The Power of Emotions and Art on Mental Health

 Hi, welcome back to this way up. This is Andrea. And today we are going to be talking about emotions. Emotions. Yep. Those things that so many of us have gotten very good about putting a mask on and not really identifying unless it's a pretty one like happiness or joy, but all of them are important to shaping our daily lives. And to do that, we are joined by Matt Sandoval, who is the CEO of Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona. He has got some incredible insights and knowledge on emotions themselves and how art has become an effective way to help us all come from a place of curiosity and to explore our emotions and manage them in a very, very healthy way.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you do, please hit the subscribe button and share with all your friends.

Hello, and welcome back today. We are joined with Matt Sandoval, who is the CEO of Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona. He is also a public speaker and trainer on mental health and youth related topics.

Today, we are going to dig Deep into the topic of emotions. I welcome Matt. Thank you for joining us.

Great to be here. Excited to talk about all those things that you just mentioned and even our feelings.

Thank you. I'd like to start though, for you telling the listeners just a little bit about what free arts is. So

Arts, uh, Arizona is a nonprofit in the general Phoenix area. But it's a 30 year old organization that was inspired by a board certified art therapist named Margaret Beresford, who believed there was something that was special about expressive arts, um, the therapeutic benefit of arts. But believe that we could impact and involve ordinary people, not just therapists, not clinicians. And so our simple recipe at FreeArts is that art plus mentors equals resilience. What that means is we do trauma informed art activities. We train adults to be group mentors for young people who are, um, either in the foster care system. They might be living in shelters due to an experience of homelessness or their family has experienced domestic violence. day to day we are recruiting and training adult. Group mentors to go where children live shelters group homes and such and deliver what we believe to be transforming power of the arts, which are expressive, visual, sound, music, body, guided imagery, everything you could think of that's possibly creative is part of what we do here.

And we do that for teens and families.

 You know, we like to say we do, we train ordinary people to do extraordinary relationships.

interesting. it's a way to spread the net a little wider. And I know, you know, we see all like the adult coloring books even that are out there is there's a real meditative thing to being able to use creativity and, um, and arts, I think, to express ourselves, touch a place deeper inside than what we show on the surface.

Yeah, you're right. There's something unique about the arts that engages us in a different way. And I think two ways come up for me right away, which is that it's fun, often being creative, getting involved is fun and relaxing. And the second, there are spaces in our Personhood or humanity, where we have very strong memories, feelings, um, meaning itself has built some spaces outside of words and arts, uh, the arts can be a space to kind of surface what's there, uh, discover it, uh, approach it in a new way, um, but there's some spaces about us as people that are hard to describe and the arts are a great way to express that.

Okay. I know this has nothing to do with emotions, but, um, what are you thinking the implications are? And the fact that in the public school system today, arts are not being something that is invested in.

Yeah, it's kind of like the classic example of where one group who understands its value, and they might have authority and power, a budgetary, um, you know, oversight, um, will put that into practice. And then others who think their job is strictly to speak, uh, to teach only like reading and math skills, uh, and think that.

That's a linear process that, you know, just more math and more of it will help this young person develop schools to be successful.

 It kind of ignores the evidence that having these opportunities to be expressive, to be creative still impacts the other parts of our brain that we're trying to train when we do things like learn to read and do math.

Well, you know, we have two hemispheres of our brain and I'm not necessarily at all, not even not necessarily, I'm just not at all a scientist by nature, but it appears to me that we would benefit. As a human, by being able to access both sides of our brain, and that they don't work independently of one another.

So if one is not as tapped in as the other, that we're losing out on something.

Yeah, I think that the arts are unique and really giving a platform. For people to explore and express humanity, like the fact that we are a summary of memory. We are a summary of experiences. We are also inheritors, like it or not, of a genealogy that may have had all kinds of experiences, right? When you think about both generational wealth and intergenerational trauma, like opposite sides of what Our families might have given us. Um, we are whole people and our biology speaks, even if we are, reluctant to listen to its message. And I think that kind of touches on several fronts, but the value of the arts and certainly how we view emotions are definitely ways in which those things connect.

I remember when my daughter was probably Maybe she was 10. We were in the car and Whitney Houston came on and, um, I think it was the power of love. I think that's what it was. I can't remember, but she got to one of her, real powerful points of the song and my daughter turns to me and she has. Tears rolling down her face.

And she says, that's so beautiful. And I remember that time so vividly because it touched a place in her where she recognized something of beauty that wasn't traditionally seen as beautiful. And she recognized it and, um, it really, and music is just one facet. You know, some people get touched by a, by a, by a piece of art or a sunset.

I remember being touched by a sunset once. So I think it does touch places that we sometimes can't touch on the surface.

Yeah, and I think there's a platform within our experience of the arts to describe beauty. Um, but also there's a moment to accept the art as it is. This is often a challenge for people that don't feel particularly artistic or creative. They're full of comparison, right? In summary. And I would definitely be in this camp too, because even though I'm the CEO of free arts doesn't mean I'm ever going to have a gallery exhibit that you're going to be able to buy a ticket to.

Not because I wouldn't want to sell them, but because. not really a high demand for my type of art. Um, so it's one of those things where like We can all be creative and artistic. It's only sometimes the impression, the comparison we kind of do that gives us the sense that some people are better at it. So when we hear a song like you're describing and label it beautiful, um, that is certainly a label that fits many pieces of art. But even if it's not beautiful, it can still be extremely meaningful. And even things that are grief provoking can be beautiful, or can be meaningful, or can evoke strong feelings from us, even without the label of it, um, being praised.

Like it could be hard, um, to express, but this music does well. And I think that, again, you know, particularly with music, is a real accessible way for people to kind of, feel something that they can't put words to.

So that's actually a very nice segue into emotions and how we feel. Um, and.Emotions are very complex, right? And sometimes I think that they are universal. Like everybody knows what happy is, everybody knows what sad is, but then there are other times that I think, are they universal or are they defined by societal norms?

what's your opinion on that?

Yeah, it's, uh, have an opinion, but I hope that it's informed in

Okay.

um, that I've taken in a lot of good guidance on this. There's an excellent book from Lisa Barrett Feldman called How Emotions Are Made, and she is a scientist with all kinds of important awards, but that's it. Um, mostly, um, in neurology and neuroscientists and studying emotions and, uh, the understanding most people have is that there's a universal experience that you could show similar faces and across cultures, detect from people, um, seemingly meaningful labels, uh, what's angry, what's happy, what's sad, and what started to happen for her, she describes this in the book, Is that, um, Those doing these kind of surveys realized that answers were quite different if we didn't give multiple choices.

So if you showed the face and said, is this happy, sad, this or that, versus left it as an open ended entry, you would get different responses. And when you think about some photos, like maybe one that looks on one level of total surprise, well, is it surprise? Is it fear? Is it pain? Because you stepped on a Lego.

Anyone in the Weiser kids Legos after Christmas knows what I'm talking

Yep.

Um, what's that face? So What that started to make people realize is how much are we primed by, um, either prior words, prior emotions, prior experiences, so that draws us back to, the beginning, which, so if it isn't universal necessarily, and they can be easily confused, or for me, in my culture, a face of this could mean anger, or it could be, um, or it could be neutral.

Um, what How, what are the functions of emotions? Because to be frank, there are some pretty hostile attitudes about certain feelings, right? We definitely privilege some feelings over others. And then biologically we let one particularly anger, I think jealousy is probably another that probably has a negative connotation, but once it's out, it's out for show. Right? Like we have created, Hey, that person's angry. Pay attention. Hey, that person's experiencing jealousy. Pay attention. Right?

Mm hmm.

that has happened between us. But what it looks like has happened as a species is that our bodies, we know this on some level as we're talking right now, we're, we're managing our environment.

We're thinking about how hot it is, who it is. This is chair comfortable. Is this conversation comfortable? The listeners are thinking, is this interesting? Am I going to continue? Right? Okay.

Mm hmm.

we're all managing that and is often done below the level of thought so our bodies are doing this This is why you start to shiver.

This is why the hair will stand up on your arm when you get chilled. Um, Your body does things internally to manage its own temperature your own mood The way you breathe all this below the level of conscious thought and as we are Doing these adjustments to our environment, it's causing our body to make choices around energy, like where do I put the energy?

So when we think about, like, suddenly being anxious, being afraid, being hyper or feeling overwhelmed. And I'm one of those classic, like, I have extroverted functions in my role, but I am not naturally that. So I form people. There's a time period about seven, eight, nine hours into a long day where, like, I'm just gonna really want to shut down, like I'm done. It's not rude. I love the road trip we're all on. I need to go be by myself right now. And so that's something I know about me because that body, experience of managing those signals creates energy. We're making choices. I need more energy here. I need more energy. I need more attention. I need more space. so because that management structure of our energy happens, We start to develop something that looks like emotion, but it's not quite there. And that's called affect, right? So when we are feeling uncomfortable in our chair, you can see somebody's face shift. You can tell the discomfort, you know, very attuned people. people who have had adversity or traumas in their family growing up usually are able to pick up on these cues because they've needed them so they can spot and feel other people's energy shift. They can see their body, their facial expressions change and shift. This is the beginning of affect. Why it's different than emotion we're coming to in a second, right? But that. We experience affect in the way that we do with other animals, which is why can stare lovingly into your dog's eyes and you both are releasing all this dopamine and we'll buy the sweater for the animal and we'll see that it's happy and sad. Um, and animals do this because they have the same energy management system taking

So would you think that's like intuition?

I think that parts of it are intuitive to our Management of our environment, like our neurology is constantly sensing, So what's the purpose of a good guard dog has better hearing response quicker and can alert you very quickly about a situation That's happening, right? So I think part of that is built into us Into our DNA literally Yeah

And then the other part you said you think has been developed because of whatever has happened in, in,

it's a little different than most other animals. Although some animals have this, they have language. Um, 

Oh, I believe that. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I think we're only scratching the surface on understanding how other animals speak to each other. But apparently like, when you think about certain mammals, like whales that leave the same, uh, noises in the same, like. Uh, places that they travel, and this is over like hundreds of miles, and they'll do this for decades, they come and signal the same way. Like, they're, there's something they're signaling for and to, we haven't quite figured out all of what that is. But on our end, with this big frontal lobe brain, that's introduced to us real formal language skills.

So you take our body scanning our environment, creating energy choices that then become affect, and then we add language. Now we're getting into not what does this body sensation That means i'm in danger. It means i'll always be in danger or it means I love this and I love this person All right, there's extremes on this all sides.

But what when we think about emotion what's distinct from all the other? Things leading up to it is our ability To put some sense of understanding, interpretation, and meaning behind it. is why for those who have had experiences with depression and anxiety, there is some place, and for many people it's not the only place, where we need to examine the way we're thinking about our situation.

And that often the thinking patterns themselves, um, are making some of our feelings, um, stronger and more intense.

So as we have moved these past couple of decades into a more online. and less energetic place. How do you, how, do you know how this is affecting us as people within our emotions and our affect?

Yeah, it might be the most important question of the 21st century to think about how the digital economy is affecting our species. Another book plug, so Anxious Generation from Jonathan Haidt.

I'm in the middle of that right now.

So you're, you're, you're into it, right? These changes between, um, and it's one of the fun things you do at free arts, uh, build culture and community.

Every couple of months we do like a, we call it mission and media. We watch a movie and we talk about it. The movie's picked intentionally about something in our work. So Friday's choice was the Florida project, which is about, um, children and families living in long term stay hotels, just in the shadow footprint of. World. And so these are children at the edge of poverty who are making the, the base, um, their, the best possible life they can with what they have, but also, you know, on that edge of, um, being homeless. And, um, Reality here is we talked about in the group discussion that followed that this group here has a lot of room to play. They play outside in the movie quite often, and they do it here because they don't have phones. They don't have games. They're kids with less resources. So I posed what I thought is a neutral question, and the group did not think of it neutrally because of the, the uh, itself doesn't paint it as safe, but like what's the function of like unsupervised play, right?

So in the time period that I remember, and you know, your listeners here will have to guess my age, but I'm definitely in the Gen X category. I remember playing outside without restrictions and

right, yeah,

home at night and And what's the function of unstructured, unsupervised childhood play? Well, it's where we learn to relate and to solve problems and to have petty disagreements and to, um, fix them in real time and figure out a way for us to end the grudge that started last Thursday and now we can get along so we can, you know, have full teams to play the game we want to play. Um, and the more we switch to this digital generation, the less people have been able to go do that free play. And there's also been, and this is a point. Jonathan Haidt makes is that there's been a rising level of perception of danger that may not be accurate that's caused parents to really pull back on those opportunities for young people.

And so we don't support unsupervised, unstructured play. And even when we talk about that, that's been a challenge for people to go like, Ooh, is that a good idea? I'm a parent. My, my kids are now younger adults. So I know the feeling of like. Are they able to do this? Um, but because we've shifted toward this digital generation, we have a lot of access to other people, particularly strangers impressions of us. We have opportunities to compare ourselves to the most perfectly ideal versions of another. By that I mean like the curated, perfectly photographed, and then AI altered selfie, and then we're like, Self conscious about how we really look and so in some ways it's really filtering out what's good for us and then hyper focusing on things that make us quite anxious and a little bit too, um, self conscious and that's had effects.

And so that particular book, Anxious Generation, really draws a line toward the uptick in mental health, particularly anxiety disorders being related to the use of digital media. Particularly at like middle school and younger ages.

You know, and I, I wonder, you know, I know boys are more prone to playing video games. However, I think boys are, the, the, the, and, and I'm not, I'm not educated in this, but the, genetically there must be some difference because when my kids. Were in middle school and my daughter was having all of the girl drama as they you know It's so eloquently put I went to my son and I said, why do I never hear about this?

With you and he said, oh, well, you know Ben and I get in arguments. He said but then we just go out and we play Basketball and it goes away And that's not the way girls process things, right? They don't process things the same way. And I now may be turning in circles, but I'm just kind of thinking through all of this and how now if we are moving more towards social media and more towards digital relationships, it takes all of that out of there.

And there, there isn't. An effective way for, for, for these kids to communicate and work through their problems. So they just dissect them themselves, I guess they just,

I definitely think the media does isolate people to In and around the spaces where they've encountered some negative material. Um, and I, I do think that there is, uh, there's definitely some biological differences in what children, um, find enjoyment with and what they might be prone to. I also think there's some kind of social construction, like what we give permission to in particular. Um, I do think there's strong evidence that in terms of aggression, like how we. aggressive, even the nicest person you meet, it has these moments and sometimes even in my workspace, which is, you know, dedicated to helping and artistic and you know, all these artistic elements and there's a component of us where we think like, these are the nicest empathic people you're ever going to meet.

And yet there's still conflict. There's still aggression. expressed differently. It's part of us. It's again, it's, You know, that body management system leading all the way up to emotion because I need, I can't turn off my legitimate fight or flight needs. And so conflicts there for girls. Relational aggression is more. Uh, significant than for boys and there's a great researcher that's somebody you have to read a book about to get a license, at least out of the social work school, Carol Gilligan wrote a book called a different voice and in the book, she talks about her experiences with, I think it would be third wave feminism and helping young college women understand how assertive they can be.

But she tells the stories of studies around playground feuds and. Yeah. The analysis was for grade school children that the playground feud involving girls would break down the game. And when boys had a feud, and this fits my own personal experience, if there was a feud during the basketball game at lunch, we had already figured out ways to solve the issue. in the game, it was to do it over, just do it over, you know. You found me. No, I didn't. You found me. No, I didn't. Just do it over and whatever the next play was, we live with. And sure, sometimes people stormed off the court. But within an hour, people calmed down and we had ways to problem solve it. And her studies showed that on the playgrounds, the The girls in dispute, their disputes lasted longer and often broke down the game.

And I think this is not to judge one side is better than the other, except to say there's more at stake in some of these squabbles than we realize.

um,

when you're saying, you know, your son didn't have an experience of having a total breakdown over something small. So this was kind of eyeopening and I walked around for a week and anyone that knew me that week can definitely, uh, attest to this, but I was like, so I heard this thing.

Tell me about

yeah,

experience playing on the playground. And there wasn't really anyone who objected to it. Um, I think they had all found that to be generally true, that when there was a meltdown, and I think being able to see it as a pattern was somewhat freeing for them, because it made them feel a lot less like it was them.

Like, oh, this is how we have either been taught or modeled how to be, um, and or aggressive. Um, you know, there's opportunity to explore like, great. This is how we feel. But can we problem solve? Can we problem solve tomorrow? How do we work through this? And I think that's where adults are essential to helping young people.

well, I was just going to jump us to adults from being kids.

So as children, you're saying the boys move on or do over. And that the girls, when they have a conflict, it breaks down the game, right? So, at first I think, then the boy's relationship is preserved for a period of time, and the girl's relationships are in turmoil for a period of time.

But when I look at adults and I'm speaking categorically and not, you know, not everybody, it appears that women have tighter relationships in adulthood that are able to withstand more stress and more, um, conflict than men do. Men don't appear, and again, this is so categorically, it's gender based, all of this stuff, but it's observations.

It appears that men don't have as many close, tight, deep relationships that women do. And that to me is interesting, that it's chil Children, their problem solving is so much different.

Yeah, I think it's I think it's true. I think there is solid studied evidence that those are, um. Observations that have borne out across our culture, certainly, because, um, the simple facts are after a certain age, you know, man's likely to be healthier and live longer if he has a committed partner, because there's not immediate nest of friendships to support this person if that partner is not available or is no longer part of their life. The opposite is true. So widows tend to do better. Post grief, then then say widowers, um, generally speaking. So the, the tightness, the, of those social relationships are more significant for women. Why is that? That's an important question. Like, some people are like, was that by design? Is that by biology? But there is a certain part and it's a passion of mine because, you know, it's something that I experienced in my own life.

But, There is a certain amount of emotional, availability that we allow girls to exhibit. And we tell boys they cannot, or they will be weak and misunderstood. so we have forced people to cut off parts of themselves. There are different parts depending on their, um, their gender expression and their identity that they've had to sacrifice, right?

Can I be assertive and feminine? That's a tough choice. Um, can I be sensitive and male, right? Like. That is a difficult thing. Um, and despite the culture that tells us to be big, strong and handle everything, all you need to do is look at the evidence of the traumatic experiences that soldiers endure, people endure in general, men and how those, um, change the total trajectory of the rest of their life.

Um, and, you know, those are all things hurt. That like our hurts that are caused by something they believe to be a good thing in the first place, right? Like pledging yourself to a big cause supporting your comrades. All of those things are cultural values and yet they experienced significant hurt in that service.

And now that part of them is damaged and they have a small part of a network, if any, that can support them. And that's a real challenge.

What's your opinion, or maybe you know some research on this too, about labelingcertain emotions as good or bad, even though they're all part of the human experience?

Yeah, I mean, I, I think in when I do, I don't do any kind of therapy right now, but when I've operated as a therapist, I'm a big practitioner of what's called acceptance, commitment therapy, or similarly, similarly just called act. 

Okay. 

and the act basic principle is if we can add in these features of things you learn in the therapy, you become more psychologically flexible. And that's an important distinction because often we're in a bias to think I need to eliminate my problems. I should have less of them. That's not always realistic. I mean, to

Right.

my life should not have stress and pain is going to create more stress and pain. 

Sure. 

listen. It's good. You're the naive viewpoint of that is going to make things harder for you all back to say to your question about other good and bad feelings. hard and I sometimes say it right and I deliver a workshop locally. Well, anywhere. Anybody wants to hear about we're turning to the whole person and it's a little bit about. Um, this emotional question that we're discussing, uh, but also giving permission to, uh, all people regardless of their gender identity about what they are allowed to feel because the feelings themselves are neutral. Can we operate in a place where our self compassion is broad enough that I can accept that there is a part of me that is hurt by this experience, that it has hurt this conversation, um, and that I am not feeling great? And everything about my feeling makes sense when you understand the context. so that is both in the real sensitive one to one conversation with somebody you care about. it's also true when you see the person overreacting and the viral video.

Mm hmm.

Their emotions in context makes sense.

What does that mean? Does that mean you can act the fool at the, you know, the grocery store now means given this person's lifespan, what they've seen and witnessed and experienced the behavior you're seeing in front of you is, uh, is a summary of their ability to cope and some of the stressors they've either had or currently have. And so in that way, I like to try to positions are our emotions as neutral. Um, they are messengers. They can tell us this is the time where you need to go find deep connection and hopefully you've got those connectors in your life, right? You've got the friend you can call. Tandem befriend is a very powerful stress reliever.

Like, can I just tell you what's going on? Can you tell me I'm okay? Can you tell me you understand? Can you tell me you're with me? And a lot of people, 80 percent of the time, that's what they need.

I like that you said emotions are, um, are messengers. Um, because I do think they're trying to tell you something earlier, uh, you had said something about the feeling of anger or jealousy and it's so big and it's so present. And I think both of those emotions. Um, can elicit a lot of judgment from those around you and quite frankly to yourself, right?

You know, I know that if I feel a sense of, uh, of envy or jealousy, that I feel also a sense of shame around having that feeling. But then if I dig even deeper as to why I am feeling those things, then I can actually validate, okay, this is why I'm feeling X, Y, or Z, it jealous or, or whatever. Um, but to take that bold step and to explore some of those scary or judgmental feelings is probably very helpful in understanding yourself as, as, as a human.

Yeah, and I think that that is a great step for for everyone. It's not an easy one, right? Sometimes. The mind itself is like the old saying about like, if the mind is like a dark alley at night, it's best not to go there on your own. Right? And

Right.

there are spaces where you may not know what to do with what you discover and you may not have skills, but you can.

And I think good therapy helps people develop those skills. To do the self therapy to understand really in this moment of my life, what's at the table with me, is there jealousy, is there grief, is there sadness? And I picked on anger and jealousy in the earlier example on purpose because those are sometimes labeled secondary emotions. And what they mean by that is they're the big feelings that come deal with the other feelings. So a little feeling might be, in this paradigm, a primary feeling is feeling sad, feeling hurt. because I'm sad and hurt, anger to solve that. Anger is the big brother that shows up against the bully. And so those feelings tend to be more vocal, more big because their job is to smash and change and get attention and punish, right? So when you're, when you're jealous, you're hurt. You're something of you has been taken that you believe belongs to you. But jealousy fully expressed is making that. Not be a secret anymore, right? So what's the path to wise living is being able to recognize what's present right now. Without judging it and to just allow it. I think we're taking good steps there when you think about movies like Inside Out and the sequel that are helping people like experience these Personified feelings that are doing little things and relating to each other You know, that's the the self therapy the growth that anyone can do even with a notepad 20 minutes after a hard moment at work or in your family like what's here?

What needs tending? What needs connection? has meaning what's important to me value wise and the more I work toward that value system The more in line I'll feel right that doesn't necessarily mean I'll feel better right away, but the more my activity my thoughts and feelings will all be with you know each part of that

Hey, you brought up, you know, you talk about art and inside out and it's sequel are. a phenomenal example of that, right? And it was a way that we could talk to children. That they could understand those very complex emotions that go along every day and throughout our life. I mean, they address, I really think that that whole, that series was, was just phenomenally done.

I think it's good for kids It's good for adults

Yeah.

we see a big bodied older person with gray hair You're still seeing that Unmodified, un, uh, maybe emotionally stunted toddler, middle schooler, high schooler, right? They've been frozen in time by their experiences and they still relate that way. Um, and so that's why these movies have power. It's like, yeah, a five year old gets it. And so does a 45 year old.

Right. And I think sometimes as a 45 year old, it's also very much more impactful.

I mean, you're feeling all the feels when sometimes

when that happens.

lot of transitions happening. Um, the interesting thing is I get a little older. Um, is that most of the transitions when you're young feel good and promising.

Yes. That's a way to, that's a great way to, yes,

older you get, the more there's loss that's factoring in. And there's a there's a choice between this and that, even for something that is good, like your kids growing up. Yeah,

Um, so you've got somebody who is not used to understanding all of their emotions, whether it be a child, uh, adult, uh, you know, a teenager or an adult. What are some easy, I don't want to say easy, uh, let's say easily accessible ways that they can start exploring emotion that's safe if they can't get to therapy.

I think one way, and this works a lot with teenagers and younger people, people that really spend a lot of time listening to music, but this will work for anybody with music, is what have you been listening to a lot of lately? like, listen for, is there a song? Is there an artist? And then explore, why is that? Even if it is, it feels good. I love it. I love to be, I love to move. Okay. Let's talk about what that is or I'm into this particular kind of like hard rock with this mood to it the heaviness of it? Right? And what does that mean to you? And are there lyrics that speak out to you regardless of what that person meant?

What do those words mean to you and explore what those are? so underneath all of the things that I might suggest is just a sense of can I be curious about my own experience and You can be curious about what's happening. So listening, thinking through the themes of the music that you're listening, um, creative writing, journaling is awesome.

You know, being able to express, um, are times when I've shown this to staff, like, you know, Hey, I'm trying to model for you how to be more resilient in the moment, particularly at work. And I won't show them the details, but I'll show them. This is a page from my work notebook where I was having a tough time in a space you saw. Right? You didn't know what was going on, but it was happening for me. And here's the, here's a picture of the table and all the little things that I think are here with me right now. And what do I want to listen to? Right? So, I don't need to give them my particular evidence. I'm telling them that you can do this in real time. That you can, uh, name what's there. And even as we name the things that are there, they get a little bit more manageable. They don't necessarily go away, doesn't mean it's over. But when I, you know, the thing that's really terrifying is kind of uncertain, unspecified places where we don't quite understand what's happening. So I think music, I think writing, Um, think feedback from the people who listen to you is useful, right? Like, what have I been talking about? What is it you think I'm working out? In my life right now, uh, and if you have that trusted friend, take that open ended question. Like, as you listen to me go about my life, what's the, what are the things do you think I'm working out?

Like, or maybe not. And do your best to listen. All that to say, people need to, the skills of having a good container for their strong feelings, because it's not always appropriate in their interest to have them be At the surface level, right? Sometimes we just gotta be on shift at work. Doing the things now is not the time.

How do I

Mm hmm.

container skills to put this here? It's not stuffing. We're gonna come back to it. You know, you have a rude customer, somebody who sounds like your angry parent actually calls you on the phone. It says stuff to you and it triggers those feelings. We build a container for that. Uh, and then we process some of that later.

So I think music is part of it. You know, the expressive arts themselves. I think anything that you do is creative can fit into that. So podcasting for you, that's an art form, right? What we're doing here is an art

Mm hmm.

and that's not to ignore all the obvious visual and theater and writing and music making those things, as we do. Our expressive art, we are offering ourselves a little bit of compassion because one of the mantras at free arts that we talked about with participants and staff is that there are no mistakes in art, that we can accept what's in front of us and we can make whatever we want out of this. And. Just because it doesn't look like your neighbors, that your life doesn't look like your neighbors either, doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.

And that's a relieving message because we've kind of been programmed otherwise, that if we're not on, or if we're not really like everyone else, there's something wrong with us.

Mm hmm. Yeah, that's actually a very salient point there in the fact that in life in general, we are really instructed from a very young age to fit into a certain box, and it then Manifests into every other part of your life. That's why, truly, like artists have always, uh, I've always been very curious about them because they can tap into parts of their brain that don't fit into the specific confines of a box, of a societal box.

And I'm not very good at that. I, I, you know, think things have got to be certain, you know, lined up in a certain way, but that limits you.

Um,

go ahead.

artists can do is help us see where we've built the walls that don't need to be there.

Right, right.

it's because somebody's worked with them to help them work through that for themselves.

Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So, um, Center for the, uh, for, for, um, Free Arts, only in Arizona?

Yeah, there's other free arts that are in other states. There's one in L. A. Northwest, which is Portland, uh, Minneapolis and in New York. So we're not officially connected in any way. We were inspired by the L. A. of it. So what does that mean? We hope that for the free arts that I lead, that we could serve wherever it makes sense inside the state of Arizona. But for those of you, um, that live outside of that, or that are inspired about how could this work, just, uh, go to our website, freeartsaz. org, and you can definitely understand a little bit more about our programming here. Um, and what we're trying to do, but we would be happy that you were inspired by us and did similar work in your area because there are, you know, tens of thousands, depending on the size of your state of children who fit the, um, vulnerable categories I talked about earlier of having experienced child welfare, um, foster care in particular, um, or live in shelter environments due to domestic violence or homelessness. Um, and we know, right, we have a very, um, Salient example at the moment with fires in California that, um, any neighborhood, any community, anytime could have a really unforeseen circumstance, um, really collide with reality and it causes suffering. And so, um, what unites us all is that. If we can, within our powers, you know, lessen or alleviate the suffering of others, that's a powerful way to live your life full of meaning. And so, if that, uh, inspires you in some way, we'd be happy to talk about making something like FreeArts in your neighborhood.

Well, Matt, thank you so much for your, uh, insight on emotion and, and art. It's been fascinating. And now I think I'm going to need to try to go outside the constraints, uh, confines of my own, um, constraints and see what I can do to, to push myself outside of that.

sounds great and good for everybody. Do something creative, uh, build, know what it's like to feel. that this is fun and relaxing, and also sometimes the art that we resist has the most to teach us. And so, let that be a student, let, be a student of your own experience and, um, and see what's there.

Thank you so much, Matt.