Afraid Of Sharing Your Work? Read This.
Dearest one,
If you are a writer, an artist, or a creator stepping into the word with your bare heart for the first time, here are a few reminders to hold close.
Your art matters. I cannot possibly say this enough. You cannot possibly say this enough. Write it down as reminders in every space you occupy. Ink it on your brain and etch it into your heart. What you create is necessary. It’s a part of your life, your story, and your truth. And those are the only things any of us will ever leave behind in this world.
It won’t always feel like that. There will be times it feels silly. There will be times it feels ridiculous. There will be times you are trying to do justice to yourself and ironically conclude that you aren’t the right messenger of your own truth. There may be an endless barrage of such thoughts and feelings floating about inside you. Ignore as many as you can and feel the ones you cannot ignore. But feel them through and let them pass.
Know that they’re only amplifying your worst nightmares because your greatest dreams are around the corner and our minds love to self-sabotage. You’ve laid bare before your conscious mind every single part of you. You’ve given it all the ammunition it needs to use against you. But you did it because you believe in yourself, not to hurt yourself. Remember that courage, that conviction, that power; that is yours.
Yes, it can be nerve-wracking and downright frightening to lose the layers of careful camouflage and strip back every single veil you’ve stayed hidden behind. To turn yourself inside out and sit in your truth so vulnerably for the world to see. It’s also the bravest and most brutally soft thing that anyone can ever do.
That doesn’t mean everyone will get it. Not everyone will understand what you have created or what you are trying to say. Sometimes, the first 10 or 20 or 50 people will not get it. Maybe the first 100 won’t. They may not be your audience. Perhaps they are not your audience right now. Keep going. Take your art where it has to. Lift it up and keep moving it until it reaches the people who need it most. I promise you, there are those people.
It’s alright to question what you’ve created. You are allowed to have doubts and fears about it. You are allowed to deconstruct and reconstruct it until you think it reads how you want it to. You are allowed to take feedback and make it the best it can be. But you are not allowed to give up on it. You are not allowed to let the doubts and the fears and the feedback consume your belief that what you’ve made deserves to be in this world.
You have to trust it. You have to trust what you’ve given birth to. You have to support it even if it’s a difficult art-child. You have to hold it if it’s an anxious art-child. You have to push it out into the world, even if it begs you to keep it to yourself. You have to allow it to become what it has to. There is so much it can become and it can make you if you just trust it.
Let yourself show up with what you’ve made. No matter how it’s received or what your mind is saying to you right now, setting your work free is the only way to keep moving and creating the best you can. It’s the only way to keep growing.
Love,
A fellow artist
