"An Artist's Walk with God"

“The more you fail at being someone else, the more you succeed in become you.”

I believe you cannot have true passion in your life without your walk with God being as sweet as it can be. Start your day with God and be sure to have this walk with Him first and foremost, but I truly feel God does not want us to just stop there. He gave us desires that we feel so we should explore these desires and talents. He wants to encourage us to have the deepest passion that we can have. I have always thought that if we love music or art or looking at photography, then God put that desire or love within us to enjoy that passion. It is up to us to explore why we are passionate about these things. For instance, when I see a movie, I am always looking at the pictures on the walls, the colors and I find I love BOLD colors. Lines in a movie move me and I am always scrambling to grab a pen to write them down and ponder on them.

I was raised with very traditional style homes, colors and furniture, so I bought the same things for my home.   I loved my houses, but kept looking for how to decorate and felt I was not living in the rooms I always wanted. In other words, I did not feel passionate about my rooms. UNTIL, my precious daughter in law introduced me to color. I was too busy working that I never thought about changing my surroundings, I did as I always did and stopped short of listening to my passion within me. BUT when I did stop and think about what was the desires of my heart, I found that I was missing the bold colors in my house I was so passionate about I nature. SO, I started with all the cushions in my living room, by removing them and replaced them with COLORFUL ones!!! It actually took me several trips to Home Goods to buy cushions and return them for new ones, but I finally found what I love, bold oranges, blues and greens. (PS, one trick, take a picture of your area you are working on and then look at the picture, it helps give you a different view of what you are trying to do!)

So what am I saying?

To get your passion, stop and reflect on what makes you happy? God wants us to be happy. Look at where you are and decide steps to get these pieces of your passion into your life.

For me, decorating my home (on a budget) and writing was what I wanted to do. I now also added painting, but more on that later.

I had to decide on how to put the passion into my day!!

There are days I wake up energized and cannot wait to get my work done, paint, write and encourage others. But believe me I have those days where I want to hide under the covers. I become a little girl and cry and pull my pillow close to me and tell myself it is ok to be here under the covers because I feel like I need time to myself. On those darker days, I need to do reset my passion buttons and here is how I do it.

1. I ask God to be the brush that paints my passion for the day. I know there are days I cannot do this alone. He after all gave me my passions, right? So I let Him help paint and design my passion. Makes sense, right?
2. I have a notebook where I write down my passions. (I will pass on some tools in a later blog that I use)
3. I set goals on paper as I am a goal setter. If you are not, just impress your goals in your mind. I start by day dreaming my goals and my work. I “daydream” about where I am in my projects and where I want to go that day. If you are a photographer, daydream of those pictures you would like to take. If you are a painter, daydream of those pictures you want to paint. If you are a musician, day dream of playing your music. Try to feel the daydream. (PS, if you do not reach your goal that day, it is ok!)
4. I set aside time each day to do something that helps me focus and feel my passion. For instance for writing, I have downloaded authors that speak to the topics I write about. Have either a laptop ready or a notebook to start writing down what they say that inspires me. Believe me, soon, I turn off their work and I start writing my own work. It works every time for me!! Others inspire me to write. It is like God gives me the gift to hear what I need to get going.

Right now I am painting and learning how to paint for the first time. Believe me, being a beginner can be so intimidating and discouraging. In fact, two days ago, I completely washed off two canvases of painting that I hated, the passion was just not there, and I lost my confidence. So I stopped and googled some art that I liked and looked at some You Tube videos that inspired me. I always encourage you to have a sketch pad ready and soon you will find you will be drawing some of your own thoughts and your passion will start taking over and… Katie bar the door!!! Move over discouragement, here come my passion. Will the passion produce a work of art, perhaps not, but I have let go of the blockage that was taking away my passion.

Will this always be easy, NO… but be kind to yourself. Let yourself breathe. Stepping back is sometimes that best thing you can do. Go for a walk, daydream, talk to God and better yet, and LISTEN to God for a while.

5. I let the passion replace the negative in my soul. I do ALL I can to remove the negative from my mind. We all doubt ourselves and have moments where we have no confidence in ourselves. IN fact, I feel those with the most passion can become very discouraged. I have moments of discouragement throughout the day!! (I feel the devil would LOVE for us to be discouraged). A phone call, a rude person at the store, someone that cuts you off in traffic. The world is full of events that can distract us from our goals.
6. I push negative thoughts out of my mind as soon as I can. Sometimes negative thoughts can help us grow, but we need to channel them in the right frame of mind. The ultimate goal is not to let these negative thoughts turn into insecurities, or fears or events that steal our passion.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO……

If you are a photographer, take some pictures of silly things. Take pictures of your dog or cat, listen to podcasts of other photographers the inspire you. Have your camera ready with you everywhere you go (as much as possible). Enter contests even if you know you are not going to win. Take that step to do it anyway.

If you write, have a pad of paper or a tape recorder to take notes on things you hear that inspire you or are just different. I have found that what helps me in writing is to set goals and time frames for myself. I do an article a day. I do a detailed outline to get me started if it is a piece that I am not as familiar with and I include research. I turn off spell check and the first time though. Someone told me that creating writing and typing are from two different sides of the brain. So if you stop and correct your mistakes, you are stopping your creativity over and over again. I just let the thoughts flow and then go back and correct my mistakes. Learn what works for you, perhaps speaking into recorder is better than typing.

I heard a great quotation I want to share with you. “The more you fail at being someone else, the more you succeed in become you.”

The reason I call my blog Ruby Prose is because God tells us in Proverbs that a virtuous woman’s “price is far above rubies.” Virtue means morally good character. As women, we need to know how to develop our character and I believe passion is a part of who we are and developing our passion will help us become more of what God envisioned and created us to be.

I thought about talking about “Self-Reflection” tomorrow.  I hope some of my journey will help you in yours.