Student Leslie Whitcomb Reflects on Expressive Arts Therapy

In life sometimes I get so caught up in all the mundane and necessary things that I forget why I started to do something. Or why I am walking down a specific path. In learning to counsel with people and to listen to them I became so caught up in the information and the process of learning that I forgot why I started to go down this road.

So I sat down to think of why I wanted to go down this path and began a series of poems and journal entries that brought me to the answer. In the way drawing for some people allows them a way to show what they feel or see, I try to use words to create a picture of what I am trying to say or remember.

This poem is a reflection on how I have felt over the years about myself in reference to my trauma and my relationship with people. Generational violence is a horrible thing. Pain that was brought into this world in someone else’s life is played out in the lives of innocents. And I want to help end that cycle. And so I wrote this poem to remind me why I am here.

There are rivers that flow
Each generation steps into the waters of their family
Waters of the generations flow over and around each person
For some the waters flow sparkling past
Filled with love and contentment
For some the water flows inky black
Filled with pain and sorrow
Passed from one generation to another
Ripping through them till the waters run dark from them as well
But I will stand strong
Casting stones to either side
Building a dam to hold back the dark water
Standing firm in the center as the blackness assails me
Filtering as best I can the water as it passes
So my children and grandchildren step into cleaner water
Water filled with love and laughter
I will stand as a bulwark
And I will not yield