If you’ve been reading this blog for the last couple months, you would know that I am enjoying messy, freeing, more abstract art making. I’ve been reflecting on what is pulling me towards this art process. Perhaps I am making messy art because it is more representative to me of the messy and painful aspects of life’s journey and mental health recovery. I notice I take pictures to find the beauty in the abstraction and chaos of the art – another metaphor for finding the gems of growth and learning in my mental health recovery journey. Navigating mental illness is often a struggle so perhaps in my art making I am trying to find my hope. I also write a lot about self-compassion, overcoming perfectionism and shame, what I think are important parts of a mental health recovery journey. Messy art helps me undo the perfectionist aspect of myself which helps me relax and enjoy the creative process.
We spend a large part of our lives trying to do the right thing. We try to not just survive but flourish. We try to create safety and stability. We also try to create a life that we are proud of. We try to control things. We are humans after all. And yet the nature of life is messy and often does not go as planned. We experience challenging health issues. We lose jobs or leave them. We have relationships issues or pivotal relationships end in grief and hurt.
We can become very self-critical for these perceived failures. We can see all our flaws, and we desperately want to change. Despite our efforts to be or do better, in our lives and ourselves, we experience failure. Then to compound this, we feel vulnerable to judgement. These feelings of shame can keep us stuck and can often become self-destructive.
And we know that happiness is often portrayed as perfection in the media. That through acquiring things and through living a certain way, we will be happy. I think it’s important to remember a perfect life isn’t congruent with how life is. Reaching for perfection is a way to control, a way to give yourself a solid foundation of self-esteem. If I do things perfectly, I am okay.
Unfortunately, if all your self-esteem comes from externals, you will likely experience a lot of shame if you fail. I think cultivating self-compassion and kindness no matter your failures is a great gift for your mental health. With self-compassion, the process of picking yourself up after a failure is a lot easier. Think of a loving person in your head supporting you through. You can grieve a failure. You can work towards positive change. You can be grateful for second chances. You can learn. Without a loving inner voice, it is easy to get stuck.
I can see how many times I have failed. How my desire for perfection has even led to more failure. I felt I needed to be good at everything and so I pushed too hard. I didn’t allow myself to let go of striving in areas that weren’t as important. I just pushed at everything. Often until I had a mental health episode. I see how much my worth was based other people’s approval and on my achievements.
All I can do now is keep working towards being authentic. Keep seeing my patterns and try to step away from what isn’t working. And I give myself some grace in all this growing – after all I am not perfect and will never be. And my life is not perfect and it’s okay.
I remember someone saying once that they were okay being a “middle achiever.” I remember thinking with surprise, “I have a choice?” Where does my own personal happiness align? Well, if I am truthful, I feel better in my life if there is a balance between rest and work, with play and achieving goals, and with social time and time to myself. I can let go of trying to achieve things that don’t matter to me so much. I can find a middle way. There is lightness in this for me – in casting aside some of the achievement mindset and focusing on the things I enjoy. I can let go of the outcome and just be present.
This art piece is all about what it means to find home for your heart. The life that helps you feel whole. Red is a powerful colour that I don’t often use. It can symbolize personal power, strong direction and goals but it also, for me, can symbolize the tenderness of the heart, self-compassion, and allowing of one’s true feelings to guide your life.
I wonder – how are you feeling today in terms of your failures? Can you see where perfection might be keeping you stuck? How can you heal shame around your failures? Can you let go of something, some high expectation or expectation that doesn’t fit with who you are? Can you decide what is important for you and let go of pushing in other areas? I hope these last months of winter you can give yourself extra love and compassion and rest in body and in mind. Just chose one thing on your mental health journey, that feels right and focus on that. ❤️❤️❤️Meegan
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