This post was written by our friend Dr. Megan Shen, a ReNew York donor, prayer partner, and writer/keynote speaker who studies how social psychological factors affect advanced care planning and end-of-life outcomes. Her research has given her many opportunities to not only design interventions in health care and communities, but also to share rich reflections on what goodness looks like in the face of suffering.

Subscribe to her substack “Light in the Wound” here.

I have been thinking a lot about how hard and heavy the world feels lately. I often ask myself, “Was it this hard for my parents too? Or is the world noticeably heavier right now?” Between mass shootings, war, multiple rounds of cancer diagnoses among friends, and hitting the age where I’m watching most of my cohort lose parents. It’s a lot. Sometimes I wonder, “how do we find hope in these spaces?” What makes them so hard for me is that so many of these challenges and sufferings feel unsolvable, at least in this present moment.

How do you fix unsolvable problems?

As always, my precious children bring wisdom and illumination into my life at the exact right moment. Recently, we faced another round of “mom forgot the stuffy!” Are we noticing a VERY strong theme here?? Yes, I have like 20 alarms on my phone to avoid this but here we are. In this particular round, my son was upset about trying to fall asleep without his beloved stuffy that had slipped out of his bag and was left at school. I, ever the problem solver, was trying to console him by offering multiple other stuffed animals and assuring him that it would be ok and we would find Ellie in the morning.

But my daughter had an entirely different perspective on the whole situation. She darted off into the living room, grabbed her container full of markers, and began drawing. She drew a beautiful picture of an animal her brother loves and brought it to him. He looked at it, smiled, and then calmed down. He was finally ready to sleep.

“MOM!” she said triumphantly. “I did it. I fixed another problem with art!”

I fixed another problem with art.

She said it as if was an absolute known truth, embedded in her soul. I sat with those words for several minutes, and then it hit me how many of my own problems I could probably fix better with art. So often, when our worlds crumble, we try to fix it by consoling ourselves or others or saying, “It will be ok! It will work out!” Just like I did to my son, we try to “fix” the problem of pain by telling ourselves and those around us that it will be ok. But sometimes it’s not ok, and what we really need is a little beauty to enter our lives amid the pain.

I’ve been following the cancer journey of an author whose work I love, Laura Fanucci, on her Substack newsletter. She is currently in that really hard space of initial diagnosis that’s followed by shock and despair, millions of doctors’ appointments, second and third opinions, and really tough treatment decisions. She recently shared her experiences on a recent trip to the Mayo clinic. She commented on how utterly lovely and beautiful the buildings were. She spoke of walls adorned with original Andy Warhol paintings. Corners of spacious rooms filled with Rodin sculptures. Beautiful, open architecture that welcomed her there. It was art that brought a sense of calm and beauty into what was I’m sure, otherwise, a very painful and awful place.

In this vein of beauty in painful spaces, I was having a conversation with a colleague recently about how cancer centers and hospitals need to do a better job of contemplating the spaces patients occupy and figuring out how to make them beautiful. Interestingly, she noted, most children’s hospitals and cancer centers figured this out long ago. As an example, when a new wing opened in 2013 at Seattle Children’s Hospital, they made sure art was an integral part of the environment because we know that art and healing are intertwined. I’ve seen the gorgeous murals at Seattle Children’s in person, and it’s breathtaking and magical and really takes kids’ minds off their present ailment. And as a parent, it brings a sense of normalcy to what is otherwise a not normal and stressful environment. Yes, I am here because my child is sick or injured. But also, there is still beauty.

The science behind the healing powers of art

Research has found that art is connected to multiple beneficial outcomes for health, including improving mental health, slowing cognitive decline, building self-esteem, and overall enhancing one’s quality of life. For patients specifically, art can decrease stress, heal trauma, and even improve interpersonal relationships. One study examined the effects of art therapy for women with depression. Results of this study showed that art therapy significantly reduced anxiety and depression among these women, demonstrating the power of art to overcome overwhelming mental health challenges. The benefits of art therapy have been demonstrated across multiple groups, including older adults, war veterans, and prison inmates.

We all instinctually are drawn towards art, and yet we underestimate the intense power of art to solve or at least bring needed salve to our otherwise unsolvable problems. In the spaces where we feel hopeless or lacking control, art can often enter the equation to provide not only comfort and joy but even new insights and solutions.

A case example of how art can fix unfixable problems

One of the greatest examples of the power of art to bring healing to unfixable problems is in my colleague, Anne Basting’s, work. Dr. Basting is an artist, writer, and Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She founded her award-winning non-profit, TimeSlips, which focuses on training and supporting caregivers in how to use theater and art into the care of dementia patients. Her work is profoundly remarkable.

I have worked in the dementia space professionally, and I have walked through it personally with my father-in-law. Very little is offered to patients and caregivers as the disease progresses, often creating a sense of hopelessness, despair, and sadness. But Dr. Basting’s work pulls from the art form of theater and invites caregivers to engage with their loved one by asking what she calls “Beautiful Questions.” These beautiful questions invite dementia patients to engage in questions that are not tied to time or memory but instead invite them towards play and imagination. Taking inspiration from how we express ourselves as children and applying it towards those in late life and battling memory decline, she opens a world of possibility, joy, and hope in what is otherwise a hopeless situation.

She fixes unfixable problems with art.

But she didn’t just fix these problems. She brings beauty to the painful situation. What I love about Dr. Basting’s work is that she doesn’t view it as “fixing” the problem. Rather, she views it as engaging the patient right where they are at and finding joy there. She gave an excellent interview on this concept with the New York Times recently. In this interview, she shared her own personal experiences in working with loved ones suffering from dementia and how she saw possibility to be present-minded and enjoy them as they were.

Where can you make or enjoy art today?

What I love about art is that it can be so simple. It can, of course, be viewing a gorgeous painting by one of the legendary masters such as Picasso or Monet. But it can also be as simple as making a visually pleasing charcuterie board. Or adding flowers to the table. All around us, in both the natural and human made environments we occupy, is the chance to make art. And like Dr. Basting’s work shows, all around us are opportunities to co-create art in meaningful ways with our loved ones.

So no, right now, I can’t figure out how I can make schools a safer place for my child, or make my fears [disappear] or make sure my love ones [beat] their cancer. But I can sit down, make something beautiful, and share it with the world.

Even if the world is on fire, go make something beautiful today.