Sometimes junk comes up in life. I, like most other people, spend the majority of my life trying to pretend it isn’t there. We’re really good at that as a society I think – “Hmm, well no one wants to hear about my junk, and its probably not that big of a deal, and I think I’ll just shove it under the carpet. Yeah. I like that idea. Let’s pretend its not there!“  We do it with everything from polygamy to political dishonesty. Doesn’t leave a whole lot of space for healthy expression does it?

I mean, my parents are British for pete’s sake. The British are some of the best for pretending everything’s alright – stiff upper lip and all that crap (Mum, Dad – sorry). It’s not very mainstream, or politically correct to talk about our emotional wounds, and our trauma. I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about it as well. When we have to hide our emotions and what’s hurting us, it often makes us feel ashamed, and shame only causes us to hide even more. And as they say, what gets repressed, will eventually get expressed, but usually in far uglier ways. You know the ones I’m talking about – people with emotional baggage making everyone around them miserable. It’s the guy going through the roof cus he was cut off in traffic (seriously man, its not a huge deal) or the woman in line at the grocery store who is having a fit because we aren’t all moving fast enough for her (the rest of us have to wait to, ya know). And you know what would happen if you asked these people if they had some emotional baggage they needed to heal? They’d have a conniption.

“I AM FINE! How DARE you accuse me of that?!?!” as if having been through emotional trauma is somehow dirty, or shameful. People don’t go to therapy because they don’t want to be seen as “crazy”. Or if they are in therapy, they don’t tell anyone because they’re so ashamed that they might be crazy. But we’ve all been wounded in life and we all need to heal. (Therapy is awesome – I believe that everyone should get a good therapist. I personally am in therapy, and its great. I refuse to be ashamed.) The question is, are we healing these wounds? Or are we just blaming everyone around us for how crummy we feel?

Maybe its time that we stepped up, and took control of our emotional states. The wounds we have need love and attention and to be cleared of that horrible infection, guilt. We all need to heal. We all need to let go and move on. I think the major question is, exactly how do you heal an emotional wound? As of yet, I still don’t know. Do you?

Welcome to one artist's odyssey

On May 21st, I'm going on a quest. A quest for art, for meaning, for beauty, for truth. I'm picking up my life, packing up a suitcase and heading to rural France to live, paint and study art for the next 18 months.

Click here to find out how you can stowaway in my suitcase and join in the adventure!