Integrating Art Therapy and Yoga Therapy. Karen Gibbons
NOTES ON TEXT
Disclaimer
The recommendations here are for educational purposes only. Participation should be attempted only with suitable experience and supervision. Please consult a physician before beginning any yoga or exercise program and seek medical attention if you experience pain or other physical concerns. Neither the publishers nor author will accept any responsibly for any ill effects resulting from the use or misuse of the information contained in this book.
Notes on Chapters 6 through 9
These chapters give detailed instructions for performing the mudras, meditation, yoga poses and art directives shown in the Practice Chart for Intention Centered Yoga and Art (Table 5.1, pages 55–66). Although the elements are common knowledge to those in the respective fields of yoga and art therapy, I would like to acknowledge the following sources, which offer helpful compilations of pertinent information.
Mudras are ancient and commonly acknowledged in the Hatha yoga tradition. My knowledge of mudras and their use primarily comes from my education with Joseph and Lillian LePage during my integrative yoga training and from their recent book, Mudras for Healing and Transformation.1
There are many commonly acknowledged yoga poses. I would like to note that my knowledge of the poses and their descriptions comes from my training, originally at the Energy Center in Brooklyn, NY with Mary Flinn and Joyce Cossett. I would like to urge those wishing to learn teaching techniques to seek out a Yoga Alliance certified yoga teacher training program. For descriptions and advice, excellent print and online sources exist. I trust the information in B. K. S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga2 and Yoga Journal’s extensive online resources (www.yogajournal.com).
Art therapists are experts at devising art directives to suit the needs of their clients. I received my training at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I draw from my own store of knowledge for these directives but also consult other sources for new ideas or to remember old standards. Excellent online sources include Shelly Klammer’s list of 100 Art Therapy Exercises,3 Carol McCullough-Dieter’s Find Art Directives4 and Deborah R. Corrington’s blog Sharing Directives.5
1J. LePage and L. LePage (2013) Mudras for Healing and Transformation. Sebastopol: Integrative Yoga Therapy.
2B. K. S. Iyengar (1995) Light On Yoga. New York: Schocken Books (original work published in 1966).
3Klammer, S. (2014) 100 Art Therapy Exercises – The Updated List! Expressive Art Workshops. Accessed on December 3, 2014 at www.expressiveartworkshops.com/expressive-artists/100-art-therapy-exercises.
4McCullough-Dieter, C. (2010) Find Art Directives. Accessed on December 3, 2014 at http://findartdirectives.com/therapist_login.php.
5Corrington, D. R. (2014) Art Therapy: Sharing Directives. Art Therapy Directives: Blogspot. Accessed on December 3, 2014 at http://arttherapydirectives.blogspot.com/2012/07/boundary-drawings.html.
PREFACE
My story
Once upon a time, I was an artist-mother-couch potato living with my young family. When I began to practice yoga in earnest I had three small children. My twins were seven and my younger son was four years old. I began to drag myself up the single flight of stairs to my neighbor’s loft, where she would teach yoga classes once a week. I would practice my heart out for an hour and a half, feeling very unfit. After all, my main source of exercise was running after children, all of whom had emerged from high-risk pregnancies confined to bed rest. No wonder my muscles were quivering in those early poses. I would leave each class feeling triumphant. I was thrilled with the “high” I got from doing yoga, and with the simple fact that I had made it through the class. Afterwards, sore muscles would be with me for days and I would say to myself, “I’m never doing that again!” I would keep saying it until the day before the class when I’d finally be able to move properly without pain. Then my thinking would shift and I’d say, “Let’s see what the teacher is doing this time!”
Over time, I began to love the way I felt after yoga. That feeling began to last longer and, at the same time, the sore muscles would fade more quickly. I was getting stronger in many ways. I became a less reactive parent. I began to understand how to make space for myself. I had always made time, however little, for making art. While it did not create more time, practicing yoga was giving me insight into myself that helped my art get to the point more quickly. I began to see that the quiet place I could find by messing with art materials was the same place I sought in my yoga practice. Cultivating both an art practice and a yoga practice was improving my mental health. Everyday challenges that previously left me anxious and depressed were now faced with good humor. I noticed ease in social situations that had never existed before.
One day, my teacher asked me if I would consider doing the teacher training at the local yoga studio where she was teaching. I laughed out loud! I said, “Don’t be silly, I’ve barely practiced yoga.” I truly had no thought of doing anything more than getting my act together. Yoga had revived my energy and revealed a way to get a handle on my life. From the time my twins were born I had been running a ragged marathon. Finally, I was choosing when to sprint and when to slow to a walk. A few weeks later, my teacher asked me again. She said, “You should apply to the teacher training program.” And suddenly, like a switch had been flipped, I said, “OK, what do I have to do?” I applied, was accepted, and began the three-month program all in a span of about three weeks. I really had no idea what I was getting into, but I jumped in with both feet. I wanted to deepen my practice, which I certainly did. Everything was new. I had never even heard of a sutra or a mudra or much of anything else we were learning. And the practice schedule was intense. My mind and my body were opening and absorbing and I was truly transformed. I am as proud of that hard-earned 200-hour yoga training as I am of anything I have done.
Around the same time my teacher was suggesting a yoga teacher training, I had been toying with the idea of studying art therapy. I had been teaching preschool art classes for several years. I loved seeing children discover their creative selves and witnessing their work blossom into unique forms of self-expression. I was also enjoying many fabulous art experiments with my own children, observing powerful moments of self-possession, growth and insight. This was also around the time that my older son received a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. The diagnosis was a confirmation of what we already knew; this was a child who had his own way of experiencing the world. His uniqueness created challenges for him, of course, but also challenged us as a family. And as I’m sure you can imagine, the other two children had their unique challenges to contribute as well. I had begun to realize that the gifts that allowed me to negotiate