Primal Painting: When words aren’t enough

Hello my beloved community,

I’ve been on my intentional healing journey for over half my life, focusing my time and energy on recovering, reclaiming, and self-reflecting as my way of moving through the world and making sense of myself and those around me.

Many group processes, self-help techniques and talk therapies rely on talking and writing about our lives, fears, thoughts, traumas, feelings etc as the primary way to find clarity, connection, recovery and healing.

When we’re going through difficult or confusing times, we go to our friends, our loved ones, our spiritual leaders and professional guides, and we talk about it. And it works, it helps. We often gain perspective, and feeling seen and understood and not so alone is deeply healing.

But what about when words aren’t enough?

What about those times when we desperately need to feel seen and heard but we don’t have the capacity to talk about it?

Whether it’s a trauma response or the grief is too immense, or we just aren’t able to wrap our logical, linear minds around what’s happening and how we feel or what we need in order to get somewhere with it?

What about when things don’t make sense and we can’t get a clear train of thought?

What about when we’ve talked about it from all the angles we could and it’s still just…there?

Then what?

Art making and creative expression are uniquely healing because they naturally tap into the parts of our brain connected to imagination, emotion, connection, and inspiration. Our brains are hardwired to process image, color and shape more deeply and in more natural, complex, inherent, and primal ways than words and language, because they don’t require our logical mind to find the words to express what’s happening in a way someone else can understand.

(TW below: SA healing through expressive arts)

There is tons of research on this topic and the benefits of language-free healing, somatics, creative expression, and the very real physical and mental health benefits of art, but I want to share with you my own experience with it.

I have hundreds of stories and examples of this in my personal life since finding intuitive painting in 2013. But in light of the current state of the world- the horror, the violence, the secrets coming to light- I want to share one that was personally profound and is unfortunately very relevant.

In 2016 I recovered a memory of SA. Really what happened was, for the first time in several years, I was able to name and admit what had happened to me rather than blame myself in an attempt to not feel so powerless and devastated.

I had been working on a painting that was pushing me up against my joy ceiling. And as it got bigger and kept asking me to (excruciatingly) bring in more and more and more joy, I had this moment of clarity, this realization that my capacity to feel and express joy was limited because there was something blocking it. Something dragging me down that I had locked away. And it was this trauma.

The acknowledgment was so big and the fear was so dense, I was terrified that if I let myself go there, towards the harm and the darkness and the pain, it would completely consume me and my life and I would never be able to climb out. And what would it do to my relationships? How would I be able to show up to work? How could I function in my life?

Thankfully, I had been in my painting practice for a few years at this point, and I was able to make an arrangement with myself. Every Monday night from 6-9pm during painting I would give my trauma the space it needed. I couldn’t guarantee what would happen and had no idea if it would even show up in my painting each day since a key principle of ours is having “no plan”. And I had no idea how long a process it would be, but I would allow it. This gave me the permission I needed to lean into and be with the trauma that was knocking at my door, but also gave me boundaries and some containment that I needed. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it and processing outside of that time, but like going to therapy, it gave me intentional, committed time and the ability to go really deep without such big fear of losing myself. And without doing it alone.

In the months I spent painting and processing my SA, I experienced deeper healing than I’ve ever felt before. I learned that full healing actually CAN happen, and that it doesn’t have to always be a years-long process of coming to acceptance and learning to live with it. In painting my SA, I literally was able to give the trauma that had been in my body to the painting.

Because of the somatic and embodied aspect of intuitive painting, I was able to move my body through painting in whatever weird ways it needed to release the pain. I didn’t have to try to explain, find the words or talk my way through. I was in loving, supportive community held by unconditionally loving and capable teachers, but I was also in deep solitude with myself and my pain, and was able to allow my inner wisdom to guide my process. Because of the vulnerability of SEEING my trauma spew out on the page, I was able to be with it in this deep, wordless, primal way. And it moved. It felt like a months-long exorcism of painting, but I was free.

That’s not to say I no longer ever get triggered or think about it or that I pretend my past isn’t my past. But I can honestly say that the weight of it is no longer in my body. I was able to paint it out.

Intuitive Painting isn’t always this deep, massive, and intense, but it can be when that’s what we need and if we are willing to lean into the unknown and let our intuition guide us. The painting can hold it all so you don’t have to hold your burdens alone. The circle can hold it all so your wholeness can be welcomed and witnessed.

May we all find refuge in the ways we need. May we all experience ways to release and heal. May we remember the logical mind is only one piece in the mosaic of our wisdom. Come join me.

With the deepest love and gratitude that you exist,

Amy