Healing journey

For many years my life was characterised by a restless striving, a lack of peace and an inability to sustain a lifestyle of balance. Often dominated by a fear of failure and abandonment, I pushed myself extremely hard to achieve. I believed the lie: you are what you do and through my achievements, through doing what I thought was expected of me, I hoped I would find acceptance or an invitation to belong.  My deepest yearnings were for a sense of home, for rest and a safe love and yet through my frenetic lifestyle, almost impossible workloads and unhealthy relationships I continued to sabotage my chances of getting what I needed most. Isolated by the many masks I wore and with a core belief that I was not worth pursuing, mine was indeed a Lonely Striving. My first torso bears this title and its black colouring together with the high gloss surface it symbolises my dark years of hiding behind masks and my stubborn attempts to be self-sufficient.

As my restless striving increased, I pushed myself harder. Several years earlier, my body had already been showing alarming signs of not coping: frequent migraines and insomnia were followed by a diagnosis of chronic fatigue. Angered by this and without any skills to know how to make any changes for the better, I continued. I simply demanded more and more from myself. Mentally and emotionally, I was also dangerously depleted. I was also diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome, but with my, ‘I’ll die if I slow down’, attitude and overfull diary, I cut short the counselling process advised. 

It was physical pain that eventually got my full attention. Pain such that it hurt to blink. And pain such that I could hardly walk. X-rays showed dislocated joints on both feet and on one hand. Surgery was promptly scheduled. Blood tests confirmed my ill health  and I was diagnosed with a serious case of rheumatoid arthritis. Life as I’d built it could not continue.

Rheumatoid arthritis, an auto-immune disease, is when the body attacks itself. Its symptoms combine to express that the normal functioning of a body to regulate and protect itself has been lost. It’s a disease about imbalance and shut down. Through inflammation, pain and joint damage rheumatoid arthritis tells that the body is at war with itself.

 

My second torso, Breaking Open, reflects my failing body, but it goes deeper and wider than my physical body to also include the breaking down, breaking open and breaking apart of my emotional and mental worlds. All I had built around me to structure and organise my life had crashed. All familiar territories seemed a wasteland and yet, it was in the crisis of sifting through the wreckage that I was offered an invitation to start building anew. I was invited to explore and travel in new landscapes of mind, body and spirit. I was offered tools through various creative processes to begin expressing, exploring and reflecting.

My work in clay and other art mediums felt like a diary, where I could risk vulnerability and be totally honest. I  focussed on this and was so grateful to be without the often tyrannical pressure of having to find the right or best words for expression. I had started a vital journey: therapeutically using my newly discovered creative energies. I was making something from my pains. 

On different levels, my ceramic pieces function as self-portraits. The cracks, tears and imperfections are all intentional. From the start, mine was not about clean or pretty art. It was not a striving to be precise or perfect.

Ongoing Healing, is the third torso in this series. In part, its surface is smooth and white. This symbolises my healing so far. While still incomplete, I have covered much ground on my healing road.  I used white and blue on this torso to communicate my belief that all healing has its source in Love. I chose white to remind myself of pure and unconditional love towards me and how there is nothing stronger than this to heal me completely. The torn and cracked surface of Breaking Open, has in many places knit together here as wounds heal to scars. Scars which I no longer mask in shame.

The blue glaze inside this torso expresses the truth that my life lived with Love can know the cleansing and reviving reality of the River of Life. Unlike the upright, proud posture of Lonely Striving, this third torso is bent in a yielded, submissive way: well suited to travelling a healing path.

These three torsos were made to stand as one piece. Together they tell my story. Together they depict my journey from fear-filled striving, to breakdown, to an ongoing process of healing. Together they are titled, Healing Journey.