I have been hiding.
There is a good chance you haven’t noticed, because I didn’t notice either. In fact, I have hidden from myself so well that I can not find any artwork I have created that wasn’t a commissioned piece in well over a year. This should have been a flag for me that something was not right because drawing and painting is usually where I explore and challenge my thoughts and emotions. I clearly have not wanted to do that for a long time, which is news to me.
It would be easy to blame lockdowns but, on reflection, think this hiding began after my exhibit ‘Accept/Resist‘ in 2019 (is the hiding ironic given the exhibition title? I think it’s ironic…). There was a huge amount of output and vulnerability involved and I was not prepared for the amount of recovery time that I would need. Instead of giving myself space in the aftermath, I tried to keep riding the momentum that had been built. I was so scared that if I stopped I would fade away and all my efforts would have lead to nothing. To be kind to myself though, my goals at that time were rooted in fear and the constructs that I believed I had to live up to as an ‘Artist’. Hindsight is a powerful thing and, thankfully, I have learnt to be gentler with myself over the last year.
My decline into artistic withdrawal was a slow and sneaky process: A few less social media posts; putting off opening my books to commissions; a day or two in front of Netflix… Next minute I was not sharing a thing and procrastinating from making any kind of art other than commissions. I have to say though, these commissions and projects were a blessing amongst the funk I had found myself in as they met the my need to create despite my avoidance of self exploration and expression.
And, to be fair to myself, it isn’t like I have been unproductive during my withdrawal: I have worked with a wonderful author, Elizabeth Hart, to illustrate ‘Before the Fairy Ball‘; I have completed my Yoga Teacher Training and a Diploma in Graphic Design; I have made some decisive choices to step back, step in and reassess my creative process; commissions and design work have been steadily rolling in and; I have been living that flighty vata lifestyle of mine. As active and purposeful as all of this has been, it has been an external process of ‘doing’ that has meant that I have been able to avoid ‘being’. I can and have done many things and accomplished so much through meeting the needs of others, yet I have been hiding from myself and the vulnerability of taking ownership of my creativity and expression.
Why? I guess it takes a lot of courage to be out there and share, to say ‘hey, I do this thing! It is something I do!’. Once you make that statement it means you must be able to do it and, when imposter syndrome is strong, you don’t believe that is actually true. Therefore, if I don’t put myself and my creations out there, it means I don’t have to feel that imposer syndrome or be confronted by it. I mean, what if it is true and I am a fraud? Or worse, what if it isn’t true and I am really capable of all those things and now have to do them? It is a hard place to be, so not doing anything was safer.
What shifted? (Not a rhetorical question, I’m honestly asking myself here. You are just along for the ride). Following my yoga teacher training, completely unintentionally, I put myself out there by posting on social media ‘hey, I’m a yoga teacher, does anyone have places where I can teach’. Then I met people in real life and in conversation I said ‘if you have an opening, I would be interested’. This rolled (slightly sideways) into me hiring spaces and reaching out to people so I could complete my Pilates teacher qualification. A couple of weeks into all of this, I suddenly realised what I had done and started panicking. I called my partner in tears telling him how I was overwhelmed and didn’t know if I could do any of this. He said the one truth I didn’t want to hear: “You need to accept that you have made choices which lead you here, and you need to decide what you want from it and what you will do about it”.
Naturally, I resented him and continued feeling all the things I was feeling. But while I was berating myself for being so bold when I was so incapable, the sense arose that this may not be true, and what I was actually feeling was discomfort. Discomfort at putting myself out there and coming out of hiding. I have been psychologically agoraphobic in my own head for so long that the simple request to be thought of for an opportunity or invite friends to classes to help with my qualification made me feel like I was being a bossy opportunist and setting myself up for failure.
So, I sat with the discomfort and check some facts. I drew on things I had learnt in the last year and instead tried to meet myself where I was in that moment, rather than where I should be, could be or wanted to be, and I showed myself some kindness. It has been a huge few years for me starting my creative career- and that is exactly what I have done, which is rather special if I do say so myself.
And now I am still sitting with discomfort and checking facts, which must be going O.K. since I am here and writing this post. I kept going with all that I had started because I saw I wasn’t in danger, I was uncomfortable, and I could cope with being uncomfortable knowing that I was aiming for something that I wanted.
I suppose the point that I am trying to make is that as we all come out of hiding and walk into a new world, it is going to be scary, and it is going to be unknown and even terrifying despite the fact that we want to step out into the sunlight again. All we can do is sit with that. If it becomes too much and we have to go back and hide a while before we try again, then that is what we need to do. Meet the needs of who you are in each moment, the rest will fall into place.