This week’s article is a continuation of last week’s piece on the health of the soul, written by Andrea Lyle. Andrea has worked as a registered nurse for 30 years, and is now a holistic wellness consultant and SoulFit Coach.

Last week’s article highlighted the important role your Soul plays in overall health and well-being. These days, we often overlook the health of the Soul. When we overlook the Soul, we tend to live differently from our “true self.” This lack of authenticity creates discord in our bodies and lives.

Given the powerful connection between the mind and body, one might assume improving your health and “Soul connection” is as simple as changing your thoughts. While there is certainly some truth to that statement, the reality is not as simple. Convincing the conditioned mind to change long-held thoughts and beliefs can be difficult. When you are living cut off from your spirit, “new” thoughts may be different versions of the old ones. Or your conditioned mind may not allow you to truthfully answer questions such as, “If I could change anything in my life what would it be?” Or,

“Am I truly happy?”

How do you bring your soul into alignment if you can’t get past your mind?

Einstein once said “We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” The best way to access the truth that lives in the heart and soul, and bypass the conditioned mind, is by engaging in spontaneous creative expression.

Sing at the top of your lungs.

Paint.

Doodle or draw without a plan.

Dance as if you don’t care who is watching.

This approach may seem out of the box, but the role that creativity can play in healing the soul is significant.

Research shows creative expression to be a biological need of the human spirit. It is necessary for growth and development in small children, it helps seniors with dementia and other disorders, it can help heal illness, lower blood pressure, relieve depression, alleviate anxiety and stress, and has even been used in the treatment of cancer. If creative expression is beneficial in all of these areas, shouldn’t it also be just as valuable in maintaining wellness throughout our lives?

In their book “Healing With the Arts” authors Michael Samuels, MD and Mary Rockwood Lane, RN, PhD state “By releasing tension and fear and opening the mind (heart) to passionate creativity and the forces that created us, the inner artist and healer merge as one. They release the immense energetic power of love to attain balanced wholeness. It’s the oldest healing known and is now recognized as the most advanced by health futurists”.

Playing with music, singing, painting, drawing, writing and dancing opens the heart and taps the soul like nothing else can. Music alone is so powerful that one song can take you to the depths of depression or send your spirit soaring within minutes. In Australia, doctors at HammondCare Centre for Positive Aging are actually writing “prescriptions” for patients to engage in creative activities. (You can see the approach in action on YouTube.)

For me personally, engaging in the creative process spontaneously, without any pre-planned outcome, allowed my heart to openly express what my conditioned mind would not allow. Bringing what was previously trapped inside out, set my spirit free.

Stuart Cubley in his book “Life, Paint and Passion” expresses it this way “When you do not use art as a means to an end, but as a way to inhabit and explore the present, you reclaim your sense of what is authentic in you. It is like a recovered instinct that manifests not only in your approach to art but in your response to life itself in all its expressions.”

Engaging in music, art and dance in this way is not about becoming a musician, an artist, a dancer, or even about reviving your inner child — although if that happens in the process, fantastic! Rather, it is about learning to play and experiencing life to its fullest, so when it’s time to go you don’t pass on with regrets and your song still stuck in you.

I must warn you, using the arts to turn disconnection, dysfunction, disease and depression into uninhibited expression has some pretty serious side effects. It not only allows you to discover the “true you,” but you may also experience a greater sense of self confidence, increase your ability to give and receive love, become happier and healthier, and experience an overall sense of well-being.

The lake area has some amazing resources to help expand your approach to wellness. Pathways to Healing and Cheerful Hearts Ministry (off Harmony Road) both offer a variety of options to help you explore mind/body and emotional connections that can bring a fuller dimension to your health and well-being. Mary Amendolari at Harmony Crossing offers Reiki, a healing touch therapy. There are yoga studios, as well. An additional option, not yet open but coming soon, is Soaring Spirit, a Creative Wellness Studio, which will offer alternatives to nurture and revitalize your mind, body and soul — including opportunities to connect in community playing with music, art and dance, holistic wellness consulting, essential oils, inspirational gifts for well-being and more.

Whether you embrace this fitness path for the fun of it, or for the health benefits it offers, the phrase “Love, Live, Laugh,” will become much more than something you hang on your wall, it will describe your life experience. As your Soul comes alive, and you begin to thrive in your authenticity, you will liberate your own love, your own life and your own laugh. There is no time but the present. Why not start today?