Learning

Over the years I’ve learned many things about myself and how I function. For example: if I need to force myself to wash my face I put on make up, because I figured out that the need to not sleep in my make up supersedes my laziness. I’ve discover lots of what I call hacks in my own functioning. As I’ve written about before I grew up struggling with depression, so one of my biggest challenges, even when I don’t feel depressed, is to get motivated. So I’ve found some of my own personal quirks that I can almost trick myself into doing the healthy things instead of relying completely on motivation. This is also true when it comes to my art. 

I’ve learned that I can’t sit in my studio for hours on end, the most productive and best work is done in the first and second hour. Anything more and I start to get too into my head. I also need to have somewhat of a plan before I even walk down the stairs. Otherwise I get overwhelmed just looking at all that I could do, or I start random project with no real intention of finishing them. 

I’m the type of person who doesn’t like the idea of needing a plan, or more specifically doesn’t like having a schedule. I can be a bit of a typical artist and will just float around without much planning or thought process, its all ideas and feelings unless I reign it in. So reluctantly I have a loose schedule that keeps me on track. 

This week has been one of the good ones, being able to paint on days back to back. I wrote a few weeks ago about how starting was always the most difficult part and that still holds true. But this week the most challenging portion was fighting with my own thoughts. The first layer of this painting was not going as smoothly as I wanted and the ensuing thoughts were no help. I went from oh this isn’t working that way I want but lets just finish this layer and come back to it later, to I am a failure and a fraud. Thankfully I caught the thinking as it was happening. Normally I wouldn’t have caught onto my own thoughts until they had landed me in a shame spiral. 

Sometimes progress is in the little things, sometimes it isn’t in the great big successes. So this week when the self doubt and imposter syndrome came to steal my joy I took a deep breath. I took a pause and came back to zero. It is okay that the blending wasn’t perfect the first try, its okay that the ratio wasn’t totally worked out yet. I had previously been working on 12 by 36 inch canvases, which are tall and skinny, and then switched to a much smaller and shorter canvas. Trying to translate the same idea onto a canvas that wasn’t the originally intended size came with a learning curve. And I needed to take a moment to find the grace for myself. 

One thing I might still be learning till the day I die, is to forgive myself and to have grace and compassion for myself. Not for others, that I have somewhat figured out, no to love myself feels like the greatest act of rebellion. In a world that would profit from sorrow and unhealth to learn to treat myself with care is the beginning of a revolution.