My Mountain

Another year has been and gone, and although I have been through a series of challenges, and exciting changes my desire to support people’s mental health wellness through ART has become dull- not even dull it has been non-existent for a while now. I find myself sitting here on a Tuesday evening with the first month of a new year almost coming to an end. I find myself sitting here pondering and wondering, what happened to my inspiration to create? What happened to my passion for all things art and mental health wellness?

As I ponder these thoughts, I can't help but feel a huge sense of overwhelm and guilt as my dreams and passions are still very much present in my thoughts, but there is this huge block of creativity that leaves me to wonder is art therapy my true purpose.

Then I stumbled upon this:

“Chaos is the only thing that honestly wants you to grow. The only friend who really helps you be creative” - Dan Widen.

Now for myself living in a state of chaos was something I grew familiar with, and with this state of chaos my creativity thrived, my want or more so my need to create art and pour all of my energy and time into art and mental health wellness became a way to silence the chaos. With my journey in recovery being the focus of my creative outlet, my way of coping with the overpowering chaos internally was to create, I am now just over two years sober and I am grateful for this every single day- life has definitely slowed down since living sober.

As I mentioned last year I faced some challenges but more importantly some exciting changes, as I entered a new role where I get to support youth living with disabilities, since starting this new role I had something that filled me with joy, I had a new passion, a new place to focus my energy and time into, and slowly with this new role came the calm contentment that I once received from creating art.

Although I haven't been inspired to create myself, I have been creative in different ways. I have utilized my creativity in a way that supports people living with a disability to thrive in their own lives. This may not quite be my dream or my passion, but I have found a deep sense of purpose and gained a huge range of experience in this role so far- I am grateful every day for my job and the people I get to work with.

I have come to accept that my inspiration to create my own art is currently silent however my ultimate goal of supporting people is in full motion. At the start of the new year, I had a feeling of guilt for not creating, not blogging and not really doing anything that I counted as working towards my ‘DREAM’- until I realised that where I am now and what I am doing is a huge climb on my mountain towards my dreams compared to where I was a year ago. In this role I have full autonomy at being able to run programs, some of which have revolved around art with the participants, and I have also been supporting youth in achieving their own goals with individual support, facilitating programs and building their confidence and self-belief- all of which align with my purpose and my dream.

Creating art for me has always been, and still is, a form of therapy, art is my safe place and is still a place where I can channel the inner chaos and darkness into something beautiful- when the inspiration and need arises. I believed and mostly still do that my purpose is to share this with others and to become an art therapist, I still aspire to learn more about art therapy, and alongside this continue simply learning and gaining first-hand experience in supporting others achieve their goals. From now on I am going to stop feeling guilty for not being inspired to create art, instead I am going to embrace each moment of calmness with a sense of knowing that when the chaos returns, I always have my art.

This leads me to my new year's intention which is to continue existing in the moment, in the here and now and have trust that where I am now is on My Mountain, I am in no longer in a rush to reach the top of my mountain, I am going to take each small step and enjoy the view along the way.

Who knows what is at the top of my mountain, maybe being an art therapist, perhaps a CEO of a charity, or perhaps at the top of the mountain there is something that right now I can't even imagine, but I know whatever is up there won't be worth it if I rush to get there without enjoying the view.