Week 7: Creativity & Mr. Darcy - A Love Story in the Making

What does Pride and Prejudice have to do with your creative process? 

This week, we explore how perfectionism and limiting beliefs keep us from falling in love with our creativity—and how self-awareness, curiosity, and gentleness can help us come home to ourselves again. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being present.

Thank you so much for listening.

If you know someone who needs this kind of gentle nudge, send it their way. The more kind, creative hearts in this space, the better.

And if something in this episode resonates or makes you smile, come say hi on Instagram @theartpeaceexperiment 🤍

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Thank you. Welcome to the Art Peace Experiment. We're your hosts, two artists and friends. I'm Tasha. And I'm Brianna. At the end of 2024, we decided we wanted to cultivate more safety, peace, love, alignment, and excitement through our art and our art practices. So here we are sharing our journey with you. And we're so excited you're here. We hope you enjoy our conversations. They're honest, raw, just just two friends talking to each other about the realities of life and creativity. We're so excited for you to join us and be along with us for the journey. Last week, we started watching a show that you may or may not have heard of. It's this little story called Pride and Prejudice. And it's brilliant. So good. I mean, no words even to describe my love for this movie and book and story. Yeah, it's newer for me I mean I know it's a classic guys okay I get it but it's newer it's newer for me I didn't experience it until after I was I was a grown-up yeah and I have I don't remember not knowing this it's been like my whole life I mean I've always Well, no, I haven't always known about it, but I can't remember a time not knowing about it. Yeah. Because it was just talked about. But anyways, it's great. I love it. So good. Yeah, the first time, my first time watching it was the newer one with like Keira Knightley.

UNKNOWN: 1:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47

didn't love it like aesthetically beautiful yeah love that music just yeah stunning yeah the story pacing was just so off for me though and yeah it just doesn't compare to the BBC yeah that's the one we're watching right now it's the BBC one and it's brilliant and I love it and I just I have to talk about it a little bit because I love I love how the relationship in this story is like Right, right. And I love that. I love that about the story. I feel like that's one of the reasons it's such a classic and is so timeless. Right. Because they don't change for one another, but they see each other's perspectives and then they become better for it. They become more compassionate and they understand others better and they want to grow and become better themselves because of interacting with this other person.

UNKNOWN: 3:05

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 3:06

Yeah. So good. So now segue here. I want to start talking about that in terms of our art. Okay. Our art, our creative practice is Mr. Darcy. Oh my gosh. I love that. We want to fall in love with Mr. Darcy. Okay. It's inevitable. Yes. So what points of pride do and prejudices are getting in the way of us falling in love with our creativity. Whoa. Okay. I did not know we were going to talk about this today and I just, I am delighted. I love this. I do too. I was like, I just, we have to. Surprise. We have to. And then in my head, it's been like this joke with myself. It's like inside joke with myself. I'm going to let you in on it. That I should just start naming every art piece I make Mr. Darcy because then every woman will want it. Just marketing tip right there. Yes. Perfect. Done. You're already sold. Already sold. It's a done deal. Yeah. But anyways, I want to talk about those limiting beliefs that get in our way that sometimes we don't even realize are there. Yeah. Just like the prejudice that you don't even realize exist. you have until somebody points it out to you. You're like, Oh, maybe I, maybe I do struggle with that. Cause I think that's, that's all that. That's, that's the whole beginning of Darcy and Elizabeth's relationship, you know, kind of pointing out each other's flaws. Yeah. Yeah. And they didn't like it. Well, no, it's hard when someone points out your flaws, but I feel like we have that. with our creativity is there's a lot of that kind of negativity and stopping ourselves from seeing the good things. Yeah. Right. That's so interesting. I love that perspective and I love thinking of our creative practice as, as a way to, how do I say that? Like as a way to maybe see ourselves and, a little more clearer and, and come back to ourselves in our, in our truer best version of ourselves. And then also to have just so much love and joy in the creativity and, um, and the process. Yeah. So good. Okay. So I'm going to share one of mine. Okay. One of my, one of my things, and this is like, I feel like the big one. Or one of the big ones. And that is perfectionism. And that stopped me from creating for so many years. Yeah. Yeah. Have I overcome it? No. But do I, am I at a point in my life where I can create despite it? Yes. Yeah. Now it's like, okay, I see you, perfectionism. I see that you're here. And I'm not going to let you drive perfectionism. Right. I'm going to recognize that you're there and you have input and you, you have part in the conversation sometimes, but I'm not going to make decisions because of you. Yeah. So how do we do that? How do we get to that point that we can say, okay, limiting belief. I see you, but you don't control me anymore. Oh, so good. This is, It is, I feel, a lifelong pursuit, first of all. Oh, yeah. 100%. It is. We are onions, okay? Or cake. We're cake. We're onions. Everybody loves cake. Yeah. It is really hard to even start this process, and it is not an overnight thing. No. I feel like this has been something that I've been trying to do for a long time, just trying in other areas of my life too, recognizing, you know, limiting beliefs or, you know, emotion, even recognizing when I'm feeling certain emotions, you know, can be, can be hard. It's that self-awareness. It really starts with self-awareness and practicing that. And so how do you practice self-awareness? What do you do? What do you do? You first decide that you want to. Yes. Yes. And, and I mean, just realizing like, oh, I'm, you know, I have limiting beliefs around this. Yeah. I have these prejudices and sometimes pride and the other things that are, that are stopping. It's like, this is stopping my pursuit to, to thriving. Yeah. And I don't even realize that it's sometimes you just don't even realize it's happening. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like being able to recognize that it's happening, recognize that you have a limiting belief and, comes from taking that pause and kind of digging a little deeper when there's resistance to whatever you want to do. You know, if you're wanting to be creative, but then there's an instant block. So like, if you have that desire and that urge, if something sparks your interest and, you know, that light inside of you and you're like, oh, that sounds so fun, then instantly those walls go, oh, but I couldn't do that. You know, that's somebody else. Oh, that's not for me, you know, or something like that. I could never do anything like that. Those are your or your indicators, your road signs, you know, as you're driving along that tell you there's a block there, there's some sort of limiting belief. Yeah. And so it's first recognizing when, when those thoughts come up. Right. And, and saying, Oh, taking a little pause and, and stepping back and looking at that a little bit saying, Whoa, I just, I had that spark and then instantly shut it down. What is that? Why? Yeah. Getting curious. Yeah. This is not a place to beat yourself up. This is a place to just get curious. Exactly. And dig into it a little bit. Where are the roots? Where is that coming from? Is it from things that I've been told my whole life growing up? Have I experienced something that's made it feel scary? What is it? What what, go back, go back as far as you need to go back. You know, I feel like a lot of times it goes back into childhood. That's where so much stems from. Our living beliefs stem from. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, I think it's, it happens from, for everybody. And, and it's because it's, as children, you know, we have, our brains are developing still and we don't understand a lot of the times and we can take things in certain ways and then they just, they carry with us throughout. Yeah. I mean, sometimes limiting beliefs come from very innocent, you know, well-meaning things. So like our parents do, it's like not even necessarily bad, but just the way that we took it. Right. Right. Creates this like life, almost lifelong. We can change Like our brains, we can change, which is awesome. Right. So not necessarily lifelong, but at this point feels like lifelong. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Up to this point, lifelong. Right. Exactly. That's what I was trying to say. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And, and sometimes things do happen that are, that are negative. And somebody says something mean to us and, you know, things like that, but it doesn't always have to be something big or mean or traumatic, you know? And sometimes there's more than one thing. Yeah. That, makes it like with perfectionism. It's layered. You know, I've got, you know, things that happened with my family, things that happened with just society and culture and like starting public school. And, you know, it's like it is layered and there are different fears and issues that come up that it's like, oh, I have to be perfect to be safe. I have to be perfect to, you know, to stay, you know, connected with family because, you know, if it's not perfect, no one will buy it. I won't make money. I'll be a starving artist. I'll blah, blah, blah. Like it just like goes on and on and on and on and on. None of those things are true, which, you know, is part of dissolving this. It's like, you know, getting curious about it and then getting really real. Right. Getting really real about it. Yeah. Right. Right. You know, I don't want to tell myself that's okay, but it does make sense. There's a difference between validating your feelings and justifying your feelings. Yes. And I feel like when we validate them, we recognize them, we see them and we say, you know, we, we accept them. Right. And without shame. Yes. And when we justify, we're trying to make it, um, Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Yeah. So with the art piece experiment, you know, we've got the three different sides to it. Create, align, and connect. Yeah. Those are like the main ones. And, you know, we're, this is kind of a, just a theory, a hypothesis. Can't speak. Hypothesis of art. overcoming a lot of these limiting beliefs and our blocks and finding our blocks. That's a lot of what this experiment is. We really wanted to build into it the mindfulness side of it and then the physical side of it of actually creating and taking steps forward. Then the connection, realizing we need connection, we need community, we need other people. Support. Those three things working together are what really helps train our nervous system to build creativity back into our lives and make it a safe space and okay for us to have again. That first step of it is really the align side of it when it comes to journaling, when it comes to the mindfulness side. First, we want to Be like, okay, this is real. This is a real block. This happens. This is what I'm feeling. This is what's happening. What are my blocks? What are the root of my blocks? Being gentle with that. What do I want? If I didn't have the blocks, what would I want to be doing? Exactly. I feel like that can be a really hard thing too. It can be kind of scary yeah in some ways to open yourself up in that way to think about what you actually really want and it doesn't have to be like the big lifelong pursuit of like this is who I am and what I want sometimes I can just be like the next little thing right like I want to make and made cards yeah my friends and my family like I think that would be really fun to do um but sometimes it can feel really scary to even entertain that thought because of whatever block we have up that has that has you know told us that it's not safe it's not acceptable people will make fun of us or they'll think we're weird or you know like whatever it is um it can be scary to even to even Take that first step. We can speak today. It's fine. It's all good. The first step of connecting with ourselves in that way, in that real, honest, raw way. Because I feel like we kind of hide from ourselves a lot of the time because we put those blocks up and we put up that we have to be a certain way in order to be liked so we can't even connect with ourselves. We can't even... bring that up in our own minds because that's not acceptable for whatever reason. For whatever reason. That's right there, limiting belief. Yeah, right. Yeah, so that is kind of Yeah. One of the first places to start is what do you want to do? It's essential. Yeah. And like take the pressure off. It doesn't have to be the big lifelong dream. Like you don't have to be the world famous card maker. You can just be like, I want to make cards. Great. That's beautiful. You don't have to be a concert pianist, but if you want to learn how to play a few songs, that's great. You know? Yeah. And just like follow that, those like little whispers of just joy and curiosity and like, Yeah. Let yourself daydream. It's okay to daydream. To daydream. And then you're allowed to have fun and you're allowed to, you know, have some whimsy in your life. Yes. And just follow what delights you. Like you're, you are allowed to have that. And if that is your first limiting belief that you're not allowed to have that, like go work on that. Go journal about that. Yeah. We have this one life, right? We have limited time. Nobody knows. And maybe that's a little morbid, but sometimes that really helps me put things into perspective when I'm feeling those limiting beliefs. You know, when I'm like, I can't, I have to do whatever else I have to do. I'm not allowed to daydream and I'm not allowed to have whimsy and, you know, delight in my life. I just have to get to work and do whatever things I need to do. um putting it into perspective of you know this life is meant to have joy like what what's the point what like what's the point of of living if we're not going to enjoy it right yeah no that doesn't sound good but I mean no but it's it I mean it's it's true like I feel like We're meant to have joy. We're meant to have connection. We're meant to have– you know, like we're not meant to be these solitary creatures that just hustle our way through life. Right. Right. And that's kind of what we're told to do. And it's like if you want to have fun, you're just frivolous and silly and– Wasting time. Yeah, like living in some fantasy world and you're not being realistic. It's just, oh, no. You're allowed to seek and have joy. Right. And fun and thrive. You're allowed to enjoy your life. You're allowed to enjoy your life and to delight in the things around you and to have things that delight you and to do things that delight you. It's not all about hard work. And there are times where you just have to put your head down and get to work. Oh, for sure. But I feel like even amidst that, you can still find, find delight and find joy and find those glimmers in your life. Even when things are, are hard, even when things aren't going your way, you know, and even when you, you have to work hard, and work and work and work just to survive, right? Even when you're in survival mode. But life is full of joy and life is full of beauty. And I feel like that is one of our primary things about life is to is to see it. That's what's going to make life enjoyable, especially when things are hard and dark and scary and we don't know what's happening in the world. There's so many problems. There's so many problems. If we just sit in that, life is going to be really gloomy and really hard. We're not going to be able to contribute any good things to the world or our families or friends or Right. So it's worth it. It's worth it to see the beauty in the world. It's worth it to enjoy the beauty of the world, you know, and to delight in things and to do the things that fill you up and make you feel better because you get– energy from that, you know, too. And, and that's going to help you in all areas of your life and do the things that you have to do. So it's kind of this full circle, full circle thing. I feel like when we do delight in the world and in our lives and we find joy, you know, then, then it's better all the way around. Right. Right. And that's, that's a big limiting belief that we had to get past for ourselves it's like okay we have to really try and build it and it's something we're still working on of like we are allowed to have fun and we're allowed to have joy and we're allowed to be creative beings and it's not frivolous and it's not so we talk about that a lot and we're going to continue probably talking about that a lot because we need to hear it we need to hear it and almost every creative person I know that I speak to in real life needs to hear it over and over again so Here it is. We're going to keep talking about that. Yeah. So I want to go back though to the example that I had of like perfectionism. Yeah. We're going to use that. We're going to go into like, okay, how do you overcome these limiting beliefs and kind of some practical steps? Yeah. Perfectionism is a really good example because I feel like it's– I don't know a creative that doesn't deal with that in some way or another. Yeah. And so like we said before, first, you have to realize there's a problem. You have to realize there's something there. Step number one. I am a block from I can't do the thing that I really want to be doing because of whatever. Yeah. So realizing that there is an issue. And then realizing or getting really deep of why. Yeah. Why is this a problem? And then you have to ask yourself, like, I mean, is this true? Yeah. Like, is my art only worthy if it's perfect? Would I say that about someone else's? Would I say that about someone else's? And then also, I mean, in this topic specifically, is there such thing as perfect art? Yeah. Right. That was, like, the big thing for me. I was like, oh– No, there's not. I mean, I had to take a step back and not think about my art, right? Yeah, right. And I thought about the art that really resonated with me. And I'm thinking, you know, books, paintings, like a certain song. There is this interesting thing that happens with art where the artist creates it, right? They put it out into the world. And then somebody else experiences it and has like an emotional resonance with it that it can create a moment that is like perfect where they feel seen by themselves almost through that experience. Yeah, I love that. that I think is the only kind of perfection that can be achieved with art, but we have no control over it. Yes. Right. The only way that can happen is if we're just let ourselves be free to create so that it can touch other people. Yeah. And they have to be receptive to it. You know what I mean? Like there is no perfection. You can't achieve it. You will never. And that's the beautiful thing too, is I realized, okay, I, I'm never going to create something perfect. And so I need to, I need to let go of that. You know, I just had the thought, you're never going to create anything perfect, but everything you create is perfect just the way it is. Right. Like it's kind of that paradox where it's never perfect and it is perfect just the way it is because it's imperfect. Right. Like it doesn't, What is perfection anyways? Like who decides that, right? It's not even real. It's not even real. It's not even real. So it really is this kind of, I don't know, fantasy expectation that we put on ourselves that doesn't even have a place in real life. I just looked back at some art that I created several years ago that at the time I was so proud of. I was like, this is amazing. I'm amazing. This is great. Okay, it's recording. Technical difficulties. We're back. We're back. I was just saying, I looked back at some art and felt like it was really fantastic. It was art that I felt really fantastic when I had made it at the time. And then looking back at it, I realized, wow, I kind of cringed at it. I was like, that's not as good as I remember it being or thought that it was at the time. Yeah. But... It's kind of cool because I've come a long way to the point that I wasn't beating myself up about it. And it was this moment of realizing like, oh, I've grown. I've gotten better. And at the time I felt like I had peaked. I would never achieve anything as good as that. And yet I've still grown. And I love that about creativity and just like us as human beings, like we always have the capacity to grow more. Yeah. Right. Which is pretty cool. Yeah. And you know, I think I was thinking there is like technical aspects to, to certain things, crafts or, you know, things like that. There are technically correct ways to do things and, you know, you could be technically perfect in something, but at the same time, like who decides that too, you know, like it doesn't really matter. necessarily matter, I guess, in some, I don't know. And sometimes the technical perfection, it loses some of the emotion. Right. It loses the humanity. It loses what we resonate with. And so there's like both, a little bit of both. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think there's something to be said about, you know, crafting your skills, like honing your skills and being able to do things well and being able to do things in the way that you want, like learning how to do things in the way that you want to do them. But letting go of having to do them perfect with someone else's expectations of what perfect is, right? Right. Right. And also realizing like, okay, I want to create a painting of this caliber, right? You're not going to sit down and just do it the first time. Yeah. It takes so much practice and so much learning, right? So there really has to be joy in the process, getting messy, getting in there and realizing like the perfection can never be the goal. Because you will never get there. Right. It'll always let you down and it won't be enjoyable. Yeah. And if you let that go, you're going to create better stuff anyway. It's true. It's true. 100%. When you let go of perfectionism, you end up creating even more beautifully than you do, would have. It happens again and again and again. And I know it's happened for me. I know it's happened for you. I know it's happened for friends and many, many people. people this is something that just is a fact like it just happens when we let go of the stress and let go of the perfectionism we end up creating and we focus on the joy of the creating then the end product is always more beautiful is always better is always more enjoyable because it's got a part of us right it's got our our joy like infused in it it does and sometimes it doesn't even necessarily have to be joy because sometimes art is just I mean it's expression and sometimes we express other emotions than joy you mean we're not always feeling joy all the time oh man I wish no but I feel like joy is one of those things that we have to seek yeah it doesn't always just happen out of nothing like I've sometimes for kids maybe maybe I feel like sometimes it's generated from parents helping a little bit create create some of that magic and joy but um also they just they do experience joy and I feel like a lot of it comes from creativity like as a mom watching my kid realizing like oh a lot of her joy is stemmed from just curiosity and play and play and realizing something new or connecting with another, you know, human being. Like that's where a lot of that kind of comes from being open to learning and being open to not knowing how to do things. Right. And not knowing the outcome. Yeah. Right. Letting go. They, they let go of that. They don't have those expectations to be perfect yet. Yeah. Yep. And so the joy kind of, comes in that easier comes in that process and as grown-ups that's kind of beaten out of us yeah a little bit and we have to really choose to um to find that and embrace that again and allow it right allow it into our lives um it has to be it has to be a conscious choice yeah because it does it it gets kind of beaten out of us as we grow older, you know, and we have expectations and we're responsibilities and, you know, and so being able to, to choose joy, to choose creativity, to choose that freedom, you know, that's huge. It's so, it's so powerful and it can have such a drastic positive influence in our, in our lives and the way that we feel. Right. Yeah. So now with the perfectionism, back in the day before when I was not creating and I was like, I can't create because it won't be perfect. And if I never create the perfect thing, then I can't start. And if I don't start, I won't create the perfect thing. Yep. Anyways. Were you inside my head too? Because that's, yep. Yep. That happened. Realizing like, okay, I just, I got real with myself. Again, that's the first step. You got to just get real with yourself, realize what's blocking you. And then was creating art more important to me than creating perfect art? Yeah. Yeah. Clearly, I'm still here. It's like, yes, I want to create. I want to be creating. I want to be making art. And then from there, it wasn't, okay, well, I'm going to sit down and create this masterpiece. No. Okay, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to I'm going to create a little bit of room and a little bit of space in my life to work towards this goal, this dream that I want. Yeah. And it comes in the baby steps. And then as you go through that, You start creating space for it. Then you end up having kind of like this dip and like take a few steps back where it's like, ah, I did this new scary thing. And it was like, it wasn't perfect and it wasn't a lot. And then you have to, you know, go through the, okay. You know, you're like a little parenting yourself. Like it's okay that it wasn't perfect. That wasn't the goal. And you keep working towards, you know, shifting the mindset, but then also taking the action. And it can be just a little bit. And that's kind of how you start building it into your nervous system as safe and kind of rewiring your brain and your nervous system of, okay, it doesn't have to be perfect. I start noticing the good things in it. And sometimes it's not like it turned out really good and it's perfect and I want to show everybody. Sometimes it's, oh, I had a few minutes left. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like so often when we are kind of paralyzed by fear, which perfectionism I feel like is a form of fear, you know? Yeah. I feel like when we're kind of feeling paralyzed by that, what really helps is to get back into our physical senses, right. Is to focus on the physical senses that can be so helpful because it gets us out of our, out of our head and back into our, back into our body. And I feel like too, with our, um, with our brains, these limiting beliefs that we've had since, you know, childhood, they have created neuro neuron pathways in our brains that are just automatic. Those are the freeways of our brains, right? Where that's the lane that our mind always goes, our thoughts are used to going. Yeah. is not safe, you know, danger, danger, right? The job of our nervous system is to keep us safe and to keep us connected with our tribe so that we are safe and we can survive, right? And so when all of those kind of combine, it keeps us in that, in our limiting beliefs because that's all it's trying to do is keep us safe, right? That's what our body's trained to do and meant to do and programmed. And so, yeah. The thing is, though, is that we are not just consigned to live in that way. We don't have to just stay stuck in that. We do have the ability to choose and to grow and to consciously make another path. I heard this a long time ago. I heard this analogy of the neural pathways in our brain that, yes, we have the six-lane highway that we just always go down. But we can choose to step off the path and we can go through the grow through the field in a new direction. And at first it'll be just like, you know, a little footpath. Like we just bent the grass down a little bit and it springs back up and, you know, we'll still get on the highway. But if we keep going down that path, eventually it'll get worn down. It'll turn into a dirt road, right? A little dirt path. And then eventually we'll widen the road. We keep going down that path. Then we will eventually make a new six lane highway down this other way. And, and we, it, we are able to choose the path that we go. We don't have to stay on that old, old highway. We can make a new, new way. And so when I find myself rethinking old, old patterns, old habits, old thoughts, you know, it's like, oh, that's, I'm down that old six lane highway. What's my new six lane highway going to be? What am I going to choose to think instead? And that is so powerful to know that we have the power to choose our thoughts and to choose our reactions, right? Our responses. We don't have to just react. We can choose to respond in a way that we want to respond. And so That, I think, is something that is really hard to learn. Yeah, right. You don't have to remain a victim of your limiting beliefs. You don't have to stay stuck. What? What? Yeah, but I feel like that's only recently being taught, you know, and has not been a mindset change. in our society, in our culture. Yeah. It's a new way of thinking. One of the things that comes up that isn't helpful is almost that you can think yourself out of it, which is not true. It's not just mindset. It's mindset plus action, which is why when you're in that anxiety, perfectionism, fear, getting back into your body, doing those physical things, focusing on the feel of the whatever it is, the feel of the paintbrush, the feel of the beads or, you know, what, what the sounds, what you're feeling, what you're seeing, what you're hearing, you know, what you're tasting, like take it back to your senses and, and re regroup in your physical body because that gets you out of your head, out of those cycles, you know? Right.

UNKNOWN: 38:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 38:30

And resets your nervous system a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 38:33

Also, breathing really helps, you know, breath work and finding ways that can calm your physical nervous system, your physical body down. That helps so much. That's pivotal because when you're in that anxiety mode. a main way to get back out of it is to focus on the physical or, you know, step outside. Yeah. That helps huge sunshine. I know a lot too. Yeah. Um, exercise, moving your body. Yeah. Yep. All of these things, all these things can help. And then, you know, when you come back to it, come back to it with a fresh perspective, you know, like do those healthcare things that you need and then come back to it. And, and, um, you know, when I, what helped me a lot with getting out of perfectionism is, you know, I grew up with, you know, you'd put pencil to paper and paint to paper and this is like, you know, that's what being an artist is. Right. And that always had me so paralyzed because So paralyzed. And part of it for me was I don't want to waste the paper. I don't want to waste the paints. This costs money. That was part of my issue. And then I got an iPad, which is hilarious because they're very expensive. But unlimited paper, okay? Unlimited paint. And that for me helped. And then I also didn't have a sketchbook. where not every page had to be perfect. And I'm not saying this is the solution for everybody fixing their perfection. This is just my journey. Right. Right. It's like, oh, I, you know, I can make a mess on this thing and then just delete it and nobody ever has to see it and it's fine. And I can just, I can get really It gave me permission to be messy when I picked up my iPad. It gave me permission to be really, really messy. And I didn't feel like I was being wasteful. It helped get rid of some of the blocks that were there with the perfectionism. And I could just focus on one thing at a time, which for me was helpful. And then I got to a point of... Like I didn't want to share my art with anybody. I didn't want anyone to see it. And again, that was part of the like, oh, this isn't good enough. This isn't good enough to share. Like I don't want to show it to somebody and be told that I need to focus on my math studies. You know? Yep. And be told like, oh, you need to get a real job. Oh, you need to focus on other things. Because especially when I was younger at the time, it wasn't even that I was– trying to be an artist I was just doing something that I enjoyed right and so then that immediate response of like oh you should focus on something more practical was just devastating because I just wanted them to enjoy it with you enjoy it with me yeah yeah and I I mean the first some of the first times I experienced that was with you in our friendship where you championed it. And if it was something that I was like, I want to get better at this, can you give me a critique? Whatever, which I took a long time to build up being able to accept critiques. I still struggle with that a little bit. But– It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. Like, please, come attack me. It's not– that's not what a critique is. Sounds so fun. But that community element of it. Yeah. Of, oh, here's a safe person that I can share this with. Again– so helpful, you know, have a different perspective that can help me widen my perspective. Like, yes, Darcy and Elizabeth. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we really do. We, we help each other grow. And I love that because art really helps us grow. Our creativity really helps us grow. It can be our Mr. Darcy. Like I said, of, of just that self-realization. Yeah. Um, I feel like it can so often be a physical representation of our inner world, right? That I feel like so many creatives, that's what happens. Maybe even all creatives. I don't know. But in some way or another... it's that expression of what's kind of on our soul, you know, on our souls, like important to us and the way that we feel. And, and it's that outward expression. And so it can be that it can be a self reflection. Yeah. It's a worthwhile pursuit in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Which can help us grow and learn and become better and embrace, you know, embrace our, most true and deepest parts of ourselves. Yeah. And have more, yeah, more love, more joy. Yeah. Go live at Pemberley. Let's go with your Mr. Darcy. We like, we like a good visual here. Metaphor. Yeah. So if you are wanting to explore your creativity more and explore yourself, we are your champions. For sure. You're doing great. Yes. We're so proud of you. Here's your permission slip. We want you to go forth and conquer. And you are not alone in those emotional struggles, the limiting beliefs. You are not alone. There are so many people out there. So many people that are probably going through very similar situations. We all are, you know, we all are. We've been there. Yeah. In our own. We're going to continue being there. That's right. So we love you. Thank you for being here and we'll see you next time. That's it for today, friend. Thanks for spending this time with us. We hope you're leaving with a little more light, a little more peace, and maybe even a nudge to go be creative just because it brings a little more joy to your life. If anything in this episode spoke to your heart, sparked a thought or made you smile, we'd love it if you'd follow the show, leave a quick five-star review or share it with someone who might need a little creative encouragement too. And remember, your creativity matters. Your voice matters. You matter. We're cheering you on always. Until next time, keep making, keep softening, and keep showing up as your whole beautiful self.