Your voice (2022) Painting by Feruza Turlybek

Your Voice. Neon nights collection

The idea for this picture came to me at a time when I heard an interesting idea that is often discussed among psychologists. It got me hooked. It sounds something like this: a lot of energy is invested in your shadow side, and if you know how to work with your shadow side, then you can gain access to a huge reserve of energy hidden you. Essentially, the shadow side is that energy, those traits in ourselves that we tend to put down for one or another reason. This may be due to society, prohibitions from elders, or our own fears.

The reason I came across such an interesting thought was that despite the fact that I do what I love, achieve some success and have enough motivation, I found that I get tired quickly. I would have time to do more as planned, but I don’t have enough energy. After a certain amount of work I get tired, which is basically normal. But it seems to me that I get tired faster than I should. Do you know what I mean?

So, in search of an answer I got shocked after realising how much energy do you have to put down in order to conform to society’s ideas about you. How many things do we want to do, but are afraid of being judged? So all this energy doesn’t go anywhere, we always have access to it. It’s just that this side of us seems like a scary dark forest. In fact, we are afraid of our own shadow. In fact, if this is not something immoral and does not harm others, then all our other traits are not as terrible as we think. And if you know how to listen and make friends with your shadow side, then you can become a more harmonious person. After all, life is all about balance. Where there is light, there is always shadow. And that's okay.

Since this topic is very relevant to my life, I wanted to dedicate a painting to it. Here the snake is precisely the personification of this dark side. But look, is it really that scary? Could it hurt someone? But in fact, this is a small, non-venomous snake. And, if you look closely, you might even find it quite cute. It’s the same with the shadow side. For certain reasons it may seem scary to us. Like something which should not be shown to anyone wherever. But this is our side. And there’s nothing so scary about it. And if we learn to listen to ourselves and deal with our shadow without suppressing it. Then more facets will open up in our lives. More bright colors will appear. – These were my thoughts while I was painting this picture.

I'm still on this path and I can't say that I've fully made friends with my shadow side. But I did very important thing – I started. I learned to see it and not be afraid of it. And I will slowly do the things that I always wanted to do, but did not have the courage to voice and go to implement. So you can follow me and you will be able to see these changes. And even better, you can change towards the real you with me.

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The sides are painted in relevant colour

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Woman PortraitPop ArtSnakeWhisperNeon Colors