The Family Institute for Creative Well-Being :: Creativity and Well-Being Information

In this section, we'd like to share some valuable information on creativity and well-being:

Undress Your Stress!
No need to acquiesce to your stress.
Express a little playfulness.
You will find stress takes a recess
leading to increased success
guaranteed to impress!

It’s critical to note that stress
unaddressed tends to possess.
As a result it creates quite the mess
and is subsequently bound to depress.
Furthermore to repress stress can cause an abscess.
So when under duress take time to assess instead of suppress.

If this rhyme seems to be a bit in excess, consider that 50 to 95% of symptoms are considered to be stress related. Although stress is part of life, when our bodies are under undue stress they respond through release of hormones, immune responses, and nervous system functioning – basically a complex domino effect that impacts our overall health. For those who live with challenging health conditions, whether you are a family member or the individual with the condition, this complicates your health and well-being. Managing stress is indeed a serious need that is too often left unaddressed.

Unexamined emotions such as loss, anger, guilt, hurt and so many others feeling contribute to stress. These unexamined emotions are like silvers left in our skin to fester. They seem easy to brush aside when we are busy with life demands but in doing so we decrease our effectiveness in work as well as in managing daily tasks.

Stress management is the number one reported need of families who live with disabilities or chronic illnesses that impact daily life. Unfortunately the stressors these families need to manage are beyond the typical suggested stress management techniques.

Although these are helpful tips they are not sufficient. We are rarely prepared to live with the impact of disabilities and chronic illnesses that is outside typical life experiences. They tend to make life feel chaotic, out-of-control and even incomprehensible. People wonder why this is happening to them. They want solutions and ways to fix what is broken.

stress management

Sometimes there is a fix or a solution but even then life may never be "back to normal." Sometimes people get stuck on finding a way to fix the problem and never learn to live with their situation.

The Family Institute programs include activities for reflection, discussion, and creative expression related to the myriad of thoughts and emotions that accompany disabilities and chronic illnesses. The focus is on process and learning ways to more effectively and creatively live with the impact of health conditions. Our programs cannot "cure" specific illnesses but they can help people to heal, to feel whole again and more able to take on life and enjoy a feeling of well-being.
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Creativity & Stress Management

In addition to the typical techniques, the following add balance greater control to stress management

The belief that the mind plays a role in the course of illness was understood from the time of the ancient Greeks to the beginning of the 19th century. With the birth of modern medicine, that was brushed aside because it could not be seen, mapped or measured. Now, with new technology the power of the mind can be measured and mapped. The role of the mind in the course of illness is once again recognized. We now know that the mind can increase the body's healing powers with no technology at all – through use of creative reflection and expression.

Creative writing is a great way to take a closer look at the things that make us sad, hurt, worried or scared. These are the type of feelings that we try to push aside or even hide. But that never seems to make them go away - at least not for long. When we take a creative look at these feelings, as when we write a poem, we discover new ways of seeing that can help us set these feelings free instead of keeping them trapped deep inside. Many times writing a poem holds a surprise. Our writing can reveal to us something we did not know before we wrote.

These surprises help to better understand what we are going through. Understanding is important. The better we understand ourselves the easier it is to let others such as our friends, family, doctors and nurses, know what we are thinking and feeling. This helps us to feel greater control of our situation and healing. When we write and create for understanding, our bodies release chemicals that give a boost to our immune system. This helps to strengthen the body. It helps us feel happier and healthier.

Diane Hovey is a pro at drawing people out, getting them to talk about the tough stuff in life. She's good because she knows all about the tough stuff.

Diane’s daughter Sonja choked on a popcorn kernel when she was 14 months old. She suffered a brain injury and never developed the skills of a normal child.

"She's a charming, adorable, wonderful kid who's taught me more than any textbook or classroom or degree could ever teach," says Diane.

"She's taught me that's not necessarily the most important thing to be worried about, what's our next success. "It's more about who we care for and how we care."

That wisdom is the force behind "The Family Institute." Diane gave up her career as an art teacher* and started her non-profit designed to help families cope with sickness and disability.

"The family is critical because so often the focus is on the condition, whatever the condition may be. But the condition takes place within the context of the family."

Fifteen years after her daughter's accident, Diane spends her days working with critically ill kids, many of them hospitalized. She uses poetry to get the kids to open up about being sick. They talk about their fears, even their friendships.

Diane's poems are full of lessons. Lessons that come from the heart. Lessons with a perspective that only those who have touched pain can teach.

*correction - I was an art teacher many years ago. Prior to starting the Family Institute I was the coordinator of a Federal grant, "Healthy and Ready to Work." My background is listed in About Us.

Living with disability or chronic illness can mean increased stress related to daily demands that accompany the condition such as denials from insurance companies, unexpected health complications, the need to continually advocate for services - lest they be cut - and a myriad of therapies and exercises required to avoid surgeries or undesirable outcomes. Some of these things become part of the daily routine others may never feel routine - especially those circumstances that challenge personal value and worth. Of course, the demands of disability are on top of the demands of everyday life. This build-up of demands contributes to stress.

When feeling stressed, negative emotions can easily surface. A parent may feel anxious regarding the acceptance of his child at school or in the community or angry at the petty rules based on fear of liability rather than on practicality. A young adult and her family may feel totally defeated in trying to find meaningful employment where her skills and abilities are valued. These emotions affect the mind and consequently the immune system. Research shows the connection between increased stress and decreased function of the immune system that with time shows up in a variety of physical ailments.

The Family Institute for Creative Well-Being is a nonprofit organization that offers classes, workshops and retreats for families who have members with disabilities or chronic illness that address emotional, social and spiritual health. This is done through the use of creative arts as a way to explore imagination, ideas, and untapped thoughts. It opens new ways of seeing things and increases flexibility – both critical assets in managing life’s stressors. The creative process is also healing. It allows the body to release hormones that can boost the immune system. This occurs because the visualization and imagery used in the creative art process is a form of communication between mind and body that precedes words.

Throughout history people have had an innate need to creatively express their experience. This process holds a way for people of all times to explore the unexplainable and create meaning for circumstances that seem to defy understanding. Often talking about the experience of living with a disability is received as though one was speaking a foreign language. The creative arts provide a way to eliminate this “language” barrier.

The Family Institute workshops and classes address aspects of living with disabilities and chronic illness in a playful and engaging manner. All forms of the creative arts are used. Workshops include songwriting, mask making, dancing, drumming, story telling and many, many more activities. Why the creative arts? Because the emotions of ongoing health conditions are so complex and multidimensional, the only way to better understand them is through a multidimensional approach. This is an inherent aspect of the creative and expressive arts, making them a natural tool in exploring and shaping the emotions that accompany ongoing health conditions.

Why does my child have this disability, this cancer, this chronic illness? What did we do to deserve this? How could this happen? This only happens in the news or in movies, not to people we know, not to my child.

When a serious disability or chronic illness suddenly becomes part of life, we are shocked; our life catapulted into the unknown. The patterns we thought were true are turned to chaos. Our perceptions of life are shattered. ‘Why’ becomes the necessary opening to begin healing because it leads us to look back, to review our lives. ‘Why’ is the beginning of a search for understanding that leads to healing.

Healing, however, cannot occur without transformation. Therefore, if we get stuck in the quicksand of whys we will suffocate beneath the weight. In order for healing to occur we must come to a deeper awareness of self. Through this process our questions will change and understanding will begin to emerge. However, this is not easy. It is not something that happens in a few hours or even a few days. It is an ongoing process of facing the sometimes brutal facts and embracing the possibilities that occur with change.

Recently I met a mother whose not yet one-year old son was being hospitalized for a complicated and potentially life threatening condition. She was tormented with why’s and especially with not being home to prepare for the holidays. It reminded me of the first year after my daughter’s accident when the degree of her recovery was unknown. In spite of all that was going on, I would fret over how clean my house was when one of the numerous health, social service or educational professionals made a scheduled visit. At one level I was in a state of denial, sure that my daughter would be back to “normal” within a year. At another level I was angry at people who suggested that she would be just fine, as though nothing had happened, as though being dead for twenty-five minutes would have no repercussions. It took several years to sort out the whys and the anger, to understand that ‘why’ was not the question. And even though I was a practicing artist at the time of my daughter’s accident, I gave up my art, not realizing the important role it plays in healing or would play in my life. In time, I started writing to find answers and to explain our experience. I wrote a fairy tale that I read the first week of school during all of my daughter’s elementary years as a way for the children to better understand her disability. It also became an important tool for training the personal care attendants who assisted with my daughter’s numerous needs.

After years of research and working with families who have children with disabilities of every variety as well as children with chronic illnesses (cystic fibrosis, diabetes, cancer, etc), I found that the families who were best able to adjust were those who had found creative possibilities and ways to accept the pains and embrace the joys. These families were able to celebrate their children.

I also found that the arts are critical to this process because they provide a way to explore thoughts and feelings as well as alternative ways of looking at life experiences. The arts help in finding balance, a critical element to healing because they help us to confront the things we like to keep swept under our emotional rug. The arts help us to see. The arts provide ‘in-sight’. When I was an art teacher I use to tell the students that drawing was not so much a matter of learning how to use a pencil as it was learning how to see what we were drawing. When we use art for healing, whether we are drawing, composing music, dancing or creating poetry, we are learning to look into our lives in search of the people, the meanings, or the essence of what is most important in our lives. It is a gift we give ourselves and those we love by raising our consciousness. It allows us to come to deeper and more meaningful relationships. It allows us to develop a more vibrant sense of meaning and purpose in life.

I too wonder just how this can be – but day after day I see it in the families with whom I work. Take a look at Laura’s poem. You can see it in her writing, the acceptance of her cancer, the wisdom she has gained, and the courage she shows in embracing what it means for her life. In one of the writing groups for parents, a mom came in one day and said, “I just had one of the worst days; I couldn’t wait to get here!” And she said it with a laugh and a genuine joy to be sharing her experiences as well as those of the other parents through creative writings and the conversation of friends who understand.

— Diane Hovey

Living with a disability or chronic illness requires the ability to make sense out of the senseless. Whether you are a family member or an individual with the health condition, there are plenty of mind-bending challenges. Just to mention a couple, there are questions: w Why did this happen to me? w How am I supposed to manage? w What can I do to “fix” this? And there are social implications: w Insurance fees, rules, caps & cut-offs w Social barriers and isolation w Elimination of critical programs w Sliced budgets and increased fees.

Understandably, it is all too easy to get caught in the whirl wind of daily demands, forced off-balance and out-of-sync with what it takes to be healthy – for ourselves as well as our families and our children. Yet, balance is required in health, the type of dynamic balance that is akin to riding a bike - it is the motion that keeps us upright. This balance includes pain and joy, sorrow and happiness. It is a balance that is achieved and maintained through reflection especially when our lives become overwhelming.

Sometimes the whirlwind of demands is camouflaged as highly controlled structure – the type of control that is like riding a stationery bike, you can get worn out without going anywhere. A mother reflecting on this need for control wrote:

I remember that even taking a walk sometimes needed to be justified in my mind as a parent of a child with cerebral palsy. I struggled with wanting to control my situation, my family’s situation, and my son’s diagnosis. I read books, did research, and even wished that my child had a more specific diagnosis so that I could get my arms around it all, but what I learned was that no amount of knowing or understanding [control] would make my situation any lighter. It all became light when I let go of my need to control what was outside of my sphere of influence and began controlling what I could.

Taking time to reflect on our life situation can seem far from important when our demands exceed all boundaries. Sometimes busyness is used as a way to avoid introspection, fearing the places it may take us.

Rijke, a researcher who focused on exceptional cancer patients, those who live longer and better than can be expected, found them to be radiant with vitality and energy. He found that these same people when they talked about their lives before their cancer would say, "Oh, I did not live then," "I did not really exist," "I did not feel that I had any choice." It was through their reflection and quality of awareness that these people grew in spirit and well-being.

The Family Institute for Creative Well-Being programs are designed to generate a quality of awareness that builds healthy family characteristics. We use the creative and expressive arts as tools in building communication, acceptance, flexibility and understanding about self, the role of the disability or chronic illness, and family relationships.

To Need or Not to Need – Support

Needing emotional support is not a sign of weakness; it is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human. The fact is that it is a strength to know how to both give and to receive support.

“People just don’t have a clue when it comes to giving support” was one of the comments made by a sixteen year old undergoing cancer treatment. Shortly after his initial diagnosis, friends came in car loads and waited in the hallways to say “hi.” Six months into the treatment, the friends have dwindled and the girl friend says it is too much for her to handle. When he asked for her support, to wish him well with a procedure that was a bit unsettling, she implicitly distanced herself when she told him that only he can make himself feel better.

At one level, we have some choice and control over how we choose to respond to any given situation. However, the role that others play in our lives can also make a significant difference. For many of us, it is much easier to feel strong in the face of the unknown when we know we have the love and support of others who matter to us.

The amount and types of support needed varies, depending on who we are and our specific situation. For most of us, support is not a one time shot in the arm. It is easier to jump in at crises events when they are novel but it does not take long before even the most well-meaning of us fall back to our daily routines as the crises fades into the background, regardless of the ongoing needs for support.

Those who have been on the receiving side of support in such crises offer some guidelines to their potential supporters:

The first step in giving support is to pay attention to and understand your own reactions. How has the news of the cancer, the accident, the disability or the crisis affected you? What are your thoughts and feelings? What memory does this stir up in you? Your personal reaction may be very different from the person you are trying to support. For instance, if a person is in a car accident that leaves them maimed and disabled, you may be feeling that it would have been better had they died. If you do not examine these feelings through writing or talking with others you will be passing these thoughts, whether intentionally or unintentionally, on to the person you go to support. Conversely, you might feel that it was a miracle that they survived and euphorically float to visit the person and announce how lucky they! Before you do this you might consider multitude of bubbling emotions the person might be feeling. The range may be all over the place from feeling lucky to feeling cursed. Not to mention feeling depressed at their losses, numb, afraid, anxious, and so many more emotions.

Remember to step back and LISTEN to the person we wish to support. Be genuinely present with no expectations about what you should say or do. The most supportive, helpful thing for many of us is someone who is willing to understand what we are going through.

If you are a person in need of support, the first step is to become aware of your own reactions and needs so that you can communicate these needs to others who care about you. There is a myth that others know – or SHOULD know – what we need. However, there is incredible variability in how each of us responds to challenges and adversity. We show honor and respect for ourselves and the people we care about when we let others know how they can support us – and be helpful to us. Do you want someone to talk with, and if yes, when and for how long? Do you want to cry and be held with no questions asked? Do you want someone to just help you out with day-to-day responsibilities – no strings attached? These are just a few of the needs that are totally normal. Trust yourself. Ask for what you need. It is a gift to yourself as well as to those who have the opportunity to show care and support for you.

Let me give you a personal example. Our daughter was in the intensive care unit on life support after being brought back to life after twenty-five minutes of cardio-respiratory arrest from choking. The shock and onslaught of emotions of each new visitor who came to see us and our daughter hit me with an additional weight to hold, each minute felt like hours. It was important that people came, that we knew they cared. However, most people came to visit those first few days in the ICU. The need for support continued and even increased after the initial shock, especially during the following weeks and months in the hospital. By the end, when I needed nice long distractions the visitors rarely came. This accident resulted in my daughter’s severe disability. She will need support her whole life. If people wear out in giving support after a few weeks, it is easy to understand why it gets harder and harder to ask for and receive needed supports and why formal support programs become a necessity. As a community, we are not good at providing needed support on an ongoing basis.

Tips on Giving Support:

Ask what people they need. How can I be helpful? But also recognize that many times, especially when people are in shock or crisis, they may have no idea what they need. So, let them know what you can provide. Can I bring a meal for your family? (consider dietary needs) Can I get groceries for you? There are so many ways to help.
DO NOT offer any support you are not willing or able to follow through in providing. Not following through can be hurtful to the person(s) you want to help. It can take a great deal of courage to ask for support. If, when we risk asking for support and our request doesn’t happen it can be a set-back. Some people may withdraw; many will feel a sense of shame, unworthiness and abandonment.
Be sensitive to time – when to come, when to stay away, and who long to stay. Don’t take offense if your visit is not desired. Your willingness to come shows your support. That alone might be all they need at the moment.
If you give support do not expect favors in return. One of the most common reasons people do not want support is because they fear being obliged to “pay back” the support they receive and do not feel this will be possible. If you bring food put it in containers that do not need to be returned so people are not burdened with how and when they will be able to get it back to you.
Keep in mind that reciprocity is not a 1 to 1. If Joe does something for Asha in return someday Asha might do something for Tony. The people who offer Joe support may be totally different than the people to whom he offered support.
Examine and explore your own thoughts and feelings. If you do not do this you might burden the people you are trying to support.
Consider alternate perspectives. How many ways might different people feel about similar events? In what ways might this be similar to or different from your own thought s and feelings.
Listen – be curious. But also be aware of limits and privacy. Don’t pry.
Advice can be more hurtful than helpful.
Have hope but be realistic. For instance, just because someone has cancer it does not mean imminent death. Treating someone like they are dying does not aid in the healing process. And even if they are dying – they are still living!
Research and learn about the condition - not to give advice but so you can be a better listener and more fully understand what the person may be going through. Depending on your role (i.e. parent versus distant friend) get appropriately involved. A parent should make it their job to be well informed about everything that takes place. Others need to respect boundaries.

Tips on Receiving Support

Examine and explore your own thoughts and feelings as to what you are experiencing. By understanding this you will be better able to help yourself and let others to better know how they can be of help to you.
Consider what is most helpful to you and let those who wish to help know this.
Say what you need. This helps those who want to help. 99.9% of the populations is not good at mind-reading. Even if someone knows you well, they cannot be inside your thoughts and feelings.
Give yourself permission to receive support. Think of it as a way to learn how to support others when that time comes. You would not guilt yourself for taking the appropriate medications or carrying through with necessary treatments to improve your health. Support is also healing. Use it wisely to improve your health just as you would use other means of getting well.
Sharing your story and experiences with others helps you to better understand yourself and it also helps others to learn. Your experience may be valuable to others.
Most people who offer support are doing the best they can. If they offer to help, ask them what they are willing to do. This gives them guidelines that help them feel more useful. If they offer to bring a meal or clean your house, let them know what days and/or times would be best.
Let people know what you can handle. If bringing a 3 year-old with to visit or help with household chores would be overwhelming for you – let them know. If the past ten people have brought you chili – let them know what you would prefer to eat.

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