In ancient times, the prevailing belief was that madness and creativity were sublime gifts from the gods. Who knew the opposite would prove to be true today? Creativity and art are reliant on mental health, mental health is reliant on creativity and art. In this exciting episode, Valerie and Helen reveal the cutting edge science that proves creative expression has a direct healing impact on the mind and body of those with mental health challenges. Through the exploration of history, treatment methods, and firsthand accounts, they show the amazing synergy between creativity and recovery. An episode not to be missed!
Find out more about Helen and Valerie https://mentalhealthhopeandrecovery.com/
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The Healing Synergy of Creativity and Recovery
Episode 35
Helen Sneed: Welcome to Mental Health, Hope and Recovery. I'm Helen Sneed.
Valerie Milburn: And I'm Valerie Milburn.
Helen Sneed: We both have fought and overcome severe chronic mental illnesses. Our podcast offers a unique approach to mental health conditions. We use practical skills and inspirational stories of recovery. Our knowledge is up close and personal.
Valerie Milburn: Helen and I are your peers. We're not doctors, therapists or social workers. We're not professionals, but we are experts. We are experts in our own lived experience with multiple mental health diagnoses and symptoms. Please join us on our journey.
Helen Sneed: We live in recovery.
Valerie Milburn: So can you this podcast does not provide medical advice. The information presented is not intended to be a substitute for or relied upon as medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The podcast is for informational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any health related questions you may have. Welcome to Mental Health Hope and Recovery. Before we begin our episode today, Helen, you and I want to share some thrilling news. Our podcast has won not one, but two Signal Awards. And the Signal Awards are the national awards in the podcasting industry that recognize podcasts that have raised the bar. And this year we received two awards, both the Bronze Award and the Listeners Choice Award in our category. Now in our third year of producing mental health Hope and recovery, we are grateful and honored by this recognition of our work. Helen, you and I have just returned from the awards celebration in New York City and we are even more committed to support our mission and inspire you, our listeners, to achieve a life in recovery through skills and strategies and true stories of triumph over mental health challenges.
Helen Sneed: Welcome to episode 35, the healing synergy of Creativity and Recovery. Today's episode is a special one as we are recording from the national alliance on Mental illness Texas statewide annual conference in Houston. We're honored to be invited back and we want to give a special welcome to our first live audience here in Houston and a big welcome, as always, to our listeners worldwide.
Valerie Milburn: Yes, welcome, everyone.
Helen Sneed: Now we're exploring the relationship between creativity and recovery. We'll begin with the background and progression of beliefs about creativity and mental health.
Valerie Milburn: And then we're going to discuss methods to foster creativity and recovery by talking about some strategies and skills that can be used and how to incorporate creative endeavors into a wellness plan.
Helen Sneed: Finally, a look at the transformative healing impact brought about by accessing one's creative abilities. And in this instance, Valerie and I will tell something of our own stories. Okay, let's start with the basics. What is creativity? Well, Britannica defines it as this way. Creativity is the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, Whether a solution to a problem, a new method or device, a new artistic
Helen Sneed: object or form. To put it informally, it can be a painting, a pie, a business plan, a symphony. The misconceptions abound about the origins of art and creativity. Where did they come from, these special powers? Well, from the ancient Greeks through modern times, the relationship of mental illness and art and creativity has reversed. Now, Socrates back with the Greeks said madness, provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings. So for the Greeks, the reigning belief was that madness and art were divine gifts from the gods. Now, in more modern times, the opposite has proved to be true.
Valerie Milburn: Thank goodness.
Helen Sneed: Madness, or mental illness, as we call it now, now is considered counterproductive to creativity. Mental health is essential for creativity, invention and art. So, Valerie, this has been quite a reversal over these many centuries.
Valerie Milburn: Yes, yes. Mental health is really essential for creativity.
Helen Sneed: Now, as we all know, one of the most famous artists to suffer from chronic mental illness was Vincent van Gogh. But there was this one special year where he painted 150 paintings in one year. Now, at the time, van Gogh was living in an asylum in the beautiful countryside where he found peace, stability and inspiration. He was able to paint daily and was well taken care of. And under these circumstances, he created his great masterpiece, Starry Night and Irises and some of his other best work. Despite a lifetime of suffering, Van Gogh maintained a remarkable self image. I find it very inspiring. What he said is, the more I am spent ill, a broken picture by so much more. Am I an artist, a creative artist?
Valerie Milburn: That is a beautiful quote cry from.
Helen Sneed: The heart, you know, that. That he was not Going to be brought down that that's who he was. So let's look for a minute at art itself.
Valerie Milburn: You know, wait, Helen, I don't know if I ever told you that I've been to that asylum where Van Gogh was that special year where he was so creative. And it is indeed in a beautiful spot in the countryside in Provence, in France. And it is now an art school for girls.
Helen Sneed: Well, I think that's. That's a fitting, you know, ending for it, I guess. Really, it's a beginning for it.
Valerie Milburn: Yeah.
Helen Sneed: That's good to hear. I like to think of his ghost in there. Inspiring all of them.
Valerie Milburn: I think so.
Helen Sneed: So, speaking of artists, let's look at art. Now, we know that every society has a great need for creativity. And story, paintings, music, writing, myth, dance, the works that tell us who we are, where we've been and where we're going. Art promotes understanding, connection and healing. Stella Adler said, life can beat down and crush the soul, but art reminds you that you have one.
Valerie Milburn: Now.
Helen Sneed: Then there is creative expression and the individual, the great need and benefit of individual expression in most people who use creativity for their daily lives and are not recognized as great artists. Dieter Uchtdorf said, the desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. So why is this? Well, there are different forms of storytelling, many of which can be used when words are inadequate. And it can be for many reasons. Whether it is that which the individual cannot tolerate, expressing, you know, cannot speak, the unspeakable because it is so traumatic, or it can be the opposite to describe a cause for joy or comfort or change or hope. Sometimes words are just not enough. So art is an invaluable form of communication and connection for mentally challenged individuals. Creativity can help a person restore order to their universe or just have a better day. And we know now that creativity covers a wide range from making a quilt to writing a poem to teaching a class to designing a rocket ship. I mean, Neil Gaiman said, the world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before. Now, because of its profound impact on psychiatric conditions, creativity has actually become
Helen Sneed: a legitimate form of scientific study and research in the field. Valerie, what can you tell us about this?
Valerie Milburn: It has indeed become a legitimate field of research. And I discovered that as I was doing my research, there is actually an emerging field about our topic today, field of research, and it's called neuro arts. I had no idea. And this entire field of research has proven that the arts and creative experiences indeed change our Bodies, our brains, and our behavior. Yes, this field of research science proves that creativity changes the brain for the better. Now, as usual, I drilled down deeply into the research. Kind of geeked out over it, but, you know, I found a way to look at the nut of it, and that's through three key things I found in the research. So I've got three highlights from the research I want to share. A lot of my research was through the School of Public Health at Harvard, and that was kind of the overall area I researched from. But this particular piece that I'm going to share is from the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, my son's alma mater. And this is their quote. The arts offers the potential for humans to deepen their understanding into their own mental health condition. So that's the first point. Creativity promotes self awareness. The second finding is from the International Arts plus Mind Lab at the center for Neuro Aesthetics at Johns Hopkins University. And their executive director, Susan Magsuman, says, here's her quote. If you are suffering from trauma, you cannot find your words. Often there are no words, but because there's a region in the language area of the brain that literally shuts down. She goes on to say, so by creating a visual piece of art, you're able to use symbol and metaphor to be able to create an object that you can then come back and assign a narrative to and work through that trauma. And, Helen, that backs up exactly what you were just talking about, that sometimes there are no words. And so that research piece points out, the second point I want to make that art, creativity gives us the ability to process emotional events. Now, the third point is from the Harvard sociobiologist E. O. Wilson. And he named that we are one of the very few number of species that need each other. And he says it makes perfect sense that the arts would be helpful in us sharing our voices and ourselves. So that's the third point. Arts and creativity provides us connection with others. So those three things, self awareness, the ability to process emotional events, and human connections, those three things are imperative to achieving and sustaining mental health. So the research shows the power of creativity to support achieving and sustaining our mental health. Now, those are the highlights of the research. And, you know, I have tons more to support creativity to enhance and sustain mental health. And I just want to share two more that are so powerful, two more research findings. The first one's about children. And this research study shows that children who learn to play music have an increased ability to regulate their emotions in response to the events around them. Particularly in managing their stress in response to challenging situations. And I'll end with this. 3,000 research studies, yes, 3,000 different research studies show that the arts have a role both in preventing mental health problems like depression, as well as managing and treating existing symptoms of mental illness.
Helen Sneed: I find this so heartening because first of all, it's, it's, it's just going to help so many people, if it hasn't already. You know this, you know this using the arts and creativity in this way. But also it's just my personal value system, and it makes me very happy.
Valerie Milburn: Yes.
Helen Sneed: So another thing was given, what Valerie's just told us is that with the scientific proof of its efficacy, creativity is also a potent treatment method, an essential building block for overcoming major obstacles to recovery. Now, there are many ways to nurture creativity. You can look at it this way. Is it stuff that you want to do alone or with a group? I myself like to do both. So decide which activity sounds fun
Helen Sneed: or touches your heart or is challenging in an exciting way, and go after it. Creativity requires action. When asked how he knew what to paint, Picasso himself said, to know what you're going to draw, you have to begin drawing. Now, begin may be the most important thing that we say today. Just begin. Take a class, join a choir, sewing circle, book club, volunteer work. And don't worry about originality. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I have nothing to say. Why would I want to get into creative activities? Andre Gide said, everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
Valerie Milburn: I love that. You know, we have a magnet on our refrigerator. It's a couple. And the text on the magnet says, I'm sorry I didn't hear what you said, but in my defense, I wasn't listening.
Helen Sneed: Well, there, you know, there, there you have it. The basic communications, which of course the arts all and creativity supplement enormously, enormously. So what we also know is that storytelling is one of the most ancient and fundamental forms of creative expression. I mean, think of the cave men and women sitting around the fire, you know, telling stories, because there really wasn't anything else to do. So it's a great form of creative expression, storytelling, and a great tool for healing. Now here's an amazing story to prove it. It's Valerie's.
Valerie Milburn: Thank you, Helen. I love when you set me up that way. It inspires me to do a good job being a storyteller. And I'll start my story. It's kind of summing it up as being a journalist first, I guess. My college degree is in journalism, and I was always that kind of a writer. In high school, I was on the school newspaper and a literary magazine, and I wrote poetry. As a teenager, I was a troubled adolescent, and by the time I got to high school, I was already using drugs and alcohol, so it was dark poetry. My first jobs out of college were in communication, public relations, marketing, advertising. So I was doing that type of journalistic writing. I was on the business and public relations side in the advertising world. So I wrote marketing plans, I created public relations strategies, and I managed client accounts. I was surrounded by creative directors and art directors, and it was a super creative environment. But it was while in my last advertising job that I had my complete psychiatric breakdown. And after that, I barely functioned for five years. And some days I could barely access my words and definitely could not access my creativity at that point.
Helen Sneed: Well, as you were fighting your way through that big psychiatric crisis, did you have any therapy that helped you access your creativity?
Valerie Milburn: You know, I did, and it surprised me because the first was art therapy when I was inpatient in psychiatric hospitals. And this opened many emotional doors for me. And it surprised me because when they said, you know, we're going to art therapy, I thought, oh, my God, I can't even draw. I don't even want to go to this stupid therapy session. But when they gave me pastels and paper, I just violently, almost violently blended those colors on the paper, and I chose oranges and reds and blacks. And the anger inside of me just pour it out onto that paper. And until then, I didn't even know that anger existed. Literally found it through art therapy. And the second effective creative therapy for me was this book called the Artist way. And it was suggested by a therapist when I was deeply symptomatic and desperately struggling. And when she suggested it, I thought that it was just a ridiculous idea. But because of the condition I was in at that point, I was willing to try anything. So there were only really two pro two aspects of the program the book promoted that resonated with me. One was journaling, which has been a really important part of my healing. And the other one was called an artsy weekly date with myself. And I took that part seriously. And I took myself to the Umlauf Sculpture Gardens in Austin every week. And I think I was supposed to go to different places every week. But like I said, my creativity had evaded me, so I kept going back to the same place. But it's a
Valerie Milburn: beautiful place. And there in that Sculpture garden. I actually found serenity. It was amazing. So those therapies and many others led me to a place healthy enough where I was able to go back to work. And it was a low stress part time job, but I was working again. And after a few months at that job, I was asked to create, yes, create a new program for our department. And, you know, I found purpose again through this process of taking my idea to fruition.
Helen Sneed: But Valerie, you were still struggling with bipolar symptoms at this time, which is not easy. How did you rise to the challenge of this huge new responsibility?
Valerie Milburn: I was still struggling, but, you know, I think all I needed was that vote of confidence to go forth and create. Because when I was asked to do it, I was actually inspired to do so. I just needed somebody to believe in me, I think. And when, you know, I created a program that is still in existence 27.
Helen Sneed: Years later, I'm not surprised. Okay, what about today? So many years down the road into recovery? How does creativity play a role in your recovery? Your relationships, your life? I mean, is it, is it a part of your mental health? Toolbox?
Valerie Milburn: It is in one way particularly. I still can't draw, but if anxiety is intense and persistent, I use one of those intricate coloring books. I think some people call them adult coloring books. I have some really nice colored pencils and I put on soothing music and I sit down with one of those coloring books and I create something that's satisfying and beautiful, that gives me pride and soothes me and most importantly, grounds me in the moment. Mindfulness. Hey, Valerie's doing mindfulness. So in my relationships, creativity comes to me and my husband through our art collection. We're both art lovers and we have beautiful art in our home that we've collected for years. We've been together for years and we have years worth of art in our home. I also am known for the beautiful dining tables I design for our family gatherings, beautiful centerpieces. And my friends tell me they love how I beautifully wrapped their birthday and Christmas gifts. And I take great joy in doing this, I think, particularly because I hated gift wrapping for so many years. When I was sick, I would just throw something in a bag and make do. I also have gorgeous flower pots just overflowing on my patios and my front porch. And Helen, you know all about this. I decorate our house for all holidays.
Helen Sneed: Yes, you do.
Valerie Milburn: I do. Christmas is really pretty and Easter is really fun. My grandkids love Easter decorations. They're bunnies everywhere and giant Easter eggs in the front yard. And it's really fun. So I bring beauty and frivolity to my home and this type of being creative is so joyful for me. And you know, it's because my world today is just the complete opposite of that dark, sad life I lived when I was living in depression and full of the symptoms of being living with bipolar disorder. And now since I am in on this journey of recovery from my mental health conditions, I have this creativity that fosters the beauty, connection and joy in my life today. And I consider myself blessed and I live full of gratitude.
Helen Sneed: Well, the way you describe it, I can see why. Valerie, thank you so much. I admire the way you found your way back to a life filled with creativity, which can't have been easy when you were had gotten so far away from it. And I personally can attest to your use of creativity today from the brilliant work you put into our podcast weekly. And I for one am extremely grateful.
Valerie Milburn: Well, thank you. It's a team effort and we know that we do it together and love doing it together.
Helen Sneed: As for my own story, for me this episode on creativity is so personal. Creativity is one of the most precious aspects of myself I've ever known. From childhood, creativity was the strongest reason for my very survival. I was depressed from the age of four and I couldn't have made it through the pain and despair without my imagination, the ability to make up a better story than the one I was born into. Ursula Le Guin once said, the creative adult is the child who survived well. In my early childhood, I found art and beauty. There were five pieces of plastic in my parents living Room that changed my life. They were records. South Pacific, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, Rhapsody in Blue and Swan Lake. Now, my salvation also was in the many books my mother gave me and read to me until I could read to myself. And I drank in the music and the words and the stories of other lives in better worlds. Now, early on, I began to develop my own creativity. Now, this was done in solitude because we lived in the country in the middle of nowhere. I wrote my first collection of stories at seven. And I wrote and starred in my first play at nine. I pretty much lived in my imagination and I found hope there, if not on the ground around me.
Valerie Milburn: You know, I am not surprised that you wrote plays and starred and wrote your first play and starred in your play, first play at that incredibly young age, because I know you and not surprised your creativity blossomed so young. I also love the visual view in the living room listening to that beautiful music. You know, we are looking at the symbiosis of creativity and recovery today. And I would love to know how you see this in your own life.
Helen Sneed: Well, I. All over the place, you know. Our goal today is to examine the impact of creativity on recovery and of recovery on creativity. So for me, without creativity, I wouldn't even be alive today. If I hadn't discovered art and music, I simply couldn't have tolerated the horrors inside me brought on by chronic mental illnesses over decades. The use of my own creativity, my own expression, gave me some of the greatest joy I've ever known. A break from the sickness inside and a sense of momentum that drove me towards hope, even if just for a little while. As I made my way across my years, I was reverential towards creative people. The great writers, painters, actors, dancers. My deepest aspiration was to be one of them. By the time I was in high school, I was determined to use my creativity to become a great actress. And by college, I became the campus star, convinced I had a special destiny. Well, who knows if anything would have come of it? For right after graduation, I fell into a major depression that lasted for several years. But during a manic episode, I did manage to move to New York City and overachieved there for many years until I earned a place in the American theater. But I used my creativity to support the plays and musicals of other writers. I never went on one audition for an acting job. And as for my inner torment, I strongly agreed with Tennessee Williams, who famously said, if I got rid of all my demons, I'd lose my angels. Well, my demons caught up with me. I was Diagnosed with clinical depression, bipolar disorder, anorexia, ptsd, and borderline personality disorder, I dropped completely off the face of the earth for many years, except for a steady diet of therapy and treatment. And I read a book a day and lived in bed, never leaving my apartment, seldom. I became madly jealous of creative people who were able to use their talent. I didn't feel that I had lost my creativity. I felt something worse, that I still had my abilities, but I was incapable of using them ever again.
Helen Sneed: I felt like they were rotting inside, that I had wasted myself and deserved to die. Although I couldn't see it at the time. Creativity and mental health require action. Action begets more action, and that propels a person out of bed and back into the world of health and productivity.
Valerie Milburn: You were propelled back into the world of health and productivity by this action. But, you know, how did you find it? How did you find this action from the dark place you were in?
Helen Sneed: Very slowly, I was in and out of hospitals and outpatient programs, you know, for many years. And my vision of creativity expanded in a very significant way. I came to see that every person has a kingdom inside. The creativity wasn't the sole province of acclaimed geniuses. Everyone has a story to tell and the means to try to tell it. And in therapeutic classes in the hospital, I did some of the best writing of my life and briefly felt that jolt of joy at finding the right word or an insight for one of my fellow patients. And I felt so proud of my friends in the classes who came up with startling and brilliant ideas. I mean, we were a bunch of mental patients. We weren't supposed to be able to do any of those things, but we did. And it was then that I saw that creativity is a democracy where every person has a voice and every person needs a vote.
Valerie Milburn: I think it's wonderful that you refined in your creativity in psychiatric hospital. You know, Van Gogh found his there. So you were fighting your way back there in the hospital, which is, you know, what's supposed to happen there. So as you were fighting your way back, which came first, health or creativity?
Helen Sneed: That is that. I guess that's. That's the question, isn't it? As I look back on it, I. And try to, you know, sort of separate out the parts to see which came first. I just keep going back to action, you know, literal movements out into the world in very, very tiny steps.
Valerie Milburn: Yeah.
Helen Sneed: And at the same time I was making those movements, the smallest creative actions also began to add up. You know, writing a clever email or making a friend laugh, reading and assessing a new player musical. And no one should ever underestimate the art of conversation, an exchange of creative ideas that can occur over coffee. Yes, volunteer work helped me relocate my creativity through teaching and speaking, and I continued to drink in art and music. But I began to share the experience with others. So I was no longer the sound of one hand clapping. I had entered into communities again. The more action I took in the real world, the stronger I got. Reunions with friends brought back more references to my creativity, the things I had completely forgotten about. It turns out the healthiest habit I had maintained over the last years was keeping a journal. I had written virtually every day, and that kept me in the habit of creating with words, regardless of the pain and paralysis. For me, I think the greatest outcome of creativity inaction is the sense of power it gave me. After being destroyed and demolished by illnesses, I felt personally empowered to take my place in the world again. Now, all of these incidents led me one day to take down the outline of a play I'd written years ago. And, you know, I just kind of liked it. So I rewrote the entire play from scratch. During those hours at my desk when I wrote something that I knew was good, because you know what? When it's good, you know it. I felt the old joy of creativity fulfilled, and there was a new thought. This is what I was born to do. There was no place on earth I'd rather be. No looking over my shoulder at what I should be doing. I was home. To my astonishment, my play was produced off Broadway, where it had great success. And since then it's been published and had numerous productions around the country. And one night after a performance, I was sitting with friends in the empty theater, and a woman came. Came rushing in. Are you the playwright? She asked. Well, I began to introduce myself, and she interrupted me. She said, you must write a trilogy. I must know what happens to these characters. You must write a sequel.
Valerie Milburn: I love it.
Helen Sneed: Well, this was one of the high points of my life, truly. I mean, a stranger loved my character so much she couldn't let them go.
Valerie Milburn: That's a vibrant
Valerie Milburn: character you can create. I also love the way you just offhandedly said, I kind of like the play, so I rewrote the entire thing from scratch. That is really a definite definition of the incredible creativity that's with within you, Helen, and it never amazes me. And in addition to the wonderful creativity you just expressed for us, described for us, I know there's more. Can you tell me about the other creative activities in your Life today.
Helen Sneed: Yes, These are the new ones, and they're more democratic. Things that I can do when I'm alone, things I would never have respected or deemed creative, that I now rely on daily. Because when I am alone is when I have the most trouble controlling my neighbor. Negative thoughts. Walking is mandatory. Listening to music, arranging flowers, calling a friend, watering the two plants I haven't killed yet. And when all else fails, reading in bed. Except now I get back up. So you ask which comes first? I really can't say. All I know is that at some point, creativity and mental health merged inside me and made me whole. And I rely on them equally for my wonderful life in recovery.
Valerie Milburn: You do have a wonderful life in recovery. And you are indeed full, fully merged, healthy and creative. And I love that I get to share that healthy, creative life with you. And thank you. Yeah, thank you for sharing all of that. It's. It's really. You know, we say storytelling is healing for the teller and the listener. And it really is healing for me to share that journey with you and to know that it has served you well, you know, brought you back to the place you're in now. And it just makes me so happy to be part of it. I also love the way you illustrated that the small creative actions you began with grew and grew. That is so important. And this topic of creativity, the whole thing is so important because creativity is so important to our own mental health recovery.
Helen Sneed: Yeah. I think that it's been fascinating to look at this today. And now we're going to bring our topic to a close. We want to encourage people to foster creativity in their own lives without judgment. And I guess the best words of all are begin. Just begin. And now we're going to wrap up the way we've done for 35 episodes. Valerie will lead us in a mindfulness exercise.
Valerie Milburn: Yes, I will. We will close with our traditional mindfulness exercise. And what is mindfulness? I always give a definition. Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. And again, a place where we withhold judgment. Today's mindfulness is about, guess what, Helen?
Helen Sneed: Creativity. Yes.
Valerie Milburn: And I'm going to give it a wonderful new twist. Let's give it a go.
Helen Sneed: We're ready.
Valerie Milburn: Get mindful. We will begin, as always, with our diaphragmatic breathing. If you are driving or walking, please adapt this mindfulness exercise in such a way that it works in your current surroundings. If you can find a comfortable, seated Position. Try closing your eyes. If it's safe to do so, we will take two diaphragmatic breaths together. I usually take about 10 diaphragmatic breaths to start my mindfulness and meditation practice. Let's breathe. Inhale through your nose, expanding an imaginary balloon in your stomach. Hold your breath. Exhale through your mouth, pulling your stomach in as you do so. Drop your shoulders. Take another inhale through your nose. Expand that imaginary balloon. Hold your breath. Exhale through your mouth, pulling your stomach in. Pull your stomach all the way in. Continue with this deep, regular breathing. Think of something you have created or want to create.
Valerie Milburn: Visualize your creation. Is it a meal? A painting? A handwritten thank you note to someone? A journal entry to yourself? Vegetables from your garden? Visualize your creation. Visualize yourself giving what you have created to yourself to someone else or to a group of people. Visualize yourself saying, this is my gift of well being to you. This is my gift of well being to you. Visualize yourself that someone else or that group of people receiving your gift of well being. Visualize the gift of your creation being received. What feelings emerge as you give this gift of well being, this gift of your creation? Do you feel serenity, accomplishment, pride, connection, community? Bask in these warm feelings? If your eyes are closed, please open them and gently bring yourself back to the room. Thank you for doing this mindfulness exercise with me. It is my gift of well being to you.
Helen Sneed: Well, that was the perfect gift. Valerie, thank you so much. Our deepest gratitude to our live audience here in Houston and thanks, as always, to our listeners worldwide. In our next two episodes, we'll be tackling two immense subjects. Men and mental health, followed by women and mental health. The differences, similarities, contradictions and clashes. Exploring these worlds will be some of the most ambitious work we've done. Please join us. Until then, I leave you with our favorite word. Onward.