Social media is keeping me up at night. Seems pathetic, but it is. I tossed and turned trying to figure out what I should be doing, what I am doing wrong and how I should be proceeding.

I feel like I am failing. And I am not entirely sure what I am doing wrong.

Social media is interesting. And pretty damn self-reflective. It’s all about trying to find what is most interesting about yourself that you think others would find interesting. Determining a niche has been hard for me. Generating interest even harder. And maintaining the motivation to consistently peruse it challenging.

I just don’t get it. I’m trying. I want to. But I just don’t get it.

How do you do it?

Yoga mama  posted this quote:

We have a fear of facing ourselves. That is the obstacle. Experiencing the innermost core of our existence is very embarrassing to a lot of people. A lot of people turn to something that they hope will liberate them without their having to face themselves. That is impossible. We can’t do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our excrement, our most undesirable parts. We have to see them. That is the foundation of warriorship, basically speaking. Whatever is there, we have to face it, we have to look at it, study it, work with it and practice meditation with it.

Chogyam Trungpa

I speak purely from myself here, but I find that when I fear facing myself, it’s not because I don’t want to acknowledge my undesirable parts. I am fully aware of these chunks of myself that are on constant display for the world. I lament on them, they consume me. I am in constant self-reflection attempting to “better” my self, and yet find I fear success. I fear being able to do something well. I fear my true artistic power. I opened my closet last night and realized I have a ton of art materials. I have some dating back to my first college class ages ago. What this tells me though, is that I have a lot of materials I am not using. My friend, has one book and a few watercolors and one paintbrush. Maybe a set of pastels. But he has portfolio upon portfolio upon portfolio of work. He sits down and commits himself to his art. He does not fear it. He knows he has talent and shares it with the world. Me? I’m so scared of trying that I am not even sure what my preferred medium is! My place is a disaster area so I am constantly cleaning. This is really just a defense mechanism to help me avoid sitting down and doing art. I even have am a graphic designer for a company and yet fear graphic design when I get home.

How do you get over your graphic design fears? I sit down in front of my computer, excited, inspired, millions of ideas filling my head. And POOF! all gone the minute I open Illustrator or Photoshop. And then I find myself wondering what my idea was and what program should I be doing it in. I will fail if I cannot figure out how to focus and not fear my creative energy. If you do things, things get done. And I am not getting anything done b/c I fear doing things.

Another example is bakasana, though this is a successful example (but I hope it doesn’t take me as long to get over my artist fear). For a decade, I couldn’t do bakasana. This was totally my water break. I couldn’t even try for the longest time. Well, that’s not true. The first time I was introduced to bakasana, I was tricked into doing it. Clever yoga instructor. She led the class through the movements step-by-step without us any the wiser of what we were moving into. Place your hands on the ground, shoulder distance apart. Start to really bend at your elbows finding a drishti slightly in front of you. Place your knees on the back of your triceps and then lift your feet and bring the big toe mounds to touch. I was in bakasana without even realizing it. And I was soaring. I was confident and zestful. But when I tried to do it again I couldn’t. I tumbled forward. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it. I showed my friend what I was trying to do, someone who had never done yoga before, and she gracefully moved into bakasana with ease.

A decade later I am only once again experiencing the pleasures of bakasana and can nearly hold it for five breathes. Of course, now there is eka pada galavasana or eka pada bakasana. There’s always something new to try and something new to experience.

But, to bring this back to the beginning quote, it isn’t my fear of the darker parts of my soul that inhibit my ability to accomplish, I’m aware of the darker parts. In fact, my issue is that I am so aware and so deep in them, that I fear the brighter, more vital parts. The parts of power, the parts of graceful poise. I would like to not fear success. I would like to actualize the artist power I feel slumbering inside of me. I’m just not always sure how.

I was surprised the other day by yoga. I thought I had a decent understanding of the philosophy of yoga and had invested ample amounts of time in Karma yoga. However, I had an interesting experience that taught me a lesson I did not expect to learn from yoga.

I have begun a little freelancing with my yoga studio and we were going to work on a trade and in doing so I found myself in a quandary. The business side of me understands my prices, why I charge what I do and I have it all thought out and solidified. I have a solid billing system and things work for me. But when pressed with coming up with an hourly number for my yoga studio, a little voice in my head said, “Really? You’re going to charge your normal prices, really? Come on Karma yogi, really?”

I was struck at how awkward it seemed to charge my yoga studio so much for my work. I thought and pondered about it for a while. On one side, the yoga studio is not lacking in business, it charges me a lot for my unlimited access, and my work is quality and my time is precious. But on the other side, the humble yogi in me wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that a discount was tolerable in this situation as I felt it would be karmically positively charged. I mean it’s yoga.

So, I made up my mind to charge much less than I normally would for other clients. This was going to be a special exception to my rules. So, proud of my decision, I sent off my hourly rate to the manager of the studio, a woman I admire and look up to as a mentor.

Her response was a quote from the Gita:

“The secret of karma yoga is never to accept a wrong situation, a situation in which you are exploited, discriminated against, or manipulated, because it is bad not only for you but for the exploiter as well.”

And then she proceeded with her own interpretation:

Not that I am an exploiter but part of Karma in the Gita is finding our ‘seat’ in what we are actually worth. This practice allows for others to step on the path to self-recognition of worth. Ya know? So please rethink what you would like to charge us for your services that is fair and worthy of your beautiful talents and that is what we will move forward with.

I was humbled. I thought I was being the “good yogi” by lowering my prices, when in fact, I was doing the opposite. I had no idea. I was so surprised by her response and the quote from the Gita.

In the end, I charged my normal prices, and the response I received from my yoga teacher, was that she was proud of me.

In the end, yoga continues to surprise and encourage me. It is continually encouraging us to find our own seat in life, and be aware of and acknowledge my own self worth.

You too, are worthy. Where is your seat in life?

“Hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience.”
Italo Calvino

Ah, the sorrows of experience. It invokes the adage of it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. The pain and torment that comes from some experiences that wrenches your soul and forces you to scream out…MERCY! You search for a sanctuary, but you cannot hide from your soul. You can shut it up momentarily, but at some point, dolefulness will seep into your bones and muscles until you can no longer ignore the melancholy that is soon to absorb you. You will be forced to scream out, Woe is me!

But at some point, does not the dismal turn bright. Even if only temporary. Does the pain ever lessen? Does it ever quietly concede control and slink back into the depths until another moment requires its personality?

There’s an article on Tiny Buddha today about being happy whether or not you succeed. And I’m simply not sure how I feel about that. I paint. I  love painting. And that makes me happy. But I want to sell my paintings. Share them with the world. And in fact, I just  had my first purchase. I was super excited. Interestingly enough, I haven’t really told anyone. I was satisfied internally. I didn’t need the outside congrats or approval. But I know that selling it makes me happy. And that after trying to sell my art, if I didn’t, I would be crushed. I would feel like I failed.

Maybe it’s more than just believing in our ability to succeed; maybe happiness is believing in our ability to be content and satisfied whether we do or not. ~ Tiny Buddha article (link above)

I am not sure about this. It comes down to dreams and goals and life. I mean, I’m sure it’s all well and good to just try to be satisfied with simply living. But if you keep failing, how can you sustain that life. If you are supposed to be happy with just the effort, what happens when that puts you on the side of a street holding a paper sign with plastic bags around your feet? I  know somebody whose dream is killing that person. It’s so stressful and has wielded so little success that the soul dies a little bit each day. Trying isn’t enough. This person wants to succeed and live a life doing what that person is passionate about, not being stuck in some cubicle doing data work. It causes desperation, makes that person choose terrible people to try to help in efforts (since the dream requires other band members), makes that person push away people that only want to offer love and support because time is running out and extraneous people are simply that – extraneous. The effort isn’t enough, and it’s quite possible that if success does not happen, that person will die, hating life and resentful. Choosing to pursue a dream and giving an entire life to it, just to fail…and we are supposed to be okay with that kind of thing?

Anger

It seems like statements and articles like this example from Tiny Buddha are made by people who have already succeeded. It’s much easier for them to say that the effort would have been enough, or should be enough, when they aren’t failing at their dreams, living in the trenches. And maybe I’m wrong. Hell, I just sold my first painting, maybe I have no room to talk either. I work in a field I love, well, two fields: Art and yoga…my life isn’t terrible. But the empath in my watches those around me fail and flail and live a life in pain because of a dream. Because of the desire to do something larger in this life than just sit at a desk. How do you tell someone who is investing everything in a dream…and still failing…that they should be satisfied that they tried?

Am I just being totally Western and harsh? Maybe I’m naive. I just want to believe that dreams can come true. That effort and passion count for something. That we can reach the end of our rainbows for that pot of gold…

Just haven’t really seen that yet, I guess.

They say that we have an innate ability to form images. That we formed images before we formed words. But that once we started forming words, our images were criticized, so we stopped forming them, except in our dreams. All of us are artists. All of us have our own visual expression to reflect our idiosyncratic lives. And truly, not everybody wants/needs to explore this language. But for those of us that do, it can be quite the unnerving experience. Granted, not everybody struggles to find their own visual voice. And mad kudos to them for having the strength and sense of self to persevere, to let their voice flow through their art utensil of choice. I know people like this personally, and it’s amazing to be in their presence. Kevin Mino is such a person. He has developed his own voice and never let the doubts and criticism of others affect his art. He never stopped forming his images, like I did. And the time and energy he has spent on his art is truly impressive.

I don’t remember when I stopped creating my images. I just know I did. For me, I think other things just demanded my time and I couldn’t balance it all. It wasn’t until I entered college and went through the courses picking out all of my elective classes that I decided to pursue art once again. And since then, it has been a struggle. I feel so far behind. I never want to share any of my art for fear of that criticism and knowing that I don’t put as much time into art as I should. I should be doing more. I should always be doing more. And it’s embarrassing to admit that the fear of failure is what keeps me from even trying. I read so many books about art and how to get over your fear and all that crap. But what it comes down to is just doing art. Weaving art into my daily life. Accepting that not everything will be great or perfect and that it will be a constant improvement and a constant adventure. But I do, I get disabled by the myths of art. The ones that say what is and isn’t good art, how to do art and all of that jazz. Fear man.

Even now. I have been talking for a while about using art to explore my emotions and to channel them onto a canvas and away from people and my relationships. And yet, when I look at my art, it is controlled and stagnant. And my emotions are definitely NOT controlled and stagnant. They are wild and crazy and out-of-freaking-control. How can I expect to make art a channel when it doesn’t reflect what I am channeling. It’s not a mirror. It’s an imposed idea of what I think others expect it to look like. And again, I’m a sensitive person, maybe I’m scared to see what those emotions look like on canvas, and I’m scared of what others reactions to them will be.

I remember sharing a project in college once, in one of my design classes. We had to do a design project based on the lapse of time of something. Most people did a sun rise, the blossoming of a flower, all fluffy happy happy crap. Me. I did the progression of a suicidal mind. One of my closest friends had just tried to commit suicide, and it was affecting me on a soul level. And I thought art was about showing your soul. So I showed mine, and got slammed. The negative, abusive comments I received sent a dagger straight through my artistic heart and butchered my ability to create art true to myself. I am still bleeding from that one day. And perhaps if I were a stronger person, I wouldn’t have let it affect me the way it did. But I’m not, and it did. And I am still trying to recover. Nearly seven years later, and I still can’t express myself through art. I still have no visual voice. Makes me quite sad. Sad that I took to heart what other people said, and sad that it still scares me to hear what future people may say. It makes me sad that I harbor fear of finding my image voice.

No rose colored glasses for this sadness

I’ve been pondering this lately. Am I good enough? And though I have applied this question to many aspects of my life, I am currently wondering about my artistic abilities. Am I good enough? I love art, and want to be an artist, whatever that means. I struggle with my worth as an artist though. There are so many talented people out there. And so many people who deserve to be successful and to live a creative life. I’m just not sure I am one of them. I want to be, but want isn’t enough. I have to have talent, motivation and confidence…and I may be lacking in each of those areas. Not to mention how subjective art is that in terms of talent you have to wonder what constitutes talent, good art and worth.

I have recently taken the plunge and have opened a zazzle shop and an etsy shop. And it’s been discouraging. How do you get people to visit your shop let alone leave positive feedback and maybe even a purchase? And does it even matter? Ultimately it doesn’t matter since I will continue making art. I try to tap into my emotions and insanity and express myself via the canvas. But the Western-influenced side of me has trepidation over sharing my art with others. Again, so many people are way more talented than me. And who am I? Who am I to think my art matters to anyone but me? Ultimately it doesn’t matter to anyone else. So then, does it matter if I am good enough? No. And I am trying to let my ego go, and paint from  my heart and not for what may sell. I still am working on finding my own voice I shouldn’t be worried about selling anything. I guess I think some of my stuff is worth buying so I thought I would try (plus it would be nice to have the extra income now that my rent has been raised). I need to stop seeking external approval and be happy being the small, insignificant, artistic me.

Yellow and Purple Rose on Black

I’m trying to be more free with my personal art. Not so concerned on how it looks as much as trying to find out what my natural voice looks like. I am an artist plagued with the inadequacy disease. I peruse the internet and see all the amazing work everyone else is producing, and I want to produce something similar. However, that is there voice, not mine. I’m not sure what my art looks like yet, so I am trying to just follow my instincts. I imagine that as I feel more comfortable just expressing my self, I can move on to the details (I am not really as detail-oriented as I would like, so this initial finding of my voice seems to be pure expression).I do tend to focus on the details as a designer, at work and in my job, but in my personal art, I seem to let them slide a bit.

It’s an interesting thought and process to find my voice. And I should say, my unique voice. The one not trying to mimic all the other great artists out there, but the one that comes from within my heart, soul and thoughts. Maybe through this process I’ll see what chaos is in my  head. Should be interesting. As it stands, here are two of my first attempts to find my voice. The base of the art is an oil pastel piece I did and brought into Photoshop. I would love to  hear feedback.

An attempt to find my voice.

This attempt is a bit softer.

I do get the feeling that they are incomplete. That I am telling a half story with my art as I am prone to do in conversation. Problem is, I can rarely remember the full story…seems to be the case here as well. Not quite sure where to take this and how to finish my thought. Seems to be an adequate reflection of my soul at the moment…I feel like I have just begun a journey and am nowhere near complete to self realization and confidence. So maybe these pieces are complete in their reflection of my personal incompleteness…maybe I am trying to abstractly intellectualize them though…Not sure…would love thoughts though.

DAMN!! Wish I was creating like this. Crazy skills » RT @depthcore: [ARTIST UPDATE] New work from @On_Repeat! http://t.co/yZpgQVN

New blog post: http://ow.ly/5Synx on artistic superfocus inspired by @tinybuddha & @satyacolombo