Healing the Creative Heart
Sarah Oblinger

Hearts are meant to be broken. - Oscar Wilde

I teach a painting class that is not about painting. This realization and the knowledge that painting brings up a lot of fear and resistance made me consider why I paint. What is it I’m doing when I am painting if it is not for the painting itself?

I paint to heal my heart. When I stand in front of the paper and offer my full attention - without judgment - to what wants to be painted (not what I think should be painted), I have taken the first step on the journey of opening my heart.

Some of what I first encounter on this journey is the lifetime of accumulated isolation, shame, grief, disappointment, loneliness and sorrow I’ve been holding. This rush of intense feelings can seem too big to take on, but in painting I don’t have to change how I'm feeling, only acknowledge and be with what's arising in me that moment. I do that by finding a place in the painting that invites me in - maybe a simple dot, a line or a squiggle. And I work there until the next place is revealed. There are no shortcuts, to heal my heart I must dare ourselves to feel what I have locked away. At one time it may have been necessary to not feel such intense stuff in order to feel safe. Now I want a new way of being in the world. And to get to that place I must learn to stop listening to the judging mind that says, “too much pain, you don’t want to go there because you will never come back,” or “if you could just figure it out in your head then the pain will go away.”

For our hearts to heal we must be willing to break them open. When I say this students look at me in horror -- we have all felt the pain of a broken heart. But what if we look at it this way: Hearts are meant to break open to feel fully. Painting allows us to break open the heart, acknowledge the feelings moving through us and let them have life on the paper.

The challenge in painting is getting out of our own way. Our doubting, wanting mind says, “Did I choose the right color?” or “I really wanted orange, but I hate orange so I won’t use it” or “I know for sure that I never want to paint anything ugly, only happy things that please me.” When we can let go of satisfying all our little wants and doubts we find,through color and images, that we can allow what lives in us. We discover what we have resisted feeling doesn’t last forever, but can break open to reveal a deeper way of being with ourselves. It may go like this: Rage arises in us and comes onto the paper as a big red monster with scales; we give our attention to the big red monster and discover sorrow in his eyes. We are surprised by the black tears that course down his cheeks as we feel the sorrow held in our own hearts. If we stay with sorrow, not judging how long it lasts or what it looks like, we may find our rage monster sitting in a pool of black tears that flow across the paper, becoming the outline of a blue couple caught in an embrace on a bed of multi-colored snakes. In this moment of exploring the mystery of who we are, where possibly nothing makes sense and we are not listening to our mind chatter, our heart can break open with love for ourselves. It is at these broken places that our heart grows stronger.

This is hard work. I’ve found that my mind works overtime, reminding me that I can’t do it, I don’t know enough technique, it’s the wrong time, I’m not moving fast enough, where is this getting me, maybe I’ll just quit and stay home and watch T.V. or sign up for an art class where I’ll end up with something to show for it. This is only the old story of my fear and resistance talking. I tell my students that the frustration, the stuckness, they feel while painting happens when they get involved with the stories the mind insists on telling us. Instead we follow our fear and see where it takes us. We walk behind it and observe the dancing demon. We risk exploring this feeling that lives deep in us. We get curious about what it looks like. We look into the dark corners and discover what wants to be set free. Following my demons with this care has led me to the buried treasures in my heart.

We yearn to be fully present. This is possible. But we must be willing to come face to face with ourselves, offering ourselves unconditional friendliness. We must dare ourselves to break open our hearts and be with the not knowing, trusting the rightness of whatever comes. Then we discover the energy and inspiration that makes us whole.