Personal Expeirement

The book, You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay, became biblical for me. I turned to it for every ailment to find out what was mentally and emotionally going on with me and I would try to share the information with anyone who would listen. I was already a pretty aware person and was fond of metacognition. To have a manual for my metacognition was amazing. I remember having the worst sinus cold, head pounding and couldn't possibly breathe a squeak through my nose. I looked up Sinus Problems in the book and the probable cause was listed as, 'Irritation to one person, someone close.' I realized that I was totally irritated with my boyfriend at the time. The new thought pattern/affirmation was "I declare peace and harmony indwell me and surround me at all times. All is well." As soon as I allowed myself to start to feel that, I could feel the pressure lessen and my sinus cavities crackling open. It was absolutely astonishing. I didn't always have that quick of a response but it was becoming quicker the more I was aware and practiced.
These experiences provided a foundation for me to try my own affirmations and see how my body responded. For example while walking down the street I would try out thinking, “I am strong and in alignment” and see how that would shift my posture and stride.
For this project I wanted to take it to another awareness level, superseding the thought process. I decided to experiment with feeling sensations in my body and translating them one to one on a full sized sheet of paper depicting the colors and/or textures as they appeared to me as I was feeling them.
My hypothesis was that the more I practiced doing this, I would eventually become more sensitive and aware of my body and the energies or emotions being directed in certain areas.

This was my first attempt. As you can see I had feelings in my feet, middle area and a lot going on around my head. Below is a detail of the head area. You can click on any of these pictures to make them larger.



As I continued this project I began to see and feel the dilemma of translating from a 3 dimensional body to a flat piece of paper. If I was feeling something on my tongue, it was hard to convey that horizontal sensation. I had contemplated what I would do to distinguish in the drawing, from front or back, but realized that I didn't really care since there isn't that much distance from my stomach through to my back.


Above is a detail of one of my sensation drawings that needed something protruding from it. All of these colors and markings are my closest attempts to what I am seeing connected to these sensations when I close my eyes and feel.
I have really enjoyed this project and it is still continuing. I don't know if I will want to take it to more of a sculptural level, but I am liking the process as it goes.