Day 1 - How art can save your life !

After reading an article earlier about how art could save your life - I realised that it most possibly has saved mine on more than one occassion! This time though, I realised that something big has shifted already for this year for me - I've not jumped into or signed up for any courses to inspire or expand me.

Yet art and creativity is calling to my soul in ways I dont yet fully understand. I'm beginning to tap back into my own inner knowing and wisdom.

Today, with a deep energy surge that pulled at my whole body, I had to get this old canvas out.

At first I didnt really understand why. But it kept calling me just to sit with it , quiety, unquestioning, just being.

Suddenly I felt the pain and frustration I had originally felt when I tipped the paint out and it was way to runny all those months ago.

I realise now, as I sit here with this piece that, that emotion came from misalignment and a disrupted nervous system.

I was trying to mimic someone elses technique hoping it would be a quick fix to feel successfal and earn money even if it felt like faking it till I make it !

What was really happening ~ I was still trying to find a way to fit in, to scared to fully embrace and share the way I process to create. It felt to vulnerable to out there. Like no one would understand and I'd feel mis understood or worse rejected or ridiculed !

I was not valuing myself , my canvas, my process or my art.

Thats the story I had relied on my whole life until this point. Hiding in my room drawing detailed pictures of animals gave me a way out, a way to block out the noise, to loose myself when I had no control over anything else in my life. I kept it small, it kept me safe while for the biggest part I lived in fear, lack and survival.

As I developed my skills, I learnt to close the book and hide it away like a secret only for me through fear of it being torn apart, found fault with or ridiculed. Eventually I stopped sharing at all. I stoped shining my light.

Now I understand that when I create, I see the "negative" spaces and places in between. Finding deeper signs and meanings within them. I look into the places I /weve hidden or locked away parts of ourselves. But most of all its about what I feel, how my body responds and what my intuition sees /says .

So this piece originally looked like a gateway, with a muddy yet reflecting puddle . At the time I felt the lines were to dense to rectify, feeling the time and energy it would take to bring it to life would be wasted, I abandoned it !

Today I see the gateway, as the gateway to possibility. I see it as a space for deeper reflection, the uncovering of more layers of self. The calming of my nervous system long enough to be able to sit with the quiet.

I've let go of the business for a few moments. I've let go of what I thought it should be and trust the process. I except it for what it is in this moment knowing that it doesnt have to stay that way !

As I progress with this piece over the coming days I have No expectations, No judgements, No preconceived ideas of what it should or shouldnt be. I have no worries or fear of f@cking it up.

I'm fully allowing myself to this time to pause.

To play, feel and express and expand in the fullness of my femanine flow !

Trusting the process !