PS. I like you is a newsletter for creative humans with self-doubt. Subscribe and read along to get answers to all the questions you didn’t know you had about self-doubt and making a creative life 🌿
Here’s the thing I did that hurt me a lot in my twenties and early thirties:
I pretended my dreams didn’t matter.
Years ago I went to art college. And found it very difficult. Everything I did was questioned. Everything I did felt like it wasn’t good enough. I realised *I* wasn’t good enough.
I left art college very burned and deciding I wasn’t creative. I had been foolish and stupid to even think I could be a creative person, let alone make any sort of living at it.
I hid all of my dreams away. I pretended I didn’t care any more about being a creative person. I didn’t know how to do that stuff — wasn’t cut out for it — so I wasn’t going to try anymore.
This worked for a while. I put myself into other things.
And then, one day, I realised something was hurting me. I was very hurt inside and I didn’t know why.
It took a lot of soul-searching to understand what was happening. It took a lot of morning pages and questioning. It took a lot of trust to even listen to myself.
But eventually, I realised what had happened. I had abandoned parts of myself. I had decided that what I wanted wasn’t worthy, or compatible with me as a person. I had split myself into pieces and decided that some of them weren’t worthy of attention.
As you can guess, this doesn’t work very well over the long term. This starts showing up as anxiety, a sense that something has been lost, and the idea you aren’t quite whole, but you don’t know why.
That wasn’t going to be for me. Having suffered from depression in my early twenties, and fearing going back there… I resolved to do something.
I resolved to find out, go on a journey, put myself back together, piece by piece. I didn’t know what I was doing — but I found a way.
I un-abandoned myself. I decided that all of me was worth paying attention to. I decided I wouldn’t pretend that my dreams didn’t matter, ever again.
And now I help people with their dreams. I help them create what they want to create, in their way.
It isn’t easy. But if there’s one thing I would say to myself back then, it would be:
Stop putting it off. Stop pretending it doesn’t matter.
Because you’re only going to cause yourself more hurt and more pain and more shame.
And it doesn’t need to be that way.
I love you. And you deserve to see yourself create.
You deserve to try. You deserve to make it happen. 💛🌿
Love,
Kathryn
PS. I like you.
You deserve to create. If you’re a creative and something isn’t happening, chances are it’s not your lack of ability or laziness. It’s more likely you simply don’t know what’s stopping you… or what’s preventing you from moving forward. Maybe you see yourself not taking action, but can’t seem to get yourself ‘motivated’ enough. Or, maybe you have an understanding of what’s happening, but you’re not sure how to go about fixing it and making progress.
Have a consultation with me and find out. Discover what’s preventing you from taking action, or taking the action you actually want to take; and then decide to move forward.
You can find out how I work with creatives on my coaching page. It’s a six-month-minimum process to help you get unstuck, start taking your work seriously, create the work you want to create, and feel more fulfilled and alive. If you have any questions, get in touch or book a call.