This afternoon I received an email from my AmpUP: Create Your Art Business Out Loud client. She is having a hard time with overwhelm and (even though she knows better at some level) not being able to believe that she can make a career of being an artist.
Let me say this woman’s art is wonderful – it is a healing, inspirational offering from her soul. We out here need it.
I encouraged her to take a breath, step back from looking at THE WHOLE BIG PICTURE, take small chunks of time – 1/2 hour every other day for starters. I suggested that she should mother herself – applaud her baby steps, her falls, her willingness to get back up again.
Within an hour, I found myself with my head in my hands with my own version of “I’m never going to be able to do this.”
So I emailed her a P.S. and told her where I had just found myself so that she would know she isn’t alone.
We all have fault lines. Sometimes we hide them well. But they’re still there and sometimes they hurt. Breaking open does that. We are growing bigger than we were before. Breaking out of the old husk,
shedding our skin makes us vulnerable while we’re in the midst of it, and a bit raw.
Which is all by way of saying: it’s okay. This is called living. No one gets by without feeling it. Some of us are better at hiding it than others. Some of us look pretty good while we’re going through it because of all this glorious stuff that’s breaking out and because you catch a snapshot of the minutes between labor pains.
Just because you can’t see the fault lines doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
So the next time you look at someone and think, “Oh! she’s so together; I’ll never get there,” remember that her fault lines may be healed or just covered up. Maybe labor has just started and feels like it’s not going to be hard at all. It’s that knowing that we’re all scared sometimes, and we all look indominatable sometimes, and a lot of times we’re wandering lost somewhere on the line between the two
extremes, that allows us to keep breaking open and to keep growing. So to my client (and to myself): You Go, Girl!
Wylde Women Wisdom:
Our culture denies the nature of reality. It holds out a promise that you can live in an ideal world where things come easily, a world in which unpleasant experiences can be avoided, where there is never a lack of immediate gratification. Worse, it suggests that if you do not live in this world, something is wrong with you……In your own life, you find yourself unable to take a risk. You don’t know how to make a decision. Your financial future is uncertain. your face has a new wrinkle. There is no time to parent properly. You simply cannot get life under control. There is nothing wrong with this. This is how it feels to be alive. Phil Stutz
11 Comments
Tammy, I love this work. “Fault Lines” is beautiful from top to bottom, I love the snake skin imagery plus I have such a soft spot in my heart for crystals. The message contained in the art speaks to so much that is difficult about growth for all people.
Maybe it is just the time of year, but I have been struggling with the same sorts of “overwhelmedness” that others mention.
Fault Lines is so beautiful & so true! In fact, I read it to my husband (and he actually got it!) and declared that you should write a book-I agree:)
Yes, the overwhelm. I’m feeling this as I’m trying to go thru the UYB program. Full time job, making art and getting the business part of this in place.
I need to be reminded to step back and take the baby steps! Plus these dark months have influenced my creative energy to a new state of inactivity. Great article, I love what you are doing with all of this and I love this piece Fault Lines. Beautiful!
Tammy, those fault lines. They are like the “accidents” when we are making our art, like the fault line you are showing us here. We almost always can make something beautiful out of these fault lines. And if we think we can’t, we can step away for a while, as you so wisely suggest, and when we come back, the solutions pop up:) Thanks for sharing your energy and experiences,
love
Andrea
What beautiful, comforting words…. ahhhh…. I think I’ll soak in them for a while… 🙂
Thanks, Carla!
Hi Tammy, my New Year is December 22, the day after winter solstice. By the way, Fault Lines is a beautiful piece. I love the double entendre.
Carla – Jan 1 is totally arbatrary for the new year. I hereby proclaim spring – when everything is birthing and growing etc is the true new year – we’re in the perfectly right place!
Hi Tammy, you saw my quickie blog post where I acknowledge mess and failure. What, 6 weeks into the new year and we are all in melt down? good. We have to melt to make something new! Great blog, great work you are doing in art, and life.
(cc of personal response to Sue): Sue – so true! I think it’s setting up some sort of system or support to get us through these times that we haven’t been taught in school – instead we learn: act and you shall succeed. Wel, sometimes success doesn’t look like the thing they teach in school!
I went through this about a week ago. It’s an interesting paradox how when we allow ourselves these vulnerabilities instead of running from them, and take a long look at our heart’s desire, we end up stronger and more courageous. At least, so far, that has been my experience.