‘Feeding my demons’

I am trying to do an art journal therapy course on line with Shelley Klammer – you sign up and get 100 days of prompts via email. Life keeps getting in the way – I am well over the 100 days but still working only working in the 50’s
I started again this week with day 51 – which encourages you to do an exercise called ‘Feeding your demons’ this has its roots in a Buddhist practice called Chod

Demon 1

‘The process of feeding our demons is a method for bringing our shadow into consciousness and accessing the treasures it holds rather than repressing it.’

http://www.feedingyourdemons.co.uk/feeding/Feeding_your_demons.html

I have been putting off doing any art therapy – I have been going through a bad migraine and irritable bowel patch that has left me tired and unable to eat properly ( again)

The prompt encourages you to make a shadow or demon journal. I did the exercise and found it liberating, so I did it again – this time it wasn’t as successful and felt that there was still more demons that needed working with

I like writing stories and making up descriptions of the demons , I have an acute sense of smell and revelled in the making up of the beasties as real entities

For example demon 2

this one is attached to my the back of my neck and its claws and feelers sink into my skin and then it is invisible – it lives off the adrenalin in my blood and cranks up the tension when the limbic flight or fight arises – it feeds of my anxiety too – it’s stomach has a the capacity to bloat up two or three times its size ( I am enjoying this far too much ) then it drops off – but it crawls back on to my neck when I am asleep. He is about 3″ long and he stinks – like rancid milk that has been spilt on a carpet and left to go off………

I felt the need to continue with the exercise

This time when promoted to imagine my demon I saw a series of large distorted shadows that seemed to be controlled and created by a tiny figure – the exercise requires a meditative state and I was lying quite comfortably on the sofa under a warm duvet – when I realised that the small figure was me

It seems so obvious that I am my own worst enemy but in my relaxed slightly unconscious state it was a shock. In the exercise you confront your demon, imagine it , ask it a series of questions and then feed it – there is an explanation of the whole process in the above link

As this is an art journal therapy exercise I worked on the images in my journal – I didn’t feel like there was enough confronting of self going on so I switched to my iPhone and used some layering and filters in Image blender.

Added colour with gelatoes