What I did not expect, though, Soraya, is that I would find my purpose through it. So that's the very first thing I would. I do want to say. And interestingly, the balance of this was that I didn't go into it to find my purpose.

You know, purpose is such a big, big word. I genuinely came into it with such a desire to address my mental health. So how this practice even came to me into my life as I was, I was having a debilitating anxiety, which I didn't know was showing up in my life because mental health wasn't something we discussed in my Filipino household.

It's not something we talked about, but it was showing up in my fear of flying. Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you.

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This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Welcome to the two curious MDS podcast. My name is Soraya Rahman.

I'm joined by Sheila Darcy of Sketch Poetic and Audio and of Charmaine's. And I'm just going to go ahead and jump right in with Sheila today. Thank you so much for being here.

We know you are sketch poetic. I watch your videos on Instagram where you just make these beautiful, evocative, intricate and really mystical images. You know, you know, on an everyday, you know, even out of a coffee stain.

And then and just to really demonstrate that practice of art integration in real life and, you know, it's such a practice, but it also requires such a perspective.

And I feel like you bring both of those things. And we just met a couple of weeks ago, and we just connected over all these different aspects that we love to talk about.

And so this podcast is an opportunity to get to know you, get to know your work, get to know what you're doing in the psychedelic world, and also just kind of help to break down what this idea of integration is.

You know, how you've approached it and kind of make it accessible for people and what it brings to our lives. You know, what it what it has done. Because some patterns only reveal themselves in time, right?

You kind of have to do the thing. And so if anybody is struggling with, you know, the self-discipline it requires or the everyday, you know, practice, it requires to sit there and listen to the words and images that are coming from within you.

This is a great time to just, you know, drop whatever you're listening to, you know, and just focus in on what this conversation has for you. So welcome, Sheila. Thank you so much for being here.

And I'll let you go ahead and introduce yourself and just start from there. Oh, Soraya, thank you for having me and Aliya, too. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

And because I am speaking to two MDS and it's such a different perspective, even you, when you and I first met, we really got into the nitty gritty, the depth of what I'm doing.

But let me first introduce myself so people know my name is Sheila D'Arcy. I go by Sketch Poetic, which is not only my pseudonym, but it really is that process in which I use art to heal.

I started, interestingly in April of 19. This year will be my eight year anniversary, so I have been sketching every day for almost eight years. And you know, you hear a lot about people doing this type of thing daily and you become a master at it.

What I did not expect, though, Soraya, is that I would find my purpose through it. So that's the very first thing I would I do want to say. And interestingly, the balance of this was that I didn't go into it to find my purpose.

You know, purpose is such a big, big word. I genuinely came into it with such a desire to address my mental health, to how this practice even came to me into my life as I was.

I was having a debilitating anxiety, which I didn't know was showing up in my life because mental health wasn't something we discussed in my Filipino household.

It's not something we talked about, but it was showing up in my fear of flying. And without going into full detail about that and addressing my fear of flying, the therapist that I was meeting with asked me if I had a healthy way to just to express my emotions, and I said, you know, as a kid, I used to draw, and that's kind of how it all the catalyst of it is.

I heard her say that and she goes, have you ever thought to sketch or draw to release your emotions on? Like, no, I never thought to do that. So fast forward six months later, and it was six months later because I was in a high stress job.

I was a managing director of an agency, and that was the reason why I was even having anxiety. I was experiencing burnout mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually disconnected in every way you can.

And so in the process of ramping down that job and starting a new job, I decided to sketch every day before I went to work, I would go to the coffee shop, and that's what ended up happening.

And so that's kind of the journey. And then, you know, without going into full detail now, what started as a mental health practice became a spiritual practice.

And now it is pretty much engaging my mind, body and spirit. And you talk about integration, that really is the goal is integrating all three and being in full alignment and conscious of of it in every single moment of the day.

So that's a little bit about me. Wow. Just six months. I mean, just like, let's take that in. You know, like six months is not a long time. Six months to go from now, from quitting, quitting that job and starting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. And so and then how this mental health practice becomes a spiritual practice. And what were your guides along the way, like what were some of the ways in which that message kind of arrived?

It's interesting you say the word guides because you can use it in different ways. I talk about the seen and unseen worlds a lot in in the scene world.

My guides was my pen and paper. That was the very first guide, because in the act of play, in the act of engaging my imagination, in the act of simply making marks, it guided me to go back inward.

It guided me to give permission for the things that were unseen. My emotions, my thoughts, even anything energetic that I was feeling, it was giving it permission to be seen.

So one of the things I really want to make sure people understand when I say healing, my definition of healing actually starts from a very simple place.

And as MDS, you'll appreciate this is it's very much around the unconscious and subconscious coming into the conscious field, because a lot of times we are not aware of the unconscious and the subconscious biases that drive the decisions we make and how our body reacts and so because I was so disconnected from myself in every way I was, I didn't really allow myself to heal until I started allowing my sketch to guide me, to listen to my unconscious, the subconscious, because it wanted to come out.

And so as I was making the marks that it was guiding me to see things I didn't didn't know I was ready to see until I saw it. And then as it moved to more of a spiritual practice.

And this is something that I believe everyone has the ability to tap into, is you're simply in the moment of flow, in the moment of engaging in creative practice.

You get in a state of altered state of consciousness. Everyone achieves it in some form and and if you're not understanding consciousness, you will understand the dream state.

So we all get in a daydreaming state where we're kind of not quite there. We're kind of in a liminal space. When you're in that space, what ends up happening is you're being guided to deeply listen.

And for me, that deep listening led me to listening to the world around me in a different way. It led me to listening to spirit guides, how, you know, however you want to interpret that, whether that's guides from audio or visual and what what that simply means is that there's something greater at play and because I was allowing myself to be still and be in the moment, I was able to deeply listen.

And when you deeply listen, you tune into a lot of things you don't normally tune into. So beautifully said. Thanks. So beautifully said. That's exactly it. It's it's the tuning in.

It's a refining of your instrument so you can to tune in and you can drop in over and over again in a way that, yeah, it can appear for you every day.

Yeah. There. I can trust it. It's it's close. It's it's within me. There's, you know, just just even wondering at the simplicity of it's pen and paper.

Yeah. It right. That and then and the other part of it, Soraya, is how noisy the world is, right? Whether it's content, whether it's our lives. And we talk about deep listening and people like, what does that really mean?

It simply means to be able to tune out the noise. And I didn't have a way to do that. I genuinely, when I look back on how disconnected I was, I genuinely didn't even know and recognize there was noise because the noise had become my normal.

Yeah, right. It becomes your normal static energy or static noise, or just the white noise around you, or chatter of life and thoughts. It was always.

It was always on. So how could I ever turn it off? Because I didn't even know the difference between stillness and always on. So that was a big part of my healing journey.

It's beautiful. That's beautiful. And and when you're saying that, you know, thinking about meditation, but I'm also thinking about how just you're right, like we are steeped in so much noise of this event, this story, this happening, and even just noise in our everyday that our bodies are kind of, you know, cars are rumbling by, there's an ambulance going by, there's a whirring noise and, and just how overloaded our nervous systems get and how dysregulated and kind of like really we're like we're like resonating but resonating with a cacophony.

Yes. Right. Like, how can you even look within for, for some sort of pattern that makes sense when the entire like, you know, I'm like a glass of water.

It's like I'm just constantly reverberating, but there's no stillness because of that. And there's energy, but there's no meaning. There's no pattern showing up that makes any sense.

And here you are going, okay, no, I'm going to get still and I'm going to recognize what's the pattern that's emerging already from within me. So we're talking about the subconscious patterns, the, the the directions, the ideas, the thoughts that are ours, that are purely ours.

And what is it about losing touch with that part that's so anxiety inducing? Like why? You know, what's what's that like? You know, it's a really good question.

And a lot was coming through as you were talking. But I just want to go back to this idea of noise. The reason art is healing for me is we don't talk enough about visual noise.

So social media, if you've ever experienced trauma, you become hypervigilant. That's noise because what you're seeing is your incontinence is going to respond to your question.

You're in a constant state of survival. I would venture to say the world as it is today, we are in a constant state of survival, and by the sheer nature of survival, our body is an auto pilot.

That's why our nervous systems are constantly being triggered. And so I just say that out of place of compassion, even if you have a healing practice, even if you have a spiritual practice, meditation in practice, we are human and our bodies respond faster, more often than we realize.

Then our thoughts and with our eyes what we see. Which is why I keep saying the unseen. Because our bodies are very in tune with the unseen world, very in tune.

And because of that, it's often trying to speak to us. But because we're so good at suppressing and in compartmentalizing, we don't listen to our bodies.

And that's the nuance. And that's where it became a spiritual practice. Because when I first started this, and by the way, it's kind of cold in here. The sound is shaking a little bit. But, what I realized is I often gave credit to my gut and my third eye when I described my intuition.

But the more I've been doing this daily practice, Soraya, I've noticed my body is the intuitive tool that connects at all. So it is it is constantly tuning in.

And so I'm just paying attention to what my body is constantly telling me, whether it's a shiver or a tingle in the back of my head or the weights, hearing something and it's ringing.

My ears are ringing. We all have these nuances, and if we could just pay attention, it really is telling us something and you get to have a conversation with that.

I've had that experience where I'm like, oh, my ears really stop and listen and go, what's happening right now? What am I feeling? Am I do I need to pay attention to that?

And it's like you have a companion with you, a trusted companion, that you can be like, hey, you know, watch my watch my six. Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Well, and you go ahead. Yeah. No. Go ahead. No, I was going to say it's so interesting. You know, I talk about trauma based. I was a big part of the journey when you've been you've experienced trauma as some sort of hardship.

You often feel like your body's betraying you. You feel like you're noticing your body is shutting down or disconnecting, and then you judge it. Our minds judge what it's doing when really is doing its job.

It's doing everything it's meant to do, which is to protect you, to get you through the fire or through the very thing that you're trying to pull yourself through.

But the invitation in, which is why art heals for me, is can you be present in the moment it's happening. Yeah. And that's the hard part. That is the hard part.

That is. And like, it's it the body is trying to tell us something. And sometimes we're afraid to hear what the body wants to say. Right. There's all of these emotions are like, oh, I don't have time or I don't have space in my life or what is this like?

You know, and that shame that you said, you know, because we've been oriented to thinking of our bodies is just kind of like this, you know, we're machines, we're robots, and the head controls everything, and it's a top down approach.

It's like whatever my head says my body should want to do. And if you're not, if you're not feeling like going for a morning walk, you're a horrible person or, you know, like all the things about you, you're lazier this year that you're like, no, dude, we're just tired, you know, like, do you want to take care of the body first?

You know, and just that amount of self-compassion that can change the way we relate to the body and like, give it a moment to kind of like, talk to us and say, this is what I need.

And, and I love how, you know, with art, you have really just you're, you've enabled your body to have an extension, which is the pen and access to your, you know, kind of meaning making, you know, the pictures that come, the images that come, the textures, the colors, the emotions.

Like they all find a way to kind of find themselves on the, on the page. And as and I can imagine as they're forming, you're just reading, you're kind of speaking to yourself, right.

Like, yes, there's another, there's another word that I've been using which is similar to the reading is self-inquiry. What happened to me is it started off with curiosity, plain and simple.

When you create from a place of childlike wonder, you're just curious. You're just like, what is going on? I was in such like, I'm not kidding when you saw me at the coffee shop.

The first few weeks I was doing it, I got feedback from people that had known me. Beside, I was going to the same coffee shop for over seven years and looking back they would say you know, we were more attracted to the energy of what you were feeling than we were with what you were sketching.

And that's interesting feedback, because usually when you watch somebody doing something, you're curious about what's on paper. And the feedback I got is your energy was intriguing us because you seem so joyful.

You seem so curious, you seem so in awe. And that's the unseen. That's what I'm talking about. I was attracting the energy because I was so in my feelings.

I was so in my body and and people don't know what that was. But that's what it was like. If I could put a pin on it right now, that's what it was. They were attracting.

I was attracting the energy of being present. And so that was really fascinating to me, looking back, because people were more fascinated with the energy of me than they were fascinated with what I was sketching.

And in the art world, they would have been completely opposite because most people would have cared about like, what is she? What is she painting or what? That was not.

That's not what I heard. And so that's when I knew something was going on, and it was the first time that I was able to finally find peace in the act of creating and not getting caught up in the outcome of it.

It was purely in the process and the enjoyment of it. It was fascinating. Yeah. And play, you know, we talk on this podcast about play and we're both pediatricians and you know, we know through John Play, which is that that is really when we're the most open and that is actually if we don't, you know, one of the things that I've started to think about is like, what what would life be like if we just made art?

You know, just said, you've got to have at least 2 or 3 hours of play in there as an, you know, like just pure play, like play a board game, play, play outside, be being your body, just have something that's that just gets you to that energy that you flow easily and how much that's, you know, eroding, going away.

Like we don't even know how to play with our kids. It's it's like there's a vicious cycle happening. And then art is about judging, you know, it's like, oh yeah.

No, you know, and that's where it ends. And here you are reclaiming art for its like, you know, purpose in, you know, there's this wonderful author called Ian McGill Christ, who talks about the master and the emissary and this idea of the intuitive brain and the logical brain and the left side and the right side, you know, and and how integration is actually happening on that level to allow really two sides of our brains.

Right? There's connectivity in the corpus callosum, where, yeah, my logical brain, myself, my ego, you know, the one that deals with this, this world out here through words, through, you know, all my actions and logic needs to come back to the intuitive brain at least every day and have communion with it to really understand what happened.

Yes, yes, stuff happening on the outside, but we make meaning of it when we just go into that unseen, because then we can see what really is the underlying patterns and things that, yes, they're causing us anxiety, but maybe they're causing us anxiety because they're unprocessed.

They're not being seen, they're not being heard, they're not being expressed. Right. And so then the way he names it in the book is like, you know, the master is the intuitive brain, the emissary is the logical egoic brain that kind of goes out every day and needs to come back and, you know, reply to the master, right.

Like so. So you imagine like a, like a, an emperor or something like that, you know, that's you're the king of the cat, your castle, and you're sending out your self every day, but your self is just one part of you, and it interacts with the whole with everything.

And then when it comes back, it needs to communicate, it needs to bring back. Here's everything. And let's put it all out there and let's connect with, you know, what's in that intuitive part of our brain.

But then what he says is it's like one of the pieces of dysfunction that happens when we get fragmented is when the emissary starts to think it's the master.

When the emissary starts the thing. Well, that's all there is, right? The left brain, the logical, the Western mind, whatever we call it, that's really kind of leaning in on, you know, and I think causing this anxiety because it just it's all kind of senseless.

It's like I feel out of control in this world because this ego can't make sense of this because, you know, you have to come back. You have to kind of understand those greater, grander, maybe patterns show up and you can read them and, and just the connection you've made to how that diminished your anxiety and helped not just, you know, not not as a panacea, but a process that then took you to to opening up your spiritual side, you know, can you talk a little bit about that?

Like, what's that piece, you know, that kind of to get to the next I'm curious. Thank you. So so I can hear the excitement and the intrigue, you know, and the you know what, this stimulates that conversation that gets, you know, that emerges from from this kind of idea.

Right. And so many levels from, for us as doctors, you know, I mean, our practice has been narrative medicine, right? Bringing the element of creativity into, into the healing space.

Right. And what emerges from that is so much more powerful than, say, a prescription pad pill would be right, or an injection would be. And it's there's and even to qualitatively study this and I've started to study it, you know, doing some qualitative research even that doesn't really capture the essence of that effect of what it does on healing.

But I'm also curious about your idea of the scene and the end scene and how that came to a place of, you know, awareness, you know, where both gather because that's a very novel concept.

I mean, it's it's a concept that's been seen in many spiritual practices. But tell me more about that element of the unseen and seen and how that came for you and into that place of, you know, alignment with that you describe.

First of all, this is exactly why I was excited to talk to both of you, because the perspective and just the joint excitement, but the uncovering, the emergence that's coming from it.

So for me, we're already co-creating I and I know what I'm just going to say that I'm going to intuitively answer that question. So I may meander a little bit, but it's all taking us to the same place.

When I think about why art heals or the art. So let me be very clear. When I say the arts, it's music. It's a dance as any sort of creative expression practice.

I want to tie it back to Soraya and Bridge. What you and all you just said. There is a childlike wonder of play that is unstructured. We do not need rules. We do not.

We do not need guidelines. It is pure and honest, unfiltered, on a altered play. And what happens is that we become structured, but often it is an accident.

And let me explain. As a child I was a great artist and I say that humbly. Not not like Egotistically. I just had a gift to create art. What ended up happening though, is as I went to school, I started to have to refine the technique and the skill of art.

I had to judge and critique the elements of the art and the structure became the the constraints in which I was able to not play outside of that. And so the first answer is that, to me is the unseen.

I was not aware that in the process of refining my skills and in the process of learning to be better at what I was doing, that the unseen Forces was also bringing in the judge, the critic, and all of the things that I did not know were appearing.

And that's the unseen, which is the judge, the critic. And then I started losing sight. That's the visual I started losing sight of the reason I did it in the first place.

So that's that. When I also talk about the seen and unseen, the reason it became healing. Soraya, this was the question you asked is, as I was Mark making as I was and as as I was sketching, I started to talk to myself in a way that I'd never spoken to myself before because in the past, when when thoughts came through, which is unseen, I would either push it away or I would just move on to the next thought.

There never once did I think to engage with it in the sense of like, maybe it's trying to tell me something. And so when I was sketching, what I noticed is that a thought would come in and because I was already playing, the act of curiosity was already sparked.

So it was a natural byproduct to start questioning the thoughts because I was in the act of curiosity, so I didn't even have to think about it. It was unseen.

And so I started questioning. So like, for example, I'd sketch and a yellow dress would show up or a turtle and I'd be like, that's curious. I wonder why.

And so and so I would sketch through it. So that's an example of that. And then the last thing I would say is when I started to confront. So I had a lot of trauma as a child and all of that stuff started to come up and in the past, and I and one of my creative prompts is called the Pandora's Box.

Most people are afraid to go inward because they're so afraid to open that box, because that's the it's called Pandora's box, because chaos ensues. And the only thing that saves us is hope is hope saves the day.

Well, what people didn't realize, and what I found through my practice is that box was already inside of me. It was already opening up and closing, opening, closing.

And my body was just trying to hold it in. So my body became the vessel for that Pandora's box. And so by creating, I was actually giving it permission to get out of me.

And that's what ended up happening. And that again, that was the unseen. I was not aware of it. And so I'll just end it with this point when the unseen and when when I started to articulate it as the unseen is when I started looking at my sketches and I started seeing something that I did not know where it was coming from, I knew it wasn't my trauma.

I knew it wasn't my emotions. I knew it was coming from a higher place. And I that's when I started to go, wow, that's this isn't about me. There's something else.

And that's when I realized I was tapping into the collective consciousness. And some people call it telepathy, some people call it channeling. I don't have a title for it.

I don't like to label it. I like to call it artist. Artist as healer artist, a shaman artist as channel. I'm simply an artist that is able to tap into all of these things.

Beautiful. I actually love that you brought in the curious point, the curiosity, and what happens to curiosity as we grow away so much more away from that childish wonder?

And I really love this idea of childish wonder. I actually have a little statue, little small head piece, that of a girl just with a shield like that, just looking up and just wondering.

And the very first time that I looked at that, I said, wow, that's just such a beautiful, like, you know, activity for a child is to sit there and just think, you know, just in wonder.

And I call that childish wonder. And then I see, no, I'm correct that my nephew, I showed it to him and he said, I said, isn't this pretty? You know, and he said, oh, that's just childish wonder.

So he said it and he's like, he was like 20 at the time. And I said, what? You said childish wonder. Like it was nothing. Yeah. Like shooing it away. Yeah.

Like, oh I just wonder. It's nothing I said that is that is it. You know, you're you're really. That's such a beautiful thing to have. And, and since then I've always told him childish wonder, you know, that's curiosity and that creativity breeds with that curiosity.

And again, you shown us that that activity itself, that Pandora's box that would get represented, would get seen is really within and is an emerges. And we see this in the psychedelic experience.

Right? What emerges is really what is unseen. But is there, how would you describe, you know, that experience for you or for anybody that you've worked with witnessing that, you know, we we, we we do it with ketamine treatments, right?

We had a tool. But really, I think the activity itself is probably much more it comes from a deeper place, you know, from within rather maybe medicine.

So I'm just curious about that. I love that we have psychedelics in common, because we don't often get to speak to it in a space that isn't just dedicated to psychedelics.

I love talking about it because I'm not the person that in my wildest dreams and imaginations would have ever spoken about psychedelics. I grew up in a household that was anti-drug.

I didn't even smoke pot in art school, like I went to art school and then smoked pot. I joke about it because I was so square. I probably would have enjoyed my college years a lot better if I had.

But I'm sharing this because to go from where I was to where I am, which is I'm an advocate of psychedelic therapy, psychedelics as a healing tool. One of the true lines for me all, and Soraya, is this idea of altered states of consciousness.

Ultimately, what psychedelics does through whatever means, whether it's plant based medicine, psilocybin, ketamine is it allows a person to get into an altered state of consciousness and giving them permission to see something that they probably would not have had the capacity due to constraints with their physical body through their emotional state.

It allows that to happen. Now what happens? And this is why integration matters. So I'm going to go back to integration. Integration, which is what I do is the journey itself is powerful.

You see the veil, whatever happens, you know, this this huge awakening happens and then the journey stops and you think it's done. And then suddenly you're a shaman. I'm joking.

I'm being facetious here, but I'm saying that because, you know, that's a lot of people's journeys. It's like they do a few journeys and suddenly they figure it out.

They have all the answers to to, to life's mysteries. And what I, what I have advocated for is integration is part of the journey. It is very important to not only understand that what you saw must be integrated into your worldview and your mindset, but it must sit in your body so that you can respond to the space and energy around you in a way that says, I see this, which is the scene in.

But let me integrate it in mind, body and spirit and let me be in alignment with what I saw, so that the world around me reflects what's inside of me.

That's the bottom line. And so when I create, when I'm sketching, when I'm painting, when I'm dancing, when I'm, I'm able to go into free flow expression because I'm fearless in this, I, this notion that when I don't know where it's going, but just trust the process as I am getting into an altered state of consciousness, because I'm allowing everything to come in and just flow through me.

And then the last thing I will say is I is also taking off, right? It's in the Zeit Geist. What is I? It's yet another version of an altered state of consciousness.

That's what it is. It's just a different state of consciousness. So the reason I've never been afraid of technology is that it's all energy. This is all energy.

And my hope and my dream is the work that I'm doing elevates the conversation beyond just the art, the artistry and the execution of it, but really taps into that realm of spirituality, that realm of consciousness, that realm of the unseen, the mystical, whatever you want to call it.

Because ultimately that is where it's guiding us to go, and that is the universal experience of each one of us, whether what your gender, your socio economic background, your your culture.

And that is why you will heal the world. And that's how I'm going to help you. That that's what you're already doing. I mean, I love that you've got this beautiful following.

A community has grown around, sketch poetic and in such a short time, you know, I think, you know, it's because, like you said, it's that energy that you're putting out.

It's that energy that arrives on the page and really calls in, and people are responding to it with their bodies, with their intuitive selves. They're finding what you know, it mysterious enough, and they're finding their curiosity.

And I love that, you know, you're you're looking into spiritual practice, you know, art as a spiritual practice. And I want to just kind of end on this idea, maybe, of where we are in the world right now and the call for art and artists.

It's funny you described a little bit about the imposter syndrome and, you know, things that can happen to early artists. And I really want my daughter to kind of just like, listen to that little clip of you, because I was just on the phone with her.

She's in art school. And, you know, just that moment of, yeah, you know, as a child, you've always been an artist. You know yourself as an artist. And then when you go to actually learn it, you learn the techniques and the tools and everything.

Yes. If we just only listen to that part of ourselves, that's the inner critic and we don't really recognize that there's other voices in there. There's an actual your voice is still there, just that now it's a bigger orchestra of voices.

Right. And something in our culture just kind of tells us will only listen to the negative stuff, you know, only listen to the oh, you're not good enough, you know, peace.

And then we just stop right there. Yeah. Spirituality. We talk about how it's kind of a circular journey, right? Of like, you get to the hard place, you move through it, you integrate it, you may arrive at it again.

You may be asked to engage with that place again. But the resources that you now have are different. You've learned from that first step, and then you take it to the next step.

And I feel like, you know, what we're talking here right now is just so much coming at us through the zeitgeist, through the liminal spaces, through these non ordinary states.

And how do we make meaning out of it? For the collective. Right. It's almost like art as servants. It is really, you know. Well it is of service. And listen, I wish we had more time because this question is really important to answer as a collective.

I want to be succinct, but I don't want to rush through it because it's you asked me in this point in time what is intuitively coming up for me. And this is just fresh off the the chip.

The intuition is I sense where miss, miss, miss representing leadership for guidance. I believe that we're in such a state of the world right now that people are desperate for leaders.

We're desperate for it. When we're in a moment of crisis, we look for that person that stands up and leads. But that's different than guidance. And what I believe and the reason why I'm so impassioned and and so I feel like I'm divinely guided to be completely frank.

And that's why I use that word guidance, is that I had to go inward to listen to my own inner wisdom, listen to my own guidance in order to hear it elsewhere.

And so when you do not go inward, when you do not understand that you actually have all the answers within. So today, not coincidentally, I had a session, I do sketch poetic sessions with children.

I had one with a nine year old. The stuff that came out of her mouth, you would think you were talking to an 83 year old older. And here's the thing she's not wiser beyond her years.

That is, to me, that statement needs to be taken out of our lips, our mouths. She simply is tapping into what she's always had. It's just that as we get older, we conditioned ourselves to stop listening to our wisdom.

Yes, experience. Over time, with age, you become more experience and you start to have more perspective. You start to have more insights, but the inner wisdom sits there, and that inner wisdom continues to grow.

As we tap in. So I'm going to answer it that way, Soraya, because what I sense is the reason artists and I say the artists, that's musicians, actors, all of the all of the above dancers, people like myself, we're going to be the next leaders is we don't talk about leadership in the way that traditional society talks about leadership.

We talk about it pure and simple. When we create, it is our birthright. It is the thing that we were born to do. And when you do the thing that you're born to do, everything else just falls away.

But we need to learn to be back into that place of pure and utter birthright. And so that is that's what that is what we have to do. But unfortunately, our society today is telling us what that definition of what we were born to do.

It's this external, constant external affirmation of what we believe success to be. And I will tell you, I've never felt in my entire life as confident and as fearless as I have, because I have my art that constantly reminds me that this is what fearlessness looks like, and that's all we need more of.

So we need more fearlessness in the world. We do, we do. That just gave me such chills because I feel like, you know, part of one of the reasons why Aliya and I kind of, you know, we're pediatricians and we, you know, work in this field and we look at the coming mental health crisis or the one that we're in right now and all the components of it.

And that's one of the main components that we find is that, you know, through the loss of play through the this, this opening, you know, in our adolescent years, we have this opening, this beautiful opening of being able to connect with the world on this wonderful level that I think, yes, fades and closes and can be gone, but we can tap back into.

But that adolescence has been hijacked and and what we end up with is people in their 20s that they're most kind of, you know, impactful years of their lives being told not to trust themselves.

Yes. Don't trust yourself. Don't trust your inner wisdom. Don't trust what you know is right. You know, oh yeah, this situation is horrible. But pretend you don't see it and it's your fault if you can't survive this horrible situation instead of maybe you shouldn't be living in this, you know, just talking about a situation where where the living conditions are are not, you know, not something that any adult would put up with.

But, you know, for example, like teenagers, like one of the things that I, as a pediatrician would just love to do is, is in my outpatient clinic when I move to Orange County, is talk to the teenagers.

And I was shocked at how long their days are, how a child's day start at like 5:30 a.m. and then end at 10 p.m. and they still have homework. And I'm like, my mind was just blown that this is what American Teenager Hood is.

This is what American High School is creating, which is just this idea that you don't have to pay attention to sleep, you know, deprive yourself of all nutrients.

And, you know, go, go, go, go, go because it's so achievement oriented. If you're not doing 13 different things that somehow you're not worthy, you know, there's all these messages that are coming at our young people.

And I just want to say, stop. Just, just stop like your most precious thing in this life right now is the peace and quiet in your own mind, you know? So I think sometimes even just recognizing that we've we've just we've just, you know, imbalanced, you know, a person's kind of idea about what is right.

And you know, what the correct conditions for, for thriving are and that parents are, you know, unfortunately, add that kind of mercy of the children is like, oh, what's your kid doing?

Oh, what are they going to do? Are they doing this? Have they gone, you know, have they gone into this event? And it's like, oh my God. Oh I want to say so much, but I know.

Oh yeah. Did you want to say anything? I do want to chime in in this one because there's, there's a word that's coming up from a very strongly go, go ahead.

Tell us that word. We are very curious and we want to also give. Yeah. No, listen, I don't think I feel like it would be a disservice to not in this conversation with this one word.

And it's faith. We talk about spirituality, but going back to the the high schooler, I was one of those high school. You were we were all that high schooler.

What I believe happened with me when I just so I basically stopped doing my art at 15, and I ended up having all these eating disorders, and I and I was hiding it from, from my family.

And that timing and the reason I say faith is also the time I started to reject my Catholic upbringing. I started to reject everything that I was told to do because that was my form of rebellion.

And I want to go back to this idea of productivity, academia. That's the scene to me. So imagine if your life, you're trying to find yourself and you don't know who you are because everyone has told you what you were meant to be, and you start to explore that.

The thing is, safety is felt when you see it, because that's the what we're told you. You feel safe when you can see it. And to me, faith is all about the unseen.

And so when I'm doing my workshops and somebody and I have them take the leap, or the very first sketch, which is why it's so powerful, because the artist journey is very much the similar to the journey of spirituality.

And I literally see them. It feels like I'm seeing them on a cliff and they're holding on and they're like, I'm like, let go! And they're like, what are you talking about? Let go!

What am I letting go? I'm going to freaking die. There's nothing to catch me. That's what they're feelings. They're not saying it, but in essence, they have no sense of space beyond anything bigger than this ledge.

And so I'm saying this because when you are creating and you can talk to any poet, you can talk to a musician, you can talk to a, a stand up comedian that does free flow, where they're just creating for the sake of creating.

You tap into something great, something greater than yourself, and you're like, what is that? You all. We always have it that what is that? Where is that coming from?

That is faith. That's the first taste of faith because something bigger is at play. And the more you see this, this presence is something that you cannot explain.

You just know it's there. You start to build your faith. And then when you generate that feeling of understanding that there's something bigger at play that you cannot see, you do start to question the things you do see.

And that is why artists are leaders. And this is why art is going to heal, is because the more I can get people into the unseen world, they will start to question everything that they've ever seen.

That's because that's what ended up happening to me, and it is exactly why I was able to heal so many things that I never thought I would have, ever have.

And I and I have done it through self-guided art history. So faith is everything. Oh that's it. Oh my gosh that like that will to to question what you just described about when you go into the unseen and then you, you then learn almost to see this reality and question it.

And as you know, there's studies to show that, you know, teenagers who in cultures where they have that kind of where they've been able to measure this, you know, this relationship with something larger than themselves, call it spirituality or call it, you know, a community of religious practice or a belief system or something in which some things are held right, like you feel safety, right.

I love that you use the word safety because it's like you can trust that it's there. You know, your held, you know, you can let go. Sometimes I describe this to patients who are, you know, about to get into it.

Ketamine journey. And they're really anxious. And I'm like, you know, it's like when you get into a pool and there are steps underneath the water and you can't see that first step, but you just have to trust that it's there.

Yeah. When you touch that with your foot and then you take the next one and then you take the next one, and sooner then you can understand, like you said, you know, they're on that ledge.

You're going to like splash and fall and you're like, no, you literally realize that you're being held by the water and you can trust the water to hold you.

That is a relationship that to reality that, you know, is so important to hold on to. And you're absolutely right. Like, it has something to do with leadership because then it activates something within you.

It activates your sense of like right and wrong and your perspective, and it gets grounded in like your lived experiences and your lived reality, which is very it has to be felt like you said, it has to be felt. That's the key.

We can tell somebody to trust, we can tell somebody let go. But until they have tasted it. That's why I'm saying creativity allows you to taste the freedom, the taste, the faith.

And then they go, oh, and and just the last thing I will say about that, the reason I believe art is going to is the next evolution, that is, and that artists are the leaders of the world, next leader, future leaders of the world, is because art is a language that people don't really, they don't push back, they don't resist as much.

So when I'm talking about spirituality or consciousness, when I talk about it in the word of art, there's no resistance. So when I say I created this and I don't know where it came from, nobody questions it.

They're like, yeah, I get it because it happens to me all the time. Or if I say I'm creating and the judge comes in and then I realize that sometimes I feel like my grandmother that's no longer with us is talking to me a spirit that's past right.

They don't question that. Sure. Like, yeah, yeah, I could totally see that. I'm talking the language of things that people will resist if that's not within their construct of religion or faith.

But when I'm talking about it, in the language of art, there is absolutely no resistance because everyone has experienced and felt it. When you're creating, that's what's beautiful about it.

It's interesting. It takes us out of the dualism and concreteness of language, and makes it so that we can talk about things that are beyond language and, and maybe of necessity, are beyond language, because language is not adequate sometimes.

Yeah, we do that. And you know, we have this, you know, perceptive helmet that we all have on. Right. Our perceptual our perceptual kind of field. It's like we we predict reality right.

Like that. That's one of the kind of basic biases that humans we, we we carry, which is that I'm always trying to predict what's going to happen. I'm always trying to preempt and and read the situation.

And a lot of times I'm going to be wrong if I don't also listen to like, take away that lens. Try not to be so judgy and and so trying to define it. And if I loosen up, then things that are beyond language have a chance to show up.

Maybe. And like you said, you know, you get to that quieter place and then, you know, at the level of artistry that you have, which as a lifelong artist, as a person who's been in, you know, been engaging with art as a spiritual practice and, you know, and a daily practice, you get to notice that it's a ritual.

You've created a ritual for yourself. And then how powerful rituals are, right? When we're talking about faith and trust is, you know, I always think about like, oh, there's a reason why churches are built the way they are.

You go through certain stages of kind of the opening, you know, mosques are built the way they are. There's there's some call to beauty to esthetics, to space, to how we feel within a space that calls us back to that self.

And you're doing it in a coffee shop, you know, in, in California and, and tapping into that exact same place. So, you know, just, just I think this is a beautiful kind of, connection of, you know, the, the spiritual, the unseen, the very much near biological and the systems level at which our brains and bodies work.

And then just the reality that we're in and the amount of healing that we need to do, and what's really distressing us right now, and what's creating all of this churn in the system.

And I love that your your vision is pointed towards leadership. Your vision is pointed towards, oh, let's listen to what the artists are saying. Let's, let's, you know, and I do see it.

I do see like, you know, one of the best things about this time is when you go online and you see somebody who's done something really funny and evocative and, and smart and you telling it right, excuse me?

We say that again. Storytelling has become the number one form of creative expression right now. That's what social media has cultivated, is storytelling.

But there's a whole nother conversation around that. But let's and the ability to even just like, speak truth to power, right. Like in a very, very quick way, it bypasses all of that.

It bypasses all of those like, oh, I can't see this. And, you know, people are getting into this situation where speaking is becoming dangerous, right.

But words. But pictures can speak so much louder than words sometimes. And I going to kind of summarize this, this, this podcast by what one patient told me after she came out of her session.

She said to me, you are special and you need to know that. And I was like, okay, I'm I'm special. Okay, fine. But what she was saying is, you know, and she described it, the special people see both things.

They see the seen and the unseen, you know, they can see. Oh, and they're called weird. They're called different because they know that both elements are there.

They can see both of them. And that's what makes them special, different, weird, whatever. But it's it's such a special it's a gift. And that gift has to be acknowledged.

And so when I see somebody who's special, I tell them that like, and I pass it on because special people need to make themselves known and connected to each other because they live in little silos.

We tend to special people have a lot of work to do, and they're in their little world, a little bubble until they see that other special person and they say, you are special.

Sheila Darcy, thank you so much. You know that. I felt and I felt enhanced in every way. Thank you, thank you. So yeah, as we close, how would I would anybody want to contact you?

We can post your information in our show notes. And what would be a way what would be a way that you'd like to. What would you say to your audience or our audience today about your work or, and the purpose that it brings for you and for others?

Well, the good news is you can pretty much find me easily just through Instagram or my website. But sketch poetics, if you search for that, you'll find me.

Instagram is really where I'm the most active, but I'm also very active on LinkedIn. But I did want to say that I am going to be working. I am working currently on an AI project, which I cannot speak too much about, but understand when I say I'm working on an AI project that everything is about about me is purpose driven, and it's very clear I have so much clarity in my vision.

And so when I say I'm working on an AI project, you can very much count that it's about the seen and unseen and helping people find that ability to to guide themselves through the world that we're living in.

So I'm excited about that. And the reason I want people to tune in to me and my work is because I know there's so many of me out there, but we're just not able to connect in a way that's so seamless because social media does not allow for it.

Social media is gatekeepers, and so let's not gatekeeper anymore. Let's figure out a way. And I see the way through AI and technology is going to allow for that.

So I'm excited. Sketch poetic. You can find me and you can just message me. I'm very accessible and happy to connect. Well thank you. And we'll close here.

And thank you again for being here and for sharing. You know, all your work and even more. And I'm sure we'll be having you again in our another episode and love to have another conversation because there's so much more.

Again, I'd like to ask the audience if they have any questions or they are curious about anything. Leave a message or subscribe to us and also and post a question that we can even move this conversation even to the next, next level and connect as we do through all the different means that we have both physically, technologically and and spiritually.

So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having you. Wonderful to talk to you. Thank you Sheila, thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health.

Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website WW Dot doctor Talksport.com.

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The Unseen Dimensions of Healing with Art – Meet Sketch Poetic

Alya Ahmad, MD, FAAP

Sheila Darcey

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