Have you ever curled up in the fetal position and just wanted to no longer exist? Just dissolve into the floor and no longer be? Of course you have, you are a human being and you’ve been traumatized as we all are in different and horrible ways. I’ve spent so many early mornings, so many late nights curled up like this on my shower floor, vomiting down the drain from anxiety and pain and unable to stand.
This painting is my attempt to comfort you in those moments. Trauma and pain have a very intense way of releasing energy from the body, from the mind, from the soul. Trying to hold on to what you are losing is why your body curls up in the fetal position, and the pain is severe.
But you have no choice (that’s part of what makes trauma, well, trauma — the utter lack of control over it and the moral and ethical unfairness of it all) and so there the energy goes.
Only energy is never gone, never deleted, never erased, only transformed. It’s actually alchemy that you are going through, and your energy is transforming you into a new being entirely. Your energy is regrouping — and it’s regrouping from the pure, positive light of who you truly are, not from the negative darkness you are huddled up in.
As we heal from trauma it’s the process of leaving the old you, the one that can’t move in darkness on the floor, and embracing the new, capable, whole, totally different you. Pure alchemy. The unavoidable part is that you absolutely have to allow the process.
(For more help alchemising trauma into growth, you can join my Trauma Recovery & Resiliency Online Class here.)
I call this painting Alchemy and here is how I painted it!
1. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to paint — the transformation of trauma and the reminder that no energy is every lost or gone or erased — so I sketched a few ideas on canvas and then outlined it with a permanent marker once I liked it:
2. I painted in the figure on the floor first, naked and raw — just like the pain of trauma itself — and I also wanted to symbolize the feeling of dissolving or wanting to just melt into the floor and never stand up again… so I dragged colors from the person down, literally scraped them down, into the floor and off the canvas edge:
3. Then I started on the top, the energy coalescing into a new, authentic, strong self… I used bold lines to suggest the energy moving and flowing and pouring into the new you:
4. I didn’t love the ball of energy I was trying to represent and I wasn’t sure how to fix it, so I upgraded it by adding gold leaf… the shine of light that transmutes your pain into growth, literally glowing and reflecting into every part of the new you that is forming:
(I also added gold around the edges of the painting so that it doesn’t need to be framed (unless you want to) and it would arrive ready to hang:)
5. The end result of this painting is a truly glowing canvas, full of positive forward movement while not ignoring the pain and suffering it took to release that energy… both balanced, both necessary, both important. Both witnessed:
6. I signed it then sealed it with several layers of archival varnish. I will not be making prints of this image so it is a one-of-a-kind original painting and will never be repeated:
I can see this in a mediation spot, a prayer area, an altar, a comforting corner of your home, above your bed as you sleep and heal, or even in a therapists office or other health care setting for those that help people heal from trauma. I’d love to send it to you.
Click here for more details:
Alchemy
The watermark does not appear on the actual canvas, but I have so much of my artwork, educational videos, recordings of my live keynote presentations, even my products (like my ground cords) literally stollen by so many other companies that I have to watermark new content as I create it!
xoxoxo,
Laura Koniver MD
