July 21, 2025 • 45 mins
What does Pride and Prejudice have to do with your creative process?
This week, we explore how perfectionism and limiting beliefs keep us from falling in love with our creativity—and how self-awareness, curiosity, and gentleness can help us come home to ourselves again. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being present.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you know someone who needs this kind of gentle nudge, send it their way. The more kind, creative hearts in this space, the better.
And if something in this episode resonates or makes you smile, come say hi on Instagram @theartpeaceexperiment 🤍
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Thank you.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Art PeaceExperiment.
We're your hosts, two artistsand friends.
I'm Tasha.
And I'm Brianna.
At the end of 2024, we decidedwe wanted to cultivate more
safety, peace, love, alignment,and excitement through our art
and our art practices.
(00:24):
So here we are sharing ourjourney with you.
And we're so excited you'rehere.
We hope you enjoy ourconversations.
They're honest, raw, just justtwo friends talking to each
other about the realities oflife and creativity.
We're so excited for you to joinus and be along with us for the
journey.
(00:46):
Last week, we started watching ashow that you may or may not
have heard of.
It's this little story calledPride and Prejudice.
And it's brilliant.
So good.
I mean, no words even todescribe my love for this movie
(01:08):
and book and story.
Yeah, it's newer for me I mean Iknow it's a classic guys okay I
get it but it's newer it's newerfor me I didn't experience it
until after I was I was agrown-up yeah and I have I don't
remember not knowing this it'sbeen like my whole life I mean
(01:28):
I've always Well, no, I haven'talways known about it, but I
can't remember a time notknowing about it.
Yeah.
Because it was just talkedabout.
But anyways, it's great.
I love it.
So good.
Yeah, the first time, my firsttime watching it was the newer
one with like Keira Knightley.
UNKNOWN (01:46):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (01:47):
didn't love it like aesthetically beautiful yeah
love that music just yeahstunning yeah the story pacing
was just so off for me thoughand yeah it just doesn't compare
to the BBC yeah that's the onewe're watching right now it's
the BBC one and it's brilliantand I love it and I just I have
(02:07):
to talk about it a little bitbecause I love I love how the
relationship in this story islike Right, right.
(02:36):
And I love that.
I love that about the story.
I feel like that's one of thereasons it's such a classic and
is so timeless.
Right.
Because they don't change forone another, but they see each
other's perspectives and thenthey become better for it.
They become more compassionateand they understand others
(02:57):
better and they want to grow andbecome better themselves because
of interacting with this otherperson.
UNKNOWN (03:05):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (03:06):
Yeah.
So good.
So now segue here.
I want to start talking aboutthat in terms of our art.
Okay.
Our art, our creative practiceis Mr.
Darcy.
Oh my gosh.
I love that.
We want to fall in love with Mr.
Darcy.
Okay.
It's inevitable.
Yes.
(03:27):
So what points of pride do andprejudices are getting in the
way of us falling in love withour creativity.
Whoa.
Okay.
I did not know we were going totalk about this today and I
just, I am delighted.
I love this.
I do too.
I was like, I just, we have to.
(03:49):
Surprise.
We have to.
And then in my head, it's beenlike this joke with myself.
It's like inside joke withmyself.
I'm going to let you in on it.
That I should just start namingevery art piece I make Mr.
Darcy because then every womanwill want it.
Just marketing tip right there.
Yes.
Perfect.
Done.
You're already sold.
(04:11):
Already sold.
It's a done deal.
Yeah.
But anyways, I want to talkabout those limiting beliefs
that get in our way thatsometimes we don't even realize
are there.
Yeah.
Just like the prejudice that youdon't even realize exist.
you have until somebody pointsit out to you.
You're like, Oh, maybe I, maybeI do struggle with that.
(04:35):
Cause I think that's, that's allthat.
That's, that's the wholebeginning of Darcy and
Elizabeth's relationship, youknow, kind of pointing out each
other's flaws.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they didn't like it.
Well, no, it's hard when someonepoints out your flaws, but I
(04:57):
feel like we have that.
with our creativity is there's alot of that kind of negativity
and stopping ourselves fromseeing the good things.
Yeah.
Right.
That's so interesting.
I love that perspective and Ilove thinking of our creative
practice as, as a way to, how doI say that?
(05:20):
Like as a way to maybe seeourselves and, a little more
clearer and, and come back toourselves in our, in our truer
best version of ourselves.
And then also to have just somuch love and joy in the
creativity and, um, and theprocess.
(05:42):
Yeah.
So good.
Okay.
So I'm going to share one ofmine.
Okay.
One of my, one of my things, andthis is like, I feel like the
big one.
Or one of the big ones.
And that is perfectionism.
And that stopped me fromcreating for so many years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(06:03):
Have I overcome it?
No.
But do I, am I at a point in mylife where I can create despite
it?
Yes.
Yeah.
Now it's like, okay, I see you,perfectionism.
I see that you're here.
And I'm not going to let youdrive perfectionism.
Right.
I'm going to recognize thatyou're there and you have input
(06:26):
and you, you have part in theconversation sometimes, but I'm
not going to make decisionsbecause of you.
Yeah.
So how do we do that?
How do we get to that point thatwe can say, okay, limiting
belief.
I see you, but you don't controlme anymore.
Oh, so good.
This is, It is, I feel, alifelong pursuit, first of all.
(06:48):
Oh, yeah.
100%.
It is.
We are onions, okay?
Or cake.
We're cake.
We're onions.
Everybody loves cake.
Yeah.
It is really hard to even startthis process, and it is not an
overnight thing.
No.
I feel like this has beensomething that I've been trying
(07:09):
to do for a long time, justtrying in other areas of my life
too, recognizing, you know,limiting beliefs or, you know,
emotion, even recognizing whenI'm feeling certain emotions,
you know, can be, can be hard.
It's that self-awareness.
It really starts withself-awareness and practicing
that.
And so how do you practiceself-awareness?
What do you do?
(07:30):
What do you do?
You first decide that you wantto.
Yes.
Yes.
And, and I mean, just realizinglike, oh, I'm, you know, I have
limiting beliefs around this.
Yeah.
I have these prejudices andsometimes pride and the other
things that are, that arestopping.
It's like, this is stopping mypursuit to, to thriving.
(07:53):
Yeah.
And I don't even realize thatit's sometimes you just don't
even realize it's happening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like being able torecognize that it's happening,
recognize that you have alimiting belief and, comes from
taking that pause and kind ofdigging a little deeper when
(08:13):
there's resistance to whateveryou want to do.
You know, if you're wanting tobe creative, but then there's an
instant block.
So like, if you have that desireand that urge, if something
sparks your interest and, youknow, that light inside of you
and you're like, oh, that soundsso fun, then instantly those
(08:35):
walls go, oh, but I couldn't dothat.
You know, that's somebody else.
Oh, that's not for me, you know,or something like that.
I could never do anything likethat.
Those are your or yourindicators, your road signs, you
know, as you're driving alongthat tell you there's a block
there, there's some sort oflimiting belief.
(08:57):
Yeah.
And so it's first recognizingwhen, when those thoughts come
up.
Right.
And, and saying, Oh, taking alittle pause and, and stepping
back and looking at that alittle bit saying, Whoa, I just,
I had that spark and theninstantly shut it down.
What is that?
Why?
Yeah.
Getting curious.
(09:18):
Yeah.
This is not a place to beatyourself up.
This is a place to just getcurious.
Exactly.
And dig into it a little bit.
Where are the roots?
Where is that coming from?
Is it from things that I've beentold my whole life growing up?
Have I experienced somethingthat's made it feel scary?
(09:43):
What is it?
What what, go back, go back asfar as you need to go back.
You know, I feel like a lot oftimes it goes back into
childhood.
That's where so much stems from.
Our living beliefs stem from.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, you know, I think it's,it happens from, for everybody.
And, and it's because it's, aschildren, you know, we have, our
(10:07):
brains are developing still andwe don't understand a lot of the
times and we can take things incertain ways and then they just,
they carry with us throughout.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes limitingbeliefs come from very innocent,
you know, well-meaning things.
So like our parents do, it'slike not even necessarily bad,
(10:27):
but just the way that we tookit.
Right.
Right.
Creates this like life, almostlifelong.
We can change Like our brains,we can change, which is awesome.
Right.
So not necessarily lifelong, butat this point feels like
lifelong.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Up to this point, lifelong.
Right.
Exactly.
That's what I was trying to say.
Thank you.
(10:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and sometimes things dohappen that are, that are
negative.
And somebody says something meanto us and, you know, things like
that, but it doesn't always haveto be something big or mean or
traumatic, you know?
And sometimes there's more thanone thing.
Yeah.
That, makes it like withperfectionism.
It's layered.
You know, I've got, you know,things that happened with my
(11:10):
family, things that happenedwith just society and culture
and like starting public school.
And, you know, it's like it islayered and there are different
fears and issues that come upthat it's like, oh, I have to be
perfect to be safe.
I have to be perfect to, youknow, to stay, you know,
(11:33):
connected with family because,you know, if it's not perfect,
no one will buy it.
I won't make money.
I'll be a starving artist.
I'll blah, blah, blah.
Like it just like goes on and onand on and on and on.
None of those things are true,which, you know, is part of
dissolving this.
It's like, you know, gettingcurious about it and then
(11:54):
getting really real.
Right.
Getting really real about it.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
(12:21):
You know, I don't want to tellmyself that's okay, but it does
make sense.
There's a difference betweenvalidating your feelings and
justifying your feelings.
Yes.
And I feel like when we validatethem, we recognize them, we see
them and we say, you know, we,we accept them.
Right.
And without shame.
Yes.
(12:42):
And when we justify, we'retrying to make it, um, Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:16):
Oh, that's so good.
That's so good.
Yeah.
So with the art pieceexperiment, you know, we've got
the three different sides to it.
Create, align, and connect.
Yeah.
Those are like the main ones.
And, you know, we're, this iskind of a, just a theory, a
hypothesis.
(13:37):
Can't speak.
Hypothesis of art.
overcoming a lot of theselimiting beliefs and our blocks
and finding our blocks.
That's a lot of what thisexperiment is.
We really wanted to build intoit the mindfulness side of it
and then the physical side of itof actually creating and taking
steps forward.
(13:57):
Then the connection, realizingwe need connection, we need
community, we need other people.
Support.
Those three things workingtogether are what really helps
train our nervous system tobuild creativity back into our
lives and make it a safe spaceand okay for us to have again.
(14:19):
That first step of it is reallythe align side of it when it
comes to journaling, when itcomes to the mindfulness side.
First, we want to Be like, okay,this is real.
This is a real block.
This happens.
(14:40):
This is what I'm feeling.
This is what's happening.
What are my blocks?
What are the root of my blocks?
Being gentle with that.
What do I want?
If I didn't have the blocks,what would I want to be doing?
Exactly.
I feel like that can be a reallyhard thing too.
It can be kind of scary yeah insome ways to open yourself up in
(15:08):
that way to think about what youactually really want and it
doesn't have to be like the biglifelong pursuit of like this is
who I am and what I wantsometimes I can just be like the
next little thing right like Iwant to make and made cards yeah
my friends and my family like Ithink that would be really fun
(15:29):
to do um but sometimes it canfeel really scary to even
entertain that thought becauseof whatever block we have up
that has that has you know toldus that it's not safe it's not
acceptable people will make funof us or they'll think we're
weird or you know like whateverit is um it can be scary to even
(15:53):
to even Take that first step.
We can speak today.
It's fine.
It's all good.
The first step of connectingwith ourselves in that way, in
that real, honest, raw way.
Because I feel like we kind ofhide from ourselves a lot of the
time because we put those blocksup and we put up that we have to
(16:17):
be a certain way in order to beliked so we can't even connect
with ourselves.
We can't even...
bring that up in our own mindsbecause that's not acceptable
for whatever reason.
For whatever reason.
That's right there, limitingbelief.
Yeah, right.
(16:39):
Yeah, so that is kind of Yeah.
One of the first places to startis what do you want to do?
It's essential.
Yeah.
And like take the pressure off.
It doesn't have to be the biglifelong dream.
Like you don't have to be theworld famous card maker.
You can just be like, I want tomake cards.
Great.
That's beautiful.
You don't have to be a concertpianist, but if you want to
learn how to play a few songs,that's great.
(16:59):
You know?
Yeah.
And just like follow that, thoselike little whispers of just joy
and curiosity and like, Yeah.
Let yourself daydream.
It's okay to daydream.
To daydream.
And then you're allowed to havefun and you're allowed to, you
know, have some whimsy in yourlife.
(17:21):
Yes.
And just follow what delightsyou.
Like you're, you are allowed tohave that.
And if that is your firstlimiting belief that you're not
allowed to have that, like gowork on that.
Go journal about that.
Yeah.
We have this one life, right?
We have limited time.
Nobody knows.
And maybe that's a littlemorbid, but sometimes that
(17:42):
really helps me put things intoperspective when I'm feeling
those limiting beliefs.
You know, when I'm like, Ican't, I have to do whatever
else I have to do.
I'm not allowed to daydream andI'm not allowed to have whimsy
and, you know, delight in mylife.
I just have to get to work anddo whatever things I need to do.
um putting it into perspectiveof you know this life is meant
(18:08):
to have joy like what what's thepoint what like what's the point
of of living if we're not goingto enjoy it right yeah no that
doesn't sound good but I mean nobut it's it I mean it's it's
true like I feel like We'remeant to have joy.
We're meant to have connection.
We're meant to have– you know,like we're not meant to be these
(18:30):
solitary creatures that justhustle our way through life.
Right.
Right.
And that's kind of what we'retold to do.
And it's like if you want tohave fun, you're just frivolous
and silly and– Wasting time.
Yeah, like living in somefantasy world and you're not
(18:51):
being realistic.
It's just, oh, no.
You're allowed to seek and havejoy.
Right.
And fun and thrive.
You're allowed to enjoy yourlife.
You're allowed to enjoy yourlife and to delight in the
things around you and to havethings that delight you and to
(19:12):
do things that delight you.
It's not all about hard work.
And there are times where youjust have to put your head down
and get to work.
Oh, for sure.
But I feel like even amidstthat, you can still find, find
delight and find joy and findthose glimmers in your life.
Even when things are, are hard,even when things aren't going
(19:38):
your way, you know, and evenwhen you, you have to work hard,
and work and work and work justto survive, right?
Even when you're in survivalmode.
But life is full of joy and lifeis full of beauty.
And I feel like that is one ofour primary things about life is
(20:00):
to is to see it.
That's what's going to make lifeenjoyable, especially when
things are hard and dark andscary and we don't know what's
happening in the world.
There's so many problems.
There's so many problems.
If we just sit in that, life isgoing to be really gloomy and
really hard.
(20:20):
We're not going to be able tocontribute any good things to
the world or our families orfriends or Right.
So it's worth it.
It's worth it to see the beautyin the world.
It's worth it to enjoy thebeauty of the world, you know,
and to delight in things and todo the things that fill you up
(20:45):
and make you feel better becauseyou get– energy from that, you
know, too.
And, and that's going to helpyou in all areas of your life
and do the things that you haveto do.
So it's kind of this fullcircle, full circle thing.
I feel like when we do delightin the world and in our lives
(21:06):
and we find joy, you know, then,then it's better all the way
around.
Right.
Right.
And that's, that's a biglimiting belief that we had to
get past for ourselves it's likeokay we have to really try and
build it and it's somethingwe're still working on of like
we are allowed to have fun andwe're allowed to have joy and
we're allowed to be creativebeings and it's not frivolous
(21:28):
and it's not so we talk aboutthat a lot and we're going to
continue probably talking aboutthat a lot because we need to
hear it we need to hear it andalmost every creative person I
know that I speak to in reallife needs to hear it over and
over again so Here it is.
We're going to keep talkingabout that.
Yeah.
So I want to go back though tothe example that I had of like
(21:50):
perfectionism.
Yeah.
We're going to use that.
We're going to go into like,okay, how do you overcome these
limiting beliefs and kind ofsome practical steps?
Yeah.
Perfectionism is a really goodexample because I feel like it's
– I don't know a creative thatdoesn't deal with that in some
way or another.
(22:10):
Yeah.
And so like we said before,first, you have to realize
there's a problem.
You have to realize there'ssomething there.
Step number one.
I am a block from I can't do thething that I really want to be
doing because of whatever.
Yeah.
So realizing that there is anissue.
And then realizing or gettingreally deep of why.
(22:36):
Yeah.
Why is this a problem?
And then you have to askyourself, like, I mean, is this
true?
Yeah.
Like, is my art only worthy ifit's perfect?
Would I say that about someoneelse's?
Would I say that about someoneelse's?
And then also, I mean, in thistopic specifically, is there
(22:59):
such thing as perfect art?
Yeah.
Right.
That was, like, the big thingfor me.
I was like, oh– No, there's not.
I mean, I had to take a stepback and not think about my art,
right?
Yeah, right.
And I thought about the art thatreally resonated with me.
(23:20):
And I'm thinking, you know,books, paintings, like a certain
song.
There is this interesting thingthat happens with art where the
artist creates it, right?
They put it out into the world.
And then somebody elseexperiences it and has like an
emotional resonance with it thatit can create a moment that is
(23:45):
like perfect where they feelseen by themselves almost
through that experience.
Yeah, I love that.
that I think is the only kind ofperfection that can be achieved
with art, but we have no controlover it.
Yes.
Right.
The only way that can happen isif we're just let ourselves be
(24:09):
free to create so that it cantouch other people.
Yeah.
And they have to be receptive toit.
You know what I mean?
Like there is no perfection.
You can't achieve it.
You will never.
And that's the beautiful thingtoo, is I realized, okay, I, I'm
never going to create somethingperfect.
(24:29):
And so I need to, I need to letgo of that.
You know, I just had thethought, you're never going to
create anything perfect, buteverything you create is perfect
just the way it is.
Right.
Like it's kind of that paradoxwhere it's never perfect and it
is perfect just the way it isbecause it's imperfect.
Right.
Like it doesn't, What isperfection anyways?
(24:51):
Like who decides that, right?
It's not even real.
It's not even real.
It's not even real.
So it really is this kind of, Idon't know, fantasy expectation
that we put on ourselves thatdoesn't even have a place in
real life.
I just looked back at some artthat I created several years ago
(25:14):
that at the time I was so proudof.
I was like, this is amazing.
I'm amazing.
This is great.
Okay, it's recording.
Technical difficulties.
We're back.
We're back.
I was just saying, I looked backat some art and felt like it was
really fantastic.
It was art that I felt reallyfantastic when I had made it at
(25:36):
the time.
And then looking back at it, Irealized, wow, I kind of cringed
at it.
I was like, that's not as goodas I remember it being or
thought that it was at the time.
Yeah.
But...
It's kind of cool because I'vecome a long way to the point
that I wasn't beating myself upabout it.
And it was this moment ofrealizing like, oh, I've grown.
(25:57):
I've gotten better.
And at the time I felt like Ihad peaked.
I would never achieve anythingas good as that.
And yet I've still grown.
And I love that about creativityand just like us as human
beings, like we always have thecapacity to grow more.
Yeah.
Right.
(26:17):
Which is pretty cool.
Yeah.
And you know, I think I wasthinking there is like technical
aspects to, to certain things,crafts or, you know, things like
that.
There are technically correctways to do things and, you know,
you could be technically perfectin something, but at the same
time, like who decides that too,you know, like it doesn't really
(26:40):
matter.
necessarily matter, I guess, insome, I don't know.
And sometimes the technicalperfection, it loses some of the
emotion.
Right.
It loses the humanity.
It loses what we resonate with.
And so there's like both, alittle bit of both.
(27:03):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I think there's something to besaid about, you know, crafting
your skills, like honing yourskills and being able to do
things well and being able to dothings in the way that you want,
like learning how to do thingsin the way that you want to do
them.
But letting go of having to dothem perfect with someone else's
(27:28):
expectations of what perfect is,right?
Right.
Right.
And also realizing like, okay, Iwant to create a painting of
this caliber, right?
You're not going to sit down andjust do it the first time.
Yeah.
It takes so much practice and somuch learning, right?
So there really has to be joy inthe process, getting messy,
(27:50):
getting in there and realizinglike the perfection can never be
the goal.
Because you will never getthere.
Right.
It'll always let you down and itwon't be enjoyable.
Yeah.
And if you let that go, you'regoing to create better stuff
anyway.
It's true.
It's true.
100%.
When you let go ofperfectionism, you end up
(28:11):
creating even more beautifullythan you do, would have.
It happens again and again andagain.
And I know it's happened for me.
I know it's happened for you.
I know it's happened for friendsand many, many people.
people this is something thatjust is a fact like it just
(28:32):
happens when we let go of thestress and let go of the
perfectionism we end up creatingand we focus on the joy of the
creating then the end product isalways more beautiful is always
better is always more enjoyablebecause it's got a part of us
right it's got our our joy likeinfused in it it does and
(28:54):
sometimes it doesn't evennecessarily have to be joy
because sometimes art is just Imean it's expression and
sometimes we express otheremotions than joy you mean we're
not always feeling joy all thetime oh man I wish no but I feel
like joy is one of those thingsthat we have to seek yeah it
(29:17):
doesn't always just happen outof nothing like I've sometimes
for kids maybe maybe I feel likesometimes it's generated from
parents helping a little bitcreate create some of that magic
and joy but um also they justthey do experience joy and I
feel like a lot of it comes fromcreativity like as a mom
(29:39):
watching my kid realizing likeoh a lot of her joy is stemmed
from just curiosity and play andplay and realizing something new
or connecting with another, youknow, human being.
Like that's where a lot of thatkind of comes from being open to
learning and being open to notknowing how to do things.
(30:00):
Right.
And not knowing the outcome.
Yeah.
Right.
Letting go.
They, they let go of that.
They don't have thoseexpectations to be perfect yet.
Yeah.
Yep.
And so the joy kind of, comes inthat easier comes in that
process and as grown-ups that'skind of beaten out of us yeah a
little bit and we have to reallychoose to um to find that and
(30:23):
embrace that again and allow itright allow it into our lives um
it has to be it has to be aconscious choice yeah because it
does it it gets kind of beatenout of us as we grow older, you
know, and we have expectationsand we're responsibilities and,
you know, and so being able to,to choose joy, to choose
(30:46):
creativity, to choose thatfreedom, you know, that's huge.
It's so, it's so powerful and itcan have such a drastic positive
influence in our, in our livesand the way that we feel.
Right.
Yeah.
So now with the perfectionism,back in the day before when I
was not creating and I was like,I can't create because it won't
(31:07):
be perfect.
And if I never create theperfect thing, then I can't
start.
And if I don't start, I won'tcreate the perfect thing.
Yep.
Anyways.
Were you inside my head too?
Because that's, yep.
Yep.
That happened.
Realizing like, okay, I just, Igot real with myself.
(31:28):
Again, that's the first step.
You got to just get real withyourself, realize what's
blocking you.
And then was creating art moreimportant to me than creating
perfect art?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Clearly, I'm still here.
It's like, yes, I want tocreate.
I want to be creating.
I want to be making art.
And then from there, it wasn't,okay, well, I'm going to sit
(31:54):
down and create thismasterpiece.
No.
Okay, I'm going to sit down andI'm going to I'm going to create
a little bit of room and alittle bit of space in my life
to work towards this goal, thisdream that I want.
Yeah.
And it comes in the baby steps.
And then as you go through that,You start creating space for it.
(32:18):
Then you end up having kind oflike this dip and like take a
few steps back where it's like,ah, I did this new scary thing.
And it was like, it wasn'tperfect and it wasn't a lot.
And then you have to, you know,go through the, okay.
You know, you're like a littleparenting yourself.
Like it's okay that it wasn'tperfect.
That wasn't the goal.
And you keep working towards,you know, shifting the mindset,
(32:41):
but then also taking the action.
And it can be just a little bit.
And that's kind of how you startbuilding it into your nervous
system as safe and kind ofrewiring your brain and your
nervous system of, okay, itdoesn't have to be perfect.
I start noticing the good thingsin it.
(33:04):
And sometimes it's not like itturned out really good and it's
perfect and I want to showeverybody.
Sometimes it's, oh, I had a fewminutes left.
Right.
Yeah.
(33:37):
Yeah.
I feel like so often when we arekind of paralyzed by fear, which
perfectionism I feel like is aform of fear, you know?
Yeah.
I feel like when we're kind offeeling paralyzed by that, what
really helps is to get back intoour physical senses, right.
(34:00):
Is to focus on the physicalsenses that can be so helpful
because it gets us out of our,out of our head and back into
our, back into our body.
And I feel like too, with our,um, with our brains, these
limiting beliefs that we've hadsince, you know, childhood, they
have created neuro neuronpathways in our brains that are
(34:24):
just automatic.
Those are the freeways of ourbrains, right?
Where that's the lane that ourmind always goes, our thoughts
are used to going.
Yeah.
(34:45):
is not safe, you know, danger,danger, right?
The job of our nervous system isto keep us safe and to keep us
connected with our tribe so thatwe are safe and we can survive,
right?
And so when all of those kind ofcombine, it keeps us in that, in
our limiting beliefs becausethat's all it's trying to do is
keep us safe, right?
(35:05):
That's what our body's trainedto do and meant to do and
programmed.
And so, yeah.
The thing is, though, is that weare not just consigned to live
in that way.
We don't have to just stay stuckin that.
We do have the ability to chooseand to grow and to consciously
(35:29):
make another path.
I heard this a long time ago.
I heard this analogy of theneural pathways in our brain
that, yes, we have the six-lanehighway that we just always go
down.
But we can choose to step offthe path and we can go through
the grow through the field in anew direction.
And at first it'll be just like,you know, a little footpath.
(35:53):
Like we just bent the grass downa little bit and it springs back
up and, you know, we'll stillget on the highway.
But if we keep going down thatpath, eventually it'll get worn
down.
It'll turn into a dirt road,right?
A little dirt path.
And then eventually we'll widenthe road.
We keep going down that path.
Then we will eventually make anew six lane highway down this
(36:15):
other way.
And, and we, it, we are able tochoose the path that we go.
We don't have to stay on thatold, old highway.
We can make a new, new way.
And so when I find myselfrethinking old, old patterns,
(36:35):
old habits, old thoughts, youknow, it's like, oh, that's, I'm
down that old six lane highway.
What's my new six lane highwaygoing to be?
What am I going to choose tothink instead?
And that is so powerful to knowthat we have the power to choose
our thoughts and to choose ourreactions, right?
(36:58):
Our responses.
We don't have to just react.
We can choose to respond in away that we want to respond.
And so That, I think, issomething that is really hard to
learn.
Yeah, right.
You don't have to remain avictim of your limiting beliefs.
You don't have to stay stuck.
(37:22):
What?
What?
Yeah, but I feel like that'sonly recently being taught, you
know, and has not been a mindsetchange.
in our society, in our culture.
Yeah.
It's a new way of thinking.
One of the things that comes upthat isn't helpful is almost
(37:43):
that you can think yourself outof it, which is not true.
It's not just mindset.
It's mindset plus action, whichis why when you're in that
anxiety, perfectionism, fear,getting back into your body,
doing those physical things,focusing on the feel of the
(38:05):
whatever it is, the feel of thepaintbrush, the feel of the
beads or, you know, what, whatthe sounds, what you're feeling,
what you're seeing, what you'rehearing, you know, what you're
tasting, like take it back toyour senses and, and re regroup
in your physical body becausethat gets you out of your head,
(38:26):
out of those cycles, you know?
Right.
UNKNOWN (38:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (38:30):
And resets your nervous system a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (38:33):
Also, breathing really helps, you know, breath
work and finding ways that cancalm your physical nervous
system, your physical body down.
That helps so much.
That's pivotal because whenyou're in that anxiety mode.
a main way to get back out of itis to focus on the physical or,
(38:56):
you know, step outside.
Yeah.
That helps huge sunshine.
I know a lot too.
Yeah.
Um, exercise, moving your body.
Yeah.
Yep.
All of these things, all thesethings can help.
And then, you know, when youcome back to it, come back to it
with a fresh perspective, youknow, like do those healthcare
(39:16):
things that you need and thencome back to it.
And, and, um, you know, when I,what helped me a lot with
getting out of perfectionism is,you know, I grew up with, you
know, you'd put pencil to paperand paint to paper and this is
like, you know, that's whatbeing an artist is.
Right.
And that always had me soparalyzed because So paralyzed.
(39:39):
And part of it for me was Idon't want to waste the paper.
I don't want to waste thepaints.
This costs money.
That was part of my issue.
And then I got an iPad, which ishilarious because they're very
expensive.
But unlimited paper, okay?
Unlimited paint.
And that for me helped.
And then I also didn't have asketchbook.
(40:02):
where not every page had to beperfect.
And I'm not saying this is thesolution for everybody fixing
their perfection.
This is just my journey.
Right.
Right.
It's like, oh, I, you know, Ican make a mess on this thing
and then just delete it andnobody ever has to see it and
it's fine.
And I can just, I can get reallyIt gave me permission to be
(40:22):
messy when I picked up my iPad.
It gave me permission to bereally, really messy.
And I didn't feel like I wasbeing wasteful.
It helped get rid of some of theblocks that were there with the
perfectionism.
And I could just focus on onething at a time, which for me
was helpful.
(40:44):
And then I got to a point of...
Like I didn't want to share myart with anybody.
I didn't want anyone to see it.
And again, that was part of thelike, oh, this isn't good
enough.
This isn't good enough to share.
Like I don't want to show it tosomebody and be told that I need
to focus on my math studies.
You know?
Yep.
(41:06):
And be told like, oh, you needto get a real job.
Oh, you need to focus on otherthings.
Because especially when I wasyounger at the time, it wasn't
even that I was– trying to be anartist I was just doing
something that I enjoyed rightand so then that immediate
response of like oh you shouldfocus on something more
practical was just devastatingbecause I just wanted them to
(41:31):
enjoy it with you enjoy it withme yeah yeah and I I mean the
first some of the first times Iexperienced that was with you in
our friendship where youchampioned it.
And if it was something that Iwas like, I want to get better
at this, can you give me acritique?
Whatever, which I took a longtime to build up being able to
(41:52):
accept critiques.
I still struggle with that alittle bit.
But– It's hard.
It's hard.
It's hard.
Like, please, come attack me.
It's not– that's not what acritique is.
Sounds so fun.
But that community element ofit.
Yeah.
Of, oh, here's a safe personthat I can share this with.
Again– so helpful, you know,have a different perspective
(42:17):
that can help me widen myperspective.
Like, yes, Darcy and Elizabeth.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause we really do.
We, we help each other grow.
And I love that because artreally helps us grow.
Our creativity really helps usgrow.
It can be our Mr.
Darcy.
Like I said, of, of just thatself-realization.
(42:39):
Yeah.
Um, I feel like it can so oftenbe a physical representation of
our inner world, right?
That I feel like so manycreatives, that's what happens.
Maybe even all creatives.
I don't know.
But in some way or another...
(43:02):
it's that expression of what'skind of on our soul, you know,
on our souls, like important tous and the way that we feel.
And, and it's that outwardexpression.
And so it can be that it can bea self reflection.
Yeah.
It's a worthwhile pursuit in myopinion.
(43:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which can help us grow and learnand become better and embrace,
you know, embrace our, most trueand deepest parts of ourselves.
Yeah.
And have more, yeah, more love,more joy.
Yeah.
Go live at Pemberley.
Let's go with your Mr.
(43:48):
Darcy.
We like, we like a good visualhere.
Metaphor.
Yeah.
So if you are wanting to exploreyour creativity more and explore
yourself, we are your champions.
(44:09):
For sure.
You're doing great.
Yes.
We're so proud of you.
Here's your permission slip.
We want you to go forth andconquer.
And you are not alone in thoseemotional struggles, the
limiting beliefs.
You are not alone.
There are so many people outthere.
So many people that are probablygoing through very similar
situations.
(44:29):
We all are, you know, we allare.
We've been there.
Yeah.
In our own.
We're going to continue beingthere.
That's right.
So we love you.
Thank you for being here andwe'll see you next time.
That's it for today, friend.
Thanks for spending this timewith us.
We hope you're leaving with alittle more light, a little more
peace, and maybe even a nudge togo be creative just because it
(44:52):
brings a little more joy to yourlife.
If anything in this episodespoke to your heart, sparked a
thought or made you smile, we'dlove it if you'd follow the
show, leave a quick five-starreview or share it with someone
who might need a little creativeencouragement too.
And remember, your creativitymatters.
Your voice matters.
You matter.
We're cheering you on always.
(45:13):
Until next time, keep making,keep softening, and keep showing
up as your whole beautiful self.
Thank you.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Art PeaceExperiment.
We're your hosts, two artistsand friends.
I'm Tasha.
And I'm Brianna.
At the end of 2024, we decidedwe wanted to cultivate more
safety, peace, love, alignment,and excitement through our art
and our art practices.
(00:24):
So here we are sharing ourjourney with you.
And we're so excited you'rehere.
We hope you enjoy ourconversations.
They're honest, raw, just justtwo friends talking to each
other about the realities oflife and creativity.
We're so excited for you to joinus and be along with us for the
journey.
(00:46):
Last week, we started watching ashow that you may or may not
have heard of.
It's this little story calledPride and Prejudice.
And it's brilliant.
So good.
I mean, no words even todescribe my love for this movie
(01:08):
and book and story.
Yeah, it's newer for me I mean Iknow it's a classic guys okay I
get it but it's newer it's newerfor me I didn't experience it
until after I was I was agrown-up yeah and I have I don't
remember not knowing this it'sbeen like my whole life I mean
(01:28):
I've always Well, no, I haven'talways known about it, but I
can't remember a time notknowing about it.
Yeah.
Because it was just talkedabout.
But anyways, it's great.
I love it.
So good.
Yeah, the first time, my firsttime watching it was the newer
one with like Keira Knightley.
UNKNOWN (01:46):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (01:47):
didn't love it like aesthetically beautiful yeah
love that music just yeahstunning yeah the story pacing
was just so off for me thoughand yeah it just doesn't compare
to the BBC yeah that's the onewe're watching right now it's
the BBC one and it's brilliantand I love it and I just I have
(02:07):
to talk about it a little bitbecause I love I love how the
relationship in this story islike Right, right.
(02:36):
And I love that.
I love that about the story.
I feel like that's one of thereasons it's such a classic and
is so timeless.
Right.
Because they don't change forone another, but they see each
other's perspectives and thenthey become better for it.
They become more compassionateand they understand others
(02:57):
better and they want to grow andbecome better themselves because
of interacting with this otherperson.
UNKNOWN (03:05):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (03:06):
Yeah.
So good.
So now segue here.
I want to start talking aboutthat in terms of our art.
Okay.
Our art, our creative practiceis Mr.
Darcy.
Oh my gosh.
I love that.
We want to fall in love with Mr.
Darcy.
Okay.
It's inevitable.
Yes.
(03:27):
So what points of pride do andprejudices are getting in the
way of us falling in love withour creativity.
Whoa.
Okay.
I did not know we were going totalk about this today and I
just, I am delighted.
I love this.
I do too.
I was like, I just, we have to.
(03:49):
Surprise.
We have to.
And then in my head, it's beenlike this joke with myself.
It's like inside joke withmyself.
I'm going to let you in on it.
That I should just start namingevery art piece I make Mr.
Darcy because then every womanwill want it.
Just marketing tip right there.
Yes.
Perfect.
Done.
You're already sold.
(04:11):
Already sold.
It's a done deal.
Yeah.
But anyways, I want to talkabout those limiting beliefs
that get in our way thatsometimes we don't even realize
are there.
Yeah.
Just like the prejudice that youdon't even realize exist.
you have until somebody pointsit out to you.
You're like, Oh, maybe I, maybeI do struggle with that.
(04:35):
Cause I think that's, that's allthat.
That's, that's the wholebeginning of Darcy and
Elizabeth's relationship, youknow, kind of pointing out each
other's flaws.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they didn't like it.
Well, no, it's hard when someonepoints out your flaws, but I
(04:57):
feel like we have that.
with our creativity is there's alot of that kind of negativity
and stopping ourselves fromseeing the good things.
Yeah.
Right.
That's so interesting.
I love that perspective and Ilove thinking of our creative
practice as, as a way to, how doI say that?
(05:20):
Like as a way to maybe seeourselves and, a little more
clearer and, and come back toourselves in our, in our truer
best version of ourselves.
And then also to have just somuch love and joy in the
creativity and, um, and theprocess.
(05:42):
Yeah.
So good.
Okay.
So I'm going to share one ofmine.
Okay.
One of my, one of my things, andthis is like, I feel like the
big one.
Or one of the big ones.
And that is perfectionism.
And that stopped me fromcreating for so many years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(06:03):
Have I overcome it?
No.
But do I, am I at a point in mylife where I can create despite
it?
Yes.
Yeah.
Now it's like, okay, I see you,perfectionism.
I see that you're here.
And I'm not going to let youdrive perfectionism.
Right.
I'm going to recognize thatyou're there and you have input
(06:26):
and you, you have part in theconversation sometimes, but I'm
not going to make decisionsbecause of you.
Yeah.
So how do we do that?
How do we get to that point thatwe can say, okay, limiting
belief.
I see you, but you don't controlme anymore.
Oh, so good.
This is, It is, I feel, alifelong pursuit, first of all.
(06:48):
Oh, yeah.
100%.
It is.
We are onions, okay?
Or cake.
We're cake.
We're onions.
Everybody loves cake.
Yeah.
It is really hard to even startthis process, and it is not an
overnight thing.
No.
I feel like this has beensomething that I've been trying
(07:09):
to do for a long time, justtrying in other areas of my life
too, recognizing, you know,limiting beliefs or, you know,
emotion, even recognizing whenI'm feeling certain emotions,
you know, can be, can be hard.
It's that self-awareness.
It really starts withself-awareness and practicing
that.
And so how do you practiceself-awareness?
What do you do?
(07:30):
What do you do?
You first decide that you wantto.
Yes.
Yes.
And, and I mean, just realizinglike, oh, I'm, you know, I have
limiting beliefs around this.
Yeah.
I have these prejudices andsometimes pride and the other
things that are, that arestopping.
It's like, this is stopping mypursuit to, to thriving.
(07:53):
Yeah.
And I don't even realize thatit's sometimes you just don't
even realize it's happening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel like being able torecognize that it's happening,
recognize that you have alimiting belief and, comes from
taking that pause and kind ofdigging a little deeper when
(08:13):
there's resistance to whateveryou want to do.
You know, if you're wanting tobe creative, but then there's an
instant block.
So like, if you have that desireand that urge, if something
sparks your interest and, youknow, that light inside of you
and you're like, oh, that soundsso fun, then instantly those
(08:35):
walls go, oh, but I couldn't dothat.
You know, that's somebody else.
Oh, that's not for me, you know,or something like that.
I could never do anything likethat.
Those are your or yourindicators, your road signs, you
know, as you're driving alongthat tell you there's a block
there, there's some sort oflimiting belief.
(08:57):
Yeah.
And so it's first recognizingwhen, when those thoughts come
up.
Right.
And, and saying, Oh, taking alittle pause and, and stepping
back and looking at that alittle bit saying, Whoa, I just,
I had that spark and theninstantly shut it down.
What is that?
Why?
Yeah.
Getting curious.
(09:18):
Yeah.
This is not a place to beatyourself up.
This is a place to just getcurious.
Exactly.
And dig into it a little bit.
Where are the roots?
Where is that coming from?
Is it from things that I've beentold my whole life growing up?
Have I experienced somethingthat's made it feel scary?
(09:43):
What is it?
What what, go back, go back asfar as you need to go back.
You know, I feel like a lot oftimes it goes back into
childhood.
That's where so much stems from.
Our living beliefs stem from.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, you know, I think it's,it happens from, for everybody.
And, and it's because it's, aschildren, you know, we have, our
(10:07):
brains are developing still andwe don't understand a lot of the
times and we can take things incertain ways and then they just,
they carry with us throughout.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes limitingbeliefs come from very innocent,
you know, well-meaning things.
So like our parents do, it'slike not even necessarily bad,
(10:27):
but just the way that we tookit.
Right.
Right.
Creates this like life, almostlifelong.
We can change Like our brains,we can change, which is awesome.
Right.
So not necessarily lifelong, butat this point feels like
lifelong.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Up to this point, lifelong.
Right.
Exactly.
That's what I was trying to say.
Thank you.
(10:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and sometimes things dohappen that are, that are
negative.
And somebody says something meanto us and, you know, things like
that, but it doesn't always haveto be something big or mean or
traumatic, you know?
And sometimes there's more thanone thing.
Yeah.
That, makes it like withperfectionism.
It's layered.
You know, I've got, you know,things that happened with my
(11:10):
family, things that happenedwith just society and culture
and like starting public school.
And, you know, it's like it islayered and there are different
fears and issues that come upthat it's like, oh, I have to be
perfect to be safe.
I have to be perfect to, youknow, to stay, you know,
(11:33):
connected with family because,you know, if it's not perfect,
no one will buy it.
I won't make money.
I'll be a starving artist.
I'll blah, blah, blah.
Like it just like goes on and onand on and on and on.
None of those things are true,which, you know, is part of
dissolving this.
It's like, you know, gettingcurious about it and then
(11:54):
getting really real.
Right.
Getting really real about it.
Yeah.
Right.
Right.
(12:21):
You know, I don't want to tellmyself that's okay, but it does
make sense.
There's a difference betweenvalidating your feelings and
justifying your feelings.
Yes.
And I feel like when we validatethem, we recognize them, we see
them and we say, you know, we,we accept them.
Right.
And without shame.
Yes.
(12:42):
And when we justify, we'retrying to make it, um, Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:16):
Oh, that's so good.
That's so good.
Yeah.
So with the art pieceexperiment, you know, we've got
the three different sides to it.
Create, align, and connect.
Yeah.
Those are like the main ones.
And, you know, we're, this iskind of a, just a theory, a
hypothesis.
(13:37):
Can't speak.
Hypothesis of art.
overcoming a lot of theselimiting beliefs and our blocks
and finding our blocks.
That's a lot of what thisexperiment is.
We really wanted to build intoit the mindfulness side of it
and then the physical side of itof actually creating and taking
steps forward.
(13:57):
Then the connection, realizingwe need connection, we need
community, we need other people.
Support.
Those three things workingtogether are what really helps
train our nervous system tobuild creativity back into our
lives and make it a safe spaceand okay for us to have again.
(14:19):
That first step of it is reallythe align side of it when it
comes to journaling, when itcomes to the mindfulness side.
First, we want to Be like, okay,this is real.
This is a real block.
This happens.
(14:40):
This is what I'm feeling.
This is what's happening.
What are my blocks?
What are the root of my blocks?
Being gentle with that.
What do I want?
If I didn't have the blocks,what would I want to be doing?
Exactly.
I feel like that can be a reallyhard thing too.
It can be kind of scary yeah insome ways to open yourself up in
(15:08):
that way to think about what youactually really want and it
doesn't have to be like the biglifelong pursuit of like this is
who I am and what I wantsometimes I can just be like the
next little thing right like Iwant to make and made cards yeah
my friends and my family like Ithink that would be really fun
(15:29):
to do um but sometimes it canfeel really scary to even
entertain that thought becauseof whatever block we have up
that has that has you know toldus that it's not safe it's not
acceptable people will make funof us or they'll think we're
weird or you know like whateverit is um it can be scary to even
(15:53):
to even Take that first step.
We can speak today.
It's fine.
It's all good.
The first step of connectingwith ourselves in that way, in
that real, honest, raw way.
Because I feel like we kind ofhide from ourselves a lot of the
time because we put those blocksup and we put up that we have to
(16:17):
be a certain way in order to beliked so we can't even connect
with ourselves.
We can't even...
bring that up in our own mindsbecause that's not acceptable
for whatever reason.
For whatever reason.
That's right there, limitingbelief.
Yeah, right.
(16:39):
Yeah, so that is kind of Yeah.
One of the first places to startis what do you want to do?
It's essential.
Yeah.
And like take the pressure off.
It doesn't have to be the biglifelong dream.
Like you don't have to be theworld famous card maker.
You can just be like, I want tomake cards.
Great.
That's beautiful.
You don't have to be a concertpianist, but if you want to
learn how to play a few songs,that's great.
(16:59):
You know?
Yeah.
And just like follow that, thoselike little whispers of just joy
and curiosity and like, Yeah.
Let yourself daydream.
It's okay to daydream.
To daydream.
And then you're allowed to havefun and you're allowed to, you
know, have some whimsy in yourlife.
(17:21):
Yes.
And just follow what delightsyou.
Like you're, you are allowed tohave that.
And if that is your firstlimiting belief that you're not
allowed to have that, like gowork on that.
Go journal about that.
Yeah.
We have this one life, right?
We have limited time.
Nobody knows.
And maybe that's a littlemorbid, but sometimes that
(17:42):
really helps me put things intoperspective when I'm feeling
those limiting beliefs.
You know, when I'm like, Ican't, I have to do whatever
else I have to do.
I'm not allowed to daydream andI'm not allowed to have whimsy
and, you know, delight in mylife.
I just have to get to work anddo whatever things I need to do.
um putting it into perspectiveof you know this life is meant
(18:08):
to have joy like what what's thepoint what like what's the point
of of living if we're not goingto enjoy it right yeah no that
doesn't sound good but I mean nobut it's it I mean it's it's
true like I feel like We'remeant to have joy.
We're meant to have connection.
We're meant to have– you know,like we're not meant to be these
(18:30):
solitary creatures that justhustle our way through life.
Right.
Right.
And that's kind of what we'retold to do.
And it's like if you want tohave fun, you're just frivolous
and silly and– Wasting time.
Yeah, like living in somefantasy world and you're not
(18:51):
being realistic.
It's just, oh, no.
You're allowed to seek and havejoy.
Right.
And fun and thrive.
You're allowed to enjoy yourlife.
You're allowed to enjoy yourlife and to delight in the
things around you and to havethings that delight you and to
(19:12):
do things that delight you.
It's not all about hard work.
And there are times where youjust have to put your head down
and get to work.
Oh, for sure.
But I feel like even amidstthat, you can still find, find
delight and find joy and findthose glimmers in your life.
Even when things are, are hard,even when things aren't going
(19:38):
your way, you know, and evenwhen you, you have to work hard,
and work and work and work justto survive, right?
Even when you're in survivalmode.
But life is full of joy and lifeis full of beauty.
And I feel like that is one ofour primary things about life is
(20:00):
to is to see it.
That's what's going to make lifeenjoyable, especially when
things are hard and dark andscary and we don't know what's
happening in the world.
There's so many problems.
There's so many problems.
If we just sit in that, life isgoing to be really gloomy and
really hard.
(20:20):
We're not going to be able tocontribute any good things to
the world or our families orfriends or Right.
So it's worth it.
It's worth it to see the beautyin the world.
It's worth it to enjoy thebeauty of the world, you know,
and to delight in things and todo the things that fill you up
(20:45):
and make you feel better becauseyou get– energy from that, you
know, too.
And, and that's going to helpyou in all areas of your life
and do the things that you haveto do.
So it's kind of this fullcircle, full circle thing.
I feel like when we do delightin the world and in our lives
(21:06):
and we find joy, you know, then,then it's better all the way
around.
Right.
Right.
And that's, that's a biglimiting belief that we had to
get past for ourselves it's likeokay we have to really try and
build it and it's somethingwe're still working on of like
we are allowed to have fun andwe're allowed to have joy and
we're allowed to be creativebeings and it's not frivolous
(21:28):
and it's not so we talk aboutthat a lot and we're going to
continue probably talking aboutthat a lot because we need to
hear it we need to hear it andalmost every creative person I
know that I speak to in reallife needs to hear it over and
over again so Here it is.
We're going to keep talkingabout that.
Yeah.
So I want to go back though tothe example that I had of like
(21:50):
perfectionism.
Yeah.
We're going to use that.
We're going to go into like,okay, how do you overcome these
limiting beliefs and kind ofsome practical steps?
Yeah.
Perfectionism is a really goodexample because I feel like it's
– I don't know a creative thatdoesn't deal with that in some
way or another.
(22:10):
Yeah.
And so like we said before,first, you have to realize
there's a problem.
You have to realize there'ssomething there.
Step number one.
I am a block from I can't do thething that I really want to be
doing because of whatever.
Yeah.
So realizing that there is anissue.
And then realizing or gettingreally deep of why.
(22:36):
Yeah.
Why is this a problem?
And then you have to askyourself, like, I mean, is this
true?
Yeah.
Like, is my art only worthy ifit's perfect?
Would I say that about someoneelse's?
Would I say that about someoneelse's?
And then also, I mean, in thistopic specifically, is there
(22:59):
such thing as perfect art?
Yeah.
Right.
That was, like, the big thingfor me.
I was like, oh– No, there's not.
I mean, I had to take a stepback and not think about my art,
right?
Yeah, right.
And I thought about the art thatreally resonated with me.
(23:20):
And I'm thinking, you know,books, paintings, like a certain
song.
There is this interesting thingthat happens with art where the
artist creates it, right?
They put it out into the world.
And then somebody elseexperiences it and has like an
emotional resonance with it thatit can create a moment that is
(23:45):
like perfect where they feelseen by themselves almost
through that experience.
Yeah, I love that.
that I think is the only kind ofperfection that can be achieved
with art, but we have no controlover it.
Yes.
Right.
The only way that can happen isif we're just let ourselves be
(24:09):
free to create so that it cantouch other people.
Yeah.
And they have to be receptive toit.
You know what I mean?
Like there is no perfection.
You can't achieve it.
You will never.
And that's the beautiful thingtoo, is I realized, okay, I, I'm
never going to create somethingperfect.
(24:29):
And so I need to, I need to letgo of that.
You know, I just had thethought, you're never going to
create anything perfect, buteverything you create is perfect
just the way it is.
Right.
Like it's kind of that paradoxwhere it's never perfect and it
is perfect just the way it isbecause it's imperfect.
Right.
Like it doesn't, What isperfection anyways?
(24:51):
Like who decides that, right?
It's not even real.
It's not even real.
It's not even real.
So it really is this kind of, Idon't know, fantasy expectation
that we put on ourselves thatdoesn't even have a place in
real life.
I just looked back at some artthat I created several years ago
(25:14):
that at the time I was so proudof.
I was like, this is amazing.
I'm amazing.
This is great.
Okay, it's recording.
Technical difficulties.
We're back.
We're back.
I was just saying, I looked backat some art and felt like it was
really fantastic.
It was art that I felt reallyfantastic when I had made it at
(25:36):
the time.
And then looking back at it, Irealized, wow, I kind of cringed
at it.
I was like, that's not as goodas I remember it being or
thought that it was at the time.
Yeah.
But...
It's kind of cool because I'vecome a long way to the point
that I wasn't beating myself upabout it.
And it was this moment ofrealizing like, oh, I've grown.
(25:57):
I've gotten better.
And at the time I felt like Ihad peaked.
I would never achieve anythingas good as that.
And yet I've still grown.
And I love that about creativityand just like us as human
beings, like we always have thecapacity to grow more.
Yeah.
Right.
(26:17):
Which is pretty cool.
Yeah.
And you know, I think I wasthinking there is like technical
aspects to, to certain things,crafts or, you know, things like
that.
There are technically correctways to do things and, you know,
you could be technically perfectin something, but at the same
time, like who decides that too,you know, like it doesn't really
(26:40):
matter.
necessarily matter, I guess, insome, I don't know.
And sometimes the technicalperfection, it loses some of the
emotion.
Right.
It loses the humanity.
It loses what we resonate with.
And so there's like both, alittle bit of both.
(27:03):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I think there's something to besaid about, you know, crafting
your skills, like honing yourskills and being able to do
things well and being able to dothings in the way that you want,
like learning how to do thingsin the way that you want to do
them.
But letting go of having to dothem perfect with someone else's
(27:28):
expectations of what perfect is,right?
Right.
Right.
And also realizing like, okay, Iwant to create a painting of
this caliber, right?
You're not going to sit down andjust do it the first time.
Yeah.
It takes so much practice and somuch learning, right?
So there really has to be joy inthe process, getting messy,
(27:50):
getting in there and realizinglike the perfection can never be
the goal.
Because you will never getthere.
Right.
It'll always let you down and itwon't be enjoyable.
Yeah.
And if you let that go, you'regoing to create better stuff
anyway.
It's true.
It's true.
100%.
When you let go ofperfectionism, you end up
(28:11):
creating even more beautifullythan you do, would have.
It happens again and again andagain.
And I know it's happened for me.
I know it's happened for you.
I know it's happened for friendsand many, many people.
people this is something thatjust is a fact like it just
(28:32):
happens when we let go of thestress and let go of the
perfectionism we end up creatingand we focus on the joy of the
creating then the end product isalways more beautiful is always
better is always more enjoyablebecause it's got a part of us
right it's got our our joy likeinfused in it it does and
(28:54):
sometimes it doesn't evennecessarily have to be joy
because sometimes art is just Imean it's expression and
sometimes we express otheremotions than joy you mean we're
not always feeling joy all thetime oh man I wish no but I feel
like joy is one of those thingsthat we have to seek yeah it
(29:17):
doesn't always just happen outof nothing like I've sometimes
for kids maybe maybe I feel likesometimes it's generated from
parents helping a little bitcreate create some of that magic
and joy but um also they justthey do experience joy and I
feel like a lot of it comes fromcreativity like as a mom
(29:39):
watching my kid realizing likeoh a lot of her joy is stemmed
from just curiosity and play andplay and realizing something new
or connecting with another, youknow, human being.
Like that's where a lot of thatkind of comes from being open to
learning and being open to notknowing how to do things.
(30:00):
Right.
And not knowing the outcome.
Yeah.
Right.
Letting go.
They, they let go of that.
They don't have thoseexpectations to be perfect yet.
Yeah.
Yep.
And so the joy kind of, comes inthat easier comes in that
process and as grown-ups that'skind of beaten out of us yeah a
little bit and we have to reallychoose to um to find that and
(30:23):
embrace that again and allow itright allow it into our lives um
it has to be it has to be aconscious choice yeah because it
does it it gets kind of beatenout of us as we grow older, you
know, and we have expectationsand we're responsibilities and,
you know, and so being able to,to choose joy, to choose
(30:46):
creativity, to choose thatfreedom, you know, that's huge.
It's so, it's so powerful and itcan have such a drastic positive
influence in our, in our livesand the way that we feel.
Right.
Yeah.
So now with the perfectionism,back in the day before when I
was not creating and I was like,I can't create because it won't
(31:07):
be perfect.
And if I never create theperfect thing, then I can't
start.
And if I don't start, I won'tcreate the perfect thing.
Yep.
Anyways.
Were you inside my head too?
Because that's, yep.
Yep.
That happened.
Realizing like, okay, I just, Igot real with myself.
(31:28):
Again, that's the first step.
You got to just get real withyourself, realize what's
blocking you.
And then was creating art moreimportant to me than creating
perfect art?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Clearly, I'm still here.
It's like, yes, I want tocreate.
I want to be creating.
I want to be making art.
And then from there, it wasn't,okay, well, I'm going to sit
(31:54):
down and create thismasterpiece.
No.
Okay, I'm going to sit down andI'm going to I'm going to create
a little bit of room and alittle bit of space in my life
to work towards this goal, thisdream that I want.
Yeah.
And it comes in the baby steps.
And then as you go through that,You start creating space for it.
(32:18):
Then you end up having kind oflike this dip and like take a
few steps back where it's like,ah, I did this new scary thing.
And it was like, it wasn'tperfect and it wasn't a lot.
And then you have to, you know,go through the, okay.
You know, you're like a littleparenting yourself.
Like it's okay that it wasn'tperfect.
That wasn't the goal.
And you keep working towards,you know, shifting the mindset,
(32:41):
but then also taking the action.
And it can be just a little bit.
And that's kind of how you startbuilding it into your nervous
system as safe and kind ofrewiring your brain and your
nervous system of, okay, itdoesn't have to be perfect.
I start noticing the good thingsin it.
(33:04):
And sometimes it's not like itturned out really good and it's
perfect and I want to showeverybody.
Sometimes it's, oh, I had a fewminutes left.
Right.
Yeah.
(33:37):
Yeah.
I feel like so often when we arekind of paralyzed by fear, which
perfectionism I feel like is aform of fear, you know?
Yeah.
I feel like when we're kind offeeling paralyzed by that, what
really helps is to get back intoour physical senses, right.
(34:00):
Is to focus on the physicalsenses that can be so helpful
because it gets us out of our,out of our head and back into
our, back into our body.
And I feel like too, with our,um, with our brains, these
limiting beliefs that we've hadsince, you know, childhood, they
have created neuro neuronpathways in our brains that are
(34:24):
just automatic.
Those are the freeways of ourbrains, right?
Where that's the lane that ourmind always goes, our thoughts
are used to going.
Yeah.
(34:45):
is not safe, you know, danger,danger, right?
The job of our nervous system isto keep us safe and to keep us
connected with our tribe so thatwe are safe and we can survive,
right?
And so when all of those kind ofcombine, it keeps us in that, in
our limiting beliefs becausethat's all it's trying to do is
keep us safe, right?
(35:05):
That's what our body's trainedto do and meant to do and
programmed.
And so, yeah.
The thing is, though, is that weare not just consigned to live
in that way.
We don't have to just stay stuckin that.
We do have the ability to chooseand to grow and to consciously
(35:29):
make another path.
I heard this a long time ago.
I heard this analogy of theneural pathways in our brain
that, yes, we have the six-lanehighway that we just always go
down.
But we can choose to step offthe path and we can go through
the grow through the field in anew direction.
And at first it'll be just like,you know, a little footpath.
(35:53):
Like we just bent the grass downa little bit and it springs back
up and, you know, we'll stillget on the highway.
But if we keep going down thatpath, eventually it'll get worn
down.
It'll turn into a dirt road,right?
A little dirt path.
And then eventually we'll widenthe road.
We keep going down that path.
Then we will eventually make anew six lane highway down this
(36:15):
other way.
And, and we, it, we are able tochoose the path that we go.
We don't have to stay on thatold, old highway.
We can make a new, new way.
And so when I find myselfrethinking old, old patterns,
(36:35):
old habits, old thoughts, youknow, it's like, oh, that's, I'm
down that old six lane highway.
What's my new six lane highwaygoing to be?
What am I going to choose tothink instead?
And that is so powerful to knowthat we have the power to choose
our thoughts and to choose ourreactions, right?
(36:58):
Our responses.
We don't have to just react.
We can choose to respond in away that we want to respond.
And so That, I think, issomething that is really hard to
learn.
Yeah, right.
You don't have to remain avictim of your limiting beliefs.
You don't have to stay stuck.
(37:22):
What?
What?
Yeah, but I feel like that'sonly recently being taught, you
know, and has not been a mindsetchange.
in our society, in our culture.
Yeah.
It's a new way of thinking.
One of the things that comes upthat isn't helpful is almost
(37:43):
that you can think yourself outof it, which is not true.
It's not just mindset.
It's mindset plus action, whichis why when you're in that
anxiety, perfectionism, fear,getting back into your body,
doing those physical things,focusing on the feel of the
(38:05):
whatever it is, the feel of thepaintbrush, the feel of the
beads or, you know, what, whatthe sounds, what you're feeling,
what you're seeing, what you'rehearing, you know, what you're
tasting, like take it back toyour senses and, and re regroup
in your physical body becausethat gets you out of your head,
(38:26):
out of those cycles, you know?
Right.
UNKNOWN (38:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (38:30):
And resets your nervous system a little bit.
SPEAKER_00 (38:33):
Also, breathing really helps, you know, breath
work and finding ways that cancalm your physical nervous
system, your physical body down.
That helps so much.
That's pivotal because whenyou're in that anxiety mode.
a main way to get back out of itis to focus on the physical or,
(38:56):
you know, step outside.
Yeah.
That helps huge sunshine.
I know a lot too.
Yeah.
Um, exercise, moving your body.
Yeah.
Yep.
All of these things, all thesethings can help.
And then, you know, when youcome back to it, come back to it
with a fresh perspective, youknow, like do those healthcare
(39:16):
things that you need and thencome back to it.
And, and, um, you know, when I,what helped me a lot with
getting out of perfectionism is,you know, I grew up with, you
know, you'd put pencil to paperand paint to paper and this is
like, you know, that's whatbeing an artist is.
Right.
And that always had me soparalyzed because So paralyzed.
(39:39):
And part of it for me was Idon't want to waste the paper.
I don't want to waste thepaints.
This costs money.
That was part of my issue.
And then I got an iPad, which ishilarious because they're very
expensive.
But unlimited paper, okay?
Unlimited paint.
And that for me helped.
And then I also didn't have asketchbook.
(40:02):
where not every page had to beperfect.
And I'm not saying this is thesolution for everybody fixing
their perfection.
This is just my journey.
Right.
Right.
It's like, oh, I, you know, Ican make a mess on this thing
and then just delete it andnobody ever has to see it and
it's fine.
And I can just, I can get reallyIt gave me permission to be
(40:22):
messy when I picked up my iPad.
It gave me permission to bereally, really messy.
And I didn't feel like I wasbeing wasteful.
It helped get rid of some of theblocks that were there with the
perfectionism.
And I could just focus on onething at a time, which for me
was helpful.
(40:44):
And then I got to a point of...
Like I didn't want to share myart with anybody.
I didn't want anyone to see it.
And again, that was part of thelike, oh, this isn't good
enough.
This isn't good enough to share.
Like I don't want to show it tosomebody and be told that I need
to focus on my math studies.
You know?
Yep.
(41:06):
And be told like, oh, you needto get a real job.
Oh, you need to focus on otherthings.
Because especially when I wasyounger at the time, it wasn't
even that I was– trying to be anartist I was just doing
something that I enjoyed rightand so then that immediate
response of like oh you shouldfocus on something more
practical was just devastatingbecause I just wanted them to
(41:31):
enjoy it with you enjoy it withme yeah yeah and I I mean the
first some of the first times Iexperienced that was with you in
our friendship where youchampioned it.
And if it was something that Iwas like, I want to get better
at this, can you give me acritique?
Whatever, which I took a longtime to build up being able to
(41:52):
accept critiques.
I still struggle with that alittle bit.
But– It's hard.
It's hard.
It's hard.
Like, please, come attack me.
It's not– that's not what acritique is.
Sounds so fun.
But that community element ofit.
Yeah.
Of, oh, here's a safe personthat I can share this with.
Again– so helpful, you know,have a different perspective
(42:17):
that can help me widen myperspective.
Like, yes, Darcy and Elizabeth.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause we really do.
We, we help each other grow.
And I love that because artreally helps us grow.
Our creativity really helps usgrow.
It can be our Mr.
Darcy.
Like I said, of, of just thatself-realization.
(42:39):
Yeah.
Um, I feel like it can so oftenbe a physical representation of
our inner world, right?
That I feel like so manycreatives, that's what happens.
Maybe even all creatives.
I don't know.
But in some way or another...
(43:02):
it's that expression of what'skind of on our soul, you know,
on our souls, like important tous and the way that we feel.
And, and it's that outwardexpression.
And so it can be that it can bea self reflection.
Yeah.
It's a worthwhile pursuit in myopinion.
(43:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which can help us grow and learnand become better and embrace,
you know, embrace our, most trueand deepest parts of ourselves.
Yeah.
And have more, yeah, more love,more joy.
Yeah.
Go live at Pemberley.
Let's go with your Mr.
(43:48):
Darcy.
We like, we like a good visualhere.
Metaphor.
Yeah.
So if you are wanting to exploreyour creativity more and explore
yourself, we are your champions.
(44:09):
For sure.
You're doing great.
Yes.
We're so proud of you.
Here's your permission slip.
We want you to go forth andconquer.
And you are not alone in thoseemotional struggles, the
limiting beliefs.
You are not alone.
There are so many people outthere.
So many people that are probablygoing through very similar
situations.
(44:29):
We all are, you know, we allare.
We've been there.
Yeah.
In our own.
We're going to continue beingthere.
That's right.
So we love you.
Thank you for being here andwe'll see you next time.
That's it for today, friend.
Thanks for spending this timewith us.
We hope you're leaving with alittle more light, a little more
peace, and maybe even a nudge togo be creative just because it
(44:52):
brings a little more joy to yourlife.
If anything in this episodespoke to your heart, sparked a
thought or made you smile, we'dlove it if you'd follow the
show, leave a quick five-starreview or share it with someone
who might need a little creativeencouragement too.
And remember, your creativitymatters.
Your voice matters.
You matter.
We're cheering you on always.
(45:13):
Until next time, keep making,keep softening, and keep showing
up as your whole beautiful self.
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