Monday, June 30, 2014

what happened in crea-country today?


Every day I want to look back on a day filled with creativity.

So let me see... today:

1. I started writing my morningpages (see Julia Cameron) but it turned to doodling. All right with me: doodling is like writing for me only more close to the heart than to have to find the precise words.

2. After the doodling I was messing around with paint, not thinking to much but in the end trying to make some sense out of the random forms the paint created. If I couldn't find a meaning fast, I turned to a next page and started again. 'Let the paint do the thinking' is what I advise myself often. Can I use that same advice in a therapy or a coaching session. I am still afraid people would think me vague or soft if I would do that.

3. In the afternoon in a coaching session I tried to stay out of the negativity talk of a client. Although she has every right to complain, I don't think it is going to help her very much at this moment. It certainly took a lot of creativity to find the sparkles and to get the client to see them too. I succeeded a little bit, I think... I hope... I wish for her!

4.  Then I had a conversation with the parents of two adolescent boys with problems like autisme and ADHD. Could I help the parents find a way of coping with all the problems and the inevitable burn-out symptoms? Now they were fighting eachother while in fact they feel like they failed in their most important task of the upbringing of their children? It took some soulsearching from my side: how do they actually feel, why do they need to fight eachother, does it help if I tell them I understand where they are coming from, because I have been there myself? Do I give the right advices or should I stay out of advizing completely? 
Thinking about it now: would it have helped me if I would have tried to give their situation colors, if only in my mind? Like for the father "you look like the color red to me fading away to some burned-out black?'. For the mother: "I have this waterblue feeling with you like you try to bind everything together with the waves of understanding while the sky is getting grayer every minute?' Could it be possible for them to swim together, the father cooling down in the waves, under water not to hear their whooshing and only feel the waves?' Not to think, not to talk, just to touch the same water... together. Just like I am wishing the same thing for myself maybe...

And right now I am writing this blog, looking back on my day as an artist-coach-doctor-mother-wife... Did I use my creativity? Did I train that muscle?