I was flipping through a family photo album when I was a teenager and one photograph stopped me in my tracks.
It was my mom, my dad in his wheelchair, and my grandma, all smiling at the camera. The composition was beautiful, but there was something else about it too. I didn't know how to describe it. It had... a presence.
I turned to my mom and asked, "This photo is incredible. Who took it?"
She smiled and said,
"You did."
When that photo had been taken, I was five years old.
Get to Know Me
Miscellaneous Rashelle Facts:
I love dancing.
I love playing with my adventure buddy, Sophie. (And I LOVE dressing her up!)
I love Bob Ross.
I love asking random survey questions.
I love making lists. I have a list of things that make me irrationally happy AND a list of things that make me irrationally angry.
I will absolutely stop whatever I’m doing because LOOK AT THAT LIGHT.
Because of my own struggles, I’m a huge mental health advocate.
I have a big heart for nurses and caregivers, but really, for anyone who needs a little light in their life.
I’m constantly researching SOMETHING. Burnout, nervous system regulation, the feeling of being alive... you name it.
At the heart of Art with Rashelle is one question: What helps us feel more alive, connected and like ourselves again? I explore that through art, stories, questions, curiosity and whatever rabbit hole I happen to be down.
Welcome to Art with Rashelle :)
My Journey
Where It Started
After my dad’s accident, we couldn’t do a whole lot, but we took a lot of drives. And in Colorado, that meant beautiful scenery everywhere. I constantly asked to stop so I could take pictures. I didn’t know why at the time, but years later I realized that beauty had actually been helping me.
I grew up as an only child with parents who believed pretty much every road held the possibility of an adventure. The mountains were their playground, and some of my favorite childhood memories are simply getting in the car and seeing where we ended up.
When I was three years old, my dad suffered a traumatic brain injury, and our lives changed dramatically. We couldn't travel much, but family drives were still one of the adventures available to us. And luckily, growing up in Colorado meant there was ALWAYS something outside the window.
A mountain. A sunset. A weird patch of light. PULL OVER NOW!
At home, I grabbed the small digital camera and photographed the flowers in our backyard, experimenting with different angles and trying to capture all the tiny details. At one point, I stayed outside taking photographs in the snow for so long that I nearly gave myself frostbite on my ears… good times.
I definitely didn't have some profound philosophy about beauty back then. I just knew I loved it. I wanted to look at it, explore it and somehow keep a little piece of it with me.
When Life Got Hard
Even during some of the darkest years of my life, I still turned toward beauty.
As I got older, life got heavier.
Caregiving had been part of my world since I was little, and eventually I became a caregiver myself, then a nurse. Helping people felt like the obvious path because taking care of people was something I already knew how to do.
Somewhere along the way, though, I got REALLY good at caring for everyone except myself.
I became increasingly disconnected from who I was and from my own life. I struggled deeply with dissociation, which, for me, felt like living inside a dream or watching my life happen from somewhere outside of it. Eventually, my mental health reached a point where I almost took my own life.
But even during those years, there was one thing that never really disappeared.
I still noticed beauty.
I still wanted to stop for sunsets. I still looked up at the stars. I still found myself drawn to parks, mountains and anywhere that gave me something beautiful to look at.
At the time, I had NO idea why I needed those moments so much. I just knew that when I found something beautiful, I felt a little more at peace.
Somehow, everything felt like it was going to be okay.
Understanding What Was Happening
The more I learned, the more I started looking backward at my own life and going... WAIT A MINUTE:
Beauty had been regulating me long before I knew what regulation was.
After reaching a breaking point with my mental health, I asked for help.
IFS therapy changed my life. I started learning about trauma, dissociation, boundaries, connection, rest and how our nervous systems actually work. And the more I learned, the more I started looking backward at my own life and realizing that:
Beauty had been regulating me long before I knew what regulation was.
And this isn’t only something we feel. Research on nature exposure has found measurable changes in the body too, including lower physiological signs of stress. Even simply viewing natural scenes has been shown to support the parasympathetic nervous system, the part involved in helping our bodies settle and recover after stress!
Suddenly, so many little moments in my own life made sense.
I still see it happening now. When life feels like TOO MUCH, sometimes I step outside and watch the clouds move across the sky or notice light hitting a tree just right. Whatever is going on doesn't magically disappear, but something in me shifts. My body settles a bit, and suddenly I have a little more room for whatever comes next.
And once I understood why beauty had been helping me all those years, it made me curious about something bigger: what else had been helping me feel more like myself without me even realizing it?
What I Hope to Share
I think life is a lot like a dance.
There a destination or ultimate goal. The point is to dance while the music is playing.
Looking back now, I can see that so much of my journey has been about learning how to actually feel alive again. Dissociation has a way of making life feel far away, even while you’re living it.
As I started reconnecting with myself, I became fascinated by a bigger question: What helps us feel alive, connected and like ourselves again?
That’s what I explore now through art, stories, questions, curiosity and the occasional rabbit hole. Sometimes it’s something I create. Sometimes it’s something I learn. Sometimes it’s just a question that makes me stop and think, wait... that’s fascinating.
There isn’t one right answer.
My genuine wish is that my art helps you experience whatever you need to feel, whether that’s solace, joy, grief or something you can’t quite name, that my questions keep you curious, and that something you find here helps you experience this beautiful, heartbreaking life a little more fully.
