June 9, 2026

Why Joy May Be the Medicine We’re Missing

Show Notes
Transcript

In this uplifting episode, Divya Parekh speaks with artist and former nurse practitioner Edi Matsumoto about her journey from healthcare to art. Inspired by compassion and creativity, Edi created Otter Therapy, a whimsical series using humor and playful otter paintings to bring joy and emotional renewal. They explore healing through art, midlife reinvention, community building, and why laughter and wonder can be powerful forms of medicine.

Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).

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This is Beyond Confidence with your host w park. Do

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you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you

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want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,

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and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvparks Beyond Confidence,

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you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers

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who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and

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are living the life they want. You will learn how

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relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

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Moving your career business forward does not have to happen

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at the expense of your personal or family life or

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vice versa. Learn more at WWWA. You don't divpark dot

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com and you can connect with div at contact ats

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divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's

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your host, div Park.

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Good morning listeners, it's Tuesday, and of course, as always,

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it's a joy to be with you. And with everything

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happening in the world, people are hurting, people are experiencing challenges,

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and yet the joy of being alive is always there

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and how can we bring that joy back in even

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in the midst of hardest of hardest times. So one

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of the things that is going on is the artificial intelligence,

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where it is on one hand, leveling the playing field

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where people can do so many things that they were

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not able to do before. And on the other hand,

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it's a harsh reality that jobs are being gone, even

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though we're not seeing it completely right now, but they're

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massively off happening. So when people are going for interview,

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what separates them from the other people who have their

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answers from AI? So the key is as to how

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they are thinking. It is separating the strategic thinkers from

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just AI generated answers. And if you are looking to

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do that, or even if you're looking to grow in

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your profession, or if you're an entrepreneur, How do you

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go out there and stand out, not in the social

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media noise, but not also in the digital footprint, but

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in the era of AI. Get our book the AI Agency,

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and of course there are other books. Thank you for

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getting our books because part of the partial proceeds go

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to kiwa dot org. And let's talk about bringing that

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joy amidst all the fears that exist.

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Malcolm, Ddie, thank you for having me, Davia glad to

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be here.

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Well, it's great to have you. So Eddie, do you

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recall a moment there in your early life or later

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somebody or some situation left the post to mark on you.

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Oh, there are so many, but let's start on the

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early part. So when I was in high school, I

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read a book about mother Trisa and that she left

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a big mark on my heart, and I thought she

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was the coolest a person. She got a calling and

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that's what she wanted to do in her life and

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she did it. So that's what I thought. She was

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the coolest person. Despite all odds. She accomplished so much,

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and so I decided I wanted to meet her and

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that I was able to meet her at Meet and

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Greet while she was in visiting Japan. I'm originally from Japan,

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but I really wanted to go where she actually does

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what she does. So after college, I flew to India

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and volunteered at Home Foro Dying Destitute in Calcutta. And

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I volunteered there and I was able to meet her again.

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She I did a little bit shook hands. So I

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was really happy being able to be in her presence

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and joyful presence despite all the hard work she does.

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But on the other hand, I saw many other volunteers

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who are healthcare professionals doing studying an ivy, dressing the wound.

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I had no medical training at that point, so I

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was only feed the people or put a powder on

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the patients after their bath. That was all I could do.

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So I said, someday, if I were to come back

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or do something like this, I really need more training.

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And that's the beginning of my healthcare career.

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Ah and Japan. People have such a fascination for Japan

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because there's so many ikey guy and you know those

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philosophical principles that have been gifted to the world, Yes,

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from the culture of Japan. So what are a couple

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of things that you carried with yourself from Japan.

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So it's funny you mentioned I Guy right after bad

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because that's one of my guiding principles. So ikey guy,

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you know, I when I was in Japan, I simply

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thought of that as life's purpose. But as it was

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introduced to the world, people in the English speaking world

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started to understand the ikey guy, which is the intersection

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of what you love, what you're good at, and what

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the world needs and what can sustain you, you know,

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meaning you can have income from that. And you know,

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after I struggled a little bit, after I left healthcare

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system and became an entrepreneur, gallery owner, artist, I found

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ikey guy all over again. Healthcare was my ike Guy

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at the beginning, after mother trisser and working as a

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nurs practitioner for thirty almost thirty years, but then that

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changed over time. And now you know, as an artist

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having my own gallery, doing what I love to do

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every day and people love it and I can make

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a living doing it, so it's so joyful. It's Ekey Guy.

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Every single day I'm leaving my Ekey Guide. So I

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think that is a gift from Japan the concept to the.

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World, absolutely, and there are other concepts like from Linsi

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Sigma that I have used, Kenman and Kaisen and it's

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just I'm definitely a fan of a lot of the

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principles from Japan. So you mentioned that Mother Teresa's joyful presence,

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So what can you share a couple of things about her, like,

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you know, what did you experience with her? What did

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you take away from your meetings with her?

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Yes, she is a tiny little person, but you can

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I kind of have an image that like an energizer bunny,

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So I have this kind of long lasting battery. And

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she's running around this little home for dying destitute this way,

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that way. But you know, but she has the presence.

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She talks to each patient, each volunteer, and she has

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the presence full of love, care for every single person,

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and also joyful and she jokes around. She's laughing in

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this little temple full of dying people. But it's it's

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a very solemn and serious place on one hand, but

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on the other hand, the people who are walking there

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there seems to be content, you know, loving what they're doing,

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helping everybody. And so she's leading this and she's you know,

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taking care of patients, touching everybody, but On the other hand,

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I see her in the distance one time and she's

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walking with a nice gentleman, and that somebody whispers to me,

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you know who that is that gentleman. He's the Prime

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Minister from France. So she's so humble and so unassuming

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that she is talking to you know, she's a friend

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with the Princess Diana, or the royalties and all the

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you know, the head of the States, and so she

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just handles this beautifully without any ego, any self consciousness.

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She does what she does step by step, and she's

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and also I went to the mass at the Missionaries

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of Charity, and I thought she would be presiding over

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the whole thing, but then no, she came a little

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bit late, and she sat in the very back, very quiet,

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and nobody would have noticed her, only because I was

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looking for where is she? Where is she? So she's

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very humble, yet she's huge in that little tiny body,

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but just she's you know, have this quite small and

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just feel the energy the aura that love. So she's

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amazing and I was so so lucky to have been

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able to talk to her and shook hands and that

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I remember she had the softest hand. I was expecting

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really rough, callousy hand with all the things she does,

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but she got the softest, warmest hand. I never forget

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that I was only eighteen or so when that happened.

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Well, what a blessing. And you mentioned that you were

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in the healthcare because she inspired you to go and

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help people. So what was your journey like as a

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norse practitioner.

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So after I volunteered at the Mother Trice's home for

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the institute, I thought I needed to do something, and

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I also needed to learn English better. So I came

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to the US and enrolled in English as a second language.

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Then I started to do nurses AID. Since the vocational nursing,

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I'll ben and RN and master's degree in Nurse Practitioner.

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It's a lot, you know. It's always like this in

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my life. Something I need to do, it unfolds itself.

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Somebody will tell me, because I did know anything about

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LVN or nurs practitioner. But when it's time, somebody will

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tell me, oh, here's another program you might be good

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for you and I go there and do it. And

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then after I got my RN, somebody tell me, oh,

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there's such thing as nurse practitioner. You might be interested

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in Okay, I'll look into it. And I did it.

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So over eight years, I'm going to school, I'm working

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in the evening at the hospital. So I did both

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for about eight years until I got my master's degree

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for nurs practitioner. And I loved taking care of patients.

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I loved working in a hospital. So I felt like, yeah,

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I did it. I'm working on my mission like mother Trisa.

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So I really love the interaction with the patients every day.

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And then after I finished working at the floor nursing,

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I became an instructition at my own office. I had

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a corner office, beautiful corner office. I was able to

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schedule my patients the way I like it, so I

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had an ideal setting. My husband is a physician, and

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he's always jealous of my position. Like you're working, you know,

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at your own pace, and you have weekends off and

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evening it's off and holidays off, and I'm working evenings

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and uncles. He was always jealous of me. But over time,

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you know, I was in healthcare for almost thirty years,

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and over time, the computer caming you mentioned AI, the

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computer came in and we have to do more and

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more documentation in a computer and there's more regulation, more insurance,

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more restrictions, and we were not able to as a

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healthcare provider. We were not able to practice medicine as

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the way we used to patients. Patient was not the

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center anymore. It was about liability, productivities, and documentation. It

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became a center stage, not patients. So it wasn't just me,

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but a lot of healthcare professionals. Clinicians started to get

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more stressed out, burned out, depressed, and I saw that

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in so many of my colleagues. And that's when I

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got involved into National Academy of Medicine Clinician Well Being Committee,

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and yeah, so because it became a national issue and

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more clinicians committing suicidey depressed, having PTSD, so it was

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a serious problem. This is even before COVID and the

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studied in nineteen seventeen or eighteen or twenty eighteen. Sorry,

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And so I wanted to be part of it. And

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luckily I started to painting in about two thousand and eight,

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so I already had ten years of art education, and

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when the National Academy of Medicine called for art artistic

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representation of clinician wellbeing and burnout, I had a whole

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body of work deficting healthcare professionals good days and bad days.

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I submitted several of them, and they picked one of

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my portraits of my husband kind of looking depressed as

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kind of a postal void for depression and clinical clinicians burnout.

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So that's how I got involved in this kind of

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prevention of burnout using art as a healing tool involvement movement,

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So that's kind of but I started to use art

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for healing purposes. So yeah, I know.

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That is that is really really allowing to hear that

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clinicians were committing suicide, and because that patient care not

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being the center, you know, it takes away from the

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purpose of the clinicians what they're doing. And I can

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definitely say that that for some of the physicians that

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I've been with, they've still maintained even though they have

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to record everything and as things are emerging, but having

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that piece of humanity. But I can definitely see why

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it caused a bone out. So since you mentioned that

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art therapy was coming into with the clinicians as well,

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so tell us how it has grown m HM.

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So well, the first encounter was one of my husband's portrait,

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you know, kind of looking depressed. It's called at the

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end of the day. So he's holding his head, the

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faces half in shadow. And then first my husband did

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not like that, because why are you painting me like that?

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But then as I have it in my studio and

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I you know, put it on my Facebook and song,

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and so many people resonated with that painting. And it

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wasn't only healthcare professionals, but people who are maybe it

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could be teachers, could be anybody. But you know, people

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have this bad day at the end of the day.

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You're so exhausted, you know, you don't even want to communicate.

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You just you can only hold your heads and take us,

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you know, deep breath. So so many people resonated with

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that painting, and so that means, you know, that painting

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does have to be necessarily this beautiful, pretty colorful thing,

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but just depicting the reality with the emotion, strong emotion,

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people can connect. And because my husband, you know, at

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the beginning, he didn't like it, but he got so

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many good comments about it. Oh, I love your painting.

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This is so much I can totally relate. And now

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he loves the painting. And that's so I think it's

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that kind of depiction will tell people you're not alone

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in this. You're not the only person who are exhausted, depressed,

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stressed out to burn it out. So something kind of

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representing somebody's emotion. I think that's one of the elements

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of healing art at least.

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Yeah, yeah, and that makes sense because what happens is

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on social media, people are putting their best pictures. Right

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you see people even in hospitals have a smile on

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their face and that shows that they're brave. But you

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don't see many pictures where people are posting their pictures

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as reality that hey, I'm feeling this or so tell us, like,

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you know, how can our listeners and audience can take

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that art therapy and bring it into their lives.

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So there are you know, quite a few research done

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since then over the last ten, maybe even twenty years

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about art therapy and how much art has the power

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of healing, and that either you're going to be the

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artist's creator or just receiving and you're just viewing art.

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Either way, it does seem to have a huge impact

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on physiologically, emotionally, psychologically. So part of the let's say,

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so if you're cancer patients and try on art therapy.

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So part of the you know, they'll usually provide each

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hospital clinics will have arto therapists, you know, the bigger

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hospital would have arto therapists and classes, so they will

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teach you some easy way to start art. And then

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number one, so you will learn something new. It's kind

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of a diverse and distraction from something that stressed you out.

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But also it's kind of fun. It's kind of make

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you do certain things and that can be meditative that

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again take your mind off of something else that stresses

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you and it's fun. You're doing with a bunch of

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other people and that that's kind of fun. It's a

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community working on something similar and also just using some

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kind of physical you know, using your hands. That's kind

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of fun. But also just that the process of creating

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using different parts of the brain from you might be

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in a rut thinking about what's going to happen to me,

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thinking about their health, but also use totally different parts

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of the brain being creative doing something new. So that

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will kind of start to create a new path in

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your brain. And so the research would show, you know,

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it will loyer broad pressure, loyal breathing rate, and the

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decreased code is all increase the well being, sense of

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well being, the sense of community. And also you're expressing

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yourself in the way you could not before. And many

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people have problem describing or expressing verbally, but they can

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do it the way they like it with the color,

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the shape, or the strength of the lines they draw,

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so they can express it something they could not express before.

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So there are so many different benefits, so I think,

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you know, people may want to give it a shot.

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I do teach art classes locally, mostly for beginners, and

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most of the people coming, oh, I'm such a bad artist.

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I can only drawstick figure. I cannot even draw stick figure.

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And I said, don't worry about it. You know, maybe

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summer somewhere in the past somebody told you your art

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is not good enough. But forget that. It's not for

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your teacher, it's not for any audience. It's for you

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to have fun. So I do like a coffee painting workshop.

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Only thing you use is coffee. You can drink coffee,

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but you can dip your brush, clean brush into the coffee, uh,

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and then sat drawing on a piece of paper and

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you might glue your crystal instant coffee or coffee beans

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on it and make a beautiful art. And it's all abstracted.

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When I first start teaching them, I do abstract So

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that's not wrong picture. There's no wrong answer. Everything is

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a masterpiece. Just give it a shot however you like it,

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and people have fun because you know nobody's watching there,

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nobody's judging you good or bad, so they express it.

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Even some people who had oh I'm a bad artist.

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Not they make beautiful art. They're proud of it. So

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just do something fun and it doesn't have to be

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visual art. Many people come into my gallery that, oh,

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I'm not an artist. I wish I could do something

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like you do. No, I know you're an artist. You

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just don't know it. You're not admitting it, or it's

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just a totally different outlet. I'm sure you're a better

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cook than I am, or you're a better gardener than

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I am. Or maybe a musician, you sing, dance, whatever,

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a poetry blogger, whatever, you can write better. So you

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are an artist, you just don't know that. It took

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me many, many years before I can admit and call

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myself an artist. So I just encourage everybody to pick

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up something that you think you enjoy. What did you

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enjoy when you were five years old? Did you like

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to draw? Did you like to dance? You know, go

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back and start doing it. It's fun, like you know,

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as they say, like nobody's watching or saying like nobody's listening. Yeah.

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Yeah. So what I'm hearing, Eddie is that find an

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outlet for expression and then all that pentap energy, all

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of that. So what you're doing is that things that

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are just weighing heavily on your mind and the weight

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of emotions that you're carrying. And when you find that art,

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you're letting it out and you are expressing, and you

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are making use of all the other parts. And especially

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like if you're doing art, like you are using all

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the senses. If you think about it, it's touch, maybe

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not a smell, but you're using multiple of your sensory

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organs and that can create such a rich experience and

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that you can carry because as you're sharing that, it

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doesn't have to be just one thing. Whatever speaks to you.

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So tell us about your journey, like you mentioned, and

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that you have created order series. So tell us how

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that evolved from the corporate of your husband.

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Let's see, So I was in healthcare and started to

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feel a little burning out. And that's when the art

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came into my life. So I really studied.

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First it was just.

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A personal enrichment to a hobby, but the more I

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find out about the healing power of art, I really

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got into it. Then decreased the hours at the hospital

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from full time to part time and use three days

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weekend to do more art. And yeah, so that was

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my way of work life balance. And then one day

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hospital asked me, you know, we really want you back

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to full time and because we value your work. And

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we talked about this before and you didn't want it,

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but this time you better go back to full time

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because otherwise we're going to eliminate your part time position.

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So I thought, oh, that's an interesting way to approach it.

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And but if you put it that way, even though

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I'm going to lose my insurance, income, benefits all that,

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but I'd rather be free. I'd rather go into art

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and do my own thing. So I'm going to resign

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from the hospital position. So it was scary and it

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was a big leap, but I needed it. So here

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I am. I know nothing about business, nothing about sales

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or marketing. So about two three years. That was sort

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of the dark night of the soul. I'm trying to,

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you know, make a living as an artist and didn't

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know anything about selling business. But at the same time

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I was learning like crazy, I'm investing. I use my

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saving to invest in myself in education, new kind of education,

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in coaching, learning, business, marketing. Mindset shift. That was big

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mindset shift that you know, I don't have to be

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a starving artist. I can be a profitable, thriving artist.

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So that was about two three years of incubation period

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and at the end I got two things. Another wise artist,

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you told me, if you want to make a living

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as an artist in this area, Mote Cameo area, we're

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famous for our beautiful coastline and also forest and so

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landscape sales, sea scape cells, but also sea auto sells.

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So I was so I thought, well, I've done landscapes

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and sea scapes and they're nice, but they're not my passion.

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So I give see arter a shot. See what happens.

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So I painted a few sea arters, people loved it,

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sold quickly, and then by chance again this is my

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Why Joy May Be the Medicine We’re Missing

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