Hanging On

‘Hanging on’

And

‘Clinging onto my fractured heart’

Taken from my personal art therapy journal

Now with the help of a professional councillor I have continued my art therapy journal, but with guidance and focus in terms of what to think about each week and then letting those thoughts be expressed in my art journal and talking about the images created together during the sessions, it’s been so very powerful already how my subconscious thoughts and feelings come out in my artwork and how I’m starting to understand how to explain them and come to realisations about myself, my past, my present and my future needs.

For those who struggle, like I do with traditional methods of expression, articulating their thoughts and emotions, understanding the past, and their present self and even just deciphering the chaos in their mind, I have personally found art to be my voice, my expression, my language!

I create images to offload all the things in my head, and I’m then able to look at it and understand it better, I can explain myself with art/images so well but if I was to just talk I wouldn’t know what to say or where to start.

Art is the portal to my soul, the voice of my mind and the desires of my heart.

It is only when I have an image in front of me that I am able to talk about that ‘subject’. Often when I’m looking at the image I begin to write poetry related to the image. As in this case with

‘Hanging on’

It’s been shattered, broken,

Patched back together,

And shattered all over again.

Barely holding together,

Almost completely ripped away.

Yet, still hanging on by a thread.

Battered, bruised,

And broken to pieces,

With just one finger,

Clinging on by a thread,

One single thread of hope.

Eleni NeoBenyon