Benevolent Allowing of Self: Life's Second Act

My capstone is titled Benevolent Allowing of Self Life’s Second Act, depicting my personal creative development and my journey towards a benevolent allowing of self to reframe and heal relationships in my second act of life. Rooted in the healing of my relationship with myself, this healing journey branches out towards my family or origin and chosen family as well. As a caregiver, I often put everyone else’s needs ahead of my own, which eventually led to a depletion of my personal resources and compromised my mental health. In this capstone project, I engaged in an art-based inquiry to explore the following questions: How can I, as a middle-aged caregiver, use art making to heal my relationship to self and others? How can I use the creative process to explore complex grief and cultivate an abundant benevolent allowing of self?

My art-based personal inquiry involved several forms of creative engagement during my two years of art therapy training at Kutenai Art Therapy Institute (KATI). I was supported by the spiritual medicine of nature in the Edmonton River Valley, which provided me with sacred grounding for this deeply personal work. I often created art installations in the River Valley, which increased my capacity to self-regulate. The River Valley was an extension of my secure, contained therapeutic space, which was defined by the relationship with my instructors at KATI (Carpendale, 2022). In addition to art making in the River Valley, I also created art in Training Group, which is a weekly experiential art therapy course at KATI. The focus of Training Group is to engage in spontaneous art making and learn how to practice different approaches to art therapy by witnessing the facilitator/instructor process art; and to personally experience what it is like to be in the client role. At the end of Training Group, I presented a personal case study to my colleagues and instructors at KATI, which culminated in a deeply transformative learning experience for all students.

This capstone aims to illuminate, through lived visual examples, how ongoing intuitive artmaking and process work in a sacred professional art therapy training program mixes with personal mindful self-care rituals and enhances the ability to process familial grief, loss, and trauma stored in the body’s felt sense, making space for self-compassion, self- appreciation, moving towards holistic self-love. Through this deep process work, compassion and appreciation extend into a new way of being in the world.