In this article, I would like to share my creative, practical experience while going through the process of healing myselfafter being diagnosedwith covid+. I am very blessed that I am an art therapist and I have the Creative Colorful Healing Palette as a tool in my suitcase. Hopefully, it might contribute to some help to some of you.
This has been a trigger for me to realize that it is important to give time exclusively for myself, to take care of and think about my life, values, and any necessary changes. I have to pause thinking about others, to concentrate all my energy on my body and my health.
Firstly, the acceptance of the situation and taking responsibility was important for me, therefore I started putting into action all my resources of creativity from the first day.
The question arose: what can I do to heal myself? In the beginning, intuitively I concentrated all my energy on healing my body, being aware of my senses: mainly any smell and/or taste dysfunction, as well as all the rest of them. At this stage, it was a priority to take care of the physical body (inhalations: breathing the steam of chamomile once or twice a day to boost the function of my lungs, sleeping as much as possible between all creative procedures, regularly eating healthy food with vitamins and always trying to create colorful dishes toadd some joy, drinking colorful hot drinks with fruits and berries full of vitamin C, homeopathy, yoga,etc.).Every day I practiced centering, body scanning, listening to my body rhythms and feeling my body with my hands,and color meditation.
Scanning of the body is useful so that we are aware of the separate rhythms of the parts of the body and therefore join them to larger rhythms in the whole body. For example, while listening to the heartbeat and noticing accelerated rhythm, we can instantly slow down breathing. Engaging in this practice of awareness, body scanning helps to harmonize the heartbeat with the rhythm of the whole body.
Color meditations, that is to say, imaging a fulfilling body with colors as scanning of the body proved to be helpful for the body to relax.
Visualization of colors in the body is like playing with skills of imagination. In this process,we try sensing the body and associate these sensations with colors, feelings, and emotions. In the first week, it is more important to imagine colors than make art.
Secondly, I answered to questions: What can I learn from this situation? Why is this happening to me? Whyexactly now? What should I change in my life?
Processes of discharging (fever, sneezing, etc.), may suggest the need to make room for ourselves, for a new state of being, new feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, to have new space within us. After the discharge, we are emptied, and there is a place for new possibilities.
Positive affirmations have been a valuable resource every day for taking energy back and honoring the inner being, which is very important for the commitment to wholeness.
Thirdly, make some art. Weekly on-line participation in my lovely EFAT’s creative support group was very constructive and helpful. Additionally,I made some more art.
The body in colors means sensing the body and trying to visualize the color for each part of it. I painted an outline of the body and colored it, wrote notes about how I sensed it, which feelings and emotions I associated with concrete colors, and how I felt when I looked at my art.
In the process of healing the recognition and integration, merging polarities was important: light and dark side, goodness and shadow move toward wholeness. For harmonizing symbolically two opposite sides, or physiologically two hemispheres of the brain, I drew or painted and wrote with both hands, then moved and/or made sounds while feeling my drawings, and writing down my experience.
In conclusion, overall, I realized that this time is ideal for the individuation process while being on the path towards wholeness.It is a process of centering, putting attention to body and senses, emotions and feelings, listening to intuition, taking care of the soul and the spirit with the help of art and creativity as much as possible.