I had a good night’s sleep even though I had a nightmare about Domenique, and when I woke up, she wrote to me – for the first time in six months. I’ve been having a lot of nocturnal premonitions lately, I had another dream a few days ago about losing my eyebrows and now I have lost a little of my eyebrows (and some eyelashes) due to my health problems. But I’m happy about getting better sleep, it’s been a while since I felt rested when I woke up in the morning.
I’m working on finding balance both in myself and in my daily routines. This has been good for me and I’m being more creative now, more at peace. Every day is one step closer to getting out of this situation where I’m dependent on other people and places. I’m soon there. I just have to keep doing what I am doing.
The “Getting to know you” musical scene from “The King and I” (1956)
Part of my process of personal independence is to feel safe in myself. And for that to happen I have to fully reconnect with all my parts – and to define what feeling safe is to me. I sat down and tried to understand what feeling safe within myself means to me – in this way I’m also getting to know myself better, especially my body which has been like a stranger to me during all the years I was suffering from PTSD and separated myself from my body to be able to survive.
Being safe in my mind:
Be present, relaxed, rested and at peace (through meditation and personal growth), self-compassion, trust myself, believe in myself, know I am capable of dealing with difficulties; trusting my intellect, intelligence and my wisdom, understand that my past is no longer real and it can’t touch me, not allowing other people to judge me, not allowing other people’s opinions to affect me, not taking on other people’s responsibility.
Being safe in my heart and soul:
Be Mia (always), be honest and genuine, protect my soul and don’t waste my intimacy on anyone who doesn’t deserve it, only trust the trust-worthy, speak from the core of me, express myself through my creativity and don’t hold back or censor myself, push out the negativity and toxic energy, celebrate my strength, resilience and courage and be wise about using them well, don’t depend on other people to feel good or worthy, don’t try to rescue other people or depend on other people to rescue me, only rescue myself when needed, feel proud of who I am, nurture my true nature, fill my life with purpose and meaning, let love inside, don’t be scared or try to protect the heart if the love is pure, accept myself and both my strength and my weaknesses.
Being safe in my body:
Take care of my body, live healthy, be kind to my body and treat it with love and respect, listen to my body, trust what my body has to say, let my body rest, heal, express itself and have fun when it wants to, accept my body – accept its beauty, flaws and vulnerabilities, feel proud of my body, don’t see the body as a stranger, get to know it and make friends with it, only let the right people come close to my body, don’t let anyone take advantage of my body, express my sexuality when I feel connected, don’t punish my body or let anyone else punish it, don’t self-sabotage my body, don’t feel ashamed of my body, meditate daily to keep it from being tense, celebrate my body, be grateful that I am healthy and alive, feel privileged to have a functional body.
2010
In this way I am able to reconnect all my parts and stop being dependent on external things or other people to feel safe. If I’m going to liberate myself completely and become independent in areas where I’ve been scared to leave my comfort zone and unnecessary dependency, I have to remember all this. I have to reprogram myself so that this will overwrite the self-destructive thoughts, feelings and behavior that stems from the wound I have in my soul. It’s time to heal it, once and for all.
“Getting to know you, Getting to feel free and easy When I am with you, Getting to know what to say Haven’t you noticed Suddenly I’m bright and breezy Because of all the beautiful and new Things I’m learning about you Day by day.”
It’s a foggy morning and I’m feeling foggy too. I always start to contemplate and evaluate the year around this time. What a strange year it’s been. So many beloved celebrities died, both international and Swedish, a demagogue was elected as the next President of the United States, the words I’ve seen most used in Swedish newspapers this year are ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’, I got really sick, had closure on something I never thought I could let go of, I finally accepted Johnny’s love and I killed my inner Lolita once and for all.
I made many mistakes this year, awful mistakes – but I achieved many amazing goals too, small ones perhaps but all of them leading me forward. Even the mistakes pushed me forward because I choose to view them as experience and something I’ve learned a great deal from. This new way of thinking will eventually cure my fear of failure – and as I am growing stronger within myself, I will also overcome my fear of success.
Every year, I create a plan for the following year, I will soon make one for 2017. The goals for this year was:
Improve self-esteem and find more inner strength
Work on a new collection of artworks
Read more books
Take care of my health
Practice self-discipline and be focused
Elaborate my new ‘thinking style’ and explore my intellect
Well, I can check off most on this list – but I’ve only read one book so far, but the year is not over yet.
This was also the year where I reconnected with my body – through the painful experience of the infected tooth – so even my dental hell turned out positive. Perhaps this year wasn’t so bad after all.
I’ve been painting – and I took “The Wound” in a whole new direction. I’m looking for colorful simplicity and of course, a strong expression. I never compromise, as soon as I do, I start to doubt everything. Compromises are only productive between two people, not between an artist and their creation. In the creative process, I get to play Goddess and I create my own world – a world that rings more true to me, than the real one outside my window.
What a strange night. The church bells kept ringing for an hour. In the morning, I woke up to rain and feeling slightly off. But I’m working again, painting on ‘The Wound’. and coming up with new ideas for more paintings. It’s funny, every time I add hair to my characters, it ruins the whole expression. I can’t do hair for some reason. I ended yesterday’s work with making the character bald and I felt better about it.
Some of my baldies:
“Scrollan” by Mia Makila, 2009, acrylic on canvas
“The Idiot” by Mia Makila, 2016
“Gary the Ghost” by Mia Makila, 2010
And characters with hair:
“His Wet Dream” by Mia Makila (acrylic on wooden panel), 2015
“Death to the American Dream” by Mia Makila, 2008
“Manic Mandy” by Mia Makila, 2013
I’ve been losing a lot of hair this year, due to stress, and it is one of my biggest nightmares to become bald and completely hairless. I love my hair, it makes me feel feminine and beautiful. A lot of my sexuality is in my hair, I don’t know how to explain it.
Perhaps the core expressions – embodied in my demons, have to be as bald as they are bold because they are not about gender, identity or beauty. They are human, deeply intimate – channeling our inner child and spirit and who we are at the core. Something that is real and raw and connects us all. Hair is a superficial part of the human body – I go deeper than that. My demons even lack skin. So to put a fancy hairdo on top of their heads is like decorating a Christmas tree, it takes away from what they want to say. What I want to say. What the core has to say.
I’ve always been skeptical when it comes to self-help books – they are too close to spiritualism and it makes me feel uncomfortable. But when my job coach lend me a copy of “Heal your wounds & find your true self” by Lise Bourbeau, I got a bit blown away but how accurate she pinpointed my personal experience of my inner wounds, where they are rooted and all the negative things they’ve brought into my life. Bourbeau points out 5 inner wounds and the masks they create in us so that we can live with the wound without confronting it. It’s like having a wound on your hand and disguising it with a glove, just so you can’t see it anymore – but it’s still there and only getting worse and worse over time and you’ll end up with a bad infection.
My inner wound is abandonment (rooted in my childhood) – and my mask is dependency. It all makes so much sense now – why I’ve stayed in destructive relationships, why isolation makes me ill, why my fear of love is so overwhelming and so many other irrational thoughts, feelings and behavior. All these new insights made me feel liberated and my healing process has been steady and productive – I am moving beyond so much crap that was rooting in this wound. Even my creativity blockage triggered this wound when I abandoned myself, my art and all the ongoing projects and paintings. I’ve abandoned myself just as much as other people have abandoned me (mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually etc) – or perhaps even more.
My job coach gave me a great gift by lending me that book. I wish everyone could read it and find the answers to their misfortune and suffering. The book helped me get closure – and I started to take care of my wound without covering it up with dependency. It’s scary and wonderful at the same time – the process of independence. That’s what I’ve been doing all year. It can be a long process, but boy is it worth it!
Ovulation day. Mild anxiety and health issues. Grey skies. Wacthing Little Jinder on TV. I love her and her Lolita power, I feel connected to her world. I finished the work on“The Idiot” – even though I felt I was already done with it since the last session. As soon as my expression has manifested itself in the painting, I lose interest. Just like Hitchcock, he was done with the movie once he’d storyboard it in his head, the shooting and editing was just pure labor. The ovulation makes me feel so tired, otherwise I would’ve started a new piece already, but I will once it’s over. I feel full of life, but I can’t seem to find a way to let it all out. Am I scared of losing control? Of losing my old identity of the queen of anxiety? On a day like this, it’s damn hard to know.
I’ve been painting, meditating, watching films and drinking tea. It’s a good day. It’s been a good week. A good month too, so far. Johnny and I are getting closer. Hearing his voice through the earbuds while closing my eyes, almost transports him here, next to me. There is no static between us. No interference. Only love.
I’ve never let any man come this close before. It used to terrify me, this closeness, even though it’s been my highest wish to be really close to someone. But I am not afraid anymore. I decided not to be. It was that easy. But getting through all the obstacles so I could make that decision was very difficult.
2015
When we talk, we float into each other, melt together in the silences and through the laughs and we’re cleansing our hearts together, deep inside our invisible home. I know it will take years for us to be together in real life, but it doesn’t change anything. I feel happy. I feel close. Our intimacy outsmarts the missing and the frustration.
Next year will be so different from this year, I can already sense it. This year was all about letting go and to accept what I’ve never been able to accept. Next year will be about finding the pulse of life and getting in sync with it. I want to lose weight. I’ve had so much extra weight on my shoulders for a very long time, and it shows in my body as well. I want to feel beautiful. Healthy. I want to celebrate my femininity. My raw female power and strength. I want to do, to be, to make, instead of healing through the intellect and meditation. Next year will be my first real year as a person, without the traumas or the fear. I’ve worked so hard to get there. I am so close. I am so close to finding life. To letting myself go – without inhibitions. I am so close to whatever reality is about, without the dark edges around it.
Some week ago, I wrote about how I’ll study my creativity as a scientist to see if I use it as rest or play (work), but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not about that. I use my creativity as both rest and play and it’s relaxing, fun and hard work at the same time. What I’ve discovered is how I use the different techniques and media to express myself – I am always driven by my core and what it has to say and therefore my creativity is a very intimate force. The digital expressions, writing, digital art, poetry are all based on my innermost feelings and thoughts but I am more flexible here. I can weave my personal stories into a more general expression, something that concerns other people. But with my analogue art – such as painting, mixed media, drawings etc, I feel more protective of the pieces. They don’t concern other people, only me. My analogue art is my most intimate expression, perhaps that’s why it’s so linked to my sexual energy.
“Out of Reach” by Mia Makila, 2016
“The Core” by Mia Makila, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 81 x 100 cm
Baby Blue
The Remains I & II
My digital art, painting, drawing and mixed media.
“There’s clearly a connection between your creativity and your sexuality – what is it?”, my therapist once asked me. I didn’t understand it at the time. I answered; “Perhaps it’s where I am most traumatized?”, but that isn’t it. During the 7 years where I was creatively blocked, I had a recurring nightmare about pooping in public. “The excrement is your flow, it’s a wishful dream.” She said when I told her about it. And I get it now. The flow of something very intimate that I release in the public arena. It’s coming from me – it’s produced inside me and it’s a mix of old things that my mind, heart and soul have digested and turned into something else. Something new, that want’s to be released. I make something beautiful out of the crap that happened to me in my past. My paintings and drawings are as close as you can get to my core, without knowing anything about me.
“Sex Monster”, 2013
“A horny she-devil”, 2010
I used to feel forced to produce paintings and mixed media pieces for art shows and collectors and that’s when I got all burned out and stopped working. I got blocked, lost my momentum, my self confidence and my ambition to work as an artist. No wonder, that’s not how I’m supposed to treat my analogue art. It is far too precious and magical to me to be used as a cash cow. It’s like selling your soul. I can never go back to working like that again. I have to find a new approach to my art as something I can make money on.
Pictures from my art show “My Pink Hell” in Copenhagen, 2009:
“Wow. At last I’m in the glorious flow of creativity again. It’s been years since I’ve felt this way. I’m working all the time – yesterday I sat 11 hours straight in front of PhotoShop. There are no words for what I’m feeling right now. I’m in love with all that life entails. Even the pain that comes with it. I feel all tingly inside. Horny too – as I always feel when I am in this flow.
But next week I start my trauma treatment at the Crisis and Trauma Center at Danderyd’s hospital. Hope my creativity flow will continue even during this new time of therapy. Maybe I can even use what I am experiencing in my PTSD treatment in my new art. I hope so.
My new art is the most honest I’ve created so far. It exposes who I really, really am. Somewhere between light and darkness – and where the light dominates the dark.
I don’t know where my art will bring me right now, but I don’t mind not knowing. I follow all the impulses of my excitement.”
Mitt liv såg så annorlunda ut förr, det kändes som om jag var vilsen bland uppspända kulisser som på något sätt trängde sig närmare inpå för varje dag, till slut kunde jag inte längre andas.
Ur min dagbok, 17 januari 2013, Stockhom:
“Ok. Jag försöker andas i fyrkanter. In. Ut. In. Ut. In. Ut. In. Ut. Skulle ha följt med M till hans föräldrar i Sigtuna idag men kände redan imorse att det inte skulle bli av, att det skulle bli åt helvete med den här dagen. Jag klädde mig under största känsla av självförakt, borstade tänderna och kvävde den sura uppstötningen jag alltid får på morgonen numera – som bara bekräftar hur sur jag känner mig – helt genomsur. Rutten. Svullen. Stel. Äcklig. Avslagen. Jag drog på mig ytterkappan med hål i och kände samhörighet med hålet.
Gick hand i hand med M på den hala isen fram till tunnelbanestationen. Benen stela och lata av spändhet och stress.
Vi kom fram till T-centralen och jag blev kissnödig. Som alltid när jag får panikångest. Betalade en tia för att kissa inne på Åhléns. Satt och hukade över toalettstolen medan jag tyst bölade där inne i det lilla båset. Plöstligt kändes min trasiga kappa så himla tight. Lossade på halsduken. Knäppte upp, men det hjälpte inte. Torkade mig mellan benen och tårarna och gick ut. Fem minuter senare blev jag kissnödig igen och de inte har några toaletter på tåget mot Sigtuna. Nej, jag kan inte… jag kan inte följa med… Vad skulle hända om jag måste kissa… det tar 45 minuter med tåget och sedan ytterligare 20 minuter med bil när hans föräldrar hämtar oss på stationen. Vilken panik! Klaustrofobiskt. Det går inte! Det går bara inte!
– Älskling, blir du besviken om jag inte kan följa med?
– Nej, varför skulle jag bli det?
– För att jag inte klarar av ett skit numera. Känner mig så misslyckad.
– Sluta med det. Men jag måste åka nu, det förstår du?
– Ja
– Vi hörs på mobilen. Åk hem och vila.
– Ok.
Han går och jag känner hur omöjligt allt är – helt i onödan på något sätt, känner mig som den mest misslyckade människan på Jorden. Gråter. Snorar. Ringer mamma.
Vill inte åka hem och vila. Hatar att vila! Jag vill LEVA! Sitter nu på Hurtigs konditori och försöker låtsas-leva lite innan jag ska hem och ‘vila’.”
As I am liberating myself from the darkness I used to carry inside, the world outside is slowly transforming into a beast. My meditation helps me shut out the negativity – and I’m finding more self-compassion every time I dive into myself like that. The more self-compassion I build for myself, the more clarity I find in how I’ve allowed people to treat me. I can’t go back to how it was or how I treated myself and let other people treat me, I am awakened and enlightened – free from the heavy responsibility of serving others without thinking of what’s best for me. I’ve taken another step closer to being able to reboot my career. The following days I’m gonna practice self-discipline and be creative – and I want break in my new studio! Since I no longer see my demons as enemies since I’ve made peace with them, I should have fun with them in my studio as well.
What a nightmare. Having an American boyfriend makes this election feel even more relevant to me and my life – and the outcome made us both feel sick to our stomachs and creeped out. It’s like witnessing the rise of Hitler but not falling for the manipulation. Scary times are awaiting.
Celebrating acceptance, tolerance and love is more important now than ever.
I believe my days of digging into myself and my past are finally over. I’ve found the root to all my pain and I’ve disentangled myself from it. From now on, I will only focus on my future and how to get there in the most secure, wise and fun way possible.”
“Hysteria” by Mia Makila, 2006 – mixed media on antique photo
I’ve come to a very important place in my self-therapy work. I’ve found the root to all my traumas and emotional wounds, and it goes back to my early childhood (where every bad thing seems to be rooted for all of us). It’s all coming together now. I’ve disentangled the knots in my mind and unlocked my heart. And I’ve faced my demons and made friends with them (there is no point in trying to kill them off, it won’t work).Through meditation, my own therapy work, and a little help and support from other people – I’ve found clarity (awareness) and it has been the key to an acceptance that has led me to this new spiritual liberation.
I don’t feel the need to complain about my issues anymore. I can’t blame my misfortunes or suffering on others because I can see that I was part of them too. I allowed it to happen, I invited it into my life when I accepted the unacceptable, when I abandoned myself and when I gave permission to other people to treat me badly. I don’t hate my abusers, I don’t hate myself – hate has no place in my heart and it doesn’t serve any purpose in my life. I only need to hold on to the lessons I’ve earned from going through all this, and it will work as the guiding light on my continuing journey forward.
It should never be about what happens to us, it’s all about how we react to it – and what we learn from the experience. This insight will kill any form of victimization and unnecessary suffering. What we allow is what we’ll suffer. Acceptance is the key to the healing of a very old wound that’s been neglected for too long.
MIA MAKILA 