Creative Recovery

March 24, 2021 Deborah Porter

Exploring extra solutions for our mental health and anxieties.

March 17, 2021

Please don't get me wrong I know clinical therapy works. I have done a lot of good work through many different therapy models myself but I am also aware not everyone wants to go down that route or maybe they are not ready yet.

When it comes to Mental Health, professionals tend to refer you onto counselling or clinical therapy. However, there are other options that work really well as a precursor or alongside helping you deal with and recover from Mental Health issues.

Core Art Journaling has worked within UKs Primary Health Care system within their new Social Prescribing model. This means when a project has been set up between us and a GP surgery link workers can propose other wellbeing activities to help alongside other medications. My creative wellbeing art journaling sessions have been used to help adults and teens to explore and process their thoughts and feelings visually through the power of creative recovery.

Core Art Journaling aims to give participants the creative tools to process and help build their own emotional resilience. With experience working in secondary schools, and within the health service my aim is to integrate a visual process to support anyone of any art ability into this creative wellbeing programmes.

In the future I am hoping art journaling could be considered under the banner of Creative Health Health are just a couple of reasons why:

1. Art journaling can be done in an any space and your journals become your own safe space for you.

2. Art Journaling is more personal as it allows you to write down all your feelings and then cover it up in amazing artwork and best of all you don’t need any prior art skills!

It's certainly something I would like to continue exploring. A great introduction to the world of Art Journaling and the best bit about it is there are no rules! Julia 2019

I was more impressed with how it enabled me to get in touch with myself and psychologically begin the healing process with my personal issues. Judy 2020

If you would like to read more about these topics, check out these links below: https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/resources/social-prescribing

https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/

If you want to find out more about Core art journaling you can subscribe via www.coreartjounaling.com.
You can also contact me through email: Deborah@coreartjournaling.co.uk to find out more.

Student stresses

February 13, 2020 Deborah Porter

Getting the most out of your studying years

Thursday March 5 is Student Mental Health Day and at a time when one in five students are now making use of university mental health support services the world of being a student in 2020 is definitely a juggling act.

The world of a student has its own unique set of circumstances to deal with. Living away from home for the first time, coping with exams and deadlines, the pressure to succeed, uncertainty about graduate employment prospects and financial hardship all of which can accumulate to affect life one way or another.

Fortunately Student wellbeing is high on the list at Kings College, London, who has a policy of talking openly about mental health and equipping its student to build their self-awareness. I am very pleased to have been invited to contribute to their ‘Make – Do – Play’ Workshops where I will be introducing art journaling. Not everyone wants or responds to talking therapies, not everyone is creative so art journalings non clinical approach and zero requirements for art experience is going to be a fun way to introduce self-awareness and build on an going wellbeing practice.

Core Art Journaling is more about the process than the finished pieces and there are many mental health benefits to free flow writing and unloading daily stresses and anxieties. Your journal can become a safe space to have a visual conversation with yourself, check in and practice self-care can lead to feeling more confident and empowered and help to cope with student life.

The Kings College Student Wellbeing Plan is about:“Taking an imaginative approach to connecting the arts and health, leveraging its extensive cultural partnerships to provide students with extra and co-curricular activities that contribute to wellbeing.”
STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING REPORT AND STRATEGIC PLAN 2018–20

Student Mental Health Day highlights the importance to know that there are actions that can be taken. Speaking to someone from your subject department, or going to the student advice centre in your student union.It is always advisable to seek advice from your local GP for a professional diagnosis.

“Harriet is a second-year university students shares her story:
I am studying a full time degree, it is classed as full time for a reason and hence the guidelines given for working are 10 hours maximum a week. However, this is pretty impossible, especially when you have bills to pay and you need to feed yourself every week.

I also enjoy working and alongside my studies work between 15-25 hours a week with 3 different jobs which often leaves me pretty pushed for getting my university work done as well as attending all (or at least most) of my lectures.

Money can also be a big stress, my student loan covers my rent and most of my bills and for that I am lucky because I know many students whose loan doesn’t even cover their rent. But not having much money means having no choice but to work at least some hours through the week just to get by. Although I’d like to cherish the time I have left as a student and make the most of it because I’m pretty sure it won’t get any easier.””

Everyone wants to finish and enjoy their years at university so trying out new self care tools like Art Journaling could be the wellbeing tool to help you build your resilience whilst producing wonderful visual memoirs!

Student Minds is a superb organisation that run support groups for students struggling with their mental health and campaign to improve the state of student mental health as a whole. Big thanks to Harriet Gately for her contributions.

If you would like to explore art journaling for wellbeing contact me: Deborah@coreartjournaling.co.uk or www.coreartjournaling.com

https://www.studentmindsblog.co.uk

I am my business →

December 19, 2019 Deborah Porter

Small business and personal growth in creative wellbeing

"Im rubbish at art!"

March 15, 2019 Deborah Porter

Everyone has a creativity in them!

Process is best - your FREE how to video

March 1, 2019 Deborah Porter

Why are we so fascinated with ‘How to” videos?

Part of the fun of art journaling is searching for new materials and I am always looking for inspiration for my Core Art Journaling.

Even as a child I loved watching the TV show Blue Peter where I would be completely absorbed in their ‘how to’ slot learning to make myself something extraordinarily useless like a cardboard jewellery box out of egg boxes, the fact that I can still visualise those demos on screen says something for my learning by watching.

You Tube

So what is it about our fixation for watching ‘how to’ videos on You tube? It seems we just can’t get enough of them and I have frequently found myself down some dark digital alley watching some random video like how to wash out plastic packaging to make mark rubbings and then wondering how on earth did I find myself here!?

Gratefully my ‘How to’ fixation came to fruition this winter when I needed to sort out my radiators and after getting fed up with some unqualified handyman overcharging me for a 10 minute job I decided to have a go myself. With my I phone in hand and a few tools I watched how to sort out my heating problem and amazingly it worked although I have sneaky feeling I got lucky on that one!

As humans we search for answers to questions online, and of those, three in five turn to online videos in particular to learn or solve problems.

Did you know that DIY slime is in the CNET top 10 vids!

Videos are a compelling way to learn how to do something online because they show you how to exactly do it. Statistics show that 4 times as many people would rather watch a video than read an instruction manual and I’m definitely one of them. The pearl is that anyone, anywhere in the world without cost or travel and importantly the embarrassment of public failure can learn about anything. Interstingly ‘How to tie a bow tie’ has up to 250,000 hits on You tube, it’s seems show rather then tell is what we want.

We are fascinated by PROCESS videos because they are:
FREE
INSTANT
CONVENIENT
We can REWIND and learn at your own pace
We GET IDEAS from someone of genuine passion and interest.

When I lived in an isolated town in the French Alps I needed to find inspiration and something creative to help me, You tube was where I found mountains of inspiration. I spent my time watching hundreds of videos which inspired me to start searching for books in the French flea markets to use to journal in.

Below is my own FREE short video on You tube showing you a process of :
How to prepare and create your own altered book for journaling

Its FREE and if you SUBSCRIBE you will regularly get updated on New Core techniques and some great tips to help anyone wanting to begin and develop Art Journaling.

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