The name of my art therapy business is “Beauty Forgiveness Healing”. What is behind the name? According to experts it is too long, likely too complicated to remember and not so relevant to art therapy. The name also goes against every new therapy business advise that I googled.
The usual recommendations are to include the name of the place where one practices, keep the name short and sweet and punchy AND relevant to the business. All good. I considered all those matters and I could not come up with any inspiring art therapy and positive mental health related names. All I could think about was a counselling room with white walls, grey chairs opposite each other, light wood coloured table with a tissue box. Perhaps a beige-coloured carpet. The window opening up to the back yard with concrete parking lots. I have been in that room for a job interview. I did not want to work there. It was a suffocating feeling.
That said there were a few names that sounded good but were already taken. I also thought about colours. Of course I thought about using the names of colours in the name of my art therapy practice! I thought using blue but that might refer to depression, white to funerals or weddings, green to saving nature, black too dark, orange referring to fruit market. I could have chosen yellow, red or purple. Purple has been popular in music industry so perhaps not. Not many people like red. Yellow could have worked. Anyway, all this pondering is probably very boring to read but it gives to show that choosing one of a kind business name is not easy.
At that point of the process I needed to get my business registered. I could not afford to continue procrastinating further. I made a decision to go with the three first ‘nice’ words that came to mind. I immediately thought ‘beauty’, then ‘forgiveness’ and finally ‘healing’. They felt like three peas in the pot. I registered the business and now I have to live with it. Instead of Springwood Art Therapy I have a list of words that mean something to me.
When I think of beauty, I think of the Japanese word wabisabi. Wikipedia explains it as “In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.” Wabisabi, in my mind means “beauty in imperfection”. It takes away any excuses that someone could not do art, or would not be a ‘good enough’ drawer, or has been laughed at when they tried to paint something, or did not win a ‘prize’ at school for their artistic efforts. (I still remember the deeply sad face of a little client, a boy who told me that he has never won any ribbons for drawing at school even though he tries so hard…) So… about beauty. It is everywhere. And there is no perfection.
When I think of forgiveness, I think the opposite: the bitterness and hatred gnawing us from inside, like a hungry stray animal who does not have a loving owner. Whereas forgiveness is a wide-open hugging word. Forgiveness saves us from being eaten alive. Forgiveness cleanses. Forgiveness allows us to breath. Bad things happen, and even worse than bad. I am not trying to minimise anyone’s experience. I am only putting forward the word ‘forgiveness’ to ponder about. Especially when we find it hard to forgive ourselves, whatever it might be. Perhaps we did, or thought we did, something ‘bad’ as a child, or more likely we were told that we were bad and wrong and should be ashamed, and those feelings suddenly cover our minds like a suffocating cloak. And when you think of the child, the guilt and the shame they experienced, and still experience, isn’t time to think of forgiveness? How would that child feel if they were told by the adult you, that it is actually ok, that children are the responsibility of their care givers to guide and help them. If there are no such care givers around, or they do not have capacity to help the child, or even worse, they make the child think that it is all their fault; that’s when we carry the shame and guilt with us to adulthood. I am writing this in very generalised terms. What I am trying to say is that the best gift we can give to ourselves is to forgive.
When I think of healing, I think of other words that bring about images in my mind. I think of nature: oceans, woods, bush, rocks, plants and creatures. Trees. I think of walking on sand, walking on grass. Waking up in the morning and feeling relaxed, looking at flowers outside the window. Spaces that are safe and soft. I think of places and people, words and pictures, simple pleasures of life. I think of beauty and forgiveness. That is healing for me.
