I know. It sounds dramatic…

How Trusting Drugstore Watercolors Became the Portal to my Healing

10 ways Intuitive Painting saved my life

Messy, Sassy and FULL of LOVE

By Julee Winterbourne

Healing after the death of my first child, something most of us cannot imagine surviving, I was young and under resourced, but the universe handed me this healing tool in the most divine way possible. After she died I needed this work more than ever.

Still addled with sorrow, but finally emerging from the fog of my grief, I got out the biggest water color paper I could find. I dragged a table to the back lawn, grabbed a four-inch house painting brush and a bucket of water––a bucket big enough to hold the water and my tears. And color. It didn’t matter what colors because there was no way to know what color my grief would be. I grabbed for whatever would make a mark… drugstore watercolors became the portal to my healing.

I painted in the backyard with the autumn sun on my shoulders, my bare feet dug into the lawn, totally immersed in the experience. Feeling the healing, but still like a lingering accusation that wouldn’t go away I thought, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Who do I think I am to put color down like this? I’m not an artist.”

I couldn’t help but think this way, but my muse, my Inner Wisdom Keeper was also present. She urged me to keep going. So I painted and cried and moved and released. Sheet after sheet of paper received my grief––and sheet after sheet of paper offered me healing in return. It took me three years to get to that moment, but I had opened a door to healing. Moving the energy like that stayed with me, and I began to realize that I could heal myself through this intuitive painting idea. And I could let myself say, I am an artist.

Listening, trusting and being present made me whole again.

Healing from depression - when my second child was still small I was lost. I couldn’t find that spark that had brought me into a space of joyful living through my late 20’s and early 30’s, but I found intuitive painting in my life, again. I found my smile and eventually found that I loved making art so much I would use it to connect with my daughter and the kids in our community and beyond. I learned to hand these tools to little kids who didn’t have all of the advantages that my daughter had. Giving others the gifts inside creativity brought me tremendous joy and purpose and reminded me that I could trust my own heart to lift me out of the depression that medication couldn’t touch.

Giving me a creative relief from overthinking/overachieving - As a Supermom, art teacher, wife, caretaker, business owner, boss, dinner maker, beautiful-perfect-life creator I had a severe case of BBS - Brittle Bitch Syndrome.

I was often heard complaining: “Why do I always have to do EVERYTHING?” Then I’d start going through a list of all of the things that I’d rather be doing. I’d start saying mean things to myself and the people around me because I was feeling overwhelmed and bitchy. “No one asked you to do EVERYTHING,” would always be his response. Thanks *eyeroll*. Getting in touch with what truly brought me pleasure meant that I was no longer willing to let EVERYTHING steal my joy. Saying “No, thank you” meant disappointing others which is really hard for a people pleaser with BBS, but it meant that I got to say “Hell yes!” to my life again. Using the intuitive painting process helped me stay present and trust what really felt good to me and I learned to use that as a filter for what I would allow into my life.

Healing during my separation and divorce - I found myself face down on a yoga mat unable to get myself together for even a 45 minute flow and then I remembered the big paper and water colors from my 20’s. Trusting my old friend Intuitive Painting, I learned how to help others who wanted to heal by moving energy with color and brush and I found my calling… creating the body of work that I refer to as Reclaiming Studios really gave me a new lease on life.

Coming up with new ideas for my businesses - painting with groups of people had been my work for nearly a decade when my dissolving marriage broke me open and brought me to my knees. I started learning how to hand my healing tools to other people. I was able to paint my way into a way of helping others. During the change in our world known as Covid-19 I needed to shift from groups in person to something that I could do on line from the safety of my home. I leaned on my own intuitive painting practice to help me get in touch with new ideas that helped me find a new revenue stream.

How could he leave me again? I am still painting myself whole again after some recent losses, my dad passed away and my new relationship was falling apart and coming back together over and over again. A pandemic wreaking havoc on my new business, an ongoing divorce, bad decisions with regards to where I placed trust with a book project… 2020 was a tough year for all of us and I’m still trusting myself and painting my heart back together.

Healing from abandonment issues and overcoming my disease to please has been a lifelong battle. If I could just be good enough people would love me, partners wouldn’t leave and things could be rosey. If I act like this, dress like that, earn enough, if my child is just perfect, if the party is a success, if, if, if… Abandonment does that to a body. Letting go of focus on image, trusting my intuition by playing in the paint, adding glitter, squishing together colors that don’t belong next to each other and LOVING it has brought me so much joy and pleasure and I’ve learned that when I trust my intuition it never steered me wrong!

Learning to trust myself again after feeling that I had failed in so many areas was probably the number one very most important thing that has come from the intuitive painting experience besides overcoming the death of my first child. Knowing that I am not the missteps that I have made, knowing that I am more than my business successes, knowing that I am more than worthy. Learning that I am an ever growing, ever learning spiritual being having a human experience means that I get to fuck up and still be loved. I can decide and then trust myself to decide again, it’s ok.

Learning that imperfection is part of the beauty of being human and that I don’t even have to be good to be lovable. That means that I get to let go of perfectionism. The cool thing about intuitive painting is that it is not outcome focused. The focus is on the connection to your inner world, on learning to listen and to build trust in yourself. Carrying this to the outside world means that I can recognize my inherent value. I don’t have to kill myself trying to impress people, I get to just be myself. Messy, sassy and full of love!

Softening the hard edges of trauma - There are many ways to handle trauma. In fact, I would say that there are as many ways of moving through trauma as there are people recovering from trauma. Point being, there is not one way to do it; there are many. On the days when all of the conventional methods didn’t feel good to me there was creativity standing there allowing me to move away from the trauma by getting back into my body through intuitive painting so that I could be present again. There is always peace in the present. In the here and now we can remember that we are safe and painting brings me home to myself.

BONUS #11 PLAY!!!! A huge part of self care for me looks like blowing bubbles, swinging on the swings, feeding the ducks, going for a walk in nature and looking at the moss and mushrooms and little creatures or simply looking up. I feel like it’s easy for me to get away from having to be “grown up” when I do those things… and of course when I play in the paint, add glitter and just let anything guide my hand without editing or critiquing I lose myself; sometimes for hours. Creating space for my Little Julee to be filled up allows me to come back feeling balanced and loved deeply.