Dear Painting Friends Worldwide,
Janat had been watching, reading and hearing so much painful news of suffering , death, discrimination, murder, that she did not even realize how depressed she was getting. She, who loves to paint, was even avoiding painting. Something shifted for her in our recent zoom painting group. When I read her story, I knew it needed to be shared. I know she is not the only one who was feeling overwhelmed and helpless, … frozen. Thank you Janat. Her painting is still in process. Please read. See my web site for upcoming zoom painting groups. Love , ag
PS: You might want to consider getting rid of your TV which I did many years ago… and I have no regrets. I can listen to National Public Radio.
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CORONA GIRL
By Janat Horowitz
I’ve been frozen, unable to move, write, create, clean, answer emails or phone calls, and I’m not a depressive person. It must be my age, I thought, I’ve never been 70 before; perhaps my life force has simply gotten up and left the building. It’s only downhill from here. This must be the way it’s going to be from now on, except that it will only get worse as I age. But I know better, I’m in a “Courageous Aging” group and I can see that this isn’t true. Aging doesn’t have to be conventional. An acquaintance remarried at age 98!
Today, I finished a painting class where I’m working on a huge image of a person with the Covid virus coming out of her face, and dangling from her pinky finger are three black men hung in nooses. Very disturbing images emerged from my uncensored unconscious and they reflect the media that barrages us with unpleasant imagery minute-by-minute. What I discovered is that I’ve been “holding” the world like it was mine to fix. Like there was something I could do to change 401 years of racism. Or, that the virus will be coming around the mountain, ending my little, peaceful, loving world. I was holding life so deeply and tightly inside that I wasn’t aware of how it has been eating up my energy every day,hearing of hateful events.
We know that our brains are hardwired toward “negativity bias,” which evolved to keep us safe from saber tooth tigers and tornadoes. The media knows of this attraction to the negative and so we are only shown the most frightening and sensational news items. We watch, and up go the ratings. I’m not even talking about 45’s outrageous behaviors and speech that I get sucked into like everyone else. I’m finding that paying attention to too much of any news has a high cost. Overindulgence in it does nothing to contribute to the benefit of all, and is detrimental to each of us that pay too much attention to it.
Through my painting mentor, Aviva Gold ,and class today I became able to step away from holding so much of the darkness inside me, and allow some light to take its place. I went inside and found the energy-eater within and have asked it to take a break, to go to the movies and leave me alone. There’s a lightness of being that I’m feeling now that I haven’t felt for the last couple of months. Maybe I’ll be able to re-enter my studio to create again, or bake the bread I bought the yeast for months ago, make the call to the MVD for a misplaced title to a car we’re selling, and on and on. Maybe, just maybe, I need to look deep inside to find what is bothering me underneath the news, because staying on the surface brought forth only happiness in my life with family, puppies and relationships, and who wants that? Why in the world would I go looking for the darkness that is lurking in the corners? Well, I don’t want to ignore my part in social responsibility either.
Yet I see that my work is actually confined to my small personal sphere of influence, and not in fixing the whole world. It’s a good lesson for me, and such a relief, and possibly for others as well who are also glued to their screens and brought down by the mess of the world. Maybe, just maybe, my awakening will ripple out to those other sensitive ones and help to bring them out of the shadows and into the light.
