Sarah Lin Marsden keeps an easel and paint brushes by the side of her bed.

“When I’m painting I’m in a lucid dream – not awake, but not asleep,” she says. “It feels like being in a bubble. I have no notion of time – it’s like when a child is playing and having so much fun they don’t realise how much time has passed. Art has saved me.”

Years of illness left Sarah, a mother-of-four, unable to walk and confined to her bed for six months. Now she is rebuilding her life through painting, and the Shamanic teachings she practises.

An exhibition of Sarah’s artwork, at the recently reopened Bar Twenty5 in Little Germany, is her first solo venture since having surgery in 2010. More recently she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a condition that leaves sufferers in constant pain.

“I had a hysterectomy in 2005 and there were complications,” says Sarah, 38, who had another operation three years ago following various health problems.

“I had to learn how to eat and walk again,” she says.

When Sarah was introduced to a ‘sweat lodge’, a Native American healing ceremony, it was an experience that changed her life.

“It blew my mind. I became a Shamanic apprentice and it changed the way I approach life, and the way I look after myself, physically and mentally. It has enhanced my painting too,” she says.

The ceremony took place in a willow structure with a hole in the ground, where rocks were placed in a fire.

“Rocks are hoarders of energy. As the rocks heated up we went in one by one, it felt very womb-like. It was like being reborn,” says Sarah.

“For me, Shamanism is about taking off the masks we all wear, and getting back to the truth of who we are. It calls on the energies of the universe, and on the energy coming out of us.”

Shamanism is an ancient healing practice linked to indigenous cultures worldwide and rooted in the belief that everything has an energy. Health issues are seen as connected to the loss of energy and shamanic practitioners work to balance this, creating a “wholeness” in body and mind.

Sarah has a stone circle in her garden at Clayton Heights, where she often meditates. Her holistic approach, focusing on mind and body, has helped her cope with fibromyalgia.

“I think I may have had it for years, but I was only recently diagnosed. I’m in constant pain, all over, and it causes sweating,” she says.

“Fibromyalgia is something people don’t know much about – like me, a lot of sufferers may have it but not be aware of it.

“The way I deal with it is to visualise it – I give it a colour and shape and move it about. I try and make it disappear. I have physiotherapy twice a week, and I meditate every day. Painting has been great therapy too.”

Another source of light in Sarah’s life are her four children, Ben, Sam, Hannah and Aimee, and two-year-old grandson Finlay. “He says, ‘Come on nannie, let’s dance’. I love his energy,” she smiles.

Sarah’s exhibition symbolises her step back to recovery.

“This is a big thing for me,” she says. “As a child I was always painting, it’s something I escaped to. I studied art at Bradford College, but illness really knocked my confidence. Last year I went to a drawing class at Delius Arts and Cultural Centre and that was the start of me getting out again.”

Called Kachina-hey – kachina means ‘dream teacher’ and hey means ‘to awaken’ – her exhibition features dream-like paintings in earthy and aqua colours.

The more you look at the swirling shapes, the more they reveal. Striking faces, some of them various interpretations of Sarah, peer through leaves and branches. A painting called Woman In Hiding reveals several different female forms in autumnal shades.

Another, called The Human Forest, is inspired by the Chinese symbol for Sarah’s name. “I’m half Chinese and I paint under the name Sarah Lin, which means forest,” she says.

Sarah, who has received an award from Manchester’s Chinese Arts Centre, will be painting at the venue on Sunday, March 3, and people are welcome to bring a blank canvas and join in.

“No experience is needed, it’s a case of going with the flow,” she says.

“When I start painting I don’t have a set idea, I just go where it takes me. I bring something of me to the paintings, and trees are a recurring theme.”

For more about Sarah Lin’s work, e-mail sarahlinarts@googlemail.com.