Does an anxious person have permission to make happy art?
I drew the above image because sometimes I feel like that, which can be a large shock to many people who see my artwork and think it’s a representation of pure happiness.
In fact when I feel like this I'm so detached from my true self, so out of alignment, that I have thoughts of giving up my painting altogether, even though it's everything that I am!
I have thoughts like "All my paintings are lies, I can never live up to them, people don't know who I really am" Because I paint a lot about peace and the kind of person I want to step into being.
When I get so down that nothing is clear, it's like the lies are truth and the truth becomes a lie. Everything is backwards and I have no idea what's real, I'm totally lost inside a foggy haze. It doesn't feel like fog, it feels like a really heavy deep weight of suffocation, then when I try to get out of it, it's like a vapor that you can't push away or manipulate, you run your hand through it and it just stays there, like it can't be fought. Not being able to fight it is also a lie, but that's just how it feels.
Someone once said to me, "It all boils down to what you’re believing."
Trying to pinpoint the beliefs in those times; I guess I would say that I was believing that I was completely defeated and had absolutely no strength, reason, or hope to go on. I was believing the shame I felt & believing I had no worth.
I want to share this side of me, not so anyone feels bad for me or is sad for me (please don't) also not to bring negativity into the world and bring people down, but for two reasons.
One because it is a way of freeing myself and two because I don't want anyone to feel alone in their own struggles.
Others should never look at my artwork and compare their own lives to the happiness and peace they see coming through the work, thinking I must always be at peace, setting themselves back in their own journey because all they see is the one side. But I want people to see that all of us have painful areas and that even though we fail sometimes we can all find this beauty, happiness, peace, and truth seen in my work.
“But I want people to see that all of us have painful areas and that even though we fail sometimes we can all find this beauty, happiness, peace, and truth seen in my work.”
I desire to bring across another side of myself so as to free myself of the need to hide. Because my paintings are not lies, they are still who I am even when I fail to live up to my highest self. This is to release the lies of "No one knows who I really am, I'm a fraud! Who do I think I am to try to encourage others?"
Well now you know. Now we're all on the same page as humans; imperfect yet completely amazing!
This is why I hold to verses like Psalm 32:7
“You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
Selah”
Find tools for healing anxiety in this post here or this one!