The Healing Power of Art

My second marriage ended long before I decided to get a divorce.

When Ori was one year old, we moved to Tel Aviv. I found a job at the Ministry of Justice. We opened a small business on the Tel Aviv boardwalk serving popular foods like falafel, schnitzel, salads and, for Shabbat, couscous with steak made to order. It was fresh and tasty, and people loved it. There were plenty of tourists coming from the US and France since we offered kosher food. Locals came because of the location: right between the beach and the buses.

My husband had a business partner who didn’t give me good vibes. Something about him didn’t feel right. We had plenty of customers but never enough money. We were always struggling with rent, taxes, and VAT payments. Very soon I started suspecting him of stealing cash. So, I installed cameras above the counter. One day my daughter and I caught him putting money from the cashier register straight into his pocket.

Unfortunately, it was too late to save the business. For months, I had been saying that he was stealing business money but there was always an excuse or blame (apparently, I didn’t like him, which means I would have accused him of being dishonest).

There were more arguments at home. First about business, then about pretty much everything else. Everything was my fault: buying the business was my fault, taking loans to survive and pay the rent for the apartment was my fault, renting this particular apartment (three bedrooms for four people) was my fault. Anything I did was wrong, and life became unbearable. Sarcasm, blame, criticism, and judgment became the only way of communication.

After the divorce, when the tension of the entire process was gone, I started noticing how bad I was feeling about myself. At the same time, I had no energy left to look after myself. Unattractive, not deserving, constantly struggling, anxious and in distress – that is how I felt. Hope left my heart, and I didn’t believe it would ever come back.

Years before that, Gabi and I were invited to a birthday party of her classmate from the Perelman Jewish Day School in Pennsylvania. It was in a Moroccan restaurant.  Part of the event was a belly-dance lesson. I loved it so much. From that day, my dream was to learn belly dance.

Two months after the divorce, I decided had enough of feeling frustrated, negative, always worried, and always struggling. I checked all the bellydance lessons available in the city and started going to trial lessons.

I LOVED IT. Each time I heard the first sounds, started moving my hips and my hands made wavy movements I would feel alive again, happy again and hope would come back into my heart, even just for those 45 minutes.

Our souls need art, whether it’s playing an instrument, dancing, painting, making jewelry or macrame, or any other forms of art that bring us pleasure and makes us feel alive and hopeful. All these artistic projects are reconnecting us with our soul.

During a traumatic event, part of our soul disconnects from us, or we disconnect from our soul. The bigger the trauma, the bigger the part of our soul that disconnects from us. As a result of this disconnection, we start feeling blue and hopeless. This is why we keep dwelling on negative events, even the smallest ones. As it goes on, we start losing energy, get depressed, and health problems start emerging – mental health sicknesses, eating disorders and destructive behaviors.

Today was another day I enjoyed Bellydance with my favorite teacher Aviva.

“The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk is an extensive study on how traumatic events effect our body and our emotional and psychological states.