This week has been a strange one- lot's of people and thoughts of my past and a lot of stress and anxiety- not sure they are related. I feel like I am stuck in an obsessive cycle these days. I know from my past experience as a therapist and as a student of therapy that people have a tendency to seek out the same events over and over until they can come to a different resolution. This always helps me when I feel obsessive. I tend to over analyze myself. One can say this is due to my therapeutic profession, but I think it is more about being female- we tend to over-analyze things.
So not only am I obsessing and over analyzing but I'm also running in circles. I am making the same mistakes over and over and not learning my lessons. What's worse is I am completely aware of it. This kills me. When I was pregnant I was so damn clumsy. I use to run into things and fall down all over the place. This reminds me of that. "Andrea do not run into the pole." I repeated it over and over and every damn time I hit the pole. So my life these days seems similar to that. I actually tell myself the outcome and I still do the same stupid mistake. So I guess a big theme is running in circles.
We are destined to repeat things until we break the cycle. We need to learn our lesson, but first we need to know what it is we are doing wrong and what we are suppose to learn from it. I had an amazing professor at Pratt who often said if you are ALWAYS doing something or the outcome is ALWAYS the same then it is time to look at yourself as the source. In any case- I'm looking and trying desperately to figure it out because I seem to be running in the same patterns these days and making the same mistakes.
One great thing about looking into my past is that I have been able to rediscover why I fell in love with art therapy. I think working in a job where I was under-appreciated and over worked really turned me away from the field. I still have not completely jumped back in since Isa was born 2 years ago. Part of that was because I was so emotionally drained from dealing with my ex and the Hell I was living I could not give an ounce more to another soul. I think now I am ready to give again. I have begun a few Pilates classes which is not quite the same but has given me a taste for running groups again. I am about to begin another group for women who have experienced trauma to their bodies- mainly emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I plan to use art therapy and Pilates and am actually excited again about diving into my practice.
I was asked by a college student to answer questions about the field of art therapy and it made me think about several cases I had forgotten a long time ago. Already this past week I re-read my thesis that I have not even touched since it was printed and placed in the Pratt library. Now I am re-opening the cases that touched me, and there are many. I think most of these came from working at SAVI with women who had been sexually abused. This is the work I was most proud of and the work that tore my heart into a million pieces but exhilerated me all at once. There are so many women I worked with that touched me but one story that I'll never forget came from one of my groups.
I think we had the group make containers representing inside and outside. Usually this is to show how you present yourself to the world and how you feel on the inside. One member had a beautiful outside but inside her box was black. I noticed it right away, but waited for her to talk. Like happens a lot in these groups, there was one person who spoke a lot and the time was running out. So I was very aware of the time and had to ask the woman to wrap up and also did a brief check in with other members to see if they wanted to speak. I wanted to hear from the woman with the black inside but was also feeling anxious about having adequate time for her to discuss. I could feel her depression and sadness and her need to be seen, and yet it was also her responsibility to take the time for herself in that space. I felt her loneliness and need to be seen so I took her deeper than I would normally have gone because I felt she needed to feel safe and less afraid of the darkness. I had her leap into the box with me and travel into this darkness. We went to the bottom and climbed out together. It was so intense we were both nearly in tears by the end. While I felt I could have stayed and explored with her more she realized she just needed to exist in this dark place for a while because it was her safety. This in itself made it safe again. Her sadness was serving her but not terrorizing her and that was an amazing acknowledgement and change so I didn't push further. By helping her the group ran over time and I failed the group because in order to save this member the group went over and some people were late for buses or trains. The following week we had to deal with this failure on our part, but also this same member said that if this work had not been done she would have left the group. It is a tricky balance.
I found the most powerful work in these groups- they were difficult and intense but I learned so much from them. I also learned that cycles will continue unless you can face fear and change it. Sometimes we just need to break from the cycle and jump into the darkness. This is always easier to face with another person, but we can't always rely on people to be there. So for me I think I need to begin again facing my only darkness and make the leap to explore it. We all have that place inside us- sometimes it is bigger than at other times. I think one of the best things I have learned from art therapy and art itself is that black is not empty- it is instead a rainbow of color simply mixed too strongly and too closely. Sometimes we need to remain in darkness in order to distinguish these colors so that we can begin to make our lives more colorful again. It is scary - the idea of emptiness and loneliness but there can also be something comforting about it.
Plank with variations
This week I have been pretty obsessed with the plank
So as a beginner doing plank is a great way to begin to feel the serratus working (that muscle in the back of your arm pit) and to get your abs to fire (to protect your back) - (this plank is for a more advanced student)
- Begin with a full plank (hands firmly planted and fingers spread, legs straight, inwardly rotate inner thighs and externally rotate hips, abs in)
- Keep a strong plank formation and move left leg to side and back 8 times, repeat with right leg
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