Healing Through Creativity - Desiree Cox MD, PhD

Healing Through Creativity – What if your ‘Operatunity’ came calling

billschiffler — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:01:04 +0000

Are you another undiscovered Susan Boyle? Have you been dreaming a dream, quietly nurturing a talent, a gift, or some possibility of creative self-expression for 5, 10, 20, maybe 25 years or more? Maybe the dream has not yet come to fruition? Maybe you’re thinking you were a fool to still be entertaining other possibilities for yourself. Maybe you think its too late, you’re too old, you’ve missed the boat, or you still haven’t ‘made it’ far enough up the ladder of your ‘real’ job to be considering such ‘ridiculousness’ ? This week’s Healing Through Creativity brings together host Dr. Desiree Cox and ‘Operatunity’ finalist, Bahamian born Franz Hepburn. Hepburn, a former civil servant and college business major is now a full-time bass-baritone opera singer and composer in the UK and internationally. Hepburn shares how the English National Opera’s 2003 UK nation-wide ‘Operatunity’ talent search, and the personal life-events that followed changed his life for good. The ENO’s ‘Operatunity’ call generated 2500 contestants. The contestants, all of them non-professional opera-singers submitted videotapes of their performances. One-hundred of these singers were invited for auditions; a final six singers were selected for intensive training. The entire journey – the hundred auditions and the intensive workshop training given to the finalists – was filmed for television and aired in 2003 in the show named ‘Operatunity’ on BBC Channel 4 television, PBS (USA), as well as Australian and Italian TV in 2003. Hepburn was one six finalist. He tells host Dr. Cox about the creative moment, the birth of the dream of being an opera-singer some 20 years before. Hepburn shares how this sense of music and singing was an important part of his full self-expression and fulfilment.

Franz was born in Nassau, The Bahamas and started his formal music training at age seven with the piano. He received an AABA degree in Banking & Finance for the College of The Bahamas; a BBA degree in Marketing & Finance from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada; and an MBA degree from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England.

He was transferred from The Bahamas to the UK by the Bahamas Government in October 1990 to work at the Bahamas Tourist Office London. He worked at the tourist office from 1990-2004.

Franz made his operatic debut in the world premiere of Our Boys, first Bahamian opera by Cleophas Adderley with the Juilliard School of Music Orchestra in 1987. Some of his operatic roles include Sarastro (Magic Flute), Publius (La Clemenza di Tito), Trulove (Rakes Progress), The King (Aida) and Sparafucile (Rigoletto). As one of the six finalists (selected from 2,500 entrants) on Channel 4′s award winning Operatunity programme, he was interviewed and performed live on BBC Radio 3′s In Tune programme in February 2003. Operatunity was aired on PBS in America and also on Australian and Italian television.

Franz is also a composer and many of his works have been performed by choirs and soloists in The Bahamas, Caribbean, North America and Europe. In 2003, on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of Independence in The Bahamas, a special concert of music by Franz Hepburn was performed by JoAnn Deveaux-Callender, soprano at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London. The concert featured the world premiere of two song cycles – Introspection and Four Words. On 8th June 2004, as part of the 275th anniversary of Parliamentary Democracy in The Bahamas, JoAnn Deveaux-Callender performed the world premiere of Five Pertinent Questions, another of his song cycles in a concert at St George’s Hanover Square, London. The following day to continue the Bahamas’ anniversary celebrations, Franz gave his first recital with pianist Lee Callender at St James’s Piccadilly, London where he sang Bahamian songs and spirituals.

Franz had the great honour of singing the role of Bridgetower Senior at LSO St Luke’s, London in July 2007 for the world premiere of Bridgetower – A Fable of 1807, an opera by jazz supremo Julian Joseph and writer Mike Phillips. The work was commissioned as part of the City of London Festival to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. He went on a UK tour with the opera in October and November 2007 with English Touring Opera. He was the Minister of War in the world premiere of a new musical interpretation of The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London in October 2008. The composer was Dominique Le Gendre from Trinidad (first female composer to be commissioned by the Royal Opera) and directed by Derek Walcott (Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992).

Find out more about how you too can open new worlds for yourself, how to shift your perspective and more fulfilling life for yourself. This week’s show is sponsored in part by the International Futures Forum. Find out more about the International Futures Forum on (www.internationalfuturesforum.com). You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Unwind your mind.

billschiffler — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:58:19 +0000

“Is it possible to change the structure of the brain, and alter how we think and feel?” In 2004, leading Western scientists joined the Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala, India to address this very question. This week’s Healing Through Creativity Show brings together host Dr. Desiree Cox with Sharon Begley, a New York Times bestselling author who was at that 2004 event. Cox and Begley talk about The Plastic Mind, the new science that reveals our extraordinary potential to transform ourselves.

Sharon Begley, the senior health & science correspondent at Reuters, was the science editor and the science columnist at Newsweek from 2007 to April 2011. From 2002 to 2007, she was the science columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and previous to that the science editor at Newsweek. In addition to The Plastic Mind, She is the co-author (with Richard J. Davidson) of the 2012 book The Emotional Life of Your Brain, and author of the 2007 book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her writing, including an honorary degree from the University of North Carolina for communicating science to the public, and the Public Understanding of Science Award from the San Francisco Exploratorium. She has spoken before many audiences on the topics of science writing, neuroplasticity, and science literacy, including at Yale University (her alma mater), the Society for Neuroscience, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Find out more about how you can rewire your brain in ways that open new worlds for yourself, how to shift your perspective and create new possibilities for yourself and your life. This week’s show is sponsored in part by the International Futures Forum. Find out more about the International Futures Forum on (www.internationalfuturesforum.com). You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Solving My Midlife Crisis

billschiffler — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:53:21 +0000

Stories shape the way we see ourselves. They can influence how we act too. Many a ‘good marriage’, ‘successful career’ and ‘comfortable life’ has been torn to shreds by that old and familiar cultural story, affectionately known as ‘the Midlife Crisis’. In this week’s Healing Through Creativity show, host Dr. Desiree Cox talks to one of today preeminent essayists, cultural critics, and translators, Professor Ilan Stavans. Professor Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture and Five College-Fortieth Anniversary Professor at Amherst College. Stavans shares how he spun this ‘the middle-age crisis’ tale into a creative opportunity. Stavans has been finding this phase of life to be about opening new worlds. And with this has come a new sense of aliveness.

A native from Mexico, Ilan Stavans received his Doctorate in Latin American Literature from Columbia University. Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include The Hispanic Condition (1995), On Borrowed Words (2001), Spanglish (2003), Love and Language (2007), and Gabriel García Márquez: The Early Years (2010). He is the editor of The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998), The Poetry of Pablo Neruda (2003), the 3-volume set of Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories (2004), Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigrant Writing (2009), The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2010), and The FSG Books of 20th-Century Latin American Poetry (2011). His forthcoming titles are, as translator, Juan Rulfo’s The Plain in Flames (Texas, 2012) and Pablo Neruda’s All the Odes (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012), and, as author, Return to Centro Histórico: A Mexican Jew Looks for His Roots (Rutgers, 2012), the graphic novel El Iluminado (Basic, 2012, with Steve Sheinkin), ad well as a biography of Isaac Bashevis Singer (Princeton) and a biography of the novel Don Quixote (W.W. Norton).

‘Good grief Stavans’, says Cox, ‘You’re an eminent professor, you’ve written many books; you’ve written plays, hosted your own PBS show. People hearing this might be saying: ‘What’s this guy have to be in mid-life crisis about’.

Stavans laughs out loud. Then he shares about his journey. In particular he tells of how the summer camp he started for reading and rediscovering the classics has been invigorating, life changing even.

Stavans has also written plays. His play The Disappearance, performed by the theatre troupe Double Edge, premiered at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and has been shown throughout the world. His story “Morirse está en hebreo” was made into the award-winning movie My Mexican Shivah (2007), produced by John Sayles. Stavans has received numerous awards and honors, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Jewish Book Award, the Southwest Children Book of the Year Award, an Emmy nomination, the Latino Book Award, Chile’s Presidential Medal, the Rubén Darío Distinction, and the Cátedra Roberto Bolaño. He was the host of the syndicated PBS show Conversations with Ilan Stavans (2001-2006). His work has been translated into a dozen languages. His forthcoming titles are, as translator, Juan Rulfo’s The Plain in Flames (Texas, 2012) and Pablo Neruda’s All the Odes (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012), and, as author, Return to Centro Histórico: A Mexican Jew Looks for His Roots (Rutgers, 2012), the graphic novel El Iluminado (Basic, 2012, with Steve Sheinkin), as well as a biography of Isaac Bashevis Singer (Princeton) and a biography of the novel Don Quixote (W.W. Norton).

Find out more about a creative moment can open new worlds, and how opening new worlds and inviting changes that shift your perspective helps us to experience ourselves has ‘whole’. Find out about all of this and more in this week’s Healing Through Creativity conversation. This week’s show is sponsored in part by the International Futures Forum. Find out more about the International Futures Forum on (www.internationalfuturesforum.com). You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Healing through Creativity: Healing through Doodling? Healing, Creativity and Sacred Doodles

billschiffler — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:22:50 +0000

Are you a doodler? Studies show that doodlers actually remember more than non-doodlers when asked to retain tediously delivered information? Did you know that there’s even a national doodle day in the UK and USA? In this week’s Healing Through Creativity show, host Dr. Desiree Cox talks to breast cancer survivor and now author and artist, Carol Edmonston about healing through doodling. Edmonston began doodling by chance while anxiously sitting in a medical waiting room shortly after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then doodling has become a creative and meditative practice and the spring board for a new beginning for her life.

A long time meditator and former physical therapist, Carol Edmonston is a native of California, USA. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in Fullerton, CA with her husband, a retired orthopaedic surgeon. Up until 1995 when she was first diagnosed with cancer, Edmonston would have described herself as a perfectionist, a left-brain person but never an artist. She began her career as a physical therapist, having received her B.S. in Physical Therapy from the University of Southern California and worked in that profession for many years. She was also the former Orange County Coordinator for the National “Just Say No” Club program, a drug prevention program for youth, supported by Former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

‘I’m a recovering perfectionist,’Edmonston confessed to Dr. Cox. ‘I still don’t see herself as an artist. It took me years to see that what I was doing wasn’t just trivial’.

Cox and Edmonston talk about how Edmonston uses her process of Sacred Doodling, her upbeat interactive workshops at Sacred Space in the UK and in the USA, and the story of her healing journey through doodling to inspire anxious children and adult cancer patients to connect with their creativity as part of their healing journey.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, when the doodling began Carol has authored two books since her journey began. In her first book, Connections…the Sacred Journey Between Two Points (self-published, 2000) she shares her personal story through prose, interwoven with sacred ‘doodles’ created during that time. Her second book Create While You Wait…a Doodle Book for All Ages (Self-Published, 2004) is a hands-on doodlers book for people waiting- at airports, before meetings, before exams. Her story also appears in Chicken Soup for the Breast Cancer Survivor’s Soul and she has been profiled in the New York Times, Woman’s World, ElleGirl, Women’s Health & Fitness, among other publications. Her new DVD, Sacred Doodles, is a visual and auditory meditation where the doodles come alive, woven with the Celtic harp of Lisa Lynne.

Find out more about Carol Edmonston, and Sacred Doodling as a way to healing and creativity in this week’s Healing Through Creativity conversation. You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Your Evolution to Excellence!

billschiffler — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:30:41 +0000

Dov Baron, the Accidental Guru. In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox talks to the personal and professional leadership coach, bestselling author and radio host Dov Baron about transformation, creativity and wellbeing.
In June 1990 while free climbing, Dõv Baron fell about 120 feet, and landed on his face. The impact shattered most of the bone structure of his face, disintegrating some of his upper jaw and fracturing his lower jaw in four places. Around ten reconstructive surgeries later most people would never know what had happened. This event was, as you can imagine, life changing.

Before the fall, Dõv had spent years building a reputation as a dynamic speaker and teacher in the field of human development. It wasn’t until awhile after this event that Dõv began to see the beauty and elegance of what had happened: The return to his own CORE, what he calls his Soul-Center.
This week Dr Desiree Cox talks to the best selling author of ‘Don’t Read This…Unless You Want More Money!’ Dov is also the host and executive producer of the wildly popular radio show: “The Accidental Guru” broadcasting out of Seattle and globally via the internet. He has developed a system that takes people like you from success to fulfillment. His “Core Affluence System” gives his students the power to generate affluence and fulfillment. It gives you the competitive edge while nurturing your soul.
Dõv’s energy and passion are contagious. His style is direct, powerful, and humorous. Within moments you will feel a genuine connection with the man who walks his talk. He is a mind-mastery expert and the mental mechanic who will turbo-charge you for magnificent success in the area that matters most to you. He is an international speaker, facilitator, and author who has been sharing his knowledge around the world for the last twenty-five plus years. Dõv Baron is the president of Baron Mastery Institute and the found

Healing Through Creativity – ‘Dancing Trees, Flowing Birds and River Waves’

billschiffler — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:01:13 +0000

What do Al Gore, David Abrams and Jeffrey Pflaum have in common? In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox talks to former inner-city New York elementary school teacher Jeffrey Pflaum about returning passion, meaning, fun, imagination, curiosity, wonder, and magic to adolescent reading. After 30 years as a school-teacher at a tough school in New York, Pflaum has written a book that shows parents and young readers how bring the joy back into reading. Cox and Pflaum talk about how his inquiry and passion-based strategy helps teachers and parents to empower their kids to discover, understand, and appreciate reading beyond the current testing culture.
‘Its amazing how symbols on a page can trigger an intertwining and overlapping of the senses so we see and experience emotions and objects.’ says Cox.
‘For me this passion for bringing the fun back into reading started while I was teaching’, says Pflaum. ‘The system is now so focused on reading and testing. But this wasn’t always so when I started teaching back in the 1960s. All the testing has taken the fun and magic out of reading for young people’, says Pflaum. ‘I wanted to help kids and their parents see how important it was reading to be fun so I came up with this approach of asking questions. I’d ask the kids these questions designed to trigger responses about their reading experiences, and then get them to write about it. And it worked.’
Who is Jeffrey Pflaum? As an inner-city elementary school teacher Pflaum created innovative projects in reading, writing, thinking, creativity, poetry, Emotional Intelligence, concentration, and vocabulary which culminated in his book titled, Motivating Teen and Pre-teen Readers: How Teachers and Parents Can Lead the Way (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2011). He has written articles for professional newspapers and magazines about his work. Some of these programs appear on major education web sites such as ERIC, Education Resource Information Center, and CASEL, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. He has also inspired his students to write poems which have been published in college, gifted secondary, writers’, and children’s literary journals, and by commercial book publishers. Pflaum has read their poetry and prose on the public radio show Poetry-In-The-Morning (WNYE-FM), sponsored by the Teachers & Writers Collaborative in New York City. New York Newsday published “Making Life a Matter of Meter” about The Inner Cities Arts Project and his original Contemplation Writing Program. The former school teacher and now author is currently a BAM! Street Journal Blogger on the BAM Radio Network, serving the greater education community. Go to www.bamradionetwork.com to see his posts on reading and other timely education topics. Pflaum has done interviews on BlogTalkRadio Shows such as ‘Unplugged Mom’, ‘Journey to Center’, and ‘The Learning Curve’, with interviews coming up on ‘The Parent’s Plate’ and ‘The LearningRx’. His profile page is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jeffreypflaum, and web site, JeffreyPflaum.webs.com, is a work-in-progress where listeners can soon find his education articles, curricula, and samples of student published poetry. He can be contacted at: jeffreyppflaum@gmail.com.
Find out more about reading, the imagination helping kids to have access to this way of healing through creativity in this week’s healing through creativity conversation You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Imagining the Future of Being Human – Part 4- Social Enterprises and Being Whole

billschiffler — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:01:35 +0000

What makes a social enterprise a healing enterprise? In this week’s exploratory conversation about imagining the future of being human Dr Desiree Cox and her guest Andrew Lyon from the International Futures Forum (IFF) explore the connection between culture and social enterprises and what we might learn about creating meaning and creative self-expression in this Change of Age leading up to 2012.

Andrew Lyon is a convener at the International Futures Forum (IFF). The IFF is a non-profit organisation established to support a transformative response to complex and confounding challenges and to develop the capacity for effective action in today’s powerful times. The IFF is developing a body of ideas and philosophy about how to make sense of today’s complex world.

The IFF shares that thinking widely as a contribution to the global intellectual commons. The organisation holds events to exchange ideas and experience, and members of IFF’s international clan meet in plenary session as often as possible.

‘The social enterprises that do the best work are the ones that recognise ‘wholeness’ when they see it and then create the conditions for life to flow,’ says Lyon.

Lyon who studied Sociology and Economics at Edinburgh University is well versed in the ways in which meaning is created through culture. After completing his PhD, he led a community oriented health programme at Polaroid UK Ltd, before moving to Glasgow to lead the Healthy Cities Programme. He has also worked for the WHO in Bangladesh and Europe. With Forward Scotland, he lead on a Scottish approach to Sustainable Development from 1996- 2001. Now with the International Futures Forum, he leads on programmes designed to restore effectiveness in times of rapid change.

Cox and Lyon continue this powerful and inspiring conversational journey exploring how we can imagine a new future of being ‘whole’ as individuals and at a species level.

Find out more about the International Futures Forum and you can also find more about Dr Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Imagining the Future of Being Human – Part 3- Cultural Treasures

billschiffler — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:58:45 +0000

Culture – the patterns of relationships we are embedded in – shapes us. And, in this week’s exploratory conversation about imagining the future of being human Dr Desiree Cox and her guest Andrew Lyon from the International Futures Forum (IFF) look at dance to see what treasures this form of cultural expression might teach us about creating meaning in this Change of Age leading up to 2012.

Cox notes that in traditional cultures dance is used both to teach and express social patterns and values and helps people work, mature, celebrate festivals and funerals, compete, learn and encounter history, proverbs and poetry; as well as connect with the supernatural. Does dance play such a different role today in Western cultures? She asks.

Cox and Lyon continue this powerful and inspiring conversational journey exploring how we can imagine a new future of being ‘whole’ as individuals and at a species level.

Find out more about the International Futures Forum and you can also find more about Dr Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Imagining the Future of Being Human – Part 2 – Light-bulb moments

billschiffler — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:13:45 +0000

2012, A ‘Change of Age’. Tom Evans continues on from last weeks show with Andrew Lyon from the International Futures Forum in this series of exploratory conversations on the Healing Through Creativity show imagining the Future of our species with host Dr. Desiree Cox

Tom Evans is 21st century renaissance man, a serial entrepreneur and engineer now author, poet, musician and mentor of other authors on how to banish writer’s block and tap into their creative muse. After taking a degree in Electronics, he embarked on a career as a broadcast engineer with the BBC. He has also had his own company manufacturing innovative widgets to broadcasters worldwide and has received two Royal Television Society awards for his inventions as well as having several patents to his name. Evans is a trained hypnotherapist and specialises in past life and intra-life regression as well as future life progression. He has written three books: Blocks, Flavors of Thought, and his latest book, The art and science of Light Bulb Moments (published by O books, 2011).

Cox and Evans continue on from the powerful conversation begun with Cox and Lyon in part 1 of this series. In this weeks inspiring conversational journey Cox and Evans explore how as individuals we can convert ‘light-bulb’ moments into real live products, as well as how to create work environments where individuals and teams are empowered to be ‘whole’ at work and collectively dream new futures for their businesses, and ultimately, for our species as a whole.

Find out more about the Tom Evans, his books, talks and workshops from his website. You can also find more about Dr Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com.

Healing Through Creativity – Imagining the Future of Being Human – Part 1 -Lost in Translation

billschiffler — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:07:34 +0000

This run up to 2012 marks a significant period in this ‘Change of Age’. Andrew Lyon from the International Future’s Forum is this week’s Healing Through Creativity, guest with host Dr. Desiree Cox in a series of conversations and explorations imagining the future of ‘human beings’ as a species in this ‘Change of Age.’

The International Futures Forum (IFF) is a non-profit organisation established to support a transformative response to complex and confounding challenges and to develop the capacity for effective action in today’s powerful times. The IFF is developing a body of ideas and philosophy about how to make sense of today’s complex world.

Lyon studied Sociology and Economics at Edinburgh University. After completing his PhD, he led a community oriented health programme at Polaroid UK Ltd, before moving to Glasgow to lead the Healthy Cities Programme. He has also worked for the WHO in Bangladesh and Europe. With Forward Scotland, he lead on a Scottish approach to Sustainable Development from 1996- 2001. Now with the International Futures Forum, he leads on programmes designed to restore effectiveness in times of rapid change.

Cox and Lyon begin a powerful and inspiring conversational journey exploring how we can imagine a new future of being ‘whole’ as individuals and at a species level.

Find out more about the International Futures Forum and you can also find more about Dr Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Music and Whole Person Health: Musicians and Healers share some insights on creativity and healing

billschiffler — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:17:11 +0000

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox reflects on conversations with Mr Joel Andrews and Ed Mikenas, both professional musicians and healers about their work, healing gifts and practices, and how their work helps clients on their journey of being whole. Joel Andrews is a harpist, composer, author, and he was the pioneer music healer in America. He tours and presents concerts and workshops worldwide. Captivating international audiences with his exquisite music for over 30 years, Andrews has produced 33 recordings, including collaborations with Paul Horn and the Paul Winter Consort. He was presented in Town Hall, New York, with critical acclaim and has soloed with the San Francisco Symphony under Arthur Fiedler.
‘The healing works at a non-verbal vibrational level’, says Andrews. ‘I’m not doing the healing. I have my part, but it’s happening through the higher realms,’ Andrews insists as he reflects on his work with individual clients.
Cox then moves away from individual healing work of Andrews to reflect on an earlier conversation with Ed Mikenas who works with groups. Mikenas has develop particular hand drumming techniques to help addicts and teenagers recover from addition and learn and embody new skills that support them living healthier lives.
Ed Mikenas is a professional musician (with a Masters Degree in Music from the Manhattan School of Music in NYC), a certified substance abuse counselor, and the Director of Non-Residential Services for the City of Lynchburg’s Department of Juvenile Services. His main instrument is the double bass. However, over the past fifteen years Ed has been focusing on drumming as a therapeutic tool. He’s developed his own unique method of using hand drums for healing and well-being. It is a method which is becoming increasing accepted in certain healthcare and academic settings around the US, one of these being Radford University, where Ed developed the Drumming on the Edge of Leadership curriculum for the Waldron School of Social Work. Ed’s work as been referenced in prestigious academic journals, such as the American Journal of Public Health, as well as a book published by Oxford University Press.
Find out more about music and whole-person health creativity in this week’s conversation with Joel Andrews and Ed Mikenas. You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Do what makes you come alive, Part 2. You can’t think your way to a better life.

billschiffler — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 15:42:53 +0000

‘You can’t think your way to a better life’, says Mark Mooney. Quite apart from the fact, as Cox reminds us, that when it comes to thinking about certain things like ‘free will’, ‘happiness’ and ‘fulfillment’, it seems we can’t think straight anyway. This week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox continues her conversation with Mark Mooney, VP of Public Programs at Strozzi Institute, and a certified Master Somatic Coach. Healing as whole-person health and it’s the connection between personal mastery and creativity and healing is the subject of their conversation. Mark is a teacher in Strozzi Institute’s Leadership and Action courses in the US, Europe and Asia, as well as providing individual coaching and business consulting. He uses a Somatic approach in all the domains in which he is involved whether it be teaching, coaching or in Aikido where his own journey of personal mastery has taken him to the rank of second degree black belt.
‘Do you’ve decided that certain things don’t work for you, and that you want to, need to change them to live a more fulfillned life. Now what? What do you do? Asks Dr Cox. Mooney, a former businessman who has studied with Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler for 19 years and has been a teacher at Strozzi Institute for 14 years, explains how transformation involves embodying new practices that help people unwind the parts of themselves that have contracted.
Cox and Mooney talk about change, motivation, commitment and the mind-body in this first part of their conversation about healing, creativity and personal mastery. Find out more about creativity and personal mastery with Mark Mooney and Dr Desiree Cox. You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Do what makes you come alive: Personal Mastery and the Journey of Healing Through Creativity –PART 1

billschiffler — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 04:01:01 +0000

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox talks to Mark Mooney, who is VP of Public Programs at Strozzi Institute, and a certified Master Somatic Coach about creativity, whole-person health and personal mastery. Mark is a teacher in Strozzi Institute’s Leadership and Action courses in the US, Europe and Asia, as well as providing individual coaching and business consulting. He uses a Somatic approach in all the domains in which he is involved whether it be teaching, coaching or in Aikido where his own journey of personal mastery has taken him to the rank of second degree black belt.
‘Studies show that almost 90% of cases it takes a major crisis to motivate us to change’, says Mooney. Both he and Dr. Cox ask why? At Strozzi they ask the question: Who are you being as a leader. The focus on who you are being as a person leads almost automatically to personal leadership, personal practice, and personal mastery.
He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, has managed several small businesses and owned his own manufacturing business for six years. He has been studying with Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler for 19 years and has been a teacher at Strozzi Institute for 14 years.
Cox shares about her journey of personal mastery and healing through creativity, and her own motivations for change, as well as the way Mooney’s approach to centered practice at one of the courses he ran in London many years ago inspired her to take up aikido.
Mooney has been a guest presenter at Yale, George Mason University, Sonoma State University, JFK University, Georgetown University, Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of San Francisco. He has presented at various conferences including the Organization Development Network Conference, Edges Coaching Community Conference, and a Pfizer Discovery Day Conference. During his time at Strozzi Institute, Mark has worked with numerous businesses – including Pfizer, BIA Financial Consultant, Boston Edison, Cisco Systems, Hoffman Institute, Homeland Security Kaiser Permanete to name a few – providing them with training in leadership, effective coordination, and developing teams.
Cox and Mooney talk about change, motivation, commitment and the mind-body in this first part of their conversation about healing, creativity and personal mastery. Find out more about creativity and personal mastery with Mark Mooney and Dr Desiree Cox. You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Intention, Perception and the Art of Being Whole

billschiffler — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:54:48 +0000

Wisdom begins with wonder. Healing journeys often begin as disruptions in our business-as-usual approach to life. And the healing change often begins even before the healing intervention has even been initiated. This week host Dr Desiree Cox reflects on intention, perception and the art of being whole.

Drawing together important themes from important conversations over this year of Healing Through Creativity conversations, Dr Cox reflects on conversations with experts like Tom Kenyon, sound-healer, shaman, psychotherapist, author who have shared their experience of the power of intention in healing, and discussion with Dr Eileen Magnello statistician and historian of medicine and statistics whose brain operation is, in a way a story of the natural history of healing and perceptual change.

In both cases Dr Cox highlights the connections between our beliefs, what we intend relates to healing change, as well as the connection between creativity and how we perceive the world. Creativity and perception have a reciprocal relationship, both feeding off each other, both, when working in synergy can help us alter our perceptual landscapes in ways that give us access to other aspects of our being. Learn about intention, perception and creativity in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox. You can also find out more about Dr Cox from her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Integrative Medicine and the art of being whole

billschiffler — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:51:33 +0000

Last week we heard Carolyn Keyes talking to Dr Cox about creativity and healing in the workplace instead of Dr McAspurn. We apologize for this substitution. This week our ‘Healing Through Creativity’ host Dr. Desiree Cox explores how health and spirituality might be integrated in the therapeutic encounter between healer or practitioner and client with Dr Michelle McAspurn. A medical doctor, Integrative Medicine Specialist, and Interfaith minister who asks about spirituality? Dr Michelle McAspurn is one such person. She finds it helpful to ask about spirituality during her medical consultations. Dr McAspurn who qualified at Glasgow University and now practices Integrative Medicine at the NHS Center for Integrative Care in Glasgow discuss the art of being whole and of whole person health in medical practice. ‘This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. Welcome and entertain them all!’
In this podcast, McAspurn and Cox talk about integrating spirituality and medicine throughout their exploration of what is involved in being whole and being fulfilled in ones life. Cox and McAspurn, share their healing journeys and some of their challenges along the way, showing how creativity comes into this process of integrating spirituality and health. Learn about spirituality, integrative medicine and creativity in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox and Dr Michelle McAspurn. You can also find out more about Dr Cox from her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Welcome to the House of Being – Creativity, Spirituality and Integrative Medicine

billschiffler — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:21:12 +0000

What about your spirituality? Medical doctor, Integrative Medicine Specialist, and Interfaith minister, Dr Michelle McAspurn finds it helpful to ask this question during her medical consultations. This week our ‘Healing Through Creativity’ host Dr. Desiree Cox explores how health and spirituality might be integrated in the therapeutic encounter between healer or practitioner and client. Dr McAspurn who qualified at Glasgow University and now practices Integrative Medicine at the NHS Center for Integrative Care in Glasgow stresses the importance of the ‘welcome’ in the therapeutic encounter. However, as Cox and McAspurn’s conversation evolves ‘welcoming’ a person into a healing space takes on metaphorical significance. As Rumi put it so beautifully: ‘This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. Welcome and entertain them all!’
‘As we welcome others into a healing space,’ Cox and McAspurn discuss, ‘so we invite all aspects of ourselves into the house of being.’ Integrating spirituality and medicine throughout their exploration of what is involved in being whole and being fulfilled Cox and McAspurn, share their healing journeys and some of their challenges along the way, showing how creativity comes into this process of integrating spirituality and health.
Learn about spirituality, integrative medicine and creativity in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox and Dr Michelle McAspurn. You can also find out more about Dr Cox from her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Laughter and the Magic of Healing Through Creativity in the Corporate Life

billschiffler — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:40:57 +0000

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox speaks Chief Relationship Office and Newfield Coach at Newfield networks, Carolyn Keyes. Whether engaging with thousands (an extrovert’s dream) or speaking one-on- one, Carolyn’s ability to connect with people using humor and her outgoing personality is legendary. She grew-up in a small town near Chicago where she realized that her ability to communicate was essential (much more than her mathematical skills) in her ability to be successful in life. After moving up the advertising corporate ladder, she spectacularly quit her job and took some time off to try acting and discover her creative side.
‘Its all in the body. We communicate with our bodies, through non-verbal language,” says Keyes. Keyes shares some of her coaching successes in Newfield networks with Dr Cox. She uses her passion for the arts and her gifts as a sketch comedian to help corporate executives find the language they need to communicate with their heart rather than just their head.
As Newfield’s chief relationship officer, Carolyn is responsible for the development of client relations both within Newfield’s public programs and oversees Newfield’s Executive and Organizational Division. She works internationally on specialized projects that require the ability to work with diverse cultures and teams to align with clients’ performance goals. In addition, Carolyn is an executive coach with experience working with senior-level and C-Suite executives. On a personal level, her passion is applying her background and expertise to individuals, organizations, and community through coaching, writing and filmmaking.

Cox and Keyes talk about the importance of integrating their passions with their work and the art of bringing your creativity to work and working your creativity in ways that bring healing to ourselves and others. Find out more about creativity and coaching, Newfield style in this weeks conversation with Carolyn Keyes and Dr Desiree Cox. You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Food for the Soul: A Statisticians Journey of Healing Through Cooking Creatively

billschiffler — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 05:01:28 +0000

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox speaks with a statistician and historian of science, Dr Eileen Magnello. Dr Magnello, who is an expert on Karl Pearson and Victorian statistics in particular, developed a passion for cooking after an operation on her brain left her mind in pieces. “It was like my mind was a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces having fallen out of place”, says Magnello. The statistician who has since gone on to win prizes for her creative recipes had never had an interest in cooking before her brain operation. “Food helped me connect my memories, my past, my childhood, myself; and, the creativity involved in cooking helped to rebuild my self-confidence….This part of me which lay dormant was now awake…It helped me to heal, to become whole again.”

Magnello, who is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London, went on to complete her doctorate in History of Science at Oxford University, despite the set back of a brain operation and her disability (she is also hearing impaired). She has since published numerous articles and several books on statistics and the history of statistics. Magnello has been interviewed as an expert in the area of statistics and history of statistics on BBC radio and television programs and documentaries.
Cox and Magnello touch on role of the creative process in re-wiring the brain. “Brain re-wiring and personal transformation are enhanced when we engage all of the senses,” says Cox. The creative energy Magnello tapped on through her cookery, helped her get in touch with a ‘creative flow’ that then touched all aspects of her life, career and her work. “Creating recipes allowed me to connect with people in ways that were not possible because of my hearing difficulties,” says Magnello. Learn about the art of cooking and other ways of replenishing your own well of creativity in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox and Dr Eileen Magnello. Find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Does God Allow Suffering? Healing, Transcendence and other Modern Dilemmas

billschiffler — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 05:01:34 +0000

Does God allow suffering? Is Transcendence possible in modern society? What does liberation mean in contemporary modern life? And what, if anything, does any of this have to do with healing, and more specifically healing through creativity? This week our ‘Healing Through Creativity’ host Dr. Desiree Cox explores the limits of healing through creativity with sociologist Dr Paul Gilfillan. ‘Does healing always involve creativity? Dr. Cox asks. She explores issues of transcendence, liberation and healing with her guest, sociology lecturer Paul Gilfillan from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland. Paul has published academic papers on theological understandings of liberation, transcendence and self-appropriation and is currently working on a book the subject. He is also active in community projects relating to this area of interest.

Cox and Gilfillan discuss some of the stresses of modern life in affluent Western societies. ‘What is society? What do we even mean by terms like society and culture?’ asks Cox. ‘Can we even talk about what healing might mean for an individual at a personal level without dealing with how living in contemporary societies affects the way we relate to others and to ourselves?’ Gilfillan shares healing, and what healing means for him as a Catholic. ‘How can we be modern and Christian?’ asks Gilfillan. This question, which has been debated in theological circles since the dawn of modernity, is in some ways akin to the complex issues built into secular debates about healing, transcendence and liberation in modern life, and what journeys of healing through creativity might mean today.

Learn about healing, transcendence, liberation and self-appropriation in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox and sociologist Paul Gilfillan. You can also find out more about Dr Cox from her website www.desireecox.com

Healing Through Creativity – Healing Through Creativity: Is Creativity always Healing?

billschiffler — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 05:01:35 +0000

Mass creativity is the next big thing. So say experts like Charles Leadbeater, Paul Miller and Sir Ken Robinson. This week our ‘Healing Through Creativity’ host Dr. Desiree Cox asks: ‘Is creativity always healing? Composer, producer and musician Malcolm Lindsay talks to Dr Cox about some of the things that give creative journey’s healing potential. ‘Collaboration’, says Lindsay. ‘Collaboration is so important’. Malcolm’s work encompasses film and television scores, contemporary classical music, jazz and pop. His classical music scores have been performed by orchestras all over the world; and his television and feature film movie credits include and Whitechapel Series II, a BBC 1 documentary series featuring Griff Rys Jones called Mountain, Sherlock Holmes & Barbara Cartland dramas for BBC1 & BBC4Exodus (Artangel, Ch4 Films) and string arrangements and orchestrations for David Byrne’s score for Young Adam, starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton. But this was not always his life. Lindsay once ran a ‘NCIS-type’ virtual reality research laboratory in computer sciences at University of Strathclyde in Scotland.

Cox and Lindsay touch upon their own creative journeys as musicians and scientists at a professional level while working in other professional capacities full time. ‘At one point I realized I was doing two jobs, one as a professional musician and another running a research lab, and I thought, maybe I could be just as happy with just one job’. Lindsay decided on music full-time. ‘For me,’ says Dr Cox, ‘it was a different kind of decision. I was working as a medical doctor treating mental health patients in London, but I realized I needed to be solo-singing again for my own mental health. One thing lead to another and the next thing I knew I was working as a doctor by day and performing as a jazz singer by night.’

Learn about how what it what it takes for creativity to really have the possibility of healing, well-being and fulfilment in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox and award winning composer, producer and musician, Malcolm Lindsay.

Healing Through Creativity – We are the artists of our own lives: art, film and the currency of experience

billschiffler — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 05:01:18 +0000

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox speaks with award-winning British film-maker Eleanor Yule about how we are artists of our own lives, and about connecting with the well of emotions and possibilities within ourselves through films and film-making. Yule’s arts documentary work with the BBC which includes the critically acclaimed OMNIBUS on French painter Pierre Bonnard, her films with ex- Python Michael Palin, and, her films about Peter Brooke, Muriel Spark, RD Laing, Peter McDougall and others have helped her refine her craft leading up to her first feature film Blinded. Blinded, a dark love story, starring Peter Mull and Jodhi May has played in competition at film festivals all over the world including Edinburgh (Michael Powell award), Taormina, Istanbul and Moscow. This year Eleanor Yule has directed two comedies, DESPERATE FISHWIVES, a Doric comedy pilot for the BBC and the film, LOVE CAKE, a sweet Romance.

Cox and Yule touch upon their own healing journeys and how their creativity has helped them make sense of their lives and see beyond their own personal horizons. “Art allows us to have a perspective beyond own human experience, it can help us to develop empathy and compassion, and most of all develop the self-compassion so important for healing” says Cox. Making ‘Blinded’ was a personal healing journey for me”, says Yule.

Learn about ‘the value of art’, of ‘replenishing your own depleted well of creativity’, and ‘giving back to others through the creative products we make’, in this week’s conversation with Dr Desiree Cox and award winning film-maker Eleanor Yule. You are the artist of your own life. What each life can be for itself is also part of what it is for the whole of life itself.

You can see trailers of Eleanor Yule’s films. Just click: http://vimeo.com/eleanoryule

Learn more about Eleanor on or www.imdm.com/eleanoryule. Find out more about Dr Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com.

Healing Through Creativity – Perceiving Life through the eyes of life itself. A healer’s journey.

billschiffler — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 03:14:18 +0000

Healing Through Creativity: Perceiving Life through the eyes of life itself. A healer’s journey.

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox speaks with Emaho, a native American Indian healer, about the healer’s journey. Emahó teaches about the phenomenon that is Life. He has been giving workshops throughout Europe for over fourteen years. He teaches how to see life through ‘Life’s Eyes’ rather than through the eyes of the personality. This challenges our assumptions, dreams and expectations – the stuff of our conditioning. It takes courage and compassion to cut through the complacency of our everyday lives – but it is worth it.

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Emaho lives with his family in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He spoke to Dr Cox in Glasgow, Scotland during one of his recent workshops in that city.

Emaho and Cox discuss aspects of the healers’ journey focusing on the beginnings of the journey, long before the healing workshops came into being. He shares his experiences through stories of unexplained phenomena of healing and of life while working as a biofeedback therapist in the USA. It is a journey that took him through many different jobs, even working for a time as a Gel-bed salesman and a restaurant manager, all of which were part of his healer’s journey before he began doing his healing workshops throughout Europe. Cox and Emaho touch on aspects of their own healing journeys on near death experiences, and more.

Emahó’s suggests that rather than being spiritual it is to be a spirited human being in nature – to begin to wake up in your life and fight to be more alive in it.

If healing and creativity are part of your life’s part or life’s work this is a program you will not want to miss. Learn about the healer’s journey to perceiving life through the eyes of life itself, and you can be part of Emaho’s workshops by logging onto his website.

Healing Through Creativity – After the Silence: Wisdom, Wonder and Healing Through Creativity

billschiffler — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:01:11 +0000

In this week’s Healing Through Creativity, host Dr. Desiree Cox speaks with George Allen Robertson from a different Healing Through Creativity (great minds think alike!). Robertson’s Healing Through Creativity is an organization that helps survivors of trauma of all kinds to cope, heal and recover by tapping into their own creative capacity and internal resources.

Each year the organization holds an annual Healing Through Creativity festival where survivors share the fun and excitement of creativity without the fears of judgement, guilt or shame. The festival is a one-stop-shop where people can discover and learn about the local and online resources available to them as they journey toward healing through self-expression. There have been a number of Healing Through Creativity events across the USA since the first such festival in West Virginia took place back in 2006. Robertson and Cox discuss what takes place at these events and the positive outcomes they’ve seen emerge once they were over.

Cox and Robertson also touch upon their own creative journeys and how they overcome their own traumatic experiences. “The things we are taught when we grow up aren’t usually the things that help heal us,” says Burke. Learn how to stop “stepping aside” when trauma comes into your live and confront it–creatively!

And, for those of you who are more entrepreneurial–even in your healing process!–you are more than welcome to sell the art you produce while you’re reaping the benefits of a Healing Through Creativity festival. “We’re not looking for Picassos,” says Robertson. Any0ne who wants to is more than welcome to to sell. Of course, the main focus of the event is healing, not monetary value, but having an opportunity to pick up an extra buck on the side is always nice!

Learn about “the Wonder of what it is for a human being to be creative,” how tapping into that Wonder can help you or your loved one to heal, and how–simply by opening your mind to new experiences–you can finally move on from the trauma that has left you silent and shattered.

Healing Through Creativity – Outside in. How where you live can affect your genes

billschiffler — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:01:04 +0000

Where you live can affect your genes. Natural Genetics, the study of the effects of nature, nurture and culture on our health and genetics shows that our living spaces (our environment and lifestyles) can affect our genetics. ‘Space matters’ is the theme of this week’s conversation with Professor Stuart MacDonald OBE, artist, architect, consultant, and cultural transformation through creative design. Our discussion ranges from the craft of art and architectural design to the co-creation of educational and public spaces that inspire community engagement, public-private partnerships and healing. Where are the best cities to live? Find out in this week’s healing through creativity conversation. You can find out more about Professor Stuart MacDonald from his website. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Living ‘A Not So Still Life’

billschiffler — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:01:47 +0000

A Not So Still Life. ‘A truly inspiring and stunning portrayal of healing and transcendence through creativity, and one of the best documentary films I have seen to date’, is how I would describe this award-winning documentary film about the life and art of Ginny Ruffner. Karen Stanton, the director of the project, and Ginny Ruffner herself are my guests this week. The craft of making a powerful documentary film; how to live a truly creative life; and, how to balance relationships and day-to-day survival with doing what you love are just some of the themes of our conversation. We discuss these things and more with independent film-maker Karen Stanton and the highly successful Seattle-based visual artist, sculptor, and author Ginny Ruffner who soared to great heights as an artist in the 80’s and early 90’s and then, after a serious brain injury, picked right back up and soared to new heights. Join us in this week’s healing through creativity conversation. You can find out more about the film, ‘A Not So Still Life’ and Ginny Ruffner on their website. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Love, Presence and Making Salt

billschiffler — Mon, 30 May 2011 02:18:28 +0000

If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world.™ (William Stafford). My guest Dr. Andrew Lyon from the International Futures Forum (IFF) talks about the IFF™ WORLD GAME, some of the creative products the IFF have been putting into the world to empower us to solve the ˜epic™ challenges of our time. How do you improve the resilience of your city or town or family to deal with crisis? How do we transcend prevailing patterns of behaviour and ways of engaging with each other? How can we connect more deeply with their core purpose, activate our capacity for creativity and healing in work environments and at home? Join us in this week™ healing through creativity conversation with Andrew Lyon. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Of trees and wolves and artifacts for healing

billschiffler — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:01:17 +0000

Can human ideas become natural facts? Are our words mere artifacts? And if so, can public art help communities heal themselves? My guest this week is Osprey Orielle Lake, artist, environmentalist, author and winner of a 2011 Nautilus Book Award Silver Medal for Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature. We’ll be talking about public art and its possibilities for community transformation and healing. Public art can help people and cultures reflect on and see their strengths. Such art can be challenging to create. Why is that? How might we transcend cultural barriers to harmony and reconciliation? Might our environment and the natural world have something to teach us not only about the art and science of life, the art of being whole and at one with our physical, biological, social and cultural ‘Body’ so to speak? Join us in this week’s healing through creativity conversation with Osprey Orielle Lake. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – One foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss: Living Barefoot

billschiffler — Mon, 16 May 2011 05:01:36 +0000

Some say the source of joy, bliss and creativity comes from ‘living every moment with one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss’ (Paul Coelho). For my guest Steven Russell, ‘The Barefoot Doctor’, this way of living has become the the norm. Join me this week as we continue our inquiry into healing, creativity with The Barefoot Doctor, author of 14 books and practitioner and teacher of Taoism, its meditation, philosophy and meditation practices. We talk about living in the moment and the shift from ‘fitting in’ as an approach to life in the 20th Century, to ‘chipping in’ as a life enhancing vision of 21st Century. Find out more about The Barefoot Doctor and his style of healing and creativity. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Metaphor, illness and the art of doing what makes you come alive

billschiffler — Mon, 09 May 2011 05:01:07 +0000

Who would have thought that having Multiple Sclerosis would become a vehicle for healing and that illness might have the power to show us what makes us come alive. It has for Cathy Aten. I love my life™, says Cathy. I have a wonderful life™. This week we speak to my guest Cathy Aten, about illness, metaphor and the art of doing what makes us come alive. Cathy is a professional artist whose diagnosis of MS in 2000 set her on an extraordinary journey of healing and creativity with life enhancing lessons about what finding what makes us come alive. Find out more about Cathy Aten and her art and life And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Archetypes, Imagination and Healing

billschiffler — Mon, 02 May 2011 05:01:08 +0000

A 19 year old young man goes into a mall in Omaha Nebraska, shoots 7 people and then kills himself. Find out how this event inspires a Chicago artist to help teenagers heal through art and creativity, and, how the event ultimately leads to a project where teenagers and young people image universally understood visual symbols that inspire healing through creativity. Join me this week when I talk to Jennifer Hereth, an artist and faculty member of the College of DuPage, the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and former recipient of the Kellogg Foundation Grant for International Studies about the Archetype Cards project where teenagers and young people generated modern archetypes to inspire imagination and healing. We also discuss other successful community initiatives for inspiring healing through creativity in young people and communities. Find out more about Jennifer Hereth and the Archetype Cards created by teenagers and young people. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Mindfully, Manifesting, Miracles

billschiffler — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:01:27 +0000

Nicola had suffered with depression and had been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome when she began Surfing Rainbows. Three months later, she was feeling happier, healthier. ‘I feel there is so much more joy inside me now’, she says. ‘People tell me how alive I look.’ What is Surfing Rainbows? Join me this week when I talk to Pamilla Sullivan (a former lawyer, tax accountant and mother of two) and Dale Brunner (a business man, father and grandfather) co-authors of the book Surfing Rainbows. We talk in depth about the endeavour of Surfing Rainbows, which goes beyond the book. Pamila was last a guest on the show seven months ago. The extraordinary new developments around the project has lead me to invite her back, this time with her co-author Dale, to share how this book and the endeavour (which has also now evolved into a game with groups of people all over the world experiencing the promise of Surfing Rainbows) of mindfully, manifesting, miracles in life. The book continues to draw endorsers and supporters from all spheres of life. Find out more about Surfing Rainbows. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.

Healing Through Creativity – Close Your Eyes and See

billschiffler — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:01:42 +0000

Imagine if tragedy struck your life and took away everything that was important to you: your career, your identity, your ability to earn a living, your most precious memories. What would you do? Where would you start? What would you create? And how would you create it? Join me this week when I talk to Dan Rhema author of the book, I Close My Eyes to See, who, picked up a brush and a pen while recovering from a debilitating illness that affected his brain, and created a new life for himself as a visionary artist, a writer and film-maker. Find out how you might take the artist in you to work, activate your own self-healing capacity, and channel the creator in you into the creating art out of your work. And be sure to find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox at her website.