Healing Reflections: "Giving Hearts Heal" by the Healing Fibers Group

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Jan 17, 2021 | Hannah Schlotthauer | @schlohan

"Giving Hearts Heal"
Story by: Healing Fibers Group | Mayo Clinic Health System

Piecing Together Community and Healing

As we went about our work in various roles during the pandemic, we encountered many—including ourselves—who needed healing. What is healing? According to the Oxford dictionary, healing is making something or becoming sound or healthy again, alleviating distress or anguish, and correcting or putting right an undesirable situation. Sometimes you are left with weaving, knitting, or piecing together things or situations to facilitate healing. This is done with both literal and metaphorical “fibers” in our lives and in the lives of others.

What is a fiber? The word fiber descends from the Latin word “fibra” which means “a single elongated piece of material. Merriam Webster defines it as a thread or structure resembling thread that is typically significantly longer than it is wide. Woven together, fibers form fabrics and tapestries. Spun together, fibers form yarn. Pieced together, fabric can create almost anything. Fibers, when brought together, are so much stronger than when they are alone.

As we gather together for the *Healing Fibers group, we bring our varied experiences, our creativity, our desire to connect, and our efforts to craft something that has the potential to bring warmth and healing to others and to ourselves. We seek to celebrate our common interests, reflect on our paths, alleviate distress and find that, as we work with fibers and textiles, we are lighter and feel more sound for having shared time together. We heal and grow from working with each other. Our conversation and experiences shared build a sense of community and healing that supports renewal for each of us that can also extend to those arounds us.

Creative endeavors, collaborating in community, and serving others can help bring restoration and joy. People need creativity. People long for community. People commit to service. People often feel restored and at peace when coming together.  We find renewal in the act of connecting with others over a shared interest, in creating something beautiful and/or functional with our hands, and sometimes in gifting creations to people in need of healing. In challenging times, we find this brings healing to our own hearts, as well.

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Art by: The Healing Fibers Group

The Healing Fibers group meets monthly (now virtually) to provide a space for creative community and an opportunity to craft various fiber and textile projects. Some projects are passed on to patients at MCHS in Eau Claire and other sites in NWWI and others serve to bring comfort to those in the group.

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For more information about the Healing Reflections gallery or to get involved with the project, contact Sara Martinek.

To discuss the latest on Post-COVID Syndrome, head over to the Post-COVID Recovery discussion group.