“Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.” Brian Aldiss, writer
Painting. Drawing. Pottery. Woodworking. Sewing.
How often do you engage in such creative activities? If you’re like most people in the throes of a separation or divorce, artistic pursuits are likely the last thing on your mind. But according to researchers, creative self-expression may be the thing we need most when we’re experiencing major life changes or stressful events.
Creative Practice Overall Benefits
While arts and crafts have at times been dismissed as self-indulgent or trivial activities, researchers are now beginning to grasp the therapeutic benefits of a creative practice, both for individuals who may be suffering from physical ailments, and for perfectly healthy children and adults.
“There’s promising evidence coming out to support what a lot of crafters have known anecdotally for quite some time,” says clinical neuropsychologist Catherine Carey Levisay in “This is Your Brain on Crafting,” written for CNN. “And that’s that creating whether it be through art, music, cooking, quilting, sewing, drawing, photography (or) cake decorating is beneficial to us in a number of important ways.”
Empowerment via Creativity
For those undergoing marital difficulties or going through a divorce, the process can elicit feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. One way to take back power over your emotions is by tapping into your creative powers. The late psychologist Rollo May once said, “Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being.” Anyone shedding old habits or behaviors and starting over may find it helpful to try his or her hand at a new hobby. Harnessing creativity doesn’t mean becoming an overnight expert, but rather, the most joy is derived from enjoying the process and honing one’s creative skills over time.
Engaging in creative pursuits contributes to an overall sense of wellbeing and fulfillment. With creative exploration comes self-discovery insight into one’s limitations and awareness of new possibilities and increased emotional intelligence.
Working through creative roadblocks mimics the process needed to address life’s sudden changes and upsets. Bob Ross, the late painter and art instructor, was known for his cheerful demeanor, often referring to creative snafus as “happy little accidents.” Serious challenges in our relationships hardly seem “happy” or “accidental” but by approaching even life’s most difficult transitions with a similar resilience and acceptance can help us to transform anger into passion and confusion into clarity. And with this outlook comes improved confidence, the ability to trust one’s self, and a renewed sense of self-respect.
In her book Craft to Heal: Soothing Your Soul with Sewing, Painting, and Other Pastimes, Nancy Monson describes a quilt she made during her divorce. “As I worked on the quilt over several weeks, I began to see that the evolving design was expressing some of the chaos and confusion I was feeling as I went through my divorce.” After relinquishing some of her control over the process, changing her technique, and taking a more laid-back approach to the project, she found that she loved the way it looked. “It now has a kind of mangled, arrow shape to it, which is entirely appropriate to its purpose. It looks like it has been through an antique washing machine just as I felt I, as a human being, had been so I renamed it My Divorce Quilt: Through the Wringer,” she says. “Making it and showing it has helped me to heal the chasm in my life and to feel whole again, this time as a single person.”
Creativity and Science
Creative self-expression can also bring a level of satisfaction and joy to life experiences we may feel are missing from our lives when undergoing a painful separation or divorce. And such conclusions are backed by scientific data and clinical research.
Dopamine, the neurotransmitter known as our brain’s “feel-good” chemical, is released when we engage in pleasurable activities, such as crafting. In a study published in The British Journal of Occupational Therapy, more than 3,500 knitters were surveyed after knitting, and 81 percent of respondents with depression reported feeling happy and more than half reported feeling “very happy.”
In Craft to Heal, Monson also cites a landmark study mentioned in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the study, researchers measured gauges of stress such as blood pressure, heart rate, perspiration rate, and skin temperature among women before and after they performed five activities requiring similar eye-hand movements. The pastimes included a simple sewing project, a card game, painting at an easel, playing a hand-held video game, and reading a newspaper. The results showed sewing to be the most relaxing activity of the five studied, producing drops in heart rate, blood pressure, and perspiration.
Robert Reiner, Ph.D., a New York University psychologist and the study’s author, explains, “The act of performing a craft is incompatible with worry, anger, obsession, and anxiety,” he says. “Crafts make you concentrate and focus on the here and now and distract you from everyday pressures and problems. They’re stress-busters in the same way that meditation, deep breathing, visual imagery, and watching fish are.”
This pseudo-meditative response is partly due to an effect called “flow,” first described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This phenomenon has happened to all of us: we become so engrossed in a creative activity that before long, we’ve lost ourselves for hours in the project. In his 2004 Ted Talk, “Flow, the Secret to Happiness,” Csikszentmihalyi explains, “When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life. You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger.” Because our nervous system can only process a given amount of information at a time, a person’s existence outside an engaging activity becomes “temporarily suspended.”
Repetitive hand movements involved in knitting, drawing, painting, and other types of handcraft also activate the parasymphathetic nervous system, which quiets the body’s fight or flight response. Such activities to elicit flow, which could offer a nonpharmaceutical way to regulate strong emotions such as anger or to prevent irrational thoughts, according to a 2007 paper, The Neurological Basis of Occupation, by occupational therapist Victoria Schindler and co-author Sharon Gutman. “Flow could potentially help patients to dampen internal chaos,” they write.
Prioritizing Self-Care
Self-expression is important for children, too. If you want to get the kids involved in a few creative projects, here are some suggestions, via Wevorce’s “10 Ways to Have More Fun with Your Kids.” But for parents who dedicate time and attention to their children’s education, after school activities, and hobbies; self-care is all too often overlooked. Moms and Dads may find their nerves frayed during a divorce, which is often a time when time and energy is at an all-time low.
However, as is often the case with physical exercise, with energy invested comes energy gained. As the 18th-century poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, “Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic to it. Begin it now.” So why not start a creative endeavor? Maybe it’s time to finally take that pottery class you’ve never had time for. Or what about registering for a plein air painting workshop? Engaging in such activities will not only foster your creativity, but will decrease stress, promote feelings of self-love, and help you on the road to healing your heart, mind, and spirit.
