Ways Stress is Killing your Art

There is a big misbelief that you need to stress yourself out in order to be an artist. You need to push yourself against a deadline. You need for it to be perfect. You need the art to be good.

Whether you're a veteran artist or someone just starting to remember your inner artist, stress is a toxic form of pushing yourself to produce something to satisfy your ego. It is not art. It does not support your process as an artist. It also doesn't support your process as a human.

You might be asking, Jessenia, what am I supposed to do?

It's simple, and in its simplicity, you're going to notice all the ways your mind wants things to stay the same. Not because the mind is a dirty word, the next big bad wolf, or the ego, but because your mind is pointing you to the conditioning you are used to.

The conditioning you saw within your parents growing up. The conditioning in what you saw other artists mimic their creations in. The conditioning that exists for everyone in this ‘modern western world,’ whether you're an artist or not.

It stops you from enjoying the process of art, tied to your inner child, and pulls you away into an adult who needs to show up a specific way. That hurt, that pain, shows up in trauma—the trauma that is behind the stress.

A simple way of being able to shift that pattern, without needing to go super deep and figuring out where it started, is by giving your body priority in your creation. The moment your body feels tight, pause what you're doing, give yourself a hug, and move your body in delicious movements. Rest.

The moment your mind is telling you to abandon your body, notice the pattern. Stop. Would you treat someone else similarly? Someone in bed with you? Under you? On top of you? Tell you to stop? Yet you go ahead for your own satisfaction?

There's no judgment here, but there's a truth we all need to wake up to: the horrification of the ego, getting off on the body for its glorification.

That is not art.

Art, for those who allow me to offer you a definition to play with, is the expression of the human spirit. It's the process. The process of being human that a brave few enter to re-express through themselves, for literally the art of it. The art of the process. The art of being within the process.

The process can’t be fast-forwarded. It also can't be time-traveled into the past. Your process, when stress is coming up, is something you need to start processing as something valuable. The process of becoming intimate with your needs as a human being.

Less the output of being an artist. Getting the picture out. Plastering your name. Showing it to your friends for the egoic satisfaction of “here I did it, here’s my scoop full of validation!”

But something underneath that. Singing.

The process that inspired the art in the first place. That's what makes you an artist.

For a simple exercise to start entering into a somatic practice for yourself, to start that relationship with your body onceagain with a bit of maternal care, I highly recommend signing up for our Artist Letter. Where you will receive a free 7-day somatic journey—one you can use to inspire yourself afterward to play with in your own way as you create.

Con Amor, Jessenia.