The title of this post should be read to the tune of the “Spam Song” by Monty Python. Or at least that’s how it sounded in my head as I typed it.

Guilt is my old friend. Guilt, worry and shame are like the deranged, evil triumvirate that rule my life.

So the paintings for the nude show have been going great – they’ve been moving along so quickly, and just falling into place with hardly any help from me. They’re just screaming to be painted.

But then last week, I got thrown. Really thrown.

Guilt showed up

I knew that the pieces the artist I’m doing the show with were taking much, much longer than mine. Sometimes 3 times as long. And he was working himself into the ground to get them done. That’s not to say that I’m not working hard, but to my guilt, it wasn’t quite the same.

The guilt said that it was too easy. That it was supposed to be harder. That I was supposed to be struggling more, and because I wasn’t, I must be doing something wrong.

Next thing I knew, I was stuck and stuck hard. The painting stopped flowing. The skin tones fell apart. I couldn’t even see how I would finish it. I couldn’t even work on it on Thursday, and spent the day working on commissions. I never even realized what I’d done. I just thought I’d lost the flow. I spent all my time thinking about how I needed to work harder, and where I was going to fit in the extra painting time, and how burnt out I had to be by the end.

Whoa whoa, how burnt out I had to be?!

Something about that wasn’t sitting quite right with me so I decided to take Sunday off and visit one of my favourite childhood hiking trails. I needed to break away for a day. This morning, I came back to it, and as I was setting up my paints, I finally started listening to the guilt running amok in my head.

Hold on a second here. This doesn’t make any sense. Why am I punishing myself for things going well? Why am I making myself feel guilty for being in flow? This is ridiculous! I’m allowed to enjoy painting, and it’s allowed to go well, and it’s allowed to go quickly.

I never realized how completely addicted to struggling I was, until I noticed that I was beating myself up for things going well.

It doesn’t have to be hard

I often feel like, unless something is really hard, and I’m killing myself to do it, it’s got no value or worth. I feel that I’m probably doing it wrong somehow, and that it’s just not the same thing. It’s gotta be a struggle, or it’s wrong.

We could get into some crazy psychoanalysis on this, I’m sure, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. The point is, it’s a pattern, I noticed it, and I stopped it. At the end of the day, gaining understanding about where it came from will help, but even just knowing that it’s there, and being able to say, “Oh, there’s my guilt, saying I need to make everything hard” is enough. It stopped. I let it go. I moved on.

Painting this morning went great, and the piece will be finished soon. No more struggle, no more guilt, just lots of happy flow and creativity.

Heavenly.