Anxious Nelly vs Knowing Nora 

I’m marveling at the synchronicity of pulling the Deer Medicine card this morning, an animal that symbolizes gentleness, when yesterday I wrote and posted an article called, Art Making is a Gentle Teacher. To me, this means my higher self is emphasizing the importance of gentleness.

Anxious to Develop My Style 

This concept of gentle wisdom was foreign to me when I first began to paint again a few years ago. I was anxious to develop a style and become a better painter. My mind was filled with thoughts like, “What is my style? How do I get one? What if my style sucks? What do I need to learn? Who do I need to learn it from? Am I learning fast enough? Why am I not getting it?  Welcome to my Anxious Nelly side. Gentleness is not in Anxious Nelly’s vocabulary. She’s more like a panicky bull in a China shop. 

Learning to Trust the Process 

But luckily, there’s another part of me, a much wiser part. I call her Knowing Nora. She knows it’s all going to work out. Nora is gentle and calm, and if she were in a China shop, she would float through it without nary a shaky cup. She assures me that if I just relax and focus on enjoying the process, I will find my style. 

Nora’s wisdom has gained strength from the stories she and I have heard from artist/teachers like Louise Fletcher and Nicholas Wilton, who tell us that if we do what feels good and paint what we love, our work will greatly improve. Style, they say, comes from being authentically you in how and what you paint. 

I’m grateful that I have an inner Nora to offset my Nelly. 

Integrating and Evolving

Three years later, Nora has become a little bit more integrated on the matter of finding my style. While Anxious Nelly has progressed to worrying if the improvements in my painting are a fluke or if I can sustain this new level of art-making. 

As I write this, I’ve had a bit of an aha. I now realize as I grow as an artist, Anxious Nelly will grow right alongside me. You’d think this would be discouraging, but it isn’t. Just the opposite. In a crazy way it tells me that I’ll be able to measure my growth as an artist by the focus of my fears. 

For example, three years later Anxious Nelly and I are no longer concerned with finding my style. I’ve created a significant body of work and I am comfortable with how I paint and what I paint. Instead, Anxious Nelly now worries if the improvements in my painting are a fluke or if I can sustain them.

Knowing Nora is a gentle witness to my mental machinations. She remains unruffled, calm, and wise. She knows that if I just keep making lots of art and doing what I love, it’s all going to work out. Painting how I like and what I like, with full permission to play and experiment, will gently take me where I want to go more quickly than stressing and striving over some future destination.

More of the Same, in a Good Way

Years from now anxious Nelly will worry about how to maintain robust sales or some other advanced aspect of painting. She’ll worry if it’s all fluke, just as many years ago she worried about finding a style. 

As Anxious Nelly worries and frets over future unknown things, Knowing Nora will grin and wink at me. We’ve been here before, she’ll gently remind me. Yes, I remember. The answer to all the inner fuss is simply this: follow the joy.