SO YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT, YOU’RE SCARED AND TIRED DAY AFTER DAY, AND FRANKLY YOU WISH THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD FUCK THE FUCK OFF? CONGRATULATIONS … YOU’RE AN ARTIST.
I don’t know if you know this, but the whole entire world does NOT wake up every day with dread and fear and resistance hanging over them as they wonder, yet again, if they’ll have what it takes today to show up and do the WORK.
I know it seems ridiculous … mind-blowing … actually even (to me!) IMPOSSIBLE to believe, but I have it on good authority that the majority of people out there actually accept and are content with their lives.
The worst part? This is true even for most so-called entrepreneurs.
Me, I find it hard to distinguish, really, between entrepreneur and artist. I can’t relate to the idea of being JUST about biz and money, because for me it’s always been about the art, the purpose, the NEVER-ending burning need to release, and the truth is I do think that anybody who is TRULY an entrepreneur who ‘can’t not’, is also, in their own way, however that might be, an artist.
To monetize IS to create.
And here is how you know for sure that YOU are for real, that you belong in this crazy world of DRIVEN creators; the ones who will ultimately rule and also CHANGE the world; wake it up –
You know because every single day feels like a battle to the death.
And I know, I know, what a thing to say! For somebody who talks all of the time about flow. About going WITH said flow. About simply tuning in and following the call, letting it be easy, letting it be effortless, doing only what you are CALLED to do.
The funny thing is – and I think that very few, well, only the RIGHT few, will ever understand this – you can be in flow and in ease and in absolute alignment and you can also want to scream fuck the WORLD and run and hide and not FEEL like it.
Sometimes???
MUCH of the time!
I believe that if you’re not regularly waging war against the demon within who tells you to take today off, to rest easy, or to simply do the work that actually FEELS easy, and to put off the GROWTH stuff, or the REAL stuff, then you’re not actually on purpose and you’re not actually an artist.
You may call yourself one.
And you may even be CREATING.
In fact, you might have fallen prey to one of the most deceptive realities of all: to be successful, in business, or as an artist, so much so that you have convinced the whole world and even yourself that you DID it, you BEAT resistance, you showed up and LOOK HOW FREAKING AWESOME YOU ARE …
But that deep down.
Every damn way.
You’re living with the knowledge that you’re avoiding your ACTUAL work.
And there’s no way to argue against that, is there? Plain and simple you KNOW if you’re not doing THE.ACTUAL.WORK, and no matter how ‘close to’ what you are doing instead is, the work is the work and there is no way to replace the energy of what you WOULD be feeling right now if you were doing THE work.
But if you think that doing THE work is something that you just dance and spring your way into, merrily, day after day, then think the fuck again, because that’s not how it IS.
Look through the journals and pages of any artist who showed up and unleashed their ACTUAL truth, and you will see that it’s messy, painful, scary, EXCRUCIATING even, and that the mind will do EVERY POSSIBLE THING to talk you out of it, and that’s all before BREAKFAST.
So let me tell you.
About what it feels like.
To be an artist.
Who looks the beast in the eye and then does the TRUE work, anyway.
You wake up, and already the feeling is hanging over you. Will I today? Can I? Will I actually UNLEASH?
Your mind starts to play games right away, about all that there is to do instead, convincing you that doing SOME work is the work, trying to trick you away from facing in to your actual soul and truth.
You start to make a story. Which could be that today you just need to REST … today is a day of self-care, yes, that’s it! Or else you listen to the story that if you follow the trick, and you busy yourself, with much, perhaps even GOOD and CREATIVE and FLOW based work, just not THE actual work, that that will be good enough, for today, and that maybe even that’s what you SHOULD do, today.
Perhaps you listen to the story and your day passes accordingly …
Or perhaps not.
It doesn’t get easier once out of bed. There are so many things to take you AWAY from your art.
Maybe you need to eat, or perhaps you just need to check in, maybe you really ARE tired or burnt out and you should go get a MASSAGE or meditate, yes that’s it!
You tell yourself 1000 stories.
Before the sun has barely even risen.
And if you’re the 99.99% and maybe MORE, then obviously, you listen, and your whole life, is created, accordingly.
If you’re (truly) one of us … an artist who DOES their art … which is more extraordinarily rare than the 1% within the 1% I must say … then you manage, step by step and breath by breath, to not LISTEN to the stories.
You grit your teeth.
You turn away.
You turn WITHIN.
And you ask yourself, even though you REALLY wish you didn’t have to, what do I actually NEED right now?
And piece by piece, breath by breath, moment by moment you manage to NOT LET RESISTANCE RULE YOU.
What you have to understand, is that if you think there’s going to be some magical time when you just ALWAYS WANT TO BARE YOUR NAKED SOUL AND DIG OR LET OUT THE ART FROM YOUR CORE then your idea of what ART is, is based on surface bullshit that is not the TRUTH.
OF COURSE IT FUCKING HURTS!!
And what the WANNABE artists will never understand is that the BEAUTY, the FLOW, the YES, the ORGASMIC ENERGY of doing what you were BORN for can truly only come FROM being the rare one who faces INTO that pain, that fear, that “I CAN’T today” feeling every damn DAY, and then does it anyway.
I can’t tell you how often I have to CONSCIOUSLY turn away from what my mind TRICKS me into thinking I need, in order to do my SOUL work.
It might be the obvious tricks, such as telling me I’m not tired today, I don’t feel like it today, I have nothing to SAY today, anyway, and besides – I already DID enough.
That’s easy.
I know those tricks from since before time began.
Don’t feel like it, don’t know how, scared, tired, whatever.
Show up.
Do the work.
But it’s so much more than that, isn’t it?
It’s feeling hunger and saying no, I haven’t done the work yet.
It’s having a million things that want your attention, and are also valid, and saying no, I haven’t done the work yet.
It’s seeing that if you don’t get on with your gym or your errands or your what-ever, then you’ll run out of time, and saying no, I haven’t done the work yet.
It’s feeling that maybe you truly DO need to take pause, re-set, maybe you’re PUSHING OUTSIDE OF FLOW, and realising that THIS lie is the most insidious of all and saying NO bitch, I haven’t done the work yet.
It’s beginning, actually beginning, and putting that time aside, and stepping forth and then not FEELING anything, not connecting to anything, and starting to wonder if you should just come back to it later when inspiration or flow strikes and saying NO, I haven’t done the WORK yet.
It’s being committed, above all else, to the routine or process which you can DEPEND UPON to lead you INTO the work, and then doing it.
When the rest of the world.
Is doing whatever the fuck it is they do.
Or even your own tricky mind is telling you.
That today is a day to stop.
And instead you turn away –
Once again.
And you turn within –
Once more.
And you do the THINGS.
You follow your process and then when it’s time you BEGIN. Knowing that the flow will come to YOU, that the muse visits only those who CONSISTENTLY put themselves in a position of being PRESENT AND IN ATTENDANCE to be so blessed.
And sure enough.
Every day.
You get the job done and you step INTO flow.
But no.
You don’t sit back.
And wait for it.
That’s not how it WORKS.
So if you find yourself day after day feeling scared, unsure, not knowing how you can possibly get through and terrified that today will be the day you have your deepest fears – of not actually having anything real inside of you – proven?
And then you show up anyway and you do the ACTUAL FUCKING WORK THAT EATS AT YOUR SOUL?
Congratulations baby.
You’re an artist.
A successful person in the worlds eye is somebody who typically has managed to ignore their art every day in order to create results.
An artist is somebody who manages to ignore normal-world success every day in order to do their art.
Make no mistake: YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.
But don’t let success and ‘doing the work’ continue to stop you from baring your SOUL.
Please.
Do the work you came here to do.
It’s ACTUALLY what will get you to rich anyway.