My Fearless Journey

So my amazing painting class FEARLESS PAINTING-BIG is coming to an end.  I have been so blessed by the tribe of women I have been in class with and our FEARLESS leader Connie.  You can checkout what she does here .  Anyway, I have told you before that this class was about WAY more than painting, in fact for me over the coursre of the class, the painting became secondary.  It was about listening to my intuition and the practice of tapping into my creative source, then really listening when it was speaking to me.  I am working hard on practicing this in everything I do, not just my art.  

The next big insight I received in my FEARLESS PAINTING class was that the gremlin is a liar and is afraid of everything.  Just because it says something, doesn't make it so.  That realization has been HUGE and it came when I wanted to paint a face.  Gremlin said I couldn't, there was no way and it would be terrible if I did, people would laugh, they would know I wasn't really an artist, they would see that I am a fake and a fake isn't worthy of other peoples love.  It would be safer to just not paint a face.   So I painted faces-nobody laughed, or stopped loving me because of it.  The gremlin lied. 

It might not be the best face in town but I CAN paint one, I just don't like to.  Everything the gremlin told me about my painting was not true so it is safe to assume that everything he tells me about myself and my worthiness are untrue too.  I have come to understand that I am a good person, whether people like me or not (or like my art, or not).  Like the gremlin, someone elses negative opinion of me does not make it true.  That revelation has helped me to understand that I have a personality that can make insecure people uncomfortable but that isn't about me.  I will no longer make myself small so that other people can feel good about themselves.  I don't apologize for being a strong, confident, outspoken, amazingly awesome woman.  If you can't handle it-get over it or get some therapy so you can.  And I mean that in the most loving way.

My last BIG insight from FEARLESS PAINTING has been the realization of how FEARLESS I already was when I started the class. I knew that I was brave but that is different. Brave is being afraid and doing it anyway, fearlessness is an absence of fear. I am not afraid of things that scare a lot of people-like giving up a stable job to follow a dream, or moving across the country just because I want adventure, blazing a new trail, walking through grief, being ok in my imperfect skin, or a big ass piece of white paper.  And here's the kicker, the stuff I was afraid of, like never being good enough or worthy enough-or just enough, was not real.  It was all just a crazy lie.    I am ENOUGH and I am FEARLESS and I am and ARTIST. 

My next FEARLESS Painting class is called DEEP...can't wait to see what I learn about myself in that class.  I will keep you posted.  Thank you Connie and thank you painting tribe, for this amazing journey-I love you all.