Category: recovery | Page 8 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Art Therapy Toolbox: Establishing a Safe Place

Take a moment and allow your mind to drift off to a specific location or place where you have experienced comfort. Are you by a river or stream? In the forest? In a log cabin far away from any living soul? Are you reading a book or taking a long, hot bath? Is anyone there with you or are you by yourself?

For me, we established my safe place when I was nineteen weeks pregnant, panicking over relationships at church over needless drama and preparing for the birth of our third-born in the same traumatic setting as my first. My anxiety skyrocketed to the point that it felt like my skin was crawling. Not long after, I felt my husband come up behind me, his hands on my shoulders, massaging my back. As he encouraged mindfulness techniques through imagery, my mind found solace under a tree, in his arms, away from everyone else. A hidden place away from the spiritual demands and drama, the gossiping and lies, away from the fears of repeating my first’s traumatic birth story. Birds danced through the breeze, chirping sweet calls of the day, while the water splashed gently against the rocks in the flowing river. The grass moved softly in the gentle wind, as far as the eye could see until mountains kissed the skyline. My husband’s warm arms wrapped around me, holding me safe from harm, protecting me from the people who could not care less about the consequences of their actions on my family. This imagery previously guided me through my son’s natural birth, reminding me of safety and protection in my own birthing space filled with dimmed candle light. I had no idea that this location would become my safe place following a church service after opening the art therapy book for the first time.

Sitting in the pew of a church we were visiting, I felt nervous but calm as I had the Sunday before. Unfortunately, also like the previous Sunday, an anxiety attack swept over me as we walked out the automatic doors, as if someone suddenly knocked the wind out of me. In the truck, as my husband attempted to help me re-focus, my mind wandered back to the safe place I started pondering the day before. I felt my husband’s arms. I heard the river. I saw the leaves brushing against each other in the tree above. I-WAS-SAFE. I forgot about analyzing the church’s music and dress standards, and I forgot questioning when their skeletons would come out of the closet. I forgot questioning if the pastor is real or just a facade, waiting for him to show his true colors of abuse that may or may not actually be there. The hurt of the not-so-distant past was still very real and painful, but I was safe from its grasps for just a little bit, for a chance to heal.

Following the next service, when I had another anxiety attack walking out the door, my husband was able to help me draw back to my safe place under the tree, by the river. It is a place I can hide away when I cannot physically escape my triggers and fears. The best part is that one does not have to be a skilled artist. It can be boxes and stick figures if necessary, or simple scribbles on the page. The point is developing a place to escape to within because during and after trauma, we often lose a place of safety away from everybody else. The art therapy book recommends placing this picture up in a room that feels safe in your house, or even in the bedroom until one becomes more accustomed to quickly finding that safe place, internalizing it to be make it easier to reach in times of trouble. It is my reminder that I am no longer in the abuse. Even if there is a questionable or spiritually abusive situation going on around me, I can still be safe inwardly, no matter where I am.

*For more art therapy ideas from Managing Traumatic Stress through Art, check out the full list of exercises from the blog post: “Managing Traumatic Stress Through Art.”

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Managing Traumatic Stress Through Art

Have you ever experienced those therapy sessions where one simple phrase or question seems to blast a door wide open into the possibilities of individualized treatment that might actually work? Well, it was not my own session that accomplished this. It was my husband’s session when he told our therapist that I like to doodle and be creative and my therapist had an idea that changed everything for me in terms of personal growth and development. My therapist gave me a means of expression and processing that I had given up hope for through a book by entitled Managing Traumatic Stress Through Art, by Barry M. Cohen, Mary-Michola Barnes, and Anita B. Rankin.

The book begins by explaining how a group of doctors came up with methods to safely work through trauma at home, though still under the care of a licensed physician. The best part is that these exercises DO NOT require any level of skill or expertise in art. Whether one can paint beautiful murals or is struggling with oddly constructed stick-figures, which is pretty much where I was before this book, is insignificant to completing the exercises. No skill level is required. Fascinatingly, within the introduction, the authors state how even the “medium” or tools used for producing art can aide in expression or hinder the process through re-traumatization. For people with anxiety, like myself, a lead pencil involves a level of resistance while paint may be too free-flowing. For intense emotions, using something with a greater resistance is particularly helpful, rather than a medium that just allows the emotions to out-pour without any form of control. I have found that I personally prefer oil-pastels and lead pencils.

There are three sections: (1) Developing Basic Tools for Managing Distress, (2) Managing Emotions and (3) Existing in the World. The authors recommend completing the first section in order, and then the other two sections can be completed in any order and can even be repeated because thought processes and circumstances can change over time. Each exercise includes an introduction to the topic, a list of required materials, questions for getting started, clear directions on how to complete the exercise, and questions for thought and analysis. The first section of this book has given me a list of tools I can use when the anxiety or depression hits (something I have craved desperately for a long time), and the other exercises have opened the door for many discussions in therapy.

Below is a list of exercises included in the art therapy book. I may never get through all of them, but for the ones I finish, links will be available below after completion:

Section 1: Developing Basic Tools for Managing Distress

Section 2: Acknowledging and Regulating Your Emotions

Landscapes of Emotion
1. Part One: Familiar Terrain
2. Part Two: Changing Your Scenery
Modifying Emotional Patterns
Layered Feelings
Mixture of Opposites
Validating Anger
Imprint of Fear
Shame and Guilt
Lost and Found
Heart and Mind

Section 3: Being and Functioning in the World

Self-Image
Role Quilt
Life Skills
1. Part One: Barely Coping Mechanisms
2. Part Two: A Well-Oiled Machine
Environmental Protection
1. Part One: Standing in the Present
2. Part Two: Stepping into the Future
Interpersonal Boundaries
1. Part One: Barriers and Broken Boundaries
2. Part Two: Building Better Boundaries
Your Level Best
Relationships
1. Part One: Missed Connections
2. Part Two: Within Your Grasp
Worldview
1. Part One: Two Different Worlds
2. Part Two: Global Revision

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No Easy Answers

I stood in Goodwill tonight once again amazed at the number of self-help books at the resale store. Books on weight loss and financial freedom, how to live well over 40, how to be your best you now, how to win friends, how to negotiate, how to choose a career, how to change career paths, how to train your dog… self help on everything imaginable. And interspersed among those shelves of books were a number of Christian self help books. No, they aren’t called that. Christian marketing is different. These weren’t “self help.” They were “inspirational.” How to read the Bible, how to get more out of Bible reading, how to pray, what to do when bad things happen, how to process grief, how to find a good church, how to become a better church, how to govern your thoughts, how to be yourself, how to be a better person, how to accept you as you… Books, and books, and books.

Anymore, I briefly scan them, cringe at a few titles and move on to the other books, but one particularly caught my eye. The book was written by a man who had been injured and was in a wheelchair, and it was about what to do or how to think when bad things happen. Nice thoughts, but the first thing I thought was, “There are no easy answers.” I walked around the store for a bit and worked through this. Because really, it’s more than that. There are no easy answers, true. But sometimes it’s not that there are no easy answers. It’s not even that there are no good answers. It’s that sometimes there ARE NO ANSWERS AT ALL. There are things I will NEVER have answers to.

And then I kept thinking about all those books. Books that seemed to give all the answers. There must be a reason they’re sitting on resale shelves collecting dust. I’m sure the solutions they hold must work for some people, but they obviously didn’t work for everyone. Otherwise they wouldn’t be selling for a quarter or a dollar at Goodwill. If they’d worked, either the reader would have kept them or given them to friends who needed the same answers. But those books on resale shelves tell another story too, of people who want answers, who hope they can obtain those answers for $12 or $25. Those books represent disappointments… disappointments in the books and disappointments in ourselves because the books didn’t work. Because, wow, if that author said it worked and others bought it, it must work But it didn’t. And there is a race to the bookstore for the next new idea, the next book, the next answer in 500 pages or less.

We haven’t failed if 5000 self help books haven’t helped us. There are no easy answers, and sometimes there are no answers at all, and sometimes the only thing that needs fixing is the fact that we are so sure we need fixed.

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Questions, Doubts, and Disbelief… Not the same

“Doubter…” “Just like doubting Thomas…” I heard those types of statements enough. Doubt was bad. As in near blasphemy, you’ll-go-straight-to-hell bad. Doubt led to disbelief. Doubt came from questions. Therefore questions were bad. Doubt was worse. Disbelief… well, don’t think about it. And do not ever ask questions. Because questions lead to disbelief.

Questions, doubt, and disbelief loomed. Ignore the questions. Always have THE answers. Think in blacks and whites. Questions lurk in the gray areas. And questions lead you astray. They lead to disbelief. Don’t ask questions.

Where in the Bible is it written that we shouldn’t ask questions? The Bereans were praised for asking questions. Paul and David both indicated they had questions, and in David’s case, a LOT of questions. Job had questions. Yet all three are “good people” in the Bible. No one ever called David a doubter. They must have been reading from a different set of Psalms than me. And Job… I always kind of wondered how Job got away with questioning God like he did. He asked God some pretty hard, pretty accusing questions right to his face, if you will. I’ve never heard him referred to as a doubter.

Even Thomas, though he’s called a doubter now. We heard sermons about how Jesus rebuked him. However, in John 20, this is what happens:
26 Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
27 Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Jesus made a special trip for Thomas. He invited him to touch the wounds, even to put his fingers in them. Yes, he tells Thomas to stop doubting, but he doesn’t rebuke him for having doubted. He simply tells him to stop doubting. Yes, he goes on to say, 29 … “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Maybe that could be construed as a rebuke to some, but it seems like a very mild rebuke if it’s a rebuke at all. He doesn’t say “bad for you for doubting. Bad for you that you only believe now.” I don’t see that at all.

There are places in the gospels where Jesus says “oh ye of little faith.” True. Over time I’ve begun to see that as less of a rebuke. Maybe it was said with some humor. Or a sigh. Or maybe with a bit of irony. But it wasn’t something Jesus called the Pharisees… it was something he said to those closest to him, to the one who got out of the boat to walk on water, to the ones out on the lake with Jesus in the middle of the night in a storm, to those who’d just divided a few loaves and fish among five thousand and then picked up baskets full of leftovers. Sometimes it was the precursor to a miracle, and others it followed soon after one. And from a search in an online Bible, it appears that it may be something he said far fewer times than I thought from all the sermons on it that he must have said it. (Mt 6, 8, 14, 16, 17 and matching stories in the other gospels.) That’s just FIVE times. Five times in three years, or five times in 28 chapters. Including Peter sinking after he started walking on the water to Jesus. However, even if you want to take those five instances as rebuke of the disciples doubt, it still gives hope to us doubters… because Jesus obviously didn’t give up on them even when they did doubt. So there’s hope for us as well when we do, no matter what was yelled from our pulpits.

Doubt isn’t bad, and neither are questions. Both actually take faith. It takes faith (or absolute desperation) to ask questions about God without fearing the consequences. And neither leads to disbelief. Not really. But what about disbelief? Surely disbelief is bad. Except I’m not so sure in all cases it is. Sometimes we need disbelief to unbelieve some wrong things. Wrong things about God, the Bible, or even ourselves. And disbelief in those cases, as hard as it may be to accept, may even be a gift.

During the process of leaving my unhealthy church, I realized any God that was omnipotent and omnipresent wouldn’t be afraid of my questions. God is bigger than my doubts. And even before leaving, I came to understand that if truly “…neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Rom 8:38-39) and if really I was a creature, a person created by God, then even I couldn’t separate me from God’s love. Nothing I can do, no questions I ask, no doubts I encounter, will separate me from God’s love. Nothing. I may not see it, I may not feel it, I may not understand it, but it’s there nonetheless. It doesn’t stop even when I ask the questions that scare good Christians. And God already knows I have them. So I might as well ask.

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Just be Real

It happened again. I shared a part of my personal experience as it relates to Christianity, and felt rejected for doing so.

The fact is, repeatedly I’ve been made to feel, both in my former unhealthy church and in Christian circles since, that I’m not Christian enough. Not in all, but in too many. I’ve been told by pastors that I’d take too much work. Members have questioned and seemingly quarantined me. I asked a question in a Sunday School class that brought abrupt silence. The next Sunday only the teacher and I showed up. I’ve found myself unfriended on Facebook. And again, this is not by members of unhealthy church groups. This is by people who I’ve met since. This is not because I’m “confessing my faults” or participating in some accountability group, either. It’s because someone hurts and I have the audacity to say, “me too.” For me that’s a way of respecting others’ vulnerabilities as they share as well as growing, myself.

So am I not Christian enough? I really don’t care at this point. Judge me for that. I’m sick to death of Christians who believe we should not lie expecting me to live a lie, to hide behind platitudes and facades, pretending to believe just like they say they do, acting like everything is perfect in a fallen world, denying my own sorrow and grief and doubts and failures. So if being a Christian means living a lie, I hope I’m never THAT “Christian.”

I don’t think that’s what real Christianity is. I think that the whole idea that we have to “fake it til we make it” is an insidious lie and one of the most commonly accepted hypocrisies of American churchianity. The fact is we’re human. We live in a world filled with other humans. Sometimes life stinks. Sometimes things go wrong. And when that happens we hurt, we cry, we question. Sometimes we doubt God and sometimes we doubt ourselves. And pretending we don’t doesn’t fix one blessed thing.

God calls us to honesty. Honesty with ourselves and with Him. We don’t do that with fake smiles and hurried “amens” said while brushing all of our questions, fears, and doubts under the nearest rug. My life isn’t a Facebook wall. There are studies that use of Facebook actually has a correlation with increased depression and loneliness, and one of the reasons most cited is that on social media people tend to put only their best face forward. Most people don’t post on social media that they spilled soup down their blouse right before their presentation, that they have had a week of bad hair days, or that their child smeared poop on the wall for the third time that day. They post about the successes and share the cute baby and toddler pictures. The rest they leave off Facebook. Doing this leaves everyone reading their posts with a false impression that their friends’ lives are near perfect while their own are… a mess.

Think of what this might implicate within Christianity. If we only hear about the great services and prayer meetings that everyone else has been in and we privately realize we almost fell asleep in church for the third Sunday in a row, or our Christian friends talk about faith, faith, faith and how sure they are that everything will work out and itemize ALL the times God’s answered their prayers and never admit to the other times… or perhaps worse, if we get strange looks and sense mild shudders if we acknowledge we don’t understand something about God… what does that do? What image does that portray to those who are honest enough to have admitted to themselves that some things just don’t make sense? What does that teach those who aren’t quite ready to be honest, even with themselves?

To me, there are a lot of similarities. So I choose to be honest. And if that makes me not Christian enough, so be it. If people judge me, I’d rather them judge me for my honesty and not the design of my facade, but hopefully more will stop to see the beauty of the nuances that make me who I am and will relate and reflect themselves in their own honesty. Hopefully more will hear my respect of and empathy for their vulnerabilities. Hopefully more will take off their masks, strip away their facades, and enjoy the reality of each imperfect and incomprehensible but still very real moment with me.

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