I changed my mind ~

~ God told me to be an artist, week 57.

Friday 26th January, 2024.

This blog is one of those exactly what it says on the tin kind of blogs. I just went and changed my mind. If you haven't read my previous blog 'Simplification not multiplication' then it might be worth you going back and looking at that. This blog leads on from that theme quite nicely.

Now, I don't know about you but I can be really rigid in my thoughts. I sometimes refer to it as pig headedness. I get a vision for how things are going to work out and I pursue that hard. With every inch of my being I am focused on that one direction, one goal, one end point. It's as if internal blinkers turn on and the light blocks out anything not related to that goal. I think it's a residual mechanism from when I was operating in full perfectionism mode. It's an achievement based, obsessional focus that's hard to disrupt. Interestingly this laser focus has made my ability to adapt either really strong or incredibly weak.

Let me explain. If an opportunity to adapt arises that will help me in the direction of my goal then I can change things up. If it brings me closer to the desired end point I can adjust my posture and focus fairly seamlessly. However, if something unexpected presents itself that threatens to throw me off course or challenges my goal in any way my natural reaction is to fight it. To resist it and try to talk my way back onto my course. This is especially true when it's something that is overwhelmingly strong or out of my control, I fight fight fight until I can no longer.

I find some types of adapting quite difficult. Especially when I have made a concrete decision about something that feels big and certain. I do everything I can not to see it move.

So 2024 has been a process of mass discomfort in a way. Basically, I had big plans for travelling this year. I made a big decision, quite quickly in 2023 that 2024 would look this way. That I would spend about half the year in all these different places because I could. I uprooted a lot of the fixtures of my life to make it possible, turned a lot of things upside down. It was quite a firm decision and I was hellbent on making it happen.

And then I told everyone about it. Something that I needn't of done.

So that was that, 2024 was going to be this very specific year. Tick, check, decided, done.

But then.

Oh but then.

A few months on and I started to feel these challenges in my spirit and I ignored them for a long time because they annoyed me. I've made up my mind, I would say aloud when these thoughts would echo around my spirit. Also, people kept commenting on how excited they were for me and I didn't know how to tell them I just wasn't sure anymore.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed.

I thought I was supposed to be this cool artist, who was going to be travelling for 2024, collecting all these important experiences to make art about. I think a part of me thought this would make me someone of note.

I think a part of me also thought this would help me take a break from the hustle and growing pains of growing in the areas God has been stretching me in.

So I did do some journaling to explore why these feelings where coming up and why I had started to feel so confused when it all felt a little bit too late. As journaling always does, it started a process in me, of stepping towards a decision that I think my spirit had already made.

Then a plethora of other things started to come up, personal convictions and challenges that I felt I needed to look at and work through. All of which would need me to be more here, as in still, as in at home. Sigh.

Another layer to the whole thing was that in late 2023, I found my person. As soppy and silly as that might sound, I really did. This sensational, beautiful person just fell out of heaven and into my life and I just didn't want to travel alone with anywhere near the same enthusiasm I had previously. Now I know some of you are screaming at the screen, "don't change your plans for a man" and I get that. I hear you. But with every day we are getting to know one another I can see that there is a future here and I want to sow into that. I want to intentionally invest into him and us and see what emerges.

I think it's going to be worth it.

So this week, I officially changed my mind.

I chose to be still, write this blog to solidify it in my mind and to exhale. I decided to accept that 2024 would look different and that's okay.

I reminded myself that I am human and circumstances change and whether I'm mostly in Liverpool or anywhere else in the world I am still an artist and God has big plans for how to use that, and in all honesty it's just not about me really. His plans for my creativity are bigger and wider than I could ever imagine and if my spirit is whispering I must listen.

Also, I will be taking a few trips during the year including my annual pilgrimage to Sweden and that will be enough. I will focus on what the Lord places in front of me here and celebrate the huge changes he's brought in my personal life.

So a few things got uprooted and a few people may judge or pity my change of plans, but that's really none of my business. Or I can remember that people really aren't all that bothered about the stuff I think they will be. Main character syndrome can fill our minds with all sorts of nonsense that noone is really thinking.

There you have it.

I changed my mind.

Plans change, luckily God never does and you best believe I'll be making art no matter what's up ahead!

Here's to a fabulous if not somewhat unexpected 2024.

See you next week, Cath x