For most of my life I believed becoming better meant pushing harder. I bullied my body into being smaller. I ignored physical discomfort.  I treated frustration as something to get past. If something felt difficult, I assumed I needed more discipline.

Then, after my son was born, my body stopped me.

A 16-year old spinal injury reared its ugly head and left me unable to sit or stand without white-noise pain, I could not lift my son or recognise the body I'd spent years trying to control.

Recovery wasn't just physical, it challenged the way I'd approached everything.

I couldn't force my body to heal quikly, I had to become curious to what could heal it fully instead.  It took 2 years to walk more than 100m without pain making me double over, and another two to feel stronger than I’ve ever felt.

When I became pregnant with my second child, I realised something that frightened me.

If I couldn't learn to love my own body, how would I teach my children to love theirs?

So I started drawing. At first, it was simply a way of sitting with my body instead of criticising it. Drawing forced me to look instead of judge. Something unexpected happened.

The more closely I looked, the less there was to fix. I wasn't changing my body. I was changing the way I saw it. That lesson changed who I was.

I started noticing all the other things I'd been resisting, avoiding and refusing to entertain.

Like the need to leave my finance career, which I had learned made me “successful” and unhappy. Like moving slowly, which showed me I had learned fast meant affection. Like my sons tantrums from broken bananas, which showed me I was never allowed to be upset. And the photographs I'd almost deleted because they weren't perfect, which showed me pride had taken over.

Again and again I discovered the same truth; the things that triggered me weren't interruptions, they were invitations.

Today, every piece I create begins with a question. What happens if we become curious about the thing we'd rather ignore, avoid or refuse?

Because I believe those are the things we treasure most when we choose to accept them.

That's what my art is about.

Not avoiding but accepting.

Not perfection, but real beauty.

Bx