Rarely have I had a taste of one person’s artistic expression concentrated in one place like the Louise Bourgeois exhibit currently at the Guggenheim in New York. As I walked up the museum’s infamous spiral path, the journey of her life felt powerful and oh-so-exposed.

I was experiencing the collection of a sculptor and painter who is still working in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood at the age of 96. In fact, I gasped and called my friend over when I saw that one particular piece was dated 2008. Unmistakably, Bourgeois is compelled to create.

Much later on the subway, I was reading New York magazine and came across this little factoid: Viagra helps women on anti-depressants reach orgasm. How very 2008.

I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition of events in my day. Seeing a vast, tangible example of release using one’s natural gift and contributing it to the world vs. reading about cultivating a contrived release with a combination of over-prescribed pills. What in the world have we become?

“I’m very grateful to have been able to exorcise my demons through making art,” Bourgeois told Robert Ayers in an interview published on www.artinfo.com last month.

Yes. Maybe more people should try that.

Bourgeois’ demons are such a key to understanding her art that they are explained in virtually every bio written about her. Her father moved his mistress into the family home as her tutor while her mother “suffered” in silence. What might be the defining occurrence in her childhood bears a striking resemblance to stories we hear in our everyday lives just by turning on the news. It’s all played out in her art – the anger, the disappointment, the confused sexuality.

What a contrast, to see a human being lay her raw emotions out on display in a society where we are constantly bombarded by ads and articles telling us how to numb those same emotions. God forbid we feel a feeling instead of pushing it away with food, drink, sex or drugs.

As a life coach, I am not trained to decide who needs drugs and who doesn’t. I can’t always tell whose daily glass of wine is really several glasses and perhaps a major problem. But what I do know is there are an awful lot of people walking around with the kind of discontent that can be improved with some conscious shifts in behavior and outlook, but they’ve chosen the prescription for antidepressants because it’s easier than modifying behavior or waiting for baby steps to effect real change.

This is the norm now. We see commercials for vaccines designed to prevent us from getting things we have no reason to believe we’ll get in the first place. And the usually horrifying side effects are mentioned in a flurry, in that same sunny voice that appears over footage of a couple or a mother-daughter on a meadow or a beach.

In my ideal world, almost every person who is taking antidepressants is simultaneously seeing a therapist to get to the root of the problem and eventually weaning off the drugs. Most of the older folks in my extended family are on cholesterol and blood pressure medication, but almost none of them is interested in eating better or modifying their lifestyle. I’m starting to wonder if I’m a member of a very exclusive club that sees advances in medicine as a blessing but a last resort.

One of my favorite life coaching moments was finding out one of my clients, a lovely, talented, earnest young woman, had put the antidepressants behind her. Her decision was made with a doctor before she came to me, but I saw firsthand the difficulties she had as she was going through it. She is now living the life she yearned for, socially and creatively, and exudes a whole different kind of energy.

Tapping into our creative gifts and looking at ourselves more closely won’t necessarily prevent us from reaching for instant gratification in other outlets. There are too many strung out creatives in the world disproving that. But self-expression and self-awareness will certainly help cast out some of the demons.

My favorite piece by Bourgeois is a bronze sculpture called Spiral Woman, which is suspended from the ceiling and is literally a spiral with a woman’s legs hanging out the bottom. Bourgeois has called this a self-portrait.

Need I say more?

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.