As I went on my morning walk today, I was thinking about the Magpie painting that has been sitting on my desk unfinished since April, and what was stopping me finishing it.
Why do I find a million other more important things to do? Tell myself “I’ll finish it tomorrow” every day for six months? Put even more things on my to do list and justify once I can clear all of that, my brain will feel less cluttered and I’ll be ready to work on it?
The answer is quite simply this: fear. When we are fearful our brain wants to keep us safe, and by safe I mean stuck in routine and tasks that feels familiar and easy. Comfortable. Safe in the knowledge nobody could judge you because you’re not really doing anything.
This is the same fear that delayed me publishing my website, launching my online shop, and taking a year to start writing blog posts.
Fear paralyses me, feeds my procrastination, whispers I need everything to be just right before doing anything, so I do nothing. Well not nothing, just other things.
Don’t get me wrong, my business has kept me busy this year, sewing, bookbinding and prepping for markets are all time consuming. I’m also caring for two geriatric puppers who demand a lot of my time attention. All the busyness has distracted me from what it is I really want to do though, which is paint. I know this, and have already made the decision to focus on painting next year, but why am I waiting until next year?
The brain is quite inventive creating obstacles when we’re fearful. These attempts our brains make to keep us safe and comfortable, preventing us from putting ourselves out there, taking risks and doing what we want to do, in effect preventing us from pursuing joy.
The taunts that if we try, it won’t be perfect so what’s the point? The inner dialogue telling us our other responsibilities are more important than what we want to do, and besides we won’t be good at it anyway. The inner critic poking holes in why our plans won’t work, injecting some guilt that we’d be neglecting those we love as an extra dig. Our mind creates a narrative that puts us in a box that feels safe, but the safety of our daily routines takes us hostage.
Let’s call it as it is, if another person did this to us it would be labelled emotional abuse, bordering on coercive control.
Is it because I don’t feel I deserve to do things that bring me joy? Perhaps my brain is just so used to the chaos of an incessant jumble of thoughts, the peace of flow is intolerable? Or it could be the I’ve become so accustomed to the overstimulation of the electronic world we live in, it’s difficult to stop and sit at a desk and calmly prepare to create.
The more time that passes, the harder it is to do it, to the point the simple act of picking up a paintbrush feels impossible. In fact, every time I make a move towards doing it, a sense of panic sets in. I don’t understand why the mere thought of doing something I truly want to do, and I know soothes me, would have such a negative impact?
I stopped walking and ruminating, sat in the park in the sunshine and drafted this post. My promise today is to finish my magpie painting, and by sharing this with you, I’m now accountable.
What exactly am I so afraid of? I could ruin the painting. So what? People won’t like it. Who cares!
I’m stuck because I haven’t finished that painting, and can’t move on to new work until I do. I have a library full of reference photos and take more every week. I know what I want my days to look like, and today I will take a step towards making that my reality… by finishing the damn painting!
Feeling stuck seems to be my theme for 2025, my last post was about this topic too. Here’s to spending the rest of the year getting unstuck!
Have you ever felt like this? Any tips? Let’s chat in the comments.
This blog post is 100% written by me, a living, breathing human being, no AI was used. These are all my own words and images, imperfect as they may be.
