Positivity Fridays: I sold things! And some other random crap.

It’s that time of the week again, kids. It’s Friday!

So let’s get a run down of this week’s awesomeness.

Awesome thing #1: I sold 3 prints! Now if you’d like to recall that a while back, I set goals. (Yes, holy crap. Did you forget about them? Because I did.) One of those goals was to sell 3 prints. So I’d like to thank my lovely friend, Megan, (everyone wave) for buying them. Considering that the painting was of her, it’s not entirely surprising, but still completely and totally awesome, and one of my goals.

As a side note, it’s probably easier to achieve goals if you remember you have them. Gotta work on that one.

Awesome thing #2: I got sick. No, that’s not the awesome thing. The awesome thing is that I feel better. I like feeling better. Better is good.

Being sick also meant that I had to do things like sleep, and take care of myself and relax and not be all Rambo and try to do a million things every week, which is usually what I’m like.

Awesome thing #3: I got the most delightful, wonderful, encouraging, supportive, just-plain-awesome email from Charlie Gilkey, at Productive Flourishing. (Which by the way, is a completely fabulous site, and you should just go hang out there for a while. Plus Charlie is one of the coolest kids on the block and listens to RHCP. How cool is that? Way cool, that’s what.)

His email has been printed out, and stuck up next to my easel. It’s the most amazing feeling when random people who you barely know stand up and yell, “GO SARAH!”

Confession: I was pretty choked up while reading it. It was just one of those mornings where I was A) getting sick so felt pretty crappy anyways and B) felt like I was running in circles and getting nothing done and everything was just going supremely wrong. So I needed this email. Badly.

And it’s funny, because I have gotten so much of this kind of support lately. Like every time I turn around, someone is cheering me on and letting me know that I’m doing good work or helped them somehow or whatever. It’s been amazing. I’ve never been in such a positive environment before.

Oddly enough, it was one of my intentions lately – to make new, supportive, encouraging friends and move away from negative people.

I’m actually slightly gobsmacked as to how well that’s been going without me even trying. So if you’ve been a cheerleader for me lately (and you know who you are), I love you. You rock and are awesome. Thank you

Awesome thing #4: Started the Artist’s Way again. I just finished week one today. It feels good, and the morning pages have been this crazy epiphany generator. It’s been heavy, but awesome.

I’m still struggling with bits of it. Mostly: the artist date, and affirmations. (Megan, I can hear you rolling your eyes about the affirmations.) I have huge resistance to both of those things, I think because they’re such positive, self encouraging actions.

And seriously people, when in the heck do I ever things like that?

I’ve also got a bit of an eye-rolling thing towards affirmations – all I can picture is hippie new age women looking in the mirror, and saying, “I am a beautiful, light-filled goddess.” Which, if that makes you feel better, cool. Go for it. But that just makes me feel like a dork.

I think I have to get over that stereotype and reframe affirmations as being positive self-encouragement. Like telling myself that I am capable, or independent, or able to make money, and that I’m good at what I do, instead of the litany of negative affirmations which I currently feed to myself. Maybe I could make up a new name for affirmations? Or I’ll just call it encouragement instead.

And as for artist dates, I don’t even know where to start. Take myself out, alone, and do something playful and fun that my artist loves? My brain automatically blocks and says, “Well I don’t know what to do. We don’t like to have fun. Let’s just do nothing.”

But I know that the more resistance you have about something, the bigger the breakthrough and rewards when you do it. So I’m working on it. I’ll let you know next Friday how it went.

Awesome thing #5: So yesterday, someone said to me, “Oh my god, could you stop worrying about money for like 5 seconds?”

To which my brain responded first with, “Ouch“, which was promptly followed by:

“NO! I can’t! If I don’t worry about money, who is going to worry about it?! Somebody needs to be worrying about the money.”

Which pretty much sums up my relationship with money. Not exactly a healthy relationship. I’m kind of like an overprotective parent, who wants to hide her kids away in a padded room where nothing and no one can find them. And at the same time, she kind of wants nothing to do with her kids, because her kids scare her and she’s not entirely sure what to do with them. And so her kids resent her and spend their entire lives just trying to run away.

That is me and money. Like I said – not really healthy.

So, intention for the coming weeks and months – to slowly but surely develop a better relationship with my wallet. Learn about things like savings, and investments and bonds and stocks and…stuff. Stuff like that. And maybe, slowly but surely, wrapping my head around the fact that, yes, I am capable of making money, in any way I choose. That I am independent and capable and talented and have the ability to create wealth for myself.

I know, I know – slow down Speedy McGee, you might be thinking. These are some pretty crazy thoughts to be having. I’m a little shocked by them myself. But I am a wild and crazy woman. You’d better watch out. I might just go do these things.

Alright, that’s it for me! That is pretty much the summary of my week. It’s been pretty alright, if I do say so myself. Even if I did get sick. And to finish this up on a note of total awesomeness, I thought I’d leave you with a picture of me from when I was 7.

I was really funny looking kid. And you’ll probably laugh. (Check out that 90′s plaid.)

I look so high.

Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you all on Monday! And good luck with that Christmas shopping, because that’s where I’ll be.

Tags: Encouragement, Money, positivity fridays, productive flourishing, support, the artist's way