Yoga Challenge 2024

 

I fancy myself to be somewhat of a leader.  But, in reality, as I am laying on my mat feeling irritated and following along with the 30-day yoga challenge I signed up for at the beginning of the year, I realize that I am so much of a follower.  Ugh.

I like everyone else’s ideas and I want to make them my own or present them as my own, because they DO resonate with me.  But do I even have an original thought?  Does anyone?  I’m not, well, I certainly don’t feel like an influencer, whatever that is really. Not even close.

 I’m the girl that wears clothes from thrift stores, which by nature means they are automatically out of season.  Not hot this season.  Not cutting edge.  Just recycled, used. Yet, I select them, only what I like.  I select with my artistic eye what feels like me, what feels good to me, and I claim it as my own.  My style.

And I’m impatient.  I want this blog to be something meaningful for people who come here to read it.  But it seems to always end up being a type of a journal for me…my inner dialog.   I want it to be successful.  I want it to have substance.  I want it to have meaning and insight and inspiration...and a following.  And I want it NOW.  At least I think I do.  Be careful what you wish for.  Right?

It’s supremely helpful for me and it helps me process things, this blogging, this doing my art, but does it even help anyone else?  Is anyone else even really interested in what is going on inside of me?  And like I was saying yesterday…it feels so repulsive, this marketing yourself thing.  I resist doing this hokey branding thing. I tried it big time with Salt & Soul.  It backfired.  We didn’t profit.  I felt like a slut.  I don’t want to sell myself.  I don’t want to sell my soul for the almighty dollar. 

If you like it, if you want it, if you like me, if you want to hear what I have to say, then take it, take me, follow me, be interested in me, tell others about me.  But I don’t want to have to work so damned hard to get your attention.  I don’t want to stand on my soapbox mountaintop shouting “LOOK AT ME!  LOOK AT ME!” Oof!  People!!

And there is just SO MUCH INFORMATION out there. I don’t want to have to do stupid stunts on top of high rises.  I don’t want to show myself going over the cliff just to get some kind of reaction.  I don’t want to create drama.  FTS.  I hate drama.  I want to eliminate it from my life entirely, if possible, but such sweeping statements are in and of themselves somewhat dramatic and everybody likes a good movie so what the heck am I really whining about?  What the heck am I supposed to do?

Sell, sell, sell.  Ugh!  I refuse. It nauseates me.  It repulses me.  How do I become a working artist, how do I make a living from my art if I don’t sell, sell, sell.  AHHHHHH!  I don’t want to be a whore.  Sorry, mom…for saying that word, but I don’t.

So, here I am, and I will just keep writing and processing and working through this muck.  Hopefully, it resonates with someone out there who will benefit from knowing that they are not alone in the struggle to be creative, to make a life, to be human.  We are in this together, you have a friend here if you want…but wait, that is the other part of this stupid game that annoys the living crap out of me.

If you buy my “product”, you are not my friend.  You are my customer.  I keep forgetting that as I get emotionally invested in these content creators’ channels and programs and what ever it is that they are selling.  It might be beneficial to me, it might even be free, but that doesn’t by nature make you my friend because I listen to you.  You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.  Do you think 5.13 million Jonna Jinton followers believe they have a friend in Jonna?  Maybe.  But they don’t.  They comment and they think they are connected to someone REALLY popular, I mean 5.13 million followers, that must make me really cool too, right?  But it isn’t real. 

It's a game and I don’t know how to play it.  I keep coming back to that theme or something like it.  If I do know how to play it, I don’t like the rules.  So, what do I do?  How do I make my way through this maze alive…and making a living.  I need to find a way to support myself.  I tried the brick-and-mortar way, and it failed here in our insular little city.  It was impossible to generate the income we needed within the window of hours and appointment capacity we had.  I suppose it was faulty financial decisions superseded with blindly following a creative dream, a combination that caused us to fail as a business. 

The place itself was beautiful and supremely implemented.  It should have worked, better. And it did emotionally move people, that place.  They felt the peace and the positive energy that we brought to that little portion of midtown.  People felt it when they walked through the front door.  They stood in amazement.  They stood in awe.  And the always left feeling better and happier than when they walked in.  And that was the value.  That was important.  That was the real reason we were there, I believe.  It’s a spiritual thing.  It’s a mystical thing.

But it wasn’t our ticket forward.  I knew that in order to get the numbers that we needed, we were going to need a digital platform, one that could reach thousands, even millions of people.  The trick was always, the trick is always, getting through the clutter and getting your message in front of the right people.  I get it.

And now I’m trying something, of my own again.  I’ve been “trying” for the past year or so, but not really.  One toe in, a whole other foot out.  I get it.  I’ve just been messing around. So, I’ve signed up for courses and people (NOT FRIENDS) that can help me (I got sucked into that hope again.  I guess I need some friends).  We start in March.  I’m scared to death that I am throwing money down the drain, but I am taking the journey anyway.  I spent a ton of money on my art website and where am I?   Not making money on selling art yet.  Everybody takes my money.  When am I going to make it?  Nothing is a magic bullet, I get it.  Something has to work.  Just don’t quit…that’s what they say.

Can I even be this real, this straight forward, and will people actually follow me?  Will they care if I am not already “successful?   Will they trust me to help them?  Do I even have any real skill to help them?  Does my art even really benefit anyone out there?  Or is it just too weird?  Like me?  I feel like I’ve missed the boat already.  Why?

All this and more came up again today as I laid on my mat on day 25 of my 30-day yoga journey with Adrienne, 12.5 million followers…she is not my friend.  And I was getting agitated today because she is so calm and cool and collected, and I am about to come out of my skin trying to be patient with everything.  And I have failed…well, I missed doing 4 days of the challenge anyway, I’ll put it that way. 

But I plan on making them up after the 30 days.  And although I had children that took precedence over the weekend which is why I missed those three days, yesterday was missed only because I just didn’t feel like showing up to the mat.  Because I could make a choice.  Because I have free will.  So, I made a decision.  I exercised my free will.  I didn’t do yoga.  And today, I did the same.  Only today, I showed up at the mat, I’m showing up at this laptop, just because it feels good to get all of this stuff outside of me and onto the page. 

Eventually, someday, when I feel like it, I will show up at my studio again.  I will work some more on the pieces of art I have in process, and slow but surely, as if by magic, if I just keep showing up, I will finish those pieces, I will sell some art and I will have a thriving online wellness and creativity business that will inspire and help heal the world, whatever that ends up looking like.  If I just keep building…it will come.  And the same can be said for you, you know.  The same can be said for everyone, they say.  Just keep swimming.  Just keep showing up.  Just don’t quit.

Julia Cameron, you know, the lady that wrote The Artist’s Way, “the seminal book on the subject of creativity” that has sold millions of copies over the past 30 years?   She, Julia, I say as if she were my friend, because I read the book and it resonated with me so deeply and has had a profound impact on my life, SHE, would probably just call these doubts, these anxious ramblings, all this negativity, BLURTS.  The nasty little censor that’s inside. The negative self-talk.  Objections to our own self-worth.  Objections to our own success. 

So, get over them…yes, that is what I am doing here.  Publicly for all to see.  Ow!  Julia would maybe say that these should be confined to your morning pages, those daily private writings that NO ONE else sees but you.  The place where all the crap can happily come out and live without fear of being smelled by anyone.  The process that clears your psyche of the gross misconceptions and misgiving that we have about ourselves and our creativity.  The pages that help us heal.

Thanks for being here.  Sending you love. Pass it on!