Mixed-Media Stencil Painting - Frustration and Despair

Have you ever feel like the world is closing on you and you have nowhere to go and all you want to do is to go somewhere and disappear forever? I am sure everyone ever feels this way once in awhile in their life. I am sure it's perfectly normal to feel this way. Depression and despair are part of human feelings. If anyone claims they never experience it before then he or she is a liar.

Being a natural pessimist I am all too familiar with those feelings. To those who truly know me, they know I often can see the humor in situations but it really is not my natural response. I do those things intentionally and it becomes a habit to counterbalance my negative tendencies. My natural response to almost everything in life is seeing the negative side of things. Like for example, if my husband suggested that we do something on weekends like watching a movie, my natural response would be to say no because it is too hassle to bring two squirming kids in the cinema, or it will be hard to find a parking bay or the tickets are too expensive! I would come out with all kinds of excuses to not do it. It does take a lot of reasoning to convince me to try doing something different for a change. I am a natural killjoy.

It's tiring being a negative me.

And I badly wanna change.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been making a lot of intentional effort to become more positive. The first step I am taking is to tackle the issue at the root - my heart. I search my heart and came to the conclusion that I lack gratitude and the sense contentment. If I am not grateful, I would become a natural complainer, someone who always sees the negative side of things. It is also a sign of someone who is not trusting God to provide for her needs. And when there is no faith in God, it is very easy to fall into depression and despair. There are a lot more to this but this is just the gist of it. Of course, I will not share too openly about some of my personal struggles, this is a blockchain after all, suffice for me to share a bit about myself so my readers can get to know me better :)

The painting

I came out with the idea to paint this painting after praying about the courage to change my attitude. The person you see in the painting is actually myself, holding my head in despair and frustration. She is tired of her negative patterns and came to the lowest point in her life and realized she needs to make a major change of attitude and perspective. This is a mixed-media painting on acrylic paper.

Here are the progress photos: