Joy Through Creativity
This is the second Christmas without my mom, and I am missing all the opportunities that we had to celebrate with each other. We have one Christmas tradition in particular that allows my family to share a wide range of talents each week. It’s our adaptation of the German Advent tradition. We meet to have a short lesson and then we have a talent show. We love to cheer each other on for any and all “talents” we bring to the table. My mom was our biggest cheerleader of all. She truly loved watching us perform and share things we are proud of. Despite all the demands December can bring, I’ve noticed that this year, my heart has tuned in to how healing creative expression can be. When I allow myself to feel the joy in expressing myself through the arts, they can heal, uplift, and provide opportunities for me to connect with others
Fun fact, my final research project for my wellbeing class was to discover the science behind how the arts can enhance wellbeing. So, if you’re interested in some of the science behind why the arts can heal the soul, check out the next section. (If you don’t care as much about the science, jump to the end for examples of how we used creativity to deal with my mom’s cancer.)
The Science
According to Kaufman (2018), an expert in creativity at the University of Connecticut, engaging in creative processes can put one into flow, reduce stress, increase positive affect (aka feeling positive), provide opportunities to enhance social connections and engage in meaning making or providing purpose to one’s life.
Flow, based on research by Csikszentmihalyi, is a highly enjoyable, productive state of mind. To be in flow, one must find the sweet spot between challenge and capability. Not enough challenge means you’ll be bored. Not enough capability means you will be overwhelmed. The arts and other creative pursuits often can become a place where individuals regularly find flow. Often, there is a level of learning one must achieve first but meet any musician who knows how to lose themselves in the music and you will see flow in action.
Also, being creative can reduce stress by three different mechanisms: 1) increasing your capability to deal with uncertainty, 2) engaging yourself in cognitive reappraisal, and 3) increasing your ability for emotional regulation.
Another prominent creativity researcher, Beghetto (2021), argues that you cannot engage in any creative pursuit without embracing some level of uncertainty – meaning you learn how to suspend conclusion while you discover the art in the process. He then suggests that being actively engaged in creative processes becomes a deliberate practice for dealing with uncertainty in other aspects of your life.
According to a study done by Barnett and Vasiu (2024), the parts of our brains that light up while we are doing creative things are the same parts our brains that light up during cognitive reappraisal and emotional regulation. These parts are the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the amygdala. One of the cool things this study showed was that simply witnessing or observing art also lights up this area of the brain. Additionally, participating in daily creative pursuits has been shown to improve health markers including cortisol diurnal patterns, autonomic balance, and overall quality of life across various demographic ranges (Barnett & Vasiu, 2024).
Finally, there is an entire form of mindfulness-based arts interventions (MBAIs) that have been shown to help cancer patients find meaning and express their emotions while going through treatments. Those who participate in these exercises cite higher wellbeing markers through this intense period of their lives. (Reiger, et al., 2021). However, it’s not only cancer patients who have benefited from MBAIs, a study with college students in 2020 also shows that using the arts as a form of mindfulness significantly reduced their stress and anxiety (Beerse, et al., 2020). This study showed that just being creative, however, wasn’t enough to change the perceived stress. Instead, using the creative process to work through your feelings and perceptions is where the power is at.
Here's some of my main takeaways from what I researched – one, opportunities to be creative are opportunities to increase wellbeing as long as we are intentional about how we use them. Please note, if we’re creating simply because it was assigned and it’s a task to accomplish, it can negate the health benefits of being creative and instead add stress and pressure to be perfect. However, if instead, we choose to lean into the creative process to explore, feel, and narrate our life experience, these moments can hold the healing and stress reducing power that we’re often searching for in day-to-day life. If you ever played Oregon Trail growing up, you may remember that allowing your character to build morale by having a hoe-down always increased your chances of making it through the journey.
I learned just how powerful the arts can be during my mother’s cancer journey. My mother always loved watching her children perform. Years ago, she made me promise that if she were ever sick and dying that we would sing and dance for her every day. 8 months after her stage 4 glioblastoma diagnosis, my family and I put on a talent show to surprise my mom. We called it our “Ultimate Advent.” We sang, shared videos, danced, told jokes, and more as we celebrated how often my mother encouraged us to be creative. Many of us chose to be vulnerable and share talents we hadn’t dusted off in years, but when meaning was infused in sharing our love for our mother, we expressed our feelings in a way that words could never reach. For instance, I’ll always remember watching my oldest sister dance to a song my dad wrote. Through movement, she showed a beautiful sunset dip below the horizon, and it encapsulated how I felt knowing my mom’s time on earth was coming to a close.
As my mother’s health continued to decline, we visited often to sing to her, play the guitar, and dance in her kitchen. In fact, when other friends came to visit, my mom often made them dance in the kitchen with her before they were allowed to go (see the video below for one of those moments). The night she passed, we sent her to heaven while humming hymns and listening to my dad play his guitar. The creative arts were how we brought color, joy, and peace to some of the most sorrowful days of our life.
My mom wrote this on Dec 1, 2020 “My parents and I absolutely love watching family members do things that they love to do. Whether it is performing, doing math, taking pictures, singing, exercising, chitchatting, dancing, cleaning, reading, imagining, creating, explaining, cooking, drawing, sports, making holidays, puzzles, family games, laughing, loving up children, kissing hurts, snuggling – all the sweet moments of living life – large and small – it’s magical to be a part of and a privilege to see the joy.”
I have a goal to pursue a “life well-lived” and I believe my mom is describing what that life can look like. When we add creative pursuits, whatever those things may be, to additional healthy lifestyle pillars, we can build lives full of abundance and vibrancy.
Thanks for reading with me today. I hope your world has a little extra color in it this holiday season.
References:
Barnett, K. S., & Vasiu, F. (2024). How the arts heal: a review of the neural mechanisms behind the therapeutic effects of creative arts on mental and physical health. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 18, 1422361. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1422361
Beerse, M. E., Van Lith, T., & Stanwood, G. (2020). Therapeutic psychological and biological responses to mindfulness‐based art therapy. Stress and Health, 36(4), 419–432. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2937
Beghetto, R. A. (2021). There is no creativity without uncertainty: Dubito Ergo Creo. Journal of Creativity, 31, 100005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2021.100005
Kaufman, J. C. (2018). Finding Meaning With Creativity in the Past, Present, and Future. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(6), 734–749. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618771981
Rieger, K. L., Lobchuk, M. M., Duff, M. A., Chernomas, W. M., Demczuk, L., Campbell‐Enns, H. J., Zaborniak, A., Nweze, S., & West, C. H. (2021). Mindfulness‐based arts interventions for cancer care: A systematic review of the effects on wellbeing and fatigue. Psycho-Oncology (Chichester, England), 30(2), 240–251. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5560