Skeletal trees silhouetted against a gray sky scratch the windows as the wind shrills. The grass and ground below are so saturated that the squelching sound is audible when trod upon. Dripping downspouts and pervasive dampness that chills the flesh and settles in the bones; a denial of the onset of spring. My depressed state of mind mirrors the bleakness of February. Continue reading
Category Archives: Depression
Art Therapy Abstracts: The Depths
My paintings are a result of releasing and expressing deep emotions and most are the products of flow experiences. I’m in art therapy painting abstracts with others who also suffer from PTSD. I’m analyzing what was going on within and around me when the traumatic events happened, and what the memories evoke for me in the here and now. I’m learning art therapy can be a powerful means of for releasing pain that can lead to emotional healing and experiencing personal growth.
“Abstract painting might look easy, and it might look as if the artist did not know what they were painting. It might look like it; however, this is far from the truth. Abstract can be more difficult than landscape or scenery, because there is nothing to copy from, and nothing like it has been painted prior to the moment that the artist picked up the brush or palette knife.” – How to Create an Abstract Painting
I love the sea, streams, waterfalls and ponds and have early memories centered around them, like the one I referred to in an earlier post. As a child I almost drowned when people I trusted playfully dunked my head under water so many times I was unable to get my breath, my lungs filled with water, and I nearly drowned. Luckily I was revived but the memory and the feelings I experienced, as I chose to surrender to the depths rather than fighting for my life has remained with me.
Understanding Abstract Art
“When you look at a representational painting, you get an immediate feeling as to whether or not you like the painting. Abstract paintings are different. They have designs, shapes or colors that do not look like specific physical objects. As such, abstract paintings are a lot harder to understand than representational paintings. Indeed, when you look at an abstract painting, you often have no idea what it is you are actually seeing.” — Understanding Abstract Art
* Click thumbnail images to see paintings at full size.
The National Gallery of Art’s Brushter was what I used to create these paintings. It has 40 brushes, a full palette of colors, and special effects.
Digital painting is pain free
Painting manually gives rise to pain in my hand (arthritis) and wrist (carpal tunnel) but digital paintingting is pain free painting! I am finding my interest in mastering the use of the Brushster tools is beginning to exceed my interest in painting on art papers or canvasses. I have never given abstract painting much attention as my preference has been for representation art but digital painting is leading me to view abstract art through new eyes.
Emotional healing
I have unleashed my creativity. I have no preconceived idea of what I’ll be painting but instead I allow the energy that flows through me to direct my brush. Someimes my painting reflect past events and sometimes they don’t. Once I have created what I call a “PTSD painting” and anlayzed the event that gave rise to it, the expressed memory no longer carries the emotional charge it had when it lay unexpressed in the depths within me. Through art therpay I am letting go of the painful past; I am healing.
Bach Flower Remedies For You
This summer I shared my experiences as a person with invisible disabilities (fibromylagia, chronic fatigue, multiple food and drug allergies) and how I have learned to take care of myself by overcoming chronic illness and stress.
Without doubt the quality of my life experience is influenced by my attitude. Happiness is a state of mind and we can achieve it by making the choice to be contented with our lives as is and grateful for what we do have, despite our circumstances.
I have learned nothing external provides more than passing pleasure. The creation place for happiness dwells within me. I have learned that when I make a conscious decision remain in a mindful state, the happiness choice is an easy and very natural one to make. I can look for opportunities for emotional healing and growth even when times are tough and that’s what I aim to do.
I can choose to take care of myself by employing the strategies I shared in this blog. Or I can choose to over emotionalize, immobilize and to sink into depression. I can choose to feel all my feelings fully and then make the choice to be happy despite my circumstances. Or I can choose to suppress and deny them and suffer.
Over the years I have developed some effective strategies for conscious living. I have published affirmations, relaxation techniques and meditation practices for beginners in an ongoing series of posts in this blog. And now that I have slowed down and examined my 586 blog posts, I can see that I have a lot of fixing of categories and tags to do in 2011 to make some deeper material available.
Emotional healing
Along with diet changes, yoga, meditation, aromatherapy and massage I have been using Bach Flower Remedies for emotional healing and I’m wondering if any of my readers are using them too.
These days pain is a common ailment as my friends and I are heading towards retirement years. Impaired joint function, arthritis, fibromyalgia and gout are among the complaints and that’s not surprising as inflammation is the body’s natural response to wear and tear and injury. Along with the physical symptoms of aging and the energy it takes to cope with chronic pain and exhaustion, feelings of helplessness and depression are common.
Constant pain can be irritating at least & overwhelming at most. Beech provides some relief from feelings of intolerance.
Elm is useful when I'm feeling overwhelmed by commitments and deadlines as it helps me put things back into perspective.
When I recognize I have been driving myself too hard and over extending, Oak motivates me to take time off to relax and to move at a slower pace.
Olive helps get me through the day by increasing my energy when I find myself feeling exhausted from lack of sleep.
Honeysuckle can be used for depression. It assists in the ability to live mindfully in the present desire to move forward.
Gorse can also be used for depression. When and when feelings of helplessness impinge it provides a sense of hopefulness.
Impatience can be used to reduce onset of feelings of annoyance, frustration and irritability caused by impatience.
Star of Bethlehem can neutralize the effects of shock due to accidents or due to past traumatic PTSD causing events.
Willow can be used for bitterness negativity, & resentment. It evokes flowering of consciousness.
Art Therapy: Abstract Painting
We begin our lives being spontaneous happy and playful. Challenging circumstances, relationships and events in our lives can cause us to lose that childhood sense of wonder and joyfulness. That loss can result in depression ie. a mental state in which we don’t feel happy to be alive any more, and some of us are haunted by PTSD flashbacks to traumatic events in the past.
I suffer from depression and I have previously published articles in this blog on happiness. Every day I focus on creating happiness between my ears, and this summer being with children gave me the creative boost I needed to start painting abstracts. Continue reading
