GraceDayArt

Artistically Musing

[gracedayart]

I'm pretty sure I'm a workaholic.

Not in the sense that I work overtime at a corporate job (I don't), but in the sense that I never stop working on something. Like...ever.

I quickly realized after reading this chapter that I avoid beginning my art business like the plague by forcing myself to be busy with other things. Nothing is more important to me than living a life defined by purpose and meaning. For me, that means creating art. So why do I try so hard to get away from it? Why do I reach for anything and everything that will keep me from beginning?

(Enter: Fear of failure, Fear of success, Fear of being seen, Fear)

Oftentimes, I do two things at once. I don't give myself breaks between long projects. I don't sit in silence. I never allow myself closure on tasks before I pick up 3 more. I never allow myself time to do nothing. These are not the conditions that create a life of meaning and purpose and these are not conditions that foster creativity.

I decided to weed this out of my life ASAP. I decided to schedule my business like a typical job, so no other tasks can pop up and interrupt me, not even myself. Chronic illness prevents this from looking like a typical 9-5 and that's okay. Five days a week, I come to my art business as a job and it has defeated any fear of beginning because I blinked and had already begun. For these hours, I do nothing but art. I got out of my thinking brain and acted before I could convince myself not to.

Since beginning, I have noticed an impulse to pay too much attention to others. Thier thoughts, their interests, their opinions of me. As a recovering people pleaser, I almost find it amusing how my brain automatically fawns in the presence of eyes, even if it's just a pair of them.

But I'm quickly learning that the Point, for me, is to connect with myself, with the subjects of my paintings, with the people looking at them, not to win their approval. More than anything, I want to know and be known, not in a fame sense, but in a human sense.

- Fame is really a shortcut for self approval.

If I, or you, want to become someone we can approve of, we can begin at any moment. There are no rules. If I want to become a painter, I can become someone who paints TODAY. If I want to paint in a certain style or with certain colors, there is nothing stopping me from reaching for that.

The art is about yourself. It is how you, as a human being, are experiencing, thinking of, witnessing the world and the things in it. It's not about other people. We need others to see and love us to make a living off of our art, but that comes when you are consumed with the art, not with the audience.

One of my favorite things about artists on social media is that they all, each and every one of them, "prove it can be done." I want to approach every artist I see with a gratitude that we have survived and are surviving attempts to snuff us out of existence. They are making it work, so I can also make it work.

As an emerging artist online (in the sense that my posts are mostly ignored), it is overwhelming and exhausting to even attempt to keep up with whatever trend is going on at this hour because it will be different any minute. It is exhausting to try to think of ways I can mold myself to be digestible to everyone, when what I really want is to be digestible to a select few who align with my art and my Self. If I am genuinely and truly myself, then my people will find me and find my art.

I can remove the pressure to be the first and the best, which is boring and overwhelming at the same time. What I really want is to make my art, which is authentic to me.

So how the hell do I do that?

I have struggled with the idea that my art needs to be 100% original for most of my art-making. If all art is informed by other art, then 100% original is a myth. This belief kept me from making art at all for years. If we are speaking of blocks, the ego's desire to be special is a strong one indeed.

I am original to myself. My soul is original. So when I make art, authentically informed by my self and my experience, it will be original without having to try. If I am my own country and interesting place to visit, I really don't have to try so hard at all. A hard attempt at being original is not original, because there are a lot of people trying really hard to do that.

By knowing ourselves, we learn to trust ourselves. My trusting ourselves, we learn to paint faithfully (or blindly), and that painting will often surprise us.

(tomato reference from @sina.nathalie on Instagram)

[monstersovka]

🌱 dragon sword 🗡️

[gracedayart]

A week-ish in my life as an artist

Tomato reference from @sina.nathalie on Instagram

[taurzza]

commission for @chapel-of-filth

[gracedayart]

A drawing in graphite from a few years ago that I still love so much!

[gracedayart]

Today's sketch in graphite

[gracedayart]

A little bee sketch today 🐝

Reference from 📌

[gracedayart]

I completely forgot about this chapter in the last few weeks. I didn't forget that I read it, but I did forget what I read. Funnily enough though, I spent this time doing exactly what this chapter taught me, completely unintentionally.

I think what distracted me so much was reading my morning pages. Honestly, I was captivated at an inner wisdom I had no idea was so developed within me. The first stretch of this year was awful for me. It was riddled with anxiety and I was completely unsure where I was even going to live. But I'm my morning pages, I was sure. I knew, somehow, that everything would work out. My life is better right now that it was 3 months ago and there was a part of me that knew that in the midst of my struggle. She wrote it in my morning pages. My only question now is "what else does she know?"

One thing she knows is that goodness produces more goodness. By following what feels good throughout my day and not forcing myself to complete things for the sake of completion, I'm positioning myself in the way of compassion. It's so much easier to be gentle with myself when I'm allowing myself to do only what feels good and right for me in the moment. This gentleness produces a lot more mental space to dream and to be. This dreaming and being also creates a lot more space for the art.

Surprisingly, I have found that everything still gets done eventually, just at a reasonable pace and with an attitude of love towards myself. All because I decided to play the video game or eat the snack! It's like magic.

If "doing the work" as an artist means allowing your inner artist child to play, then playing is allowing yourself to make the art. If you feel blocked, play, curiosity, joy, and good-feeling are the remedy, or at least a great place to start. By allowing myself to follow every bit of interest and inspiration and curiousity throughout my day, my inner artist child feels free to play on the page or the canvas.

My morning pages also illuminated a harsh truth to me: an intense fear of being seen. Not only do I fear success, but I fear being seen at all. How ironic is that, to be a visual artist who wants no one to look at her?

If life has taught me anything, it's that when a fear is discovered, you must look it in the face and do the exact thing you are afraid of.

A simple example, which I'm sure introverts everywhere can relate to, is the fear of making a phone call. What if you stumble over your words and sound like an idiot? What if the person on the other end is an asshole? What if this? What if that? My mother used to laugh at this fear of mine, because I could move across the country like it was nothing, but God forbid, I had to call the doctor and I would melt into a puddle of anxious tears.

The concept of being seen by strangers, and truly seen through my art, is one of these fears for me. What if I look like an idiot? What if no one takes me seriously? What if, once I put my whole heart into it, my soul is seen and rejected?

On a random day when I needed to make a call, I just thought to myself, "what would happen to my anxiety if I just rip off the bandaid?" I was curious. I dialed before I could talk myself out of it. The call was boring. Not scary. Completely unremarkable. Now I do this every time. I don't wait. When I need to call maintenance, or the doctor, or a store, I do it right now before the fear can get to me and it always ends up boring or unremarkable.

I thought to myself recently, "what if I allowed myself and my art to be seen before I can talk myself out of it?" One of the Big Goals I have for my art is to foster connection and build community. A fear of being seen directly gets in the way of those goals, so something has to change.

So a few days ago, before I could talk myself out of it, I did a sketch. And before I could think myself out of it, I posted it online. And then the next day, I did it again. And I plan to do it tomorrow. The next time I fear being seen, I will pick up the pencil or the paintbrush and make a mark before I can talk myself out of it.

If I allow myself a little joy, a little authenticity, it turns out making art doesn't have to be so hard.

[gracedayart]

A little morning Chickadee sketch 🪶

Reference from 📌

[gracedayart]

Salmon in colored pencil :) 🐟

[gracedayart]

The Artist's Way: Week 8

I am so happy to be writing you again. I have landed in my new beautiful place. I feel so inspired and I'm itching to start creating again. I got through the stressful time and now I am ready to embrace the upgrade to my life.

Upgrading can be hard. That doesn't mean I'm not amazed, grateful, and in constant awe of what I have accomplished to get here. But the truth is that change is hard anyway.

I could talk about the art of surviving loss that Julia wrote about at the beginning of this chapter, but that's not where I'm being drawn to right now. I will mention some ideas that stuck out to me:

- The concept of "metabolizing pain as energy." When I'm in pain, either physical or emotional (sensitive chronic pain folks rise up), creating is the LAST thing I want to do. But every time I create something when I'm in a positive or neutral mood, I find myself feeling elated at the end of it. I wonder what would happen if I created while sad anyway. My hypothesis is that I would land on feeling quite alright.

- Another thing I want to mention is the idea of academia squashing creativity. I have experienced this when I studied art academically and also when I did not. I didn't only feel this intellectual squashing of creativity in the classroom, I also felt it at home when I obsessed over books, lectures, articles, and the like, ignoring all hunger, loneliness, and vitamin D. It's not that knowledge squashes creativity, quite the opposite, it's the hamster wheel of "how-smart-can-I-get" intellectualism that squashes any and all desire to create because it leaves room for little else than academic excellence. Once you are discouraged from pursuing your creativity, you will strive to fill the void with anything you can get your hands on to avoid thinking about The Big Scary Thing that is pursuing an art career. For me, this involved life-or-death straight A's.

Now, what I'm really interested in writing about this week is the concept of doing.

Doing, for me, is the hardest part of art making. I will drag my feet for days, even weeks, before I finally make it to the canvas. Once I do, I flow and enjoy and live, but that period of wrestling with myself is by far the biggest enemy of my creative process. If I take this practice of art making as seriously as I claim, it is essential that I stop denying myself an artistic process.

The artistic process means living the art, inhaling, exhaling, seeing, feeling, listening to the art all of the time. It is so much more than sitting down and getting up from the canvas. I think what gets in the way of my artistic process is the desire to have an artistic product: some sort of "proof" that I'm a "real" artist because look at all of the finished artwork I've made!

That is not art, that is capitalism. "No creative act is ever finished" is true indeed. Capitalism demands constant output and product and never-ending growth. The creative process is not a thing to sell or produce. The creative process is a practice to live and flow through that does not have a finished, sellable product. Capitalism is anti-art. It is anti-process. It is the exact opposite of everything that is art. Art takes its time. Art is unbound by money or this celebrity's new favorite thing. Art doesn't care who you are or what you look like, so it doesn't demand that you buy more and more and more.

The point is to be art. To keep moving through your process, which is your art. This reminds me of the art of noticing. Being in your process means you notice the art of life surrounding you. The sunsets take on a new meaning. The creak of your floor is a recognition of your existence. Your morning coffee is a ritual. The point is to move through the world as if you are painting it yourself. Life is a creative process that does not end with each piece you finish.

And that brings me to the big, scary, behemoth that is the creative career. From before I started this book, I decided making art was going to be my career. In a way I've always known, but it finally felt like now was the time to start. Start how? At the beginning, I suppose, whatever that means.

If making art requires a process or practice or artistic flow, then I simply need to direct that flow towards a vision. But that still doesn't tell me what I need to do to make that vision happen.

For me, my vision is to be an artist full time. I want to manage myself and create my artwork at a speed that works for my chronically ill body. I want to make some sort of positive difference in the world. But that feels so far off. How do I even get there? Well, "all of it begins at the beginning, with the first small and scary step."

Each morning, in my morning pages, I ask myself:

"What is my next best step today?"

I have my vision in mind, and I look at my life, my day, my mind, and my body, and I choose one or two things that I can do today to bring me closer to my vision.

Today, my next best step is to write this. That's all. I don't need to make a masterpiece and I don't need to call the galleries around town. Those will happen when they are the next best step, but today they are not. I am guilty of thinking all the way to the end without actually doing anything to get me there today. So today, I am writing this to you.

If you have a vision, or a next best step, I would love to hear about it.

[gracedayart]

The Artist's Way: Week 7

This chapter tore down my inner world and built it right back up again.

A Correction

Before I get into all that, I feel like it’s right to correct myself about a person from Week 1. You may recall B, who I believed convinced me not to pursue an art career in lieu of tens of thousands of dollars of debt for a career I am no longer pursuing.

In the wonderful morning pages, I have realized that it was obviously not B; it was capitalism itself.

Capitalism gets blamed for everything by my generation, and for good reason. It is the root of sexism, racism, poverty, predatory insurance companies, endless ads, the subscription model, debt of all shapes and sizes, and I could go on.

In B’s generation, going along with capitalism was a promise. It promised money, security, peace, prosperity, a rewarding career, and a family, but times have most certainly changed. When B was trying to convince me to change career aspirations, it was through the perspective of how things have always been. It was with the assumption that the American Dream was real and even attainable.

If you have been paying attention, the American Dream was never real and has always been a means of manipulating the masses to work themselves into an early, exhausted, expensive grave.

So when B was trying to get me to choose a different career, it was not due to a lack of belief in me, but an anxiety about my security and future. We all know the formula: get into college, get a job right out of college, get married, buy a house, have kids, work until you retire, die. B’s suggestion was guidance with the assumption that following it would drop me off in a place where things would be easy. They have been far from easy, but whose fault is that? Not B’s. Capitalism.

Back to this chapter:

Perfectionism and Control

When I learned this chapter was about perfectionism, I was excited and terrified. Perfectionism is one of my oldest and most deeply rooted blockages to everything. It was a blockage I developed pretty much immediately upon entering the world, and it has been with me my entire life. Once I removed myself from the situation in which it was developed, I had no need for it anymore. It doesn’t protect me, it doesn’t help me, it doesn’t make me feel safe. Perfectionism used to protect me from being bullied and nitpicked by my family, but now it just gets in my way.

I have known I’ve had a problem with perfectionism for years and years, but it always looked so impossibly huge that it became easier to just ignore it. I would experience the enormous anxiety, the frustration from myself and others, the great things becoming blocked by the struggle for control, the big impassible tower in front of me that prevented me from doing anything I enjoyed, and I had no idea how to stop.

I began the chapter as I always do, amazed and in awe of Julia’s wisdom and inspired to put it into practice immediately. I had a moment while reading where I just broke down in tears. I cried about a seemingly small memory from my childhood, which I have not ever given much thought to, which is odd, because it was quite unpleasant. I do understand why, though, because it was yet another scary memory of a giant man yelling, attacking, and/or bullying me from my childhood that blended into the tens of others.

This time felt different, though. Instead of being terrified of the emotion, I just sat and cried through it. I realized that my perfectionism must come from self-preservation. These kinds of habits are very hard to break (I learned that from my $50,000 psychology education :) ), so it's no wonder that this has always been such a struggle for me. If I could perfectly predict how to behave, what to say, and where to be, I wouldn’t be in danger.

I know that I’m not living a life like that anymore, so in that moment, I decided to take on the tower of perfectionism and welcome any and all lessons it had for me. Well, holy shit.

When the Tower falls

Photo by Linn Kuyay

Shortly after reading the chapter, I toured an apartment and completely fell in love with it. I saw myself there, sitting in the nearby park, my kettle on the counter, my husband next to me in bed. I desperately wanted to live here.

Then a deep wound related to my perfectionism was triggered by a friend. I had a whole messy flashback. Snot and tears rolling down my face, begging the universe to take the stress and pain away from me, lying in bed, and yet feeling like I was dying in combat. This is not something that happens often anymore, but it has happened often in my life. I know exactly how to pick myself up and keep going.

Hours later, after recovering and thinking the worst was over, I got a message from my mom saying it was time to put our elderly dog down. I had been preparing myself for this for years, but I had been feeling guilty since going to college and then moving away for not spending more time with my dog at the end of her life. I had avoided thinking about it and feeling it, so of course it hit me like a train.

I welcomed it and processed it so I could prepare myself to deal with the grief. I have been extremely lucky not to have lost anyone close to me yet. This dog was my best friend for the past 16 years, when I had no one else. When I was completely rejected by the world and wanted by no one, I would come home to this wonderful dog. I have taken this loss harder than I ever thought I would.

A sketch from this week

Julia was right when she said the universe would support me. I began hearing songs that felt like messages, small things that felt like perfect synchronicities, a paw in my coffee, voices from everywhere saying that everything would be okay. Did I hear it? No, of course not, that would be too simple.

Instead, I felt anxiety on top of the grief. Not only was I experiencing this huge, gutting grief, but I was also desperately hoping for this apartment. I was drowning in grief, and all I could think about was whether I would be approved for this specific apartment. All the synchronicities around me were pointing me in a direction I was refusing to trust because it wasn’t THIS apartment, it wasn’t an approval TODAY.

Then I started to get angry. Did the universe want me to live there or not? I wasn’t getting a straight answer (I was). Was everything going to be okay or not? Did I learn the lesson yet or not? (I didn’t). I wanted to give up, to throw up my hands and see if anything would happen at all. Then, at last, I started to make progress.

I realized in the throes of this emotional breakdown that a relationship exists between perfectionism, control, and trust. First is Perfectionism, which we believe to be the real problem. Next is Control, the first stop we find ourselves at when we think things need to be perfect. Finally, if we get frustrated enough, we find Trust. Once you make your way to trust, things can finally start to get moving.

A Lesson Earned

A sketch from this week

One night, I lay in bed when a video caught my attention.

You need a different perspective…What is meant for you will never pass over you… You’re in your own way… You are not in charge of the thread of fate. Your job is to simply follow it.

I woke up that night at 3:00, and finally fell back asleep at 7:00. When I woke up at 11:00, I felt like something had changed in me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I felt changed. I felt relieved. I felt like everything was just fine, actually.

As I made my coffee that morning, I saw a video describing the exact journey I just went through. Accepting the challenge, the intimidation of the tower, the grief of the tower falling, the anxiety, the anger, the understanding, and at last, the acceptance. I was a little freaked out in a “wow, we really live on a rock” kind of way. The kind of way that makes me realize how small I really am and how much I really have to learn.

Later that day, I learned that we were never going to get that apartment, because it was taken off the market. I wasn’t even disappointed because I realized then that I had learned the lesson. The lesson is this:

The universe does support you. It sends you everything you need at the time you need it.

Perfectionism and control are illusions. You cannot control the thread of fate or the way in which your goals will be realized. The only thing you can control is you and what you choose to do.

Trust is a risk, but it is a necessary and rewarding one.

Trust in the universe, detachment, and following your good-feeling will get you farther than control and perfectionism ever thought possible.

There are more apartments. I’m seeing several in the next few days, but I don’t feel so attached. I know that the place that will get me closer to my goals is the place that I will land in. I assume that I will be okay because I have been okay so far.

That was a big monster to defeat, but I got through it. I’m going to take a big sigh and a hot shower, knowing that in the end, I will be okay.

[gracedayart]

The Artist's Way: Week 6

This week, I overcame my poor financial mindset and faced my financial trauma. As someone who has almost always faced financial struggles in one way or another, this week looked terrifying to me at the beginning. This is an area of my life that I assumed was a lot harder to overcome than it has proven to be. I have learned so much this week about how the universe works in my life and about how I don’t have to struggle. Like at all.

Clinging to financial insecurity

Look, I understand that financial insecurity and struggle are real and scary things. They are things that can hurt us and ruin our lives. I have had my fair (or maybe not so fair) share of financial struggles. I am not denying reality.

Last week, we learned that trusting the universe (or whatever you want to call it) with our lives was an option, but when you have experienced substantial financial difficulties, it can destroy your sense of trust in the universe. It also distorts your view of struggle. Once you have been starving and put yourself in debt to stay housed, every time you feel hungry, you panic. Every time you spend money, you fear that you’re putting yourself in danger. Even when you are struggling less, or perhaps not struggling at all, it still feels like nothing has changed. But the reality is that the only thing that has not changed is you.

We cling to our financial concerns as a way to avoid not only our art, but also our spiritual growth.

If we are going to accept abundance, accept creativity, we have to also accept that there may be forces we don’t understand working in our favor. It is not a requirement to understand them. We have to trust. And how the hell do we do that?

If I’m writing this right now, it means I have made it far enough to learn this lesson. If I am sitting on this couch, it means I have reached the impossible goal of moving to another country. If I am alive, it means I didn’t starve. Why would I come this far, just to fail? Why would I make it to this point, just for the universe to throw up its hands and give up on me? That would be illogical, and the universe is not illogical.

I brought my past financial struggles to the present as a way to protect myself from the suffering I’ve endured in the past. But if I’m convinced that I’m fighting for my life, do you know what the last thing on my mind is? Making art.

Money is never an authentic creative block. The actual block is our feeling of constriction, our sense of powerlessness.

If I admit that I don’t have to believe I will always struggle, then I have to face the paint brush, the blank page, and myself. I have to let go of the controlling death-grip on my life and trust that everything will be taken care of. Strangely, I have a sense that it will.

What we want to do is what we’re meant to do

I have this vague, but persistent feeling that if I just make art, everything will work out. I don’t know how. I don’t know exactly what that even means, but I do know that as I have begun to process my religious and financial trauma, I actually want to create instead of wanting to want to create. I dream about drawing. I think about color. I stare at my sketchbook from across the room. “Do it. Do it. Do it,” the universe says to me, “Everything will be as it should be when you do.”

And when I do, I feel as if I’m filled with light, like this is the most productive, meaningful thing I could be doing.

What we really want to do is what we’re really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.

Why is that? I believe it’s because doing the thing we are meant to be doing clears the gunk from our stream and turns it into a raging river. We allow our lives, our abundance, our creativity to grow and flourish when we take the litter out of the river and stop trying to dam it up.

Am I worthy of anything?

We fight against our own abundance and success because we don’t believe we are worth it. Aren’t we? We’ve gotten this far and survived impossible things, and yet we still believe we are not a miracle, that we have not worked hard enough. We believe we have to suffer for goodness, but where does it say that is a universal law? We made that up.

You won’t have more money when you work harder; you’ll have more money when you do what you are meant to do. Buy the good bread. It only costs a dollar more. Give yourself an extra 15 minutes. Go ahead and do the fun thing you want to do instead of forcing yourself to do thing you feel like you should. This is where abundance begins. When we deprive ourselves of small pleasures, our creativity starves, and we end up rejecting the larger gifts of abundance and pleasure as well.

Today, I bought the good baguette. I’m going to go have a slice.

[gracedayart]

The Artist's Way: Week 5

Honestly, it has been a difficult week. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write a post this week because it feels like all that has been going on is endlessly searching for a place to live among holes in the ground that cost $1,600/month + utilities. Having my living situation hung in the balance is remarkably stressful, to say the least.

Discovering a Sense of Possibility

But, isn’t that exactly what this week is about? Isn’t “possibility” all about learning to trust that there is a chance something could happen for your greatest good?

I don’t find trust to be all that easy to do. I have experienced terrible things, some of which could have, or likely would have, killed me. I have seemingly been given numerous reasons not to trust anything at all. But here I am writing this on my old laptop that somehow still works, in a country I miraculously moved to, with the husband of my dreams in the other room. And most of all, I’m alive. I have made it through those many murderous things alive.

Much like my current situation, I had no idea what was going to happen. A year from today, I had no idea I would be living in another country, united with my long-distance husband. So, really, who’s to say what’s going to happen in a month? A week? Perhaps I could find a new place to live tomorrow.

When I think of how I got here in the first place, I find trust there. I trusted myself. I trusted the universe. I trusted this force of life that I can hardly name or explain. That flow of trust picked me up and dropped me off in a place I had only dreamed of, and that I thought was years in the future. So maybe trust is not so hard for me after all.

Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can

In times like these, as Julia mentioned herself, we tend to decide how powerful Spirit is for us. We tell it that our blessings have to come between noon and 3 pm on only Tuesdays and only through means that fall into our laps. If the blessing comes on Friday morning, we tend to reject it. We have to remove as many obstacles as possible so the help can find its way to us. Most of those obstacles are our own anxiety, fear, lack of trust, stubbornness, etc.

Have you ever experienced times when you are so past the threshold of stress that you virtually give up and say to yourself or the universe, “whatever. I’ve tried, and it’s not working. Whatever will happen will happen. I can’t hold this anymore”? If yes, you know that the very next thing that happens is the thing you’ve been waiting for. Why is that? I think it’s because we finally move out of the way so help can arrive.

We’re like those people who don’t pull over for the ambulance. Move.

Ask and then expect it to come. In the meantime, do things that align with your vision. In my case, ask for help finding a good-enough apartment, then look for it and expect that it will come. This is incredibly difficult, especially when there is a time crunch, but it is simply the truth of things.

The Creator Within

“By listening to the creator within, we are led to our right path.”

What does my creator within say as I panic about change and the unknown? She is a quiet, patient voice saying that it was simply time. I deserve better. Staying another year in this place would hurt me more than help me, and my dreams demand better than this.

This also calls for a certain amount of trust. This time, in myself. I have been through a lot, yes, but I have also accomplished just as much. I have never gotten anywhere without listening to that inner voice. If the inner voice says it is time to move on, it simply is. She has never pointed in the wrong direction. Julia said, “Recovery is the process of finding the river and saying yes to its flow.”

I’m saying yes.

Dreaming amidst despair

I’ve noticed something interesting about creative recovery in times of stress. I’ve always thought that an artist must never be overburdened, as this will completely tblock heir access to the art, which will not return until times are easier. I’m finding this to be false. I noticed that as I let myself envision a better future, as I let myself dream, the clouds around my life cleared, and I found myself lifted from my pit of despair. You might even say I was almost inspired; my optimism returned.

As my days seem shorter and my to-do list seems longer, I’m finding myself remembering the end of this chapter. Julia writes how artists tend to overextend themselves out of virtue, because they want to be the best motherdaughterfriendstudentworker they can be. She writes how this constant stream of stealing from our inner selves wounds our inner artist and, therefore, takes us farther from ourselves and our creativity.

Like many artists, I have a huge perfectionism streak. This is awful for creativity. Perhaps not surprisingly, my perfectionism gets worse the more stressed I become. Suddenly, not drinking as much water or not making it to my journal become near-criminal non-actions. This, of course, only increases my stress.

Julia writes, “An artist must have time to do nothing.” Doing nothing is the cure for many of our hurts and troubles (I encourage you to read Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey). Feel lazy? Try doing nothing. Overwhelmed? Do nothing. Feeling like a massive perfectionist whose whole life will fall apart if she can’t drink that extra liter of water? The answer is to do nothing. Our inner selves and creativity depend on it.

The answer is not to avoid stress. The answer is to learn what the stress is teaching you. I am learning to flow with the river, to trust myself and the universe. I am learning not to abandon my creativity in the face of fear and to do nothing instead of doing everything with perfection.

[gracedayart]

The Artist's Way: Week 4

As with every single week so far, I have learned more than I ever thought possible, but this week felt particularly transformative to me (yes, I will probably say the same thing next week).

I read this week that shame points us backwards and anger points us forwards. I experienced both emotions this week.

One morning, I woke up simply feeling awful about myself. If you’ve experienced any trauma, in my case, particularly the childhood or religious types, you know this feeling. You go to sleep just as you always do, but when you wake, somehow you have become the worst person in the world overnight, simply by sleeping.

And it’s often difficult to even recognize that this is shame in the first place, because all you know is that you feel really, really “bad”.

This particular morning, I woke up, got my coffee and breakfast, then sat down to write my morning pages, as per my routine. I began writing about what was on my mind, how sad and scared I felt, and the soul-crushing feeling that began to cloud my vision. Almost as soon as I began writing, a distant but oddly familiar part of myself began to emerge. She called out my shame and labeled it for the bullshit that it was.

She reminded me I was worthy of love, worthy of ease, and even worthy of this dream of being an artist. As this part reminded me of the present and the dreams for my future, my shame melted away so quickly that I hardly knew it had happened.

After a lifetime of shame, I have finally found that the antidote is love and praise, just like Julia Cameron said it would be. Shame is pulling you into the past. To get out of the past, you must orient yourself to the present, and the Morning Pages really help with that.

I also got angry this week. As I felt my anger rise, I noticed that I didn’t begin to insult or hate the perpetrator, as I admittedly would have done in the past; I felt protective of myself in a new way. I wanted to make sure I was okay more than I wanted to seek revenge. And very oddly, as I began to brainstorm solutions to the situation, I found myself excited about the potential for a better future and a certain trust, in myself, the universe, Spirit, etc, that it will all work out.

My anger made me see and dream of my future, rather than panicking about the present. As I befriend my emotions (all of them) through the Morning Pages, I am beginning to see some type of personal identity emerge that has nothing to do with pure survival instinct. There has been a “Me” underneath it all this whole time. The Morning Pages are doing more for me than simply clearing my head: they are showing me the way.

Mom was right. It really is that damn phone.

I also underwent a Reading Deprivation this week. The premise is this: by removing others’ voices and opinions from our minds by not reading and limiting our daily consumption, we are forced to think for ourselves, and thinking for ourselves allows our true identities to emerge. Julia writes that “for most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction,” and I am complete proof of that.

Before spending a week not reading, I hardly noticed that I was reading something every single day. It was almost compulsive. Every single quiet moment would be filled with something, and if it couldn’t, I would pick up a book. Picking up a book in your spare moments is not a bad thing by any means (There’s a literacy crisis. Please keep reading), but once it begins to silence your inner voice, or even separate you from your own thoughts, ideas, or identity, it’s time to put it down and come back to yourself.

At the beginning of the week, I was terrified. I haven’t gone without reading or without filling nearly every moment of silence with a YouTube video, every day, for 13 years. The benefits felt immediate.

I understand why I have chosen to distract myself for so long. When you could be pelted with traumatic memories at any moment, you don’t allow your brain to have those moments. Even after I felt I had healed tremendously, I was afraid of what my brain would conjure up to torment me, what overwhelming feelings I might feel, and if I would hate the identity that emerged from the silence.

Julia, again, said it best: “In order to express ourselves through art, we must first have a self to express.”

How could I be afraid of my identity if I don’t even know what it is? How can I expect myself to express through art, or even make it a career, if I do not have a self to express? Now that I was through with listening to other people’s opinions of me, it was the perfect time to make some opinions of my own.

So I promised myself not to read and to limit YouTube, TikTok, and screen time for a whole week. I immediately felt euphoric. Suddenly, I wanted to move furniture around and to clean and to cut my hair and to draw. Was this who I really was this whole time? A person who does stuff?

I found myself knocking things off of my long-standing to-do list with ease, coming up with creative ideas, setting difficult boundaries without a second thought, and being able to think clearly for the first time in forever. More synchronicities began to emerge, and the undercurrent of my life and my purpose began to flow freely again.

The little peeks of my identity I see around every corner are exciting, not scary. And I found that, above all, I like myself. I want to create art, and it doesn’t feel as terrifying because each thing I do without someone else’s opinion in my ear brings me closer and closer to Myself.

Am I going to pick up a book tomorrow? Absolutely. Am I going to watch YouTube after I write this? Uh huh. But I am also going to allow myself to step away every few days and find something else to do. And maybe being away from the screen and the book will encourage me to rest on the page and create some art or even go outside. I don’t know, but it feels exciting nonetheless.

[gracedayart]

The Artist's Way: Week 3

This week has been fertilizer for me. When it came time to read chapter three, I wanted to read it, but couldn’t get myself to start. Every other task became more important. I know very well that the things we procrastinate tend to be the things we need the most. So, I sat myself down, opened the book, and somehow got myself to pay attention.

This week, Julia discussed anger, shame, and criticism. So, of course, my own anger, shame, and criticism came up to confront me almost immediately.

Julia wrote that anger fuels the fire that burns away our old life and is the map into our new one. Despite its loyalty to me, I have always feared my anger. I was shown very early in my life that anger breeds unpredictable outbursts of danger, and eventually, I decided that anger was danger. But this week, after saying hello to my anger for the first time maybe ever, I realized that what my anger is actually showing me is grief.

I have always been described in terms like “empathetic”, “sensitive”, “pure-hearted” and “emotional.” In a family where sensitivity was a derogatory and threatening trait, I was never taught how to protect myself from others, well-meaning or not. I don’t think a love bomb has ever not worked on me.

I had this friendship, and in this friendship, there was a pattern. They would leave for extended periods of time, inevitably come back around, ask for forgiveness, self-depricate, promise to do better, and the cycle would continue. I don’t think this was done out of malice or even consciously, but it was done. Over and over again. And I’m angry about it. I’m angry at this friend, and I’m angry at myself.

It seemed that no matter how much forgiveness and love I extended, I could always expect that I would be left, somehow, until the next episode of their life.

And you must trust me when I say that I fully and thoroughly examined how I might be causing this to happen. But what if I’m not causing this to happen? One of the last times I spoke to this friend, I attempted to take blame for their behavior because I thought it was the fair thing to do. It was not, and this is the sort of martyrous self-abuse that is keeping me away from an artistic life.

As time passes, I’m realizing that I’m angry, and I am actually allowed to be angry for the way people have taken advantage of my empathy, intentionally or not, and use that anger to fuel me into the most fulfilling version of my life. I realized that I am a doormat, and I’m saying fuck that. Placating other people has gotten me nowhere but trapped in a cage of shame, going only where someone else decides I should go.

I have encountered shame in almost every corner of my life, fueled by people-pleasing, abuse, and a lack of guidance showing me how to protect the vulnerable parts of myself. I have picked up the “first doubt” a million times and held onto it like it was something precious, followed it like I was blindfolded, arms outstretched, like it would show me the way. I haven’t ever truly realized, until now, that all the answers to everything I need (an artistic career, security, self-love, etc.) have only to do with me.

One of the exercises this week was to list people you admire, and why. What every single person on my list had in common was that they unconditionally embodied themselves. Not a single one ever asked for permission to be great or to be an artist or to be themselves. If the antidote to shame is self-love and unconditional selfness, then I am an artist, and a damn good one. I have been unfairly exiled and never given the permission to come back to myself. And I will never get it, so I’m taking it.

If the worst thing that can happen is that I’m cringe, then at least I am free.

[gracedayart]

I have had quite the week. Here are the things that happened in the past 7 days or so:

I learned how to take the city bus

I had really expensive, but delicious tacos

I had to call an ambulance for the first time (Everyone is fine)

I rented a car for the first time

I went on a mini-vacation to visit family

And let me be honest: this program is working. It is really clicking for me, and I can feel my inner artist waking up after a very long nap. Julia Cameron predicted that synchronicities would begin to show up along this journey, and I have been pleasantly surprised that she was absolutely right.

The lesson this week mainly focused on protecting our awakening inner artists, as this is the crest of the creative healing journey. We are still hiking up the hill, unsure if the view will be worth the climb. We are committed to ourselves and our artistic well-being, but we can still be easily drawn away from it by our own and others’ doubts.

I chose not to share my career change with someone I deeply respect this week. I think not sharing this with them had more to do with my fear of the potential “but [insert career here] makes more money” conversation that I had with several people years ago. For some reason, nothing has squashed my creative well-being quite like this conversation. As Cameron suggests, if you feel that someone will doubt this journey or if you will doubt this journey, boundaries must be created to protect the inner artist.

I began to realize the importance of this over expensive tacos. I went to the local public market with my husband on Valentine’s day. It was incredibly busy. We finally had our food and a seat, and my husband went to get me a coffee (necessary). After a few minutes, I looked up in the crowded room and saw my husband’s bright orange beanie through a sea of brown hair and black coats, with the light of some windows casting a golden shine on the side of his head. And I thought to myself that I could paint it.

This is the first time my inner artist has shown herself to me in years. Sure, she slips out when I’m working on a crochet project or finding a craft I would like to try, but this day, it was like she was seeing through my eyes. I almost wanted to say hello, but it’s like I was afraid to scare her away, so I just smiled to myself instead. If she struggles to trust me, it is certainly not the time to share her with anyone else who might discourage my choice to follow this path.

I want to promise her that I will do everything I can to protect her, that I see how valuable and rare this gift was, but she’s like a wild fox. If I breathe too loudly, she will run and hide. Eventually, I think, she may be more willing to let me approach, feed her by hand, or even run my hands through her fur. Until then, I can give her the patience she so desperately needs to thrive.

One of the activities this week was to list twenty things you enjoy doing. I always find what other people enjoy to be interesting, so just in case you find that interesting too, here are my twenty things:

Reading

Learning languages

Knitting and Crocheting

Drawing and Painting

Nature walks, Hiking, and Spending time outside

Traveling

Trying new cafes, restaurants, or foods

Baking

Playing video games

Tarot and the like

Ballet

Singing

Learning a new skill

Looking at art

Spending time with animals

Making collages

Spending time with my husband

Crafting and Making stuff

Journaling and Writing

Taking care of plants

I would love to know what is on your list if you’re willing to share.