This whole “writing my morning pages” stuff is getting kind of heavy.

Its bringing up so much…ugh. Junk. Stuff I’d seriously rather not think about. Except I know that when I’m not thinking about it, its actually deeply affecting me.

Today’s exercise was excavating core negative beliefs. Holy crap, do I ever have some of those. I’ll warn you now that you’re going to look at this list and be like, “What the heck is wrong with you girl? None of these things are true!”

But that’s the thing about core negative beliefs. You don’t believe them because you want to, or because they’re true. You believe them because you’re taught to believe them.

So let’s have a quick look at what I came up with:

The Universe hates my guts.
No one wants to buy my paintings.
My paintings aren’t good enough to get accepted into a “real” gallery.
People don’t buy art. Its a luxury.
My paintings are the wrong kind of paintings. I should be painting other things.
I will never accomplish anything of any kind of importance because I am sick.
No one will take me seriously because I’m very young.
I’m annoying.
I’m boring.
I’m not good enough. (For what, I don’t know. Its just came out.)
My work is too expensive, and no one will want to spend that kind of money on my work.
Showing my personality is bad. The more of my personality that I show, the less people will want to buy from me and the more my potential customers will hate me. I must be business-like and safe.

So I’d like to say that pretty much all of these beliefs came from one specific person. Let’s call him Bob for the sake of anonymity and just in case he reads this, he won’t stop talking to me for a week. Bob is prone to doing that. (I do actually know a Bob, and Bob, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. Its most definitely not you. You’re awesome and I love you.)

Bob likes to rain on my parade. Good thing happens? Bob likes to tell me how its not good at all. How its actually pretty terrible. Or that its a fluke, and will never happen again.

So the belief that I did some exploration on today was “No one wants to buy my paintings.” I kind of sat there for a bit, wondering where that came from, and a memory came back to me. A strong memory.

It was the day of my opening to my first solo exhibition, which for me, at 19, was a pretty huge freaking deal. I mean, this was after I’d finally gotten away from the abusive boyfriend, and beat depression and was back at school, and getting near graduation (finally) and I just really needed a victory for me. I needed to prove to myself and the world that, yeah, I was still here, and I was still gonna kick ass, and nothing was going to stop me.

So at my opening reception, I sold my first ever painting. I mean, I’d done commissions before, but this was a painting that I’d painted for me, and then somebody else loved too, and they decided it was worth $200 to buy it.

BIG FRIGGING DEAL. Huge deal. I was overjoyed. I was shaking I was so excited. I felt like a huge world of possibilities had just opened up to me. People liked my work. People wanted to buy my work. I felt like the luckiest, happiest girl in the world.

So after everyones left, and I’m expounding this wonderful things to the people who stayed behind, and Bob turns and says to me:

“Well, you would have never sold that painting if it wasn’t to your friend’s mother. Its only cus your friend bullied her into it that it sold. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have sold anything.”

I think I actually disintegrated on the spot. It took every ounce of strength I had to A) not automatically burst into tears and B) not deck him.

But I was furious. And hurt. Really hurt. Because Bob is really close to me, and if Bob said it, it must be true, right?  (I’m starting to see that Bob is often wrong, but I was young. And at that point, I thought Bob was behind me 100%. He’s actually not. Or if he says he is, he’s lying.)

And so even though I did sell another painting for $500 at that show, I’d stopped believing in myself. I’d stopped believing that anyone would actually want my paintings. I told myself that the only reason I’d sold the other painting was because it was my mother’s friend who bought it. My mother had probably talked her into it. I lost all of my faith in myself. Which my faith wasn’t exactly iron strong, but it was better than it had been in years. And it was growing.

And I remember that even after I sold the $500 painting, Bob rained on that parade too. I don’t remember exactly what he said, I just remember I didn’t talk to him for the rest of the evening for fear that I would completely and totally freak out on him. I think it was something along the lines of, “Well don’t expect this to continue. I mean, sure you sold 2, but this doesn’t happen all the time.”

Gee, thanks Bob. Thanks for that support and encouragement. Thanks for being on my side. Jerk.

Wow, I actually feel so much better. I hold a lot of this stuff inside, and I’m often afraid to talk about it out loud. Bob would never admit to saying these things, and he would never take responsability for hurting me or crushing me. It would actually end up being my fault, I’m sure. He would resent me and stop talking to me for a while. And he’d be seriously, seriously pissed that I’d blogged about it. Ohhh boy, I would hear about it.

But now I feel a little bit better. I used to be ashamed about all of the things he’d said to me, and would hold them inside, where they festered and caused even more damage.

But writing about it is healing. It’s giving me some perspective to realize that Bob is wrong. And kind of mean sometimes. And that maybe people would want to buy my paintings.

Feels good.