Gioia-Dragonfly Altered Book A few years back, Gioia went on a butterfly binge. Butterflies showed up all the time in her artwork. It seemed to make sense that butterflies appeared—she was going through a lot of changes in her life, many of them positive, and butterflies are often associated with metamorphosis and transformation. After feeling that the butterfly symbol had …
Rebecca-Ripped letter in Altered Book At CWW, we often sing the virtues of getting into flow and, of course, we suggest that doing art is a natural way for people to experience it. Flow is that state we achieve when we are fully immersed and engaged in an activity that is intrinsically rewarding to us, when we are faced with …
Gioia-Serenity Prayer Gioia and Rebecca have a running joke about being diametrically opposed in both mood and also our general levels of optimism versus pessimism. Those of you who know them personally can probably easily identify that Gioia is the buoyant optimist and I am the darker pessimist. The classic example they use to illustrate this inherent difference comes from …
Gioia’s Friend Sarah at Her Farm with Annie and Tabitha Last weekend Gioia took her family to visit her old friend, Sarah, who farms on Maryland’s beautiful Eastern shore. They arrived in the early evening after a wonderful day of enjoying the water. Sarah and her husband fed us a succulent meal of fresh-picked grilled zucchini, onions, and squash from …
Joan Sadler–Leaves Falling “All the things that I was before I aren’t any more.” Leaves by Joan Sadler from Joan’s Stones We all had to stay straight and properin our former lives on the tree;now down from that cover,it’s fun to discover how interesting we can be! Rebecca’s 92 year-old Aunt Joan said this playfully when Rebecca asked her how …
Gioia–Sisters Gioia and Rebcca have adopted the title “Strengths Spotters,” from the work of one of their positive psychology heroes, Robert Biswas-Diener. Not only is it a part of their work and the work of most therapists, but they are both blessed to have this quality in their repertoire of strengths, and particularly in the set of strengths that engage …
Rebecca–Trying to Draw Ashes Sneaking Milk The other week, Gioia attended an informational lecture at her daughter’s elementary school. Many of the teachers had recently read Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, and were excited to share her work with their students’ parents. Mindset theory, based on decades of research, examines the effect beliefs, outlook, and attitude have on …
Gioia–Nesting Eggs March of 2014, Creative Wellbeing Workshops is celebrating the completion of co-founder Gioia Chilton’s Ph.D. studies at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Gioia was the first student accepted into Drexel’s new doctoral program in Creative Arts Therapies and now becomes the first student to defend her dissertation. The program director, Dr. Nancy Gerber, wrote about Gioia, “Ms. Chilton has …
Rebecca-Twins Not only is love wonderful to both give and receive, but it also improves physical health. That’s part of why we have been using Love-Kindness Meditation (LKM) in our workshops. We follow that up with response art, such as the drawing above done at a recent Smith Center workshop on Mandalas for Meditation, Peace and Healing. Although we had …
Rebecca–Thankful for Home In the face of all the end-of-the-year lists (Best of 2013, Worst of 2013, etc.), we’ve got a challenge for you! If you’ve gotten our newsletters before or you’ve attended one of our workshops, you know we are always touting the research from positive psychology on the benefits of gratitude. We thought we’d playfully up the ante …
Join our mailing list for monthly newsletter with resources
© 2020 Creative Wellbeing Workshops