Personal growth involves the emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual improvements in our daily lives. Human growth is triggered by events that require that we empower ourselves. This human development will be different for everyone. We are not all the same and we do not live the same lifestyle. Each of our life evolution is personal. One such discipline that helps in our directional maturity is "art." Art consists of pictorial disciplines that include art (sculpting, painting, etc.), music, and writing. Art vastly contributes to our growth by stimulating our senses, awakening our creative skills, and visually expressing conditions of our very existence.
Let's look at 5 powerful ways art can impact your personal growth:
Disability Visually Expressed
People with physical disabilities serve as a visual object that is often pitied rather than being understood. As such, the disabled see themselves as individuals trapped within their own bodies. Throughout history, famous artists displayed individuals without arms, as crippled beggars, or those stricken with outward illnesses like leapers. When disable individuals take up art, they soon learn how to express themselves in society. They help to teach society to see them differently - as human beings with the same emotions. They are viewed as people who want the same things out of life as everyone else.
Many veterans returning home from war zones that have cost them parts of their bodies are introduced to art therapy. Their lives are affirmed through their artwork. Their personal maturation is achieved with life's motto exclaiming that they are not victims. Disabled individuals experience growth to affirm their shared humanity without trying to hide their physical differences. Through art, the disabled find that they can celebrate their physical changes while giving the world amazing cultural artwork. No longer are the disabled ashamed of their disabilities. Art in the disabled helps the artist and viewers to express self-acceptance and confidence. Not because they are disabled, but due to the inclusion of their disability are they more self-aware.
Empowerment From Mental Health
Creativity in art and varying artforms naturally relieves stress. Art helps individuals communicate and prevents cognitive decline. Whether you are an adult or a child, art provides self-expression. It contributes to the rebuilding of a positive mental identity. When individuals are unable to express themselves, they begin to withdraw.
As a stimulating craft, it is a visual expression than can help them overcome their traumatic condition that is accompanied by the harmful emotions that they have about themselves and their environment. Art allows people to take negative situations and embody them into their personal life stories in a healing and symbolic manner. Their personal growth can now recover from the enduring mental anguish from illnesses, death, or a form of abuse.
As we are required to isolate ourselves due to the coronavirus, using art as a creative outlet is perfect for expressing and releasing our stress. Art allows us to reframe our brains that can help our mental growth in managing fear, uncertainty, and other mental wellness stresses. To further assist our mature growth during and after the coronavirus season, art helps to foster better overall health. Creating art reduces the cortisol levels in our brains. Thus, art increases a more positive mental state for the future cultivation of our human growth. In other words, the arts create a more mindful state of mental health, allowing other forms of therapy to be effective.
Visualize Your Grief, Heal and Grow
In our personal growth, we will all experience some form of grief, more associated with death. Art allows artists and viewers to enter a dreamscape. As an artist, art is a positive mournful platform for their continued evolutionary growth. When you are involved in an art form as you are suffering or have suffered a sorrowful time, it allows you to memorialize the event.
Art also makes the loss more visible. It captures the person or event that caused the grief. You don't need to be a profound or experienced artist, you just need to write, draw, or compose the art against the emotional pain that has been preventing you from letting go. This craft helps to shield you against the grief and silence that your body wanted to hide from. Oddly though art comforts both the artists and a viewer. A viewer is able to recognize themselves in others. As a stereotypical expression of grief, combined with love, there is an elemental connection. Art shows us subliminally, that we are not alone as we go through grief in our personal growth.
Civil Rights Development and Growth
Art portrays one event and one image at a time during varying cultural civil rights movements. Whether it is artwork from Auschwitz, Martin Luther King marches, the China movement in Tiananmen Square, etc., these were visual images that changed public opinion.
As visual imagery, it is a witness to cultural civil rights movements that greatly affects our personal growth. Like our human growth, art grows and continues to change due to varying life events. It is constantly being influenced and images are changed due to societal events. The use of imagery has long helped to raise awareness of political and social issues that imprints on our personal cultivation.
The artistic symbol of a raised fist was first created by labor unions. Today, however, it seems to memorialize the motto "power to the people." It has become a rallying cry that brings a sense of unity to the artist and the viewer. In our personal societal growth, art speaks to us on an emotional level. It is as if we are all on one accord through the power of art. We don't walk alone in our personal growth. We are surrounded by poor communities, immigrants, and exploitations of varying kinds. Art brings forth these images and is part of the community conversation. These images remind us that we cannot take people for granted nor can we allow others to be marginalized. Our personal growth together has created a global awareness through art that is powerful and shows civil rights that all humanity should experience.
Artistic Development Helps Children Grow
Learning to create and appreciate visual art is a vitally important event that aids in the development of our children as they grow. Art helps their personal growth through enhancing their motor skills, in language development, in decision-making, visual/cultural awareness, creativeness, and improved academic achievement.
When our kids pick up a colorful crayon, we see how happy it makes them to unknowingly become creative. Art is important in our children's development and in the amazement of the world around them. Creating an art environment enables our children to communicate. It also improves their skill in self-expression. The right side of the brain is awakened as it cultivates the skills needed in their personal growth and development. Art in children is a cornerstone component of what goes into making all of us characteristically human.