Stories From The Road

Peer Creativity: Aurora Studio & Gallery, Asheville

 

 

Aurora Studio & Gallery is a nonprofit, founded in the spring of 2012 located in Asheville, North Carolina. The studio collaborates with local artists and healing arts instructors in order to offer a community art space for artists affected by mental health needs, addiction and/or homelessness.  Workshops are offered weekly for up to twelve artists in recovery and run for eight weeks.  The current studio is located in downtown Asheville and has been donated by local businesswoman, Susan Durrence.

 

 

The studio provides artists with the space and art supplies to explore their personal creativity, which they could not otherwise obtain or afford. The integrative structure and community support provided by Aurora Studio & Gallery enables artists to heal, grow and thrive.

 

 

Are you the creative type?  Do you like participating in small group settings?  Aurora Studio & Gallery is looking for a few dedicated volunteers to help with classes and special events this fall.  This has been a perfect opportunity for Peer Support Specialists who want to get involved in community organizing.
 

Aurora Studio & Gallery is a small grassroots nonprofit that has been facilitating art classes for artists in recovery for a little over a year.  The studio is open to up to 12 participating artists who are actively working on their recovery whether it be from mental health issues, addiction or homelessness.  We offer classes to participants for a small donation, or more frequently a small commission if the program helps sells their artwork.

 

 
Volunteers are needed to help with our Thursday classes which run from 12 - 4pm.  While there are some tasks involved; setting up tables, helping to clean up, etc., the neat part is most volunteers get to create art, along with our participants.  Local artists help teach our classes. Our fall session starts Sept. 25th and runs through Nov. 13th.  While this is a volunteer position - we are hoping to get funding for this supportive role in the future.
 

Volunteers are also needed for other areas, i.e., special events, grant writing and administrative help.

 

President, Lori Greenberg, M.Ed, is a Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist

 

 

President, Lori Greenberg, M.Ed, is a Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist, who has been working in the field of human services for over thirty years. Her interest in people started at the age of 14, when she began spending her Saturdays with children with developmental disabilities. Her passion has evolved into supporting people of varying need, including: families and youth at risk; people with HIV/AIDS; persons affected by mental illness, addiction, homelessness and concerns around the environment. While living in Vermont she was an avid volunteer/supporter of the local monthly Gallery Walk, the annual Women's Film Festival, the HEALS Expressive Arts Loss Support Program, the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont and Brattleboro Community Radio. Greenberg founded Aurora Studio & Gallery in May of 2012.

 

Contact Lori Greenberg at: [email protected]

 

Visit their website: Aurora Studio and Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

List of Sites For Creative Minds

 

Below is a list of links to literary and artistic works by writers with lived experience, as well as opportunities to submit original works to some of the established publications listed below.

 

Altered States of the Arts
http://www.alteredstatesofthearts.com/

The Awakenings Review
http://www.awakeningsproject.org/

BringChange2Mind
http://www.bringchange2mind.org/

Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Newsletter
http://cpr.bu.edu/resources/newsletter

Care for Your Mind
http://careforyourmind.org

Icarus Project: Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness
http://www.theicarusproject.net

Mad In America
http://www.madinamerica.com

Mental Floss: Random, Interesting, Amazing Facts
http://www.mentalfloss.com

The Nathaniel Ayers Foundation
http://www.naayers.org/index.php

National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearninghouse
http://mhselfhelp.squarespace.com

Mindfreedom
http://www.mindfreedom.org

The Yeah Write Review
http://ywreview.tumblr.com/guidelines

SAMHSA's Recovery-to-Practice Webinar on Spirituality

Important Statistics

According to a survey done in 2010 by the California Mental Health & Spirituality Initiative on behalf of consumers and their families and they discovered:

• 79 percent said spirituality was important to their mental health
• 74 percent wanted their mental health-care providers to discuss spiritual concerns with them upon request
• 98 percent agreed or strongly agreed that “spirituality is an important element of multicultural competence for mental health providers”

SAMHSA's Webinar "Understanding and Building on Culture and Spirituality in Recovery-Oriented Practice"  discussed how spirituality is important in our sense of recovery.  They  talk about  spirituality in assessment and care within behavioral health.  They show how spirituality is a vital part of a person's culture and it is important in light of cultural competency to understand each person's culture and worldview. 

Download Spirituality Webinar <---from SAMHSA

Download Spritiuality Powerpoint<----from SAMHSA

 

 

Sensitivity

Rev. Laura L. Mancuso, M.S., CRC/CPRP who is an Interfaith Chaplain spoke about the following important items related to spirituality and cultural competency

• Focusing on sharing and learning from each other
• Focus on where your spirit dwells in your body
• The difficulty in talking about spirituality
• How do we begin a conversation about it
• The FICA Questions of Spiritual Assessment
• The HOPE Questions for spiritual assessment
• How can you bring Presence to the conversation
• Example of a spiritual assessment tool:  Spiritual Initiative Postcard

Spirituality

Dolores Subia BigFoot, Ph.D. who is the Director, Indian Country Child Trauma Center and the Project Making Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and she presented examples of sacred teachings of indigenous peoples that might have a powerful impact on one's recovery such as:

• Know that you are Sacred
• Know that you are Honored
• Know that you are Prayed For
• Know that you have Choices
• Know That You Have A Name

Recovery

Gladys Christian, CPSS who was the President, National Association of Peer Specialists and a Certified Peer Support Specialist shares the power of her own sense of spirituality and the central role that it played in her own recovery.

• The Will to Recover
• A culture of love, support, value, and opportunities for growth
• Faith Makes All Things Possible

This webinar offers a beginning map in how spirituality and cultural competence overlap, interact and relate.  Spirituality typically has been omitted in the past or this dimensions has been totally eliminated from the discussion too long.

It is time for us as peers to embrace rather than ignore this reality and to see it as a powerful dimension for recovery for ourselves and for those that we support.

 

 You May Also Like

• SAMHSA Webinar: Promoting Recovery Through Psychological and Social Means
• SAMHSA Webinar: Person-Centered Planning
• SAMHSA Webinar: Engagement and Outreach
• SAMHSA's Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
• SAMHSA's Publication: The Role of Faith- and Community-Based Systems in Addiction Treatment and Recovery

The Practice of Humility

 

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it."-Margaret Fuller

 In an age of increasing knowledge and information, one thing can remain lacking: true wisdom.

Socrates stated that the beginning of true knowledge is humility and to state that we do not know what we think we know in order to better understand. To question and examine ourselves and the result of that is an examined life that is worth living.

As a peer, we must be very intentional in withholding all the good stuff we are learning and things we think are our "great insights" and withhold them. Yes...withhold them. In our support of others we must allow them to ask their own questions.

Yes, and to love the questions more than the answers.  Learning to ask better questions lead to better answers.  Answers that they arrive at on their own. That they can own and claim and get back their own power. All the power that was taken away before by all those who consider themselves "in the know". We are not a part of that system or way of thinking as peers.

It is for us as peers to practice humility, walk tenderly and mindfully before all that we support. Realizing whatever we have discovered is a gift from life learned, mistakes made and wisdom gained. If they ask you for insight...consider responding with a question:

• What do you think?
• Why do you ask...where did that question come from?
• Who do you really admire...how would they answer that?
• What do you mean when you say....?
• What are some of the answers you are considering?

Yes...you can answer if they ask...but don't go so quickly. Allow them to light their own candles as they see that you care more about them gaining their own insights.

They must light their own candles rather than you doing that for them. We cannot think for them...they must must learn to seek, ask, knock and open their own doors and find their own answers.  

True wisdom is then found and all can shine.

 

 

What is a Peer Support Specialist?

 

--Trying to re-discover what it truly means to be a peer support specialist--

I stood with a participant this week by his mother’s grave on Mother’s Day (he had not visited it 7 years) and he tells me “this is one of the best days of my life.” I sat in an adult care home and listen to a participant play the piano… and we sang an old spiritual together…and he grins from ear to ear.

I am just awestruck with the beauty and power of doing peer supports and I think to myself in those moments just...What is a peer support specialist?

Photo by Josh Lindley (http://joshualindsey.com/)

All of my blog posts up until this point have been largely informational and need to be more transformational…

Today that will change.

I am now making a shift to my original intent and that is this to highlight the many faces of peer supports in NC. Highlighting the beautiful peer work being done. I feel this important for several reasons:

• It's about you and the beautiful work you are doing
• We need a window into your world to see the work being done in NC
• We all need a chance to learn from one another about what being a peer is like
• We have a chance to see what peer is like in its many facets

This blog is really my gift back to the movement and is really about creating community. It’s about created a sense of peer identity in NC and a sense of shared meaning. 

I couldn’t think of a better way than to illustrate what it means to be peer than to highlight a clip made by Cooper Riis a healing community in Asheville NC entitled “Shake On It” which tells the story of the powerful role a Peer Support Specialist can play in the recovery process.

 

Once a week,  I will begin highlighting a different face of peer supports in NC. Please  consider sharing your story with our state the beautiful work you are doing. 

Question:  Who would you like to see highlighted on this blog? (Please comment)

You May Also Like:

• NC Recovery Blog-MHA of Greensboro:“Beautiful Minds”-Highlighting David Cray
  
• From my blog-Highlighting: Donna Joyner
• From my blog-Highlighting: Monica Mathes
• From the NC Peer Support Website: What is a Peer Support Specialist?

Overcoming Fear

I wanted to take some time and offer some memorable sayings that have really spoken to me about overcoming fear and finding the courage to move forward in your recovery.  I hope you find them as a source of inspiration and encouragement.

"He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear."

                                                                                                    -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"He that stays in the valley shall never get over the hill."

                                                                    -English Proverb

"He turns not back who is bound to a star"

                                        -Leonardo da Vinci

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

                                                                                        -Mark Twain

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship."

                                                                            -Louisa May Alcott

"There is not experience from which you can't learn something....The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."                                                                                                                                                                  -Eleanor Roosevelt

"A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

                                               -Rear Admiral Grace Murray Cooper

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

                                                                                                                        -Andre Gide

 

This Day...

 

what shall i say?
to the unfolding beauty of this day...
will i get lost in the fray and the plunder...
shall i get lost in the awe and the wonder...

what shall i seek?
to the issues of life what to do and to speak...
will i give way to fear and with silence conceal
shall i burst forth with love and with wisdom reveal

what shall i do?
with the struggle and the hurt that i see in you...
will i hesitate, withhold and slowly walk away
shall i with hands  and with tears, gently stay

may we this day give way to the wonder
pursue love and never let fear take us under
with courage offer hope to stand by your side
into the world of need...let us together....then stride...(-BCreech)

 

-Painting by "Aimee Vance"

 

Peer Inspiration: "The Breaking"

love is not love without fragility
as heart petals unfold so tenderly
to be laid bare is to be made alive
to be open to all is to ever thrive

children with abandon do ever embrace
hiding not behind language or plastic face
to allow ourselves to be deeply known
is the greatest gift to others shown

permission granted to also be
broken hearts held in mutuality
love is not love that does not break
only tender love will now love...remake

leave not your heart within the womb
pierce the fear, break the cocoon
then the world will truly see
the beauty of vulnerability...(-bcreech)

A Lil' Peer Inspiration: "The Coming of Spring"

 

I just tapped Spring on the shoulder....and whispered... "Ready...when you are." (chuckles)

 A  poem I wrote  back in Feb.  14, 2011 (whew...a while back)  and recited...Enjoy.

Do we now see white winter bid us farewell?
With its bitter cold, leaving us no remiss
Its breath and power now lifting its spell
As bright, beautiful spring greets with a kiss
And symphonies of bird and flower shine
Such color and sound and smell in the air
To relish rebirth and renewal i dine
Upon this spring's bounty beyond all compare
All green and lush wonder before my eye
Down to the deep vermilion of this rose
I offer in deep grass as we look to the sky
Such beauty and music to our renewed hearts compose
Forgetting all things past with the coming of this day
Now reveling in spring's wonder and full array

 

10 Questions That I Ponder....

1. What would happen if I became more intentional towards my own wellness? Who would benefit?




2. How would my caseload, my team, my company, eastern NC, NC...look like if I...if peers began doing their best work? Started collaborating? Started taking risks and made a ruckus for recovery and wellness?


3. What projects am I now sitting on? What milestones will I set and celebrate? What will I do when I accomplish my best work?


4. How resilient will I be at continuing my pursuit towards wellness and recovery-oriented systems of care? Who will be my partners in this process?



5. What are the obstacles (within and beyond me) that stand in the way of those changes that need to happen? What will be my weapons to fight the undertow of resistance, laying low and avoiding taking chances?



6. Where am I most needed? Where am I now indispensable? Where in my sphere of influence does the whole thing hang in the balance?




7. What is the work to be done today? If I were among the last few people on earth would I still be working at whatever I am working at?





8. As an expectant mother (metaphor), what am I now sensing that is growing inside of me? What is my mission or calling? What shall my priorities be for this day/wk/year?




9. Who will I mentor? Who will I collaborate with? Who will I bring with along this journey?




10. Who (today) can I affirm, encourage, support and celebrate?