Hi there and welcome back! First and foremost, I must sincerely apologize for the long absence. February has been a whirlwind of emotions for me. While working towards all my goals, I somehow fell into a mild state of depression. The things intended to bring me joy (specifically my daily lettering) were making me feel angry and unfulfilled. I fell into this trap of “woe is me” and found myself uncontrollably crying at least once a week. There was no desire to talk to friends, go out, or simply do anything for myself. I drowned myself in work and nothing else. Since I was solely focused on lettering, I let the blog fall by the wayside, uninspired and unmotivated to write.
This unhealthy pattern lead me to fixate on everything negative versus the good in my life. Due to all the work I’ve been doing, the need for success felt overwhelming. I constantly checked my Instagram feed, hitting refresh every 15 minutes and counting likes as though that would validate my work. I felt obsessive over getting followers, judging others’ work, and lettering felt like it was stressing me out instead of allowing me to relax and have fun with it. Though I was happy with my lettering work, in the end it all looked mediocre to me. Despite my better judgment, I fell into the inevitable pit of comparing myself and my work to others.
To get out of this self-inflicted negativity and to step out of my head, I turned to my journal to gain a better understanding of what I was going through. During my journaling sessions, the one constant I noticed throughout the month was my struggle with self-identity. I realized that I was unknowingly adding unnecessary stress to my life through over-thinking and over analyzing my life. My self-talk was rehearsing my future instead of living in the present. As I continued to open up to myself, I understood the root of my problems but was trapped; trapped in my own bubble of worry, masking the pain with work, and neglecting myself.
The only way to get out of this funk was to identify the range of emotions I was experiencing. Outside of feeling stressed and over worked, I felt impatient, scared, uncertain, vulnerable, eager, frustrated, and annoyed. But on the flip side there were feelings of being proud, strong, capable, curious, and confident. It was evident that I needed to take back control of my thoughts and feelings and find balance in my life again. I needed to remind myself of why I’m doing all of this to begin with.
2017 is the year for me. It’s the year of living my life: discovering who I am, doing work for me, and putting content together that appeals to me. Yes, I want others to enjoy the content I write and appreciate my lettering, but pleasing others was not my goal in starting all of this blog. It was meant to be a starting point for me. A space where I could share my creative point of view, despite what everyone else is doing or how my work measured up. After taking some time to rethink and reevaluate, it’s time to start doing that.
As February comes to an end and marks the completion of #blackhistorylettering (this was to be the blog post of the month), March will be the start of something new. Being that it’s my birthday month (29 here we come!) I wanted to do something special for myself. In order to infuse positivity back into my life, I’m doing #31daysofpositiveaffirmations. March will be a month-long recognition of things I love about myself and the positive mindset I want to instill back in my life. I’ll focus on not just the physical, but a mental shift from this negative way of thinking throughout February. In case you were wondering, yes! Lettering will be involved in this. It’s important for me to fall back in love with myself and my art.
Outside of lettering, I will dive deeper into my meditation and yoga practice with Adriene. I want to understand the foundation and fundamentals of yoga. I know I’ve said this before but yoga has helped me appreciate my body, mind, and helped me focus on the present. My daily bible reading has also been a much-needed recharge in my faith. As a Christ follower, understanding the word of God and how it translates into my life has been very important. Within 2 months of reading the scripture, my faith has grown immensely and I know that God has me covered. I can no longer deny that art is my track in life. I feel that God wants to use me in a way that will not only bring the best out of me but also others; that means you too!
I will, of course, go back to posting regularly and hope that my words, and ongoing struggles in life serve as motivation for you to keep going, keep fighting, and stay strong as I am. Thank you all for your support and patience throughout all of it. I would love to hear from you about your struggles and how you’ve managed to overcome them. Till next time!
Hi!
Staying positive is not easy so I'm glad to see that you're feeling better. As an outsider, I can say that you have talent and your lettering is getting better. Don't give up! Sending you positive vibes.
Thanks for the words of encouragement Joel, I really appreciate it! 🙂