An interview with Al

How can you help me manage big feelings I can’t get rid of?

You can’t get rid of them — you can transform them and learn how to embrace them, listen to their call to action so they can guide your flow without taking control of you. These feelings are present for a reason. 

What about the tricky and unacceptable feelings, like anger?

Often feelings seem stuck when they have been present for a really long time. Anger might have been the emotion that was the most acceptable to the people around you or it felt the safest to feel in response to what was around you. For whatever reason, anger got you something that you needed, whether it was attention, or protection, or a little space to yourself. For what it was, it worked for you, and it shows that you had the ingenuity, the adaptability, the gumption - the creativity - to come up with this amazing tool to get your needs met. That is, it worked as well as it could, and it worked for only so long. And it's a problem now because you don’t really need it any more. It’s not working for where you are now in life because you’re not back there anymore. You’re in a new situation. 

It’s ok that the anger was there -- it was really helpful and maybe it will still be really helpful in other ways -- but now it’s time for it to transform. It’s time for other options to come to the table as well.

How do we bring other emotional responses to the table?

First we have to acknowledge what you are already feeling and accept it. Because those big feelings might feel really bad right now. Obviously. But they are also there for a reason, and we have to respect and honor that reason. When we give it the space that it needs, to listen to it, to have compassion for it -- almost paradoxically -- then there’s space for other feelings, perceptions and responses to emerge too. Together we slow down into the “UGH,” and then we’ll find that it isn’t endless, that it isn’t all that’s there. It’ll happen. And then the next thing will come. And we’ll find out what the next thing is, we can’t know that yet. 

How are you going to help me explore those big scary parts of myself?

First, I’ll help you slow down. That’s not a simple step on its own, and what that means for one person doesn’t have to be the same as for another. Maybe it’s deep breathing and meditation, but maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s finding a rhythm you can move at, that’s sustainable. Maybe literally a rhythm, in your body, in a drum, or in your voice. 

We’ll learn to find rhythms (if that’s the metaphor we’re working with here) that ground you. We’ll learn how to adjust your rhythm to each moment. And from this place, of learning your rhythms, your pacing, you’ll find that it’s easier to listen to what’s inside of you and observe what your body tells you. You’ll find that there are stories there - some that already have words, but many that don’t at all yet - and by listening to and telling those stories, you’ll begin to make sense of them, understand the multiplicity of you and begin to make meaning of what we find.

This is where creativity comes in. 

Why creative arts therapy?

We have amazing tools in the creative arts (including music, sound, movement, drawing) that can help us express what maybe has never been given a voice before, or felt too big, too complex, - or too shameful - to say in words. We can find sounds that match feelings - and hold them, and hold us there. By doing something as simple as playing a drum really loud, thumping on your own chest, vocalizing, or moving in a new way that embodies your experience, we’re embracing that which otherwise overwhelms you, and moving into it creatively. 

From a creative place -- a place of “ok, well what does this sound need, what does this movement/image/etc need?” -- we’ll discover something about what you need. Like a composer or an improviser, makes their musical choices and an emotional outcome comes out, we’re going to do the same.

In this creative space our focus is to tell your story. When we listen to what's there, we hear your stories. They are the stories of your deep experience, beyond words. The creative tools help us to tell and listen to those stories and appreciate them as something with complexity, meaning and beauty that help inform us, help us to grieve, confront discomforts and find its place in your life. When you start to extract this story you can see and share it in a new way. When you embody it you become a character in your own story. A character that’s now free to be different than how you've previously been. Your story becomes a living and breathing experience rather than a stuck way of being.

And we’ll do it together. Because it’s not just about telling your story or understanding why you are the way you are, but also about coming out of the shame of isolation. Of sharing not just the facts of your life but the reality of your existence with another person. When you’re stuck inside yourself, unable to come out into the world in a new way, the first step is letting someone into your world. And when you can share your inner world with another person, without judgement or rejection, it begins to transform. When we have relationship wounds, it’s a relationship that can heal.

What if this is scary and hard for me to do? What if I struggle? I’m not creative.

Actually, you are creative. Human beings are natural problem solvers, we do it all the time. It took creativity for you to come up with those survival tools early on. But our creativity can get shut down by all of the expectations we feel upon us, all of the “shoulds” and “buts,” and “cant’s.” We unlock it together by putting aside that inner critic and choosing to allow ourselves to get messy, to make mistakes, to seek rather than to know. THAT’s what creativity is, whatever the medium. By trying something new together, letting it be an experiment, allowing ourselves to just see what happens, knowing that we can put it away when we don’t need it.

And I’m in this with you, too. I’m in the creative process also. I’m improvising, playing, asking questions, taking risks also, and accompanying you through the experience of transformation.

AL, who are you and how are you able to guide me through this?

This is the process that I’ve gone through. I began as a musician and got a lot of performance training, but I found that what was most important to me, most meaningful, and what I connected to the most was all the ways that music could hold me. From listening to a song that totally matched where I was at 13 years old and angry and isolated, to finding connection through music, being able to share with others the deeper understanding that comes from entering together into the creative space - the messy unknown - I found that music could actually hold feelings that I didn’t have another place to put. For me, putting those things into music gave them shape. It was formless and overwhelming, until there was music to hold it.

I am a psychotherapist and music therapist who works with both children and adults experiencing issues like depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship issues and neuro-divergence. I studied music therapy at New York University and have received advanced post-graduate training from the Music Psychotherapy Center of New York, the Kint Institute, and the Institute for Music and Consciousness. I have experience working with individuals and families who have all types of creative arts backgrounds - from people with no previous arts experience, to people who have careers in the arts. Whether our work involves talking, singing, writing music, drawing, or exploring mindfulness practices, I focus on helping the people I work with feel safe and supported as they take the next steps towards health and well-being.