Art Therapy for You & Your Loved Ones by Rafah
A lot of our time is wasted on our phones while we’re in our safe groups, whether they’re family, friends or partners, and staying for long on social media, for example, while we’re in these groups has a negative effect and increases the amount of stress and anxiety.
Why are we recently trying to incorporate psychological well-being through art therapy in our lives?
Because art is a practice of senses, and we as humans store ideas inside us through talking, but our feelings and emotions are stored in the form of images, and most of the time we don’t have the sufficient space to see these images or even express them amongst our own safe groups; that’s why when we extricate these ideas from within, between the members of our groups, we achieve many things, most importantly:
1- Reducing stress
2- Self appreciation
3- Enhancing trust in ourselves and in others
4- Dealing with difficult emotions and life transitions
5- Existing and communicating with our groups
This is why we can take advantage of a part of our time with our groups, and share a liberated creative work of art with no restrictions or utter judgments, and we can reach some communication with ourselves as individuals and together as a group…
We will mention some simple activities that we can share with our groups or partners:
1- Mandala
A silent space for expression through colors, where the group members participate in coloring a Mandala piece, each person colors the part opposing him, and in the end, the piece is a blend of different feelings, ideas, and emotions. The purpose of this exercise is to provide a space for silence, concentration, and reduction of stress and anxiety, and this helps us drive out the negative feelings we have within.
2- Physical Contact
Our bodies as humans need to express their existence in our groups for communication to be done on a higher level between us as individuals, and this can be achieved in more than one way with the previous consent for touch amongst the group’s members. We can hold each other’s hands while we simply talk about our day, and hear each other without making comments or judgments.
- Music is very important in our days as individuals or as a group or partners, this is why we can dance together or move our bodies in the safe space we have with the group, and this builds intimacy, connection, and freedom between the members.
3- The Paper Basket
In this exercise, each member of the group writes a word or a sentence in a color he chooses, and we fold the pieces of paper and mix them together, each person chooses a piece of paper, talks about its contents and how he perceives this word or sentence in a negative or positive way and how its color makes him feel, and so on, all the members participate; this helps individuals see others’ emotions towards the words they wrote on paper, and helps build trust among them.
4- Role Play Exercise
Each group member assumes the existence of an imaginary character, chooses a problem for it, and asks for advice from the other members of the group. The purpose of this exercise is to put ourselves in others’ places and as individuals this reflects on how we perceive ourselves, and as a group it strengthens interaction amongst the group’s members or between partners, and provides a space to contemplate in different causes without making judgments.
It is very important to specify part of the group’s time, periodically, to participate in an exercise or something that would help enhance the stability, balance, and communication of the group on the long term, and increase the level of understanding amongst the members.
These are different music suggestions we can use during practicing the exercises:
And if you have things that you do in your groups that improve your psychological well-being, share them with us!
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