Tag Archive: art therapy


Walk in the Woods

Filed under: Photography — Leave a comment
September 30, 2025

It has been far too long since I went on a hike with my camera. My life had become such that it was rare for me to find joy in anything at all, let alone my hobbies…and peace was so far away that I forgot what it felt like… It has been a tumultuous few years and now I find myself embraced by peace again… and that longing to delve into the wonder of nature….even if it is as simple as a walk in the woods near my home…

I love finding trees like this, all covered in mushrooms…
I love that sense of wonder when gazing toward the sky in the woods… surrounded in shadows… feels like home
I love that the longer you stare at these the more colors you see… absolutely humble and beautiful…
Another example… so beautiful for such a humble subject.
Finally, there is this little jewel… In a world of brown and green, this little gem shines with shades of citrine and garnet.
Especially when the sun shines through her legs…

This hike was exactly what my soul needed… I can’t wait to share with you what I find on my next hike.

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Been a while…

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October 27, 2018

Some days I feel like I don’t exist anymore… and in some ways I suppose I don’t.  I am not the girl I was  years ago… I am not the woman I was a few months ago.  I am changing all the time.  For the longest time I fought that tooth and nail…I thought that was a bad thing.  I thought that changing meant I was losing a piece of myself ~or worse ~ all of myself.  I thought I would not be me anymore.  Turns out – I wasn’t.  But that is ok.  I began this blog to journal my healing journey.  I have been runnin’ a lot lately.  I have been hidin’.  I have been sneakin’ around hidin’ behind syntax and proper grammar.  I have been flowerin’ up my language and tryin’ to be proper.  Truth is, I am so angry.  I am so dang mad I could scream…and have!  I have screamed, cried, prayed… I have felt lost and confused and abandoned.  I have felt needy and weak.   It feels like the deeper I dig the more junk I find and I feel like I will never be ‘done’.  Like I will always find more junk to dig out and toss away.  My current list – well, it’s loooong – but I am working on it.

I found someone in my family decided to throw away a 20 year marriage, he has just thrown it away and utterly failed his wife and son.  He has been cruel and abusive and I am so disappointed in him.  He hurls insults and he is so hateful.  I doubt I would even recognize him anymore.  Not that we are close.  Those days are long over.

I am still working on my trauma therapy, having been beaten, raped, molested, abused…I just want to live, you know?  To really live.  I find myself tiptoeing around – literally.  I find myself trying to make myself small and not to be a bother.  I find myself waiting on the pain to rain down on me.  It is killing me.  It is killing my marriage.  My husband married me, but got this docile, hiding, timid woman instead.  I don’t even know who I am some days.

I am … well, not thriving… but hoping to thrive.  I am tired of living on bread and water when there is steak and wine.  I am ready to have my heart feast instead of hide.  I want to swim in the ocean of emotion … swim, and possibly, drown.  But I am ok with that.  I don’t want control anymore.  I want to be lost.DSC_0167

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Feelings

Filed under: Random — 2 Comments
October 8, 2017

I find it so hard to stay in my heart – to stay in my feelings… My default setting seems to be numb.  I feel so awkward most of the time.  I feel so much – but it is buried so deep I appear vacant.  My heart hurts.   I am so tired and so broken.  I carry this horrible weight that threatens to suffocate me at times.  I feel at war.  At war with my pain, at war with my heart, at war with the terrible pull of numbness, addiction, alcohol…. at war with my faith and my anger… at war with my passion and my passivity.  I can feel in one moment like a giant, like a force to be reckoned with and in the next moment I feel like I am not even real and I give in to my despair.  I fear I will drown in it.  I know I am all over the place and this may not even make any sense… but there you are.  Pieces of me.  Broken, fearful, lost, anguished, angry, confused, passionate, apathetic… My heart is a patchwork of pain and pleasure….but honestly, mostly pain.  I ache.  I feel heavy with the weight of my broken heart…  

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Warrior

Filed under: Poetry — Leave a comment
February 18, 2017

Still bleeding from his wounds

he returns to me…

He reveals the depth of his pain –

and I am lost in the torrent, lost

in the extent of the damage.

How can one, so wounded, still live?

He is a road-map of scars,

a patch-work of bruises;

and in my hand the mace.

 

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Giving Up

Filed under: Healing — 4 Comments
September 6, 2016

I am giving up on you.  Every time I think of you I feel this overwhelming rush of disappointment.  I wonder (sometimes) why I ever bothered.  It’s not like you felt my love anyway.  I tried so hard to love you.  I cooked special dinners (which you criticized) I came to visit (which you took for granted) I doted on you and tried so hard to please you… but I give up… You never wanted to know me.  You never liked anything that had to do with me.  I feel like every time my heart was brought out for you to see it was criticized, judged, not good enough, too emotional, too much of a bleeding heart, not loving enough, not affectionate enough… too depressed, too dark… too sad… too silly…  I am tired of it all.  I give up…

 

I am enough.  I am enough for me.  I am good enough, smart enough, kind enough, loving enough… I am enough. I can do this.

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The Bees

Filed under: Healing, Uncategorized — Leave a comment
August 31, 2016

I’ve got that feeling again… the buzzing of angry bees in my chest.  I wonder sometimes how long this struggle with anxiety will last?  Will I carry this with me always?  Will I ever get to the place where I can feel safe and at home in my own skin?  What battle am I fighting today that I feel this way?  When do I get to rest?  I feel like I have been fighting one battle or another since the day I was born.  I guess we all are in some form or fashion.  I long for peace.  I long for comfort… I long to feel.  I have been numb for far too long.  I guess I am finally learning where the bees come from… those angry bees that swarm in my chest and make it hard to breathe. I think they are all the emotions I have refused to let myself feel.  Now to loose the bees and regain some measure of peace I am choosing to feel all the painful things that I would not (or could not) feel.  I am crying and raging and curling up in a ball and allowing myself to feel small and vulnerable… I am fighting for me.  I will win.

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Open Letter

Filed under: Healing — 3 Comments
August 22, 2016

***WARNING: This may be triggering***

You know who you are.  I knew you thought I wouldn’t remember… or maybe you thought I was too afraid to say anything… Maybe you are so supremely arrogant that you have yourself convinced that you did not do anything wrong…  I do not pretend to know your motivations… I do not pretend to know what was on your sick mind.  You know what I remember?  I remember being held face down bent over a bed with my face pressed into the suffocating softness and thinking that this was how I would die.  I remember the pain as you ripped into me – penetrating me harshly – feeling like a knife…  I remember rough hands and a harsh voice.  I remember longing for death that day and many, many days afterward.  I vowed to never be vulnerable again… I vowed to never let you see me hurt… do you remember calling me a touch-me-not?  Did you ever wonder why touch made me recoil?  Why touch made me feel sick inside?  I doubt it… everything was about you, wasn’t it?  It was about your needs, your feelings, your ‘right’…  I am tired of feeling like this.  I am tired of feeling like I am not allowed to feel.  Yes, I have a lot of pain – but I am strong enough to feel it.  I am strong enough to survive you – I am strong enough to survive anything.  I revoke my vow.  I can be vulnerable.  You will never touch me again, but I will love being touched again. I will not live locked in my solitude.  I will feel again and I will make a new life.  I will survive you yet…

 

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Haunted

Filed under: Photography, Poetry — Leave a comment
November 9, 2015

Haunted by memories I grasp for you and quickly push you away.

I cannot stomach this closeness yet I desire your touch – crave it –  NEED it…

Fear arises as the brush of your hand resurrects ghosts thought long exorcised…

My body trembles, haunted by the abuse that still lives in my skin and in my breast, beating like a second heart.

It is chaos here… shouts, whispers, whimpers, cries…

Locked in the asylum of my mind.

July 23 2014 (120)

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Feeling Uneasy

Filed under: Random — 4 Comments
November 4, 2015

I hate this feeling… this vague uneasy feeling that something is wrong.  I got in a slight accident yesterday and clipped a garbage can knocking my passenger mirror through my passenger side window… there was a loud bang and an explosion of glass flew through the car.  It was terrifying… it was dark and foggy and I did not see the garbage can hanging out into the road.  Now I cannot shake this.  I feel paranoid and worried and really uneasy.  It’s ridiculous… All evening with my husband at home I have felt like he was mad at me or unhappy with me… and he’s not – we talked things out and he’s very warm and understanding – it’s just me.  I feel like the bottom is about to fall out.  I know this is just the accident and the dust will settle soon… but in the mean-time I really want to get back to normal.  I hate feeling so raw and vulnerable.

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A Day Near the Ocean

Filed under: Photography — Leave a comment
October 27, 2015

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