Your art allows you to live what you want to live. To feel the love you want to feel. To fight what you want to fight. To find the answers you want to find in the face of life’s messiness and complexity. It allows you to create the stories that you want.
Why would you live in a real world that you may not like when you can create your own?
You can be all you have imagined, from the brave hero to the seductive lover to the savior of humanity. Your fantasies and nightmares take shape in your art.
Away from your art, you tend to feel emotionally empty, lonely, and disconnected. You often feel misunderstood, empty, unseen, and unworthy. A sense of hopelessness can creep in… You have real life battles to face, but you hide behind your art.
Sometimes you think you’re one of those “tortured artists” with no hope of being happy and content with your life. You turn to your art over and over again, finding your freedom there. That is where you find yourself to be most alive.
But is this the life you really want? Isn’t hiding behind you art limiting your life? Don’t you want to live a real life with more passion, love, purpose, and connection?
You love your art, but it stands between you and your real life
You recognize you want more from life. You want real love and connection. You want real answers to life’s enigmas. As much as you want to be part of this real world, deep inside you’re scared that you don’t know how or it won’t happen for you. Maybe you don’t have what it takes to live in the real world, you fear.
You love to lose yourself in your art, but you also recognize you’re using it not to really face your fears and create your real life stories of love, of being the hero of your own world, or bring something of value to the world.
At the same time, a part of you is also scared that your art will suffer if you start creating your real life stories. You don’t want to lose something you love so much. Especially when your creativity has brought you success, stability, and recognition.
Part of you wants to come out into the “real world.” Part of you is afraid to really be out there. Part of you wants to continue to hide. Part of you wants to show up in the different aspects of your life.
Your art is your life but not you’re everything…
Can you live fully in your creative world and the real world?
Yes, you can exist in both worlds. You don’t have to compromise your art to live your life. You don’t have to compromise your life to have your art.
Sometime we unconsciously create walls between us and realty to avoid facing some challenging old or new experiences. Oddly enough, the old difficult experiences we avoid are also the new challenging experiences we shy away from.
You have to face your old battles in order to move from living in a fantasy world to taking on reality and create your life. Maybe it’s the battle of the child who’s never been allowed to show up. Or perhaps when you showed up, no one really noticed or you felt humiliated and shamed.
How can you have access to both worlds?
Allow yourself to face old battles.
By facing your old battles you can start move from living in a fantasy world to creating your life. Each encounter teaches you how to be brave here and now, in the present. As your courage to show up is rekindled, you can feel alive not only in your art but also in your life.
To face your old battles you may need to work with a psychotherapist so you can get in touch with old fears, heal from these old fears, and learn how to face new battles with courage.
Creativity takes courage. Life takes courage. Courage to let yourself to be alive. Courage to show up, even if you’re scared. To show up in love, to assert yourself, to be yourself, to be authentic and vulnerable in your art and life.
Yes, it may be scary to face old and new battles, but it’s more scary to limit your life. Don’t hide in your art, there is more to life.
If you have any questions please contact me for a free consultation.
I am Mihaela Ivan Holtz, Doctor in Clinical Psychology. I help creatives and performers with emotional trauma, depression, anxiety, performance anxiety, creative blocks, relationships, and addictions – to be and live their own best version. You can read more about Therapy for Creatives and Performers here.
