Can Artmaking Help Us to Know What Resiliency Is?

—a step-by-step guide for exploring what resiliency is through art

Six months ago, I wrote a blog about a resiliency-themed community event led me to think about what resiliency is. 

I thought I knew it, but I couldn’t find the words.

Wondering brought more questions and kept expanding! The wondering process feels like a spiral, or a Möbius strip, no beginning and no ending. I invited this KNOW-IT-ALL specialist, ChatGPT, to present this visualization to you; here it is. Not too bad.

Wondering Process created by AI ChatGPT

I want to show you how art can help us define experiences and share them. 

How Would You Describe What Resiliency Is?

(We use resiliency as resilience in this blog.)

Don’t just answer it yet.

Notice what happens before the words arrive.

…… 

Perhaps a question, a word appears, another word, a memory comes up. Then we try to find accurate words to describe them. This quiet inner conversation involves thinking, formulating, tweaking, examining, and rethinking. 

It’s quiet on the outside, and yet so loud or active on the inside. 

We take our time, whether short or long, to form words, phrases, and sentences before sharing them with others. 

Thinking has its own rhythm. That invisible thinking part matters. Meaning takes shape gradually through wondering, remembering, changing your mind, and sometimes sitting comfortably without thinking. 

Much of that process happens in silence, hidden beneath the surface, long before language catches up.

What if we visualize this hidden process and share the part we want to share?

For the thinker, it’s active and dynamic. 

For the observer, who wants to engage but appears to have nothing to do with it. 

Meaning or complex experiences can get lost in words. 

When we try to define resiliency only through words, we may overlook some of its emotional, sensory, and embodied meanings.

Art, simply moving a marker on paper to show the memory or feelings in colors, lines, or shapes, can capture the hidden or overlooked process.

Art can preserve the wholeness and reserve room for understanding.

I have experienced its power, and I want to share it with more people.

Artmaking Holds What Words Can’t 

One of the beautiful things about art is that it doesn't ask us to explain ourselves first.

At the community event, instead of asking everyone to define resiliency out loud, we invited them to draw it.

The prompt was simple:

Take a deep breath. What does a resilient heart look like to you?

Participants filled paper hearts with colors, lines, symbols, patterns, textures, and sometimes words. Every heart looked different.

Some were loud and busy; some were quiet and spacy.

Some looked unfinished with room for a story.

Some teared up the people who made them.

Without the intention to say much, or have to articulate it, the space filled with meaningful conversations right away.

I still remember their words, smiles, tears, hugs, and their art. Not that I have a great memory, but because of the artmaking and genuine connection. It’s like, I know, my dear, I hear you, I see you, you don’t have to say much.

Words can describe an experience, but can have their limitations, such as when we are in trauma response, denial, embarrassment, resentment, hatred, or have language barriers.

Art (a simple shape or color) can speak when language reaches its limits; art carries what words cannot hold.

An Invitation to You to Make Art

If you’re curious now, I’d love for you to try the same art directive. 

Preparations:

Gather pens (max 8 colors) and paper, or a journal where your thoughts live

Read and Repeat: This isn't about making good, realistic, or impressive art. I am not getting graded on it. I do not need to be an artist to do this. 

Get yourself comfortable and set a timer. (Most people at our community event spent anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes with the artmaking. If you're someone who likes to think everything through, or for the first time trying artmaking for a therapeutic reason, setting a timer for 20 minutes can be surprisingly relaxing.)

Why 8 colored pens? 

Simple materials are often enough: a few colored pencils, markers, or highlighters, not overwhelming you with color choices but doing the job!

Sometimes simplicity leaves more room for curiosity and openness.

all my artmaking things on the go

Now you’re ready. Believe me, without starting something, you'll never feel really ready. 

Draw a heart on a piece of paper. Then ask yourself,

What does resiliency look like?

Or ask yourself,

If resiliency had a color, a texture, a rhythm, or a season, what would it be?

There is no right or wrong answer. Allow yourself to have no answers but feel drawn to a color or a line.

Fill the heart however you'd like, with colors, shapes, words, patterns, scribbles, or even leave it with some empty space.

As you create, gently notice your senses.

What textures do I imagine or feel?

What sounds do I hear?

What scents are nearby?

How does my body feel?

You might notice your breathing slowing down. Maybe your shoulders soften. Maybe your mind wanders and comes back again.

In therapy sessions, I usually encourage my clients to focus on the senses instead of the speaking or removing any thoughts.

Artmaking time!

The Conversation Continues through Reflection

Timer goes off; allow yourself to take a pause from the artmaking. Most likely you would feel it’s unfinished, or "could be better." Tell yourself you can come back to it the next day.  Don't rush into reflection.

Let it rest for a moment.

Then come back and look at it as though it belongs to someone you care about.

Ask yourself:

• What do I notice?

• What surprised me during the process?

• What was I feeling and thinking while I was creating it?

• What feels different now?

• Has my definition of resiliency changed?

The artwork isn't asking you to be correct.

It's simply inviting you to be curious.

What is your definition of resiliency now?

My Definition Exploring Process

Before this exercise, I believed resiliency was the ability to shift perspectives, to adapt, recover, and transform difficult experiences into opportunities for growth.

But now it feels incomplete.

art response to "what resiliency is"

I took time to think first, found myself drawn to the color purple and started to make the wiggly outline of a heart with an opening to symbolize the "broken" part that led to the outside of the heart. Next, I put patches on the opening to "mend" it. 

Then I started picking out different colors to represent each piece of memory, feeling, experience, conversation I had, and inspirations I got from others. 

Now, I think resiliency is more like water, like the gold colored lines. It’s so flexible and adapts according to the environment.

Water doesn't become less of itself when it freezes.

It doesn't disappear when it evaporates.

Sometimes it rushes forward with incredible force. Sometimes it sits quietly in a still lake, reflecting the sky. Sometimes it changes shape because life asks it to but never loses who it is.

There is no good or bad state of itself.

Water is strong and soft at the same time.

Maybe resiliency isn't about always bouncing “back” because where is the “back” in the first place?

Maybe it's about remaining open enough to become something new but still the same.

To stay curious when certainty feels tempting.

To resist seeing ourselves or others through an all-or-nothing lens.

To trust that growth can continue even when, from the outside, everything appears still.

Not every season is meant for blooming.

Some seasons are quietly growing roots.

So now my definition of resiliency is:

Resiliency is like water; it’s in all of us. It has no good or bad state, as long as we don’t freeze ourselves up forever, resiliency keeps us moving.

Contain what we opened up

I'm curious.

What was your definition of resiliency before reading this?

And after making your own resilient heart, has anything been different?

Any feelings came up?

If so, that's part of the process.

If this exercise brought up emotions that feel difficult to hold alone, consider reaching out to someone or a licensed art therapist or mental health professional. We are a group of art therapists, more than happy to support you.

For those living with generational trauma, navigating marginalization, or simply feeling tired of always having to "be resilient," I hope you know this:

You don't have to have everything figured out.

Neither does resiliency.

Neither does water.

We are all strong and soft at the same time.

Like a Möbius strip, it keeps unfolding; outside turns into inside, right turns into wrong, then turns into right again; it keeps us moving and staying curious.

And perhaps that's the most resilient thing we can do.