This, too, is critical to understand only because those demons never truly vaporize and never fully shut up. We can muffle them, we can sit with them, and we can even use their words to fuel different outcomes, but they’ll be periodically noisy in our heads. Part of our progress then is learning how to continue despite them and all established artists have mastered that hard-won, unspoken skillset. In this though, each and every one, whether they know it or not, has made a choice: To accept the noise rather than quit to avoid it. And they face that choice again and again. Yet consider this — which is actually more powerful? The love of creating our art or the discomfort that’ll inevitably come with it? As Elizabeth Gilbert remarks in her TED talk, the love of her art was stronger than the pain of her failure and so always “called her home.” May you always find your way home. For this then, I highly recommend these TED talks — seriously, listen to them closely and take them to heart:
Elizabeth Gilbert
Success, Failure, and the Drive To Keep Creating
Brené Brown
Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count
Now in that spirit, let’s reconsider these demons because if we just spin things a little bit, they become a backwards reflection of some pretty fantastic things! For starters, they prove that we’re intent and conscientious artists who are passionate about what we do. Hey, if we weren’t, we wouldn’t beat ourselves up so badly, would we? Nope! We’d be indifferent and bang out shoddy workmanship and hit artistic plateaus without a care. That says a lot of great stuff about us and our art, doesn’t it? Similarly, these demons steer us away from becoming arrogant, dismissive, or from taking things for granted. Really, it’s not such a bad thing to stay a little shook, to second-guess ourselves every so often, to have some uncertainty and doubt filter into our process. It keeps us honest, hungry, resilient, and quick to reconsider things, and that means we remain pliable, adaptive, evolving, and authentic. Confidence is a fine thing to be sure, but unchecked confidence risks a kind of hubris that invites chronic blindspots.
Even so, these demons can be brutes, can’t they? But in giving us a beating, they also show us how to be gentler with others, to become more generous, empathetic, supportive, and understanding. Imagine how much nicer a community we’d have with more of that? This isn’t to say that beating ourselves up now has an excuse, but if we pay attention to the bigger lesson as we ease up on ourselves, it wouldn’t have been in vain. Because, let’s face it, while we’re punishing ourselves, we’re also given the power to stop, right? To learn to be kinder to ourselves as well in turn? To cut ourselves some slack, too? It starts with a choice — as these things always do — and that choice can be shaped into a habit which can then grow into a frame of mind. Just keep at it.
Furthermore, if we learn to harness these demons to check and balance our progress, we gain an inner dialogue that can more strategically guide us. Really, our inner voices are our first chorus of critique, aren’t they? So why not put them to work! Because if we can more objectively evaluate our work and establish goalposts with their input, don’t we have the unprecedented opportunity to make huge leaps forwards? What does that mean practically speaking? Well, turn that inner critic into pro-active study, into research, exploration and artistic exercises. Don't just take it sitting down — convert it into action! For example, workshops, classes, seminars, and even visiting sculpture gardens and museums are a terrific way to gather buildable ideas for our inner critic to chew on. So yeah — okay — we don’t like what these demons are saying? Prove ‘em wrong! Or even better, prove ‘em right! Better? Yes! It means we made a precious mistake and — bam! — we’ve just learned something. So think of our inner demons as a gaggle of opportunities we can tap into for growth, artistically or personally.
These demons can also help us find new ways to gauge self-worth by teaching us the perils of seeking validation from others, shaping us into more confident, composed, centered artists. Because the thing to remember is this: The problem isn’t that these inner voices speak, it's how they speak, how strongly, cruelly, and persistently they speak that’s the real issue here. Everyone has inner doubts, but those with particularly harsh, loud, and insistent inner voices can become paralyzed, for good reason. So learn to manipulate them and we do that by dissecting what’s fueling them deep down. Did someone plant a bad seed in our childhood? Did we have a surprising failure rock us to our core? Did we lose our joy along the way — how? Have we gotten swept up in trends that don’t mesh with our sensibilities? If we’re feeling behind the times or overlooked, is that our insecurity talking instead of our reality? The thing is, these inner voices can also be thought of as a warning bell, an alarm that’s telling us something is very wrong in how we’re doing things. In this way then, these demons can actually lead to a reconciliation with those distracting things that impede our happiness to strengthen our dedication to our art in the long run.
It’s also crucial to remind ourselves that it’s going to take a lot of tries to take even one step forwards. None of it — the learning curve, success, fame, innovation — will come easily. In fact, some of it will come quite by accident or as a surprise, and a lot of it will come with curiosity, sacrifice, persistence, discipline, moxie, and hard work. There’s a lot of chaos involved in all this — nothing is predictable and so nothing should be expected. Always go into anything in this activity with intention without expectation. Stay as open as we can. Create work that we love to create and have fun making folks happy, but always remember to enjoy the experience and to learn whatever tidbits it offers along the way. That’s it. Yes, it’s fun to daydream about all those ribbons and even hope that one of our pieces will finally put us on the map, but it’s a crazy world out there with a lot of great work and a lot of different opinions. There’s also a lot of opportunities to explore all these things in different ways so stay open to happy opportunities that can help us share and grow. And talk to other artists about these issues. Get these concerns out into the open to raise awareness and find connection because we can find a lot of strength and wisdom in each other.
It also bears mentioning that creating great art rests on something unspoken: Sacrifice. A lot of it. We don’t talk about this often enough. Our development isn’t just what we put into it, but what we’re willing to carve out — time, money, resources, energy, or anything else we have give up to more fully invest ourselves in our task at hand. Indeed, we have to buy the materials and equipment — and good quality ones. We have to put in the time — tremendous amounts of time. We have to pour in the energy, discipline, and focus — inordinate amounts. We have to invest in our libraries, travel to classes, and pro-active research and innovation — oodles of it. And all that’s gotta come from somewhere, right? Even from our social life and family life and our ability to buy other things. Can we do this? There is no right or wrong answer here — we each have our thresholds — but how we answer can sometimes pre-determine the nature of our progress. Because if we cannot make those sacrifices, our development can be slowed and we need to make peace with that. Honestly, there’s just no way we’re going to progress at the same rate as someone who can more fully sacrifice what’s needed to make those leaps. For example, I’ve sacrificed an active social life to develop my art — that was deliberate. I’ve also invested in my reference library and in travel to workshops, classes, and retreats rather than buying other things. I’ve burned countless hours in research and study, and artistic exercises as well. And because teaching is a great way to learn, I’ve also sacrificed tremendous amounts of time, resources, and energy writing educational articles and blog posts and helping to run RESS. Every step forwards isn’t a manifestation of what I put into it then, but also what was sacrificed to allow that step to happen in the first place. Not enough folks understand this equation and so get frustrated when their development pulls up short compared to others. This isn’t a reflection of their skills per se, but an indicator of their investment level. Because — yes — traveling to that expensive class may be just the ticket to our improvement, but unless we can do that, we’re going to get stuck behind our own learning curve for a longer time. And that’s okay! Not everyone can just throw life into the wind, especially if we have families, work schedules, pets, financial limitations, and other obligations. The point then is this: Our assumed “ineptitude” isn’t necessarily our innate abilities but is probably more a function of those life constraints that keep us from making those sacrifices that would lead to developmental leaps. Quite literally, "that's life,” not us, and we need to keep from beating ourselves up for the wrong reasons.
Altogether then, our ultimate outcome all depends on how we want to react to these inner demons— and that first starts with a choice. We have to choose to keep going every single time we hit a bumpy road or even fall down. Get up. Dust off. Keep going. Again and again and again. Do that often enough and all that internal turmoil will begin to morph from an obstacle into fuel. All that unease and doubt can transform into conduits for confidence, better forms of validation, a healthier sense of self-worth, a way to foster gratitude, and a wiser approach to all this. They become a call to action rather than a robber of intent. Ultimately, those artists who prevail with any degree of sanity have found a way to coexist with their demons by developing counterbalances to stay centered. And those artists who excel even further have found a way to turn each of their fears into an asset that propels them forwards. For instance, fear of failure turns into research which morphs into creative exploration that ultimately accepts failure as part of this cyclical process. Or the poor feedback we get that makes us feel worthless, overlooked, or angry, we turn that energy into letting go of peoples’ opinions and the need for their validation to dive deeper into creating work that pleases us more freely and enthusiastically. Or instead of fretting over another artists’ success while we meet with crickets, work to develop our Voice more robustly to make our work more distinctive and exciting. Or if that monster self-doubt starts yakking again, we moxie up to meet the challenge, throwing down a gauntlet in front of ourselves. Heck — maybe even decide to do something completely out of left field to add more fun into the mix! Sometimes creative boredom can masquerade as a pesky action-stopper because it’s certainly amazing how heady inspiration can bulldozer right through any lingering sense of dread. So it’s all about conversion of the negative into a positive. Instead of denying that energy, transform it! Absolutely, if we can convert negative energy that impedes us into something positive we can use, we reestablish mastery of our experience and hopefully regain enthusiasm in our work. We’ll probably even end up happily surprising ourselves!
Because here’s the thing — your art needs you. It simply wouldn’t exist without you creating it. No one in the full breadth of the Universe past, present, or future could ever be its pathway — you are its one and only conduit. That really important. That means something really special. So believe me when I tell you that your art matters. Even when things seem so pointless and devoid of joy, it still matters. In fact, it matters even more. Hold onto it closer and even if you don’t trust in yourself, trust in your art. Because as it needs you, you need it, right? For your own deep reasons, your art feeds something wonderful inside you, fills you up and makes your inner light shine just that much brighter. It really doesn’t matter then what others think of all this, does it? After all is said and done, other voices are really just incidental. This relationship has only always been — and will always only ever be — between you and your art. You represent a beautiful duality, a marvelous symbiosis of you and this astonishing, unique energy within you. You give each other strength, affirmation, meaning, and purpose. Meditate on that for a moment to remember just how amazing and precious that is.
Yet despite being bonded with our art, the act of creating something can still exist on a precarious edge, a fine tightrope to walk every step. That urge, that joy for arting can be endangered so quickly and easily, can’t it? Even just one careless comment — even from within ourselves — can inflict a pile driver of damage. And when that happens, that’s a very real crisis that speaks directly to our humanity, to the very root of who we are. Sure, we can tell ourselves “I’m just being mean to myself again,” or “I shouldn’t take things so personally” and perhaps that works at times. But in those cases where these fail, we need a first aid that only comes with a fuller understanding of our internal landscape as it relates to our art. In a very real sense then, we’re tasked with strengthening our bond with our art, entwining that connection so strongly and densely that it’ll weather anything life could throw at it. We need deep roots. So in this way, our art asks us to get to know ourselves better, doesn’t it? Asks us to work on reconciliation, on acceptance, on exploration, of rethinking and revisiting, and a host of other personal discoveries that help us reveal more of what we’re made of and who we truly are. As such, our art invites us to become more authentic versions of ourselves so it can be a more authentic version of itself — and it will always welcome us with open arms no matter who that authentic you turns out to be! As we do this then, we may learn to identify those thoughts, habits, lifestyles, and arenas that harm us, helping us to stake out a new inner peace and balance. Sometimes those parts of ourselves and our lives we don’t need anymore can camouflage themselves as a distracting demon — dump those aspects and we dump those demons, too.
When we get to this point then, we’ll probably find a goodly wad of chutzpah — because we need it. Lots of it. Guts. Daring. Spunk. Moxie. Grit. Tenacity. Audacity. Cheek. Pluck. Call it what you will, but it’s the nitro needed for our fuel. Because joy isn’t enough. Joy won’t protect us from the negativity onslaught but crumble, even disintegrate. What we need is something much stronger, something deeper, something when fostered to full robustness, becomes indestructible. We need love. In the deepest sense, creating art is fundamentally an act of love which is why it feeds the soul so beautifully. It’s why arting can be such a sanctuary, a rehabilitation, a re-fueling. So feed that love and we feed our art, right? But what we may not know is that love itself needs huge chunks of daring to really make it go boom! Just like it takes a tremendous amount of courage — of a willingness to make ourselves vulnerable — to love someone, arting does, too. So to keep our courage up, let’s remember five things. First, our art needs us just as much as we need our art. It needs our energy, our tending, our love, and our dedication — it cannot exist on its own. And in return for life, it offers us so much more — and we’re worth that. So second, our art is worthwhile — we’re worthwhile — even if our demons insist that isn’t so. They’re lying. Our art is truly worth fighting for so get back into the arena and start swinging! Third, more people than we know are rooting for us because they love our art. They may not always speak up or we may not always hear them, but trust that they’re there and they’re waiting in bated breath to see what we crank out next. Fourth, being able to practice our art is a blessing, a gift. Yes — it’s easy to short-change ourselves because self-love can be really difficult at times granted, but we must remember that it’s through our art that we can find healing in all this, too. So just keep creating. And fifth then, understand that the more we art, the easier arting becomes, and the less we art, the harder it remains. So the solution for a dry spell? For fear and doubt? Just do art. Take a big gulp and do more of it. Creativity feeds on itself, inspiration propagates itself, discipline refines itself, and moxie shores itself up. Feed all that with love and our creativity becomes unstoppable, even by those demons trying to tackle us.
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
~ Ben Okri
So protect that creative conduit and nurture it into unbounded growth! It’ll take work, it’ll take dedication and self-gentleness, and it may even make us uncomfortable at times as only the journey of self-discovery can, but trust the process. That light at the end of the tunnel was never a train, it was our art leading us with a lantern urging us onward. Don’t stop! As Churchill advised, “When you’re going through Hell, keep going.” When we’ve got a strong bond with our art, a better understanding of our authentic selves, a hefty dose of gumption, and a bold trust that we can make it through, we become the train plowing right over our inner demons.
Becoming demonslayers instead of hapless victims of our own design is just as crucial as learning how to use clay or pigment. In some ways then, the more telling — but backwards — measure of personal success in our niche perhaps can be achieving a robust amalgam of coping mechanisms because it means we’ve done something of note and we did it boldly and courageously. We “showed up” as Brené Brown would put it. And in doing so, we’ll learn that our boat is ours to navigate in our own waters, and with some insights and learned choices, we can ride out any stormy sea with relative ease to preserve our creative joy.
So ultimately, our inner demons only have as much power as we’re willing to give them. But the thing to remember is this: They’re never going away because they’re the other side of the coin of our creative joy. All life is balance, right? So here’s the thing: Our inner demons may be manifestations of our darker selves, but that doesn’t mean they’re our more truthful selves. Cynicism, doubt, and negativity isn’t a function of being more genuine or more grounded in reality. Indeed, if they’re the other side of the coin, then there’s optimism, hope, and positivity on the other side that’s just as valid, right? Don’t let those demons dictate your reality! Don’t let them convince you that they’re speaking the real deal because, by definition, they cannot. Always wearing blinders, they simply can never see the full breadth of who you are and what you’re made of and how amazing your talent truly is. So if they start welling up again — and at times they will — remember this absolute fact: For every awful burden they bring, there’s a counterpart that’s just as true and real only we’re forgetting about it. Remind ourselves more often of those wonderful things as a habit — seek them out, focus on them, internalize them — and it’s brilliant just how quickly our creative frame of mind can change. It’ll take effort and constant vigilance, of course, but we got this. Sail n' slay on!
“Your art doesn’t exist to support you. You exist to support your art.”
~ Kiki Smith