Self-Discovery, Awareness, and Transformation

— "Engaging in the creative process and making art and healing dolls can help you heal at the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels." Valeria Teles interviews Barb Kobe — the author of "The Healing Doll Way: A Guided Process Creating Art Dolls for Self-Discovery, Awareness, and Transformation." Barb Kobe is an award-winning author and artist, teacher, group facilitator, Certified Creativity Coach, and NLP Practitioner with a BA in Psychology. She specializes in innovative healing and transformation processes using art doll making, visual journaling, and emotional connection through expressive arts activities. She says that making art dolls, feeling dolls, and healing dolls has helped her express her emotions; trust her body, mind, and spirit; and develop an intuitive and empathetic connection with herself, nature, and other people. In 2018 she published her book The Healing Doll Way: A Guided Process Creating Art Dolls for Self-Discovery, Awareness, and Transformation. This book facilitates a process of making at least eight art dolls to help the reader/maker express emotions using metaphors of the natural world, symbols, and stories. These dolls invite viewers to reflect on their own emotions and feeling expressions, and perhaps create a dialog with others about how emotional art elicits an empathetic response. She says, "Making healing dolls will bring out feelings—often ones you think you've hidden or stuffed. When I show one of my dolls that symbolizes a deep healing process about anger, sadness, or fear, the person viewing it will often say 'It's too scary or ugly.' Often, I hear, 'Why would you make such an ugly doll?' Despite these first responses, most people are drawn to dolls made from the creator's deep emotional regions. They want to hear the stories and meanings of the dolls." It is her continuing quest to find innovative, artistic ways to create change in herself and others—from a state of pain, numbness, and disease, to one of well-being, continuous growth, and healing. Her ultimate goal is that the viewer and the maker entertain the possibility that making healing and transformative dolls can create positive change and help in dealing with pain, struggle, uncomfortable feelings, and or life challenges. This process can be an opportunity to learn more about yourself, grow in your wisdom, connect with your intuition, and transform an aspect of your life.  To learn more about Barb Kobe and her works please visit: https://www.barbkobe.com/     — This podcast is a quest for well-being, a quest for a meaningful life to the exploration of fundamental truths, enlightening ideas, insights on physical, mental, and spiritual health. The inspiration is Love. The aspiration is to awaken new ways of thinking that can lead us to a new way of being, being well.