The Internal Artist Battle

I woke this morning to a comment on one of my YouTube videos that really struck a chord with me, and I wanted to share it as a little addendum to my last Healthy Art Practice email on perfection.  It reminded me how we are all very similar in our creative challenges and I thought you might relate:  

“I was so irritated at what you were saying in this video that I watched it THREE TIMES.  By the third viewing, I finally realized it was an internal artist battle--my fear vs my curiosity.  I went from disliking you to realizing your true genius…I'm trying to use my art to cope (with life events she mentioned) but my creative juices are so sluggish.  Your video really ended up helping me break through all of that.  I felt utter delight as I watched it the third time!”

I'm, of course, no genius, but I know the lightbulb moment she's referring to--like ‘How could I have not seen this before?!"  And then you can never unsee it.  If perfection or needing your work to be beautiful is a big deal for you, I encourage you to watch this video and notice the emotional reactions that you have.  As the commenter so aptly displayed, many times they are extreme and actually make us have disgust for what we are hearing or who we’re hearing it from.

If you are trying to really delve into your creative practice and gain more access to your creative impulses and intuition, here's your assignment:

Make something today with no intention to have it be attractive.  ‘Ugly’ is inconsequential.  Come up with other intentions like experimentation, moving in a more free way, or trying new materials--all without any expectation of making something attractive.

As you do that, notice what goes on inside of you--the thoughts that oppose it, the feelings (and their, sometimes, absurd amount of intensity), any physical discomfort or desire to quit.

This is the manifestation of that ‘internal artistic battle’ of fear vs curiosity that the commenter was referring to and, let me be upfront, you'll never beat it, so don't even try.  Biology wired fear into our brains to keep us safe--it's part of the operating system.  But if you just notice it and see it for what it is, you'll have discovered gold: because everything that's NOT that voice of discomfort, alarm, and judgement is You--the real you, the wildly creative, curious you that's waiting to be acknowledged and nurtured.