I recently received an email from a dear friend in another State. She wrote that she'd been feeling depressed for quite a while. She'd been on medication but hated the way it made her feel... which was not much better... and decided to try life without it. She delves deeply into Buddhism and receives support from its tenets and meditation practices. But, as we talked, she confessed that the one thing she has not done is to tend to her art. She is an enormously gifted artist and I was really upset to hear that painting was not a part of her daily life any more. I told her some of the things that I've learned about my creative life in hopes that it would be relevant for hers and I hope it will be for yours as well.
During the on and off periods of anxiety and depression I experienced after my husband entered a dementia facility, I began to search within myself to discover how I held myself together in times past when life overwhelmed me. What strengths did I have that shored me up and enabled me to move through those difficult times?
First I discovered that I have a powerful will to survive. My ability to survive what I feel unprepared to handle emotionally is due, in no small way, to the fact that as a very young child I began building inside me a core of steel, something indestructible that got me through. Something that did not allow me to fold up and die. I tapped against it throughout my life, through all the deaths and traumas. I never gave in. I never gave up. The steel core kept out devastating feelings and emotions so that I could act. I had people relying on me, needing my attention, when I was the one who needed the attention most. Unfortunately, I learned too well how not to feel. Eventually, that ‘steel' blocked out all the good feelings as well and I became numb to life. In my quest for wholeness I eventually learned that I can feel and also survive.
But it was more than that steel core that helped me through. Something much healthier, something alive, something powerful. The grace of my own creativity.
When I was 6 years old I was given a piano. I'd begged for one since a pianist friend of my mother sat me down next to her and regaled me with music of all kinds. But I had a different than customary use for my piano in those early years. When the anger and shouting in my home got to be too much I'd take off my shoe and bang on the piano...not creative and hardly musical but it did the trick. It gave me release from the tension and often stopped the fighting. As my skill increased over the years I kept my shoes on but was able to find appropriate music to express the deep emotions I could not verbally express, even composing music of my own. I was actively using music as a support without really understanding what I was doing then. But, it most assuredly took me through the crusty parts of my life.
My love for writing was, at first, also a way to express what I could not say. Soon the form it took became other than introspective journaling. I wrote in many genres, even stories for my piano students' recitals. Eventually I created a memoir and am working on several other books. I connect with the muse daily.
Both writing and music are intertwined in their importance in my life. I cling to my two creative outlets where I find both catharsis and solace. And I know now that the reason I feel so good when I am playing music or writing is because I am tapping into that great Source of sustenance. I am not hiding but finding my self. If I stay connected to my work, I stay unafraid. My inner life is my real life. It feeds me constantly and renews me. I find that I can cope with what arises in my outer reality because my creative work provides me with my true center. I often take a piece of my writing or a song I've written and fold it up and put it in my pocket. If I am in circumstances that may be anxiety provoking or may cause me to forget momentarily who I am, I hold it in my hand. It is strength giving. And, I have realized for some time that, like mother's milk, what is used is quickly replenished. The Source of the creative flow is unending. I trust it as I have trusted nothing else in my life and feel continuing gratitude for it and the central role it plays in my life and well-being.
What is your creative source of sustenance?
See: Moving to the Center of the Bed: The Artful Creation of a Life Alone
