Visiting a therapist is EXPENSIVE! I should know: I am one. I charge high fees to assist people to understand them selves – what they are feeling, thinking and what they can do to change. Private health insurance is also expensive and it doesn’t always cover therapy fees. Oh bother…what to do?? How can the average person pay their mortgage, school fees, buy groceries, clothes and still see their beloved therapist? Apart from visiting our excellent Frugal articles, why not become your own beloved reflective therapist and make a soul investment in Scrapathy.
Scrapathy is a term to cover how I use Scrapbooking as a FREE home based therapeutic intervention. While it doesn’t replace therapy in all cases, it can be just what you need to set your life on a different course. Scapathy is more than journaling and embellishing. Scrapathy is a process of integrating your pains, past or present, and creating the future that you want.
Scrapathy can be the marriage of the free Scrapbooking and mental health tips on families.com. You don’t even have to leave your home. It is a creative journey of self-help and discovery. Its winding paths lead to pain in action, treasures, family secret airing, and spectacular future gardens of botanical greatness. Scrapathy is THE journey to be on.
Pain in action is what you often pay therapists for. We aim to view your pain, to help you move it from the hidden hurt in limbo that most people travel life with, to an open arena of dealing with it and moving on. This process is frequently agonizing (on the hip pocket too) and things will often get worse before they get better, sending you scurrying back to your therapist. It’s very scarey for many people to come to a therapist and their fear acts to further bind and grow their other inner issues – ensuring even more therapist fees in future!
Stop, stop!!!! You don’t have to be in pain: emotional or financial. If you’re reading this you are probably already a journaling type scrappy chickie babe and you have the ability to turn your hobby into a cheaper or complimentary lay of self help and discovery.
Cheap, cheap:
* Scrapathy doesn’t demand the trendiest embellishments, accents, papers or tools. Scrapathy instead demands that you set aside a short period of time each week to make a scrapbook page about your emotional reactions to particular events.
* Scapathy IS NOT replacement therapy. If you are working on particular issues and you need to see your therapist then scrapathy is an adjunct therapy for you – it’s your homework.
* For some, scrapathy may be all that is needed to change their behaviours and to grow into the person they want to be.
* Scrapathy may help you to recover from emotional pain but it does not provide you with professional advice. If pain persists, see your therapist.
Just as a final parting gift: I give you another FREE therapeutic tool that you can use immediately. You know how journaling encourages us to complete the 5 W’s (when, where, what, who, why): well, scrapathy encourages clear communication with yourself. The formula for this communication tool is:
I feel/felt….
when you/I…
because….
Take a scrapathy challenge and begin improving your emotional health today. Next time you experience an emotional response to something (anything), communicate it by scrapbooking your feeling (as either a title or tag for starters) according to the above clear communication formula. Be warned though – identifying your feelings can be difficult. Many people confuse their feelings with their thoughts, i.e.: “I feel that my child should have done what she was told when I was in the car park because the danger of being run over was huge”. Clear communication of feelings would have stated, “I felt frightened/angry/frustrated when I was in the car park with my child and she wasn’t doing what she was told because the danger of being run over was huge.”
Do yourself a favor – check out Nicole Humphrey’s EXCELLENT ideas on having a journaling party. Sure wish I lived near her. I’d turn it into a Pajama Journaling all nighter!!!!
And…if you want me to recommend a real-time therapist – try some on-line counseling from my most wonderful colleague and fellow Families.com mental health blogger, Beth McHugh.
Need more convincing? Check out the paper based art works at Survivors Art Foundation, or,
Scrapbooking as Therapy: a great little article from the Naples Sun Times.
Till next time: I feel sad when I have to end this blog because I love sharing my thoughts with fellow scrapatherapists.