Hell.

"Hell" not a very inviting title is it?

 

"Hell is not a place, but a state of mind"

are the words that came to me while painting today.

My Gremlin/Inner Critic doesn't want me to write this post.

He doesn't want me to share this story with you.

"What about the five others you have in draft?" he implores me.

Yes, why not complete one of them?

Why not play it safe?

Why risk baring your soul and art for ridicule?

                                                                                                  

                                                                                 

 All very valid points, my dear inner guardian.

But I have had a few prompts from The Universe in the past few days....

It began with an innocent looking email.

My dear friend and mentor, Connie wrote a post Vulnerable Naked Bare.

where she bared her soul,

shared her raw emotions

and shared her "dark" paintings.

 

                                    Underworld1                                

Reading her words, seeing her art, "feeling" her pain, her vulnerability,

it stirred things inside,

it opened up the wounds buried deep down inside,

in that dark hiding spot,

the one that no-one usually can find.

Connie's paintings.....her words......her recent journey.....

they moulded together to create a key,

and it flung open the door to my 'secret hiding spot'.

The flood gates opened,

the tears streamed,

my breath quickened,

my chest tightened,

and my gut churned.

I sat in front of my computer feeling like my heart had just got ripped violently from my chest.

     Underworld1 (detail)

Old wounds fester in the dark.

We pretend they aren't there.

We think if we can't see them, they will just disappear.

We think if we don't think about "it", "it" will just melt away,

dissolve into the tapestry of our past.

We put on that "brave face" that we are taught about as a child.

We make sure the world thinks "she copes so well".

Trust me, I've worn that:

"Can cope with anything life throws at me" badge

proudly on my chest for all to see.

It became a badge of honour.

"Yes world, look at me. I can cope."

When younger I had a boyfriend whose favourite saying was:

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

"Crikey, I'm so strong I can carry the whole world on my shoulders",

my EGO would boast.

Chin up.

Brave face.

Smile.

Fall apart later.

Hold it all together.

Cope.

 

Underworld2

 

Yes COPE.

I ended up so busy coping, that I turned it into an art form.

I've mentioned before

How I used avoidance as a coping mechanism.

Yes, avoid the pain.

Avoid tending to the wound.

Cover it in layers and layers of "busy-ness" and it will just go away all by itself.

Sailing along quite nicely, thank you very much.

Unexpectedly,

someone I admire greatly, starts to walk a similar path,

her story starts to mirror my own.

And the tiny, almost invisible hair-line fractures start to form.

They travel like cracks in sheet ice,

moving swiftly but silently across the surface.

If I don't look too closely, I won't see them.

I can continue on blindly.

"No worries, mate."

 

Underworld2 (detail)

 

One.

One extra straw gets added.

and I know.......

I know I can't put it off any longer.

I HAVE to face the un-face-able.

I HAVE to heal those wounds.

I HAVE to heal with a brush.

I HAVE to heal with paint.

I HAVE to stand in front of that blank page and face my demons.

I HAVE to venture into the Underworld.

 

Underworld3

"It's a privilege to journey the Underworld." my friend Connie over-heard Pixie say.

I feel like I'm eaves-dropping.

Eaves-dropping on a conversation my soul NEEDS to hear.....

 

Underworld3 (detail)

 

The Underworld beckons.

But,

rather then entering fearfully.

I enter with reverence.

I enter with the open mind of knowing it will bring forth good.

It will bring healing.

It will bring closure.

It will bring in the light.

 

Underworld4

 

My gorgeous friend Shamsi wrote, only days ago, in our Painting Tribe

"playing it small serves no one..."

so I hush my Gremlin,

and I share my "dark paintings"

I feel GRATITUDE.

I bring them into the LIGHT.

For Art Heals.

LIGHT Heals.

 

 

Underworld4 (detail)

 

 

Meet Gibblewort!



"Gibblewort the Goblin" by Victor Kelleher and Stephen Michael King

Are you familiar with Gibblewort?

 

The 'Anti-Everything-Aussie' Irish Goblin from the imagination of 
Victor Kelleher and Stephen Michael King.

Well, he is exactly what my FEAR GREMLIN is like.

 

I feel like Victor and Stephen plucked him straight out of my mind.

They look alike.

They sound alike. They smell alike.

They have similar bad habits and both whinge ALL the time.

 

 They are both always looking at the storm cloud,

and never seeing the rainbow appearing  faintly in the distance.

Even before I read these fabulous books to my kids at bedtime,

I KNEW that Gibblewort inhabited my world.

He hides you see.
He doesn't like the light.
He hides in the dark and whispers in my ear.

He's very convincing, right at this moment,
he's on my shoulder telling me:

"No one will read your second blog post, you just had beginners luck....."

"Everyone took pity on you, that's why they visited or commented......"

 

"You're getting too big for your boots. You know what happens to tall poppies....."

"Best throw in the towel now, before you make a fool of yourself!!"

 

"You live in a small town and everyone you know is laughing behind your back, right now!!"

Oh! he so KNOWS how to press my buttons. You get the picture.....
I'm guessing you've also heard these whispers,
I'm guessing you've got your own Gibblewort.  
Your own Fear Gremlin.  Your own Inner Critic.

If you've read any of the Gibblewort books,
you'll be familiar with his style of adventure. 
Even the other goblins get jack of him and ship him off.
And so, too, I get jack of MY Gibblewort.

 

Some days he wins.

 

I give in.

 

 I don't follow that dream, that hunch, that gut feeling or that yearning. 
And then I reside in a town called REGRET.
It often all comes back to bite me on the bum and rub my nose in it!! 
I imagine you've visited there, at some stage too?

I'm sure my Fear Gremlins skips away, 
 snorting and snickering as he rubs his grotty-warty hands together all smug....

But other days I win.

I DON'T give in.

I STAND my ground.

I FOLLOW that heart's desire, that gut feeling.

Some days it might be a fight to the death between 'ole Gibblewort and myself,
rolling and tussling on the ground with hair-pulling thrown in for good measure.
He doesn't go quietly!

Some days, I may argue 'til I'm blue in the face,
winning in a war of words, rather than fists.

Some days, I simply stand my ground and refuse to budge an inch.

Refusing to listen to his barrage of abuse.

Some days, I'm sneakier....

 and wait until he's preoccupied picking the grime from under his fingernails,
 I slink past,
then I run like a spooked fox sprung in the chook pen.

Some days, I invite him in for a cuppa and a biccie and a civilised chat. 
 

 

Oh, he whinges about the tea being too weak,
the biccies too hard,
and the cushion too soft,

 but sometimes.....sometimes, he listens,
throws his hands in the air and says;
 "Why do I bother, you'll do what you want anyway!"

 

These are the days I feel taller. 

These are the days I feel wiser.

These are the days I feel stronger.

These are the days I feel braver.

 These are the days I follow my Inner Wisdom. 

These are the days I follow my hunch, my feelings, my heart's yearnings, my dreams.....

These are the days that I decide:  

"Yes I will frame that painting I put my heart and soul into and hang it in the exhibition
in a week's time while the framer is 2 1/2 hrs drive away
and it's all a crazy, mad dash!" (phew)

 

 

Or the times I decide:  
"Yes I will offer my paintings to a Doctor's surgery to display and sell even thought they are
6 hours away and framing and transport are a nightmare." (phew)

Or the times I decide: 
"Yes I will accept that offer to co-ordinate a collaborative  public art project in time for a
state wide conference on a crazy deadline." (phew)

Or today when I decided:  "Stop fussing with this post, and just press the 'publish' button."

(Are you seeing a pattern here? I am. Hmmmmmm....)

 

That's when I beat the Fear Gremlin. 
That's when Gibblewort hides in the shadows mumbling to himself
 that next time he'll stop me,
next time he'll protect me from myself.

See he's only trying to protect me. 

Poor thing,
he thinks he's doing the right thing with his 'tough love'. 
 

He's trying to stop me going out into the jungle, by myself,
 to be eaten by the tiger he imagines is lurking, waiting to get me. 

He hasn't stopped to LOOK at me,
really LOOK at how I've grown. 
He thinks I still need his protection.

Sure, sometimes I probably do need to think things through from every angle,
to prevent me making a silly decision that really could end me in strife. 

But I AM a big girl now and can make my own mind up. 
And hey, if we don't take risks, if we don't experience failure or disappointment,
how do we learn?
How do we grow?
How do we develop the courage to try again?

See, now when I stop and look inside,
listen to that Inner Wisdom,
really LISTEN....

I AM BRAVE enough to press the "publish" button.

I AM BRAVE enough to share my thoughts with the Whole Big Wide World.

I AM BRAVE enough to show the world my art, my photographs, my words.....

I AM BRAVE enough to be, ME.