You may remember Ivy, now happily based in Florida, from the #EmergingProud film. Hospitalised due to a spiritual awakening unearthing unconscious trauma for healing, Ivy was once mute – the only way she was able to express was through her art. Now Ivy has created a business with the coping mechanism that she loves, as she says, in her darkness she found herself and the path to her future…

Early childhood to me felt so wonderful. I was taught unconditional love by being given unconditional love. My heart was so full and my spirit so carefree. I had two loving parents, brother, sisters, cousins, lots of family and friends. School was good for me, even though I was a bit shy I was an excellent student and a pretty good athlete.

I was truly blessed.

Then at some point I became depressed. Family turmoil and separation occurred when life, work and everything lost balance. Loss of balance and lack of the ability to feel love made me lose the key to my heart. But this was not so true, I later found out.

Art, learning, and continued love and support from others helped me through my dark spaces. Tragedy took blow after blow, I seemed to rise and fall with each obstacle like the hurdles in track and field, but true love grounded me every time I got lost.

At some point I developed an eating disorder in all of this. I received some mixed messages from my environment about what I ought to look like and how that should make me feel about myself… Some of it came from magazines, some of it from kids at school, some from tv or even innocent bystanders who meant me no harm.

Some of my artwork reflected this:

So I began to binge and purge, and restrict… My two sided reward was soon attained, so I thought, when I saw myself become thinner. As I looked more ‘beautiful’, I felt more love. I needed that so much that I became addicted to self judgement and self deprecation. I loved everyone else around me so much but I couldn’t seem to love myself enough to take good gentle care of myself. Then one day I fell in love. I fell in love and found true love outside of myself, outside of my comfort zones with the man of my dreams. I never expected this to ever happen. So much heartache made me doubt if true love existed. But here it was. And I was so happy to care for someone, that together we began to take such good care of each other. In giving and loving, I received love and my heart was full once again. This natural heart fulfillment healed my soul, but there was still work to to do. So much work. I still deep down believed that my beauty was only skin deep, that it could easily fade and with that my value as a person would be downgraded. That was the lie that I once believed and had to work my way through.

It wasn’t easy, but with proper love and support, compassion and understanding, and a little courage… I learned to love myself and forgive myself as well as others, no matter what. Perfectionism has new meaning. I no longer wish to be perfect, I wish to feel perfect as I am, with room to grow. With true love, I found myself again in all my dark spaces, and opened the door to new friendships. I found that it was not that hard to love myself after all, and if I stumbled, I had so many wonderful people to help lift me back up.

Returning the favor and giving back has become my pleasure and purpose. True love, self love, and an open heart, though heavy at times, is so worth it. I am a work in progress, and I love my beautiful mess! 

🌼ivy

Ivy now channels her passion for helping others into creating art and has recently started an organic creative business, ORDERGANIC    With her husband Eddie they grow a variety of organic cullinary and medicinal herbs, vegetables, fruits, and create all natural organic body products. The Phoenix has risen! ❤