The First Lesson

Learning how to paint echinacea

I'm taking a class called RAW by Amanda Grace right now on art journaling.  It's designed for women in recovery and the whole focus of the class is about allowing ourselves to be our whole selves, authentically, without judgement.   I'm spending a lot of time identifying the stories that my mind tells me.  It's been great.  And hard.  And amazing.  And terrifying.  And great.   Really great. 

We're in the second week of the class now and in our weekly zoom call, Amanda told a story about wanting to learn how to play tennis when she was a child.   She showed up to the first lesson and the first thing she learned was...

that she didn't know how to play tennis.  

That principle right there was totally worth the price of admission for me.  

I do that all the time.  

I want to learn something and so I take a class, or get a book or whatever, and the first thing I learn is that I don't know how to do the thing.

Which surprises me.  Because deep down, I'm hoping that I will find out that I'm secretly brilliant at that thing.  And when I turn out not to be, I feel like a failure.  

I feel ashamed, right off the bat, that I'm not good at the thing.   

And then shame takes over and my mind tells me all these stories:

• I suck
• I should never make mistakes because Mistakes Are Terrible [a toxic cultural more that Amanda pointed out in that same call]
• I should always be on the lookout for mistakes - in my work and in others.
• Avoid all mistakes all the time!  Constant Vigilance!
• It is possible to avoid mistakes all the time.
• You can't and shouldn't respect any work with mistakes in it. 
• Mistakes = failure
• One mistake can ruin an otherwise awesome thing/event/creation/conversation/project.  
• Everything should be a masterpiece.
• If something is a not a masterpiece, then it is a waste of time, resources, space, effort, etc.
• Never ever share something that is less than a masterpiece. 
• Less than a masterpiece = garbage.
• Better not to try.
• Better to be invisible.

You guys, this is a pretty accurate list of what actually goes through my mind sometimes.  Every time I hit publish to share my work, knowing I have not created one single masterpiece, is an act of courage.  An act of recovery.  An act of healing. 

Because every time we share something that is less than perfect in every way, we change the stories to these:

• I create stuff.
• Mistakes happen.
• I can overlook the mistakes in my work and in others'.
• It's not possible to avoid mistakes; in fact, one person's 'mistake' is another's 'best part of the piece'.
• You can and should love any piece of work that you wish.
• Mistakes = the human experience.
• Awesome things/events/creations/conversations/projects are about more than the sum of their parts, so don't bother looking for or remembering the rough spots.
• Everything is.  It just Is.
• Time, resources, space effort, etc. can freely be spent wherever we see fit.
• Share everything.
• Do the art, don't judge the art.
• Keep trying.
• Be visible.

Over time [we're talking years], I can feel my stories change.

It's OK if I don't have a hidden genius for joy.  Or yoga.  Or painting people.  Or keto baking.  Or html, css, IG or CTA.  Or fb pixel.  Or recovery.  

I'll figure it out.  I'll learn how to do it.

Bigger

©Robin Edmundson, 'Tetrad Floral', watercolor, 24 x 18 inches. 
Unframed.  $600.

For much of my life I have tried to live under the radar.  It was safer that way.

There were a lot of rules:

• Don't show off
• Shine, but not too brightly
• Be great at what you do, but not the best
• Let men be the leaders and always defer to what they say
• Smaller is better [translation:  Lose weight, lots of weight]
• Invisible is good
• Never ask for attention
• Don't be proud of what you do
• Big work = Big [very visible] mistakes. Work small so your mistakes are small

These rules are all shame-based and for 50 years, I was really, really good at shame.  I'm breaking a lot of these rules lately. 

I don't want you to think that I just woke up one morning and said 'Screw the rules!' and made some changes. Confronting a lifetime of shame and changing how you think [about everything!] takes a lot of courage. A lot of time. A lot of patience.  A lot of great teachers.  And a lot of baby steps.

One of these baby steps was to decide to paint bigger.  Risk bigger, visible failures. So, I bought a few blocks of larger paper so I can work in an 18 x 24 inch format, which I have found that I love.  I've been trying new subjects [more florals] and I've been playing big.  And making big mistakes.  And I don't care [as much as I used to. :)]  The painting above is one of my new, larger pieces.  It started as a color experiment while I was teaching a Color Harmonies class here at my studio.  At one point, I 'ruined' it but I kept working on it.  It was so freeing to work on that lovely big paper! Bonus - I think I'm doing better work.

Working bigger is helping me to take the next step in my healing process.  Working bigger lets me see that I can, maybe someday, live bigger and heal bigger.   

That's big.  

Shameless

Winged Sumac, October

I was at a circle the other night and during the opening meditation, a couple of cell phones buzzed loudly.  I felt a flash of annoyance.  When the meditation was over, the hostess laughed and said how awesome it was that you could feel the vibrations through the floor. She asked whose they were, and no one spoke up.  She laughed and said, 'There's no shame here.  Those phones made the funnest sounds, didn't they!'

There's no shame here.  

That phrase echoed in my head for the rest of the night. 

A place with no shame.   

I had never considered such a thing before.  And that's when I realized that I carry shame with me Every. Where.  I. Go.  

Shame is something I learned early.  It was used as a weapon in many places in my life.  Somewhere along the line, I got really good at it.   I could shame myself better than anyone could shame me.  I knew every single tiny error that I made every single second of the day and I shamed myself for every single one.  I knew that if I admitted to myself where I screwed up and felt remorse for it, then I couldn't be surprised or manipulated by anyone else trying to use my mistakes against me.  

This strategy successfully allowed me to dissociate from certain types of controlling personalities in a way that prevented me from be victimized. 

However, it undermined my confidence in every area of my life.  In situations where the person was not shaming me, I doubled down my self-shaming efforts.  I could never enjoy any relationship, interaction, achievement or success, no matter how small, because I was so very aware of every error and I felt remorse for it.  Shame was my constant companion.  I took Shame everywhere.  

It's time for me to let that go.  I'm sending Shame to live in a beautiful house on a beach somewhere where she can spend her time criticizing the grains of sand for not being perfect, the beach water for being smelly, the weather for being unruly. When she takes her proper place as Conscience instead of Shame,  I may call her occasionally to check in about big things, but she is not coming with me everywhere anymore.   

I will spend more time enjoying my achievements.  With my new endeavors, I will celebrate every single baby step in the right direction and all of the fun field trips along the way.   I will love more fully in all my relationships and that will compensate well for the inevitable missteps that happen between people.   

And in time, I will be able to say, 'There's no shame here.'

Confusion

Greene County Barn, Bland Rd.

Confusion is one of the lesser recognized emotions.   It's gets a bad rap.  If one admits to being confused, then others can quickly dismiss her/him as mentally deficient.  No one wants to be in that place.

The thing is that EVERYONE gets confused sometimes. But because we don't want to admit it, what often happens is that when we find ourselves confused, we don't acknowledge it and instead we quickly jump to another emotion such as anger, shame or panic, or we shut down, or we procrastinate, etc. 

When was the last time you allowed yourself to acknowledge being confused?  What is your immediate strategy of choice when you get confused?

When I get confused, I often jump right on into shame.  I know something is going on, I can't figure it out, I should be able to figure it out, why am I not figuring it out?, I thought I figured this out but apparently not, how could I have missed this?, I blew it, I'm an idiot, I can't figure it out, what is going on here?, what's wrong with me?, something is really wrong with me, I suck, etc. 

If confusion is really uncomfortable for you, then being able to admit to yourself, 'I'm confused' or 'This is really confusing' is a great way to start digging yourself out of whatever emotional hole you find yourself in by not acknowledging it.  You don't have to tell anyone else that you're confused.

Once you've labelled it, then you can give yourself time to sort out options, emotions, information, stimuli.   Take your time.

Lately, I've been experiencing a lot of confusion over priorities.  I know what my priorities are - the problem is there are too many excellent ones and not enough time or me to go around.   I have no idea how to sort them out and I definitely do not want to choose, because that means something will get left out and that just feels bad.  Since I'm not reducing my load, I keep on going in a state of overwhelm and frustration.

So, right now I'm acknowledging the confusion and just taking time to sort out my options.   I'll tackle big decisions later.  [and I'll keep you posted.]



[Speaking of confusion and shame, I found this vid of an interview with Brene Brown, which I have watched a couple of times.  It's full of great stuff along these lines.]