on confidence

(me, 2006)

I learned how to be fearless through the process of learning how to paint in 2006 and 2007. I was 30 years old and feeling anything but fearless, yet that was the year I fell deeply in love with mixed media painting. Like a crush. An obsession. And I desperately wanted to learn how to make those beautiful messes on canvas - the ones with all the textures and drippy paints and collaged layers of papers. I bought books & took workshops & experimented & painted & crafted & shredded & stenciled & smudged & smeared like my heart depended on it. Turns out all of that creative abandon of spilling layer upon layer on a canvas FREED me up. And my confidence grew. In art and in life.

Becoming fearless felt exhilarating, like an exhale, like I could finally be who I was.

Very quickly, my portfolio bloomed. I launched my online shop. I got a book deal. I wrote the book. Magazines came knocking. My art found new eyes. Big deals came a’calling. Contracts were signed. My art became licensed — landing in home decor stores & gift shops all over the world (dream. come. true.)  I launched an e-course — then ebooks. Through it all, I wanted to share what I’d learned by crafting a creative life — how full my heart had become. People listened. The kindness kept building and my confidence grew. Life was good. My friends would often comment on how fearless I seemed. They were right. Painting, and growing into the creative life, taught me to believe in myself and I will carry that gift with me, always.

(me, 2011)

And then, somewhere around 2011, I lost my confidence. I suppose new parenthood and a particularly traumatic birth were my cracking open moments, the portals in which I lost a little bit of my spark. Last year, in 2012, I began to dive deep into healing the parts of myself that didn't get tended to during the last several years of living with confidence as well as the parts that got cracked open when I became a mama to a most adorable little boy named True.

All good. All beautiful in those messy, important ways.

And then I found myself gathered a couple of weeks ago with nine other women. We called our gathering The Radiate Sessions because we spent a lot of time radiating possibilities with one another when it came to our businesses, and our business' soul missions. During the weekend the word confidence kept coming up for me over and over. I could feel it coming around again, like a long lost friend that you haven't seen in ages yet there they are, just as you remembered them to be, yet older, wiser, softer.

Over and over again, I am learning the power of being with our people, our tribes. I hadn't realized how deeply I missed this part of myself until this gathering had me feeling alive, free, and unearthing pieces pieces of lost confidence.

There was a beautiful hour during the weekend when the women gifted me with an unexpected palm circling ceremony. It will be something I remember, always. I cried (hard) as these friends reflected back to me my significance in their lives, and in the work I'm doing in the world. There were gifts, and notes, and beautiful words. I remember thinking to myself remember this, be present for this, take it in, allow yourself to receive. I felt incredibly seen, celebrated, adored, loved. Without a doubt, this circling ushered my confidence back into my life. A humbler, softer, cleaner confidence. I was even given a little sea monster during this circling with a secret message hidden inside. The secret message? Confidence. Seriously friends, I am not making it up. Sea monster = message from the universe = awe. How did that little sea monster know what I most needed to hear? There are no mistakes. 

(Photo by Andrea Scher)

Later in the day we painted words on our bodies. Have you ever done this? I've done lots of variations of this exercise at other gatherings, and it's a powerful, soul healing declaration. This time around, I choose, of course, to invite confidence. It seemed to insist I acknowledge it with a celebratory YES! And so I did. It's not lost on me that taking the leap into painting and the creative life all of those years ago is what gifted me a beautiful, fearless confidence. And now, all of these years later,  paint is being used again to welcome confidence back into my skin, into my life, into my heart. What a gorgeous full circle moment for me. 

What do you most need to here? Write it down. On a piece of paper. On your body. In your journal. What I've learned is that these declarations are little hope notes we gift to ourselves. They help us get clear, manifest, celebrate, and nurture the pieces of ourselves that need nurturing.

What a gift. Thank you, confidence. I'm so glad you're back. Thank you Radiate Sessions for....everything.