The act of doing too much

My journey towards letting go, and clearing the space I need to move through the crippling doubt of being enough.

I’ve spent a lot of time working through my anxiety lately.

Over the course of my 3 years with The Grizzled Moon, I’ve had some of the highest highs and the lowest lows. Some days I wake up excited and filled with creativity, my heart overwhelmed with new ideas I feel immediately connected too. Other days I wake up with a heaviness that feels like I’m a kid again stuck on a gravitron at the fair.

When you put yourself out there as a creative, there’s a lot of opinions and expectations that need to be navigated externally and internally. There’s such an overwhelming pressure to do it all - ya paintings are good but what about prints? candles? earrings? stickers? glassware? tshirts?…

It’s easy to fall into the ever-waiting arms of overwhelm, to take on way too much.

That’s exactly what I felt when I started The Grizzled Moon. When I started, I was so afraid that the woodburning art I made wouldn’t be good enough that I tried to compensate by also making tshirts, prints, cards, stickers, candles, jewelry etc. I flooded my market booth with anything anyone could want, spending a bunch of money and a lot of time making sure that I had so many options I wouldn’t feel the heartbreak if someone looked at a woodburned artwork I poured my heart into and kept on walking.

I quickly found that I was drowning in overwhelm.

All of a sudden, the markets and creating that once gave me life and lit me on fire for doing my work, left me exhausted and completely depleted.

This summer, I really wanted to correct that pattern, and clear out my life in a way that let me breath easier. A big piece of that was letting go of a lot of little things that I felt like I SHOULD be doing and giving myself permission to put in the time to making what I truly love and cut out all the other things that fill up my mind, my freetime, and my market booth.

I’ve been slowly allowing myself more time to be in the wild places I love and recharge, and I have to tell you, it’s amazing what it’s done for my art, my confidence and my soul.

I feel like as a creator, I’m always looking for someone to flip on the big bright sign on the horizon that officially declares I’m enough, but in reality, the journey of being a creator is in itself the process of discovering that you’re the one with a finger on the light switch.

To all of those drowning in overwhelm, I see you. And whenever you’re ready, can you flip on that light? You’re the closest :)