Creativity and healing have always gone hand-in-hand for me. I started journaling as a teenager, and it was so cathartic, I have continued ever since. I majored in fine art in college - not because I thought I was exceptionally gifted, but because I needed to express myself and wanted to learn to create my own forms of beauty. I pursued a career in marketing and communications because I loved the constant creative challenges it offered. So while creativity has been an inspiration to me, it has also been a healing force in my life.

In the mid-1980s, I began reading about the mind-body connection. I was drawn to the holistic concept that each part of us - mind, body, emotions, spirit - affects the health of the whole. So if our thoughts are troubled, that will somehow show up in our bodies. And if our bodies are diseased, we’re probably holding onto unresolved emotions. I was particularly fascinated by the fact that our minds have the power - in conjunction with other things - to help our bodies heal; even from things like cancer. And sadly, vice versa. Negative thoughts have a power all their own.

In the mid-1990s, I worked for a non-profit women’s organization, where I witnessed the struggles brought on by domestic violence, rape, drug abuse and poverty. My job was to market the services of our organization, but I also felt compelled to directly help our clients in some way. I shared my belief about the healing nature of creativity with my boss, and was given the approval to design a program that would be offered to every client group we served.

No matter how dire their circumstances, the women responded to the chance to express something deep and true about their lives. I incorporated a guided meditation into each session, partly to help them open themselves to the process, but I also knew that might be the only relaxation they would get in their stress-filled lives.

From there, I branched out and began offering my program to people with physical illnesses. A heart hospital hired me as part of their rehab program, to encourage emotional expression and relaxation with every patient who had suffered a heart problem. I later worked with cancer and AIDS patients, to help them visualize - and thereby, strengthen - their mind-body connection. Additionally, I worked with children, convicts, social groups and even individuals looking to overcome obstacles. The results were always the same. People relaxed, gave themselves over to the act of creating, and discovered things about themselves they couldn't find in any other way.

Practicing what I had been teaching others, the letters I wrote in my (eventual) book, “Invisible Ink: The Journey Beyond Words,” were my way of creatively healing the profound grief I felt after my mom’s death. I learned so much about grief and had such a powerful experience writing about it, that I turned my process in the book into a 9-week online letter-writing program, “Invisible Ink: Writing Through Your Grief .”

My book + workshop draw on many years of personal experience, practice, self-study and teaching others, all rolled into something I offer up to support healing for those facing grief. There is an inner healer in each of us, and creativity is a gentle, but powerful way to tap into it.