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 quickly, I had to be curious to what could heal it fully.  It took two years to walk more than 100m without pain making me double over.

When I became pregnant with my second child, I realised something that frightened me; if did not yet 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, and other bodies, 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 or refusing to entertain.

Like the need to leave my finance career, which made me “successful” and unhappy.

Like moving slowly, which showed me I had learned fast meant affection.

Like ignoring my toddlers tantrums from broken bananas, which showed me I was never allowed to be upset.

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 or avoid?

Through this work, I have learned that real love is holding ourselves to higher standards in compassion, care and creativity.

My spine healed and my body is strong from care, not hiding from the pain with pills and escaping into food.

I believe the things we avoid can become the things we will treasure most when we unpack them. Otherwise they’ll continue to hold us back.

That's what my art is about.

Not avoiding, but uncovering.

Not looking, but seeing real beauty.

Bx