Have you ever curled up in the fetal position and just wanted to no longer exist?  Just dissolve into the floor and no longer be?  Of course you have, you are a human being and you've been traumatized as we all are in different and horrible ways.  I've spent so many early mornings, so many late nights curled up like this on my shower floor, vomiting down the drain from anxiety and pain and unable to stand.  

This painting is my attempt to comfort you in those moments too.  Trauma and pain have a very intense way of releasing energy from the body, from the mind, from the soul.  Trying to hold on to what you are losing is why your body curls up in the fetal position, and the pain is severe.  

But you have no choice (that's part of what makes trauma, well, trauma -- the utter lack of control over it and the moral and ethical unfairness of it all) and so there the energy goes.  

Only energy is never gone, never deleted, never erased, only transformed.  It's actually alchemy that you are going through, and your energy is transforming you into a new being entirely.  Your energy is regrouping -- and it's regrouping from the pure, positive light of who you truly are, not from the negative darkness you are huddled up in.  

As we heal from trauma it's the process of leaving the old you, the one that can't move in darkness on the floor, and embracing the new, capable, whole, totally different you.  Pure alchemy.  The unavoidable part is that you absolutely have to allow the process.

(For more help alchemising trauma into growth, you can join my Trauma Recovery & Resiliency Online Class here.)

This original canvas painting is painted on a deep (1 1/2" deep) gallery wrapped 16" x 20" canvas, I've painted the sides with gold paint... so there is no need to frame unless desired -- it comes ready to hang.  I painted it using acrylics and gold leaf, so that the light that is transmuting your pain into growth glows and reflects into every part of the new you that is forming.  I signed it then sealed it with archival varnish and would love to send it to you.  I will not be making prints of this image so it is a one-of-a-kind original painting and will never be repeated.  Watermark does not appear on the original canvas.

I can see this in a mediation spot, a prayer area, an altar, a comforting corner of your home, above your bed as you sleep and heal, or even in a therapists office or other health care setting for those that help people heal from trauma.  I'd love to send it to you. 

xoxoxo, Laura Koniver MD