Click ‘play’ to hear my little freestyle riff that leads into this post. In it I talk about some cool stuff I didn’t understand about my recovery until I started this art journey. I’m so happy about it and I’m so happy to tell you about it! :)
Get used to being misunderstood, ignored, feared, degraded, and rejected. Know that the world is not a safe place, but you are. And if you are not a safe place for yourself to be, make becoming your own safest place to be your first priority. Literally disregard everything else. If you don’t feel safe inside yourself, you will. You can and you will and you must. Tell yourself this over and over again until you believe it.
Do you know what it feels like to believe when you scream you are screaming into a void, a nothingness, an empty endless hole in the universe? Have you ever screamed underwater? Have you ever thought that maybe you were the scream itself? Have you ever told anyone? Has anyone ever believed you? Have you believed yourself? You will. You can and you will and you must. But it will take time. Stay with it. Stay with your scream and your dream of one day becoming it. It may get quieter then.
I started doing the Artist’s Way book, I started on a Tuesday because my weeks don’t really begin or end the way other people’s weeks do. I know it’s the weekend because I get to be snuggled into my husband more often. That’s a beautiful way to know, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s the best way. And my life is absolutely beautiful. For a long time, I had all the same things but couldn’t see them. I had all the same people but couldn’t reach them. I didn’t realize to get to them I had to go through myself. My reach is infinite now. Or at least it feels that way.
Here’s a basic and obvious truth that I didn’t see, perhaps because it was staring at me right in front of my face: because I recovered myself from alcohol addiction, my new art will be infused with this recovery even if I don’t ‘try.’ Did you know you could be afraid of what you might do if you be inside all of your rooms? If you occupy all the corners of your own house? Do you know what it feels like to expand out in all directions at once? That’s what safety is. As humans, I’m not sure we can ever fully know it. The world is too sick a place.
But if art is a place, maybe it’s a landscape where you learn to allow yourself to feel more and more safe inside places you thought you were never allowed to go. You have to break down the walls of the life they told you was the only way to stay safe. You have to crash through to the other side of something that will not only hold you but lift you and let you soar freely. Above the rest of everything else. Beyond the constraints of what told you it was keeping you safe, when all it ever really did was hold you down.
My intention is to continue sharing more art on my Instagram @allisontaylorconway as I go along this artistic recovery journey. I’d love to connect with you there, too. BUT if you are trying to quit social media don’t let me screw you up! Your peace of mind is the ONLY important thing.
Thank you so much for being here. It means the world to me. x
Very nice Allison. The last one about ‘society’ resonated with me. I’m exited for your creativity!! 🙏
“because I recovered myself from alcohol addiction, my new art will be infused with this recovery even if I don’t ‘try.’”
And thank God for that 🙏