TRUTH TELLING

I ONCE got caught up in that terrible nonsense, the falsity that often lies as a tumultuous current as we are trying ever so hard to keep moving upstream with our passions, our careers, our livelihood, our relationships, anything that we love more than ourselves,
I was caught up in the snare of "not good enough"

Let me explain.

(Que transitions)

Growing up in a small town where anyone who applies themselves, even a little, is seen as someone with talent. Now you mix that with hard work, passion, dedication, and you've got someone that everyone starts, well I hate to say it, but worshiping. What I hate even more is that I led myself to believe that I was one of the best at what I did - because that's how everyone else saw me, so why not believe it? Being 17 and hearing that you are destined for Broadway or that your artwork will be hung in the MOA, and your name will be in lights. How could I really keep myself and my ego grounded?

For the record, I believe that encouragement is wonderful and needed, but true encouragement, honest encouragement. I know that I am capable of greatness, but that is not the same as being destined for it.

I have always been a creative, we'll use that for the time being. Whether it was in music, or drawing, or painting, or singing, or poetry, or just living, I have always found myself drawn to making my entire life a work of art, nothing spared. As I graduated I was expecting the same scenario to play out in college as it did in high school, i.e. people would discover my creative work and I would be on the fast track to success. But instead, I found myself in a college that had the same small pond syndrome that I had comfortably accepted back home, but that I now was drowning in because of the lack of challenge.

College was good - but I felt like I could do better without the restraint of learning how to shade circles all over again. I had ideas, I knew how to execute them, I just needed someone to supply me with critiquing here and there, with the occasional direction and suggestion. Well obviously, that is not how it works.

I was surrounded by students who didn't care if they never saw Pollock up close, and I had found myself weeping over "Lavender Mist" when I had gone to the Met at the age of 14. I called up my mother crying in my second semester, telling her that I lost myself, and I didn't fit here, this wasn't what I was looking for, I wasn't being challenged, and my artistic muscles were not getting stretched or strengthened. I flew home the next weekend, having feelings of "not good enough" and struggling with loosing my creative in the hurricane of it all. I had been on a roller coaster that had only gone up since I picked up my first paint brush and I didn't understand how I could so easily been thrown off, with no notice, no warning, it just happened. I was scrambling, trying at any cost, running, searching, and even trying to bribe it to come back, even though I had selfishly taken the time it had spent with me for granted with little or no gratitude involved.

(Now que entering the blog world)

Back in New York, solitude is where I found myself.  I began writing profusely, it was the only thing that had remained constant throughout elementary, middle, high school, college, and now just being on my own. Writing has always been my glorious outlet, and in a time where I felt like limbo had trapped me, I needed a place to get out of that rabbit hole. That outlet became my best friend as it gave me courage, hope, and the conquering force and focus to move 2000 miles away from home again to start over once more.

The craziest and scariest thing can be having something, like your career going so well, taking off better than you thought you could expect. In 2011, I launched my own company, slightly as a joke, but with ambition I was certain I could make something good come out of it. I branded, I stayed up at all hours, mixing and recreating formulas for my frankinstein of a project. I had no idea what I was doing, I never had taken any classes, this was all completely new to me. But it worked, and I worked even harder. I became obsessed with travel again and I saw myself reentering that stage of, "am I really good enough, or is my success just a phase?" I longed for New York City, I longed for challenge, but mostly I longed for the opportunities to prove that I really was good at what I was doing. I longed for endless weekends working on design and photography, traveling to various parts of the country, documenting, and even to the point where I began looking at moving to Europe as a way to really get my adrenaline in gear.

(Now que ex boyfriend)

Sadly and magnificently all of that came to halt when I really put my desires on hold, because I was chasing after my new dream. The sad thing was I got it wrong, people should not become your dream nor your happiness, people should only be elements that share in those beautiful things, and elements that can also create with you new dreams, and enjoy in shared happiness, but not become them entirely. I felt guilt for wanting to apply for colleges not in the same state as him. I began rejecting shoots for more possible time spent, and I wrote off the idea of Europe all together. He never in exact words said, "Bre'an, please, put your life on hold for me" He did express however that he felt that my work was the most important thing in my life, and he didn't know if he could do that. That led to incidents where I felt like I had to prove that my work was not as important as he was to me.  It was almost like I had to tell myself that my work wasn't worth loosing someone over, my work didn't matter to me that much, what a lie that was. I loved my work, I always have, I always will. I love my work at the same level that I love myself, and that I loved him. Having to seemingly pick and choose only one of those things, I went crazy. I hated where I was, I began fighting with personal depression and self depreciation. I wasn't happy because I was stagnant in my own personal creative process. I was suffocating. I had stopped writing because I had stopped feeling that moving force of inspiration because I wasn't even allowing it to speak to me. I turned my back on it.

In that instance, my work was "not good enough" for me to love it honestly. And thank goodness my heart broke, and thank goodness it broke in the hardest yet realist of ways. With each crack from the shattered pieces of that relationship, light flooded in. That heartbreak showed me that people who you never thought could disappoint you, do, but the thing that stings the most is disappointing yourself, and holding someone else other than yourself accountable for your own personal happiness is reckless and relentlessly destructive.

(Now que the present)

Once again I have found myself in New York, here I am, here embracing solitude. And the more I learn to love the time I get to reflect, the more I have these remarkable, yet simple confirmations of myself all over again, that I am doing the thing I was made to do - create. I am an artist of my own very life and this is what gives me the highest feeling of success; recognizing what I was made for and pursuing it without hesitation. Solitude is what allows the creative genius speak to us softly, we are ready and willing to listen. The more I show that I am ready to create, and that I am giving that inspiration my full attention, the more I fall in love with it, and the more it begins to trust me, the more I trust myself. The more motivation I feel to really pushing myself, to create that life, to create the words, and to create my masterpiece, whatever it may be. Being alone has given me strength, and has also tested my strength. For some isolation is described as a recharging of batteries, for me it is the sweet reawakening of perception. I'm learning how to really select my thoughts and have a sense of self mastery. I've had to learn to cultivate a relationship with myself as much as I would with any other human being. For the first time I'm reaching out a lending hand to myself, I am surrendering my pride to humility, and I am in reverence, sacredly discovering what I am meant for and what it is that I can be capable of. As I keep nurturing this part of my life, I begin to see that my work is indeed good enough and I'm enriched in the simple pleasures of just being, just being alive in this moment, and having the that moving force of inspiration back - appreciated and honored as it should be.