Guest Post: Creating Your Therapy
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It’s amazing how limitations find themselves on our creativity as we grow older in life. As we learn to color pictures, we may carelessly start with any color combination and any kind of scribbling with the most joyous celebration once it’s complete because we have felt that it was perfect. As time moves on, we are coached and coerced into making sure we have colors that work well together, our coloring is within the lines, and that neatness becomes our end goal as opposed to the expressiveness of our creativity. Or what about when we used to play with play-doh? We had to make sure we only used one color at a time for fear that mixing the colors would make something less appealing to the eye.
As an artist and producer who has been involved with the arts since the age of 5, I have personally seen the value of what art does to the person – both the creative and the consumer. Working with youth, however, I have been able to see a more fine-tuned example of what art can do for the person both in and outside of the arts. The ability to freely express taps into a deeper surface that sometimes conversation alone cannot do.
In the article, Champions of change: The impact of the arts on learning, research has concluded that engaging in the arts – visual, performance, or other disciplines- “nurtures the development of cognitive, social, and personal competencies”, and what we have found within our students at Yahweh RYSE is that in the unadulterated expressions in art, we find more resolve, more avenues for healing, more conversation, and ultimately more confidence gained because of the absence of critique and correction in how the expression is done. Art in itself is very subjective but we find ourselves wanting to objectify what is “good” art vs. “bad” art, not realizing that the artist has a very unique message in the expression given. When was the last time you took some time to just create without deadline, content correction, or thought of your audience? When was the last time you were able to just let loose and let your art live? Creativity has a way of bypassing reasoning and reaching the deep, dark places we are too afraid to look into consciously. That in itself makes the connection to it all the more profound. It was through music that I have found a place to express and even have an honest conversation with myself on how to grow through tough times, how to engage with others, and how to become a better person. It was through writing that I learned how to become a better communicator, a better leader, and even how to organize my life better. Creativity provides a safe space that is unmatched, in my opinion, by any other space the world can offer, because of the many stories that can come as a result. Create in freedom and watch a new world come alive for you.
Jordan is a music producer, songwriter, and singer, as well as the founder and executive director of Yahweh RYSE – a Christian organization that merges character and leadership development with the fine arts. You can read her bio [HERE], or you can register [HERE] to be a part of the studio audience of Yahweh RYSE’s first feature film on November 24th.
