March 2026
by Joyce Mulrooney
If we haven’t met yet, my name is Joyce Mulrooney — One of the many individuals who have fallen in love with the Healing Arts Method.
I first heard about the Method in October 2022 when I attended a one-day workshop. That day wasn’t just informational — it was experiential. Not only did we hear a passionate introduction to the method from the founder, Rebecca Shults, but we stepped into it for ourselves and collaborated with other creatives and professionals forming bonds and friendships that still hold strong four years later.
From that day on, I was hooked.
The Healing Arts Method felt like the cumulative expression of everything I had been investing in for years: understanding the psychology of personal development, studying the physiology of the brain and how to harness its power for growth, and nurturing my deep love for creativity. I had been advocating for and using creative expression for healing and growth for years — in ministry settings as the worship director at my church, as a music, art, and dance teacher, and consistently in my work with my own children as I homeschooled and raised them. But a major shift happened when it was no longer a nameless process I was engaging in, but a well-developed, structured, tested, and proven method with a name — and, more importantly, a community.
Since that first workshop in 2022, I’ve completed and graduated from all three levels of Rebecca’s Healing Arts training. I’ve co-founded and facilitated a year-long program serving survivors of trafficking. I’ve led smaller church-based conferences connecting the creative character of God with the Healing Arts Method of expression and processing. I’ve partnered with a local foster care support agency to host a conference equipping foster families and caregivers with tools to help children express themselves and process traumatic experiences using the method.
Because I’m not a licensed therapist, what I do is not therapy. What I do is teach the principles of the Healing Arts Method and create space.
So many of us walk through pain and learn to protect ourselves from it. We develop protective beliefs that feel safe but ultimately cause more damage than healing. They become buried so deeply that we can’t even see them until we intentionally go looking. They may numb us to the pain — but they also numb us to feeling at all. At the heart of the Healing Arts Method is remembering how to feel. It’s about reconnecting to the lost gardens of your heart, making peace with the thorns that pricked you there, and opening your eyes to the beauty that can still grow despite the hurt.
And it’s important to say this clearly: the painful things that happened matter. It’s never productive or healing to ignore pain, minimize it, or pretend it didn’t shape us. The things that hurt you are valuable parts of your story. They are worth slowing down for. Worth making space for. We don’t have to fix every wound or solve every mystery — but we can acknowledge that those moments were impactful. We can honor them as real. As significant. As formative. One of the most powerful aspects of the Healing Arts Method is its ability to take those invisible, untouchable feelings, thoughts, and experiences — the ones stored in the quiet archives of time — and gently pull them into the present. Through creative expression, they are given time, space, and form. A poem. A song. A painting. A movement. Something you can see, hear, touch, or hold. In that space, memories and pain become something we can relate to in a new way. We can care for them. We can sit with them. We can make room for them in the present without being overwhelmed by them (well, most of the time). And in the creative process, we are also allowed to add beauty — to adjust, to seek redemption, to imagine what could have been different, to celebrate resilience in the midst of it all. There is something profoundly powerful about rewriting the script. To pull from the moments of our unique story to create beautiful new works of art.
One of the major things I’ve learned while walking with people through this method is how deeply artistic concepts are tied to life itself. Take perspective, for example. The things you are closest to always appear the biggest. So what happens if you step back from those major hurts and move toward something else? Could it be that the monsters aren’t quite as large as they seemed? Could it be that the beauty within your memories and experiences grows when you choose to focus on it?
Maybe what once felt insurmountable begins to shrink in the light of something newly discovered. Is it possible that what you look for becomes what you see? And what if you intentionally rewired your heart to look for what was good?
The Healing Arts Method teaches individuals to do exactly that — with practice. Pain was never meant to define the story, and yet it often becomes part of it. The invitation is not to erase it, but to integrate it.
For me, learning this method has been so much more than gaining information or adding another theory to consider. It has surrounded me with like-minded, creative individuals who genuinely want to make the world better — people committed to helping others recognize their beauty and worth. People who can see strength and resilience, who have walked through their own broken and painful situations and understand how capable we were created to be. There is hope for the future. These are people who are not afraid to cheer on those who cannot yet see it for themselves.
The Healing Arts Method is, at its core, an investment in people.
What I love about creatives in general is their extraordinary ability to make sense of messes — to look at a scene, a melody, a composition, a moment — and intuitively know what it’s made of, but more importantly, what’s missing. To play the next note. Make the next brushstroke. Choose the next color. Adjust the angle. They don’t just see what is; they glimpse what could be.
And the world needs creatives to step into that role — to speak life into what feels lost, to rebuild what was torn down, and to hold space for the hard things because they can already envision the beauty that will emerge.
The Healing Arts Method equips people to do exactly that. It empowers individuals within their own spheres of influence to facilitate safe spaces where growth toward healing and health becomes possible.
Like any creative endeavor, every step on this road leads to new discoveries. As I’ve developed curriculum and activities tailored to the specific groups I’ve worked with, I’ve continued to uncover just how adaptable and effective this method can be.
Whether you lead a company, teach students, counsel clients, work in social services, train creatives, care for children in your home, or volunteer with at-risk populations in your community — the Healing Arts Method is a powerful, practical tool to have in your tool belt.
And for me, it’s not just a method.
It’s a calling.
0 Comments