Like so many other people, I too have tried many cocktails of pharmaceuticals in order to manage depression, anxiety and other symptoms that have accompanied me on my journey of awakening. But the benefits never outweighed the side effects for very long. Yes I agree they can help us get through a rough time and if we have children or circumstances that don't allow us to attend to the deeper issues, they can literally be a life saver. Yet eventually their effectiveness wears out and dosages must be increased to maintain any efficacy. So what then?
It took me decades to realize that I have a creative soul that already knows how to process and heal me, if only I would let it do its thing! But I was taught that my creative talents should fit into a standardized box of what is artistically acceptable and valuable. It wasn't okay to just let my soul have complete freedom to express itself. Instead I needed to learn how to make it conform to people's ideas of beauty or aesthetic ideals. So I left art behind and immersed myself in craft for decades. There I could expend much of this pent up creative energy without ever offending anyone and make a useful product at the same time. The only problem was that my soul was still knocking on my inner door wanting to be let out.
Finally, many years later, a good online friend sensed that I had anger bottled up inside me and suggested that I let myself express it artistically through painting. So cautious I picked up the brush again that had lain dormant for 33 years, and for the first time ever I just let her rip. What proceeded to come out floored me. It was as if I had never stopped painting at all, technically speaking. But now it was charged with the passion of my own personal content that had always been masked or silenced before. Over time I began to realize that this bottled up, passionate expression was indeed what was fueling both my depression and my anxiety. Now I'm not saying painting is a silver bullet that fixes everything, but I did learn that in conjunction with a good trauma therapist, uncensored artistic expression opened doors that nothing had been able to pry open before. And yes, there were demons in my dungeons, but the angels were locked up in there too. I discovered it was a package deal and that I couldn't access one without the other.
Fast forward to today......we are now living in a time of the birth of the Intuitive Creative Expression movement, which includes modalities like Process Painting, Narrative Therapy & Expressive Arts Therapy and many more. This is not about learning the color wheel and how to draw perspectives, which are still useful tools, don't get me wrong. But the point is that all of us enter this life with a creative urge of one form or another and few toddlers need much instruction on what to do with a crayon and paper. They just naturally explore what color and line does in their little hands. So I encourage you to give it a try and see what comes out when you loosen the grip of the censoring mind on your creative soul. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find!