Siouxland Magazine - Volume 3 Issue 4

If I asked you, “How are you feeling?” and you could with
a different form of expression besides words (Whatever
your medium, be it painting, dancing, singing, making
toothpick sculptures, or writing magazine articles). We
might get a more authentic answer from the right brain,
which is known as our creative center, the side of the
brain we use primarily when creating art or experiencing
emotions.
By no coincidence, it seems this is also the side of the
brain in which we store traumatic experiences and
emotions that can be difficult for us and our brains to
process or express fully.
Siouxland Magazine | Balance /45
These days, it is also important to acknowledge the
conditioning associated with expressing difficult things
like a traumatic experience or a painful emotion. We learn
to keep these things hidden and left unheard so that we
can “suck it up” and be the professional businessperson,
the strong mother, or the helpful teacher. These are all
valuable aspects of ourselves we have learned, yet with
unacknowledged emotions and experiences locked
inside, they can feel like masks covering the truth within.
Our hidden emotions will manifest as a dis-ease like
depression, anxiety, and insomnia, making it challenging
to beam our true selves through our different aspects as
the businessperson, mother, or student.
Molly teaches us that authentic expression of our inner
world begs for more than the words of our critical right
brain. Thus, art is the hero of the story, the bridge to
our healing. Drawing, dancing, painting, writing, and
creating can help us transform our depression and
anxiety authentically to express what has been locked
away or banished as unacceptable: our anger, our pain,
and our trauma. So, when we make art, we access the
creative right side of the brain and begin to express
the emotions and experiences to which we cling by
representing them sensorily outside ourselves. This is
why you can see or feel an artist’s anger upon seeing her
painting or a musician’s love when hearing his song.
Rather than using primarily the right brain to say “I’m
angry!” Or “I’m in love!”, the creator of the art can more
fully and authentically express an answer to the question
“How are you feeling?” Anger becomes bold, sweeping
brush strokes and bright red paint. The experience and
duality of being in love becomes somber melodies
that pull on the heart. Painful memories become the
embodied movements of dancing.
It only takes a moment’s reflection to realize it is hard
to put into words how it actually feels to hear love in a
song or create an angry painting. This is because the
left analytical and language-producing brain has to take
a back seat so we can access the wordless yet creative
world of the right brain. This true expression of our inner
world is simultaneously an act of true expression of
our authentic selves.Thus, creative expression through
art, any form of art, is yet another way we can heal our
wounds and fully live our true purpose as a professional
businessperson, a strong mother, and a helpful teacher.
Brain McCormick a lovingly remembered and missed
member of the Sioux City Community participates in one
of Mollys group soul painting classes.
True and creative expression can not only help us free the
burden of hidden emotions and painful experiences, but
it also helps us become the most authentic and evolved
version of ourselves. When we live from our truth in this way,
it naturally serves a grand purpose in the greater community.
For example, Molly sees and expresses herself by creating
cosmic, intuitive, and soul-driven artwork that can also, at
times, resemble the inside of an enchanted geode. Creating
these paintings and drawings allows Molly to express the
complexity of her unique self which is nearly impossible to
cover with words alone. She practices Art Therapy, teaches
astrology classes, makes beautiful artwork, and has a family. I
could continue to say different ways to identify and describe
Molly and her artwork, but only witnessing it will offer a
window to her soul.
Creating paintings naturally becomes Molly’s gift as she
then offers her artwork into the community and also utilizes
this discovered purpose to help her clients heal and see
themselves by creating their own artwork. Thus, the true
expression of self through the art mediums of her choosing
allows Molly to live in harmony by nourishing both herself
and her community.
As a massage therapist, I have learned to deeply appreciate
the complexity of the human body. Molly helps grow this
appreciation as she highlights our ability to reach out into
the world and express the true self through any creative
medium we choose. Even if we have to dig through layers
of trauma and fear to find the self, we can channel these
experiences and emotions through the artwork we make and
begin to heal those wounds. In our healing, we contribute to
the evolution of both our individual selves and the collective
human community.
Emily Larson, Licensed Massage Therapist, Private Yoga
Instructor, Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and Human
Performance, Co-Teacher of Anatomy for massage
therapists at the Bio-Chi Institute, Mother to Noah.
Photo Credit (left page) Sarah Ann Photography.
Photo Credit (right page) Molly Pace.