Recovery Painting: When You Grow A Flower

Using Passions To Fuel Your Recovery

Through her passion for painting, a young adult in recovery from an eating disorder shares an inspiring piece of artwork. She talks about how she is re-connecting with her passions and using them to fuel her recovery. She also discusses her inspiration for the painting, and why we all deserve to flourish and blossom into the best versions of ourselves.

---

My inspiration for the painting

Through the depth of my eating disorder, I lost interest in so many of my passions including painting and creativity. Recently as I started having more mental space, and my ability to concentrate is returning, my love for painting has come rushing back.

I wanted to take full advantage of this and use this passion as another way to fuel my recovery. So I decided to create a picture that would symbolise what recovery means to me. 

The painting shows a vibrant woman made from nature, because my love for nature was another element that recovery has ignited. The bright colours represent recovery showing me the brighter side to life, as for so long everything was black and white. Life had no depth, no warmth, no colour and I was constantly feeling pessimistic. Recovery has started to change this and now I am finally starting to see the brighter side of life again and noticing all the vibrancy around me. 

‘a vibrant woman made from nature‘

When I look at this painting, the first word that comes to mind is growth.

The flowers growing and blossoming, the women rising and looking up, the branches growing to form the silhouette. I thought this was a perfect way of portraying what recovery means to me, growth in so many ways.

Self-growth mentally and physically. The growth of confidence in myself. Growing up from a child that needed looking after, to a young woman that can now hold three jobs, and has more independence that she has ever had before.

For so long growth scared me and held me back. Little did I know it would actually be the thing that allowed me to start living properly and freely. Growth has allowed me to become the best version of myself, and I know I still have so much room to grow. 

Nature has been a constant inspiration to me throughout my recovery. When I see a beautiful flower, or a huge tree towering over me– I think of how much growth and nourishment that it needed to get to where it is today. And the fact that flowers don’t care about how much water they need to grow and trees never compare their size to one another. They just put their trust in the universe, and let nurture and nourishment take them to where they are supposed to be.

I wanted to share this painting and my poem below, as I wish as humans this is how we could all feel too. And as a reminder that we shouldn’t feel the need to be so self-critical and comparative. Just like these outstanding parts of nature, we are all so unique and special. No matter what shape, size, colour, gender you are, you deserve to flourish and blossom into the best version of yourself. 

---

When you grow a flower

When you grow a flower, do you hide it from the sun? 
Or do you nurture it and nourish it, to see what it could become. 

As it grows inch by inch, do you wish that it was smaller?
Or do you beam with pride every day that it grows taller.

Would you resent this flower if it needed more than others to grow?
Or would you provide whatever the flower needed so that it could blossom and glow.

When your flower has fully blossomed, would you deprive it of water?
Or would give it all it needs to ensure that it lasts longer.

Would you try and change the flower if it looked different from another?
Or would you accept this flower’s beauty for its unique shape and colour. 

Are you treating this flower differently to how you treat yourself?
As just like the flower, your body needs love and nourishment to achieve perfect health.

You deserve to fully blossom and if you start to forget, 
Think of how you would treat a flower so that you don’t look back in regret. 

---

This painting and poem was shared by one of our eating disorder recovery clients at Natural Food Therapy. Click here if you would like to learn more about our unique recovery programmes.