I made a big mistake. And it has had me toiling around within this social media space and my own creativity for months and months!
I have been suffering from daily amnesia. Who am I? What am I doing? Wait, why am I doing this? Am I actually making any freaking difference? Am I saying what I want to say?
As an artist, as a creative, as a musician, as a single mother, as a business owner, as a yoga instructor, as a piano teacher, as a lover, as a partner, as a friend and needless to say also as a human being… what in the actual f#ck am I doing???
It’s been 6 years since I got divorced. Throw a pandemic in there + the entire world going mad, and it seems like a lifetime ago. During the divorce, I realized how bad things actually were for me that prior couple of decades, and how much I had to recover from. I spent those first years healing and understanding the divorce healing. As I rehabilitated myself and learned to practice the healing modalities that had helped me, I moved outward very fast. I became, dare I say, a bit ‘obsessed’ with helping others. I felt the absolute responsibility to go bring this to everyone. Emotion Code was the vehicle that allowed me to start relieving the ptsd symptoms, yoga was the vehicle that brought me back to feeling good inside of my body, and music was the vehicle that allowed me to start creating, composing and getting in touch with deep emotion. As soon as I found some highways of my healing, I’d think “People need to know! People need to hear this!” I needed to create a world, a community, a center, where people could understand that these things exist for them. There is hope on the other side of hopeless! Rock bottoms can include some ladders for climbing your way back out! I needed to tell all of the Christians! Who else was as confused as I was with phrases like “let go and let God” and “trust in the Lord and everything else falls into place” and “God is in control”? What did these actually mean? Not a single pastor, counselor, Christian therapist, or family member could point me toward the actual steps or tools for how to apply all of that biblical knowledge into the bridge I needed to build my life back. No harm, no foul to any of them. I think they were pasting them on top of their own problems as much as I had been. These metaphorical bandaids on top of gaping wounds stopped being enough for me. It didn’t actually make sense to me. What was I to do with this love of spirituality, this love for Jesus, and this deconstruction of my life and belief systems?
I started to feel the discrepancy in where I had been and where I was going within all of this healing. I was deeply in touch with how the struggle had been real for me. I kept searching for something that would make the biggest differences to a normal girl like me that no longer identified with her religion, but was still a spiritual empathic sensitive soul that wanted community, art, healing and music. I wanted a place for my daughters to understand their bodies and that they were sacred, and not to be controlled by any person, including a religion or a Christian man. I was admittedly a little messed up in the head after having bible verses used against me for a decade, after being told that I couldn’t trust myself, and after believing I was put here on this earth and in this body to serve others and to not think about myself. How does that all work out when you’re in the middle of a battle for your heart, your soul, your body and your very life? Not thinking of yourself (or for yourself) continues to not work well. The structure and system fell apart.
As I leaned into studying relationships, divorce, religious studies, spiritual books, quantum physics, healing, science and social issues, I began to put myself back together piece by piece. I needed to understand what else existed outside of my very limited understanding of the body, the world, this life. It was a school of hard knocks and exploration for those first few years. I was searching without knowing how to trust myself which is a bit of a precarious position to put oneself in, albeit completely necessary.
As I began to feel more whole and solid, I became overwhelmed with the feeling that I needed to go help people. I was compelled to go save all of the women in all of the terrible marriages and all of the people at rock bottom. I needed to go show anyone I could find on the internet that there is a different way, a better way. Eternal life and peace which surpasses all understanding isn’t necessarily talking about a life after this one. Those things can be found now.
In retrospect, I think I jumped too far ahead. It was a noble goal, sure. I did want to help others. It’s why I became an emotional clearing practitioner, a reiki practitioner, a yoga instructor and a piano teacher. It’s why I took on the thrill and the risk of opening up my own studio space to hold workshops and community gatherings. I think I got a little lost in the sauce. I forgot to keep experiencing the magic for myself. It was like I went out trying to show everybody the road and get them all healthy, happy and shiny, and meanwhile I got a little messy and a little lost. Subconsciously I thought that if I was able to save others, it’d make my awful experiences more ‘worth it’. If I could help all of these people I was picturing in my head, then it would vindicate my own suffering, it would make it all worth it. Noble, sure. On some levels, sure.
The problem is, that the ego likes to step in and make things bigger, better, larger. The ego likes to tell us that more reach means we are more important, and the more important we are, the more we can justify that we didn’t deserve the treatment we had before. Surely that cannot be the only measure we are giving those who have suffered greatly. One does not equal the other. What about those privately suffering? What about those who never even get justice in this lifetime?
A few years back I wrote some blogs about the divorce and unexpected pregnancy. I gained a lot of traction on them, one article circulating and bringing in over 100,000 monthly views to my website and to my work. Something about that messed me up. I started trying to do the writing for the people, and the art for the people, and the healing for the people, and sort of not doing it for myself anymore. The best art is the honest kind, the kind that tells the truth. The truth is fierce, it cuts like a sword. People can feel it. It resonates. I think the only writer’s block comes from a confused writer, one that isn’t in touch with her deepest truth.
Telling the truth isn’t hard, it’s just hard to find sometimes.
I am coming out of months and months of feeling lost on social media, claiming I haven’t known what to say; I felt like I lost my juicy potent message. Why? Now I see it. I was ever so subtly trying to please others instead of pleasing myself. Good art doesn’t come from pleasing people and it never will. I wanted to go find my community and then give them the art, healing, wellness, and workshops they needed. Well… how will they find me if I’m not posting the real legit shit?
Art is expression. It’s saying something that comes from an invisible concept within one’s deepest heart, deepest experiences, deepest emotion, or deepest wounds. These profound and oftentimes painful experiences are what makes life rich and deep. The richness and depth are those threads we can pull out and weave into the very work of our hands, heads and hearts as we create something brand new. That is art. It is meant to be felt, not just seen or heard. It matters because we matter! It does not only matter when it reaches others. That is silliness. That is ego. I’m happy to say that I've put the ego away. I don’t need reach, I don’t need understanding of my story. I will create art from my own sacred sanctuary of solitude, and I will let my body say what she wants to say. Join me and say the thing, paint the shape, get the angle, write the words that are your deepest truth.
Art is for lovers and lovers are for art. Go find your everyday beautiful, your everyday art. It’s always there to be found; expressing it is the real authentic joy of the artist. Even if, and often when, it is done alone.
Cheers, lovers.
Meg
Comments