoulPages course, Soul Circle: The Wheel of Time, for an amazing lesson by Iris Gal from a few months ago, based on the book Women who run with the Wolves and the myth of the Wolf Moon. I bought this book probably in the 80s and can’t tell you how many times it has moved with me.

If you’re familiar with it, you know that it’s not a book that reads like a novel. It’s one that you return to again and again, and that reads differently in every decade you return to it, as you yourself change into a different person and read and understand the myths differently. I would probably be more inclined to listen to Clarissa Pinkola Estes read it at this point since her narration is so captivating to listen to. It’s like poetry or music, if you’ve never had the pleasure to hear her read her work.

For the lesson, Iris read a quote from the book from the myth of the wolf moon and invited us to create a page for our small journal based on each quote and connected to the feeling each evoked. The different techniques for creating each page, such as using parchment paper, fabric or a paper bag, lended themselves to the feeling of each quote and allowed us to sink into the depth of meaning further as we worked on creating in our visual journals.

I don’t usually sew in my journal but I’ve been meaning to try it, and it’s fun. The raw yarn added some further elements of texture, and creating a separate little journal like this feels like it has its own important meaning. An important connection from this lesson for me was that since I’ve been finding myself getting back into doing portraits again, this was another invitation, and I ended up stumbling upon a technique that I love. The wild woman I chose to create and who became the cover, needed some shading, and I ended up using a favorite supply that I haven’t used in a while, and that I don’t think to use as part of my visual journaling approach.

I love these Faber Castell water soluble graphite pencils. When I first tried them, I bought a ton of them in fear that they would stop making them and I wouldn’t be able to get them anymore. Have you ever done that with something? I haven’t used them in quite this way, though: in combination with watercolor and posca like this and I love it! I feel that this is a technique that I will use a lot going forward. It’s so great when other artists can inspire us and lead us to something that we love and that is so who we are!

Keep moving forward, and trying things. I’m finding that since I started a regular art journaling practice, I’ve really started to open up, both creatively and expressively. I hope you’re seeing this too!

Note: I’m not an affiliate for any of the linked items in this post.

Visual Art Journaling: Working with Difficult Emotions: The Inner Critic and Caretaker

Inner Caretaker Spread

When you’re working with difficult emotions, it might take more than one spread to be able to work through and express what’s going on. It might be more effective to allow the parts of yourself that carry the emotions to spread out further – across two spreads in your journal, to be exact – to really be able to express the emotion, and the intensity of the situation.

I’m halfway through expressive arts therapy training certification with the Northwest Creative and Expressive Arts Institute Professional Training Program. In one of our recent classes, we focused on the inner critic and inner caretaker as two opposite visual arts pieces. Of course, I always choose visual art journaling as my go-to medium, so I did two journal spreads. I chose a situation that comes up for me over and over in my life, so is emotionally painful.

Do you have these kinds of situations? The same kind of toxic relationship pattern that no matter how hard you try, it just seems to happen over again? That difficult person you just can’t seem to choose differently even though it seemed so different when you went into it? Carl Jung called these patterns complexes, and although you may be tempted to blame yourself for them, they are not exactly your fault.

Complexes are deeply rooted in the subconscious and put simply, we draw them into our lives to try to continue to solve them and grow. Although it may not seem like it, we are progressing with our personal work, especially if we’re doing practices such as expressive art journaling. We can even look at having come across the challenge as an opportunity, as frustrating as it may seem at the time.

Another name for these kinds of reoccurring patterns is complex, or relational trauma. As psychology has matured, we have included the body in the experience we have with relationships and what we carry from our young lives to our adult lives, and we realize that how we react to others comes from what we experienced at a young age.

These two spreads were timely for me since I was in the middle of a painfully reoccurring emotional situation that I definitely carry from a young age, and that reoccurs with authority figures in my jobs. For the inner critic spread, we wrote a dialogue with that part, using the dominant hand to ask questions and the non-dominant hand to answer. My inner critic was pretty harsh, as our critics can be.

Be kind to yourself as you do this part. Ask the critic what it believes about the situation and about you. Ask how it’s trying to help you. Ask how it feels and how long it’s felt this way. Ask how old it is. Ask what it would like you to know and what gift it has for you. This can be hard, so take care of yourself. This is why we want to make sure we do the next part and allow the caretaker to show up and help out.

For this spread, we are going to create a shield. Use colors to represent the emotions you feel that represent the power and strength of the shield. I chose to do the writing on the page of the spread first and then cover it up with paint to make it unreadable, as I often do with painful writing, especially. See what feels best to you.

Choose an image that represents the keeper of the shield for you, and any other images that you feel drawn to. Use lines, color and other elements to connect the images and shapes of the spread. The shield and shapes don’t have to be literal. Let your subconscious lead and do what feels right to you. Write words or phrases if that feels important for you.

The other spread is the caretaker. This part is a safe place for you. Capture this feeling and ask the caretaker what it would like you to know about feeling safe, protected and supported. Use your non dominant hand to answer about how it feels to have the feeling of protection. Let this part tell you what it would like to and ask if it has a gift for you.

What did you learn from these two spreads? Was there anything you needed to learn about balancing the two? For me, I know that these two parts are very far apart from each other and need to be able to talk and connect with each other. I want to do a spread where they can meet. The caretaker spread is a place of peace, of sanity, of calm and innocence, and it is often misunderstood.

These two spreads represent the traditional and psychic and literal male and female worlds I was raised within and in which I need to find balance and peace. The critical and linear left brain world of power and control often ends in misunderstanding, confusion and frustration in the outside world. I experience fear and wounding, fire and suffering in this world. Just look at it.

The other world is one that was so extreme, I try to recreate it, but it is a dream. It’s a place that she tried to create and keep but that only kept us from being able to walk through the world with real steps. I get stuck there and do not know how to move. I get thrown in the red ocean of the other page.

What are these worlds for you? They may very well be more balanced, less tumultuous and less filled with this kind of emotion. The inner critic has a way of bringing out intensity though, so if you choose to go here, do plan to take care of yourself, and make sure to also visit the caretaker, whose job it is to take care of us!

We are always moving towards balance, integration and harmony with the parts of ourselves that are in opposition. This is the ultimate challenge for each of us in our lives, and getting to know these parts of us is the most honest, brave and creative work we can do! Keep exploring 😊

Mornings, Self-care and your Art

I was recently asked to share my morning self-care routine, and I secretly gasped a little inside. Do I make something up? Do I pretend to pose as a morning person who has it all together and has any extra minutes to do anything but drag myself out of bed and go straight to whatever I have to get up for? I think that anyone who knows me would have to call me out or at least laugh, and I’d be forever trying to recover from being a poser.

I’m decidedly not a morning person. And I’ve also become okay with it. One thing about getting a little older, I think, is becoming more and more okay with who I am. I love my last stolen minutes in bed, and over time I realize that I’ve grown to spend them doing some important internal work.

Morning can be really vulnerable for our inner world, you may have noticed. When we wake up, and are just coming out of sleep, we tend to focus on the most negative aspects of life pretty automatically. I think this may be because our subconscious has been working through dream material without help from the rest of our brain to put things in perspective, rationalize, and all the other useful things we do to balance our inner dialogue.

Being able to catch these first automatic thoughts and respond with gratitude, counter with affirmations and positive thoughts, some intentions for the day, and thoughts that are more balanced and less black and white, can do wonders for the day you’re about to have, and can give those minutes that might seem like doing nothing or like lack of motivation, some purpose.

The intentions we set, our thoughts and emotions, attitude, expectations and outlook all serve to create the energy we carry with us, and ultimately what we draw towards us. Be mindful of the power of your mindset and how you start your day.

So whether you include this practice with a run, full work out, and an hour of journaling (good for you!), or like me, you take longer to get started, spend a few minutes calibrating into a balanced mode for the day. It will do you a lot of good.

Note! There are some mornings when we get up and enjoy the morning intentionally, like this rainy morning walk on West Cliff just before the last Atmospheric River rain event this rainy rainy winter. We actually have a morning each week when we ‘do morning’.

Mornings are beautiful and I enjoy them when I’m up for it. I’m just not naturally programmed that way. Changing up your routine, and doing what you don’t naturally do can actually be good for your art and soul! I think it’s good to change it up as you’re able to, and see what you discover. 😊

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How to Begin Expressive Art Journaling: 9-steps

Journaling as a Practice

Expressive Art Journaling is a practice that can help you connect with your authentic creative self, help you heal past trauma, work on personal challenges, discover your unique creativity and expression, by focusing on your unique story and symbolism, and provide a sacred personal space for you to create, play and grow.

Benefits

I’ve been working and playing with the elements of expressive journaling and intuitive painting for many years, and I notice the difference in my well-being, calmness, and presence when I haven’t been able to do it for a few days. Making time for your creativity, listening to your inner wisdom, and allowing your soul to play, explore and have fun are all so important.

How to Begin

The process I’m sharing for mindful expressive art journaling, is one that that has evolved for me over time by trying different things, keeping what works for me and leaving what doesn’t. I invite you to start with these steps if this kind of practice is new for you, and to add your own variations or steps that feel right for you as your practice evolves. Please share what works for you since it may help others!

Supplies

 You can use whatever you have on hand for this exercise: a notebook and regular ‘ol pen, markers or any other colors if you decide to add color later. The process is what’s most important. I use this journal (I like it because you can work across two spreads and it’s hardcover, but you could make your own or use any other you prefer. I do recommend watercolor paper since we will be using water and water media), this pen: because it’s water resistant and I like to add watercolors over the top, and these watercolors, which are simple and low cost. 

The 9 Steps

1.    Have your journal or paper ready and pen in hand. Close your eyes and focus inward. Notice what body sensation needs your attention. Focus there and anchor yourself to the present moment. Without forcing or changing anything, allow yourself to simply observe.

2.    Watch and notice how your attention moves to other parts of your body, or how the initial sensation shifts to something else. Notice how you are aware of a sound and then a thought. Continue to observe and bring your attention back if (when) you wander off and then just continue.

3.    Notice the observer observing and let that go as well.

4.    At any point, notice the pen resting in your hand. Feel what it feels like. Let it touch the paper and make a mark on it. Let it move across the page and hear what it sounds like. Notice the mark as it’s being made.

5.    If you want to write a word, do so. Allow the writing to open up and become simply marks while still having meaning as words as you write them. Let these marks take whatever form they’d like.

6.    Switch writing hands to your other hand. Let that hand move with the pen, inviting focus back to the mark as it is being made and the sensation of the mark in the moment.

7.    Allow internal images, symbols, sensations, sounds to continue to present themselves as you experience the external sensations of moving the pen and focusing on your body, the sounds in the room and your experience of each moment.

8.    When you feel complete, open your eyes and ask internally if there are any other figures, symbols or images that would like to come forward or if any others have anything to say.

9.    Now it’s time to engage the other side of your brain to focus in on what this experience was communicating to you. This will be important especially if you’d like to create a journal page with symbols and a lot of layers. If you’d like to remain in exploratory mode and keep things more abstract, you can do that as well. What would you say is the main issue or challenge being focused on if you had to name it? What would be the ideal solution. After you finish the piece, whatever that looks like for you,  you will ask if there’s a third symbol that offers balance between the first and second.

Write notes on the journal page or another place if you feel so called and think that you may not remember. The following example comes from notes I took after one of my journaling sessions.

An Example

I started by noticing burning and discomfort in my upper stomach (I have ongoing reflux so this is familiar) so I focused in on it, just allowing and sending the message that I wasn’t trying to do anything or make anything happen, especially with the pressure I’ve been feeling to post what I create.

I continued to note the sensations and where they were, what it was like, allowing, not creating what was happening. I noticed the pen on the paper and by noticing it, it slowed. I focused on sound, the sound of the train, then the saws, then the next thing.

I was writing then changed to free expression with the pen, eyes closed, noticing taste, sound, touch, my feet, the next sensation, free association, the beach, sand dunes, sun, I closed my eyes, switched to left handwriting, words again, who is this, how old?...she is three, young, running, sensations moving to shoulder pain, then to my back, then feet.

She writes on the page about wanting to hide, to get away. Her attention shifts to the dream about horses and the girl with the stick. She says that wasn’t hitting them, she was helping them, showing them where to go, how to get out of the mud, unstuck.

Then two of us are on the horses now in the dappled light not hot not cold and muddy, but moving and flowing shifting. My internal fire has settled for now. I open my eyes to see that the pen has been going over the same place in the upper right corner over and over and it looks like a barbed wire fence.

The colors are pinks, blues, oranges, and cross shapes. The black extends to the left and the crosses fall like water and fall downward. I had felt nervous when I started, having not done any art or written for many days. Now I feel calm. She is grateful.

After opening my eyes and noticing the area with marks that looks like barbed wire on the right that looks like keeping something out or that’s about something being stuck, as well as the connection to the past dream about horses (that was very profound symbolically).

I’m sitting here writing this trying to figure out what it’s about and I’m reminding myself to ask the part that came up at the time: the 3-year-old. I ask her inside and wait to say what bubbles up. She says, you can’t force these things. You have to stay connected (to yourself).

What would the ideal be? To ride on horses all day on the beach (to be able to create and be in nature all the time. To not have to work or do anything boring (she knows this isn’t possible but I did ask).

What would the balance be? Stay consistent. Stay connected. Don’t let go of the thread. I ask her for a symbol for the balance. She shows me a symbol from the journal page I made a few weeks ago. The theme of that page was consistency connected to creativity and it incorporated calendars, time and seasons. The connecting symbol was the moon shining on water.

What’s Next

After finishing this process, I used watercolor as a first layer and worked intuitively to cover the writing and marks with colors that spoke to me intuitively. The image is included in this post. Depending on the piece and where I feel like taking it, I would then add collage, line work, opaque lines, possibly text, or more abstract layers.

As you can see, as you continue to work with images, journal pages, dreams, writing, poetry and communicating internally, it becomes an ongoing process where you’re discovering your own symbolic world: who the players are and what they have to share with you. I find it magical and a deeply personal and spiritual adventure, unique to you and in which you’ll find the keys to your creative life and well-being.

This post has served (hopefully )as an introduction to the foundations of Expressive Art Journaling, showing you the practices of working with a focus on the present and the senses and starting to use layers in a journal. I’ll be following up with more posts, videos and information on the other options I mentioned for adding layers and continuing to work with personal symbols and parts of self, including archetypes based on the Enneagram and Internal Family Systems. I’m also working on offering a course on this topic in the future.

I’d love to hear how this goes for you and if it’s something that resonates with you! Let me know in the comments.

What can you say without words?

I’m very attached to words. The narrator in my head doesn’t really ever stop. I assume it’s that way for most people but I don’t know if it’s as relentless for everyone. It’s as if the words serve as some kind of anchor holding me to the earth, and a part of me fears that without them I would just float away somehow.

It made sense to me when we learned in my trauma program that meditation can feel unsafe for some people. Letting go of that voice to me can feel a bit like l like letting go of reality. But being aware of that in itself can be very freeing. Facing the addiction to naming, judging, telling ourselves what we see rather than just seeing, or hearing and being in our senses can open a door to brand new experience.

To be able to create this way, to paint this way, is freeing. We can step out of the story we’re telling and be in a mood or emotion while it happens without having to describe it and in so doing step out of the moment. I was painting today and realized that I felt sad. The neighbors are building a house next door and the pounding sounds, rather than annoying me, surprisingly led me to feel sadness.

I actually did know why, and I was able to channel the sense I was having into the color I was working with and really be with it. I was taken back to my family but I was still in my body, in the sun, with the sounds, and with the color and mark I was making in that moment.

I value my inner narrator and I respectfully ask her to take a break when I want to shift into creative expression. I actually don’t think she minds too much since she’s been talking nonstop for a really long time!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this kind of topic since I’m in the process of creating an intuitive soul painting class called Authentic Creative Expression, that will focus on going deeper into personal symbolism and story, using nine specific points I call source points that are based on the Enneagram, Internal Family Systems and the Chakras.

Click below to learn more about the course and receive future updates, plus receive a free one-page mediation guide, and a 10+ minute MP3 recorded meditative affirmation that is based on the nine source points and that can be used before you create.