The Creative Path: A Guided Group Experience in Art, Self-Compassion, and Renewal

Open the door and join us on the creative path… to renewal and and joy, as we move right on into summer!

The Creative Path: A Guided Group Experience in Art, Self-Compassion, and Renewal- an entry by Julie King Murphy

Helping others is a core value that shapes our callings—and for many of us in roles like counseling, teaching, coaching, healthcare, parenting, and community work, it’s more than a job. It’s a way of life. But it can also be exhausting. If you’ve ever felt like you’re pouring from an empty cup, you’re not alone—and this might be exactly the right moment to refill it.

This spring, my colleague Leigh Rainwater and I are thrilled to offer The Creative Path, a small-group experience designed for helping professionals and for those who help others as part of their personal lives, too. The program is open to anyone who wants to reconnect with creativity, self-compassion, and a sense of joy. We'll gather for four Tuesday evening sessions starting May 13 at the welcoming new ArtPlay-Studio space in Asheville’s Montford neighborhood.

Each session is a time to slow down, experiment with art (no experience necessary!), and engage with others who are also committed to living—and giving—with intention. You can choose to register for just one or two sessions, if that’s what works with your schedule, or join us for all four.

✨ The Essentials:

When:
Tuesdays, 4:30–6:30 p.m. — May 13, 20, 27, and June 3
Where:
ArtPlay-Studio, Montford area, Asheville
Cost:
$70 per session, or all four for $200 (includes all supplies!)
To register:
Follow this link or email me at Juliekingmurphy@gmail.com

Why Self-Compassion?

When I first encountered the term self-compassion, I was juggling a full-time job, raising young children, launching a business, leading small group retreats, and preparing to start graduate school in counseling and expressive arts therapy. Like so many helpers, I was good at being kind—to everyone but myself.

Practicing self-compassion changed my life. It gave me access to deeper energy, greater patience, and a fuller capacity to be present for others. Over the past 15 years, I’ve seen the same thing happen for my clients, my students—and honestly, I’ve had to re-learn it’s importance again and again myself. It’s not a one-time fix. It’s a practice.

What research (and experience) tells us is this: People who actively practice self-compassion are more resilient, forgiving, and motivated. They have better relationships, cope more effectively with stress, and show greater long-term well-being. And yes—self-compassion helps us help others better.
(For more, check out Dr. Kristin Neff’s work at self-compassion.org.)

Creativity as a Path to Healing and Connection

The good news? You don’t have to meditate for hours or read piles of books to practice self-compassion. Sometimes, all it takes is bringing together some art materials and an idea for a process to try, sitting down with a few other people (or even just yourself), letting go of judgment, and seeing what wants to emerge.

Art-making gives us permission to play. To explore. To make mistakes and grow from them. It’s a surprisingly powerful way to reconnect with ourselves and each other. Whether you're writing a poem, making a collage, painting with your fingers, or shaping clay—when approached with gentleness, creativity becomes a kind of medicine.

Each session of The Creative Path will include:

• Two guided art processes (think: journaling, collage, drawing, painting, clay sculpting…)

• Gentle body-based or mindfulness practices to ground us

• Time to share and connect, or simply reflect quietly, as you prefer

This isn’t therapy. It’s not about performance or technique. It’s about exploration, self-kindness, and discovering joy and meaning in the creative process. No artistic experience is required—just a willingness to be curious and kind to yourself.

A Little Backstory

Leigh and I have been supporting each other in our own creative self-care for the last couple of years—often meeting weekly with one or two others to make art and other times identifying what spaces and pockets of time we could find, even after the original ArtPlay-Studio location was destroyed by Hurricane Helene. That shared commitment—and the friendships that grew from it—helped us through tough times, and ultimately inspired the timing and theme of this particular program.

The new ArtPlay-Studio location is warm, light-filled, and often buzzing with creative community. It feels like the perfect place to host this next chapter—one grounded in creativity, compassion, and connection. As the studio's founder, Kristen Edge, often says: "Art is for everyone." We couldn’t agree more.

Ready to Join Us?

Whether you come for one session or all four, we’d love to welcome you to this space. Come as you are. Bring your curiosity. Leave perfectionism at the door.

To register or ask any questions, email me at Juliekingmurphy@gmail.com. Payment options include Venmo, PayPal, or Zelle—and if the timing doesn’t work but you’re interested in future offerings or individual sessions, please reach out. We’d love to stay connected.

Here’s to choosing creativity. Here’s to being our own friend.
We hope to see you soon on The Creative Path.

Growing larger than this

I was discussing spring equinox with a friend the other day. “I feel I am being asked to be in winter and spring all at once,” she mused. “I feel stretched to capacity.”

That’s exactly what this moment feels like, to me. Stretched to capacity. Attempting to bridge impossible extremes, trying to adjust to the darkest dark and the brightest light all at once, aware of every extreme inherent to humans.

And after the stretch—if we survive it without pushing ourselves past capacity—we are just a little larger than we were before. A little more limber, a little more flexible. That’s the idea, anyway. Carl Jung once observed: “The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.”

And Rilke weighs in (translated by Robert Bly): “This is how we grow: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.”

It can help us in these moments of being strapped, stretched, pulled, to recall this. To recall that, if we can resist the urge to split and polarize, if we can just hold the tension here, we will be a little larger than before. A little less tight. A little more open.

When the stretch begins to hurt, it’s very tempting to shut down. But just as we can hurt ourselves by forcing the stretch too open or too soon, we can also hurt ourselves by retreating and putting our existential muscles into a state of contraction. If we allow the intensity to contract us, we have been defeated by something smaller than we are.

But if we can withstand the intensity of the stretch without shutting down, we might find an increased capacity on the other side. We might become acquainted with parts of ourselves that are, surprisingly, equal to the task at hand. That’s being defeated by something larger than your current self. Then, larger, you may find yourself capable of building the world you wish to live in. Action binds anxiety—it is a very specific kind of self-care when you take action on your values.

That’s not to say that any of this is simple, or easy. It hurts to grow larger. It can be painful, overwhelming, exhausting. I have found it helpful to remind myself that both sides of this stretch are true. The world is a very scary, very painful, very cruel place. And the world is a joyous, impossibly creative hive of beauty. Any truth less than any of that is too small for my experience. To have any of it, I have to stretch large enough for all of it.

Here’s a guided meditation that I’ve found helpful when life is asking me to grow larger.

We can grow larger than this. But to grow larger, we have to accept that things truly are as they are. We can’t avoid them or inch past them. We have to include them, then transcend. Any previous version of ourselves is too small if it doesn’t include the present experience, even if the present experience is uncomfortable or unwanted.

Whatever comes next for you, may it be gentle and safe enough for the most wounded part of you and courageous and spectacular enough for the bravest part of you. We need each other—the largest, most flexible versions of ourselves that we can be.

---

If you find story, dreamwork, and community helpful in the endeavor of growing larger, you may be interested in these upcoming events. These events will be limited in size to create safety and intimacy, and will be in-person only. If you are not local to the Asheville area and would be interested in an online version of these experiences, reach out to me at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.

How Not To Spin Out When The News Is Very Bad

By Lissa Carter, LCMHCS

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

-Jalal al-Din Rumi

This morning I overheard a woman on a treadmill talking with a coach. While they spoke, he was increasing the pace on the machine until she was running at a slow jog. He kept increasing the speed, and I heard him say “Now imagine that there is a grinder behind you and if you slow down it will catch you and grind you up. You have to keep running to escape.” Immediately, the woman froze and was thrown from the machine.

Yup.

When I picture having to run forever at my top setting just to escape being ground to bits, I want to stop running too. However heroic my efforts, I will become exhausted eventually, and the grinder will get me. So why even try?

The woman seemed to be okay; she had picked herself up and was laughing. On the wall behind her I saw a motivational slogan: Train Harder Today Than You Did Yesterday.

Wait a minute, I thought. If I train harder today than I did yesterday—and then the same tomorrow, and the day after that, I will hit a wall. I will hit a wall of natural limit. And then what? I’m getting older; the day will come when no matter what I do, I will be unable to match—let alone top—my personal best. Should I just stop training then?

Whatever terrible thing just happened to you: We are not machines. We have natural limits. We cannot be resilient and strong and even-keeled all the time. Sometimes we have to stop, take a breath, and look behind us to remind ourselves how far we have come instead of pushing relentlessly forward. Yes, even when there is a lot of ground still to cover. Especially then.

As I’ve considered this today, I’ve thought about it as the first error. The first error would be to expect yourself to keep producing, to be a machine, to power through, no matter how bad the news or deep the grief.

The second error would be to stay down.

You deserve to go where you are going. You got on that treadmill for a reason. Maybe you want to live long enough to hold your great-grandchildren, maybe you want to feel more alive in your skin. Maybe you want to be able to push through to the rescue when it counts. You deserve to continue building the world you want to live in.

I’ve been reading a lot of old stories about floods since the hurricane. Most cultures have one. And all of them seem to say: we need one of every kind of thing to survive a flood. We need one of every kind of thing to recreate the world after a disaster.

Whatever tragedy has befallen you, this is old, old wisdom from the generations that have experienced it before: don’t flatten your response. Don’t get small and narrow. Amplify, widen, find support in other human beings and other non-human beings (animals, trees, the sky) and in prayer, song, meditation. You are not alone. Monoculture is weak and vulnerable; one disease or predator can wipe it out. Natural systems are most resilient when they are diverse. We are all in this together, and it is still happening. We can’t afford to keep running forever, and we can’t afford to stay down. We need diversity in our conversation, and we need diversity in our repertoires of action.

So: don’t force yourself to keep running. Pause, breathe, feel. You might think that if you really pay attention to how you are feeling, you will MOST DEFINITELY spin out. I promise you, counterintuitive as it sounds, that it isn’t true. If you take the time to truly listen to your feelings and thoughts, they are less likely to come out sideways. Our feelings and thoughts tell us what matters to us. Listen. Let your feelings and thoughts inform you of what matters to you.

And then: find something that matters to you and do it. Action binds despair, and despair is very, very, bad for you.

Carl Jung wrote: We become enlightened not by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.

What I take from this is: I can’t afford to turn away. I must look, clearly and carefully, at whatever the catastrophe is. This is how bad it can get. All true and good actions begin by accurately tracking and accepting the reality we are facing.

When I make the darkness conscious, I allow myself to truly feel how cruel, divisive, unfeeling, and uncaring we humans can be. I allow myself to take in what my own laziness or despair or lack of accountability can lead to out in the world.

And now that it is conscious, I get to choose what I will do. How shall I build the world I wish to live in? How shall I work within myself to combat the tendencies that I see doing such harm out in the world?

Where do I still shelter, in myself, those tendencies that I see playing across the world stage? How can I transform them? Where do I see those tendencies hurting people and places that I care about? How can I transform that?

When we lean into the third thing—not relief that all is well, not despair that all is lost, but that more nuanced and grounded place where we have agency—we regain our power.

The key principles of psychological first aid are:

SAFETY. If the treadmill is too fast, get off the treadmill. Who or what is safe? Lean into that.

COMFORT: Drink some water. Eat some food. Find someone you love to hug.

EFFICACY: Find something to do that reminds you of your own power and ability. Write a letter to a friend or a newspaper. Mulch the garden. Bake something delicious.

CONNECTION: You’re not alone. Is there a friend, an ancestor, a place you can connect with? A story or poem you can find describing another person going through this very thing you are now experiencing?

HOPE: Can you find evidence of other times something terrible has happened and life persevered? Is there a song or a poem or a story that allows you to imagine that this too shall pass, that something good may happen at some point in your future? If someone you love is feeling hopeless, can you be a listening ear for them?

So how do you keep from spinning out when the news is very bad?

If you have the bandwidth: Don’t look away. Remember that all helpful actions are based on accepting reality. Provide safety, comfort, efficacy, connection, and hope for those around you. Listen to your feelings and thoughts to discover what matters to you, and find the small actions you can take that prevent despair.

If you don’t have the bandwidth: Get off the treadmill. Accept safety, comfort, connection, and hope wherever you can find it. Do small things that remind you of your power.

Then, when you need to, switch. Remember that diversity of action, diversity of repertoire, diversity of conversation, is how we evolve. Let yourself pivot and change.

Reach out if you need me. I am wishing you well.

Our next depth storytelling event, a benefit for the ACLU, will be taking place December 17th. Come and be held by story—sometimes the back of an old story is broad enough to carry what is too heavy for us alone. Join us from anywhere in the world—a recording will be provided for registrants who can’t attend live.

Helene Aftermath: Real Work

Many of my friends and clients have been sharing that, as the recovery efforts here in Western North Carolina progress, they are feeling guilt, sadness, and a sense that their contributions are not “real”.

“I’m just grieving and crying, I haven’t been able to volunteer.”

“I’ve only been hosting families in my properties, I haven’t been able to get on the ground and help.”

“I’m only able to volunteer one shift a week.”

“I keep donating money but that’s all I’m doing.”

“I’m only now getting my head around the losses and realizing how I can contribute.”

“I’m only contributing as a parent/a therapist/a barista/a lawyer/a cook/a teacher…other people are doing the REAL work.”

We all know, cognitively, that there are people suffering in the world. But when the reality of it is so starkly visible, when we can SEE the contrast between the relative ease of our own lives and the struggles of others, something has to change in us to make sense of it.

One obvious danger is that we might, to relieve the cognitive dissonance, other the people we see hurting to make ourselves more comfortable with their pain. This might sound like inner dialogue along the lines of that would never happen to me because I am in the right political party/ make the right choices about how I spend my money or time/ don’t treat other people the way they do. In a sense, our brains are wired to form in-groups and out-groups, so we have to be extremely mindful of our own values and, when we notice this happening, gently name it as othering and remind ourselves how we want to show up instead.

The terrible, uncomfortable truth is that no one is immune to disaster, no matter how loving we are, or how carefully we prepare, or how much we meditate or pray. When our brains try to make others wrong to alleviate the pain of this knowledge, it’s important to notice this and to lean into compassion. This disaster has shown us how very interconnected we all are, how deeply we all rely upon each other. The wellbeing of others IS your wellbeing.

Another, more subtle danger is that we begin to other ourselves. That’s what I’m noticing in these “real work” conversations. There is a difference between a genuine desire to learn a new skill, to channel your energy toward helping by learning wilderness first aid or community organizing or carpentry— and the impulse to denigrate the power of your own actions or the relative value of your selfhood. When you diminish the importance of the actions you are taking, you remove yourself just as thoroughly from the interdependence conversation as if you had othered someone else.

We are all facing the reality that there are limits to our time, our energy, our courage—and no one of us could possibly do everything it will take to collectively heal. We can’t do this alone, we need each other. All of us.

It can be easy to quail in the face of what is needed and either work ourselves into burnout or decide not to act at all because who we are, what we have to offer, is not enough. We can’t afford either.

Wendell Berry has this to say about Real Work:

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Bertolt Brecht famously wrote: Grub before ethics. If you are hungry, tired, grief-stricken, that’s your work. Eat. Rest. Grieve.

If you are feeling a sense of guilt or an impulse to action, and your basic needs are met, take a moment to gently contact that feeling. Your real work is the work that is closest to the center of who you genuinely are and how you truly want to show up. Stay close to yourself. The thing impeding you is likely impeding others. Clear it away for yourself, clear it away for someone near you, and let’s go from there.

May we find our way forward together, singing around the obstacles.

Join us this Tuesday—here in Asheville or online from anywhere in the world—for an evening of story in benefit of BeLoved Asheville.

Helene Aftermath: The Other Side of Apocalypse

For When People Ask
I want a word that means
   okay and not okay,
     a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
   I want the word that says
     I feel it all, all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
   singing only one note at a time,
     more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
   and simultaneously
     two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
   that gives the impression
     of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands the swirl,
   how the churning of opposite feelings
     weaves through us like an insistent breeze,
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
   blesses us with paradox
     so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
   this world so ripe with joy.

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

There’s a paradox here that many of us are experiencing. Within the deep grief, within the losses and anger and exhaustion, there are glimmers of beauty that we are not ready to walk away from. Devastation and joy walk arm-in-arm through the streets of Marshall and Swannanoa.

As my executive function slowly returns, I’ve been able to pick up Michael Meade’s book Why The World Doesn’t End. It’s well-loved; nearly every page is scrawled over with notes I made when I used it to navigate the COVID pandemic. He writes that the term apocalyse comes from the Greek apokalyptein, meaning to uncover, disclose, or reveal.

Apocalypse doesn’t bring the disaster. It reveals that we are standing on a thin veil beneath which seethes at all times the possibility of loss, grief, calamity. It’s always there. During times of apocalypse, the veil tears and we experience that second layer of life directly.

In his book Meade suggests that there is yet a third layer beneath this terrifying reality of what the world can do to us. In this third layer we find all of the treasures we’ve been experiencing here in the mountains amid the loss and grief: the generosity, the authenticity, the beauty in ourselves and those around us.

We don’t have a choice, in times of apocalypse—the veil tears. But we can choose, continue to choose, not to repair the veil. We can continue to choose not to turn away from that terrible second layer of life, to journey through and with it to that third layer where we find the truth of what we are capable of. We don’t have to climb back up onto the thin crust of what we had called normalcy and agree to keep our lives that thin. We can choose to bear the second layer as a way of accessing the third.

In alchemy, they call this stage solve et coagula.

The hardest part is facing the solve, the dissolution. It’s so hard not to choose comfort when comfort is available—even if, cognitively, we know that we cannot be comfortable and transform at the same time. But in times of apocalypse, solve is chosen for us. Comfort is not on the table. We are all flung into that second layer whether we will or no.

And now, we can choose: do we climb back up to the thin crust of “the way things were before”? Or do we stay—do we hold the tension here, the old way dissolved, waiting to discern what it is that we want to crystallize around? Do we take this moment to discern what we wish to send away with the solvent, and what we wish to keep? Do we keep sinking through this experience until life rests in that third layer?

We have a moment of opportunity. The solve has happened. What shall we crystallize into?

Don’t hurry into what’s next. If we are patient, if we ask the right questions, we can take this moment to re-form ourselves into shapes that are closer to the ones we wanted to be all along.

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

-Mary Oliver

---

Our next depth storytelling event, a benefit for BeLoved Asheville, will be taking place October 29th. Come and be held by story—sometimes the back of an old story is broad enough to carry what is too heavy for us alone. Join us from anywhere in the world—a recording will be provided for registrants who can’t attend live.