“The purpose of spiritual evolution is to remove the blockages that cause your fear. Blocked energies from the past…can be released. The problem is, you either completely avoid situations that would cause them to release, or you push them back down in the name of protecting yourself.” - Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul.

Anger comes from desperately wanting something from someone that they can’t or won’t give you. Over time this anger becomes fetid and morphs into poisonous thoughts affecting everything. Before you know it the injustice you insist on living with damages relationships including the one with yourself. Sometimes things just don’t fit and not accepting this keeps you miserable and perpetuates you as the victim.

This is a peaceful but lonely picture. The figure is supported by the atmosphere and the colours are calm in contrast to the more common brighter shades in this series. There is a feeling of surrender having brought up old trauma and lovingly worked through it. Instead of grappling for reassurance via temporary hits of comfort from others, you are confident in supporting yourself.

“Your first chance [to surrender] is to surrender each moment to the reality of that moment. Knowing what is cannot be undone - because it already is - you say yes to what is or accept what isn't…Whenever you are unable to do that you are creating some form of pain, some form of suffering. It may look as if the situation is creating the suffering but ultimately this is not so - your resistance is. Now here’s your second chance at surrender: If you cannot accept what is outside, then accept what is inside. If you cannot accept the external condition, accept the internal condition. This means: do not resist the pain.” - Eckhart Tolle

In this painting a ‘boxed in’ energy is ignited, released and turns dark to light. In contrast to previous drawings, a darkness - the shadow self - is presented in full and allowing itself to be seen. There is an acceptance that without darkness there wouldn’t be light and the existence of your dark self (selfish, greedy, angry, envious) is natural and ok to look at in order to work through.

The woman you were before having children is still, in parts, missing. Sexual appeal is absent yet there is still expectation from within your world, the outside world and from the most savage expectant - yourself. In this drawing a dark and messy, unkempt female form mimics a vagina as if this is why she exists - for child bearing and pleasure giving. For others.

At the time of making this painting there was frustration in trying to connect with the old fun, feisty self. This painting seems to relay the search for missing parts of myself but the subconscious reveals what’s really going on and later we know, in this case, it’s early pregnancy. In therapy it’s discussed how sex for procreation and sex for fun seem mutually exclusive and one has to be given up to accommodate the other.

Are the people here floating or hanging? We all vibrate at different levels and see the world differently. Your version of events on which you place your beliefs are just that - your version of events. It’s liberating learning to give the benefit of the doubt. My therapist asks what it would feel like to not be angry at a habitually sore subject and I realise that I can, actually, chose not to be. This drawing is also about patience. We heal and grow at a different rate to our loved ones and therefore can’t expect them to fully be with us on our own journey.

15 to 2 pregnancy levels confirm death. In this drawing the scribbles between the deteriorating HCG hold the hope and excitement at potential life. And then it’s all gone. How can that life/engery/love just be gone? The shrewdness of these numbers jars agonisingly with the exciting, unpredictable energy that was about to unfold.

There is a calmness around miscarrying that I can tell alarms my therapist. I’m rationalising it and she insinuates that I’m reverting to type and burying the pain. In hindsight, it turns out she was right and about 6 months later I finally cry about losing a baby.

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