As usual, my friend and teacher, Orly Avineri got me thinking……….for hours. Her poignant reflections usually spur me into deep self-reflection and inner excavation The other day, on her Instagram feed, she said: “For me personally, knowing full well it may be different for others, art making doesn’t help me heal. It helps me take a pause, a much needed rest from the daily work of healing”. At first, I had a defensive reaction within myself, because I truly feel that making art heals me, and I have been teaching people to tap into the healing benefits of art making since 2007. As I sat with her powerful statement, however, I realized that she was right, and that also did not mean that I was wrong.

Art does heal me BECAUSE it gives me a chance to pause. The pause and space for creating repetitive movements regulate my nervous system which helps me to connect more deeply to myself. As a trauma survivor, I never had much of a sense of self. It may have seemed that way on the outside, but I was revving so high in fawning mode (please check out this book to learn more about trauma responses, including fawning, as coined by Pete Walker, the author) to survive that I could not possibly have accessed the deeper parts of myself. I did not even realize the extent to which my survival mode hijacked all parts of my development and life, until recently. I now understand that everything I did was based on survival and staying safe in an unstable environment. Growing up with ongoing traumatic events shaping me in this way, caused my nervous system to be constantly over activated. That showed up (and still does sometimes) as anxiety, exhaustion, illness and indescribable pain, among other things. When I found art, without knowing exactly why, I found a respite from the hypervigilance and over activation that was driving me. I found rest, I found pause. In that pause, I found a glimpse into my true self. I kept going over the years (over 25 now) and the glimpses have become more broad and more like inner knowing. I could not have put these words to any of this back then, but I am thankful that I can now.

This is why I make art every day. This is why I teach making art to others. The pause and space it gives helps me to calm my overactive nervous system and bring my energy back home. Although I talk a lot about my own healing from childhood trauma, art can help with so many other things as well.

The pause that making art creates can help us to:

-breathe more deeply

-let go so we can feel more “ourselves”

-to step off the treadmill of performing and doing so we can remember what is important to us

-to remember that we do not have to be “perfect”

-to remember our joy

-to remember how to play

I could go on and on. Thank you Orly for getting me thinking and for reminding me the power of the pause.