Blast from the Past: January 2015

Friday, January 2, 2015

Link to the 30 paintings in 30 days site hosted by Leslie Saeta

Take a look as the month progresses and be inspired by a huge range of talent. http://www.lesliesaeta.blogspot.com.au/

Art Therapy, or just art - all acts of creation seem to be therapy in some way

Yes indeed, it is a long time since the last post. Writing was replaced with a lot of other things for a time, including an art course, and I have currently taken up a challenge to create 30 paintings in 30 days for the month of January 2015. There are over a thousand artists participating in this event, so the range is going to be wide and varied. And not a little daunting. As the time grew closer, sly thoughts of dragging old work out of the cobwebs to pass off as new was more than tempting, but I disciplined myself enough to get something fresh down on canvas, bolstered by the one day grace that you have when the first of January takes a while to catch up to the rest of the world. The first painting is a quick study of a lake we discovered in New Zealand some time ago. They won't all be landscapes. Who knows what else will make its way out of my head.

Recommended Reading

'The Body Bears the Burden – Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, Second Edition’ by Robert C. Scaer, MD
'Change Your Thinking' by Sarah Edelman
'The Courage to Feel' by Andrew Seubert
'The Courage to Heal - A Guide for Survivors’ by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis
'The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization’ Onno van der Hart
'Healing the Shame that Binds You' by John Bradshaw
'The Heart of the Soul - Emotional Awareness’ by Gary Zukav
'Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body’ (Book & CD) by Peter A. Levine
'Healing your Emotional Self – A Powerful Program to Help You Raise Your Self-Esteem, Quiet Your Inner Critic, and Overcome Your Shame’ by Beverly Engel
'Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing your Inner Child' by John Bradshaw
'How to have that Difficult Conversation you've been Avoiding' - by Henry Cloud & John Townsend
'The Inner Child Workbook - What to do with your past when it just won't go away’ by Cathryn L. Taylor
‘The Obsidian Mirror’ by Louise M. Wisechild
'The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook’ by Glenn R. Schiraldi
‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Invisible Injury’ by David Kinchin
'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle
'Principles of Trauma Therapy' by John Briere & Catherine Scott
‘The PTSD Workbook – Simple, Effective Techniques for Overcoming Traumatic Stress Symptoms’ by Mary Beth Williams and Soili Poijula
'Recovery of Your Inner Child' by Lucia Capacchione
'Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse’ by Renee Fredrickson
'Rescuing the ‘Inner Child’ – Therapy for Adults Sexually Abused as Children’ by Penny Parks
‘Ritual as Resource – Energy for Vibrant Living’ by Michael Picucci
'Sexual Healing – Transforming the Sacred Wound’ (Audio 2 CD set) by Peter A. Levine
'Stillness Speaks' by Eckhart Tolle
'Stolen Tomorrows – Understanding and Treating Women’s Childhood Sexual Abuse’ by Steven Levenkron
'Trauma and Recovery – The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror’ by Judith Herman
'Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy’ by Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton, & Claire Pain
'Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: the Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences’ by Peter A. Levine
'We Are All in Shock: How Overwhelming Experiences Shatter You and What You Can Do About It’ by Stephanie Mines

The Bill of Basic Human Rights

Participants in assertion training groups have identified more than 100 rights from which these eleven most basic ones were derived.
1. The right to act in ways that promote your dignity and self-respect (as long as others’ rights are not violated in the process).
2. The right to be treated with respect.
3. The right to say no and not feel guilty.
4. The right to experience and express your feelings.
5. The right to take time to slow down and think.
6. The right to change your mind.
7. The right to ask for what you want.
8. The right to do less than you are humanly capable of doing.
9. The right to ask for information.
10. The right to make mistakes.
11. The right to feel good about yourself.

Movies that Move Me - (please take care, some can be quite triggering)

Movies that deal with the subjects of abuse, trauma, mental illness, memory loss, and healing
A Beautiful Mind
About a Boy
As Good as it Gets
Being There
Benny and Joon
The Brave One
The Butterfly Effect
City of Joy
The Color Purple
Contact
Dead Again
Dead Poets Society
Enough
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Fifty First Dates
The Five People You Meet In Heaven
The Flying Scotsman
Girl, Interrupted
Good Will Hunting
Life is Beautiful
The Majestic
The Manchurian Candidate
Margaret's Museum
Memento
Memoirs of a Geisha
Mystic River
Random Harvest
Ray
Regarding Henry
Sleepers
Sybil
Whale Rider
What Dreams May Come
What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Quotes

"Healing is learning to use the three most necessary bones in your body - your wishbone, your funny bone, and your backbone."

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood - not to be childish ,but to be childlike - full of joy and wonder."
Barbara

“The commercial sexual exploitation and abuse of children is nothing less than a form of terrorism — one whose wanton destruction of young lives and futures must not be tolerated for another year, another day, another hour.”
Carol Bellamy, Former Director of the United States Peace Corps, Executive Director of UNICEF, and President and CEO of World Learning
http://children.foreignpolicyblogs.com/category/notable-quotes-about-children/

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”-
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German Lutheran Pastor who participated in German Resistance movement against Nazism.

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."
Helen Keller

"Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are."
Rachel Naomi Remen

"I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music."
Billy Joel

"It's about realizing, painfully, you've kept that voice inside yourself, locked away from even yourself. And you step back and see that your jailer has changed faces. You realize you've become your own jailer."

"People out there must be told about the self-loathing that follows rape and how it's the greatest breakage in divine law to mutilate themselves, as I have done."
http://www.dancinginthedarkness.com/articles.php?show=31&arc=151

"Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."
Kahlil Gibran

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

"The desire to forget the past is a form of suicide.I have come to believe that many of us would sooner die than remove our masks and stand barefaced before the world."
Richard Bode

"The sexual abuse and exploitation of children is one of the most vicious crimes conceivable, a violation of mankind's most basic duty to protect the innocent. "
James T. Walsh

"Pornography is the theory, and rape the practice. "
Robin Morgan

"Children’s bodies aren’t like automobiles with the assailant’s fingerprints lingering on the wheel. The world of sexual abuse is quintessentially secret. It is the perfect crime."
Beatrix Campbell

(This one contributed by Zanabelle):
"Perhaps that is one reason why the Savior tearfully urged his Nephite followers to "behold your little ones" When we truly behold our little ones, we behold the glory, wonder, and majesty of God, our Eternal Father."
- M. Russell Ballard