Just being yourself is medicine for someone else
I was giving a psychic reading this week and the person I was working with was a doctor. I usually don’t know what I will say or who will show up during the reading and I barely remember it after. But sometimes things stick, probably because I needed to hear them as well.
In this case, we were talking about the possibility of her living a life that doesn’t quite fit the mold. I got the message that she worrying about what family, friends, and the world would think about her as a single woman nearing her 30s. Being an artist, single, childless and 40+, I know a thing or two about making unconventional choices, but it’s still something I’m unpacking. As a chronic people pleaser it’s hard to not think about who you might be pissing off if you shine too bright in your own weird way.
The advice that she got is that to live her own life, the life that is truly hers regardless of what others think, is healing for everyone. The analogy that came up, perhaps because she is a doctor, is that people who may resist your positive life choices are similar to patients who get ornery when you try to prescribe them a reduced diet or medication. People who desperately need to open their hearts and minds may get pissed when they see you doing your own thing, but they need it.
People who desperately need to open their hearts and minds may get pissed when they see you doing your own thing, but they need it.
Your freedom is medicine they may not be ready to take. It’s possible they don’t want to look at their own choices or missed opportunities or listen to the little voice inside them that may have been silenced for so long. It’s painful to make changes and as Steven Pressfield says in The War of Art the greater the resistance, the more important and powerful the change. (I’m paraphrasing.)
What change could mean is different for everyone. Maybe that grumpy uncle will start writing a blog, or your mom will pick up a paintbrush after quitting art decades ago. Maybe your sister will go on a solo tour of Europe for the first time, and be so inspired that she quits her job and starts a new business.
Imagine if everyone responded positively to the brave acts of those around them. What would it look like?
I was recently reading a book called You Are A Bad Ass and in it, the author, Jen Sincero, talks about how crabs are notoriously selfish when it comes to their own survival. If piled into a bowl, it doesn’t even have to be big, rather than creating a ladder to help each other out of their tiny death trap with all their spindly clacking legs and pincers, they grab each other by the foot and pull their comrades down, meaning that no one escapes their fate as dinner. The crabs seemingly missed the memo on Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork, and a crucial lesson of evolution: we need to lift each other up to survive.
The crabs seemingly missed the memo on Teamwork Makes The Dreamwork, and a crucial lesson of evolution: we need to lift each other up to survive.
Evolving and following your heart can often mean that you may be up there at the top of the bowl for a moment by yourselves with confused crabs trying to snap at your ankles. It can be very lonely carving out your own path.
It’s much easier to play it safe at th bottom of the bowl, and grab at the other crabs trying to break free than it is risking it all only to get pulled back down. I have been in both spots. I have been the person who struck it out alone, and I have been in funks so deep and dark that all I could do was silently hate on everyone who wasn’t me.
After graduate school a bunch of people who were waiting until they finished had babies within the first six months of graduation. Suddenly everyone was a parent and there was a critical mass of newborns in their hand-painted onesises being shuffled around at parties and in the parks. I had until then felt safe in the art community as it is a cozy place for oddballs and people rejecting the nuclear family dynamic. But here were people just like me, with the same hopes and dreams for their careers, creating joyful family centers and living in abundance. At the same time, my career was doing well - better than most of the people I went to school with. I had started working with galleries in SF, NY and LA within that first year- a manifestation of my wildest vision board dreams. But as it goes for emerging artists, I made next to no money and so I worked three part-time jobs just to make ends meet. In a way I was a crab both at the top and the bottom of the pile. In both cases miserable and loney wishing I knew what to do to feel more connected.
I was technically glad for people that they were living the life they wanted, but I could not genuinely feel happy for them because I didn’t see myself relfected and it made me feel bad. All I could think was here we were, moving on to a new stage of life, and must to my surprise despite my career success I was feeling very left behind.
When my opportunities disolved into thin air along my physical and mental health, and any sense of financial wellbeing, I ended up getting a full-time day job and began the slow ascent with a totally different mindset. This second try at a life has been called a second roller coaster by comedians on podcasts, or The Second Mountain by David Brooks, who wrote about what happens after a first career arc. The idea is that the first mountain is focused on skill building in your field (being the best painter!) and making a name for yourself (Instagram followers!), but for most that eventually becomes unsatisfying, and leads to a paradigm shift and a second career arc that is more focused on mentorship, community building and generosity.
When you choose a way that exists outside of a capitalist drive for success and completion, despite how you feel along the way, people take notice. Even if they don’t follow your lead immediately, or ever, they notice and they watch to see how it plays out. While I may not have followed people’s examples to the letter, their freedom gave me permission to be free in my own way.
I would be lying if I said I was really on board with the lessons of the second mountain, but I’m trying. I have been focusing a lot on doing things with an open heart and generosity. Time and energy spent somewhere on something or someone is a gift and should be treated by such as both the giver and the receiver. It’s easy to lose sight of that, especially with my Capricorn moon, when all I want to do is feel the ego boost of having crossed off 10 items from my To Do List.
Back to the idea that following other’s brave choices can be healing and mind-opening. When you choose a way that exists outside of a capitalist drive for success and completion despite how you feel along the way, people take notice. Even if they don’t follow your lead immediately, or ever, they notice and they watch to see how it plays out. This is coming from someone who did just that for many years before finally deciding the rat race was not in fact working for me, or the kind of art I wanted to make. I watched, often jealously. And while I may not have followed people’s examples to the letter, their freedom gave me permission to be free in my own way.
What is the bravest thing you have ever done? How did people react?
Bravest thing: I walked away from my crazy upbringing, and I’m trying to talk about it, however imperfectly, to help others.