you can use these first two exercises with any emotion that is bothering or confusing you.

as you
have just experiented in this second exercise, by using imagery rather than words, you are able to
access exactly what is going on inside your body, where your feelings are untouched by the influence
of your judgemental left brain. imagery cuts through all the innuendos, the maybes, ifs, ands, or buts
and allows you to literally see your emotions as they are happening inside your body.

in addition, the mere act of drawing a stress-producing emotion actually releases it from your body
so that it can no longer cause physiological damage. this is the first step in the healing process. then
as you will discover in chapter 4, the final step in healing with expressive art is to transform the
image of a negative thought or painful emotion into a positive, empowering image

to understand how your inner language of imagery works, think of it this way:

- imagery is the body-mind's language

- art is the voice or expression of that language

- the alphabet is color, shape, form, line, and texture

- the key to translating this language is through metaphor and symbol.

Despair

this is jessica;s drawing of despair. while jessica couldn't accurately describe what her despair felt
like when she used words, her imagistic representation was very descriptive. here, she depicted her
despair as feeling like giant lump of black tar inside her gut. when i asked her to tell me about the
drawing, she said that she felt trapped inside that sticky mass, and that's why she drew an image of
herself struggling to get out. as she continued to process her drawing- by answering questions
similar to those you will find in the next exercise-she got in touch with how surprised she was that
she drew such an angry expressions on her face. i don;t feel angry,'she said. " i just feel stuck,
trapped. that's not anger, is it?"

for so many people, especially woman , anger is such an unacceptable emotion that they are afraid
to even allow themselves to know they are feeling it. this is a classic example of the left brain's
abiltyto deny that a particular emotion exists. in response to her question, i suggested that she draw
what that expression on her face represented or symbolized for her.

in this second drawing, which she later entitled anger , jessica was shocked when she drew what her
facial expression represented. " i saw in my mind's eye, flames everywhere, and I was the middle of
the," she said. " i knew then that it was anger. i could see images outside the flames of my husband
and my two children-they had blocked ears. how typical!! it is so clear to me now how i really feel,
they just never listen to me. they never seem to care what i need or want. i feel unheard and
unseen. and yes,i guess i am angry about that".

Anger

this drawing of anger and what it told jessica about her feelings was a big breakthrough for her,
because forthe first time she realized that her despair was really a mask for her anger. she had
unconsciously denied her anger for years, because it was not "ladylike," something her mother
always reminded her should be when she was a child, so instead of feeling anger, jessica
compensated by substituting a more acceptable emotion-despair. and despairwas trully an
appropriate substitute emotion, because it expressed her feelings of helplesness in a situation in
which she was unable show her real feelings. so while her family ignored her requests for help and
emotional support, she ignored her own anger. she was taught as a little girl that family duties come
first, and even now, as she battled a life-threatening disease, she didn't feel as though she had the
right to expect her family to help her.

for years, jessica had put her own life on hold while she spent every waking hour taking care of her
family. but finally, by using expressive art, she was able to get in touch with the feelings that had
been hidden for a lifetime. "i can see now as i look at these drawings", she said, " that my anger has
been there, unacknowledged, for many years. i also feel in my heart that it set the stage for so much
internal stress that my system just couldn't protect me from this cancer." as she contonued to talk
about these two drawings and the feelings and insights they reveale, she said she also realized that
het feeling of despair was her way of preventing herself from expecting help. her depir kept her
locked in a place of confusion and immobility. in essence, it was her excuse for not insisting that her
needs be met by her family. as long as she was in a state of despair, she didn't have to confront her
anger, her family, or her own needs.

Perhaps the biggest turning point for jessica in this process of examining her inner imaginery was the
recognition that she was theone with whom she was really angry, because inside-within her right-
brain conciousness, where she was not judging her feelings but simply accepting them as they were-
she knew that she was abandoning and ignoring herself. she also admitted, for the first time, that
her family treated her the way she expected them to treat her-the same way her mother had been
treated by her family.

following these two drawings, jessica did a third drawing, a drawing of transformation, in which she
imaged herself releasing her despair and anger. in this drawing, she portrayed herself as growing
strong, powerful, and important within the ring formed by the members of her family. "This," she
said proudly, " is how it has to be. i have to be as important to them as they are to me, or we are not
really a family