Discovering Who You Are Through Creativity

Who are you? Are you your name or your face or your body? Or is there something deeper, more precious, in you? Could it be that the demeaning things that were said about you by an Ex or a member of the family or just your own self-inflicted judgment that causes the pain, cripples your creative abilities, to emerge? From time to time, we all suffer from a lack of self-esteem, but that is not a binding contract of who we really are.
When the word creativity is spoken, many say, “I’m not the least bit creative, I have no talent.”
Guess what? That’s not true! We are all creative, because we are the tools of God, “The Master of Creativity.” How can God’s presence be known if not by and through us? We are His children, His masterpieces, His pride and Joy. It is up to us to make Him proud.
You’re still protesting, “But I can’t…” Creativity is not just painting beautifully or singing well or writing a wonderful piece of prose. From creativity emerges solace, when we realize that someone important in our lives is affected by our gift of self. A gift of self can be a smile or a hand on the shoulder of someone who is feeling lonely and dejected. Creativity can be a silent conscious action that is done to create peace or comfort for another, just because we recognize there is a need. It need not be big or elaborate. Creativity is allowing our selves to work with God.
Creativity is using your God-given abilities to think and act in a loving way, just because it is the right thing to do. This is not rocket science.
A Lesson In Courage And Healing From My Daughter When cancer revisited my ten-year-old granddaughter, Michelle, after 2 years of freedom, I asked my God, “Why?” Why a sweet, intelligent, loving angel would be so cursed. I wondered how my daughter and son-in-law and her siblings could bear this burden. They all responded in a way that I hadn’t expected. Theresa, an art and humanities major, her other 2 daughters and husband, Sam, and Michelle spent a lot of time working on crafts and games, during her illness, with seeming, comfort.
I asked my daughter how she could be so peaceful in a time of such horrible pain and no hope for real healing.
She said, “Mom, first of all, ‘healing’ does not necessarily mean ‘curing.’ In art therapy, healing is considered an ongoing psychological process. So, we are all healing all of the time from something, whether it’s cancer or mental illness, or divorce, or even simply having a bad day. In my case, I was constantly healing myself of all the sadness and anger and frustration that I had to deal with everyday while Michelle was sick. She and I both took care of our spirits by making things. She loved to draw and paint, and I loved to garden and sew and make jewelry. Just the process of making something is healing in itself, because the maker is focused on something besides his or her pain. If it is a long-term project then it becomes an outlet for the person to sort of ‘fall into.’
Do you remember the quilt that I made for Grandma? Well, I started that quilt before Michelle’s relapse and continued to work on it for the next few months while she was in the hospital, receiving her treatments. Of course I worked on various projects with Michelle, but when she was sleeping or too tired to do anything, I just sat by her bed and sewed all those stitches into the quilt. Part of the time I was thinking of Michelle and other times I was thinking of Grandma. I remembered all the delightful stories Grandma would tell me and sometimes I would tell them to Michelle. I put my heart into each stitch and I knew that when Grandma saw it, she would know that it held as much love as I could give it. Does that make sense?
So in this situation, making that quilt helped me to heal my spirit and kept me from getting depressed. It distracted me, in a way, from all the doom and gloom in that hospital. As far as Michelle was concerned, going to the hospital was just a part of her life, and all she cared about was having plenty of things to do while we were there. One time we made a Sculpy Clay model of the state of California. The doctors and Nurses kept coming in and looking at our progress. All the while Michelle was hooked up to an IV with two or tree types of medicine dripping into her veins. While we were working on this project, though, none of that mattered. I could go on and on about this, but I guess the bottom line is that being creative for me has been soul-saving. I have also gotten a lot of satisfaction volunteering for Bob Burke’s Kids. Sam and I do arts and crafts with the kids in the summer and they just love it! It doesn’t matter what the project is, they know that they will be able to go home with something they made. Just watching their faces is enough to make me want to come back and work with them, for the rest of my life.”
Her Creativity Was A Gift Of Love I remember how proud my mother was of that quilt. She used it daily until she died at 93. She often reminded us that, “Theresa made this quilt for me!” The quilt was a symbol of her grandchild’s love for her. Mom knew how long it took to hand quilt this gift and she wore it as a sign of how she was loved. Theresa, in her wisdom, discovered the gift of creativity and all that evolves from it.
Creative expression can be maintained not only by art and music, but by cooking a meal, tileing a bathroom, giving a speech, journaling, using your humor to bring a smile to a lonely person in a nursing home. Being a friend when someone doesn’t know you are thinking about him/her and their needs.
The possibilities are endless. The flower of good self-esteem will bloom within, at the completion of any of these creative actions. You will be allowing yourself to be the hands of God, the tools of His handiwork. You may be surprised to meet that hidden self, that person you never knew existed. You will find out who you are.
For more tips and tools on how to survive divorce and loss and make healthy relationship choices, by finding your value and who are you are. You are invited to visit http://www.butterflyintonewlife.com Patricia Hubbard has Facilitated a Support Group for Separated, Divorced and Widowed people for the past 11 years.
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