AN OUTLET FOR EXPRESSION
Creative hobbies can be a powerful tool for lasting well-being, but they can also help us to express ourselves in a different manner, especially for people who may struggle with articulating their thoughts verbally.
Mr Haikal Jamil, the founder of ImPossible Psychological Services, said creative activities are typically driven by our internal processes such as emotions and thoughts. That is why they can provide a channel for organising our internal experiences, which can promote insight into ourselves.
He suggested that people facing significant emotional struggles and who enjoy engaging in creative expression can consider turning to creative therapy such as art or music therapy.
“Talk therapy tends to encourage you to talk about your emotions,” Dr Tan from The Therapy Room said, referring to a more conventional form of therapy where patients engage in direct conversation with mental health practitioners.
“But in terms of creative arts, there is a lot of reflective work being done there.
“So in a way, you don’t need to talk about it, but you are putting that contemplation into the art that you are doing.”
Apart from photography, I also write poems when I feel strongly about certain issues – be it about the people I meet, problems that plague society or reflections on my life. For me, using metaphors and imagery definitely helps to capture my feelings more vividly compared to just talking about it in more prosaic, everyday words.
When my grandmother had a serious fall about three years ago, I wrote a poem grieving the loss of some of her faculties.
The medium of poetry allowed me to contrast her past self with her current state – how she used to comment on Taiwanese dramas and exclaim over lottery numbers, but now only lies down on her bed at a nursing home and stares blankly at the caregivers and workers, no longer recognising family members.
Poetry also gave me a way to visualise my own pain through the emptiness of her house, which is now gathering dust. It used to be filled with her vibrant presence and voice among loved ones during large gatherings such as Chinese New Year.
Re-reading that poem now brings back some of my most precious memories with her that I embedded in my writing. I remember the feelings I felt as I selected each word. I’ve instilled fragments of myself into poems like these.
For me, writing poems helps me reckon with my emotions and my experiences, whether they are made of hardship or happiness. It also helps me preserve my own personal history, and pushes me to keep pursuing new opportunities to write new chapters of my life story.
