Eli Weintraub Maurx
AUTHOR / ARTIST
Weave Inspiration On Every Horizon
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Frida and Me Book Video - Click on Arrow to Play
Speak Up Talk Radio Firebird Book Award 2022 !!!!!
I am so honored to have won first place in 3 categories:
Mental Health, Body/Mind/Spirit and Wellness!!
I am honored to have received 3 first place book awards, for Frida and Me, from the Firebird Book Awards 2022, Speak Up Talk Radio
for Mental Health,Mind/Body/Spirit and Wellness! This is a charitable cause to make and send handmade, colorful and fun pillowcases, superhero capes, dolls, pillows, and other handmade items to women and children in homeless shelters naming the author as the donor.
The radio interview will be aired on over 50 radio stations and many other platforms such as Sirius, Pandora, Spotify, Google and Apple Podcasts ,& iHeart.
In these challenging times of PTSD in our society,my story is important to show the importance of integrating the arts into mental health to provide management tools for our communities reeling from mental health issues.
Thank you Speak Up Talk Radio and to all of you out there who have continued to support my efforts !!!!!
Click button below for author page and radio interview!
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I am so honored and excited to win the 2020 Indie Readers Discovery Award (IRDA) for the Psychology/Mental Health category!!! Frida and Me was judged by top industry professionals who declared it not merely a great indie book but as a great book, period. This is great news for the arts and mental health. Seeds will be planted to grow an environment that integrates the arts into mental health. Finally, there is a growing acknowledgment of the powerful tool the arts are in healing trauma. Art heals!!! |
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Review from Midwest Book Review
Inherently absorbing, singularly fascinating, completely compelling, and truly extraordinary memoir that is as deftly crafted as it is impressively candid, "Frida and Me: Art, and One Woman's Triumph Over PTSD" is unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Contemporary American Biography collections. |
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Frida and Me is my memoir of healing PTSD with art. I am an advocate for its use as a tool in mental health recovery for survivors and support systems touched by PTSD/trauma. There is hope for recovery and you do NOT have to be an artist to heal with art.
Trauma is rooted in the senses, so the use of materials, doing and image reach the deeper psyche often overlooked when only using words. Art can be easily integrated into therapy and provide grounding, direction and resolution of our painful trauma.
I experienced this first hand after a lengthy battle with PTSD. I was in a bus wreck in Mexico, almost died and barely made it home where I was hospitalized for 3 months. Typical of PTSD, once I was released from the hospital I fled my life and ran away. A life of continued health problems, disassociation and bad decisions led my life for over 10 years. I tried traditional therapy, which helped….but not enough. After being introduced to Frida Kahlo (Mexican artist who was also in a bus wreck), I became interested in making my pain beautiful, as she did. A therapist showed me how to use art as a method to communicate and EVERYTHING changed. Image, materials and process gave me the impressions and voice necessary to put myself back together again.
I still have PTSD triggers to manage, but I am now happy, healthy and functional by using art, my pooch, exercise and nature as my daily treatment plan.
I wrote this memoir to demonstrate this art process and how it can heal our deepest self/psyche. The book contains my actual art and steps required to heal. My family, friends and community suffered along with me and my hopes are my story can provide hope and direction to prevent others from living the hell we did.
Feel free to contact me and share my book with others struggling with mental health issues.
Trauma is rooted in the senses, so the use of materials, doing and image reach the deeper psyche often overlooked when only using words. Art can be easily integrated into therapy and provide grounding, direction and resolution of our painful trauma.
I experienced this first hand after a lengthy battle with PTSD. I was in a bus wreck in Mexico, almost died and barely made it home where I was hospitalized for 3 months. Typical of PTSD, once I was released from the hospital I fled my life and ran away. A life of continued health problems, disassociation and bad decisions led my life for over 10 years. I tried traditional therapy, which helped….but not enough. After being introduced to Frida Kahlo (Mexican artist who was also in a bus wreck), I became interested in making my pain beautiful, as she did. A therapist showed me how to use art as a method to communicate and EVERYTHING changed. Image, materials and process gave me the impressions and voice necessary to put myself back together again.
I still have PTSD triggers to manage, but I am now happy, healthy and functional by using art, my pooch, exercise and nature as my daily treatment plan.
I wrote this memoir to demonstrate this art process and how it can heal our deepest self/psyche. The book contains my actual art and steps required to heal. My family, friends and community suffered along with me and my hopes are my story can provide hope and direction to prevent others from living the hell we did.
Feel free to contact me and share my book with others struggling with mental health issues.
Book Description
In 1976 Nancy Weintraub was a rebellious teen, a child of the 60's, a free spirit. She and a friend set out, against her parents’ wishes, to spend a year in San Miguel de Allende attending art school and perfecting their Spanish. Nancy was in heaven as she experienced international travel and the art scene, but a horrific accident in a lonely Mexican desert took away her life as she knew it. As her family, friends, many doctors, and complete strangers made heroic efforts to save her life, many of her hopes were dashed forever.
Unknowingly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Nancy spent the next 10 years running from one bad situation to the next. Trying to reinvent herself, she changed her name to Eli. Her healing really began after learning about the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, whose life mirrored her own in so many ways, and meeting an art therapist. Through art therapy, she came to realize that Nancy had died in the wreckage on that rain-slick road, and she didn’t know the person who had emerged. It seemed her free-spirited gypsy self was gone. Gradually, the artist and writer Eli emerged from the shell of Nancy, and through art she found her way back to life and love.
Frida and Me takes the reader through this remarkable woman’s journey, from the giddy days of her once-in-a-lifetime adventure, through the darkest abyss imaginable, putting her on a new path toward helping others recognize art as a tool to heal. Her inspiring presentations have helped trauma victims and clinicians alike, and readers of her story cannot help but be affected by her courage and determination.
As she states in the Prologue, “This book is about that journey and my proven experience in the use of art as a tool to help overcome the overwhelming patterns of PTSD. I literally have art and art therapy to thank for saving my life.”
In 1976 Nancy Weintraub was a rebellious teen, a child of the 60's, a free spirit. She and a friend set out, against her parents’ wishes, to spend a year in San Miguel de Allende attending art school and perfecting their Spanish. Nancy was in heaven as she experienced international travel and the art scene, but a horrific accident in a lonely Mexican desert took away her life as she knew it. As her family, friends, many doctors, and complete strangers made heroic efforts to save her life, many of her hopes were dashed forever.
Unknowingly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Nancy spent the next 10 years running from one bad situation to the next. Trying to reinvent herself, she changed her name to Eli. Her healing really began after learning about the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, whose life mirrored her own in so many ways, and meeting an art therapist. Through art therapy, she came to realize that Nancy had died in the wreckage on that rain-slick road, and she didn’t know the person who had emerged. It seemed her free-spirited gypsy self was gone. Gradually, the artist and writer Eli emerged from the shell of Nancy, and through art she found her way back to life and love.
Frida and Me takes the reader through this remarkable woman’s journey, from the giddy days of her once-in-a-lifetime adventure, through the darkest abyss imaginable, putting her on a new path toward helping others recognize art as a tool to heal. Her inspiring presentations have helped trauma victims and clinicians alike, and readers of her story cannot help but be affected by her courage and determination.
As she states in the Prologue, “This book is about that journey and my proven experience in the use of art as a tool to help overcome the overwhelming patterns of PTSD. I literally have art and art therapy to thank for saving my life.”
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Paperback can be found at Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Or ask your favorite bookstore to order through Ingram
Or ask your favorite bookstore to order through Ingram