WHAT’S MISSING?

It has now been almost 12 weeks since I quit my job to explore my creative desires, and in some ways I feel like I have nothing to show for it, while in other ways I feel like I’ve moved mountains. I have a blog that is inconsistent, an Instagram with almost no followers, and while I’m painting, sketching and exploring self-portrait photography, I still feel like I have no real direction. So over the last week or so I’ve been challenging myself to examine what is missing.

“The funny thing is, nobody is actually questioning me as much as I’m questioning myself. ”

I was sure leaving my job with no plan would feel liberating and create this sense of freedom I had been searching for, and in many ways it has. I am happier than I’ve been in ages, and my partner said to me recently, “You’re like a different person.” And he’s right.

Yet there is still something underlying that is holding me back.

When people ask me what I do, I panic and scramble to explain why I left a well-paying, steady job to “explore my creativity”. To be honest, I often feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, and having to explain it feels like I’m a child again. Getting caught doing something I shouldn’t and scrambling to defend myself.

The funny thing is, nobody is actually questioning me as much as I'm questioning myself. I keep looking for proof that this is working. That I've made the right decision.That all of this wandering around with a camera, a sketchbook, and a head full of ideas is leading somewhere. But maybe that's part of the problem.

Somehow, I find myself back in the same routine of expectations and constant doing, feeling like if I stop, I’m being lazy or not working hard enough. Where does that expectation even come from? I left a draining work environment to focus on creating, yet I’m not giving myself time to get inspired to create. I feel like I have to constantly be churning out work, like a machine. Create. Post. Write. Paint. Produce. Repeat. As if creativity can be forced into a schedule and measured by output.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that what I've been missing isn't direction, it's space. To think, wander, and be inspired.

I keep saying that this journey began when I started meditating daily, but I think the truth is that the desire for change in my life had been brewing for much longer than that. I feel like my whole life I’ve been searching for something. Meditation didn't create the desire; it just got me quiet enough to really hear it.

And somehow, after over a year of consistent meditation, that’s what I’m still working on. How to listen. Not just to the ideas that come to me, but to the parts of myself that have been trying to get my attention for years. The parts I refer to as my Inner Muse. I’ve always had the capacity to hear her, but I’ve also gotten very good at pushing her down. I appease her just enough to quiet her, but never fully listen to what she is trying to say.

Maybe that’s all that is missing. Not direction, a plan, or a clear definition of what I’m doing. Just deeper listening. Less trying to force an outcome and more trusting that there is a reason I felt called to step away from the life I had built. More trusting that inspiration is just as important as productivity. 

They say “all who wander aren’t lost,” and that has never felt more true to me.