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Coach’s Corner

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Drive Slowly — Artist Crossing

By Pamela Yates

An issue that comes up fre­quently with my coach­ing clients is a sense of guilt and self-loathing artists some­times expe­ri­ence when they run into dif­fi­cul­ties man­ag­ing the diverse respon­si­bil­i­ties of imag­in­ing and cre­at­ing their work, run­ning the busi­ness side of their cre­ative life as well as man­ag­ing the mul­ti­tude of other respon­si­bil­i­ties and tasks required of us in our daily life with fam­ily, friend­sand other work. Often, this sense of inad­e­quacy is com­pounded by a state of near exhaus­tion and some­times hope­less­ness which fos­ters even greater and deeper self-doubt. This state of affairs is more often encoun­tered by emerg­ing artists grow­ing fast and tak­ing on new higher lev­els of com­mit­ments but also strikes hardy, expe­ri­enced artists expe­ri­enc­ing a sub­stan­tial shift in their cre­ative work or their life cir­cum­stances (for exam­ples, seri­ous loss such as death of a loved one or divorce, sud­den loss of gallery or pub­lic sup­port, etc.). I don’t believe any artist is immune from self-doubt and the related per­verse attack of toxic self-criticism.

The sense of shame, inad­e­quacy and exhaus­tion can turn the artist against her­self at a time when she most needs and deserves empa­thy, rest, com­pas­sion and sup­port from her­self and from oth­ers. An artist can lose her vision or worse yet cease work­ing alto­gether. Artists need to be strong in their com­pas­sion­ate and real­is­tic assess­ment of just how much work and respon­si­bil­ity they take on. She must try to be real­is­tic about how much reg­u­lar rest, sleep and nour­ish­ment she’s pro­vid­ing for her­self. In good times she’ll man­age an aston­ish­ing amount of self-abuse for her cre­ative work (iso­lat­ing, not eat­ing reg­u­larly, pulling all-nighters, impa­tience) but when hard times come around these behav­iors leave her body, mind and spirit very lit­tle if any resources to draw on no mat­ter how com­mit­ted she is to her cre­ative work. Com­pound­ing that, exhaus­tion and her lack of phys­i­cal resources seem to antag­o­nize that inter­nal toxic self-critic most artists and which howls loud­est dur­ing times of stress and difficulty.

It’s easy to aban­don basic self-care when inspi­ra­tion is strong and the artist wants to keep doing her cre­ative work no mat­ter what. I think artists accept that as part of their cre­ative call­ing. But when she wants to throw in the towel or become her own worst enemy it’s her respon­si­bil­ity to be will­ing to make a ruth­lessly fair and hon­est assess­ment of her recent self-care, to be vig­i­lant about how her lev­els of recent self-care may have con­tributed to her cur­rent feel­ings of hope­less­ness, exhaus­tion, shame and related toxic self-criticism. And, she needs to be will­ing to take steps to heal even if she doesn’t really like her­self very much at the time (inter­nal toxic self-critic work­ing over-time here). These are essen­tial steps we learn to fol­low humbly if we want to stay in the game for the long haul, to make it to the next show dead­line or the next con­cert hall. We need to keep this aware­ness in the present moment so we can apply the learn­ing when it’s needed before we reach break­ing point.

The com­pas­sion­ate way for­ward for this artist is for her to allow her­self to take a break at a time when she may want to blame her­self for being vul­ner­a­ble, imper­fect, fal­li­ble and human. Try­ing to fol­low the advice we might give a good friend is one way. She might take a break, get a bite to eat, take a few days off to rest if she can. One sug­ges­tion I give clients is to label “Lazy Daze” on their cal­en­dar to remind them­selves to take a break. Part of our work as artists is to be as cre­ative and ded­i­cated in pur­su­ing heal­ing and respite when it’s needed as we are in pur­suit of our cre­ative work.

I believe artists carry a ves­sel which con­tains the com­bined sto­ries and con­scious­ness of human­ity. Car­ry­ing that ves­sel is a joy­ful, rich and sacred task. I know from my work with many artists that it can also be dif­fi­cult at times to man­age the inter­nal and exter­nal com­plex­ity of a life in the arts. It’s essen­tial for the artist to learn to treat her­self with com­pas­sion and patience — no mat­ter what. Even bet­ter if she has peo­ple around her who respect and honor her intent and work, and help to smooth the rough spots and tough times. Of course, I hope this type of authen­tic sup­port is there for every per­son not only artists.

If you have ques­tions or com­ments I’d love to hear from you, please drop me an email.

Happy cre­at­ing!

Pamela Yates’ com­pelling imagery invites the viewer into a rich world of intu­ition, con­nect­ed­ness, myth and magic. Yates paints nar­ra­tive, abstract and fig­u­ra­tive work in oil, acrylic, mixed media and water­color. Her work is described as unique and peace­ful, using motifs from nature, cul­tural sto­ries, iden­tity, heal­ing and the human jour­ney. Pamela Yates also main­tains a coach­ing prac­tice at Cir­cle Path­ways pro­vid­ing holis­tic, com­pas­sion­ate coach­ing for indi­vid­u­als and small groups inter­ested in claim­ing and reach­ing goals related to cre­ativ­ity and mean­ing. Pamela Yates was born and raised in Aus­tralia, lived for a decade in Lon­don, Eng­land and now lives and paints in St. Paul, Min­nesota where the Mis­sis­sippi River and Min­nesota River join. For more infor­ma­tion con­tact Pamela Yates at her studio-gallery Foot­prints Fine Arts (www.footprintsfinearts.com) or her cre­ativ­ity and mean­ing coach­ing prac­tice at Cir­cle Path­ways (www.circlepathways.com), by phone (651) 308‑0870 or email pamela@footprintsfinearts.com.