Artist Vlog: Overcoming Resistance & Living a Creative Life
In the face of a world that feels like it’s going crazy, I'm continuing to work on a big dream of stepping more and more into my artist self.
But here's the thing about when we commit and show up for any of our hopes and dreams: they invite us to confront ourselves in a way that nothing else really does. I think this confrontation is what stops most people from ever taking action on things they really want. I know it's kept me stuck in my head for years, rather than actually doing things I really want to do.
When we actually commit to a hope/dream,
ALL our doubts and fears will show up.
It’s just a natural part of the process. Working on our dreams can feel really good, typically, but (like in The War of Art) we have to step into the ring every day to face ourselves to actually DO the art or show up for the dream.
I used to see this all the time with the entrepreneurs I mentored. We'd build out their big, beautiful vision of the business they really wanted to create and the brand they really wanted to step into. Then time would tell who would fight for that dream and keep showing up for it, which would naturally lead to that dream coming to life, and who would get stuck instead and even give up on their dream instead.
Some of the parts of myself I've had to face with taking my dreams seriously have been:
Fear of not being good enough
Fear of not being liked
Fear of being misunderstood
Fear of wasting my time
Fear of old patterns repeating
Fear of life being against me
Fear of my dream not mattering
Fear of me not mattering
Drawing and painting are easy by comparison to navigating the mine field within my mind.
The actual art isn't very hard compared to the work of facing myself and working through the internal resistance toward creating.
There's a part of myself that would much rather just consume art—watching Netflix every day, getting lost in other people's books, going out to eat at lots of restaurants, etc.—rather than create my own art. Consuming art can feel really exciting and I love that feeling of being swept away into a fantasy and a version of the world that makes sense and has meaning.
But, creating art seems to be the way that I make meaning for my own life.
The other tricky part about working with our hopes and dreams is that it's easy to believe our life will be better when the dream is fully here. This can make us impatient with the present moment and even wishing to be rescued from it by our wish/dream being granted. We look at other people who seem to have what we want and minimize their own journey, thinking that all they have was just given to them (they got lucky) and that we'll never reach our own dream.
This feels like my dream is in my minds eye in full color and detail, while my current every day reality feels like it's in boring black and white. I crave that life and vitality that the dream promises to the point where I can feel like I’m starving and wasting away in my actual everyday life. It's a tricky trap I've fallen into many times.
This can especially be true right now when the news can be so discouraging and it can feel like the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. We can feel like we just need to survive life and that there's no time to do something so frivolous as work on one of our dream projects. We might even find ourself checking the news regularly for some sign of hope that the world has finally got it's shit together so we can start to finally do more of what we want.
But, I don’t think we’re meant to wait on the world.
The more I come to learn about working with our dreams, the more I'm seeing how the real value in a dream is in integrating the building of it into our every day life. Our dreams are more like sparks that can brighten up our paths, rather than like wishes that are only granted to the lucky/blessed few. When we take them seriously and we take action on them regularly they have the power to light up our everyday lives, regardless of if the dream ever is fully realized.
For example, after the past few years of working on this artist dream, I can genuinely say that the days I do art are the days I feel better. The days I skip art or am “too busy” for art are the days when it feels like life is overwhelming & impossible.
Am I a fully "professional artist" who is living off the income of my art yet? Nope. Not at all. So then is my dream wasted? Am I wasting my time when I work on art each day? Absolutely not. Taking action on my artist dreams has infused my life with more life, energy, peace, joy, and meaning.
Even when I see and understand this, sometimes that inner resistance feels too strong and insurmountable. Life can feel too exhausting, my job can be asking a lot of me, and it can feel like I can't even muster enough energy to go sit at my art desk for 15 minutes.
In times like this I've struggled to muster the courage and win the inner battle to create rather than consume or be all-consumed by things outside of my control.
It's also so easy to think you can start living when (you reach your goal). This type of thinking makes my everyday life really uncomfortable and makes me want to just rush through life to finally get to the “better” point I envision in the future.
So lately, I'm trying to really embrace what life is right now and to build in things that help me enjoy today’s life more. I'm more focused on building a life I love overall… right now… bit by bit.
This has led me to:
Learning how to make sourdough bread. Yes, you read that right. My grandmothers are rolling in their graves—this is a day we never thought would actually come. I’ve now been making bread 1-2 times a week for the past 5 weeks now (is there anything better than fresh homemade bread?!).
Reading more fiction, especially before bed at night. I just finished reading Babylonia by Constanza Casati and loved it! What are you reading? Send me your book recommendations!
Lighting more candles. It always amazes me how such a simple act can make the mundane moment feel more magical and help me feel more at peace.
Using luscious handmade body oil & soap. I just discovered Luna & Co Soapery (you may have seen me geeking out about this on my Instagram stories recently). I adore their Hekate soap and am obsessed with their Orisha Yemaya body oil because it smells and feels like heaven.
Laughing with my family more. Have you seen the latest Naked Gun movie? Goodness, it was wild, but made me and my husband laugh so hard that we couldn’t breathe at parts. It was also ridiculously fun to laugh that hard with a theater full of other adults. Pure cathartic, communal medicine for all of our souls.
Recently I celebrated Lughnasadh (Lammas)
It's one of the 4 Celtic fire festivals, as well as the first of 3 harvest festivals of the year. It's a time to take stock of what we've already harvested this year from our hopes and dreams we had at the new year so we can express gratitude and also adjust course as needed.
As I've been reflecting on what I'm harvesting in my life right now, there is so much to be grateful for.
I also recognized that I needed a renewed commitment to my art in order to harvest even more of my artist dream over the coming months.
As such, I recommitted to putting my art first in my days and have been waking up at 5:30am every work day this week to get in a a few hours of work on my art dream before my job's work day starts and my family wakes up.
All-in-all it's feeling really good to be consistently working on my art and my artist dream, alongside also intentionally enjoying my life and loved ones more. I'm also really appreciating how much starting my day with art is helping with every other aspect of my life, lighting it up and making life overall feel more meaningful and joyful.
Cheering you on in building your own beautiful life today.
