Pain and Healing

I have multiple things that keep me from this work of being an artist and illustrator. Some are psychological/behavioral along the lines of procrastination. Some are responsibilities and life, such as being a father and helping my partner take care of her ailing mother and being the father of a toddler. Also, having a day job (BIG ONE). A really problematic one has been something a lot of artists deal with and that is muscular-skeletal pains in the arm, hand, neck or back. Drawing or painting can be hard on the all the parts of the body involved in sitting for long periods hunched over a table while focused on making careful marks on paper or canvas. For me it is pain in the back, neck, trapezius part of shoulder, and thumb. That is accompanied by numbness in the arm and hand. The pain often gets so intense it is absolutely prohibitive to working on my art.

After suffering with increasing levels of ouch for several years, I got myself to my general doctor to discuss this pain and see what could be done. After getting an x-ray of my neck at a subsequent appointment, it was determined that I have degenerative arthritis. This was disheartening but not surprising. Armed with this fact, I have booked physical therapy sessions which will focus on alleviating some of this pain and strain though massage and whatever other means.  These begin next Monday and if my insurance can cover enough of the cost this will be ongoing.

Another tack I am taking to alleviate the symptoms I'm experiencing is meditation. I have increased mindful meditation to almost every day for 40mins. This it making a real difference in my baseline bodily tension that I carry around with me and has lowered my general levels of pain from an average of 4-6 to a 3-4. These numbers are based mainly of how I feel while at my dayjob which can be the most challenging time to stay relaxed. A good deal of the pain I experience is, I believe, the result of a unwieldy amount of anxiety and PTSD-based tension I carry in my body.

I am hopeful that I can feel better and do more drawing in the near future. Reversing some of this debilitating pain has become a real priority and I'm doing what I can to take care of my self.

Photo of latest drawing pre-coloring