I’m a sucker for collaborative art projects, and this group that has painted pianos and dropped them all over New York City makes me really happy!

If you enjoyed the story, here are more clips of people playing pianos on the streets of New York. Pretty awesome.

How can you inject a little creativity into your neighborhood today?

I heard about this on the radio and thought it would be neat to share — a new holiday that won’t add to your waistline or credit card bill, National Day of Listening.

Brought to you by the people behind StoryCorps (”Our mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.”) , National Day of Listening invites you to use the day after Thanksgiving to connect with loved ones, interview them, honor their stories, and share your love and gratitude. Although the organizers encourage you to record the interview, there’s nothing that says you’d have to.

Whom would you interview? What would you want to know? What do you think you would learn?

Click on their list of Great Questions to get you started. Hint: Use these questions as prompts in your journal and learn something about yourself!

photo credit: mdid

Marci Alboher (from Yahoo’s Shine series) recently interviewed the authors of a new book, Working for You isnt Working for Me. The writers, Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster, have some interesting insights on how to not only identify and categorize a bad boss, but also to deal with them.

Click here to read the whole interview.

They maintain that it’s possible to grow personally and professionally under a bad boss’s reign. But they also assert that the only way to survive a truly horrible boss is to prepare an exit strategy.

Q:  Is it possible to do good work and have a really good experience of work under a really bad boss?

KE – No, not really. If your boss is truly bad: micro-manages you, undermines your efforts, lies, changes direction all the time or only finds your flaws, your experience at work is not going to be good.  It’s very difficult to feel successful without the support of your boss.

KC – You can, however, find ways to manage the relationship so that it doesn’t spoil your day and won’t block your career.  Instead of focusing your attention on how miserable it is to work for this person, we encourage people to keep building their skills and expanding their networks outside of work. By creating options, you’ll feel less trapped.

You might feel that it’s risky to rock the boat in an economy like this. And, although I do believe there are bad bosses out there, it’s always important to explore your own contribution to difficult situations. After all, we can never change others — only ourselves, and very few people are “all good” or “all bad” in any situation.

Here are some of the questions I might ask a client who was complaining about having a bad boss.

• What are your beliefs and expectations of people in authority? Are you too trusting? Too suspicious?
• How well do you work with a team?
• How do you react when you have to function under rules and regulations that are set by someone else?
• Do you intentionally or unintentionally sabotage your boss’s projects and ideas? If so, why?
• Is your boss a bad leader, or are you a bad follower, or both?
• Are there things you can do to improve your relationship and your department’s productivity that will help you feel job satisfaction, even if you don’t get recognition for it?
• How do you respond to criticism and suggestions? Do you have a tendency to take things too personally?
• What are your options? What can you do today that will increase the chances of a better opportunity tomorrow?

In our current economic climate, stress at work can be a major contributor to personal and family frustrations. What can you do today to proactively improve your work life?

photo credit: Ү

You probably heard last week’s news about the “Balloon Boy” family who are accused of pulling an elaborate hoax and involving hundreds of public safety personnel in hopes of being hired for a reality TV show. The stunt — building and launching a strange, silver balloon and then claiming that their young son had stowed away for a dangerous flight — received a lot of media attention and has been the topic of national conversation.

But, nothing moreso than the moment when young son, Falcon, claimed, “You guys said we did this for a show.”

The more we learn about this family — a history of attention-seeking and ploys for television stardom — the easier it is to deride and criticize. However, many families hold family secrets and the pressure on family members not to divulge the truth can be painful and poisonous.

The consequences of a family’s  secrets may rarely reach the level of national news and late-night talk shows as the Heaney family’s have, but uncovering and exploring family secrets is one of the most difficult and most valuable goals of family therapy.

Children, confused by mixed messages about the truth of what they observe and experience, may develop symptoms and behaviors that cause distress at home and at school. Adults, pressured to keep family secrets well past their childhood years, may find it difficult to trust, find intimacy in relationships, and tolerate uncertainty. Bravely confronting the truth and making a plan for support can help each family member to engage more fully in the world and find peace and connection.

Monica, a London-based art therapist, answers some common questions about art therapy on her blog, Creativity from Within.

Here’s a sample:

Do I have to be good at Art?

Art therapy is not about being good at art but being willing to use the materials to express yourself… Art Therapy aims to help people make change and grow on a personal level through the use of art materials in a safe environment.

 

Click here to read Monica’s full article.

Or, you can learn more by reading my FAQ’s and About Art Therapy.

Liked this article? You might also enjoy:

1. Medical Art Therapy Video
2. Art Therapy and I are on TV!

I found this video about an art therapist named Emily Johnson who is working at a pediatric hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s remarkable how similar her work is to my own. Not only does she work at a pediatric hospital, but the way she talks about her work is really similar to the way I talk about mine.

We seem to share a lot of beliefs, including:

• The healing benefit of art and creativity, and the importance of proper training in bringing these services to clients.
• How powerul art can be as a tool to externalize thoughts and feelings about our bodies.
• The therapeutic benefit of using a variety of non-traditional art media with clients who are perfectionist or anxious.
• The joy and satisfaction of working with chronically- and acutely-ill clients in intense circumstances.
• Feeling blessed to have found such a good fit for ourselves professionally, and to be so passionate about our work.

Thanks for sharing, Emily.

Liked this article? You might also enjoy:

1. Art Therapy and I are on TV!
2. Monica’s Questions and Answers about Art Therapy

I’m pretty pleased with the way this video turned out, highlighting our creative arts therapy department at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. I wish they would have made it more clear that I am an art therapist (they were more interested with me being the head of the program) but all in all I felt like it was a good preview of what we do.

If you watch the video,  you can see me conducting an art therapy group and talking about my work. I really love my job!

Liked this article? You might also enjoy:

1. Medical Art Therapy Video
2. Monica’s Questions and Answers about Art Therapy