healer's art

I mentioned a few posts ago that I'm currently taking an elective class called Healer's Art, and I don't know if I like it or not. The reason why I'm on the fence is because of the touchy-feelingness of the class. It's a "course" that only meets five times over the next two months, there are no reading assignments, and they gave every student in the course a free book written by the woman who started the course many years ago. I have yet to look at the book, but I get the feeling it doesn't fit my type of reading; I'm just not into inspirational, life-affirming non-fiction. And I kinda wonder what type of person is.... the big Mitch Album fan or religious Oprah-watching type, I suspect.

The first time the class met was last week, and it's a HUGE class. I think a lot of first-years signed up not knowing what to expect and feeling curious about a course that has no expectations of you other than asking that you show up. We sat in a circle of chairs, did some deep breathing, some calming exercises.... and then the course director asked us to grab a pack of crayons and a sheet of construction paper from the pile in the middle of the room.

He asked us to draw things that we feel have gotten "out of balance" in our lives since medical school started, i.e. things that we missed or had to push aside to deal with our more immediate education. People drew mountains and beaches to represent travel, other people drew pictures of their family, and one guy drew this REALLY BIG, elaborate four-poster bed with luxurious-looking sheets that took up the entire size of his sheet of paper. This made me laugh, even though I've been sleeping plenty in medical school because I'm an old lady who loves her sleep. But I can appreciate the humor in it.

Later we broke up into small groups of six or seven to talk about what we drew, and it felt like elementary show-and-tell all over again, except now we were sharing the most meaningful things we've given up in the last semester. It was actually really nice to get to know and talk with classmates that I hadn't exchanged more than a few sentences with prior to the class, but I felt pretty awkward telling near strangers about my family and friends and my personal life. It's probably something I'll get more used to as the course goes on, but right now I'm still on the fence about the class because it seems more like a therapy group than a learning experience. Or, I guess the course philosophy is that learning can come from introspection and sharing of stories, feelings, and mush you wouldn't even admit to your mother.

For the next two times we meet, the theme of the class will be "Sharing Grief and Honoring Loss." I'm anticipating lots of tearing up and stories about death and dying. I'll update about the class as the weeks go on.