Attended the Art Therapy Talk on Sun.

It's kind of weird to attend the talk when my dream of being an Art Therapist was bursted some time ago. I dun mean I have given up on the aspiration, but then somehow, my passion for it ceased after considering the entry requirement. I love Art, yea, I do. But making Art professionally...it's still something that I'm not confident about. And I really dun wanna see history repeating itself. I hate to see myself end up hating making Art like I did after CE. I dun wanna see taking Art courses as a means to enter a MA programme in Art Therapy, coz to do Art Therapy, first and foremost, you have to love Art genuinely, at the same time, to do Art Therapy, you have to love making Art too.

But the talk was so inspiring, especially during the Forum when one of the audiences asked about the word "Empowerment".

The Therapist and experts on stage spelt out their definition one by one, and when the director of Art For All talked about her own definition of empowerment, I was inspired. It was like a sudden strike of lightning on me, and I felt goose bumps on my arms.

She said, to her, empowering people is just to walk with them. Go through life with them.

I was so touched and for a moment or two, things seemed to have cleared up for me.

To walk with people. Yea, that's exactly the thing I wanna do.

I dun mean something big or something high sounding. I dun wanna intrude in people's lives so that they'll remember me. They dun have to be grateful for my presence. They dun even have to say thank you. I just wanna walk with people, experience life together with them, lend them a hand when they stumble and fall, let them know there's hope in life, let them know it's worthwhile to stay on and carry on, and most importantly, help them to be happy with themselves.

I've been empowered by different people in my life. I've changed because somebody has lent me his power. I'm able to be proud of myself because my family and friends are proud of me. I'm able to climb up and get myself out of the valley because there're always nice people out there who would throw a rope down for me. And I wanna do the same thing. I'm not sure if that's really empowerment coz empowerment seems such a grand word. All I know is, I wanna help out when people are not happy with their lives, I wanna help out just to see smiles on their faces because they're genuinely happy being who they are.

I may not be able to do something big, or to make huge remarkable changes to people's lives. But when I joined hands with the audiences at the end of the talk and talked to the Art Therapist afterwards and got a little pat on the shoulder from her, I know, I can make a tiny difference.

And when tiny differences added up, sometimes, they're big enough to save a person's life.

That's my defintion of empowerment. And yes, that's what I wanna do, from the bottom of my heart.