Season 4 – epiBLOG 2:
Welcome a new feature that I’ve decided to add to the UnCloseted Professor Blog – The Book & Learn Corner. Each month a book will get reviewed and recommended in order to help move artists forward to achieving their career goals.
Today’s topic and this month’s review is on the book The Power is Within You by Louise L. Hay.
First of all, I definitely recommend this book. I’ve read so many self-help books over the past two decades because I spent so much time trying to “fix” myself in order to be the successful person that I desired. It is within the past couple of months that I realized that I never had to fix myself at all. Instead, I simply have to accept myself for who I am and to create possibilities from a blank slate. That is what I’ve been doing, and it is what is allowing me to be a full time writer at this point. I want you to realize that you don’t have to “fix” yourself either.
The Power is Within You is a book that I would recommend to: (1) an artist who already has some sort of sense of self-awareness, (2) someone who is frustrated with their personal issues interrupting their career goals, and (3) those who have just begun to process their past.
Self-Awareness. According to the almighty Google, self-awareness is defined as the “conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires.” I believe many artists know a part of themselves a little better than others who work in other industries. Of course, this is just a theory of mine, but I feel this way because we often have to dig deep within our cores in order to pull out and create something authentic in whatever art that we call our own. Louise explores the idea of you discovering yourself even more so. She touches on topics such as “following your inner voice,” “letting your feelings out,” and “how to love yourself.” These may sound like issues that don’t matter because you want to know exactly how you can make money with your art. I understand. That is usually my bottom line as well. However, discovering more of who you are will actually make you a stronger artist, and will allow you to create exactly what you need in order to make yourself more marketable.
The Frustrated Artist. How many of you are tired of trying different approaches to making a living from your art and nothing seems to be working? I spent twenty years of my career “trying” different approaches. I felt like I read every book, attended every seminar, and networked my way into nothing. Don’t get me wrong – there were successes that materialized, but none seem to be long lasting. A couple of months ago, I attended a seminar that actually helped me and allowed me to get the results in my career that I had always been seeking. Before this seminar, personal issues and insecurities stopped me from following through on specific actions that could have yielded me the results that I’ve always wanted. If you are self-sabotaging your goals, you need to address the feelings that are behind those unproductive actions. Louise discusses “understanding the blocks that bind you” and “moving beyond the pain.” When you can fully acknowledge, fully process, and let go of the personal issues that you’re battling, you get out of your own way so that you can achieve what is important to you.
Processing the Past. This ties into the paragraph on “the frustrated artist,” but it also goes beyond to digging into experiences that are causing you to make decisions in the present that aren’t conducive to what you’re looking to achieve within your career. One of the chapters and topics that Louise brings up is the “totality of possibilities.” This is powerful. Within this chapter she reinforces that growing and developing yourself is a lifelong and continuous work. That actually made me think about how I used to be so goal-oriented that I always just wanted to finish or complete whatever objective that is before me without considering the process that I was undertaking to reach the goal. Being present to the journey… being present to what is directly in front of you is something easier to accomplish once you have processed the past experiences that have kept you “living in the past” all of your life. These tend to be experiences that have led you to feel less than, guilty, hated, angry, or whatever feeling and experiences that stop you from being right here, right now. Processing the past may take you a moment to do or to even learn how to do effectively, but in doing so you can experience the life that is directly in front of you without any hindrances. Isn’t that what all artists want to do?
Today’s LESSON is to process the past in order to live into the present.
FUN ASSIGNMENT: Read the book The Power Within by Louise L. Hay over the next 30 days.
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