PhD in Being Me

Category: art therapy

  • Hysteria – emotions, poetry and art

    Befriending my emotions and welcoming them into my life is the more recent step I am taking in my healing journey.  It’s taken me a lot of work, self-care, awareness, time and self-love to get here.  I am so proud of how I’m building connections within myself. 

    When I reach toward uncomfortable feelings and emotions, I feel a bit scared.  These are often super strong emotions that I have done my best, as a coping strategy, to keep separate and shoved down. 

    Creating art to hold my big feelings and the ones that were difficult to even admit to, let alone feel, has been a blessing for me.  It’s been so critical for me in building the capacity to be a witness to myself, my feelings and experiences. Having my feelings contained on a piece of paper has also helped me increase my strength and resilience.  Art has helped me build bridges within myself and helped me to start healing from how much I pushed myself to keep going and working even though I was so sick.  It’s also helping me build trust and greater respect for myself and within myself.

    And so, I am sharing my latest art piece and poem that are a part of my “allowing my feelings” journey.  I sat with my feelings and told them they were allowed to stay and that I would love to understand them, but no pressure. I learned from primaltrust.org that I could visualize my feelings as art as I allow them, and this piece below is what I saw and felt.  A maelstrom of hysteria, surrounded by my light, holding, witnessing and allowing it to whirl, spin and share its messages with me.  I used a typewriter to type out the words I heard within the storm and I inadvertently typed them out in the shape of a tornado.

    A colorful vortex surrounded by bright green and silver light, with a type written poem on the left hand side.

    It’s been very healing to make this art, and to write this post about my feelings.  My hope is that the strength of that inner storm will lessen as I hold space for it and start to understand its needs.

    Thank you for reading my posts and for journeying with me as I work towards being the kindest and most compassionate expert in being me.  Maybe one day I will get my PhD in Being Me 🥰🥰.

    Take care, Bradlee

    ©️ Bradlee Zrudlo 2026.  All Rights Reserved.

  • For all the times I wanted to say no but couldn’t

    Burning it all down – art that came from a part of me that is reclaiming her voice and power

    Flames make me feel powerful and like I have a choice.  I have so much power buried within me, because for so long I couldn’t use my voice and power.  If I did, I was unsafe, so I learned to keep it down as a coping strategy.  The more I learn about trauma and how our nervous system adapts, the easier it is for me not to shame or blame myself, but to have compassion for what I’ve gone through and to reach out to the most hurt parts of me.

    I’ve started slowly, with baby steps in therapy, and art therapy and over the course of the last 2 years, I’ve been feeling safer to meet the pain, hurt and trauma within me.  Really, it’s been a life long journey, and these last 2 years have enabled me to go to the next layer within me.

    Sometimes, I feel this irritation inside me and I don’t always know where it’s coming from.  I get physical symptoms with that irritation too, and then sometimes it builds into anger, then rage, then murderous rage.  So this morning, I decided to say to that irritation, hey, do you want to share what you’re about?  How you’re helping me by feeling this way?

    After I went for a walk, it built up big time and I was worried about what I was going to do with the intensity of it.  I decided to take some space and take a shower and then I saw the image above in my head, and I realized exactly what the irritaion and anger were about.  They were about all the times I said yes instead of no.  All the times I felt so choiceless to do what I wanted/needed.  All the times I didn’t think I had the right to do what was in my best interests.  And, boy oh boy, was a part of me MAD about it.

    I got out my art supplies and just painted flames after flames and then painted myself and wrote the words I was hearing inside on top of the flames, such as:

    • No more!
    • I can say no and what I need to feel safe!
    • I am stronger by having boundaries and taking care of my needs
    • Burning up the powerlessness
    • Burning down the obligations and hyper-responsibility for others.  I can choose for me! 
    • etc.

    The most freeing part of this art and realization was that these feelings are no one’s fault.  I felt choiceless for so so many reasons and that was carrying into every area of my life.  Making this art helped me to recognize that and take responsibility for how I move forward.  It’s not that simple, because this is a life long coping strategy, and I’ll still feel choiceless and powerless many times, but now I understand more the impact that has had on me and I can treat myself with more compassion and learn more how I can bring healing to those parts of me.

    I love having these realizations because they make me feel less shame and they help me understand myself.  I also love making art about my big feelings because I get to contain them on a page as opposed to holding them in my body.  Sharing my art is a vulnerable thing, but this one feels safe to share because it’s such an explosion of feelings and power, and it makes me feel good to write about it on my blog.

    May you be blessed with an abundance of safety in your inner and outer worlds and may your heart be light.  Thank you for reading!

    💕✨️ Bradlee

    ©️ Bradlee Zrudlo 2025.  All Rights Reserved.