When I was a little kid – around 5 or so – I drew a picture. I had drawn many pictures and this one was really no different. It had begun as all the others had: A free, open expression of pure feeling. I enjoyed drawing because of the feeling I had when I drew. It was the act of drawing that was satisfying. Then one day, when I was 5, my mother noticed me drawing. She told me how much she loved it and how special it was. Soon, I had forgotten how it felt to just draw for the love of it, to let my creativity flow naturally and without effort. I became more concerned with getting my mother’s attention. Being told I was good and that I was good at something began to feel more important to me than the pleasure I experienced from the act of drawing. From that moment on, my artistic talent developed as a tool to gain both love and acceptance.
As a child of a divorced home, I learned to not only use art as a means to gain love but also as a means to escape home life. They say the hardest diamonds are made with heat and pressure. For me, that came in the form of parents arguing, being bullied in school, and feeling like an outcast for most of my life. Up until my later high school years, I’d spend my time alone in my room drawing and making things. Even when I was at school, or anywhere I didn’t want to be, I’d use art as a way to create my own space so that I could be free of the pains of my life. While my story is unique to me, it’s really not that different from most of our stories. The latest research on early childhood development from Leidon University shows that rewarding children for good behavior is exceedingly more effective than punishment for negative behavior. This is something we’ve all experienced. Once when you were little, you did something too. Someone told you it was good, and you were good for doing it. So you did it more.
Looking back, I didn’t choose my profession. I chose a path that would allow me to continue to get the feeling of acceptance I had received as a child. Having a proud mother turned into proud professors, and later proud creative directors and agencies. The dangers of this, while mild as a youth, have come to show themselves to me in many forms as an adult, some of which I am still acknowledging today. The denials of myself were not only damaging but also silent. It’s the choice we have forgotten that we gave up. For me, I believed that who I was needed to be hidden. How I would be perceived was more important. My entire creative process was driven by what I would receive as a result. This mindset had allowed me to unknowingly slip into a state of being that is known as “survival mode”. Who I was became dependent on the acceptance of my work. This meant that when my work was met with client input, revisions, or outside opinions, they all felt like personal attacks. I had subconsciously transferred my desire for love and acceptance from my parents to my job. This meant that, when I faced criticism from my job, I was feeling the rejection from my parents on a very deep and real level. This rejection had laid itself so subtly into my daily habits that I hadn’t consciously felt it for years. I had used my art to hide from it. But now, what had been creative fuel for so long, was now causing me to suffer. I could no longer hide from those parts of myself that I felt were too unworthy to be seen. I think all artists crave acceptance. If you’ve heard an artist say, “I just want people to connect with my work” what they really mean is “I want acceptance.” The truth is there is some level of personal rejection that’s not allowing self-acceptance to be realized. The self-rejection puts the goal outside of ourselves so we don’t bother looking within where the issues manifest. Only there can our feelings be addressed. When I began to look deeper into my own creative motivations, it allowed me to ask myself difficult questions, and at first I found it hard to be completely honest about the answers, even to myself.
Questions like, “what would happen if I didn’t use my talent to get approval or acceptance?”
What would it feel like to accept myself fully?
How would my work change if I replaced my motivation?
I didn’t know it then, but I wasn’t avoiding my feelings of rejection. In fact, I was acknowledging them. It allowed me to consciously let go of my old motivations and begin to draw from a new creative source. My old mantra of “what can I get” had been fully exposed. With this new insight, I decided to see what it would be like to remove myself from the equation. I replaced, “what can I get”, with, “what can I give.” Not long after, I discovered a new world of creative potential that had opened to me.
What’s interesting is that when you change your intention to “what can I give,” you find that it sits in a state of being called receivership. Opening yourself up to receiving whatever may come means you are removing yourself from the equation. When doing this what you want isn’t part of your motivations and it gives freedom for something greater than yourself to emerge. Giving of yourself in this way means letting go of your past story. Opening you up to receiving the present moment as it is, without you or the story of you to muddle it up.
My motivations were no longer on trying to control the outcome of my work. By shifting my intention to “what can I give,” I was connecting to a different source of inspiration that was revealing options to me that had previously been hidden. The process was connecting me to deeper parts of myself that I had forgotten. What I discovered was that when I stopped asking “what can I get” that concept also included “getting” love and acceptance. It simply wasn’t my priority any longer, and I didn’t even notice the absence of its desire. I came to learn this new feeling of being complete was a form of self-love and acceptance.
Every project seems to have its twists and turns. Seemingly impossible deadlines, budget limitations, or roadblocks make it easy to feel stressed or slip back into a survival mode mentality. And that’s ok. Soon enough, that storm of emotions will pass and I’ll have to ask myself how I’m going to get it done. What I’ve discovered is that when your intention is on “what you can give,” there are no roadblocks. It ’s just the universe saying, “Hey, I have something better that’s waiting for you”. It reminds me to let go of control and surrender to something greater than my own needs.
Now, my saying this still doesn’t make it easy. And at times the fearful parts of myself still try and convince me the mission is impossible. Accepting myself means accepting those fears and realizing they aren’t coming up to be ignored. They are a reminder that when I feel the stress of a project, somewhere there is a part of myself that once felt unworthy and is asking to finally be seen.