ACT…I’ve come to a FORK IN THE ROAD

Hi everyone, remember a recent post where I wrote my way to discovering my fear of FAILURE…and remember the very wise words of a young lady I quoted that said that CHANGE doesn’t mean FAILURE?!

Well, they’ve stuck with me and have been rolling around in my head…

A FORK IN THE ROAD...THIS EXPRESSION ALWAYS TAKES ME BACK TO WATCHING THE MUPPETS MOVIE AND LAUGHING MY PONY TAILS OFF...

CHANGE doesn’t mean FAILURE…CHANGE is GOOD…

Last Friday I got an email from one of the “HARA-KIRI blogs” I follow (the same from which I just re-blogged a few posts ago) WISE COUNSEL…the newest post was titled BREAK OUT (and not in a sweat or with acne…break out of the habit!)

I’ll quote a key phrase:

“It feels like a rat race, where you repeat the same things;
Where moment meets another, with you in the same place!”

Oh yes, the sun rises and sets                                                                                                                                                                                      and here I am sitting in the same place,                                                                                                                                                                   with the same question rolling in my head…

what is my next step?

Of course this struck a chord and I had to leave a comment:

as I read, I felt it was written for me…since lately I’ve felt like I’m stuck in WEDNESDAY…very frustrating, I have not sat down to analyze it but off the top of my head i can identify a few road blocks i haven’t quite gotten past…I wrote a bit about it in a recent post, you know: CATHARSIS through writing, but it’s much deeper that 1 post…I’ll work on it because I do need to BREAK OUT, Wednesday is getting quite boring..

I have come to INTERPRET my WEDNESDAY stump as a kind of fork in the road, I feel that I need to make some decisions, stop doing some things in order to concentrate and start doing others…but it’s a decision I have to think very well through in order to BREAK OUT!!

thanks

and the author replied to my comment in such a WISE manner:

It is good to know what to do and to do it.
Change is the key to breaking out.

We can’t keep doing the same things and expecting different results.

Please think through; do it well and fast!

Even if it’s difficult to make the change immediately you can at least invest a lot of positive thoughts.

Thinking and knowing exactly what we want is not the same as doing nothing. Thanks!

You can imagine how this jolted me, however I wish it would’ve jolted me out of passivity, because with me-the eternal thinker, contantly hypothesizing, drawing out theories for this and that- the last sentence from the reply is one of the habits I need to break: I think and know what I want and THAT’S AS FAR AS I GO, making infinite to-do lists, wish and dream lists, and stopping there…

So being in the CHANGE mindframe, in a BREAK OUT mode I lay awake at night thinking what is my most immediate frustration right now? what has taken away the joy of my day to day? what is occupying so much brain space that I can’t concentrate on anything else or is making every other chore the hardest task to complete?

OK, THE MOST IMMEDIATE? hhmmm…having to PAINT an ORIGINAL ABSTRACT…

It’s strange but true, I’ve done it before, on my own, with no one stopping me in my most inspired moment, with no one questioning the brush stroke or the color tone or expression of light or sense of profoundness …

Now, with my teacher watching me closely I CAN’T DO IT! I CAN’T BE SPONTANEOUS, I CAN’T DO PREMEDITATED PAINTING, I CAN’T EXPLAIN MY MOTIVES… and now that I’ve been asked to, I JUST FROZE with the paint brush in my hand and a horrible something on my canvas…

My WEDNESDAY happens on what was once my happy day…which is doubly frustrating, sad and paralyzing.

So I concluded that this was my fork-in-the-road situation: leave or continue with my painting class

What was once the source of my utmost joy, the food for my soul, the fuel to my creativity has morphed into MY WORSE FRUSTRATION…so I meditated on this the whole weekend: should I stay or should I go…and I broke out in song..jajajaa

this morning, after lots of soul searching and leaning towards staying in my class,

I sent my teacher a note asking her to let me keep practicing with inspiration images from well known painters,

that my current situation had me stuck, paralyzed

(like when I painted my beautiful cow that should’ve -by my teacher’s prediction- taken me three clases, took me about 8)

and, eventhough, I could create -in my head- original art,

the flow of creativity from my brain to my hand was blocked by my insecurity in my abilities and my fear of DOING IT WRONG AND WASTING PRECIOUS TIME, ENERGY AND SUPPLIES

and my emotional well-being was being very much compromised by this immense frustration

(due to the fact that I depend so much on my class as a de-stressing activity and a confirmation to what I value most about me MY CREATIVITY)…

I’m still waiting for her answer, I’ve got my fingers crossed in hopes that she accepts my proposal…

let me share with you the images I want to use as inspiration:

the first is by Irish painter PAUL HENRY, titled THE WATCHER

and the second is a fotograph of a JACARANDA TREE which I’d like to do with the IMPRESSIONIST technique, using lots of paint (like my adorable COW)

I felt such a relief when this option came to mind and I started searching for images that would move me…(of course, the relief  starts to fade when I think of the possibility that my teacher might not accept my proposal and pressure me into going ahead with her original plan)

KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED FOR ME

thanks a bunch!