Find an appropriate support group

I found a support group that I had information on once before; I ended up misplacing said information, and even forgot the name. I knew it was something simple, that I’d be kicking myself when I found it again, and it was: Recovery Inc.

They require participants to work through a certain book, which I finally ordered last Thursday.. now I’m trying to decide which meeting to check out, one in the morning or one in the evening. I’m torn between feeling nervous and impatient/wanting to get it over with.

In reading through some of NYCinephile’s entries, I was also reminded of meetup.com, so that’s another place to look, in case this one doesn’t work out. There’s also Emotions Anonymous, but I wanted to check out Recovery Inc. first.

I completed the whole course of art therapy, and I am still in touch with the women in the group. I will try to catch up with them once a month or so, to continue supporting each other. And 43things.com is such a wonderful support network as well. yes, I think i have found appropriate support groups. And it have been a great journey.

Last Friday’s session was the final sessino for the Art Therapy Group. It was sad to see it ending, as I had enjoyed the 2 hours each Friday which I devoted totally to me and my recovery.

The whole week I had been thinking, how would I like this experience to end. And the words “Phoenix Rising” kept popping into my head. So I decided to do an artwork on that theme. I searched the web for inspirations and did a scatch of what I wanted to do. Then on the day, we only had 30 minutes, I was paniking as I didn’t think I would get it finished in time. So I rushed around, did rough a scatch, then used soft pastels instead of paint as it was faster. The result ws surprisingly good.

Pheonix, is a mythical creature that had always fascinated me. It never dies, everytimes it burns to ashes, it is reborned, more beautiful and stronger. I feel it captures my experience in the Art Therapy Group quite well.

When we first got together as a group of women, we all had our own experiences of pain, confusion, anger and sadness. We all yearned for connections, and support. During the process over the 8 weeks, it felt as if we had reached critical points in our own “crisis” and had risen from our “ashes”, stronger, and more beautiful. Sure, there are still “ropes” holding us back, there are still “angry hands” (issues and problems) trying to pull us back down. But we are rising above them, slowly but surely.

The road to recovery is still long, but there is hope, there’s friendship, and we know that there IS support and fellowship. Like wings of the Phoenix, keeping us above the ashes, keeps us rising.

This is the second last week of the Art Therapy Group, and the process today was to put every art we made through the weeks together and to ponder them as a whole for patterns, progress etc.

It’s sad to have the group coming to an end. It has been a very powerful process and the women in the group have been very supportive and insightful.

I put all my “art work” up in sequence… And I have come a long way…

The first week I was there, things seemed black and white, there seemed to be two sides to me, to my life, yet I was unable to see exactly what. And what I also realised from the first week was, it’s ok to NOT be perfect, it’s ok to leave things unfinished, it’s ok to just doodle to express myself. I didn’t have to be perfect, my “art” is merely an expression of my feelings at the time, it IS as it IS at that moment in time. Technique is totally different to expression. And just BEING and DOING is the most important thing.

Week 2, I continued to explore the duality of my life. And from that week’s art work and the feedback from the group, I realised that things are NOT really always black and white… Whatever part of my life, be it career, or family life, it’s all ME. One part merges into another. Instead of trying to seperate the two, and to choose between the two, the better way to look at it would be to look at my life as a whole and to find a balance of the two.

I linked the first 2 weeks together and labeled them Duality.

Week 3 was a dark week where I relapsed and was feeling very depressed and my self-esteem was very very low. Everyone in the group was quite teary that week. Perhaps everyone picked up on everyone else’s bad moods. What I did that week was a card. When the card is closed, it’s a window into a pair of eyes that are “afraid”, and trapped in a web. I was trying to explore my situation as a whole, and at that time, I felt I was trapped in a web, and had been trapped in a web for months. And I am scared, scared that I will be stucked for longer yet also scared of what’s outside of the web. When the card opens, the 4 elements at each corner of the web shows the elements in my life which created the web. The angel wings at the top left corner symbolises Hopes and Dreams; the heart at the left bottom corner symbolises desires; the blue pointed finger at the top right corner symbolises expectations, both internal and external; the snake at the bottom right corner symbolises fears. I felt as if I was the spider and the prey at the same time. I am responsible for creating the web which I was trapped in…

I labeled week three as Crisis, a breaking point at which I needed to either change/fight to break free, or stay trapped and hinder my own growth and development. SP said once, it’s at your lowest point that you realise you must change (words to that affect) as you could not possibly go any lower. I needed to crawl back up, to crawl out of that web.

I worked with my therapist that week to look at my “problem” as a whole and we are still working on that.

I actively took steps to get pass that crisis, leading to week 4, the realisation. The poem Comes the Dawn really opened my eyes. Especiall the lines:

“I And you learn that you can endure,
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth
And you learn and learn…. And you learn
With every goodbye you learn. “

And week 4, we also discussed about fear. And I recollected my experiences in Nepal and how I conquered my fear of heights. From those experiences, I was reminded that fear is irrational. “The anticipation of fear is worse than the reality of what you feared.” The bridge on the week 4 art work reminds me of the bridge I crossed on my own in Nepal. And the mountain leading to the sunrise tells me that yes, there are obstacles, mountains to climb, but somewhere over the obstacles, there is and will be a beautiful sun rise.

Week 5 is more about an action plan to get out of the “web”. Realisation PLUS actions will produce outcomes. Week 5 shows the baby steps that need to be taken to go from a broken heart to wholeness and freedom.

To tight it all together, I did an interpretation of my favourite paiting, The Sea Hath Its Pearls by William H Margetson. The girl standing ALONE by the shore, holding up something precious, a pearl. I remember standing in front of the original of that painting at the Art Gallery of New South Walsh for almost an hour, the first time I broke up with someone. I was heart broken… yet that painting gave me power and hope. Yes the sea hath its pearls. The sea is vast and endless and full of possibilities. The girl is alone, yet she finds something precious, something meaningful, TO HER.

It’s my desired outcome from the whole process. To find the pearl in the sea so to speak. It means a purpose, a way of living, it means inner peace and congruence.

Next week is the last week… I am not sure how I would find closure as yet and what “art” I should make to sum it all up… but I guess next week will take care of itself when it comes. :)

I had a clear idea for what i wanted to create in Art therapy this time, and took some print outs of relevant pictures with me so I can just stick them on instead of drawing things, to save time. I wanted to make myself a poster, to help in my quest to get over him and to break the destructive cycles.

At the moment, my heart feels pretty much like the one in the poster… it’s barely held togteher by a bandaid. And the pain seems so BIG and unproportional to everything else in the picture.

On the other end of the picture is a sphere, colourful beautiful sphere. this to me, symbolises being whole and complete. A serene looking girl sits in the sphere with doves flying out of her hands. She shows me freedom and serenity.

Between the dark heartbreak and the freedom and completeness, there are 12 pair of baby booties. These are little baby “steps” that I must follow through. They are not in a perfect straight line, because it’s not a perfectly straight path that i must follow. Sometimes I could walk faster, sometimes there are bigger gaps/leaps, sometime steps fall out from the line. Relapses are not the end of the world. I have to keep getting back up and keep walking. One baby step at a time, follow by another baby step…

Beside each pair of baby booties, I pasted the steps from “lifted hearts” as follows:

• We admitted we were powerless over changing other’s actions or choices, that our lives have become our own to manage solely.

• Came to believe that only in letting go of others, and giving others back to themselves, could we restore ourselves to wholeness.

• Made a decision to turn toward our trust and our faith that we will be okay, no matter what, we have now turned our lives over to the belief that all things happen for a reason.

• Took an inner-reflection of ourselves, and, upon admitting our own flaws and faults, have found forgiveness for ourselves.

• Acknowledged our anger towards those who have hurt us, and, realizing that all humans have the right to error and to their own personal happiness, we have forgiven those who have hurt us.

• Realized that we can control our emotions, and diminish the pain in our lives, simply by how we react to the cause of the pain and our attitude toward it. Understood that we can control our amount of pain by controlling the outlook we have towards any given situation.

• Sought through the unity of Lifted Hearts to find trust and faith that we will heal.

• Sought to have a greater spirituality and faith in this awakening.

• Made the conscious effort to let go of others and give them back to themselves.

• Took a renewed interest in ourselves and our lives, and made the conscious decision to be the best that we can be.

• Admitted that we are not perfect, nor is anybody else, and have found peace in this confession.

• Resisted the temptation to transform our desires and wants into cravings and needs.

more to come later

More to come later

I will write more after work.

I had a rough week which came to a crashing big bang yesterday, so I was unsure if I wanted to be at Art Therapy as I wasn’t sure what kind of weird and wonderful feelings and emotions it may unearth. But I turned up anyways, part scared and part well, just because I preferred the inward meditation of “art” to having to be social, at work.

We had 30 minutes to make “art” this week… although I had a rough idea what I wanted to do, it didn’t allow me any time to actually plan and detail anything. Basically just grab the 3 primary colours and start. I was going to continue working on what I had from last week.. but I felt that I am at a totally different space and time…

Here’s what it turned out to be. I was going to use black for the right hand side, but I couldn’t find black. Then when I finished it, I realised not using black was actually a better idea. The two sides to my life, not really black and white…

There are two sides, always two sides, always a struggle, always pressures from within and without… Desire vs. duty, passion vs. responsibilities, family vs the glitters of that corporate ladder and all that it entails… While the clock continues to tick away this finite life, second by second by second…

Last Friday, I atteneded the first week of Art Therapy. I took the rest of the day off as I wasn’t sure how the session would affect my day. But it was, I guess I could describe it as “liberating” and “intense”.

There are only 4 women in this group, which was good as we got more time to talk and do art work. We spent the first hour discussing the art therapy process, putting down group “rules” such as respecting each other and confidentiality etc, and get to know a little bit of each other.

Then, we had 20 minutes for the art making. There were so many different materials to play with. Yes, I felt like a kid in a candy store… I never realise you could use feather and felt and all sort of weird and wonderful things for art making. As we only had 20 minutes, I basically had to put my mind into just “auto pilot”, and let my sub-conscious take over for inspirations. I looked over the materials and found this one painting that “spoke” to me loudly. It was a painting of a girl holding a mirror, you couldn’t see her face, but her face was in the mirror. Now I had my ideas, I started on the art making.

In 20 minutes, I had paint all over my arms, glue in my hair, and a A3 piece of art work that is forming its shapes. I felt, very excited and happy and was totally surprised how much one can actually do in 20 minutes, and how getting my hands “dirty” was so very liberating. It reminded of my childhood days where I could have mud everywhere and was happy.

The last 40 minutes of the session was spent discussing our art work and our experience with the art making. I will take a photo of my “artwork” tomorrow in the second session. I am unsure what I am feeling about the process as yet. But it was a positive experience and I am going to finish the full 8 weeks.

This is a support group with a difference, that’s for sure.