Learn to Reconnect Yourself Through Art

The Portsmouth Public Library finishes the spring session of our Peace of Mind series with workshops on Art Therapy and Compassionate Caregiving, according to a press statement.

Peace of Mind events are designed to help you prepare for and work through life’s challenges. This series is free and open to the public!

Monday April 27 | 6:30 PM

Learn how to cultivate happiness, increase resilience and positivity in times of stress, and re-discover aspects of self through this creative empowerment workshop. Through the use of a variety of arts you will explore ways to revive and improve self-care/self-love, increase wellbeing, and form connections with self and others.

The workshop will begin with an introduction to art and expressive therapy; a brief psycho education on neurology and how our brains respond to stress and ways to decrease stress and increase self-care through a variety of proven approaches. Following the education lecture, small and large groups will establish a connection with others through art creation, movement, writing, verbal and non –verbal processing. The workshop will end with a reflection and closure process. All participants will depart with a self-made creation.

Instructor Julie Ligon is an art therapist and mental health counselor clinician who will complete her Masters degree from Lesley University in May 2015. She has a background in behavioral science and fine art from the Maine College of art in Portland Maine. She has experience working with a variety of art mediums such as sculpture, painting, drawing, mix-media, and photography. She is native to the area, born and raised in New Hampshire and is a world traveler. She has been to Nepal twice and lived in India for three months working with children in a small Tamil village school and in a HIV children’s home teaching the therapeutic arts. She is an experienced meditator, having participated in mindfulness since childhood. She teaches resiliency, acceptance commitment therapy, positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, neurology, self-care, mindfulness, and a theory she is currently developing at Harvard’s McLean Southeast adult psychiatric hospital.

Please visit the reference desk or call 766 1720 to register for this workshop.

Courage for Caregivers

Monday May 4 | 6:30 PM

How do we meet the challenges of family caregiving with resiliency, compassion and joy? What do we do with the stress, worry and sadness that deplete our energy and enthusiasm?

Instructor Liz Korabek-Emerson will show you how to be resilient by renewing and nourishing yourself with the simple and easy tools of mindfulness and compassionate self-care. This workshop will help you increase your stamina when providing day-to-day care, and to enjoy the time you have with family.

Liz Korabek-Emerson is a teacher, performer, director and practicing Buddhist. She has studied transformational learning and workshop development with Ken Nelson, a senior trainer at the Kripalu Center. She is currently pursuing a year-long mindfulness teacher training with Vipassana teachers Mark Coleman and Martin Aylward, and is a long time meditator and member of the Brunswick Shambhala Meditation Center. She also holds a Master’s degree in theater. She teaches students in theater, performance, mindfulness and skillful compassion.

Please visit the reference desk or call 766 1720 to register for this workshop.