Betty, our inspiration for The Hidden Life Awakened, talks about using creativity as a way to step outside of ourselves in order to experience places of freedom without fear.
Body, Mind, Spirit—Healing from depression
Betty, our inspiration for The Hidden Life Awakened, talks about using creativity as a way to step outside of ourselves in order to experience places of freedom without fear.
Your creativity . . . to nurture that is very, very important in this healing process because what we do in that is get in touch with ourselves. I can remember in the healing process not even having a sense that I had a body—and one day, I don’t know, it just struck me . . . I was just sitting there and I had been doing a lot of walking and it suddenly struck me that I had a foot and how important the foot was and how important our body is . . . So, as we diversify our interests and begin to get into what I call something we can lose ourselves in and express ourselves through. This is a tremendous discipline and something we need to try to do in the healing process. It can be expressed through gardening, pottery, music—if you play the piano, start playing the piano again, if you have done any painting at all, start painting again and lose yourself in it. The healing process involves getting outside of ourselves. We are imprisoned by our fears and when we get outside of that, we begin to sense the freedom. The creativity that we get involved in, the sense of waking up our senses and being creative—even though you think you are not creative—try it anyway because, again, it is going to help you move towards wholeness. So, just remember that it is not necessary for you to be doing something all the time, the process here is becoming—the becoming; moving into wholeness, moving into wellness, moving out of the depression. We have to work our process. This is discipline, discipline, discipline. It’s not going to happen the first time or the second time. You have got to keep returning. Return to these groups. Return—and suddenly, in God’s time, not yours, you’ll wake up to something, just like I said, all of a sudden I realized I had a foot and this foot was very important because it was going to walk me into wholeness and healing, into true self if you will.