I am enough

I was minding my middle-aged business when I received an e-mail from Jana, the editor at Art Doll Quarterly.  She said Devon from one of their parent magazines sent her a photo of a pillow I had sent.  Now...I remember sending Devon photos of jewelry displays, but I have no recollection of sending this pillow.  (It's the one on the right that says "I am enough".  She asked if I would be interested in writing an article about how I created her and to please send other pillows.  I have always been the girl who says, "Sure, I can do that," and then I figure out how to do it.  It occurred to me (since I don't remember sending her the photo, how the hell am I supposed to remember how I made the pillow?)...That was the least of my problems...My head started spinning and I went down the rabbit hole. " Who is going to want to see my work?  Other doll artists are so much more talented than me” blah, blah, blah....I needed to stop.  I replied to the e-mail immediately, saying I would love to and I will send her other pillows.  That is how the second pillow was created (the one on the left that says "trust").  How appropriate.  I took step-by-step pictures so I would remember what I did and thought to myself, "Wow, I thought I would hate doing this type of process."  My other thought, which wasn't so healthy, was, "Why does anyone care what I am doing?"  But...I did it anyway and this time I didn't listen to the Itty-Bitty-Shitty Committee in my head.  Once I pushed the fear shit aside, the "I believe in myself" pillow (middle one) came alive.  

 What came out of this experience besides crazy?  I learned the only thing that stops us from being happy is fear.  We have two choices in life...Love or Fear.   Fear is mostly made up in our heads.  The only truth I had when I started my pillows was, "I never painted pillows before".  That was true, but the other crap like "What if no one likes them" was made up fear story that I created.  And this is how I conquered that fear.  I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down "Why not try", listing every thought I had in my head.  Then I went back and crossed out everything that was a story and circled only the true facts.  I was surprised that almost everything was just fear-based.  That was the day I grew a little wiser...Shame I probably won't remember it tomorrow!