Addiction and it’s impact on Desire
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:24 pm
Note: Just considering how to compose this post I feel I’ve had an important realization which has to do with addictions and acting on desires. I appreciate having a venue here to express these types of complex issues!
First, some context: I am a visual artist, always have been, never considered any other route for my life. Even when I was a preschooler and people would ask that question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I definitively told them I would be an artist. (Mind you, I was in a tiny, isolated town in Nebraska — a rural, farming state in the US. I had never met an artist or been to an art gallery or museum until I was 16.) I was an extremely shy, sensitive child — there’s a topic for a different thread — so coloring, drawing, making things were a great way to escape the noise, and emotional chaos of my household which was run by an alcoholic father and an angry, withdrawn mother trying to keep it all under control with sarcasm and criticism.
I’ve spent my life building my skills in painting, illustration and recently I’ve been learning the craft of writing screenplays and children’s books. I’ve had some success and become known as a realist landscape painter over the course of my career (“work” and “career” always feel like strange words to describe what I do).
Now for the addictive part… I’ve been aware for a long time of my wanting to “wow” people. With my art it was easy and felt like a nonthreatening way to connect when I was really too shy and scared to do it in person. Once I faced up to that fear and practiced talking with strangers, making friends in unfamiliar settings, that desire to wow people took on different, less recognizable manifestations but it still lingers — more like just wanting to be noticed, stand out. (I was overlooked a lot as a child as the youngest of 4 kids and completely unplanned/unwanted.) However, I don’t want to be loud, demanding, or overtly show off but the desire to be noticed is still there.
In my young adult years that addiction was easily fulfilled because I was quite pretty so I rarely went unnoticed even though most of the time I dressed in a way that didn’t accentuate my sexuality. Now, at 51, that form of attention is rare so I’ve had to feel through some of that addiction. It still lingers, I notice the feeling even in small things like meeting a new group of people online. I don’t want to “burst into the room” and say, “Look at me!” so I underplay myself. I notice that I didn’t reveal much about myself in my introduction to this forum. I feel that had to do with this addiction and I suppose it’s actually false humility. I didn’t get that until now. The injury which has come to light this morning is a deep sense of unworthiness. I feel it all boils down to this injury as the cause of these addictions.
Which brings me to the desire part. I LOVE to paint, draw, make images, speak that visual language, imagine fantastical characters and make up their worlds in written form. I love the result, the challenge, the sense of being connected to an expanded place… I love to create. But, in the past decade or so my active creating has been sporadic. When the global economy crashed in 2008, art sales all but stopped and so did my desire to keep at my business. It just didn’t make any sense anymore. Leading up to that, I’d been through a divorce during which my ex intended to destroy me financially and emotionally, specifically to make it impossible for me to remain in my house or continue making art to support myself and my son. He wanted to make me get a “real job.”
So, my art became part of a fight, something to prove I was worthy of… and that’s when the desire started to wane. Then the lack of sales created a sense of worthlessness, making it impossible to prove much of anything. Talk about Law of Attraction! But this was all before I knew anything about Divine Truth and was rebelling against any idea of God because of my previous experience of religion.
So, since then, I’ve been trying to reconnect with why I love to create, why it does make sense, why it does have purpose after that feeling of intense hopelessness and uselessness. A feeling of “what’s it all for?” I chose to enter a grad school program in the hopes that the instructors and the work required would remind me of my purpose. (there’s a whole other topic of an abusive system I won’t go into now) In the middle of getting a masters degree, I found the Divine Truth videos.
In the past 2 years I’ve really devoted a lot of time and energy to processing my emotions and becoming aware of (some of) my addictions. While the process has been enormously helpful and life-changing, I’ve created very little art and barely run my business at all. My studio has become my “church” because my main purpose is to connect with my feelings and God while I am out here. And that’s fabulous, yet I’d also like to get back to painting, writing and getting my creations out to the world. I have no idea how to do that last part in harmony with God’s laws and feel no desire to do it the old way (galleries, advertising, etc.)
In recent weeks, I’ve been connecting with the feeling I used to have while painting, even though I didn’t understand it — it’s a form of prayer, communicating with God. That has increased my desire to get back to my easel. Yet, I have this nagging feeling that, great, I’ll have another painting in my already full studio… but what do I do with it?
But here’s the real block (now I finally get to it!). I’ve been working on the children’s book since 2010. Everyone who sees the drawings or hears a synopsis of the story loves it, wants to get a copy when it’s published… except for one publisher who rejected it and some others who suggested changes. But I can’t bring myself to get it ready to send out again, or self publish it. I can barely even do a sketch let alone any sustained work on it. So I wonder if all this emotional processing is just a way to avoid whatever it is about this children’s story that I must be terrified of?? Or am I so influenced by spirits, is there some reason that they don’t want this book to ever get out into the world?
Oddly enough, I’ve had more fine art sales this year than in the last 10 combined even though I’ve spent very little time painting or connecting with the public. This adds another piece of confusion — was the illustration just a detour from really understanding the connection I have with God while painting and am I afraid to dive into that?
I’ve never had this kind of resistance/confusion before about this area of my life! I’ve been trying to feel my way through it but feel terribly ill equipped and haven’t made much progress. I would appreciate any feedback or insights you kind souls can provide.
If you’ve made it through this very long post, thank you! I appreciate your care. I am now resisting an urge to go back through and edit this down so as not to ask too much you all, (back to that false humility) but I realize that if you’re not drawn to read this you won’t, so I can trust you to make that choice
much appreciation,
Rita R.
First, some context: I am a visual artist, always have been, never considered any other route for my life. Even when I was a preschooler and people would ask that question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I definitively told them I would be an artist. (Mind you, I was in a tiny, isolated town in Nebraska — a rural, farming state in the US. I had never met an artist or been to an art gallery or museum until I was 16.) I was an extremely shy, sensitive child — there’s a topic for a different thread — so coloring, drawing, making things were a great way to escape the noise, and emotional chaos of my household which was run by an alcoholic father and an angry, withdrawn mother trying to keep it all under control with sarcasm and criticism.
I’ve spent my life building my skills in painting, illustration and recently I’ve been learning the craft of writing screenplays and children’s books. I’ve had some success and become known as a realist landscape painter over the course of my career (“work” and “career” always feel like strange words to describe what I do).
Now for the addictive part… I’ve been aware for a long time of my wanting to “wow” people. With my art it was easy and felt like a nonthreatening way to connect when I was really too shy and scared to do it in person. Once I faced up to that fear and practiced talking with strangers, making friends in unfamiliar settings, that desire to wow people took on different, less recognizable manifestations but it still lingers — more like just wanting to be noticed, stand out. (I was overlooked a lot as a child as the youngest of 4 kids and completely unplanned/unwanted.) However, I don’t want to be loud, demanding, or overtly show off but the desire to be noticed is still there.
In my young adult years that addiction was easily fulfilled because I was quite pretty so I rarely went unnoticed even though most of the time I dressed in a way that didn’t accentuate my sexuality. Now, at 51, that form of attention is rare so I’ve had to feel through some of that addiction. It still lingers, I notice the feeling even in small things like meeting a new group of people online. I don’t want to “burst into the room” and say, “Look at me!” so I underplay myself. I notice that I didn’t reveal much about myself in my introduction to this forum. I feel that had to do with this addiction and I suppose it’s actually false humility. I didn’t get that until now. The injury which has come to light this morning is a deep sense of unworthiness. I feel it all boils down to this injury as the cause of these addictions.
Which brings me to the desire part. I LOVE to paint, draw, make images, speak that visual language, imagine fantastical characters and make up their worlds in written form. I love the result, the challenge, the sense of being connected to an expanded place… I love to create. But, in the past decade or so my active creating has been sporadic. When the global economy crashed in 2008, art sales all but stopped and so did my desire to keep at my business. It just didn’t make any sense anymore. Leading up to that, I’d been through a divorce during which my ex intended to destroy me financially and emotionally, specifically to make it impossible for me to remain in my house or continue making art to support myself and my son. He wanted to make me get a “real job.”
So, my art became part of a fight, something to prove I was worthy of… and that’s when the desire started to wane. Then the lack of sales created a sense of worthlessness, making it impossible to prove much of anything. Talk about Law of Attraction! But this was all before I knew anything about Divine Truth and was rebelling against any idea of God because of my previous experience of religion.
So, since then, I’ve been trying to reconnect with why I love to create, why it does make sense, why it does have purpose after that feeling of intense hopelessness and uselessness. A feeling of “what’s it all for?” I chose to enter a grad school program in the hopes that the instructors and the work required would remind me of my purpose. (there’s a whole other topic of an abusive system I won’t go into now) In the middle of getting a masters degree, I found the Divine Truth videos.
In the past 2 years I’ve really devoted a lot of time and energy to processing my emotions and becoming aware of (some of) my addictions. While the process has been enormously helpful and life-changing, I’ve created very little art and barely run my business at all. My studio has become my “church” because my main purpose is to connect with my feelings and God while I am out here. And that’s fabulous, yet I’d also like to get back to painting, writing and getting my creations out to the world. I have no idea how to do that last part in harmony with God’s laws and feel no desire to do it the old way (galleries, advertising, etc.)
In recent weeks, I’ve been connecting with the feeling I used to have while painting, even though I didn’t understand it — it’s a form of prayer, communicating with God. That has increased my desire to get back to my easel. Yet, I have this nagging feeling that, great, I’ll have another painting in my already full studio… but what do I do with it?
But here’s the real block (now I finally get to it!). I’ve been working on the children’s book since 2010. Everyone who sees the drawings or hears a synopsis of the story loves it, wants to get a copy when it’s published… except for one publisher who rejected it and some others who suggested changes. But I can’t bring myself to get it ready to send out again, or self publish it. I can barely even do a sketch let alone any sustained work on it. So I wonder if all this emotional processing is just a way to avoid whatever it is about this children’s story that I must be terrified of?? Or am I so influenced by spirits, is there some reason that they don’t want this book to ever get out into the world?
Oddly enough, I’ve had more fine art sales this year than in the last 10 combined even though I’ve spent very little time painting or connecting with the public. This adds another piece of confusion — was the illustration just a detour from really understanding the connection I have with God while painting and am I afraid to dive into that?
I’ve never had this kind of resistance/confusion before about this area of my life! I’ve been trying to feel my way through it but feel terribly ill equipped and haven’t made much progress. I would appreciate any feedback or insights you kind souls can provide.
If you’ve made it through this very long post, thank you! I appreciate your care. I am now resisting an urge to go back through and edit this down so as not to ask too much you all, (back to that false humility) but I realize that if you’re not drawn to read this you won’t, so I can trust you to make that choice
much appreciation,
Rita R.