Have you ever walked away from a job, relationship, neighborhood, hobby or situation and thought, “did I just lose a little of my identity?”
Closing the studio was such a process that I had wrapped up parts of me in. It was a dream that I fought hard for (and survived a world wide pandemic with) and it oozed out my passion. Using the creative process to build connection, community, joy, health, pride, amazing risk takers, and confident decision makers is so much of my heart beat. To shut a place down that did all that, made me question if I was shutting down parts of me.
I will never forget that May 5th day, where I taught my last lesson in one of our local elementary schools. I cried all day long, as the above pictures show.
I was so proud of the work we had done, but I was also grieving the end to a beautiful season. I can’t look at that picture of me dancing, with excited artists, while I taught about Indiana and how to personalize a sign to YOU (the artist) without tearing up. It’s a lesson I raised money for, dreamed up and got to teach in our eight elementary schools for over 4 years.
Over time, I realized it’s ok that there was a lot of my identity tied up in the studio. It’s good to know who we are, what our giftings are, and what is our passion. I didn’t lose my identity. I took it with me. I’m still creative and I still want to help others create and connect. It just looks different in this new season, so I want to take my experience of blogging for 13 years, running that studio for 5, and my outlook on life and help others in ways I can this season.
Last week, I gave away my FREE art birthday party check list. After hosting hundreds of art parties in that studio or in my home, I have learned a formula that is kink free to hosting a party that honors a birthday child, creates a special memory, and has everyone leaving happy. If you didn’t get this, email me back and I will send it to you!
I will let you in on a little secret as faithful followers here. I am creating an online course. It’s super exciting and a little scary, but I am convinced that I can keep helping others in the creative process and that little lie that I was losing my voice to hep others is officially dead. After sharing that free tutorial, I immediately got this message…
I can’t believe you gave all that away for FREE! You spent so many years developing that method! You are too generous
My first thought was it worked! I can use my experience to still help others. So, I’d love to invite you to journey this new path with me. I will continue to give away free content like this and behind the scenes I am learning about course creation and creating my own. I will be sharing more, but one way to stay in the loop is to join my weekly FREE newsletter. I hope I’ll see you inside there soon.
If you are believing a little lie too, I hope you can push past, work through it, and see how actually that pain point is a strength that you can use to help others too.
Leading this studio through a pandemic was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but also one of the things I am most proud of. As we have come out and up of an extremely hard season, I have realized I need to re-exam priorities in my life and work less. Running the studio consumes a lot of time in my life, head and heart. A lot of parts of the gig is why I wanted to start it, but there are lots of hats and others parts that are not in my giftings and are extremely hard to carry. I’m lucky to have a job I am so passionate about, but even in all the good…it can be too much. That is what leads to burn out, and between you and me…I have been hovering on that line.