So Thursday afternoon I had my “discovery” session with Tamara, a creative entrepreneurs and artists coach. As you may remember it had been suggested by Susan Mumford at my initial “mentoring” session, that I could do with half of my time with her being shared with the coach due to my severe anxiety, impostor syndrome and the fact that due to these things I keep getting in my own way.
Well to be honest a bit of me was sceptical, especially as I hate skype and the like (I won’t go over this all again here but you can read my previous post to understand how this affects me). However I have to admit I found this initial, shorter session to actually very helpful and we have already drummed down to the root of the problem.
Now a while ago I would not of shared this with you as though I am committed to writing a blog about my experience of the bursary that probably stops short at baring my soul to you. However, I have spent the last two years of my life producing ONLY work that bares my soul and exposes who I am and so why not keep on with this, terrifying but liberating process.
So, essentially everything boils down to a real, crippling anxiety. Now this may sound like common sense; however though I suffer an anxiety disorder it had never really occurred to me that this was why I was self-sabotaging my art career.
So as I spoke to Tamara I mentioned that I was going to the launch of BAS8 in Southampton this weekend and thought I should really network a bit, as let’s be honest this is one of the key reasons that previews and launches exist. However, I am terrible at this; it has been known for me to get my husband to drive an 8 hour round trip to where my work is in a show for a private view and for me to then have a panic attack and insist on leaving within 10 minutes — sad but I have actually done this on more than one occasion. So the reality of me talking to anyone new is relatively low.
So Tamara started talking to me about visualisation and my intuition and it made me think. I do have that inner voice that guides me and actually what I just realised I did, was that I completely ignore that voice most of the time and put things off to the point they become pointless… I really was sabotaging myself.
So Tamara wanted to get a move on as soon as possible at tackling this and I suppose in a way, resetting my mentality.
As I was unable to meet with her on Friday due to my schedule she very kindly made me a visualisation audio to use to help me to visualise talking to people, “the right people” and although it was for the events I have coming up this week ( for the arts organisation I co-run I have been accepted onto an SSE program and I have 2 full days with lots of new people this week) it can be applied to any situation.
It arrived this morning and I have already listened to it and thus far I am very impressed and willing to try it and I even feel positive that it will really help!
