Beth Piper

Art has been a gift to me from the beginning of my healing process. When words failed to convey the difficult memories that haunted me during every moment of my life waking and sleeping, Art has been a way for me to express what was going on. The first time someone suggested that maybe I draw how I was feeling and what images I was seeing in my head, I thought they were crazy. Me? Art? Drawing? HA! But one night as the nightmares that plagued me in my early recovery had once again woken me up and reduced me to a state of insomnia, and for a lack of something better to do in the wee hours of the morn, I picked up some colored pencils that I had been using for a school project and started to draw. By the time I was done, I was exhausted enough to try sleeping again. I did 24 hours straight!

As I began to uncover more and more memories of sexual abuse I would turn to art as a way of expressing feelings and what was going on inside. Words, would often fail what was happening inside and what I was experiencing could not be expressed through words. I now think those earlier drawings were from a preverbal state and I would have never been able to come up with words anyway.

Over the years, I have been involved in different forms of therapy, but I continue to turn back to using artwork as a way to express myself. In my professional life I have also had the extraordinary opportunity to witness healing through artwork as well. As a domestic and sexual violence advocate for children, I would often bring art into our support groups as a way for the children and their mothers to express themselves in order to start their healing process.
One of the forms that I have used and continue to use is Holotropic Breathwork and mandala drawing. Breathwork has allowed me to heal different aspects of myself in ways I don’t think normal therapy could ever have provided. I have gotten in touch with myself in a very deep and meaningful way. There were times that I didn’t think I would ever heal, but Holotropic Breathwork taught me to stick with it and see it through. Doing the mandalas after a session only helped to aid that integration of the session and solidified my experience even deeper than I went during a session. Using the mandala form after a session as well helped me to focus energy into the drawing and helped to provide boundaries to my experience.
The artwork you see here came after ten years of doing breathwork. I look at them now and see how far I’ve come. The mandala above I call Kaleidoscope. During that session, I realized that I could continue on the hurtful path that keeps me from achieving my goals, or I could choose to move out of the victim model and become whole. I am glad to say; I have chosen to move out of being the victim and onto a healthier path.
The mandalas above, below, and to the right I drew after my grandmother passed away. Doing Breathwork after this event, I feel, helped me to integrate the deep loss I felt after she passed away. The illness and dealing with a mentally ill uncle had wrapped me into a cocoon of self-doubt and depression. During the sessions, I was able to reconnect with the spirit of my grandmother and my own spirit. I was also able to connect to the people that I loved and cared about and realized how blessed I was to have everyone in my life. I was grateful to have had the time I had with my grandmother. The breathwork had enabled me to “be” and sit with my grandmother in a way I don’t think I could have a few years ago. The drawings you see from those sessions are of the energy, grief, and love that came to me during the sessions.
Using art as a mode of healing has meant a great deal. It is not to say that the healing process has been all tea and roses, but it has helped to work through some difficult stuff over the years. Most of all for me, it has meant a way to express things that couldn’t be expressed verbally. It was and still is an outlet for emotions, visions and body memories, which cannot be expressed in any other form. It doesn’t matter if you are not an artist, as long as you can pick up a crayon, paintbrush, mold clay or use any other type of art material. It can provide a profound way to heal.