How Self-Expression Through Art Benefits Mental Health
Like we mentioned in a previous blog that shared 5 Ways the Performing Arts Benefit Mental Health, the performing arts have been scientifically proven to help kids (and adults) overcome anxiety, depression, and offer emotional release.
As a teenager, I had severe anxiety, continuous panic attacks, an unrelenting sense of imminent doom. It was hard to do anything, let alone homework, when you are holding your breath for something beyond horrible to happen at any moment. My pediatrician wanted to put me on medication without trying other methods first. This didn’t sit well with me even at 15 years old (...makes sense why I’m into meditating as an adult). Instead, my parents helped me lean on something that, only later in life, I realized how important it is to my well-being: music and poetry.
Playing and practicing piano gave me a safe space, a place where my brain can find more ease, slow down, not feel so overactive. Poetry helped me feel understood, as a way to express this pain, to bring it out of my body and onto the paper. It was helping me healthily cope with my experience without me even realizing what it was doing until I took psychology classes in college.
And this didn’t just help me as a teenager, it still helps me today as an adult. Because we all need a way to process our lives, to express our feelings so that they don’t just sit in our bodies but move through them. While piano is something that I’m trying to bring back, poetry had remained strong in my life. And it’s not just for the difficult moments in life. I write when I feel moved by a piece of art, such as this painting by J. M. W. Turner.
I saw this painting while visiting an art museum and I spent 15 minutes looking at it. The soft colors, the title “Sunrise, with a Boat between Headlands”, and the open interpretation of the painting left me dreaming. I took out my phone and wrote this:
The gentle yellow sunrise washed my face and lightened my heart.
Leaning against the cool rocks, wrapped in my favorite sweater,
I allowed myself to be comforted by the soft ocean breeze caressing my hair.
Relaxed and vulnerable, I slipped into the timeless world, the rhythm of the universe taking over.
From there, I watched a sail disappear into the ocean. It was easy to let it go.
That early morning, I was at peace.
There are, however, darker moments when I lean on my poetry. I was, once again, at a museum with a person. This person, however, made me feel even more alone than if I had been there on my own. I could feel the sadness in my face, pulling it down, making my whole body slump. It was so heavy. And it kept dragging me down further and further into a darker mindset. I knew that if I didn’t do something to break the negative spiral, it would drag me to place that would be hard to get out of. I turned to poetry to help me express what I was feeling and get it out there instead of it spiraling inside of me. I took a moment to sit alone and wrote the start of the poem that I finished later:
Alone. How heavy of a word.
It hangs
inside my face, my throat.
Takes leisure seat
upon my soul, as if invited,
as if it’s home.
And then it’s viscous tone seeps through my body,
breaks all of my resolve and
slump
I go.
I am alone.
Writing this poem made me think about how that word “alone” can feel different depending on the situation. I thought about a time when being alone felt positive and ended up writing this poem which helped me uncover a more open perspective on my feelings:
Alone. What a relief!
A full night’s rest feels safe and warm.
To have my space without your presence,
my inner landscape resting, calm.
I am surprised to find this feeling,
confused at how I didn’t know before.
Remove the dagger,
begin my healing,
Alone, relaxed,
I breathe so freely.
And poetry is not the only path to self-expression. It’s just something that works for me. There are many other ways to self-expression: music, dance, painting, singing, crafting, knitting, sewing, you name it. Take a moment to reflect on what you are already doing to foster your self-expression and what you would want to add to your life. And then offer that to yourself. Not as a luxury, but as a necessary part of adulthood.
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