Unlocking Joy and Wisdom: The Healing Power of Creativity and Art with Constance Chapman

In this episode we get curious about:

In this enriching episode, Laurin and Constance take a heartfelt journey into the world of creativity and wisdom. They discuss the healing power of art, the role of intuition in creative expression, and how artistic endeavors can connect us to deeper truths. Constance shares her experience with Indigenous art and the spiritual connections within it, while Laurin reflects on personal stories that underscore the emotional depth art can evoke. The episode concludes on a high note, emphasizing the power of joy and the importance of welcoming it into our lives.

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Bio: Laurin Wittig is an intuitive energy worker, Reiki Master, Shamanic practitioner, and the founder of HeartLight Wellness and the HeartLight Women’s Circles. She also hosts the Curiously Wise: Practical Spirituality in Action podcast and is an award winning author.

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Credits:

Audio Engineer: Sam Wittig

Music: Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio

Photography & Design: Asha McLaughlin/Tej Art

Copyright 2024 Laurin Wittig

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If you’d like to know more about me, please visit my website Heartlightjoy.com. While you are there you can book a free call, join my newsletter, find out about energetic healing services, Heartlight Women’s Circles, and my novels. Links to the website, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIN are clickable in the show notes. I would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe to Curiously Wise: Practical Spirituality in Action, and share it with a friend. This will help spread the information and the uplifting energy that is created in every episode. Thank you for joining me today and stay curious.

Interview Episode with Constance Chapman

Constance: I think that on one level it's because when we're, like you say, it's a somatic experience. and it does bypass the rational mind. So it's like we're able to express things and get to that internal wisdom that we all have, that in, in other settings we wouldn't allow ourselves to get to. And I think about that even when you see little kids paint. Little kids, you know, like, they'll put things on, on paper. that that they haven't been able to tell their parents.

Laurin: Yeah.

Laurin: Hello friends and welcome back to Curiously Wise. I'm Lauren Wittig, your host, and today I have Constance Chapman with me. Constance and I met not too long ago in a mastermind circle, and I was so moved and impressed by the wisdom that she brought out as she talked about her art. And so we have, we've become friends recently.

We've had a few chats together. And we're just going to have fun today to talking about creativity and wisdom and intuition and resilience and all those kinds of good things. So Constance, thank you for being here and welcome to Curiously Wise.

Constance: Well, thank you. I'm really looking forward to this one. So I love being curious and I hope I'm always wise. So we'll see if those two things work.

Constance: Well, it's been quite a long journey actually the first time I, I got, I did any artwork other than in school was when I was in my early thirties and I, I worked with an artist in Victoria, British Columbia, and I had a whole bunch of baggage from my childhood about how I wasn't supposed to be doing art. And so she helped me start to get over that. And so I did some artwork at the time I was using soft pastels. I just loved the feeling of, of seeing those colors go on, on a paper or canvas, whatever it was I was using, and see how they, they moved. However, what happened is, is that I had a lens in front of my eyes that said it wasn't good enough.

And I started doing my own internal, well, I'd been doing internal work, but I started doing more of it. And it was during the pandemic that I, I read an email from a teacher who, someone I'd worked with before in painting, and I hadn't, you know, you get all these emails. A lot of, you don't read. So, and that day, something told me to read it.

And I did, and I was going through a really stressful time at work. My my boss was quite ill and had terminal cancer. And so I was having to do a lot of, pick up a lot of the, the pieces. And there was just something, I picked it up and I thought, Okay, I need to start painting again, just as a relief.

And, and, and the, the critic then slowly became my my discernment rather than my, The one that was yelling at me and telling me it wasn't any good. So the discernment still does that. It goes, well, maybe we can move this a little bit. We can do that. You know, but it's not, not with that same harsh voice.

Devil on your shoulder kind of thing. And I would imagine that I wrapped her up in in spiderwebs and stuck her up in the corner of my office. So I could write without that criticism, you know,

Constance: teacher once and she, well, she used to say fire the critic and she said fire the critics because there's more than one usually. And so I learned when I was writing to sort of put her outside the door and tell her she could come back in later because I knew she was important later. That, that it's important to have that so it's like, okay, I'm giving you a job and right now it's not your job, so, but with painting, it took me a lot longer to get there.

It was like life wisdom that came out from the painting. And that's what really Charmed me, I would say because I love when women embrace their wisdom, but also accept that sometimes it just flows through us. And and I really saw that in action, so I know that you work with other people to help them kind of come to that state.

So how did you get to doing that work? Mm-Hmm?

I was teaching, I was working with her then, I wouldn't allow myself to do it. So this time I said, okay, I'm doing it. And so I did that all through the, so it was a nine month class. And so I'm now I'm a certified intentional creativity teacher. So I learned what I learned from her. And when I started teaching, I started working with people and mostly in shorter, like two or three hour.

Workshops, people working mostly on watercolor paper with acrylic rather than on canvas. And and the whole process is, is really, it's about learning about yourself through, through painting.

Laurin: mm

Constance: So one of the workshops that I did was called The Wisdom Basket. And so you, you know, it's, it's something everyone can paint a basket.

Laurin: mm

Constance: they would put that on the, on the paper. then we would come back and we would do a lot of circle work to talk about it. So that's the kind of thing that I really enjoy doing.

And and it's interesting because I'm, I'm teaching now at a senior center and that particular group isn't, isn't really used to doing this kind of internal work. So it's a very different kind of teaching I have to do. They really want to know how do I do it, you know. Oh, I have to slip in that other stuff in smaller increments because, you know, some people know how to do that.

And some people don't, you know, and it's something you have to learn.

Constance: Yes. I mean, one of the things that I've found is that I've been doing recently is I've worked with in my because I use, I use art in a coaching practice as well. And what what that does is it allows people to bypass that rational brain. So, I was working with someone who was having a really hard time with the self criticism.

Laurin: I've never heard it described that way, but. Okay. That's interesting.

Constance: Yeah.

Laurin: That's really interesting. Huh?

Constance: And I think that that, that comes at different stages. Like I think, you know, in the kind of writing you do, the critic comes up, it's slightly different.

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Constance: it is, but, but, you know, if you're not paying attention, if you're not doing anything creative and you got that voice going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's probably your, your, your your muse.

Laurin: Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah. So I, you know, I work with guides a lot and I'm always kind of learning that they, they serve different roles and it, and the muse, the way you described the muse sounds like a guide to me, like a, one of our spirit guides, it's just a very specific purposed one. So interesting. I have never thought of it that way before, but that.

That's got my brain working. Like, all right, I got to bring that into my practice with my guides, but also start, you know, bringing that up. I've got a couple of clients that are very creative, but have a lot of negativity or resistance. And so I'm going to, that's really interesting. Thank you for sharing that.

Constance: you're welcome.

Laurin: So what's your favorite part about working with other people?

Constance: Seeing them grow, and seeing them fall in love with themselves more.

So much joy, doing something so creative that is, is happens to be one of my gifts is, you know, it is to write and having set it aside for emails and newsletters and, and landing pages and, you know, that kind of stuff for a long time. I, I have been kind of shocked at how joyful I am. I I'm happy to get up out of bed in the morning and get upstairs so I can have my writing time.

Constance: Right. And that's, I've got a painting that's been sitting here looking at me, and I haven't had time to work on her, you know, and it's the same kind of thing. I know that when I, because I want a full day, not just ten minutes here and there. You know, and and I know some magic's gonna happen. You know, and for me, that was what, that was what the difference was, was when I started painting again during the pandemic, I could actually feel the joy.

That's as far as I'm concerned is our spiritual birthright. The more than some of the other qualities like divine, like love and non judgment are easier for me to hold on to.

Laurin: I would have forgiveness to that too. It's a lot, a lot easier to get to forgiveness with joy.

Constance: Yes.

Laurin: Yeah. Hmm. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about resilience because I think you and I have both found that we've had to learn resilience in our lives. But how does it, and how does it come into this work that you're doing, this coaching work, this, this mentoring kind of work that you do with others?

So it gave me some hope by doing this online class. And so I decided to become a resiliency coach and I went and I started making contact with some of the domestic violence agencies because I did that work for like 35 years. And and I know how important it is in that work. And I was making some good progress.

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Constance: So this time I'm going to look at it differently and say, okay, people are going to need to, they're going to need something.

Because. Panic and fear doesn't, doesn't get us anywhere.

Laurin: No. Haven't

Constance: So that's one of the places where one of the paintings that I have, and maybe I'll start exploring this with people, is that one of the paintings I did, I did after I had ended a relationship with someone that I really, really cared about, but just wasn't going to work.

And it was one of those, I threw paint at that painting. And. It was so wonderful and it turned into this big heart with like tears coming down it, but with new growth coming from the bottom.

Constance: Also, so I think that that's where, where hopefully by that, that I hope that that art can help people deal with that with whatever grief or fear or anxiety that may come up for them around whatever happens in the election.

Laurin: That is so powerful. That and I, I mean, my brain is going, well, okay, what can I do? Yeah. Because I think you're right. I think that we really need to be prepared. Those of us who are, are in the spiritual kind of work and work with energy and, and help people to heal and to grow and to find joy,

Constance: Mm hmm.

And I, yeah, it's a scary time. It's a scary time, and because it's especially, and I don't like to talk politics here, but this is a very pivotal time in our country, and that means in our lives.

Constance: And I have to tell you that I a podcast that I watched the other day with the, the man who is the was the the director and the producer of the new movie the The Apprentice,

Laurin: Oh, yeah.

Constance: and he's Iranian and, scandinavian. I can't remember which country he's from. someone, in the podcast, they were asking him about the election.

Laurin: Mm.

Constance: And I thought, that's a perspective that we need. We need to know that that's, that's how we're seen in certain parts of the world.

Country that sends the bombs.

Laurin: Yeah. And I hadn't, hadn't looked at it from that perspective before. That's, yeah, pretty sobering.

Constance: Yeah,

If you can. Yeah. Forgiveness has been one of the big lessons in my life. Particularly with my, my parents and it was hard road, but it was so freeing to get to that place and so I'm so grateful to be able to look through the lens of forgiveness at all the things that, you know, I didn't like about my life or the way I was raised and appreciate how strong I am because of it.

Appreciate that I am a person who likes to lift people up because of it. That, you know, that I have. I have the strength to carry on when I have to and when I need to and then I'm pretty brave. I'm a pretty brave person. And that came from, you know, going through all of those things and having to, to cultivate that to survive and, and be and thrive.

And so, yeah,

It was like, it was like, you know, in the movies when you see something in it and the air vibrates and you can see it. That actually happened and somehow I knew it because what I asked because he asked me something about the people who abused me and I said we're all one and I, I got it. I got it in that moment and in that moment I was able to forgive them and myself because it's all always almost always ourselves that we hold [00:22:00] that are the ones that really that we're holding on to not forgiving.

Laurin: that we hold on to not forgiving. We hold on. I, I played the victim for years. And it wasn't without reason. I mean, there were things that, you know, I was the victim of one way or another, usually emotionally for me, but but stepping out of victimhood, looking at it from a different perspective. And for me, it was really putting my parents into the context of the time because they were very young when they had me and there's been a lot of trauma in my dad's, you know, there's all this stuff.

And I'm thinking if I had been my mother, I'm not sure I would have been able to carry on. And, and then she was diagnosed with, you know, four months to live of cancer after 10 years of dementia. And that's when I really went, okay, she's never going to change. She's I, I knew that. Intellectually that she was never going to change.

And I can appreciate the strengths. I can appreciate the resilience. I can appreciate that I chose a, a very nice man, a very wonderful man and, and for my long time partner, my dog, my husband, and I raised my kids differently and they, you know, they turned out real well and, and I, all of that is in, in large part because of what I, I knew what I didn't want to do.

So I, I, I figured, okay, I can forgive, I can forgive her. I'm not forgetting all the stuff that happened, but I'm not going to be the victim of it anymore. And so I can forgive her as it was more for me than for her. But she also, she changed when I did that because I wasn't so defensive anymore. And so she softened,

Laurin: what I learned to,

Constance: and, and she put it up and all of a sudden I knew the words and I was like, and she said, does anyone like, and so I learned that I had that I could get what I wasn't getting at home through my mind. And so I stayed in my mind. And so that's where I went.

Laurin: Oh,

that's back the message. Mm.

Laurin: Mm.

Constance: And it still brings tears to my eyes.

Laurin: Yeah.

Constance: No. And we have, we have a decent relationship. You know, we have a but it's not as close as I'd like. And my, my biggest concern is that he hasn't forgiven himself. Because I know, I know that that's what happens, is that we don't, you know, that that's where it goes, is like, that, that when, when we've been, when something's happened to us as kids, we think there's something wrong with us.

That if I'd been, if I'd been different, then this wouldn't have happened to me.

Laurin: Mm. Mm.

Constance: So so I don't know why I got into that,

Constance: Yeah, because we're,

Laurin: needs.

Laurin: You did like school.

Never as a country have we said that. Individuals have said it. But that is like the elephant in the room, and until we deal with that, we're never going to be able to heal as a country.

Laurin: Mm hmm. I agree. Mm hmm.

Laurin: hmm.

With a different level of, of awareness and, and it doesn't, it doesn't drain in the same way.

Laurin: Yeah, it's one of the things that I remember when I, when I do sit down and draw is it's a somatic experience. It's a, it's a physical experience, so you're bringing emotions out or, you know, whatever you're working on in, in a physical way and painting. If you're standing in an easel, that's even more physical and you've got color and you've got symbolism and you've got intuition and all of these wonderful things that help you process or, or at least release the energy of those.

Whatever it is that you're having, you know, feelings about,

Constance: Right.

I always think about how music I was talking about this just at lunch today. Music can express your emotions. Two people can play the same piece on the same kind of instrument and the emotion can be just completely different of it. And so all of that is a way of expressing emotion. For me, the thing about the arts in all its forms.

is that you can share it with other people who need to receive that information or need to go, Oh, I'm not the only one who's feeling that way. Or look, this person has gone on to have a great life after this one song came out about, you know, he done me wrong, you know, whatever it is. It is therapy for the world.

Constance: my mom, my mom was extremely creative cook. And that's one of the it was interesting because when I was small, I have an older sister. And in my mind, what she said was that my sister could be the artist because my mom was an artist.

Laurin: Huh.

Constance: I could be the cook.

Laurin: Oh, gosh.

Constance: And, and, yeah, and it took my sister and a long time to be able to flip that, you know, and and when I, when my, I tell that story, my, my sister says that when she did art, my mom also jumped right in and said, do it this way.

And then this couple came in and ordered one and he made it and he took it to him and he saw how happy it made him. And this is how I can make people happy by a cook.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah.

Constance: So

Laurin: yeah. So let's talk about how, how the wisdom and creativity, the connection between there. Cause I know that's something that you believe there's a lot of wisdom in creativity. And that you, I know I've seen the wisdom come through you because you're describing your creative, you know piece of art in that very first time we met.

So, so what are your thoughts on that wisdom from creativity or through creativity? Okay.

Laurin: Yeah.

Constance: Are they telling their teacher something that they haven't been able to tell anybody? And they may not even be consciously aware that that's what they're doing. But that as we get older, and so, also I think that, you know, that it, I don't think that, that art by itself is inherently, because again it has to do with the consciousness.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah.

Constance: So the, the, the wisdom is there. It's like, the question is, are you allowing yourself to access it?

Laurin: Yeah. I love, I love the process that you talked about earlier where, you know, you are getting this stuff out of yourself. And just allowing it to happen. You talked about the throwing paint at the canvas and, and finding it a heart with tears and new, new growth. And I mean, that's just in that symbolism of that without even seeing it, I can picture it.

And so we'd go to the Smithsonian often. And he taught me how to, how to observe art. He'd come up close and you see the brushstrokes and then you go back and you can see the picture and, you know, and look at this detail and that, that he was like, he, he was awesome that way. He was a Renaissance man. But it's always been meaningful to me.

I mean, I, there, you know, not everything, but you'll walk in a gallery somewhere and something will grab you. And, and, and I always, you know, those are the ones that I spend time just looking at and absorbing. I was, I have a story about that one, actually. There's a there's an an American art museum in Arkansas.

Looking across a lake at another little bear looking towards him and there's birds and there's all these animals and they're just flying through this through the scene and woods and it's just and it's kind of sunset. I had to sit there. I think I sat there for an hour and just I just. Absorbed the energy of that.

It was so peaceful and there was some yearning in it and there was just I don't know. I just, I, I just felt so good. And I, my brother actually ended up buying me a print of it so I could bring it home. Doesn't have quite the same experience as the, as the painting itself, because it's much smaller, but that, that was That was a moment for me, an hour for me, that I just really was totally immersed in whatever that artist was feeling when he was painting that.

Constance: Absolutely.

Laurin: Always been around.

Constance: Always been around. Absolutely.

Laurin: Yeah. I mean, it's one of the things as a, I have an undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology.

And so, you know, we, when you're doing excavations of things, you're finding pottery and a lot of them are defined by the kinds of decorations on them, you know, this kind of culture, that kind of culture and, and then you look at things like the The NAS, the NASCA drawings and like the high end Andes that have been there.

Constance: Yeah. Another place that, that really that for me helped to start to bring together the art and the spirituality was when I was living in Canada, I, I had the the privilege of working in the First Nations, the Indian community.

Laurin: Yeah.

Constance: And there's incredible artists and I learned there's it's well, this is what you can see on my background.

Laurin: Yeah, yeah,

Constance: We worry about, about, about, oh, this is going to be lost, that's going to be lost, and it isn't. It goes into an invisible form.

Laurin: mm hmm. Yeah.

Constance: It doesn't mean we're not losing species on the planet, because they're gone,

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Laurin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me because it is it's I mean what is knowledge It's this energy pattern, right? So that makes a lot of sense to me. It also explains why often People who live in disparate places will come up with the same things, the same art, or the same scientific idea, or the same invention.

They might be slightly different, but it's like they all got the download, you know, at the same time.

Constance: Here's my woo woo interpretation of that,

Laurin: Huh.

Constance: is that, is that I, I think that there's one, I believe there's one mind, there's one intelligence, and that that intelligence, for whatever reason, I don't know how, ideas start to float down. I look, I feel, I, I think, I think of them as like snowflakes or raindrops and sometimes they land on someone and that person, it's not theirs.

And it wasn't my idea, but that was before recycling started. And now it's a huge industry.

Laurin: Yeah.

Constance: So someone else got the snowflake and thought, Oh yeah, this is a great way. I can do this and I can make money with it and I can do some good.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah.

Constance: And so, you know, so those ideas rain down and, and that's why I think it's important to respect our intuition because otherwise you're going to miss all that.

If you get a book idea and you don't work on it, somebody else is going to receive it and work on it. Cause he would say, I had that idea for this book, but this person just came out with it. So almost the same book I would have written. So I think that's the part of that same explanation there that describes that, that it's we get these ideas and we're not, they, they, they land where they land and some people.

Pick them up and run with them. And some people go, not for me or ignore them. Yeah.

And I realized that that was something, that was an energy, whose time needed to come into the world, because since that time, I've seen other people, a lot of other entrepreneurs using the word joy, and doing things around joy. There was another event I went to that was where this woman was talking about how, what would it be like if our, all of our politicians governed from joy? So it's, it, that, that is an energy whose time has come and it needs, it, it's making its way back into the world.

Laurin: How exciting is that?

Constance: Well, not making its way back, it never went anywhere.

Laurin: It's re emerging and, and, you know, talking about it even helps it to rise. So,

Laurin: am particularly aware of that one because I never know what cars, even my nearby neighbors, where we see their cars go by all the time. I don't know what kind of car they have, but if I go buy one, I'm going to know, I'm going to see it all over the place. Oh, I didn't know Shelly next door had that, you know, it's like, I have the same car now.

So yeah, I think that that is absolutely true. The more you are personally connected with whatever it is that's out there, the more you see it, the more you connect with it, the more you raise it up to the more you highlight it. Yeah.

Laurin: Having that compassion and for everybody's got their own experience and joy can be hard to find for a lot of people. You know, even if they aren't afraid of it, they don't know how to access it.

Constance: Right, because it's, it's right there.

Laurin: Yeah, it's like right, right here, right in the center of my chest is where I feel it.

Constance: And, and yeah, and it's you know, sometimes it has to do with that, that filter that I was talking about earlier. And

All right. So Constance, let's let people know where they can find you. So website and then your socials.

Constance: Well, I'm on Facebook, so you can find me. I have a I've got my own personal page and then I've got a a, a business page, which you'll find because it'll be, you could find it in my personal listing because, you know, business pages change names you know and I think you've got my, my my website address.

Laurin: We'll make sure that that is added to the show notes as well. So people will know where to go and get doodle with the divine. All right. I'm just making a note. All right. Well, I want to thank everybody who's listening for being here with us today. I hope you have had some aha moments and maybe your curiosity has been tweaked about how you can express yourself creatively, creatively maybe in a new way or go back to some old love that you had.

I started crocheting recently again. So something I used to love to do. And and in the meantime, stay curious.