What is Craft Therapy?

 First of all, what is it not?

Craft therapy is not a therapy in the traditional meaning of the word, like physiotherapy or something. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice and help. It is in no way meant to take the place of traditional Western medicine. Please talk to your primary care givers before you start any kind of new teachings or eating/exercise plans.

I do not claim to be a medical practitioner in any sense of the word. 

I am not a qualified therapist, although I am studying a variety of different psychological and holistic therapies at time of writing.

Most people are recovering from something!

So what is Craft Therapy then?

Having explained all the things it isn't, it's about time to explain what it actually is! Craft Therapy is more a new way of living that encourages us to slowly make small changes in how we think, the choices we make, how we perceive ourselves and our place in the world.

 It is a combination of practices that give I have learned that are giving me control over my own recovery processes, whatever it is we need to recover from. It is made up of a whole variety of techniques, that when gradually implemented together can really help everyone smile more, feel better in themselves and generally find life easier to manage. 

It is also a record of my own journey towards recovery from a variety of physical and mental illnesses and a couple of addictions.

The main components of Craft Therapy are;

1. Cross body crafting which is any kind of craft that uses both hands at the same time. We will be starting with Bead Art and then a variety of different stitch crafts.

2. It is a combination of applied modern psychology techniques that include cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness, neurolinguistic programming,  life coaching tips and other ways to hack your brain into happiness.

3. It is a whole new way of looking at nutrition, all the stuff the diet and fitness industries don't want us to know. It is a way of taking control of your own nutritional needs, rather than dieting. The very best news about this is that it is a process where we add things to our daily eating habits that provide our bodies with the actual nutrients and micro bacteria it needs for optimal functionality and it is in no way a process where we have to stop eating anything!

4. There is a re-definition of exercise that allows even people in pain and with limited mobility, to learn how to retain things like muscle strength. It shows how exercise can be fun and how you don't need a personal therapist, expensive gym subscription or tonnes of machinery to do it! Craft Therapy explains why exercise is so important and gives examples of how you can incorporate exercise into your day to day life.

5. It is about learning how to schedule and compartmentalise your time in ways that help you actually get things done, but with less pressure and in less time than before, leaving you with more time to have enjoy yourself!

6. It's about understanding the ins and outs of meditation and how to make it work for you. This is especially useful if you struggle to find meditation easy, as I do and will give examples of guided meditations that you can do to take the mystery out of meditation..

7. It is also about Gratitude Therapy. This is a process that teaches us how to "count our blessings". This is a process that is often preached, easy to say, but in times of illness, stress and unhappiness, actually very hard to do.

Craft Therapy is mostly about bringing together a lot of  components, from biology, applied psychology, health and nutrition and even a bit of philosophy together and making them accessible to everyone that is interested in discovering a happier, healthier lifestyle.  

 Disclaimer.

I really do need to point out at this stage though, that everything I talk about here and in my upcoming books, is my opinion, based on my own journey of enlightenment. I have done a lot of research about all of the various techniques and have been implementing them more and more in my day to day life. This blog and the accompanying books are about my journey. I am sharing because I am so excited about what I am discovering and really want to help people understand more about how much control we really do have over our own health and wellbeing.

Back to the topic at hand!

For many people, to get access to all of this information would require expensive or hard to get appointments with conventional therapists and nutritionists. If you are able to access those therapists, seriously keep doing so. Especially if you feel like you are getting some success with them. Also feel free to share your own journey and experience with the rest of the community.

We are all in this together!

I just personally think it is about time that people are given access to proper, easy to understand knowledge about how our bodies works, what nutrition is and why we need it and how to assist in speeding up their recovery journeys. Helping other into greater understanding both about how our bodies and brains actually work, and what we can do to get the to work better, together. So here I am going to start getting as much of that information out to as many people as I can possibly reach. Almost everyone is recovering from something these days, I want to share my journey on what is working for me, so that it can help as many other people as possible.

The books I am writing go much deeper into the science behind the articles on the blogs. I want to make these as accessible to as many people as possible, so I decided that the best way to publish to start off with is by making the books available on Kindle, and free with Kindle Unlimited.

Don't panic though, if you do not have access to Kindle or Kindle Unlimited as I am looking into releasing them as paperbacks as well!

We are going to be presenting Craft Therapy in a number of ways, this blog is one just of them. You will be able to get a basic idea of the practices on here, but I will be writing books to do real deep dives. We are also going to have our own Blessings Blog, which I would love to invite you to come along to, learn how Gratitude Therapy actually works and share your own blessings with the community.

 The blog you are reading right now, is mostly for teaching the main aspects of Craft Therapy, providing links to the other websites and blogs that are under the umbrella of Jends Creatives and making tutorials to help people learn how to do various different kinds of crafts. These tutorials will also be accessible either on YouTube or TikTok.

Our aim is to provide fun, educational sources of all the different aspects of Craft Therapy, that are easy to understand for people of all ages and abilities.

We are also opening an eBay shop to sell on all the things we no longer want or need in our home as we adjust it to a functioning Suburban Smallholding, but also to raise money so that we can provide more and more ways for people to benefit from Craft Therapy. 

Our method for downsizing and organising is going to be discussed in greater detail on the Getting Organised page so if you are just getting started, feel free to pop along and learn how we are doing it.

 As we are turning this into a large community, we would love to hear what you are doing and how it is working for you!

We will be supporting a variety of charities with this work, starting off with #teamseas and gradually contributing more and more to different charitable works along the way. Pop along to our Charities Page to see what we are doing, what you can do and to suggest charities that are close to your hearts that we can look into supporting in the future.

The youngest member of Jends Creatives!

Beginning a community like this is a process of small steps, so please be patient whilst we get things started. I really welcome genuine comments about all aspects of this and will be opening up more ways for people to get involved both in Jends Creatives as a company and the whole Craft Therapy Community.

Follow this blog to get notified of our regular blog posts, which will give a regular updates as to what we are doing where and when.

So welcome to Craft Therapy, I really hope you will find this blog useful and more importantly, beneficial in your journey towards raising your day to day health and happiness levels.

Just to get your started, here is a little smile, so at least you have one thing to smile about today!

Bright Blessings to you all ~ Nici xxx

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