35: Art as a Healing Journey: Ardenna Downing's Story of Grief, Growth, and Creativity

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Narrator

Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg’s Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing. Through raw and heartfelt conversations, we uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspire those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.

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Cherie Lindberg

Welcome, everyone, Cherie Lindberg here, to another episode of Elevated Life Academy podcast, where we interview people all over the world, healers, and acquire stories of hope and healing. And I'm really happy to invite Ardenna on here. I'm going to have her introduce herself. And in just a second, and as you know, we like to have healers come on here, share their inspiring stories, share how they're helping people heal in the world and what they're bringing out into the world.

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Cherie Lindberg

And so with that, I will let Ardenna introduce herself and we'll have a conversation here that we hope you all will enjoy.

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Ardenna Downing

been a therapist since about: 2009

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Ardenna Downing

so I've been doing this since: 2009

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Ardenna Downing

And so from those experiences, I've developed a great indication of who I am as a therapist. And I'm so excited to share with the world the opportunities that art can have in their life.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, well thank you. I'm excited to, I think for folks that aren't able to verbalize or there's no words for for what they've experienced, art can be a beautiful way. So I would love to hear from you. Your journey and how you, you know, started to incorporate art for healing for yourself and for folks.

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Ardenna Downing

Yeah. Sherry. Thank you. So I want to take a moment to speak more about art in the sense of healing when it comes to grief. So my experience of grief started at an early age. I lost my grandfather when I was nine. I didn't process using art with him. However. About a week, actually, exactly one week before my 17th birthday, my mother passed.

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Ardenna Downing

She passed a several days before the 9/11 attacks. And so at that time, as a teenager, and my understanding of healing was, you know, pretty much influenced by the people around me. And sometimes those experiences of healing were dismissive. Or when people would say things like, oh, she's in a better place and, you know, kind of move on, etc. I did have quite a bit of support from the people in my life, but I found that while in high school, taking art class.

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Ardenna Downing

So my junior in senior year, I was required to do art journaling. And so I had to have a portfolio and I had a journal for each of those years. My senior year, I noticed that in my grief process, I started to write about my mother, and I started to draw about her and use collage and use pastel.

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Ardenna Downing

And unbeknownst to me, that was a huge part of my healing process in addition to the community around me. And I really didn't recognize that until years later. But even after that experience as a therapist, when I worked in domestic violence shelters, I had developed a activity called hands of Hope. When I would do groups for survivors of intimate partner and family violence.

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Ardenna Downing

And with that activity, we would use art to look in the present and use art to instill hope for the future. And this mechanism was also use in camps for children of individuals who experienced intimate partner violence. And it was a very powerful tool for me. So art has always been a part of my life. Unbeknownst to me, I didn't know how powerful it was and how much it, you know, has had an influence in my professional and personal life.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing so authentically about your own, you know, healing journey. And it sounds like it was a process of of discovery. And you, you kept, you know, using it and then using it for other people's healing as well.

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Ardenna Downing

Yes. Definitely. Definitely.

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Cherie Lindberg

So talk more about some of the different ideas that you have either utilized art with, with your own clients or some of the projects that you have coming forward for folks, and they're their healing with the expressive arts?

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Ardenna Downing

Well, yes, definitely. So I know that sometimes when people come to therapy, whether it's individual therapy or group counseling, especially with adults, that's a very, you know, for a lot of people, that's a very brave first step. And so sometimes, especially when people come and sit therapy for grief, they're not sure of what to say, what to do, how to really process was happening in their world in terms of the loss that they have experience.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I don't always necessarily start off with a grief project or in the sense of using art to process the grief, but what I find over time is that when people have challenging circumstances, a process in their emotions, sometimes art can be a medium to help them clearly identify what they're experiencing. And so oftentimes I may ask a person in session, you know, so you're identifying moments of sadness this week.

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Ardenna Downing

Can we take a moment to identify with that. This may look like in the in a shape or in a color. And sometimes I'll do an assessment using art. So for instance, if a person has been experiencing sadness for weeks on end, if we do a little art journaling, we may see that though the common denominator is a feeling of sadness, their art may change over time, and we can have dialog and conversation about what do you think?

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Ardenna Downing

What does this mean to you? What have you noticed trying to make connections with their grief. That's one way that I like to utilize art. I have a long history of working with children. I really enjoy working with kids, and so art is usually the first thing that we use in the therapeutic process with them because is their language.

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Ardenna Downing

So art in plays, their language. And so whether we're using sand tray or poetry or painting, it has been a very powerful tool in conjunction with interventions such as eMDR and brain spotting and even somatic processing. So those are some ways in which I use art to help people notice what they're experiencing, processing what they're experiencing, and in some ways empower them.

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Ardenna Downing

Because people will say to me, I'm not an artist. I don't I don't know how well I can do this. And this is not about that. It's about your experiences. So there is no judgment here. And so over time, people learn that they're able to kind of settle in the medium of art, whatever art form it is. And my preferred methods are poetry and visual art, such as paint, pastel, charcoal, etc. those are the mediums that I'm most comfortable in using with people, and they have been very powerful tools.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I like to use them in a variety of different ways and most importantly, in group. So the power of group utilizing it with utilizing art has been really helpful for a cohesive community process.

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Cherie Lindberg

Beautiful that. It's interesting. You brought up something that I wanted to ask you about, like folks that come in hesitant for the very thing that you were talking about in terms of this idea that they have to be a great artist, like, you know, or even I'll speak for myself. These old beliefs don't make a mess, right? Yeah, I kind of think so.

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Cherie Lindberg

I'm sure you've run into that. So how do you how do you work with that? When somebody comes in who is really maybe anxious at doing art, how would you work with somebody?

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Ardenna Downing

Well, thank you so much, Sherry, for bringing that up, because I think that's a very important piece of some of this in terms of healing and empowerment. So, for example, I've seen this happen with children and children who come in, who have like a perfectionistic view of how things should be done. So they're feeling a lot of pressure, or they're feeling like things have to be a certain way, which is, you know, a sign of the type of anxiety that they're dealing with and the stress they're experiencing.

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Ardenna Downing

I'll notice that if I give them a task to do an art, they'll constantly erase it or say things like, this doesn't look good, or I don't like this, or I need to do this over. And so I'll note that whether it's with a child or even with an adult, and process that with them and just ask them questions about themselves to help me better understand what we're working with and how we can kind of move forward.

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Ardenna Downing

So when a person has a perfectionistic view of themselves, including things that is such a free form, such as art, we process that anxiety in that moment. And so by asking questions and me affirming them and me encouraging them through Socratic questioning, what do you think this is about? Where is this coming from, and what's the way that we can try to alleviate some of this stress?

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Ardenna Downing

And what we find over time is that when they have finally allowed themselves to use the art and not judge it, then they're able to create beautiful pieces and pieces that they can accept as a part of themselves and even share it with others. So I think that's one way that I try to use it to help people, you know, discover who they are, as well as identify the areas of their life that they may be struggling with.

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Ardenna Downing

And I think Cherie one of the beautiful things about art is that because is such a indirect type of intervention, it can be direct, but the way that I like to use it is in an indirect way. Most of the time it allows a barrier to judgment in some ways. And so what I mean by that is we can constantly judge ourselves with the words, right?

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Ardenna Downing

And we may hear that dialog when we're speaking to a therapist or a friend or whoever. Then sometimes when we create art, it's harder for us to see ourselves in a position. No? Well, this is a representation of my grief. Can I really judge this piece of art because it's, you know, a part of my soul is something that I worked on, is an expression of who I am in a different way outside of speaking.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I think that's how it can be used in some moments.

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Cherie Lindberg

Can you share any stories or experiences that you've had, whether in your own life or with clients, stories of hope and healing through the art. I mean obviously there has to be, otherwise you wouldn't be using this so much. I would imagine it's so rewarding to see things come out of folks, maybe that they haven't been able to express through the art.

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Ardenna Downing

I can share 1 or 2 examples, but one example is coming to mind really quickly is I had an experience when I worked for a school district not too long ago, and I was working with an adolescent male who had quite a bit of challenges with family dynamics, stress, and you know, different households, different types of parenting challenges at school with one of their diagnoses and behavior and just not doing well in the sense that they just did not feel connected to anybody or anything for the most part.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I had worked with this person for probably 8 or 9 months, and we had use art in indirect forms. Or when I say direct forms, like we had use art in the sense of like drawing and painting, etc., because this person was an artist as well. But even with that, there were some limitations and so we were only able to go so far.

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Ardenna Downing

But another form of art that I started using with him that I consider art was kind of using sand. And by the use of sand, I was able to kind of help this person show me what their internal world look like, in addition to the art pieces we had created, because at the time we were using art in conjunction with and movement desensitization and reprocessing, and so one of the protocols for that is you are able to draw and notice what you're feeling in your thought process.

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Ardenna Downing

But we enhanced that by starting to introduce the physical piece of paper of art representation and transferring that to the sand tray. And so when we transfer from one art medium to another in terms of sand, then oh my goodness Sherry, so many things came up. This person identify how they really felt about their family, this person identifying the parts of their family that were bothersome to them that they hadn't shared before in the previous seven plus months.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I think when we think of this as kind of like a therapeutic process, right? So in the beginning, we may want to start with talk therapy, or we may start with certain interventions. But over time we notice that, okay, this person is stuck. What else should we try or how can we kind of recalibrate how we approach the problem.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I learned over time that utilizing different forms of art can be very powerful. And some of it is trial and error. But for him it was Santry in conjunction with painting and drawing, etc.. So that's one example.

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Cherie Lindberg

I mean, it just sounds based on what you just said. It sounds like that was a key that unlocked many things for for this person.

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Ardenna Downing

Yes it did, it did. And I think because it wasn't I think some of what we kind of talked about before, because it wasn't a direct like me questioning him or asking a whole bunch of questions. This is you have the power to determine how you want to express yourself to you and to me, and you get to decide what this looks like for you.

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Ardenna Downing

And that can be very healing for a lot of people, because in a lot of different circumstances, especially with children and even with adults, we may not feel like we have power and control and agency over what's happening with us in our life. But with art, we do have agency. We do decide what it looks like. We do decide how we want to process it.

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Ardenna Downing

We do have the right to push ourselves away from the art as needed. And I like to talk with you a little bit more about a personal experience with that as well.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, please, please do so.

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Ardenna Downing

Earlier this year, I took a journey to South Africa for a training with Expressive Arts, and it highlighted attachment and art in the form of poetry in Sanskrit. And I had a death in the family that was sudden. And so while in the United States, I didn't process it because, you know, life gets us all. We're busy. I have to work, you know, we come up in my mind sometimes, but other times I would just push it away, which is I know that's not the healthiest thing.

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Ardenna Downing

I understand and know that. However, when I was able to travel and I was able to process with intention, I learned that some of the things that were bothering me. I learned that guess what? You can create art, and then you have the right to push it away. And there's some moments in life we don't have the agency to push it away.

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Ardenna Downing

So I created the art and I set it aside, and then I came back to it. And so this reminds me of the concept of titration. So when we're coming in and out of an experience, we may take snapshots and peaks at pain and trauma and stress. And then we come to moments of balance and peace and calmness.

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Ardenna Downing

And so that's one of the beautiful things about our. It fits very well into that concept of titration, especially when the grief can feel very overwhelming.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yes, absolutely. You know, as you're talking, I'm just seeing different images in my own mind of people expressing, you know, feelings through art and the beauty of that. And I think about the poetry in the words. Yeah, that people express and I, I'm starting to go like into, you know, isn't music also that as well. Right. I'd start.

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Ardenna Downing

Yes.

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Cherie Lindberg

There's all these different ways. Yeah. So talk to us about some of your upcoming projects, your creative projects that you have coming forward for you and your business.

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Ardenna Downing

n March, so next year. So for: 2025

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Ardenna Downing

But I want to kick this off in terms of art by having what I call a pen and paint workshop in March of next year. And so this is going to be the first of a series of the of these art thing groups. And with this group. So the painting, the Pen and paint workshop with this group will focus on assessing doing an art assessment.

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Ardenna Downing

There's a specific art assessment that will be using, and it helps us identify our perspectives when it comes to obstacles and relationships and different approaches to life circumstances like grief in particular. Sometimes when a person experiences grief is is considered to be disenfranchised grief. And so disenfranchised grief is a grief that's not always socially acceptable, or grief is always recognized.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I thought it would be important to have a space for that in particular. But all are welcome. So whether it's disenfranchised grief or the grief that we're typically exposed to, it would be a great opportunity to use. Art is a tool of empowerment and also a tool of being able to process the grief experience. So what we'll do is we'll understand who we are through the art while we're experiencing grief, and learn how to use it as a means to begin our healing process.

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Ardenna Downing

Because as a therapist, I'm always assessing. So we need to to that and figure out what to do next. Once we have assess where we are. Yeah.

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Cherie Lindberg

Are you are these groups online or are they going to be in person. What what is your plan for that.

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Ardenna Downing

Yeah. So of course so the pen and paint workshop in particular, that's definitely going to be online. The other groups will be online as well. In addition to that, later in the year. I do plan on having some of those same groups in person as I live in California. They will be in the California Los Angeles area.

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Ardenna Downing

So a mix of both.

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Cherie Lindberg

Okay, wonderful. And the ones that are online, are those going to be more you know, there's a difference between therapy and maybe, you know, education process. So can you speak a little bit to that and how how you're going to work with that online.

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Ardenna Downing

Yes of course. And so any time we do a group with whether it has to do with art or not, I like to give some what we call psychoeducation about, like the different medium that we can use to process our experience. If it's one of the art themed groups associated with a specific artist, like how do they use art?

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Ardenna Downing

A little bit of history of them and how they use art, and how that helped in their own healing process or the the impact that they wanted to have on the world. And so we will also talk a bit about our innocence of how it impacts the brain. And so if it's okay with you, can I share a little bit of something for you?

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah.

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Ardenna Downing

So there's a lot of research when it comes to art and group and working with individuals and the impact on the brain. And so one thing that comes to mind is a research study that was done a while back regarding the amygdala. And so we know that the amygdala is associated with memory and emotion. And art has been shown from some studies that it can decrease the size of the amygdala.

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Ardenna Downing

So I like to think of the amygdala as like the alarm system when something happens. And so our has been shown to kind of reduce the emotional intensity of stress or trauma related responses. It's also been used in well, research has shown that it helps of neuroplasticity of the brain. So neuroplasticity kind of refers to the brain's ability to like reorganize this cell by forming new neural connections and pathways and so engage in in certain parts of our creative arts, it can stimulate neuroplasticity and specifically in parts of the brain, like memory and emotion and trauma process, in which once again as part of the amygdala.

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Ardenna Downing

So we'll talk with each of the groups. We'll talk about what art can be once again, what type of mediums we use with it, how we can impact our brain, and if it's a group that is being center group surrounding a certain artist, just the artists, their background and how we're going to use art to kind of honor their process within our own process.

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Cherie Lindberg

So talk to me a little bit. I want to hear this is all beautiful, and I want to hear more about why this is so important to you. To bring this out into the world.

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Ardenna Downing

Is very important to me, because I think there's a couple things. Number one, art is how I understand the world, and art was an instrumental piece in my healing process, as I mentioned before as a teenager. And so I didn't understand how powerful and impactful it could be. And so to me is like planting seeds in our life journey and how we experience things.

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Ardenna Downing

will share this. Back in oh,: 2020

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Ardenna Downing

I found comfort in not really knowing the language, and so I was able to be private with my thoughts and not hear in English around me. But one of the most powerful things that happened to me. There was going to an art exhibit with Pablo Picasso, the artist, and at the time, I learned that he and I had heard about this in art class.

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Ardenna Downing

Growing up in art in high school, but I didn't know he was the artist that had a what we call the blue period. And for two years he made art in blue, in hues of blue and black, etc. in response to the the the death of a friend. And when I saw this, it validated my experience and helped me to understand, you know, we all go through things and it's okay to connect to our experience through different mediums.

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Ardenna Downing

And so I still felt, you know, the way that I felt prior to that trip, but I felt validated. And then I learned that he had what we call what he called a like a rose period afterwards. So he came out of it. And so for me, art is a way from having that experience in who I am now.

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Ardenna Downing

Art has been such a transformational tool in my life, and I've seen how it has impacted others and their lives, and I just want to continue to share that with the world and to expose people to it. Because I think when we think of the arts in particular, sometimes it's not as regarded with respect or that is as important.

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Ardenna Downing

And I can go on a whole soapbox with that in terms of arts and, you know, like K through 12, etc., how those are the first programs to be snatched, but is such a a huge part of the human experience. And I just want to continue to be a part of that, along with other people who utilize art.

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Ardenna Downing

And so that's part of the reason that is so powerful and important to me.

00;26;05;29 - 00;26;38;19

Cherie Lindberg

Jerry, thank you. I really wanted to hear that from you, because we often talk about healers coming on here. You know why are you doing what you're doing and your stories and how we're all trying to shine light in the world that we live in. And I think listening to your stories today and your desire to not only to help you connect and heal and understand your world, but your desire to want to bring that to others for their own is very powerful.

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Cherie Lindberg

So is there any question, maybe, that I haven't asked, that you'd like to share before we wrap up here today?

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Ardenna Downing

That is a great question. I'm not sure if there's a question that you haven't asked. I do you haven't asked me about where I can be reached on social media or in addition to the art groups, maybe another project I'm working on.

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Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, yeah, we'll have your contact information in the show notes, but we'd love to hear.

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Ardenna Downing

Yes, of course. So I'm on all social media platforms, so Instagram to talk, etc. I have a website. But one other thing that I developed this year is a journal called 40 for 40. Transform and Reflect on Your Life's Journey. Because I have entered my 40s this year and I wanted to reflect on the journey thus far and so it's a journal that helps people kind of examine their lives thus far, explore, you know, questions they may have about themselves, the triumphs they've they've experienced or strategy, etc..

00;27;42;05 - 00;28;08;28

Ardenna Downing

And so I think this can also be a very powerful tool to help people process. And even if you're not in your 40s, the question and some of the prompts from the journal can be very helpful for your everyday process is meant to be a 40 day process. And so my belief is through some of the interventions and the questions and, and the structure of the journal, that by the 40 days you will have a clear indication of where you are and where you want to go.

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Ardenna Downing

And also honoring who you are as a person thus far.

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Cherie Lindberg

Thank you. Yeah, that sounds that sounds fabulous. All right. I have one other question that just popped up. You were used for talking when do you feel in your best or higher self, what activities are you doing? What's going on when you feel your best self or your higher self?

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Ardenna Downing

That is such a good question. I don't think anybody's ever asked me that. And the first thing that came to mind is the arts. But in the form of theater. I really, really, really love theater. That is my joy and I can't explain what it is about it. But I feel most in my higher self when I'm watching a play from certain artists in particular.

00;28;59;13 - 00;29;17;01

Ardenna Downing

But that brings a sense of excitement and joy, and I feel grounded and connected. That. And when I'm in the mood, drawing and singing and listening to music, those are also indications of when I'm in my higher self.

00;29;17;03 - 00;29;40;29

Cherie Lindberg

Well, thank you for for sharing. Thank you for coming on and being our guest here. And I, you know, just want to wish you the very best in your groups and encourage folks that are listening to seek out our Dena and and her work, because I think it'll be very helpful for people, whether you're going through grief or you want to learn more about yourself.

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Cherie Lindberg

What a beautiful journey listening to everything that you had to share. So thank you again for being on here today.

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Ardenna Downing

ate it. And I look forward to: 2025

00;30;00;00 - 00;30;32;27

Cherie Lindberg

And you're welcome. I hope you enjoyed this podcast where we talked about different ways of using art for self-expression, self identification, or understanding yourself, using it for a grief process to help express something that maybe you're not able to use words and really hope that you know if you are interested, or a loved one is interested in that, you check out Ardenna’s Art group.

00;30;32;27 - 00;31;08;04

Cherie Lindberg

She's going to be doing not just therapeutic groups in California, but also educational groups for those that you know, maybe this is the first time you've ever tried to express or learn about yourself through art, so just encouraging people to be open to that. There's so many things that our world has us isolating and shrinking and stressed, and art is such a beautiful way to feel into yourself, into your soul and feel freedom and relaxed.

00;31;08;06 - 00;31;25;03

Cherie Lindberg

And so I hope you enjoyed this podcast, and I hope you will share with anyone that you think is interested in learning to live an elevated life. Thank you so much for listening and sharing. We appreciate it very much.

00;31;25;05 - 00;31;44;01

Narrator

Thank you for joining us on another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg’s Elevated Life Academy. Stories of Hope and healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.