Stop Apologizing!

I just spent a week practicing being UNAPOLOGETIC in the smoking hot desert of northern New Mexico. It was not a surprise that an art retreat called “Unapologetic” attracted strong-willed bad ass women who were done apologizing.

Do you find yourself apologizing…

For taking up space?

For having needs and desires?

For spending money on art supplies?

For choosing to do what fills you with joy?

For proceeding without waiting for anyone else’s permission?

Are you ready to be done with that?

Prompted by the retreat’s fearless leader, Connie Solera, we identified what we were ready to release before we made our way to the desert.

What would your answer be?

What do you need to let go of so that your hands are free to grab a brush, or crochet hook, or whatever opens your portal to creativity?

I am releasing the need for external permission to live my life. I give myself permission to play, to rest, to move, to eat when I’m hungry. I give myself permission to create art even if it is messy, or ugly, or inconvenient, or takes up too much space. If anyone objects to me or my behavior, that says more about them than me. I don’t have to pick up that energy. I don’t have to apologize. I don’t even have to defend myself or prove I’m right. I can just keep doing my creative thing. I can create art anyway.

I don’t need anyone’s permission to live!

I know, right! Pretty bad ass of me.

How about you? Wanna join me in my bad-assery?

What do you want permission to do?

Now is the perfect time to give yourself that permission.

During the retreat, we explored spell work: the calling in of our desires by creating a world that did not exist before. The imagination offers a powerful playground for spell work. It is a place where rules don’t apply and an artist can conjure up anything at all. This is more than whimsy or fantasy. The imagination gives form to your wishes and desires, and with a little paint and a brush, you bring them out into reality to live on the paper in front of you.

As Albert Einstein explains: Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

In this piece, I escorted a warrior princess and a mama bear out of my imagination and onto the page. These two figures represent the parts of me that show up when I sense a boundary violation or unfairness perpetrated on me or someone else who doesn’t, or can’t speak up for themselves. As I drew the warrior princess, I was wondering what type of weapon she should be holding. The answer came in the form or a paint brush used as a magical wand. And with that instrument, she was able to conjure up an angry mama bear. Let me tell you, creating this scene felt powerful!

We also explored soul work, using our hands rather than brushes to tap into a loose, expressive way of painting. The pieces I created with my hands had a dream-like quality, rather like the soul speaks - usually in nudges and whispers; rarely with loud, billboard-like clarity.

It had been a long time since I tried finger painting. But you know what? It is a great way to paint loose and outrun perfectionism. It felt visceral and messy and primitive. I was able to capture emotion and let go of the need to over work it and control the outcome. There is freedom in leaning into the weird.

And so far, I have resisted the urge to “fix” it and make it pretty. I still hold dearly onto this mantra from a year ago: It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to be true.

I often think of my soul as living at the bottom of a deep well. To access her wisdom, I have to get really quiet and sink down to the bottom. Here is an abstract version of that turning within to listen to my soul’s wisdom:

On our last day of painting, we were challenged to make a declaration.

What is the one thing that I want to say out loud, right now?

What statement do I want to make?

We wrote down that statement and then added a self-portrait around it. I drew myself with a red round ball for a nose and bright red circles on my cheeks.

My statement was: “I am done performing.”

I am done performing roles that others have assigned to me without my consent.

I am done performing in order to earn approval.

I am done performing to make everyone else around me more comfortable.

At this point in my life, I have no more fu*ks to give.

In the words of Popeye, the famous sailor man: “I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I am!”

What is the one thing you want to say?

What declaration does your soul want to make?

What kind of art can you make around that declaration?

What do you need to give yourself permission to do?

Come join us next Saturday, August 15th at 11:00am eastern to create some art around your declaration or make a giant permission slip suitable for posting in a most prominent place. It feels incredibly powerful to put down on paper the one thing you want to declare! And it is much better to put it on paper than burying it under layers of what society deems acceptable.

Come join the Creative Resistance and declare your freedom in a community of like-minded supportive women!