Mom-Sanity Saver: How Creativity Helps You Ditch Perfectionism

Ever feel like the chaos of motherhood is slowly driving you mad? Before you dive into another doom-scrolling session, we’ve got something better. In today’s episode, we’re talking about how expressive arts therapy can be your secret weapon against the pressure to be the "perfect" mom.

Join us as we chat with Kelsey, a mom who discovered that something as simple as cutting up old magazines could be a lifeline. We’re digging into how creativity—not perfection—can help you process those messy emotions, connect with your kids on a deeper level, and find a little sanity in the middle of the madness.

Kelsey shares how collage and other creative outlets became her go-to tools for coping with the stresses of modern motherhood. And the best part? You don’t need to be an artist or have hours of free time to make this work. We’ll give you practical tips for getting started—whether it’s setting up a simple art corner at home or involving your kids in a quick creative project.

So, if you’re ready to ditch the perfectionism and find a better way to navigate the chaos, this episode is for you. Tune in and discover how a little creativity can go a long way in helping you keep it together.

Chapters

• 0:01 Expressive Arts Therapy
• 18:12 Exploring Creativity and Expression at Home

Transcript

Kayla Huszar: 0:01

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Chill Like a Mother podcast. We are here today talking with Kelsey, someone who I spent a lot of time with in the middle of the pandemic training for our second level certificate of expressive arts therapy. She also is a mom and today we are going to be talking about all of the day-to-day ways and why we were drawn to expressive arts therapy and why it has created. I call it magic, but I'm going to invite Kelsey to say whatever she needs to say about expressive arts therapy, but kind of like breaking down some of the stigma and the ways that we can use it in our daily lives for whatever intention you might have. So, Kelsey, can you please tell our audience a little bit about yourself and let's like jump right in. Tell me, like your favorite, what is your favorite art medium.

Kelsey Beier: 1:00

Oh, good question. I love working with kind of collage pieces. So I always go to collage, whether I'm creating something myself or working with students or clients or groups of people working with my kids. I just find it very accessible and therapeutic that searching and uh, searching, finding, pulling apart images, working with kind of mixed media um, I also love the fiber arts are kind of coming up a close second, um, yeah, so I would say those are my, my two favorite art mediums currently, but always changing awesome.

Kayla Huszar: 1:44

I also love collage. I am drawn like, I am drawn to it. I think if I, if I was like stranded on an island, I would like I would need like a collage kit or I would make one, yeah, from the island's materials. It would just be like, um, that would be my, that would be my go-to, for sure yeah, yeah, for sure, there's lots to be said, even just through that medium.

Kelsey Beier: 2:11

I feel like yeah and how.

Kayla Huszar: 2:16

How do you do it? Because I think everyone's creative practice can look differently, and so tell, tell me all about like your creative practice and why, why you use it and what feelings tend to um draw you in, you know, to wanting to express it.

Kelsey Beier: 2:36

For sure. Um, I feel like Rick, like regardless of the capacity I'm working in, uh, as I mentioned briefly. So I I am a, a mother, but I am also a teacher. I work with students, I have two children of my own.

Kelsey Beier: 2:52

I am currently working with adults and the work I'm doing which I'm sure I will touch on more later but regardless of the demographic or the clientele, I'm working with collage and, and that form of art in particular is so accessible to everyone it really draws upon whoever I'm working with, our inner resources and just the kind of inspiration that each of us has, which may be different from one person to another. So I love using that as an art form, almost as a guide, to allow my students or clients or children to decide and have choice in what materials they want to bring into that work, or what do they find meaningful that they may want to explore with, rather than designate certain materials right from the get-go. So I just love the choice it provides and I love how, if you are working in any kind of group setting, each outcome is vastly different. So you would never have two finished pieces that look the same or even have the same theme or same meaning they're very unique to whoever the creator was.

Kayla Huszar: 4:19

What do you find the collage process gives you when, when you're doing it for you?

Kelsey Beier: 4:29

yeah, so a lot of the work I do is centered around themes of grief and loss, and that comes from experiences in my own life.

Kelsey Beier: 4:38

Um, I furthermore now in my training as an art therapist and currently doing a master's in art therapy, I'm recognizing that I have an existentialist, theoretical approach. Collage and, as I mentioned, the ripping and tearing of paper to create something new, is almost that building hope or building something new out of what once was. So in an existential eye, I see that as taking a situation, whether it's positive or negative, and doing something with that energy, creating something with that. And I know I'll quote Sean McNiff, who's an amazing expressive arts therapist and kind of the grandfather of the field says that art heals by taking the pain and doing something with it. I think I butchered that a little bit, but yeah, I feel like that almost is a metaphor for collage work in mixed media. It's almost that healing journey, whether personally or in a group, and the process itself of that searching, finding, ripping, tearing, cutting all of that process in creating a product in the end yeah, something magical, as you said, kayla, happens throughout that. It happens.

Kelsey Beier: 6:19

It does.

Kayla Huszar: 6:20

Something magical happens and I actually have this really fond memory of when we were doing the level two training and we all had to lead in an exercise, and I remember the one that you did and I actually can't even remember what the prompt was, but I remember towards the end of the session that you were teaching, you had asked us, I think, that if the art that we made was to be like an album cover, what the album would be called and then what the tracks would be called. And I was actually going through. I have, like I call it, my expressive arts like Bible. It's like all of my level one, all of my level two.

Kayla Huszar: 7:05

Any kind of learning that I've done in the expressive arts is all in this one art journal and I was flipping through it the other day for some inspiration for social media and I stumbled across my like I don't have the art still, it must have been maybe like an installation or something that we've done.

Kayla Huszar: 7:22

I don't remember it being something physical or like visual art, I mean, and all I have is like the album cover name and then like 12 tracks, and it immediately took me back to that moment and I could actually feel like how I felt in that moment and the magic and the meaning and also a lot of the like, hurt and stress that I was going through at that time. I was like immediately transported there and I could feel this like connection to you through that experience. And I have written down things from other therapy experiences or other workshops or you know those, the psychoeducational kind. I have written them down and when I go back in my notes I don't have that feeling, I don't have that same connectivity to the content as I do when I have been on the receiving end or I have walked someone through something.

Kelsey Beier: 8:31

Wow, thanks for reminding me of that, kayla I totally forgot about ever kind of suggesting that. Now I penciled it again for me.

Kelsey Beier: 8:41

I was like, oh yeah, look at this amazing idea I had once because I haven't done it with a group since that nurse, I'm suggesting it but it actually reminded me of a recent project I did for one of my courses. We were asked to kind of create a life map and we could bring in visual art if we wanted to. So it was. It was a bit of a paper, but you could be creative with it and, of course, being the person that I am and wanting to use creativity in my life however I can, I decided that I would do a little bit of writing but also create a visual, and what I thought of right away was music. I'm very much a lover of music, which is probably why I had that idea and even thinking about collage and piecing things together I kind of visualize sound as well and bringing in some of those other arts as the expressive arts does. So this I created a soundtrack for my life. So it was a life map and it's supposed to mark kind of transitional or critical periods throughout your life. But I tied that to music and I thought, okay, which songs that are already existing, which songs would I attribute to the different kind of critical moments of my life. And then my visual art piece was actually I took a record like a vinyl and I created a visual symbol or image that went along with each song, depending on what I chose, and it kind of goes in a spiral and then concludes in the middle, is like the final image and that that alone I know I had to do it as a school project, but I was like this is something I would recommend everyone do.

Kelsey Beier: 10:33

Perhaps not to the extent that I did, but even just thinking about, like if you were to designate one song as the opening song of your life, like if you were to think of, yeah, like what would be your opening song and I think mine was Walk of Life by the Dire Straits Just because I, you know, it kind of has that symbolism in the lyrics and the walk of life has that symbolism in the lyrics and the walk of life like I'm alive now. But also it takes me back to kind of my childhood and hearing my, my dad really like the dire straits. So it brings me back to that era and hearing that being played, perhaps around the house and or at weddings, going to weddings as a child, yeah, so that was the song that marked the beginning of my life. But, yeah, that was a therapeutic experience in its own and not really knowing the power that would have within the process.

Kayla Huszar: 11:37

Yeah, Mm-hmm within the process. Yeah, I'm curious how, or if at all, your creative practice helps you supports you, guides you in motherhood?

Kelsey Beier: 11:57

I think it does for sure. I know it does actually not. I think it does. The tricky part, as anyone who's listening, who is a mother, knows, is finding the time and space for that. So I've had to be very mindful of finding ways to include it in my daily life and with my kids and try to model that with them. Include it in my daily life and with my kids and try to model that with them, so that could include kind of art making around the table or drawing.

Kelsey Beier: 12:28

An example that I kind of think of. At the same time, when I was doing my training with you, I remember we had a cat at the time like a family pet, and she suddenly became sick and ended up passing away right around that time and she had to be put down at the vet and my kids would have been fairly young. My son, who's eight now, probably would have been I don't know how many years ago was that, I think that was three, yeah, three years ago I was gonna say like five ish, and so my daughter would have been like two and a half or something like that.

Kelsey Beier: 13:11

But it was again kind of that teaching moment with my kids and trying to teach them about grief and how this cat family member that we had was no longer with us, which my five-year-old could kind of grasp, but the two-and-a-half-year-old it was you know, that idea that there's something here, like physically, and now like this cat is not coming back.

Kelsey Beier: 13:42

Cat is not coming back. So my five-year-old, on his own, found a photograph of our cat and took a marker and just like crotch, he was trying to explain to his little sister that our cat was no longer with us. So he like drew a circle and then like a line through it and then went to her and said kitty bye-, like kitty not here. And so I found that interesting that he kind of turned to a visual to help explain that experience. And then together we kind of talked about what had happened and we ended up creating again a collage that was a tribute piece to the cat and the kitty and it included her photograph. And then I kind of drew out the cat dish like her food dish, and then we even put some actual cat food on it, like glued it on. So we made this family collage together and it was almost like a mourning ritual of like. Now we have this piece that it can symbolize what has happened. But also the process of making it together was kind of that mourning experience that we were able to have together as a family. So of course I don't do those things every day, but it's kind of like thinking about how can you pull upon um kind of the creative sources that we have access to to help in times of stress or challenge, or um, yeah, like I know, coloring or drawing can be really calming at any time.

Kelsey Beier: 15:24

So if, if my kids are feeling a bit anxious or stressed, I'll often suggest that we just kind of gather around the table and color or draw together. And if they're a bit resistant to do that, then I might model that by saying like, oh, mom's had a really tough day. Like I'm gonna just sit here and do some coloring or drawing, or even sitting on the couch and trying to sketch in a notepad, and then they're curious what I'm doing. Yeah, um, and trying to model that so that they kind of take their attention away from if they're watching something or playing video games or you know. Yeah, so just those little moments, often in nature too, like outside, just noticing what's around, collecting materials, materials, um, I love giving kind of inanimate objects um characteristics. So talking about, you know, if we find a rock or a pine cone, like oh, what do you think this could look like, or what could we paint it as or starting to kind of bring those things more to life or notice them a bit more.

Kayla Huszar: 16:46

Yeah, yeah yeah, that's amazing. I do the same thing. I'll be like journaling or painting, or I'm often sitting at the kitchen table. It's like pretty normal for my kids to walk into any room and I'm doing something creative or wild or wacky and um, and they'll just like I cannot tell you how many notebooks I have of like art journals or actual written journals, um, even like my daily planner with like their scribbles, or they'll like leave me little notes on a page, or they'll like find a Pokemon sticker and like put it, you know, in like one of my things, or um, for a while, our kitchen table just was like consumed with um, the coloring pages.

Kayla Huszar: 17:36

My, my kids were really into this Pokemon coloring book that we got them, and then my oldest wanted to like cut them out and put them in a folder. It was like a, it was a whole process and it's it's funny for those who've been longtime listeners, they you've probably heard me say this, but for any of you who are new or finding me because of this particular conversation with Kelsey, um, three out of the four of us are neurodivergent, and so for me, and my oldest in particular, if I can't see it, it doesn't exist, and so it was funny because it just consumed our table In one moment in a motherhood fury I just put it all away.

Kayla Huszar: 18:12

I was like I cannot take this mess anymore. There's literally hundreds of coloring pages taking up half of the table and I put it away. And it's so funny in two weeks he hasn't touched it because it's a way, and so it's like for me, part of making creativity and expression part of our lives is that it's out and it's often messy and there is like unfinished projects, like here and there. My kids are still decorating these like sun catcher, like Easter things that I got them at the dollar store, just like layers and layers and layers of paint. There's still all over the table and like this is being recorded in April. We're not releasing it till September. There's some context there, um, but it's. It's this view in my family anyway. That expression is encouraged. It brings us into the present moment. We can find meaning from it.

Kayla Huszar: 19:13

I have been asking my kids to show me what their feelings look like for their whole lives. I think they're probably better at drawing them than they are explaining them. Or like ripping stuff up. You know my son, he'll be mad and he'll be like I just want to rip this up. I'll be like well, it's like a piece of paper, like go for it. You know like that's, that's anger, that's a healthy expression of anger coming out of your body. Like, follow that urge Right.

Kayla Huszar: 19:38

And this is something that I teach my clients all the time is to follow those urges. You know, they'll, like they'll have a piece of paper. We'll have like done the process right. We'll, like I'll lead them through whatever creative process is calling to us that day and and they'll get to the end and I'll say something like okay, so what's the urge now that you have with this? And some of them will be like I want to rip it up. I don't want to look at it or, um, I want to put it on my fridge or whatever it is. And I'm like, well, follow, like, follow that urge, be like like you want me to rip it up, but I just spent all this time making it. I was like, yeah, but we're not putting this in a museum, like this is not. If you want to recreate it and do the artist thing, you go for it. But like in this moment, you want to rip it up. So let's rip it up.

Kelsey Beier: 20:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and just focusing on it is, as you said, like it's the process, and so I think making it more accessible, making it more like overt, that creativity lives in all of us in some way. As long as we have kind of materials or a little bit of help kind of close by, I think we can find it a little easier. And I often think back to my childhood and how that creativity was kind of fostered through my parents and specifically my dad, who was an artist and, as you mentioned, our kitchen table was always like that is where creation happened in whatever form it looked like. School projects were done at that table, my dad would be working on different art pieces or contracts or he worked at the museum so sketching up kind of exhibits that were coming.

Kelsey Beier: 21:29

And yeah, it was very seldom that that table was actually used for dining at. Even though it was the dining table, it was more the creating table. You know, it was our regular kind of scene in the house. So I'm trying and I'm hoping to model that for my own kids and I think it's really challenging at this time in our world and the way that you know, we're gearing more towards technology and centering around perhaps other options that are not necessarily paper, pen and creating.

Kelsey Beier: 22:15

I know creative things can be done with technology as well, but, yeah, just making sure those materials and they can be very simple, like you don't need to go out and get yourself a whole set of paints but just have something that can be used, kind of tactile, tactile-y, if that's a word, it is now. It is now, yeah, because that process also comes with the touching and feeling and ripping, as you mentioned, like that's part of it.

Kayla Huszar: 22:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the the the thing that I find the most hard to describe and also the most profound part of any kind of creative expression. It doesn't have to be therapeutic. Some of the art expressions that I do or show my kids aren't therapeutic in nature. They're just like an expression of self on a piece of paper or a cardboard box or whatever.

Kayla Huszar: 23:26

The hardest thing to explain, I think, is what it gives you. Right, it's hard for people to understand or believe, except for the people who have experienced that profound experience from creativity. That it gives me is like patience and presence and a container to hold the hard and the easy, and the good and the bad, and the stress and the joy of life. And if I don't make time for it and if I don't make time for it around how, even as a music therapist, she couldn't identify that she wasn't okay, even though she hadn't turned the radio on in her car for 18 months. And then suddenly she turned the radio on and was like it was. She describes it as like waking up. It was like holy, like this resource that I have used for so many years in my life that I I share so openly with other people. I didn't really even notice the absence of it because I wasn't okay.

Kelsey Beier: 25:04

Yeah, yeah, and then I think you asked me that question earlier. I don't think I answered it, but what, yeah, what it gives me, I think, kind of this creative lifestyle or working through the expressive arts, which could also just mean creating um. But yeah, I think it does give me a cathartic release of whatever I'm needing at that time and sometimes that is kind of that, that moment to to stop and breathe a little bit, then the moment of peace. But then other times, especially when you're working through challenges in your life, it gives me that opportunity to heal or to see my emotions in a visual way that I may have not been able to understand through language and there's much science behind that.

Kelsey Beier: 26:00

But kind of the short version is that especially when trauma is experienced in our brain, it happens in kind of the implicit or the, the midbrain, where we can't always give language to those experiences right away. But when we're asked to draw something that happened, we can kind of pull on that information a little more easier and then hopefully kind of move it forward into that prefrontal cortex and start to give language to it, start to understand um. So it's, it's almost that being able to see an experience outwardly that maybe you didn't even know existed. Um, so, similar to Jennifer, there's times that I'm like I'm doing pretty good, I'm doing okay, and then I'll create something or you know, or hear a song or play music, and then I'll I'll be a bit of a mess and be like, oh wait a sec.

Kayla Huszar: 27:03

I think there's something I think there was something there, but also joy.

Kelsey Beier: 27:08

Right happiness can be found in those moments too, and you're like oh wow, like this actually feels really great and I I wouldn't have known that I felt this way about this certain experience if I didn't have this kind of creative compass to guide me in that way.

Kayla Huszar: 27:30

Yes, yeah.

Kelsey Beier: 27:31

Yes.

Kayla Huszar: 27:32

Oh, so much richness from this conversation. I'm already pulling like so much inspiration of like future expressive arts things that I want to explore. The like the life, the life map that you mentioned, and the like what would your your opening song be? Or what are the songs that you mentioned and the like what would your your opening song be? Or what are the songs that you could choose for like pivotal or critical moments in your life? My, my like brain just went like, ooh, creative compass. What might that look like? What direction would I be going Like? Just like so much ideas and and inspiration in that.

Kayla Huszar: 28:13

So, as a listener, I encourage you, like right now or at your next possible opportunity, to get out your journal, or even like a post-it note. I have done like expressive arts in my car while my kids are at kickboxing. Like on an envelope, um, like you can do this anywhere with anything, with the intention that you want to explore something about yourself or your experience, and you can. You can do it, um, with a, with a topic in mind or not at all, and it's such. We overcomplicate the process. Humans, like we do. We overcomplicate the process. I have to have the right thing. I can't do it until I sit down or I have 25 minutes and I won't be interrupted and I have to have all my favorite stuff in front of me. When I think the best parts of expressive arts therapy is it's spontaneity, is it's not planned. It can be both. It can absolutely be highly planned and it can also just be because you feel like it, or because you're at the beach and you also feel like making a sandcastle because your children are for sure.

Kelsey Beier: 29:29

Yes, yeah, I feel inspired by this too, kayla, and I'm like, oh, maybe I need to create something.

Kayla Huszar: 29:36

An opposite conversation tonight I'm going to explore what this creative compass would look like that's I'm gonna. I'm gonna explore that. Where would I be holding it? Like, where do I imagine myself holding it? Where is it guiding me? What's behind me? It like yeah, there's all kinds.

Kelsey Beier: 29:55

There's all kinds of things yeah, or I'm wondering if it is like an uh, is it an inner compass, is it inside you? Or or perhaps it is like a physical object that you're holding? I don't know. I feel like mine might be internal somewhere, but again, where in my body?

Kayla Huszar: 30:16

is that? Yeah. Where is it living? Yeah, yeah.

Kelsey Beier: 30:21

So much, and that came out.

Kayla Huszar: 30:23

I don't know, I would not want to say that. Oh, kelsey, it's been so great to connect with you in this way. I so appreciate all of your wisdom and everything that you bring to the expressive arts community and through your, your art therapy degree and your work with students and adults and the, the world is a better place. The people who you have touched with expressive arts therapy. They are different because of it.

Kelsey Beier: 30:53

Oh, my goodness, that's very kind. Thank you so much, kaylin, for the work that you're doing as well. It's an honor, thank you.

Kayla Huszar: 31:01

Thank you. We will see you again next week on the channel.