Healing from the Heart:
Creativity is Compassionate Care in Cancer Recovery
Patricia Varga is the Founder and Creative Director of the Women with Wings Foundation and creator of the Create to Heal® program, an innovative approach that uses creativity and the arts to support emotional and spiritual healing for people facing cancer and other serious life challenges.
A cancer survivor herself, Patricia understands firsthand the emotional journey that accompanies diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. When she went through surgery and chemotherapy years ago, whole-person care was rarely part of the conversation.
That experience inspired her to develop Create to Heal®, a structured program designed to help people reconnect with hope, resilience, and inner strength during difficult times.
For more than 15 years, Patricia has taught Create to Heal in hospitals, cancer centers, and community settings across the country. The program incorporates guided meditation, visualization, uplifting music, creative writing, and art practices that help participants gently shift from fear and anxiety toward calm, creativity, and emotional balance.
Tools of the Create to Heal® Program
The Create to Heal program uses a variety of creative and reflective tools designed to help participants reduce stress, reconnect with their inner strength, and actively participate in their own healing process.
Practices include guided meditation and visualization, creative writing and journaling, uplifting music, gentle movement, and visual arts such as Ebru marbling, an ancient art form in which paint floats on water and is transferred to paper to create unique patterns.
Participants also work with gratitude practices and specialized journals, affirmation cards, and creative reflection tools developed through the Women with Wings Foundation. Together, these practices help calm the mind, support emotional resilience, and encourage participants to move from fear and overwhelm toward hope, creativity, and healing.
Recently, the Women with Wings Foundation partnered with Christus St. Vincent Regional Cancer Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to conduct a Quality-of-Life study exploring the role of creativity and the arts in healing for cancer patients.
In the six-week pilot program with cancer patients, participants reported meaningful improvements in several areas of well-being:
• Stress and conflict management: increased from 43% to 70%
• Confidence levels: increased from 70% to 87%
• Overall well-being: increased from 65% to 78%
• Ability to manage emotions: 52% reported improvement
• Daily physical pain: 46% reported improvement
Participants also reported feeling more hopeful, more connected to others, and better able to navigate the emotional challenges of cancer. Many asked for the classes to continue longer and suggested including family members and caregivers in future sessions.
As medicine continues to evolve, research like this reminds us that healing is not only about treatments and technology — it is also about creativity, connection, and compassion. When patients are given space to express themselves, reflect, and share with others, something powerful happens: fear softens, hope returns, and resilience grows. The early findings from this quality-of-life study suggest that creativity can play a meaningful role in helping people navigate cancer and other serious life challenges.
Patricia is an artist, author, and creator of healing tools including journals, affirmation cards, and guided practices designed to support people navigating serious illness and life transitions.
For more on the Create to Heal program, please read this patient’s experience:
Healing Through Art: Reflection on Cancer Survivors Group
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My View Column by cancer patient Andy Winnegar
Women with Wings
(626) 403-7575
in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Thank you, Patricia, for the beautiful work you offer to the cancer community … always from your big heart.
Nancy
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