I’m an artist, and sensitive…,you know the rest.

I’ve been suffocating my creativity. Hiding it from myself so it can’t even touch y’all. Drowning it in fear, anger, and self loathing. In victimhood. I’ve been expecting change without surrendering to its inevitability and constancy. I’ve begged for the peak without the climb. And then I resent change and myself. Oh, and countless people too. I hate the joy and karma of others, or I can’t unblock myself enough to even see their hurt because I make my hurt greater. This is my ego trip. This is my strangled creative. It’s when I block the goddess in me; that essence that is perfect…just as it is. Sometimes it feels as if jealousy, comparison and self doubt are the only attributes I can rely on. That’s terribly sad. What’s sadder is I feed it knowing it’s bad for me and for everyone with whom I come into contact. Especially my loves. What’s scary is that I feel these low vibrations operate on their own, on some kind of auto-pilot because I’ve given up my power – inherent power and power with – and resigned myself to reject myself. I don’t accept who I am, whose I am, and that I am. And that’s where the creator in me dies more each day or is fed misery instead of possibility.

So I’m acknowledging it’s time to raise my self awareness and take the next steps of forgiving myself and others and letting go. It’s hard as fuck y’all. And it’s frightening. Literally one sour moment undoes weeks of progress and it makes it harder (because I’m trained to be miserable) to attempt a practice of self soothing, inner child nurturing, writing often just cuz (and not making text messages my epic poems, sorry y’all), honoring and calling on the ancestors, and being nonjudgmental and gentle with myself and others. I start with reminders like “love yourself always”, “raise your vibration”, or “you get to be here” on my daily alarms. I read ancestral wisdom texts and passages and fill my Instagram with conscious communal beings, artists, usually fierce Black, feminine queer folk who tout vulnerability as beautiful, necessary power, all the while calling for justice and how it begins in us. I remember to celebrate my erotic. I tell people how, why and where it hurts. And it hurts y’all. A lot. My birthday just passed and so much love showed up and connected me to myself. It’s important that I share that part because the way ego is set up it feeds such separateness – division of me from myself and subsequent misalignment between me and others. Soon after this wondrous time though, I slipped back into a cramped, dark space and made myself small. And I showed up even smaller and hurtful to loved ones by putting up a wall and lashing out from behind it. How easy it is to forget the love in and outside of me and that I’m enough.

As much as I abuse myself and wallow in self pity and shame, I thankfully never forget I am a creator. We all are. We are all artists. A fellow creative on IG, whom I don’t know, helped me this morning to remember I control my happiness and that an integral piece of combatting my depression is seeking connection, internally and externally. She used her talents to depict egoic manifestations and I saw myself in them all. I wept at how true they are, how I think and act like that, how ugly and defeated my ego makes me feel and perform. I wept also for how I’ve regressed and lied in hard moments, even when all around me there is light, and how hard it is to stay consistent. How I often reject choosing joy. But instead of shrinking in this bed with my dog, I got on this site and started writing. See? Creative! Honest and powerful in softness and exposure. And yes, still in need, just unafraid to admit it. I am more than depression and anxiety. I am not depression and anxiety. I am not my worst day. I am a creator who is limitless, but only as much as I feed that wonderful part of me. I know I got my shit and it’s embarrassing to encounter and manage, and I need loads of assistance to remain on the healing journey to self acceptance, if it’s even a destination. What am I saying? I know there’s no destination. There’s just this moment. So in this moment I lay down a bit more suffering, vengeance and self deprecation. I choose to celebrate the art that is me. Thanks for reading.