MIND WARP
By Jack Burden
Mental
health problems in general are an incredibly convoluted issue that sadly so many of us suffer from. I’ve had my own mental health difficulties and personal battles with depression & anxiety for a very long period of my life.
When I was younger these were issues that I never fully understood and didn’t address in a productive way. From that, this subsequently would produce extremely negative thought patterns that I couldn’t escape from and the end result would make me angry, bitter and miserable at the rest of the world for making me feel like this on a continuing daily basis. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had many realisations in my life that I had to change certain behaviours and look more into caring about my overall health.
When I was younger these were issues that I never fully understood and didn’t address in a productive way. From that, this subsequently would produce extremely negative thought patterns that I couldn’t escape from and the end result would make me angry, bitter and miserable at the rest of the world for making me feel like this on a continuing daily basis. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had many realisations in my life that I had to change certain behaviours and look more into caring about my overall health.
In my collage piece I’ve tried to visually express how my mind can sometimes feel like it is somewhat split into pieces at times. The top layer shows how the very dark spiral of depression has the capability to just suck me into its vortex, which would then produce emotions of misery, loneliness and frustration. The second layer expresses some ways I’ve taken into action to keep my mental health in check. There’s images of (from left to right) Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, David Lynch, Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts & Wim Hof. These are just handful of some of the teachers/speakers that I’ve spent time practicing/ reading/listening/watching their work, that has significantly helped me in my own journey to a calmer and happier existence. Above that is a landscape of a mountain, a forest and a lake that is meant to represent the healing power of getting into nature and how much that has helped my mental state on numerous occasions.