I beg for guidance
Silence Accusations of incompetence A Failure A Fraud I am inadequate
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To Self-Doubt,
I think it is time that you and I finally had a long chat. It's time to discuss and be honest about the damage and harm you have done to me and my life. Since you showed up when I was 14, I have slowly and steadily believed the lies you have told me about who I am and what I am capable of. You were sly and manipulative. I was young, naïve, and innocent. Everyday after you have whispered doubts into my ears and I started to hear nothing else. No amount of encouragement or kind words could quiet the self-doubt you instilled in me. You were cunning to start your attack through friendships when I was at a vulnerable age. Using the self-doubt in other people was a disgusting but effective tactic. Looking back, I am not sure how I even started believing the lies you sprinkled. I was self assured and confident before. But your lies sunk in. The lies that I am ugly, unwanted, worthless. Using people I had trusted to tell me how awful I was and that I should kill myself was perhaps a stroke of genius on your part. I think that is the first time I started to doubt. To question. You made me question so many things about myself that I hadn't thought to question before. And when the questions started, my walls completely crumbled and all the other phrases and words people had said about me had access to my head and heart. Phrases and words that would lodge there for decades to come. I couldn't shake them loose, whenever I tried, you blasted me with more doubt. Years later and I still can't shake some phrases: "You will make a horrible mother" "You are a Jezabel" "No one will want to be with you if you don't change" "You are so sensitive, stop taking it so personally" "You need to care more" "You care too much" "You are ugly" "You should kill yourself" "If you believe in God your anxiety will go away. You don't believe enough" These are just a small fraction of the comments that soaked into my heart and took up residence in my mind. Now they are a permanent fixture, a constant echo when I am unsure. Because of all these things I now believe about myself, you, Self-Doubt, have robbed me of experiences and opportunities I have desperately wanted. Somedays it's nearly impossible to get through the day. Because of you, anxiety is my constant companion. Because of you, Self-doubt, I find it incredibly difficult to trust people and take them at their word. Always scared they are just saying something to be nice or because they feel bad for me. I find it hard to believe anyone would actually want to be friends with me. And so I often think people pity me more than genuinely like me. The thought "they are only my friends because of Adam and they feel sorry for him" rings in my ears often. "They don't actually like you but they feel obligated to include you." lingers after every outing. I fear I am forgettable. I fear I am still unloveable. I am too difficult to be around or love. Self-Doubt, you have done such a vast amount of damage to me that my whole perception of the world has darkened. I will never be enough. Never good enough. Never thoughtful enough. Never kind enough. Eventually, everyone will see that what I am is nothing. All the lies you have punctured my brain with will be proven true. Most days I feel I should just surrender to the lies. Sink into the suffocating embrace of your crushing arms. I would be easier than fighting. But I won't give up. Self-Doubt. No. I won't give in. And that is why you should be afraid. That is why you will never win. I am determined. So watch your back, Self-Doubt. I WILL snuff you out. The crack in the facade is just the beginning.
Slowly at first and then more. Deeper and sharper, the pieces snap then fall away It always starts small and light A drip here A poke there A patter of words on my head The spatter grows to a torrent Slippery words and phrases slide their way into the cracks and crevasses. Water, like words, take time to erode the rock that is being dripped upon Sometimes smoothing out rough edges Other times fiercely creating jagged pieces Pieces that draw blood at the slightest touch carving away until there is little but a flutter of a pulse left. The deluge is relentless Never letting up or slowing down Spiralling and whirling around Until the rocks beneath yield to the battering Until the landscape believes the raging waters' whispers And surrender its embankments to the dark churning beneath. The waters eventually drain away Leaving the weathered and haunted remains Of its former path The landscape shadowed The passing comments now soaked deep into the earth Trapped beneath a new cracking facade. This blog has long since been a place of healing for me. A place I can put my words as I work on healing my body and mind. Three years ago I began a body healing journey after I lost a baby. Today, I begin a mind healing journey as I work through decades of hurts pushed below the surface.
A couple months ago, all the hurts, pains, memories, I had pushed down in order to not feel or process broke the dam I had built. Crushing me and my family under the torrent that was unleashed. Since that time, I have slowly been on a path to understanding myself, facing painful truths as well as memories in an attempt to bring healing to my battle ravaged mind. I am weary, I am burdened, I am burnt out. Now that I recognize these things, I look forward. I look to heal. I am engaging in therapy in a variety of ways. Therapy with a professional (I absolutely recommend this to everyone) and therapy through, art, words, and story. I recently bought a book by Rupi Kaur called "Healing Through Words" As I work through the book I will post some of the writing that I do. Sometimes with an explanation, sometimes without. I wanted a place to document my healing journey as a way to remind myself in years to come that I am worth the effort, I am worth the work, I am worth the therapy to heal myself. For myself and for my family. Nadine This post is one to help me on my journey towards healing. This is a deeply personal post but one I am making since after my experience I found out how common it is and how little it is spoken about. This is most likely due to the extreme pain physically, mentally, and emotionally that is endured. I post this as a way to let people know this is not uncommon and for those who are or have suffered the same experience I post to let you know that you are not alone in this.
My Ectopic Pregnancy Story On December 4th, 2019 I woke up earlier than normal. I peed on a plastic stick and waited anxiously for 3 minutes to see what the little screen would flash. After 3 minutes I took a deep breath and looked. YES. The little screen proclaimed. I gasped in an excited and shocked breath and ran out to Adam smiling. He looked at me with anticipation and I said “George is going to be a big brother”. With a huge grin Adam jumped to my side and embraced me as we looked at my belly and said “Hi baby”. For the next month we planned and dreamed about what our family of 4 would look like. We talked about nursery plans and finding out the gender this time. All the while I had a sense of dread deep down. I kept feeling that something horrible was going to happen but I pushed it out of my mind. I shared our news with people as a way to combat my fears. I even went and bought maternity clothes since ones from my last pregnancy wouldn’t work in the summer heat. Still the horrible feeling didn’t leave me and I was beginning to feel superstitious. I was particularly worried about ectopic pregnancy even though I had none of the major symptoms. Everyone who knows me well knows that I suffer from an anxiety disorder and so I, and everyone else chalked up my worry to anxiety. Then I started to spot. My heart sank but I called my doctor and got checked out with all the hope I could muster. It appeared as though it was all normal early pregnancy things and with a sigh of relief I carried on. Christmas came and went and I was feeling more positive as our ultrasound date approached. The night before our ultrasound I couldn’t sleep. Dread overtook me and I tossed and turned anxiously awaiting morning. When morning did come I couldn’t eat. I was too nervous. I couldn’t shake my worry. We arrived for the ultrasound January 3, 2020. I lay down on the table and feel the cool gel on my abdomen and I hold my breath as I look up at the T.V screen. The technician scans around and then switches to looking at my ovaries, saying she is doing some routine pictures. I don’t remember this from my first pregnancy and my heart rate sky rockets. The technician stops and says she wants to try an internal ultrasound because she is having trouble finding the baby. As I prepare for the second attempt the sinking feeling grows and tears sting my eyes. We try again, my uterus is a yawning cavern of emptiness. No baby, no heartbeat, no life. Again the technician looks around at my ovaries and then leaves the room. I immediately know something is horribly wrong and that there is no baby. Tears now stream down my face as I look at Adam and George. George pats my leg and looks up at me with his big grey eyes trying to figure out why mommy is so sad. We wait hand in hand for the radiologist. When she arrives she looks at us and says that there is no pregnancy in my uterus but there appears to be something near my right ovary. She suspects an ectopic pregnancy. I don’t hear anything else. My heart shatters. There is a baby just not where it should be. When the radiologist leaved a deep sob escapes my throat as I say over and over “I knew it, I knew somethings was wrong”. I can’t control the sobs now, George begins to cry and Adam is stuck between comforting his wife and his son.I don’t know how long we sat in that room but eventually we made the slow walk to our car. I feel numb. The next few hours consisted of speaking with doctors, getting bloodwork done, and waiting for results. 10 hours we waited for my results to come back. 10 hours of agonizing over what could be happening, over the loss we were experiencing. 10 hours of tears, anger, confusion, and deep sadness. Then, at 10pm I finally get a call from my doctor, who went above and beyond by waiting up for my results. She told me my hormone levels were very high which confirmed that I indeed had an ectopic pregnancy. She told me to go straight to the hospital and that they were expecting me. We scrambled to find someone for George, my parents graciously arrived and stayed the night. I kissed George and told him I loved him and then we made our way to emergency. The rest happened rather quickly. Once we arrived we saw a doctor right away who answered all of our many questions, patiently and in great detail. She then told us that the best course of action was emergency surgery. She said that they didn’t believe my right fallopian tube was damaged but there was a good chance that it wouldn’t be in good enough condition to save it. We agreed to go ahead with surgery and within and hour and a half I was on my way to the O.R. I had never had surgery before and was a nervous wreck. Adam stayed with me until the last moment. I kissed him and told him I loved him as I was wheeled away. A sweet nurse named Barbara took my hand after that and held it all the way to the O.R and continued to hold it as I was being put under. All the while telling me it would all be okay. The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room, Adam by my side. I remember being in pain and being cold. I also remember telling Adam to not get into an accident when he went home to sleep since it was 4am. I dozed in and out for the next several hours until Adam arrived back at the hospital. It was only then that Adam told me that in fact my right tube had ruptured but miraculously my body clotted the rupture and I didn’t bleed out. This moment was completely humbling. I should have been in a worse state than I was. I should have been a lot sicker. I could have lost my life but by some miracle I was alive and my internal bleed had stopped. There was still a vast amount of blood in my abdomen from the rupture. But the rupture didn't continue to bleed. I leave the hospital on January 4th, 2020 one month after I found out I was pregnant. I leave the hospital empty. Now I am at home with three stitched up holes in my abdomen, a missing part of my anatomy, and a hole in my heart. If only the embryo had implanted in my uterus, I might still be pregnant and carrying a healthy baby. But now instead, I sit at home, unable to pick up my son for 4 weeks. I sit at home walking through the journey of healing body, mind, and heart. I sit wondering who our little sprout would have been and grieving that I will never know them. I will never hear them cry, nor their little feet on the floor or their laughter as they play with their big brother. I know that this will take time to heal and I don’t want to rush the process. I am willing to sit in the knowledge that I survived as well as the pain of knowing that I lost a child. Goodbye our precious Sprout. Know that for the month that we knew about you and the two months I carried you within me that you were deeply loved and desperately wanted. Even though we only had you for a few short weeks you were ours nonetheless. All our hearts and love, Mommy and Daddy Today as I sat in my newly organized art studio I decided to look through some of my old note books and visual journals. I perused some of my sketches, seeing both progress and failure. Completed pieces and half finished ones that had been abandoned at the recognition of imminent failure to have them turn out the way I clearly envisioned. While looking though one particular sketch book, I came across two pieces of writing. As I sat and read what I had written nearly two years ago I was struck by my past self's desire to be painfully vulnerable but unable to share my feelings out loud. A persistent theme in my life is hating the "should's" that society places on all of us that we so willingly try to conform to. We try desperately to fit into this preconceived mould for our lives that was designed by the ever ominous "them". I rage at the thought of this but then try without ceasing to fold myself into the mould in any way I can which is often self destructive and deeply depressing when I can't fit. So as I read what I had written I felt a weightiness in the words that stirred in my soul a desire to make my vulnerability public in some way. In the social media driven world we live in, it can be dangerous to share anything. People's words, intentions, acts are scrutinized and torn apart by others without a second thought. We are quick to judge and tear down. We will attack anything and anyone that does not fit within the confines of what we deem as politically correct. We force the mould of society onto others, the same mould we know we can't fit into ourselves. There is less and less grace, compassion, and walking in community with each other. I don't know if it is a mentality of I will strike out at others before they can strike me down, if we are so insecure in our short comings that we feel we must expose others flaws, or we straight up believe the lies in our worlds. What I do know is that whatever the reason, the sickness of individual before the whole, the constant struggling to live the instagram or pinterest worthy life so others will say "Wow, look at them, they have it all together" is killing the joy of walking side by side with each other through the mess. It is creating a false atmosphere of should's, one where putting out an image of "perfect" is more important than saying "I'm wonderfully imperfect and I need a community of people to support me". I don't know how to fix this, but I do know that I have a burning deep in my soul to see a world where we love each other with a selfless and compassionate love. Where we stop our need to feel bigger than someone else and realize that we are all flawed and broken and that walking together, supporting one another can lead to greater trust and healing. It is because of this desire that I am posting my two written pieces that I came across in my journals. Maybe someone can relate to my words or maybe it will cause us to stop and think about what another person might be going through before we make a snap judgement. There is joy to be found if we only let down our guard and welcome it in. The Struggle Is... The struggle is the heavy weight of darkness enveloping my mind. The swirling vortex of deafening whispers pulling, grabbing, scratching away at my thoughts. Cracking through the thin wall of false hope I have built out of tissue paper confidence. Blind hope that the voices, the menacing name callers, are gone for good. The disillusioned sense of accomplishment that I have won the battle for my easily swayed mind. The struggle is facing the haunting possibilities that, maybe, the words, the accusations, the murmurs are true. Maybe I am worthless, trapped, dumb, no good. Maybe I am a horrible wife and friend. Maybe the cry of "I CAN'T!" is crushingly true and I should give up, let go, hide. The weight grows. The voices continue to bludgeon my mind until I am crawling through the mud of numb indifference. Caked in the thick grime of self hate I can't wash off. I look at the lives of others with a longing to have what they have. To smile with genuine joy. But my faith and hope are fragile, delicate and easily shattered. Still, I cling to the fragmented memory of a warrior's bold faith, praying this is not my fate. But, for now, here in the mud I lay, inching ever forward because the embers of determination have not yet been extinguished by icy words that hammer in my mind. If this is the valley I must crawl through, so be it. The struggle is to persevere, to endure so that one day I can rise and say, "The struggle is no more" Perfect
Perfect. A great promise. A monumental lie. Perfect; a trap, a cruel master with a haunting smile. It promises beauty, freedom, mastery. Everything you ever hoped or wished for. It's a dream of what could be, what should be. So you strive, you push, you climb trying to gain ground. Repeating to yourself "one day" as if uttering the phrase over and over will bring you closer to the throne room of 'perfect' where you can finally revel in having it all figured out. Where people will finally look at you and say "well done!" But the mesmerizing dream quickly turns into a dark and brooding nightmare that you can't escape. Running but not moving. Losing your hand hold and tumbling back into the black abyss of failure. What seemed beautiful at first now claws at your sanity, attempting to tear you apart from the inside out. A silent scream escapes your lips, don't let anyone know you are disintegrating within. Admitting your journey has failed will bring up the 'I told you's', the looks of disgust and the raging whisper of 'just give up already'. But you can't. The thought of perfect keeps calling like an addiction. You try again, fail... try... fail... try... lose. 'You're beaten! Stay down' you shout to your pitiful mind. Where does it end? Will there ever be freedom? Why is the promise of perfection scattered across our minds like paper blown by the wind? What is the trick? What do I have to do to live the dream? Destroy my body? My mind? My relationships? My marriage? No... LIVE! Accept the truth that perfect is an illusion. Learn to delight in what you are capable of doing now, knowing that trying is always an option and that failure is a process, not the end. Accept who you are and how you were designed. Learn to love the talents and gifts you have been given. Sit in the joy that you are loved beyond your flaws and imperfections! Love the mess. Most of my work has been in painting, I dabble in other mediums but I am comfortable working with acrylics. This week, I took another step out of my comfort zone in an attempt to expand my skills. I was, again, humbled by a friend who asked me to take head shots for her professional portfolio. I was immediately interested in the challenge and terrified of the possibility that I would do a terrible job. I have been wanting to expand my skill in photograph but I am never brave enough to ask people if I can practice on them. This was a perfect opportunity for me despite me feeling very exposed as an amateur photographer. I accepted the challenge and began researching poses for head shots that would both be professional and comfortable for my friend. I wanted to make sure that she would walk away with photos she actually liked. Once I had researched the only thing left to do was to practice on my wonderful friend and volunteer. After some test shots we both quickly realized the poses that worked best for her were ones where she needed to look up towards the camera. Throughout the entire shoot, I made sure to show her the images and get her feedback. Then we would go back and try some new shots. Having been a client to many a photographer, I realized how much I valued the chance to give my input or requests for certain shots. I trust my photographers completely and choose them because I appreciate their composition or style, however, because of those initial things I so loved about them as photographers I often have specific things in mind for my photos. This is where I value the chance to chat with them about what I am wanting. For me it was incredibly important that I share my shots with my friend, especially as I am just learning the skills, and get her feedback on what she liked or didn't like. Occasionally, I would like a photo and she would say "nope, don't like that one" and that was a gift in itself. I would hate to think that just because I liked one shot meant that she had to like it too. I remember way back when I was a lot younger photo sessions were so different. The photographer would take a bunch of photos, then you and your family would go back and look through the photos and choose which ones you liked. Now often (and not that it is a bad thing because it takes time) you are sent a set of photos and that is what you get. There is no looking through all the options or choosing the ones you really love, the photographer does that for you. For some people I know that would be heavenly because choosing can be stressful, for me I like the chance to look through everything so I know I didn't miss out on that one shot that I absolutely love. Now, granted our session was short, all of 30 minutes, but we sat together afterwards and scrolled through the photos. I did a quick edit of them and then we looked at them again and she said yay or nay as we went. This left me feeling far more confident that she got what she was looking for. It was also encouraging to hear her say how many of them she actually liked! This boosted my confidence in my abilities. At the end of the session she even volunteered to come back and be a guinea pig any time I needed one! This is my next challenge. To be brave enough to ask people to let me try out some things on them. I am still so self conscious about my work and my abilities that it is hard to ask for someone to practice on. What if they turn out terrible? What if the person hates the photos I take? What if? What if? What if? But what if I didn't try at all? The only thing I am risking is the opportunity to improve and grow as an artist. I am missing out on the chance to be creative, and that is the worst thing to risk, a loss of creativity. Yes my photos will not always be good, yes people may not like the photos I take, but this gives me the opportunity to grow. I cannot get better until I fail and learn from my mistakes. As a teacher I am telling my students all the time, failure is not bad, mistakes are steps towards growth. It is time that I take the bold step in the direction of believing for myself the things I believe so sincerely for my students. So thank you to my dear friend for putting your trust in me to take photos of you that you actually liked. Your trust in me has been a stepping stone towards believing that I can grow as an artist and that I can, in time and with dedication, create something beautiful. I only need to trust myself and those around me. Below are the shots from our mini shoot! Enjoy! Model Credit: Alison Holmes This week I had the honour of receiving a request for a custom piece. It is both anxiety inducing and confidence building when someone asks me to make a specific piece for them. This isn't the first custom piece I have been asked to do, however, this piece was requested by the first person who ever bought a piece of my art work. This makes this project an extremely humbling one for me. Not only did this client see value in my beginning pieces of work but have asked me again to create a piece for them. I was really excited about the concept for this piece, a woodpecker. I have often avoided painting birds because of the detail of the feathers and the texture within them. Even though I was nervous about it I decided to jump in and go for it in the spirit of my new commitment to try new things and to not be afraid to fail. I began this piece with research about woodpeckers and did a lot of consulting with my client about the type of woodpecker they were wanting. We also discussed colour scheme and style. For this particular piece, the client wanted a black background with bright red and yellow as the main colours. It was also important to the client that the woodpecker looked as if they were on a tree and had plenty of texture in the feathers. We decided on a Pileated Woodpecker for the distinct markings. I kept the red colouring of this bird in place and then changed the other markings to fit the colour scheme the client was looking for. Once these elements had been discussed I began the sketching portion of the project. I made two sketches, keeping track of the colours I used for each part of the project. After creating the first sketch I checked in with the client to get their feedback. From here we discussed focusing more on the head of the woodpecker and changing the angle of the bird. Sketch number two begins with the new feedback. I zoomed in on the face and angled the head more on a diagonal. This was the result of the second sketch. I am glad I needed to to a second sketch because this one captures the woodpecker much better. After the client assured me this is what they were looking for I transferred my sketch onto a 12x12 canvas with my handy transfer paper and the painting progress began. I began with the background of black mixed with a hint of gold. I always have a hard time using plain black, mixing black with another colour always helps give depth and interest to the colour. After the background dried, I began with the main portion of the bird. Painting the solid colours first and then going back with a mix of colours to create the texture of the feathers with an angle brush.
The last things I did were the beak and the eye. After checking in with the client I added more texture to the feathers to make them pop off of the background and the piece was complete. The final step will be to seal the painting with a matte finish to protect the colour from fading or changing with time. I am so grateful that a friend trusted me with this project! Without them asking, I would never have been brave enough to try a bird! And bonus, my father-in-law, who is an avid birder, assured me that it definitely looks like a woodpecker! Feeling accomplished today! There comes a point in time when I have put things off for so long that I become terrified. I get so nervous and stuck in my head, assuming that I have lost the progress I have made as a self taught artist. This often means that I decide to not do anything at all. Today I made the decision to fight that feeling. It has been about 7 1/2 months since I created anything. Today I scrolled through my ideas boards like I so often do, and looked at all of the things I had collected in a moment of inspiration and then left to the side to scared to attempt anything. Today, I decided I needed to at least try something, if for no other reason than to silence the voices in my head saying that I was no longer capable or that I had regressed in my abilities. I am already very self-conscious that I am a self taught artist, and honestly I feel like a fraud even saying the word "artist". I am well aware that I have had no formal training and I have so many extraordinarily talented friends that it can be intimidating to create and share my art. I also know that the only way I can improve my skills and achieve what I have envisioned with my art is to keep creating, reading books, and trying new things. After looking through my inspiration boards I decided to try an animal I haven't attempted yet. Rabbits, and I mean, come on, how cute are rabbits?! With the ears and the big round eyes it's like they were begging to be painted. The relief for me was that their shape is pretty straight forward if I drew a profile of one. I am still struggling with straight on views of any animal, the dimensions and depth are still something that I am working on. Profile is a way for me to focus on one side and slowly build up my abilities in depth, shadows and highlights. I also don't have to worry about if both eyes are straight :). Once I had the basic outline of shapes done I started to add texture with pencil first, this helped me to look at where the shadows and highlights were on that cute little face. I then added colour with my fabulous watercolour pencils and water paintbrushes. This is just my initial sketch/painting that helps me to sort out my ideas before I put the whole thing onto a larger canvas. I feel more free to play and make mistakes in my journal than I do if I just started directly on a canvas. I feel the pressure to not make mistakes on a relatively expensive canvas, where as in my sketchbook I am better able to let go and just play. A canvas always feels so final and therefore I feel the need to create perfection. Usually, the next step of my projects freaks me out! Transferring my sketch to a canvas. Normal I sit staring at the canvas wondering how on earth I am going to recreate what I just sketched onto a canvas. I had just gotten it the way I liked it in my sketch book and now I need to redraw the whole thing! terrifying. Enter transfer paper. I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier, but I discovered the technique in one of the art books I have and decided to give it a try. Despite the graphite getting all over my hands, it worked like a charm. The pressure has been taken off and my sketch looks exactly like I wanted it to and a bonus is that I can use my sketch over and over again on different types of canvas. Now to figure out how to enlarge my sketches, but that is another day. This time I am just dabbling so I am using a cheap canvas. This way I can play around and figure out things on a canvas, again, without the fear or panic of ruining a more expensive canvas. My hope is that I will eventually transfer this onto a wooden canvas. Lately I have been loving the wood canvas because each one is different because of the grain of wood which is super fun to work with and show off. It has been so long since I have put paint brush to canvas that I admit I had to overcome a bit of nerves when I started, however, before I knew it I was lost in the painting. It was incredibly therapeutic to blend colours as I watched this little face come to life in front of me. There is always a moment of panic around the middle of my painting when I think things are not going the way I wanted. Today was no different as the colours weren't cooperating as I anticipated however, it turned out to work in my favour as I began to add the texture of the fur the the little critter.
Over the last year I have realized how much I enjoy a black background and a colourful animal to pop off of it. I began be creating the back ground, this allows me to put the texture over top of the background. I then created the base colours and blocked them in where I wanted. I added the texture of the fur by mixing a pre-made pink with the purples and blues and using an angle brush in short strokes to create the illusion of fluffy fur. I then continued to layer with the angle brush using a variety of values and colours to add depth, shadows, and highlights. The only thing I have let to do is to add the cute little whiskers! Overall, I am really happy with how this little guy came out, I know there are things to work on, but for getting my brush back on the canvas I would say this was a success! Still thinking about what to call this little guy, if you have some suggestions let me know! Today is my 31st birthday. Today I have been reflecting on the journey my life has taken me on, all of the places I have seen and things I have strived to accomplish. Today I also look forward to what is to come, especially as I feel the little kicks and rolls of a growing human in my ever expanding belly. What do I want my children to see in me? What do I want to teach them through my actions? I want them to see joy, to see passion for making the world a better place, whatever that may look like. I want them to see a confident woman who is determined and not afraid to take risks and embraces them and the inevitable failures that will come with the risks I take. I want to teach them determination, courage, and creativity.
This means that, although I have been on incredible journeys, today marks the beginning of a brand new one. The impossible journey to become the mother, wife, artist, human being that I have always strived to be. What is different about this journey is that I am expecting failure, and epic ones at that. I am expecting that I will let people down including myself, but I am expecting that those failures will make me stronger and will continue to mould me. See, the one thing in my past journeys that I refused to embrace was failure. I didn't try things if I thought I would fail or if I thought I couldn't be perfect at it which only led to heartache that I wasn't who I wanted to be. I thought failure was the end, I didn't see how necessary it was to strengthen my skills. I cannot grow without failing every once in a while. Today was the first step in this journey creatively. I tried a new project that I had found in an art book that a friend gave me. I looked at the project and thought, "yeah, I can totally do that" and then waited a month and a half to try. When I began the project a week ago I was still pretty confident that I could complete the project and that it would look exactly like the pictures in the book. Only, as I began I realized pretty quick that it was going sideways from my expectations. This was NOT going to turn out at all! Now, normally I would be frustrated and walk away defeated. Today, I giggled at how it turned out, acknowledged it was not what I thought it would look like, put it to the side and moved onto somethings else. I went back to some basics of sketching eyes, since I knew that was something I was achieving some success in. It boosted my confidence, but what I was most struck by was how empowered I felt to keep creating even after failing. Normally, I would stop creating for weeks, even months after feeling like I failed at a project. I am hoping that this new outlook will cross over into all areas of my life and help to embolden me not only as a self taught artist, but as a wife, friend, and soon, mother. My hope is that I will be able to use this blog as a way to document my growth along with my failures and frustrations and something to look back on for encouragement when I feel like giving up. Those of you who are out there and choose to read and follow my journey welcome, but know this is a place for me to practice some much needed self care. If someone gains something from my journey all the better! Be bold and courageous! |