That’s right. For the next month, I am giving myself total permission to drop every single should I have.

And permission to do exactly as I please, day in and day out, until the first of March.

I am hereby dropping the following shoulds:

- That I “should” be marketing

-That I “should” be writing a newsletter

-That I “should” be writing better copy for my site

-That I “should” be designing a better site

-That I “should” be doing more publicity

-That I “should” be painting politically or socially “hot” topics

-That I “should” only post attractive pictures of myself

-That I “should” be the child my parents wanted

-That I “should” be hating my job

-That I “should” be successful

-That I “should” be making boatloads of money

I hereby give myself permission to do the following:

-Permission to fuck up completely

-Permission to fail delightfully

-Permission to experiment creatively

-Permission to take hour long bubble baths

-Permission to heal

-Permission to be exactly who I am, every single day

-Permission to paint for hours, working on any piece I want to

-Permission to excercise as much or as little as I want

-Permission to be completely broke and in debt

-Permission to spend the whole damn day in bed

-Permission to feel exactly the way I feel

-Permission to let go of the guilt

-Permission to spend the whole day reading

-Permission to indulge in myself completely

-Permission to be kind to myself

-Permission to hang out on the Kitchen Table all damn day if I want to

This feels good. I’ve probably given some people heart attacks by saying I’m not going to market, but the real thing here is that I’m not going to do anything that I feel I should. If I feel like marketing, if I’m feeling brave and want to share myself and my art from a true, authentic place, then fabulous. But right now, those shoulds are causing more problems than good things.

And I need to walk away from them.

So don’t worry, I’ll still be writing here, because I love to write here, and every single day I get to hang out with you guys and share myself and my fears and my dreams. And I’m going to paint all the time, without worrying about putting it out there, or if it’s good enough, or safe enough.

I’m giving myself permission to make myself feel safe.

And I’m hoping that, at the end of the month, I’ll have ousted a lot of those shoulds, and I’ll be abe to start marketing myself and sharing my art with clarity and authenticity. I will have a clearer idea of what I’m trying to say and how I’m going to say it. I will have a clearer idea of who my Right People are, my 1000 True Fans, and the community that I want to create around that.

I will get to heal. And drop a lot of the guilt that I’ve been walking around with for being me. Because the thing is, and I realized this with a shock last night, that I am quite comfortable in my own skin. I love myself and my body (that’s a huge one, trust me) and I really quite like myself.

But the conflict comes in where for certain people in my life, that doesn’t seem to be enough. And that leaves a lot of guilt and shame behind for even liking who I am and doing the things that I love. Several people pointed out to me yesterday that in my copy for my website, I’m often apologetic about myself and my art.

That needs to stop. I love my art, and I should (ha!) never apologize for it. I realized yesterday that I’m not a drain on society as Bob would have had me believe – nobody likes art, or buys art and all artists starved according to Bob, and I bought into that entirely. I was apologetic that I’d decided to be an artist, because nobody likes artists.

But that’s not true. I bring life, and light and beauty into a world so obsessed with negativity. I bring authenticity and truth and emotion and heart to a world that is at times too superficial. I want to sprinkle magic fairy dust into people’s lives and help them transform, help them fall in love with life again and learn to dream again. I want to inject their lives with beauty and truth and awesomeness and most importantly, hope.

So I do have a purpose – a proud, noble purpose. I don’t need to be ashamed of that. In fact, if there’s one thing that I need to do, it’s share it.

And so today, as my first act of kindness towards myself – I’m going to spend the day at Ikea, playing house with Jesse and testing couches and beds and fantasizing about our own home, our own apartment by the sea, which is getting tantalizingly close. It’s only months away now. I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday. Mine is going to be brilliant.