On Framing an Experience or The Art of Painting Pictures
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My maternal grandmother used to say, “One cannot buy courage.”, when trying to goad us out of hesitating to make a move while playing cards and into making a decision and taking an action. She was a businesswoman through and through and what I enjoyed most, while spending time with her, was listening to her stories, business and life advise. 
 
While I was working on a project in Germany, I was lucky to find a healer who got a feel for my body and could help me with diving deeper into my past. We talked about abuse during childhood in a matter of fact tone and I simply stated that whatever had happened to me would someday help someone else. The venom injected into you can turn into the remedy for someone else if you decide to walk into your abyss and follow the path until the end. 
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"White Pelican", white pastels, Kristin Raphaela Otti (2024, in our garden, Carinthia)

It was a time during which I had begun to work on and look deeper into my childhood darkness and there was another healer in town whom I asked for help. She said yes immediately. She gave me space and time, told me to take a closer look, when I grew rigid and gave me ample time to rest on her leather couch, when I needed to go within. The coolest part of it all, albeit, was watching two episodes of the Smurfs together. She is genius and one hell of a healer.
 
And then one day, something strange happened. Someone I was working with had asked a friend of theirs to check on me as a result of me not feeling well. Besides working on the project I was doing internal work and as trauma does, it resurfaces when you least expect it. 
 
Said friend I had met on a few occasions before, we had eaten together, talked about his ailing mother, I worked with him as a shaman and I had gifted him three drawings: two for himself, one of them a tiger, and a pelican eating a fish for his mother. I had begun to trust him and with me it is like this: I usually do not talk much and stay quiet. The more I trust someone the more I talk and – my friends and the people I am walking with can attest to it – if I like or love you, it is nearly impossible to make me stop talking. 

My cat elder watching over me working on a drawing and my trusted, well-travelled backpack. I took the picture in our garden.

​He knew of the abuse I had suffered during childhood and also that I had gone down in weight a lot. There are stretch marks all over my body to prove it and of course, there are pictures. Over the years I have grown to love my body more, because every stretchmark and every scar tells the story of my life. 

"Wise White Tiger", white pastels, Kristin Raphaela Otti (2024, at a hotel and on a balcony somewhere in Germany)

 
My body is my canvas and life is painting it. How could I not love it? Showing it to others is a different matter. I am ok with showering with my teammates but going to a sauna is still a no. ​

He told me that he wanted to give me healing in exchange for what I had done for him. He asked if he were allowed to give me a massage. I said yes. I had been working on myself and I wanted to know, if I could take it. I had not been able to let someone else who had tried to help me touch me a few weeks prior to that and I know as a fact that that man would have never hurt me in any way, shape or form. Instead of forcing his touch on me, he simply said, "I cannot help her.", to someone else, who was present that very moment, got up and left to sit in the sun. He was absolutely right. He could not have helped me that very moment and respected and honoured me. He had felt the fear in my body and energy and acted accordingly, a healer through and through.

So I wanted to know, how I would react this time. 
 
He started to touch me and I was ok with it in the beginning. I started to take my clothes off as he told me to and he began massaging me with some oil I had gotten from my host’s bathroom. When he was done,  he asked me, if he were allowed to take a picture of me, because he wanted to paint my body. He said that he was an artist as well and drawer, too, and he loved the way my body looked. Since I was challenging myself that very moment, facing one of my fears and nude drawing is indeed a thing, I agreed. So I allowed him to take that picture. 
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Imagine, going from being afraid of taking a shower with teammates to letting someone take a picture of you in the nude. 
 
He went on with the massage, but I grew rigid more and more. I did not like it, but I did not tell him to stop. There is more work to be done. 
 
He told me that what had happened was only for the two of us and his way of saying thank you to me for the help I had given him. Strangely enough, when I returned to the flat at a later point in time, there was a lotion bottle lying by the sofa, carelessly thrown aside and forgotten. It seems that those massages are quite a thing and a lot of healing is given to a variety of people. 
 
Yes, you could also put a completely different frame on this story. Simply be mindful and pay attention, when someone tells you a story or tries to make you part of theirs. I do.

Now this one has become a story of healing. 

​Kristin Raphaela Otti