I can do that!

It’s 8:30 AM. And I had this idea that started last night. I was doing something yesterday. I forget what it is right now – oh I know what it was. I was looking at my artwork from last night and I was looking at the example and I was thinking where did I wanna start making this? So I figured, OK, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna start drawing out this pod first, so I’ll start with the outer shape so drew the first line around and then I did the stem part. And then I had to erase and erase and erase, and you can see all of the erasing that I had to do, but then I finally got some direction. I noticed that when I was trying to draw the first line on the outer line of the pod, I kept like, undercover telling myself that “I’m gonna mess this up…I’m gonna mess this up… I’m gonna mess this up…I can never get these lines right.” And then I’m just like, “Oh no shut up! I CAN do that.” And that you know, since I’ve got lyrics for everything, I start singing I can do that from A Chorus Line! 🎶 “I’m watching Sis go pitter pat, said I could do that, I can do that. 👣 Knew every step right off the bat, said I could do that, I can do that…… One morning Sis won’t go to daance claaassss,  I grab her shoes and tights and all but my foot’s too small…!” 🎶 👣 😂😂😂 

Then I started thinking, wait a minute - I’m gonna make that an affirmation post. Because before I was able to catch my thinking in process, I would pick up the pencil or the pen or the chalk or the charcoal and I would start getting nervous right then and keep telling myself stuff like I was saying earlier, “I’m not gonna be able to do this. My lines never go right. I don’t have an eye for perspective” etc., etc. and I really beat myself up over it. And so no, it didn’t turn out perfect the first four or five times that I did it and it didn’t turn out perfect in the end either. But I was able to get what it was I was looking for. And so each time when I tried like when I went to do the other side my brain started again. I just started saying ‘I can do that.’ not even in a exaggerated tone. I was just like, “You know what, I keep telling myself what I can’t do, but this isn’t rocket science. Why am I making this such a big fucking deal?” So then I finished it which is great. I feel really good about that particular drawing because I was able to talk myself through the insecurities.

And then this morning, I was doing my singing practice and you know I had my spearmint tea warm and ready to go. Did my breathing exercises because I’m congested or whatever it is with the pollen and whatever is floating around in the air. I felt like I wasn’t able to sing as clearly as I wanted to, so I was gonna punk out and do some really easy songs and be done with it and then I said, “No, I’m gonna go ahead and do these show tunes!” And so I was singing them and I was getting nervous and starting to run out of breath and I was just like, “I can do this! I know I can do this. It doesn’t have to sound great. I just have to do it. I have it in me to do it. I’ve done it before!” And then I started to do it. It wasn’t easy cause I still had my congestion and stuff that I was truly dealing with. But it was a lot more easy and actually was a little fun to see that I was able to be more comfortable than I thought I was gonna be. So that little affirmation really worked in the moment you know it’s one thing you just walk around saying I can do it. Yeah, you can do it, but you gotta be able to plug that thing in there when you catch yourself in the process of telling yourself all the reasons why you can’t. Anyway, that’s what I’ve worked out this morning.