Do you let overwhelm steal your joy?

It is a thief. Don't leave the door unlocked.

Did you make a list of goals for the new year? A vision board perhaps? How is it going? They say (statistically) most people give up in the 3rd week of January. And here we are, at the end of February. I love a new beginning and planning out all the things I would love to work on. But around the end of January, I found myself completely overwhelmed by them. In fact, I think I wasted an entire week filled with anxiety. Maybe more. I have this sense of always being behind. Not just on my list, but in life. I spent so much time working really hard toward the wrong things. That now, I know the right things, and I want some sort of pass to jump ahead in the line.

There is no bigger waste of time then thinking about how you have wasted time in the past and feel completely overwhelmed by all the things you would love to do in the future. When I say that sentence out loud, I realize how ridiculous it is. I’m frustrated by the amount of items I am so excited to do and don’t have enough time to do them all? What a gift it is, knowing what you love to do and wanting to do it everyday. So why the anxiety? Why the overwhelm? Is it that looming crown of success? To feel the goal achieved and that it was all for something? That have book published, that art licensed, that new skill mastered? The idea that what you love, finds people who love it too? And of course, making a living doing it.

I usually wake up each day really excited to work on my art business. But the sense of overwhelm temporarily stole it from me. I woke up and within an hour, I felt indecisive. I worked a little on this. A little on that. I felt defeated. I could not even settle myself to enjoy working on a project. I had lost the delight in the process.

I kept hearing this voice in my head, just paint. But painting takes so much time. I have so much to do. Painting takes more time than anything. All that color mixing. And I’m not a fast painter. I’m a painter who is learning to paint again. With gouache. A new paint I hear people rave about. But I decided to give myself a whole Friday. To hide the list of to-dos. To just paint.

I decided to watch a class on gouache and pick up some new techniques. Learning more about how others use gouache and their process was just what I needed to inspire me. There are so many things online today we can learn at a click of a button. Though this also can lead to more overwhelm. You should see my list of things I want to watch when I have time. One day at a time, I tell myself.

Right outside my door, through the courtyard, all the trees that line the paths are filled with camellia trees in full bloom. They lured me into our current neighborhood. They arch over the pathways and toss full blooms at our feet. The rains have been heavy and knock them to the ground. They stain the sidewalks in all shades of pink and float on puddles. I walked around and collected all the variations of pink with those vibrant yellow pistil centers. I placed them all around my desk and just began to draw.

I sat there all Friday. Morning turned into afternoon and afternoon turned into night. I did not want to leave my desk. I played my favorite music. I heard the rain drops outside my window. I watched the camellias wilt on my desk. I felt a calm that had been a stranger to me for weeks. This. This is the feeling I want each day.

They always say meditation is the key to finding yourself in the mess. To discover that peaceful calm. To sit in silence and just let yourself be. But what if you move so fast, slowing down makes you feel anxious? I think that is why that type of meditation is challenging for me. But moving a brush around paper, going on a hike, creating something - that centers me.

I think overwhelm comes from all the voices we have heard outside of ourselves our entire lives. Voices that tell us “artists struggle”. That you are too old. That you are too late. You missed your opportunities. You are an imposter. Achieving dreams are for a chosen few. You made the wrong choices and now it is just too late. But I have never been this old and I have never been this sure. I have never felt this much knowing. Maybe things come to us when we are ready to listen. And maybe if we continue to listen, we will find that path that has been waiting for us all along.

A successful day for me means I show up fully for everything I do. I am present. Calm. Creative. Delighted by the little things. I make space to just be. I carve out time for my sketchbook. I get outside and walk in the rain that rarely shows up most of the year. Whether I’m working on freelance work for client or my own painting, I’m excited to see the result. I get out of my head and into what is in front of me. Overwhelm steals the possibility for joy. It is a thief. Don’t leave the door unlocked.

I made a little vision board for 2024. It sits on my desk in front of me. I don’t believe if you make one, it will all magically come true. It is more a gentle reminder of all the things in the road ahead of me I can get a little closer to - one day at a time. If I want to work for it.

Our dreams fuel us. They are the light in the darkness. Believing that all those things we make that light us up, have a purpose. Indulging my creativity is the only true thing I know that is guaranteed to bring me peace daily in a world of unknowns.

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The name Mary Oliver may be familiar to you. Every time I stumble upon one of her poems I have not read, I am always in awe of her ability to express all the wonder we can find in nature.

When I Am Among the Trees
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.

I highly recommend the audiobook “Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver”. I listened to it on my morning walks through the trees.

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February is American Heart Month. The second week of February is CHD (Congenital Heart Defect) Awareness Week. Fourteen years ago I gave birth my daughter. We found out the day after, she was missing a chamber of her heart. Four open heart surgeries later, and she just wrote and performed a monologue in her high school theater group about how she found the magic in all those hospital stays. As a parent, it has been a gift to watch her create art out of her own experience and share it. Many of us have been surprised by a health diagnosis or that of someone we love. We have no control over what might befall us. But we do have control over what we do with it. I find sharing our stories connects us all. We feel less alone. We find a little gem in the dust after the storm - we pick it up, brush it off and share its beauty with others.