TO RIDE THE DRAGON

Posted on Instagram on July 13, 2019

This piece was made during my week from hell, and I wasn't ready to show it until now.
It took me three days to complete it, between panic attacks, extreme heat, shaky hands for anxiety, exhaustion and all.
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Before I start with the story it's important that you swipe to see the second pic, what I carved in the back.
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So...
With anxiety and panic attacks, they will tell you that the right thing to do is to accept the emotion rather than trying to fight it or resist it - because that only makes things worse.
True, but not easy.
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I was in the backyard one morning. I had woken up at 5 am with my heart already crazy, beating at the drum of anxiety.
I was trying to talk myself down from another anxiety attack, while trying to convince myself that I could do it - I could let my mom go out for groceries shopping without going completely crazy.
I thought to myself...Alice, it's time to face your fear. It's time to slay the dragon.
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Wait. But I like dragons!
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From there, the concept evolved. I tried to imagine the anxiety and panic like a dragon, and every time I felt it rising, I would remind myself to ride the dragon.
To ride a dragon must be quite an impressive and scary thing, you know?
I imagine it's quite intimidating.
I imagine it gives you rushes of adrenaline and a feeling of being quite small and fragile, to be on the back of such a beast while it flies, and rises and falls, wind on your face, senses in overload.
Very similar to a panic attack, hah 😅
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I can't tell you I always succeeded. That I always embraced the emotions. That I didn't try to escape it. That I didn't avoid things that scared me.
But I held this image in my mind and here and there, I did manage to ride my dragon, and to see that maybe, maybe, it wasn't as terrible as I imagined it to be.
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And now I open my hand and let this one go out in the world, for someone else who needs it.
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It's all sterling and fine silver, with a stunner of a Baltic Amber.
The Dragon is my own design, hand carved. One of a kind.