Students did improvisational warm-ups to get their bodies, voices, and energy moving and to develop spontaneity.  They learned about expanding emotional range through expressing different emotions with their bodies.  They tried a Playback Theater exercise in which  people told personal stories and saw portions of them acted out by others in the group for insight and emotional validation.  Through psychodramatic techniques such as family sculptures (creating a snapshot of one’s family using actors from the group) and role reversal, students experienced how enactments can provide a lot of information to the therapist quickly and can elicit awareness, empathy, forgiveness, and deep healing on the part of the client.

Finally, students had fun acting as if they already were the people they desired to be in the future–in this case, Tony Award winners walking the red carpet.  Drama Therapy can be a powerful tool to help people practice desired behaviors, feelings, characteristics, and life circumstances in order to get the ball rolling in the right direction. It helps them to begin to not only imagine a new and better life situation but to experience the joy and relief of having what they wish for NOW.

Intrigued?  Then please enjoy this video of highlights from my Introduction to Drama Therapy class.  Remember, you just may be witnessing our future Tony Award winners!

Intro to Drama Therapy from Kristi Davis on Vimeo.

If you do, look no further than www.nightlyhealing.com.   This is such a wonderful service, I had to tell you about it.  It is a FREE nightly guided visualization for self-healing of emotional, physical, and spiritual issues, and it happens via phone conference.

Each night different speakers welcome those on the call and then lead a relaxing guided visualization followed by a time of sharing for those who wish to say something about their experience.  It is a beautiful way in which to feel connected to others in love and acceptance, to have a time for healing and reflection, and to return yourself to a place of peace.

The Nightly Healing website states, “No matter how it is needed, or how you have suffered, come and participate in your own healing process.   Empower yourself to heal.   Empower yourself to live in a place of  freedom from life’s chaos, anxiety and fear….  In a place of love, openness and joy.

Are you sold yet?  All you have to do is go to www.NightlyHealing.com to register and find out the phone number to call.  Then call in at the designated time according to the time zone in which you live (9 pm EST, 8 pm CST, 7 pm MST, 6 pm PST). The only charges you will incur are whatever long-distance phone charges you have on your phone plan.

This service is graciously offered by practitioners inspired by Brandon Bays’s teachings in The Journey.  I have done quite a bit of work with The Journey and have attended many Nightly Healing sessions as well.  Both are phenomenal healing modalities.  What an incredible FREE gift being offered to you.  Give this gift to yourself and let the healing begin!

Holistic refers to the word whole, and the holistic medical model is interested in not only what’s happening in one’s entire body but in what is happening in one’s life, one’s mind, and one’s spirit.  Ancient traditions and cultures (e.g., India, China, and Greece) have known for thousands of years what science and our American medical system is just starting to recognize: our view of health must be expanded to include lifestyle choices, mental and emotional processes, relationships, career and contribution, and our spiritual nature if we are to heal and remain healthy.  All of these components contribute to our total well-being or lack thereof.

The holistic model essentially looks at everything that makes us feel good–gives us a sense of ease–or bad–gives us a sense of dis-ease (i.e., “disease”).  What makes you feel good and nurtures you? Spending time in nature?  Bubble baths?  Painting? Laughing?  Spending quality time with loved ones? Do more of it!

What in your life puts you in a state of dis-ease? A strained relationship? Too much junk food and not enough exercise?  Lack of sleep?  Fear and anxiety? Hanging on to old resentments?  Feeling not good enough?  All work and no play? Do less of it!

Sometimes, the most simple of positive changes can make the most profound difference in our health and happiness. What one thing can you do today to make yourself feel better, either in body, mind, or spirit?

As I explained to the wonderful women at the Women’s Health and Fitness day, there is much we can do to improve our health and to support our body in healing itself.  Watch this website for more tips on doing just that….coming soon!

Kristi Davis and Florine Mark

Florine Mark, President and Chairwoman of the Board of WW Group, Inc. (Weight Watchers), impressed an attentive audience of women at the Women’s Heath and Fitness Day, sponsored by the University of Michigan Medical School, on Jan. 23, 2010 in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  Her story was one of inspiration, learning to love and respect yourself, and enjoying life.

Her story began with how she flew from Michigan to New York and braved her first Weight Watchers class, determined to lose weight.  Fifty pounds lighter and thirty years later, she can brag that she turned that one courageous step into  a Weight Watchers empire in which she was the owner of the greatest number of franchises in the world.

But she doesn’t.  Instead, she humbly shares that every morning she looks herself in the mirror and says, “Florine, you can do anything you want to if you are motivated enough.”  She recognizes that every day we have two choices: to be happy or not to be happy.  She chooses to be happy, even though she lost her first and second husband to illness.  “Make every day special.  Make every day an adventure,” she declares.  “We don’t know what is going to happen to us tomorrow.”  I think Ms. Mark is right on the mark.

How about you?  Why don’t you start each day off looking in the mirror saying, “Hey, good lookin’! Whatcha got cookin’?  You are awesome!  I love you, and you can do anything you want, if you are motivated enough.”  And then cook yourself something healthy and delicious and make today special.

There will also be over 30 additional workshops from which to choose, covering topics including guided imagery, depression, financial health, memory, dieting, hypertension, diabetes, art for expression and stress management, optimism, sleep, menopause, and much more.  You can try out  Zumba, RussaYog Yoga, and Fitball, if you feel like getting your body moving.  For the grand finale, keynote speaker, Florine Mark, President and Chairwoman of the Board of WW group, Inc. (Weight Watchers) will present a talk on “Tools to Be the Best You Can Be.” As if that isn’t enough, there will be FREE breakfast and lunch as well.  Wow! Love yourself by learning how to get and stay healthy.  You are worth it!

When: Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.

Where: Ypsilanti High School, 2095 Packard Rd, Ypsilanti, MI 48197

For more info and to register go to www.umich.edu/~medfit/whfd2010.

(First 300 people get a free tote bag filled with more health and wellness goodies!)

Imagine Health is a creative, holistic, therapeutic group process designed for people with chronic illness and disabilities.  This we believe: in order to heal our physical body, we must also pay attention to our mind and spirit.  By adopting a holistic view of health, we can reach levels of well-being we never dreamed possible.

Participants will:

• Learn to become aware of the body’s signals that some aspects of their life need attention.
• Begin to understand how core emotional issues and behavioral patterns relate to their physical condition and may manifest as symptoms.
• Work with the grief and loss that accompanies life-changing illness.
• Utilize creative therapeutic approaches such as writing, art, drama techniques, movement, and guided imagery exercises to delve into unconscious emotions, beliefs, and thoughts that may be greatly affecting health.
• Imagine and “become” the holistically healthy self they aspire to be.

• Develop hope that they can heal.

It’s time for you to imagine health!

Imagine Health is being offered at the Body Mind Spirit Wellness Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  It is a seven-week class meeting on Thursdays from 1:15 p.m.-3:45 p.m., February 18, 2010 through April 1, 2010.  Cost is $245.00 plus $25.00 for the workbook.  Pre-registration is required.  Email kristi@creativespirithealing.com or call Kristi Davis at (734) 253-2650 to register or inquire.  Click on Imagine Health for more detailed information about the program.  (A long-distance course can be offered through email and phone for those of you too far away to attend in person.)

This is an opportunity not to be missed.  I know, because I did the “cleanse” last year and was so impressed.  It is a fantastic way to bring in the New Year and set a course for vibrant health in body, mind, and spirit.  What do you have to lose?  Nothing except for whatever is holding you back from experiencing total well-being in every area of your life.  Won’t you join me, and The Journey, in clearing out what doesn’t serve us and in creating a new beginning?  Know that it truly can be a Happy New Year. (Visit www.thejourney.com)

Where would we be without the arts?  The arts give us a chance to express ourselves, to make sense of our world, to create beauty and release pain.  They bring us plenty of pure pleasure, too.  The Arts Alliance recognizes that this is the perfect time to start thinking and acting creatively in order to transform our lives and our world.  So create art, enjoy art, and make art a central part of your life.   It’s important, and so are you.

I recently attended the National Association for Drama Therapy (NADT) annual conference, which was held in White Plains, New York–just a hop, skip, and a jump (or a 30-minute ride on the Metro North railroad) from New York City.  This year’s theme was “Finding Home: Pathways to Belonging.”

It is always amazing to witness the incredible ways in which drama therapy and creative arts are used in the service of healing for individuals, couples, families, groups, and communities.  Dr. Dan Wiener taught about “Rehearsals for Growth“–a method he developed which integrates improvisational theater activities with more traditional psychotherapy approaches for the purpose of helping people improve their interpersonal relationship skills.  Therapist Wendyne Limber–founder of the Imagination Process–showed her documentary film about a client who, after much drama therapy work, was able to return to her hometown to the scenes of her horrific sexual abuse to reclaim the lost pieces of her soul.  There were workshops on how brain research demonstrates the method by which drama therapy is such a powerful healer.  Keynote speaker Dr. Jan Cohen-Cruz talked about “Eco-theatrics” and how drama is used not only therapeutically but for activist purposes as well, such as helping prison inmates and victims of hurricane Katrina.  Judy Swallow introduced Playback Theater, a wonderful method in which people’s personal stories are played back to them by actors.  Social worker Erica Craig presented a course on creating personal mandalas (circle art) and embodying them (i.e., acting them out) to gain spiritual insight and wisdom.  And the list goes on and on…

Of course, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see a Broadway show while I was there.  I ended up at “Hair” –that 1960’s hippie, sex and drug-fest, anti-Vietnam-War, tribal-love rock musical.  Oh, yes…theater has the power to move people.  And drama therapy has the power to heal–to help you find your home, your pathway to belonging.  Come join us for the 2010 conference next fall in Chicago!

“But we can all agree that job loss is a terrible thing!”  I don’t wish it upon anyone to lose a job they wish to keep, but is job loss necessarily bad?  For some people, it is just the push they needed to get them to start the business they had always wanted to start.  They hadn’t taken the risk earlier, because they couldn’t justify leaving their lucrative  job.

“Surely you’ll allow me to be stressed out about illness!”  There are even people out there with serious illnesses who say it was the best thing that ever happened to them, because it transformed their life.  It helped them to get their priorities straight, heal relationships, and live life more purposely.

“What about traffic jams? They stink!”  Do they? How about the person who got stuck in a traffic jam and missed his airplane flight which crashed?  I’ll bet he has a whole new vision of traffic jams.

The point is that stress or lack of stress has a lot to do with judging a situation as “good” or “bad,” and we can’t say for certain that a “negative” life event is not really a blessing in disguise.  If we can refrain from automatically judging a life event as bad, we can avoid a lot of stress.  And if we can find a reason to be grateful or find the gift in the situation, we can help ourselves to handle seemingly tough times with greater ease.