To be human is to tell stories and the world draws meaning from the stories we tell ourselves. Daily experience is merely a set of narratives that makes it real and memorable. There is a feeling of comfort and connection that defines it for me.
The aim of somatic studies and artwork is to be autonomous with the body and consciously explore our inner narratives through play and discovery. In this way, memory is not a fixed phenomenon, but one that develops and emerges through experience. With the emergent as partner, our images grow and reveal themselves in bountiful ways. How we mindfully engage the creative process is the work of art (McNiff).
As a multi-sensory discipline, Expressive Arts (EXA) is based on the idea that perception is etched in the flesh and we can change the way we think by engaging the senses. By consciously activating sensory interaction, the body has a chance to re-pattern itself and breathe new life into its images. EXA’s often cited dictum stretching the range of play is akin to playing with clay (Levine). The more malleable the clay, the easier to shape it and the wider the range for discovery. The more stiff, the less shaping can occur and more limited in meaning the shape can afford.
Memory is like clay as it veers through the body. Art making, essentially, elicits play and discovery for no reason other than the attitude it cultivates and the feeling it evokes. Mindfulness, I find, is an integral part of art making. As a conscious process of noticing, mindful presence enables flexibility, readiness, and sensibility to the present.
The senses are the body’s expression of consciousness. They are the body’s indicators for safety and connection in the present moment. Mindfulness is the ability to notice bodily states and sensations without imposed expectations. With practice, an opening develops between thoughts where one can separate himself from pre-formed patterns and examine new options and vantage points. Assumptions can be checked, false ones weeded out, and new memories formed. Through a distancing affect from the pre-existing, one has the ability to reframe experiences and discover unexpected insights. I had not noticed the glistening reflection of the water fountain until Mary sat in.
From a neuroscience perspective, mindfulness taps the brains plasticity to form new connections. In fact, studies at Harvard Medical School have shown how an 8 week mindfulness program strengthens neural structures in the memory regions of the brain (Holzel).
The range of play is the degree to which one can freely move and be moved by the effective sensory world. When making art, the goal is not to resolve an issue, or to attract a momentary audience, but to freely explore and give voice to the stories that live within us (McNiff). To give voice to something inherently infers change.
Rather than fixating on the habitual world experience, an ongoing cycle of “more of the same”, EXA promotes an exchange with an alternative world experience, a liminal state where nothing is pre-determined and discovery reigns. The arts serve as a bridge from habitual world experience to alternates to create and imagine new possibilities. Rather than fighting or escaping pre-existing memory patterns or expecting them to change, we can freely play and move with them. This is the healing potential of artwork. Through this dialogic embrace, we enrich and expand our relationship with our narratives, discovering new patterns and perspectives along the ongoing stream of experience.
Mindfulness and narrative work have taught me that the self has no story until it is given and the body remembers what it experiences. “I am” is learning, emerging. It is malleable. It is not fully mapped out or set in stone. The self is actively and constantly transforming itself like a dancing flame on the sun, like the murmuration of Starling birds flying in unison, re-organizing and shape-shifting in a dynamic state of adaptation. I am an observer equally as a participant in the social process.
Returning to my original question: how do sensations emerge in the body? Without anticipation of how I’m supposed to feel, I watch and observe the sensations that cascade throughout my body, as though I’m breathing my body for the first time. This inner process is Subtle and quiet and language quickly fades. The sensations I feel are ongoing and sporadic. I listen to the breath, my shoulders and elbows relax, the muscles in my feet, then my quads tighten as does my shoulders and lower belly, then back to my breathing, my shoulder relax again as does my spine. Sitting at the table right now, I notice this wave of sensations coursing throughout my body as I make slight adjustments along my spine to a comfortable stance.
My goal is not to control the sensations or to achieve a fixed state, but to simply notice and let go. Eventually, a feeling of deep relaxation arises that’s raw and unforced. This is a state worth cultivating for the purposes of art-making and general happiness. I don’t know where sensations come from but I know they are a process.
In summary, Expressive Arts is an embodied practice which engages the sensory world to explore the fullness of human expression. Our world views and life stories are housed in the body, screening different experiences. The power of art is the dialogic embrace of memory and imagination and actively shaping our life stories. Mindfulness enables this process by quieting the mind while staying present in a state of non-determination, an absence of expectation – simply being, shaping, and trusting the process to reveal what needs to be felt, with the emergent as partner.
References
– Holzel, Britta K. et al. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. Harvard Medical School. August 11, 2010.
– Levine, Ellen at al. Principles and Practices of Expressive Arts Therapy: Towards a Therapeutic Practice. Jessica Kingsley. Oct. 15, 2004.
– McNiff, Shaun, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul. Shambala. November 16, 2004.