What's my job again?

I am a hugely reflective and contemplative person. I spend a lot of time meditating and practicing mindfulness so I am able to see old patterns and recognize them when they emerge. I can then change them and enable growth. I'm good at change. Really good at it. When it's entirely up to me change happens in leaps and bounds. When I have to wait for change to occur I can get impatient, wanting to speed up the process.

But I wasn't always this way. For a long time I thought that, if I could make everything stay, just as it was, in a cocoon of never-changing comfort, then I'd always sleep and I'd always have an appetite and I'd never feel anxious, upset or overwhelmed ever again.

Essentially, I wanted to stop living. Because life, and to live, is to experience the impermanence of all things. Nothing lasts forever. Not one thing.

So I was going along and I was quite comfortable with the changes that were happening in my life, but I was also quite comfortable with the job I had, working for someone else. I thought it was something I could invest a lot of time and dedication to and ultimately, I might be able to create a full career out of it, because I found myself quite happy to be employed in such a way.

August 2009...something changed.

I began to realise how much energy I have for art and that this energy wasn't just 'Art is fun, I'll do it as a hobby'. It was a passion and it was linked to my passion for writing and my passion for adventure. It was a desire to be and do what feels so natural that to deny it would be like denying my need to breathe.

So I made business cards. I signed up on twitter. I cleaned up my flickr portfolio so it made more sense. I created a Fan Page on facebook. I began updating this Blog with great frequency and dedication. Most importantly, I began to make these really incredible paintings and not just because it was fun, but because I wanted to learn and grow and share that through my art. I began writing more, and looking at my writing with more critical eyes. I began sharing what I'd written with others, so they could edit, review and offer constructive criticism.

To put it simply, I began working for myself. As soon as this shift in thought and definition occurred I began seeing how other people saw it too.

I used to spend a lot of time feeling like someone had to tell me what I was capable of, when it should be the other way around. Once you really feel like an artist and a writer, through and through, people will start telling you they see it too. There is no question, when someone asks me 'What I do' that the answer is, "I'm an artist and I write and hope to be published very soon."

I have a business card to go along with it. I have a current painting or project I'm working on, which can be discussed. I have all of this to offer and there is no question in the minds of those I've just met, that I am what I say I am. This is because I don't doubt the truth in it for one second.

But I'm reasonable and practical and while art is what I do and an Artist is what I am, I don't yet make quite what I need to rely on this and this alone. I will, because I say I will and I believe in goals and I'm a stubborn so-and-so who doesn't quit and learns from her mistakes and is the change she wishes to see.

But in the mean time, I choose to be employed by others so I can pay my bills and live comfortably. But to say I have a 'job' when I'm employed by another, seems odd to me. Because I'm never really 'unemployed' as long as I'm always working for myself.

As it turns out then, I now have two jobs and since both of them are full-time I'm working out that balance between two sources of employment and the need to take time for ones self. It's a learning experience, most definitely, and one that I'm happy to have. As long as I know (and I do.) that I am the master of my own destiny (Because we all are.) and I not forget it, I will always be capable of great things.

I'm off to paint, as all this reflection has created so much inspiration in me that I feel like I might bust if I don't let it spill over into a brush. I'll be posting more pictures as soon as I can. In the mean time, you could go check out my website:

http://www.faunawolfcreations.com/

And then go do something that is definitively you.