LIFE LATELY

It’s been awhile since I posted any of my art or my life on social media, and I wanted to take some time to fill you in on whats been going on in my life as of late, and why I took a break from the internet. It got a little long for an instagram post, so I thought it’d be a perfect time to jump into the world of blogging.

I appreciate authenticity more than any other type of content on social media (I think most of us can agree on that) but since starting my account last year, I’ve seriously struggled to offer much of that up myself. So, in an effort to share more real life on here — the wonderful parts of my life along side the unpleasant parts I usually keep hidden, and some pretty art — I decided to open up a bit.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always overstressed the little things, been extremely self critical, and have let perfectionism control my life. I’ve made offhand comments for years about needing to “get a grip” on my insane perfectionism and stress levels, but it wasn’t until this year that I’ve really started to take it seriously or understand the impact it was having on me mentally and physically.

I began making a more intentional effort to work on my stress levels and loosen up, and quickly realized that subconscious thought patterns and deeply ingrained self-criticism weren’t actually things you could easily “get a grip” on. Who knew.

The more I tried to loosen up and let go of the things holding me back, the more they hung on for dear life and the more frustrated I became with myself. The more debilitating it started to feel, the more mentally exhausted, scattered, drained.

I started realizing how little I actually knew about myself, how much of my life, since childhood, has been lived in a state of chronic anxiety and dissociation. I didn’t label it as that because I genuinely didn’t realize that the “fight or flight” mode I constantly went into — the can’t-think straight, can’t process mode, panicked feeling in my stomach, tight chest, racing heart and chills mode — weren’t something everyone experienced on a routine basis when they were triggered by something.

That started a spiral of self-discovery that hasn’t been the prettiest or easiest to process. I eventually took a step back from social media because I didn’t feel capable of sharing the vulnerable, personal side of my life. It started feeling too inauthentic to curate a page of pretty art and a pretty life when behind the scenes I was a little bit of a shit show.

When I started drawing as a kid, it was a way to turn my brain off and relax. To not think and just create, putting my mind and heart perfectly at peace. When I started painting to earn a living, it wasn’t that I lost my love for art, it just no longer held the same feelings of peace and comfort, and instead was just another outlet for me to criticize. I put so much pressure on myself to create a perfectly polished piece of art every time that I wasn’t connecting with it emotionally, making it difficult to talk about or confidently share with the world.

All that to say, the last few months have been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and I’m currently on a journey of being kinder to myself in a lot of ways. More intentional with nourishing my body and treating it with respect, calming my anxious mind and healing my disregulated nervous system. Learning to treat my emotional self with attention and care rather than dissociation and neglect. Working on slowing tf down, breathing deeper, and connecting with the world around me.

I’ve been spending more intentional time outside, tapping into the beauty of West Michigan and the joy I’ve always found in nature. And also painting the parts of it that bring me the most comfort :) Slowly but surely working to regain the inner peace I felt as a child, sitting in my home in front of a piece of antique furniture and spending hours drawing every last detail.

Even as I’m typing this it feels a little uncomfortably personal to share, but I’ve realized recently how much anxiety detaches you from reality and life going on around you, sometimes making it feel like everyone else is moving forward and you’re the only one stuck. So the last thing I want to do is continue sharing the positive side of my life and curating a page of beautiful art and a beautiful life, without acknowledging how much ugliness there is behind the scenes.

To all my other highly anxious or chronic perfectionists out there feeling like you’re watching the world from a self-isolated bubble, and you can’t figure out how everyone else manages to do it all or balance it all, I hope you read something that made you feel a little more heard and understood.

To anyone else reading this, I hope you learned a little more about the real life human on this page. I’m excited to slowly start sharing more of my authentic self on here and connecting with you as well. If you read this, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments 🤍

xo, Jenn