Turning Point - Art Therapy with oogly

I just finished another workshop with the great folks at Turning Point and I’ll be sharing a few of the stories this week.

Turning Point is a non-profit center in Kansas City that provides holistic programming to support individuals, families and friends dealing with serious or chronic physical illness. The team at Turning Point helps supplement the care received from traditional medical practitioners like doctors and hospitals by focusing on nutrition, exercise, stress management and other wellness strategies to help manage illnesses. Art therapy is one service they provide and we are excited to share oogly at Turning Point.

We started doing oogly workshops at Turning Point this summer. You can read more about our first session we did with adults here. We have also shared oogly as a type of play therapy with kids at Turning Point and it was a hit. 

The process of making an oogly and then writing about their oogly gives them a new way to express their feelings about what they are going through. It’s a great alternative to traditional ways of managing stress and trying to work out the emotions that come with chronic illness and the effects of chronic illness on loved ones.

Here’s what one participant shared about her oogly this week:

 “I am an observer of what is happening around me.  I listen, I see and I wait.  I know things other do not notice.

I am not perfect but I am grateful for me, little legs that carry me, my arms and hands that hold what I need, my  wiry hair, my eyesight and eyelashes, my big ears, my bug eyes, my crooked teeth and most of all my big smile and funny laugh.

If I am still, I know things that are not said, I see things that haven’t happened.  I feel things others do not notice.

If I am still, I can be more than I appear to be and…so are you.”