Art as Healing – A Letter to the Exhausted Self
by Björn Nonhoff
There are moments when art does not begin with beauty, but with rupture.
When the inner landscape feels fractured, when words fail, and when the world becomes too loud to bear.
This letter was born in such a moment — a quiet offering to the part of us that still longs to breathe, to feel, to return.
Dear exhausted and desperate self,
In those hours when despair moved through you like a storm, it left traces —
of loneliness, of old wounds, of words once meant to comfort but used instead as weapons.
People tried to bend your heart, to bind it, to silence its truth.
Yet even in that pain, something remained untouched.
The wounds did not break you.
They made you feel.
And through that feeling, they released you.
In the middle of the storm, you reached for the brush.
You dipped your hands into anger, sorrow, longing —
and you let the colors speak where language could not.
Every line, every stroke, was more than expression:
it was movement.
It was transformation.
It was you finding yourself again.
What once seemed lost, your art returned to you:
your voice, your rhythm, your quiet, unmistakable “I am.”
Where darkness pressed in, you answered with light.
Where manipulation tried to take root, you painted honesty.
Where there was pain, you created a place for healing.
Now, when you look at your work, you no longer see only the wound.
You see the scar — shaped like a map —
tracing the distance you have travelled.
Your art is not evidence of weakness,
but of strength.
Of resilience.
Of the subtle ways a human being comes back to themselves.
So take up the brush when you are ready.
Paint not only your wounds,
but also your wings.
For you have already begun to rise.
With quiet respect,
A witness to your strength
A final note
Art has carried me through many thresholds.
If this letter resonates, perhaps it is because all of us, in our own ways,
are searching for the courage to return to ourselves.
