In the half hour before leading a call today about Expressive Arts Coaching, a wave of anxiety came over me. Gremlins were hard at work grilling me… “What makes you think you can talk about this or that anyone would be interested in what you have to say? Do you even know what you’re going to say?!” and on and on.
Instead of getting sucked into the fear, I allowed myself to express it on paper in the form of colors and lines – a way to be with it, honor it and release it and, in fact, practice an exercise I was about to take the participants through on the call. I scribbled the nervousness and doubt and then did some movement around it. I then wrote the words “angst, confusion, scared/pit of stomach” on the back of the drawing.
Flipping the paper over again and looking at it anew I saw, instead of inner turmoil, a glowing fire with sparks flying. I laughed to myself realizing that we titled the call Firing up Coaching with Expressive Arts.
My perspective shifted to see my fear as passion and excitement as I stepped into something new and invited others to play with me. The image evolved more into a celebration and I found new words to describe my experience of it, “release, passion/fire, disseminating, firing it up, sparks, flow, dynamic.”
My friend Jamie and I had been exchanging e-mails this week about Natalie Roger’s book “The Creative Connection” and her concept of using the interplay of creative modalities like visual art, dance and poetry to deepen our experience and self-exploration. How each medium builds on the other and gives us new perspectives. This was so helpful for getting me in the right space to lead the call. And when we did the exercise together as a group, it was fun and enlivening for all. I’m excited about the community that’s gathering around this idea of consciously weaving expressive arts into coaching to move ourselves and our clients forward.
Also had my last session of the felted baskets class tonight. I still need to finish decreasing and then of course, try my hand at felting. I can’t wait to see what the end product looks like!
[tags]National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo, Art Every Day Month, expressive arts coaching, art visioning, coaching, knitting[/tags]
how cool that the title of the call showed up in your art! i love the subconscious mind. 🙂
have you read, “marry your muse” by jan phillips? it’s also about creativity and i just loved it.
It was a fantastic call, Jenn! There’s really powerful work to be done here in the world of expressive arts and coaching. Thanks for leading the dance!