What you share with a Lotus

Lotus Healing

The 5

1."The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel van der Kolk

2.How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self by Nicole LePera

3.The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

4. Love is Not Enough by Mark Manson

5. Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab

Behind the Book Pages

These book pages retain life lessons that have helped me understand the depths of my innermost workings, from lessons as hard a coming to terms, and dealing with my childhood traumas, and acknowledging how that had affected my views of the world, others, and myself. I picked up reading these books after leaving a very toxic relationship, with a narcissist. They have helped me, pull myself out of a dark hole, brought me out of survival mode, and taught me how to create a life I love bring so much peace and balance to my life, helped me learn to master my thoughts and emotions which has greatly improved my anxiety, depression, CPTSD symptoms, and work towards healing, and for a long time I wondered why, doesn’t everyone just "heal", but as my healing journey started I realised, the real meaning of "If it was healthy, everyone would do it". These books were my therapy.

And through the polarity of it all, feeling like I would take one step forward and 6 steps back, I constantly affirmed myself, "Healing isn't linear " and every time I found myself falling back into unhealthy patterns of thinking and behaving, they would be comforting words to myself to not let shame or guilt keep me stuck, I put affirmations everywhere in my room and on my mirror, I was determined to reprogram my mind, form new neuro-pathways, new ways of thinking, thoughts that were my best friends, and the affirmations helped me so much, and so do the words of the words in those books, and the book pages are a reminder of that.

Why a Lotus

The lotus flower is considered to be very sacred in Buddhism, and its symbolism holds a lot of weight. I chose to turn my pages into flowers because, anything beautiful is most likely to be compared to a flower, and what better flower to use than a lotus when it comes to the subject of healing, a lotus grows from deep muddy waters, yet manages to be so open and so beautiful, just floating on the waters.

Making this book page Lotus flower beautiful art has brought me so much joy and comfort, peace and hope, most of all inspiration to share with other people, the content of this book, so people understand the root of their anxiety, depression, addictions, and know that they are not alone, someone dedicated a lot of work, writing a book that explains exactly why you keep attraction emotionally unavailable, or why you may be emotionally unavailable, and then it tells you how to work on seeing your traumas, differently and all these mental health issues, that often lead to physical and socio-economic issues, like addictions and homelessness to point an immediate effect of the debilitation helplessness that trauma leaves its victims with, from a flashback to a panic attack, and not being able to work or be fully present with yourself and your loved ones, why people feel like they are just stuck. These books and many others like them are a work of art that has given life to my works of art.

Bobby Rossy Vibey

Making this art allows me to ground myself, healthily channel my emotions and practice mindfulness, breathwork, and just have time to check in with my body, making my art in itself is therapy, just as much as the content in the books. I'm as relaxed as Bob ross when I fold each "petal", I feel immense gratitude, having found these books, knowledge had given me the power to leave an unhealthy relationship, let go of the resentment, pain, shame for the things I've experienced, knowing I am intrinsically worthy of healthy love still, and I am worthy simply because I exist. The knowledge that the most significant love is self-love.

Without this knowledge, I went about life, lost not knowing who I am or what I wanted, always looking outside of myself, feelings of suicide, depression, and debilitating anxiety, great feelings of self-loathing, never understanding all the invisible strings in my psyche, with this knowledge I am constantly looking for ways to make myself happy, by incorporation art therapy, a healthy diet, exercise, and just connection to myself, a great understanding of why I kept attracting narcissist, why I felt so stuck, how to heal from my codependency, and work on being the energy I want to put out into the world. And most of all have immense compassion for the journey ahead, especially for myself.

The Breaking point

Unfortunately, I learned too late and it was hard to realize that there are people out there in the world that can be so evil. but, evil has always surrounded me, the warning signs do feel like butterflies. I dated my Narcissist for 11 months, it wasn't all bad, but that is the illusion, the love bombing, and idealization, before the gaslighting, triangulation, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse, the betrayal. There's a certain kind of trauma that comes from being with a narcissist, the crazy-making, the dissonance between how can someone claim to love you and look you dead in the eye, swear on their family, and lie to you without a flinch, then make you question your reality, followed by devaluing and discard. Which will leave you like you died, and for many like me you do die, but you wake up, Spiritually. Narcissistic abuse sometimes leads to spiritual awakenings, and my awakening was the greatest gift of this whole experience because you gain an understanding of the real meaning of "HURT PEOPLE, HURT PEOPLE", after all, was said and done, I needed to look at the part I played in the dynamic of our relationship, and I began to do "shadow work", and to the surface came among many things, my unhealthy codependency patterns but with this powerful knowledge on how to do the work, suddenly it was easier to learn to love yourself more, let go past, deeply understand that people will treat you according to the kind of relationship they have with themselves and most people don't love themselves, just like I didn’t love myself, that people come to teach you lessons, knowing the lesson was learned, and soon enough you appreciate the process of how remarkable it is to be in the darkest of depths and still come out beautiful, like a lotus. "The work" is hard, but I also believe HEALED PEOPLE HEAL PEOPLE. And I believe everyone can heal, no matter what has happened to you or what you have done that has hurt others Everyone can become a beautiful lotus at peace, floating on the water, and the first step is forgiveness, of self and others.

And so with these projects and the books mentioned above I share with you the healing power of a lotus flower made of pages from books that have safes my life and helped me to find true inner happiness and peace.

-Ailly Kanee Uukule