View this email in your browser

April 13, 2020

Greetings! We are so excited to send you a second newsletter sharing more Insights and Suggestions from our AFHS-M Professional Members.

We hope these nuggets of joy will be helpful to you as you practice using your coping skills during these challenging, stressful and depressing times. Once again, we challenge you to try one or all of the suggestions below.

Please give it a go and let us know how trying something new has impacted you. We are honored to hear your feedback through our Facebook Page or our website.

Be safe,
Hedda and Lisa, Co-Chairs AFHS-M

Hedda Matza-Haughton, LCSW, President of “For the Health of It” Consultation and co-chair AFHSM

Hi, This is Hedda. I have some good news to share. To support our quest to overcome emotional challenges during this crisis, I was interviewed, on Tuesday, March 31st, by Kay Kipling from the Sarasota Magazine and on Wednesday, April 1st the article went online. The topic and discussion were how to stay home well through the arts. This was a great opportunity to discuss arts for health ideas to reach a larger audience than just our AFHSM community, my personal colleagues, friends, and family. The link to the article, which shares some more tips, is: https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/arts-and-entertainment/2020/04/how-to-stay-well-through-the-arts

Thank you

We are so blessed
to have our Arts for Health Sarasota-Manatee Practitioners
sharing their juicy goodness with us.

Dearest AFH Supporters, Friends, and Family,
Here some additions to our list of insights and suggestions to help cope with overwhelming feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression during this trying time:

A message from Deirdre McKay-Wellness Advocate; artist; author; mindset mentor and Arts for Health Practitioner

There are hardship and death here, but for those looking for hope and strength, they will find it all around. To stay calm and strong, keep up with your practices - whether yoga or arts. My tip for others, and what I practice myself before starting a writing or art project or job is to clear and prep my physical space for the creation process.

Metaphorically, this orderliness translates to our inner worlds. We can form a fresh perspective now, rendering this time as an opportunity for house cleaning - our body, mind, and spirit - our temple for expansion can always use freshening up!

Get support - tap into communities. My free, online group for creative women is one place to go, and there are tons of other spaces. - https://www.facebook.com/Didi-McKay-100247808074278/

I've been cleaning out my energy drains - unfinished business, bills, projects that nag me from the back of my mind. Symbolic dusting can take the form of ridding ourselves of naysayer voices and creating strong affirmations, said on a daily basis. Let's vacuum away baggage that weighs on us and asks for energy to manage it - some things just need to GO! For example - material items like old clothes and house items that have stale memories attached - they waste your energy just managing and pondering over them! Purge. Renew. Let's ready ourselves for the unknown to come. Strengthen our immune system.

Out with the old and in with the new! We have time for this now, yes? I've been listening to inspiring speakers on YouTube. Find those you connect with and tap in. I'm offering online meditation and yoga classes on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/yogabeachbliss/

I like to think of this isolation for what it offers us - the environment is cleaning up with fewer cars and jet fumes. As an advocate for arts and movement for maintaining and bringing in wellness, my yoga, and art keeps me strong for the challenges of life. It's my mind and body therapy.

With love -Didi McKay

Linda Joffe, creative movement teacher, expressive arts facilitator

I find that dancing is a wonderful antidote to stress and worry in these challenging times. It brings us back to our bodies, calms the mind and releases tension. I recommend putting on your favorite Pandora station or music and just move! Sing along! Earbuds intensify the experience. For some time now I have been teaching a Fluid Dance class at Temple Emanu-El (an expressive arts movement experience), but of course, it is suspended. To encourage everyone to keep dancing, and to welcome newcomers, we are offering some FREE Fluid Dance classes online in April! To receive a link to the latest video, email me at lindajoffe534@gmail.com. Let's move together!

From Kathleen Horne, MA, LMHC, REACE, REAT, Certificate Training in Expressive Arts,
Expressive Arts Florida Institute

Kathleen suggests creating a Mandala of Emotions

Use a fairly large sheet of paper if you have one. Any size will do. Trace a circle on it using a large plate or something else that is round.
Lay it out somewhere, on a table, or tape it to a board, then draw on it with some markers, pens, colored pencils, or whatever you have, nearby. Use this as a place to "put" ALL your feelings, as they arise. Use marks, lines, shapes, colors, words, images. Let this mandala be the "receptacle" of your emotions. It is OK not to even give those emotions names. Just allow them to be expressed through the materials.
Keep working on it as long as you need to, days, or weeks.
Your mandala will hold it all, and it doesn't have to be pretty Let it be authentic.

Adaptation: make it collaborative. Invite your family members or
members of your household to join in.