Expressive Drawing

"The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe, and with the unbearable pain - to just be with it all." ~ Ram Dass

Feeling Without Thinking

It has taken me years to build up a larger loving container of presence for my emotional pain to transform within. Our biological instinct is to turn away from emotional pain, and this weakens us spiritually.

Presence to our emotions involves feeling without thinking. Feeling without thinking is a process of learning how to stop feeding emotional pain with negative thoughts and offering love to the pain instead.

The Release 

I had been struggling to stay present with a deep primordial level of emotional pain for a week or so before I completed the drawing below. After a week of loving presence and patience, the pain moved out of my heart and onto the page. Turning To What Hurts with a fierce level of love and presence is a process of trust. We transform ourselves by building the power of our presence until it becomes stronger than our pain.

The Transformative Power of Pain

After finishing the dark and painful drawing, a leaping tree figure emerged in my intuitive drawing, expressing a new lightness in my heart.

The Release 

Fresh pink, open energy coming into my next drawing. Such sweet relief! 

Powerful Healing

When we build the strength of our presence in the face of emotional pain, we can heal ourselves on a deep, cellular level. When our presence becomes larger and more powerful than our pain, we transform into Love.