They are Only Fears
I sat down today to write about a recent experience with fear; ironically, my goal to write about fear has caused, you guessed it, fear. This fear, I believe, springs from my anxiety to “get it right,” for the fear that if I don’t get it right, there will be consequences. After all, everyone is watching and waiting and worst of all, judging. And, while it feels really real, it just is NOT TRUE. You see that for me fear is a strange mixture of swirly irrational nonsense, the slings and arrows of whatever unresolved issues that I could be carrying around with me, totally unrelated to what is actually true. These fears are not facts; they are only fears.
I highlight the idea of fear because in a recent sketching workshop, I asked students to share their biggest fear about sketching and drawing with others and in the outdoors. One-by-one they shared their fears and were surprised to learn that they had fears in common:
Fear of being judged by self and others;
Fear of failure;
Fear of feeling lost and therefore limited.
The worst case scenario for them and probably most was what if I can’t do this. The group took comfort in knowing that we, including me, were in the same boat. I hoped that after hearing our collective fears, it felt easier to launch into the great unknown together.
Even armed with all of this good stuff, I could see the fear surface and interrupt what I saw as a truly beautiful day in the park, sketching with a perfectly lovely group of people. At least one student in every group, in fact, was overcome by their fears. Despite all of my calm and confidence, I couldn’t nudge them in the right direction, to let go and to trust themselves. I couldn’t get them to believe that this was a can’t fail experience, all for them and whatever they wanted it to be. I wasn’t prepared for their strong emotional response and felt somewhat bad that they, in a sense, were opting out of a learning experience because their fears felt so real. Fear had created a huge wall that they couldn’t climb over.
“What I hate about fear is that it creates another reality where you believe all of the worst things about yourself.”
What I hate about fear is that it creates another reality where you believe all of the worst things about yourself. And, once that fear takes a good hold, you can’t seem to let yourself enjoy things that are right in front of you like a pretty day in the park with new friends or messing around with paints, pens, and paper in the sunshine. I have worked a very long time to reframe my fear about art-making and other things. After a lot of work, I strive to be curious and to be open. I see painting and sketching as a very personal practice and not a product. And, I openly acknowledge that I am not great at everything and therefore I am always ready to learn. Wouldn’t it be boring if we were all great at everything? What would there be left to do? My desire to practice signals that I value the process of becoming a great whatever it is I am meant to be. In the end, my fears aren’t really about me because fear has nothing to do with what I know I can do for myself.
To conclude, did I get this right? Not sure. Does it matter? Probably not. The point is, I wrote it, it’s written, and it felt great.