PTSD & Creativity for Healing Part One

'Love Grows Here' page in my Moleskine art journal.

Ink & Prisma Pencil

I'm excited to be a guest contributor at Michele Rosenthal's, Heal My PTSD website this week. My article "PTSD & Creativity for Healing - Part One" is featured on her blog today. Click on my article title to direct you straight to the story. Part Two will post next week.

Art is without a doubt healing lives everywhere. I'm seeing the theme of art healing lives everywhere I go. I am healing, too, because I found refuge in some paints, some paper, a empty journal book, a canvas, a pencil, a paint brush and a whole lot of freedom in expressing myself in a medium that has been an outlet since the cave man roamed the earth. Art tells a story. Art is meditation. Art helps a heart want to live again. Art is soul candy. Art opens dialogs that may otherwise be hard to talk about. Art can help set the captive mind free. Art has given me, and countless others, wings to fly above problems, confusion and fears.

Michele Rosenthal has been my friend, and treasured mentor, for almost 2 years. She is changing lives and opening the eyes of the world to learn how PTSD can strike anyone, anywhere and at any time. She's been there and she understands the pain being misdiagnosed. Her story is one of hope, and how she persevered by knocking on doors until she got answers, found help and finally, became healed. PTSD can be healed. Just ask Michelle. She is shouting from the roof tops, "There is HOPE! There are TOOLS! There is HEALING from PTSD!"

I encourage all of you who've been reading my blog who may be working through depression, anxiety, fear or PTSD to tune into Michele's blog. Heal My PTSD has free tools, and help for those struggling with PTSD and for people who have family members dealing with PTSD.

This next year I'm launching some art videos to help people work through anxiety by using simple art techniques that have helped me tremendously. The new videos will also help people with day to day stress find ways to unwind creatively. Stress is the number one cause of so many deadly diseases. In the meantime, please go read my guest post. Click HERE. I'm tickled beyond measure to be Michele's guest. Thanks, Michele, and all of you who have watched me heal one day at a time. By this time tomorrow I'll be healed. This I know for sure~

Let Art Heal Your Heart

Let art heal your heart. There is no right or wrong in creating art. There are only test drives. Draw with the freedom of a child.




Thanks to my friend, Lynn, for finding the last video.

***Caption Contest winners are Lily and Tera***

2010 Top PTSD Blog Winner

Peace Lily
10 x 14 pen and Prisma Ink

Many of you know I started my blog in April 2009 to help me deal with PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, I developed after a bad auto accident. My blog recently won the 2010 Top PTSD Blog award presented by Medical Assistant Schools. I had no idea I'd even been nominated. It's an honor to be listed in a group of other blogs that ranked in the top 25 worldwide. Isn't life funny? I never expected my blog to be read anyone but myself and a handful of family & friends. Many people have written me since I started blogging to tell me about their experiences with PTSD and how my blog inspires them. I am always humbled to know people have been helped by reading about my journey.

There have been many changes these past 2.5 years in my life, some exhilarating and amazing beyond what I expected life to give me. Others have been harder to deal with: stress of being in a car, fear, anxiety, medications, ongoing aches and pains healing brings.... and all the times I've wondered if I will ever be "normal" again. I'm beginning to realize "Normal is just a setting on your dryer." just as my old friend Patsy Clairmont said it is.

Along with counseling (thank you Dr. Ed), and body work by my Reiki angel, Lauren, and Sonya, my massage therapist, my main medications have been art, writing and music. As a lifetime artist/musician I never realized how important art can be for healing until this journey with PTSD began nearly 3 years ago. Whenever I'm painting, writing or singing I can forget for a moment that anything less than perfect has happened to me in my life.

Thank you Medical Assistant Schools, and Anne Holt, for supporting PTSD and those of us who are working through it. Thank you, readers for always showing me love and support. Thank you, Superman, for flying beside me no matter what. And my biggest thank you to Dylan, my BFF, and pilot of our airborne van, and "flying mates", Stacey and Colleen. Life goes on in miraculous ways...doesn't it?

Pink Lady

Here's a collage of my new art. The Pink Lady, Dragonfly Moon, and Butterfly Heart are water colors. The bottom right is colored pencil and ink.

I'm updating my 101 Creative To Do List and will have a link up for it soon.

My kid's are traveling through New Mexico right now. Emery has been a great traveling baby. Thank you all for keeping them tucked in your thoughts, and sprinkling them with prayers.