July 22nd 2009

I woke up grumpy this morning, my morning pages were lots of grumbling and literally writing blah! blah! blah! Feeling negative about everything, mainly the fact that I'm not creating much. Then I picked up the AW and right there on the first page of Week 2 - Recovering a Sense of Identity - JC says: "We may feel - and look - erratic. This erraticism is a normal part of getting unstuck, pulling free from the muck that has blocked us. It is important to remember that at first flush, going sane feels just like going crazy. There is a recognizable ebb and flow to the process of recovering our creative selves. As we gain strength, so will some of the attacks of self-doubt. This is normal, and we can deal with these stronger attacks when we see them as symptoms of recovery. These attacks are groundless, but very convincing to ourselves. Buying into them ENABLES US TO REMAIN STUCK AND VICTIMIZED. "

I immediately felt better and very clear about what is going on with me. My post yeterday was the first time I have been as clear and succinct about how I got into the place I have been for so long and why I am still struggling to free my artist self. I went to an art therapist for about three years and during that time I did these two paintings at home:



































I never did finish them but they are far enough along to see what they represent. The one on the left is me wandering lost, with no identity. The one on the right I didn't really understand, it quite shocked me. There is blood and tears on the right and blood running down the sword. This is the rough one I did:

I now realize that the sword and the tearless eye on the left is the part of me that is protecting me against anymore pain. My knight in shining armour. That all along my Censor has not been my enemy but my protector. Put there by my inner artist child.

At the time of my art therapy I painted a lot of pictures with a line down the middle and talked about a guard being there only allowing certain things in or out. At the time this didn't make sense to me but now I understand that I was protecting myself. As JC says: "Most of the time when we are blocked......it is because we feel safer that way."

How clever our psychy is. My inner knight was protecting me until I was healed enough for it to be safe to come out again. There has been an ebb and flow to my coming out, I would paticipate in something for a while, be friends with someone for a while and run back into hiding. If I felt someone getting too close or seeming like they were being too controlling, or disrespecting me in some way - off I would go and isolate myself and cut them off. I was on the verge of doing that with my blog because I was being too open and revealing and monitoring the responses I was getting to my comments and blogs and preparing to run into hiding again. Now I understand what I have been doing, I feel like I have been freed from a lot of the confusion and frustration I have been feeling for so many years. It would have helped if someone could have explained to me what I was doing and that it was a good thing, not a bad thing ( although I may not have been able to hear what they were saying). I even did an art jounal entry about a knight in shining armour and the whole king arthur story at the same time I did a workshop about swords and actually got to hold some different swords. It was a very powerful feeling to hold them.

I was hiding because I felt that everything about me had been rejected, so I rejected myself. It has been a long journey trying to pick up some of the pieces of myself and reclaim them. There is still a ways to go yet. When you get broken inside it's very difficult to heal. It's such a desolate feeling to feel like something is broken inside and not know how to make it better. Despair is the word. There really is such a thing as a broken heart.

Hopefully, now, instead of fighting with the part of me that is calling down my art (I am just doing it first so no one else can do it to me, I already know it's corny, stupid bad art) I can see it as a protection mechanism. I learned this defense mechanism very young. I had forgotten all about that one. And instead of being angry and frustrated with myself when I shut down/run and hide, I can be gentle and undertanding with myself. This blog is really going deep.

I realize now that this is the same thing Mel was saying in her story about her demons. Our Censors or Demons are not bad they are protecting us from being hurt, albiet in a very cruel and unkind way.

The sketch I did of the sword picture is so clear to me now. Although I was wounded and in pain - the blood and the tears - the other half of me was strong and half of my heart was not broken.

So glad I decided to do the AW again and with the blog, it makes a difference to believe you are writing and might be heard.