How do you trust the process when you don't trust yourself?

What if the weight dragging you down is you?

I’m confident with my art and who I am as an artist, but pushing myself forward can be very difficult. Creatives often confront the darkest side(s) of ourselves… do creative shadow work. Bust through our own barriers.

You know how, when you make a small mistake, it’s not noticeable to other people…? And only you can see it, and it drives you nuts until you fix it or move on to something more important to worry about? I get that feeling CONSTANTLY while making art. It’s overwhelming and oppressive, it eats me alive from the inside out. It got so bad that I stopped painting.

I was scrolling on Insta the other day and watched a Reel in which an artist said “you have to trust the process.” Artists say and hear this phrase all the time, but, in this moment, I stopped scrolling and said out loud: ”but what if you don’t trust yourself?”

What if you don’t trust yourself?

If you trust the process, then that means you believe you’ll get through whatever the process looks like. Because you trust yourself. You know you can make it through.

That process might be ugly, messy, hard, frustrating, anxiety-inducing, loud, painful, sad. If you stick with it, it will be worthwhile.

But what if it isn’t? What if you don’t want to do all the hard work only to find out that whatever it is you’re creating isn’t what you want it to be?

What if you realize what you want to create isn’t what you actually create?

My entire life I’ve wanted to be a messy person. I am obsessed with mess. I love watching Hoarders. I want to roll around in Sofia Coppola’s office, in the New York Review of Books office, or make snow angels in Francis Bacon’s studio:

condenasttraveller

A post shared by @condenasttraveller

I didn’t grow up in a messy home. No dirty dishes were ever left in the sink. No socks littered the floor. Always immaculate.

My parents are both very tidy, organized people, almost to a fault. My mom begins cleaning up while everyone is still eating. My Dad has perfect handwriting that never—even for the shortest, most trivial notes—devolves into scribble. His signature is perfection. There was a lot of Type A stuff going on in our house, and as a result, I am the same way. If my daughter leaves a wrapper on the counter, I have to throw it away. I HAVE TO.

The other parts of me hate this part of me. It’s a bossy, nagging, critical party-pooping perfectionist, and I cannot seem to be rid of this bitch. I’ve wanted (and thus far, have failed¹) to break free from this inherited desire for “perfection” my entire life. It frequently causes me problems, some minor (annoyances due to cohabitating with a messy teen) and others more significant (never being satisfied with the fruits of my labor).

This “never being satisfied”-ness is simply my own twisted form of perfectionism.

Once I began making art in my 20s, I was sure I wanted to be a hard-edge painter. Minimalist vibes. Geometric shapes. But in practice, I found this to be very unfulfilling, boring even.

The process of art making is my favorite thing ever, and so I wanted that making part to be the longest process. (And if it didn’t take that long, I would continue to make more and more work. I am quite prolific!) I didn’t want to spend most of my time planning, prepping, or thinking. I don’t mind a small amount of planning, but ultimately I just want to get to the making.

It is worth noting to myself that I have—in fact—trusted the process before.

When I started my sketchbook practice in 2006, I was inspired to draw geometric patterns, which slowly morphed into a hodgepodge of geometries, string-like patterns, and lots of color. As I continued, drawing the strings and repetitive patterns became more and more enjoyable, and I wanted to keep adding embellishments and a variety of more fluid shapes… and scribbles!

Once I introduced the scribbles, it was cathartic, giving myself permission to get a little messy and weird, which naturally led me to an unimaginable place that has slightly more order, but I got there through chaos.

Sketchbooks 2013-2016

What I think was different about this journey was that it was not set up as a process in the beginning. I did not treat my sketchbook like each drawing was pushing me forward, or was a single step in a specific journey. I didn’t know where it was going, it was always an “in the moment” kind of situation. Whatever I was drawn to or inspired by on that day or that week. This non-processness was the beauty of “the process.” This is also where my good old friend Overthinking comes into play. In fact, this entire post is the result of my overthinking of the “trust the process” Reel I watched.

Is the answer to all of this not to ever approach anything like it’s “a process?” I don’t know.

I have this pesky amygdala and its sidekick, prefrontal cortex, that seems to interfere with my ability to take certain risks. I can appreciate that it’s trying to protect me with its logical thoughts and whatnot, but it has become a meddling, frustrating barrier between me and my ability to truly get my emotions out through art. Part of me thinks this is in an effort to not “waste time,” an unfortunate byproduct of my productivity mindset.

While repetitive drawing has done a great job of babysitting my thoughts so my brain can take a break, I haven’t fully been able to reach a catharsis. On top of that, my brain convinced me that I’m always going to fail. By “failing,” I mean the end result not living up to whatever ideal work I set out to make. Consequently, it prevents me from even attempting something by talking me out of it. Annoying. In other words:

Why bother wasting the time if it’s not going to work out anyway?

This sounds very depressing, and it was painful and depressing to type it out. I would never, ever, ever say this to another person; this is a very harsh and negative way to talk to anyone, and that includes myself.

Fear of failure often prevents us from attempting the things we desire most.

My desire to be loosey goosey with art comes from my aforementioned desire for mess—for me, mess = carefree. To be free from myself, my own self-imposed criticism, judgment, and perfectionism. Whether I’m blocked from my upbringing, my internal wiring, or my lack of formal art education doesn’t really matter. I don’t care about the why, only the how. I have to bypass the thinking and judging part of me that’s standing in the way.

In this scenario, I don’t trust myself because I have yet to break free from my Type A grip.

If I’ve learned anything from IFS therapy, it’s that all of our parts are important. What can I learn from the critical bitch? What can she teach me now?

Can I embrace and love my judging part, and flip it into a superpower to do the art I am scared of doing because I’m afraid to fail?

In this scenario, I do not trust myself because I am overly critical and therefore might never be satisfied. But could I?

Both options are good and possible, but not knowing which direction I want to go in is the source of my distrust of myself.

KNOWING = TRUST

Trust must be earned.

At the moment, I’ve decided to embrace both.

I’m working on baby steps to eventually make freedom become second nature, and to take on some projects that demand my critical eye.

Here’s my roadmap so far—a work in progress:

1. If I make a small mistake, leave it, and move on. Be uncomfortable.

2. If I make a big mistake, I will follow it and see where it leads. Approach it with curiosity instead of regret.

3. Regularly introduce an element of chaos into my process and allow it to do its thing.

4. Stop being precious about my sketchbook. Reintroduce a sketchbook practice that allows for total freedom of ideas.²

5. Force myself to switch gears or take breaks to alleviate frustration.

6. Remove the concept of process and end result from an experience and fully embrace being in the flow.

That’s all I’ve got so far… no real solutions yet. It’s about the journey anyway, isn’t it? Or, at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Thanks for reading! Unsquare is a regular feature written by Jaime Derringer about creativity, business, leadership, and technology. Please support my creative work and subscribe to Blob!

1. Admittedly, I am getting better. Some progress has been made.

2. My sketchbook practice has evolved into a real drawing practice, which has kept me confined, when I could have been making larger standalone drawings.