Dear Joshua,
I’ve written you before on matters of being an artist and earning a full-time living doing it, and have continued to meditate and process fears and limiting beliefs and reflect upon the abundance that exists in my life now which allows me to pursue anything I desire. So I am about to bring a resume to a local food and wine shop and apply for a job. While I am aware of every dimension to this decision, I’m not certain whether this is a decision being made out of inspiration towards abundance or out of an escape from the perceived condition of lack that I have been experiencing lately. The potential job is related to a field where I have three years experience- specialty food retail, and while I was quite good at the job, I must admit I resisted it -big time- throughout. I decided to leave the job to pursue my art, since an abundant crop of commissions and opportunities showed up! Unfortunately it seems that the commission work dried up over the past year, and it’s been stressful toward the end of every month paying rent and other expenses from part-time work, art sales, and a few custom canvases for other artists. I do acknowledge and appreciate that this has been paid, somehow, every time. While I feel that this job would once again provide steady abundance, which will allow me to make my art without regard to any earnings- in fact, I declared to the universe that I intended to let go of the art entirely- NOT quit or give up, but allow myself to feel no obligation to make art or attempt to sell it. But the illusion we experience requires we exchange money, and I want to allow it to come.
So, if I get this job, is it an inspired act towards the flow of abundance, or is it a change of conditions to escape a sense of lack? I may have received a regular, if not consistent in amount, income from the previous job, but I never felt secure or that it was abundant- the bills were always behind, and I resented the work, but I was so good at it!!! My boss really didn’t want me to leave! But the resistance was so exhausting and I needed an escape and my desire to be this abundant, free, full-time artist was burning so hot, it burned me out!
Why did I attract all those sales and commissions then, in the lead-up to leaving the job, only to see them dry up? Where’s the momentum?
To reiterate, I discovered Joshua about a year ago, as I sought out Law of Attraction methods to manifest this abundant art career I desire, and have devoured the podcasts, purchased and read every book of yours, and everything from Napoleon Hill to Jen Sincero to Wallace freaking Wattles, practiced the Abundance Game, did the Limiting Belief practice, am writing down lists of appreciation and gratitude and intentions and affirmations almost daily, and now I’ve thrown up my hands and sought out a job, partially to get the money rolling, but also to be “responsible” and allay the fears of my girlfriend/housemate who works full time, all the while fearing that I am being a leech instead of a responsible provider and- aaah!
Do I attempt to get this job or not? I have no idea what it would entail specifically, other than that it is evenings, during classes and events, and most likely part-time, with fluctuating retail hours. It’s either this, or bust my ass in the hot sun, or in a factory, or gain feelings of great worthiness as an artist, receive inspiration, and allow lots of abundance to flow from that!
Thanks for enduring a not-so-quick question.
Jeremy
Dear Jeremy,
Let’s separate the idea of financial abundance from true abundance. From our perspective, true abundance is receiving all that you need to do whatever you need to do as you explore reality at the time you need it. You might say, “If I had enough money, then I could explore the idea of being an artist.” We would say that money has literally nothing to do with your exploration as an artist. You might perceive that it would be easier to focus on your art if you had enough money to pay your bills. That is not the case at all. When you are exploring the passion of creating art, you are also exploring the idea that the money you need to pay your bills must come from the art itself. This is not necessarily true.
You have a passion to create art. So then, focus on your creation. Enjoy the time that you do have to create your art. You need not create art twenty-four hours a day in order to enjoy the creation process. Certainly there is more to it than the actual paint-tocanvas process. You think about it. You dream about it. You see other art. You receive inspiration. All of these activities happen when you are not creating the actual art itself. It is all part of the creation process.
You reach a point where you cannot see a way to pay your bills through the creation and then the marketing of your art. That’s because, while you are inspired to create, you are not inspired to market. You do not put yourself out there as an artist. You have come to a certain point in your exploration as an artist, but not as the marketer of your art. And so the money does not come from the sales of your work. If you saw the two aspects as completely different things, then you could develop your marketing abilities just as you developed your artistic abilities.
It is easier for you to work in a store as an employee trading time for money than to spend the same amount of time marketing your artwork. There is nothing wrong with this. However, in the exploration of who you are as an artist, you are also in the exploration of who you are as a spiritual being. You are interested in the laws of the universe and the mechanism of physical reality. You are interested in these teachings. Why? Possibly so that you can use them to create the reality you dream of. In that reality, your art sells easily and effortlessly and you attain financial abundance. You, like many, are attempting to use these teachings to control your conditions. However, your work is always to cultivate the feeling of what you want.
Imagine cultivating the feeling of financial abundance. What would that look like? You would have to feel abundant now. In order to create a reality that reflects the abundance you feel, you must first develop a feeling of abundance. If you are focused primarily on lack, you do not cultivate the feeling of abundance, but instead continue the exploration of lack. You are in the same boat as many “starving” artists who cannot separate the art from their idea of worthiness. If you truly felt worthy of the sale of your work, you would spend a majority of your time moving outside your comfort zone to promote and market your art. Because this does not feel comfortable, you submit to the urge to control your financial condition by seeking employment.
In any employment, you have the opportunity to explore who you truly are. This is true. You can find aspects of any situation to feel good. You can develop wonderful relationships and completely enjoy any job. However, if you are truthful, you must admit that none of this is about the art. It’s about your idea of worthiness. If you felt as though you were the greatest artist of this time, you would stop at nothing to deliver your art to the market. You would think only of establishing recognition for the fine work that flows through you. You have achieved a very important first step. You have allowed the art to flow through you. The next step will challenge your vision of yourself. As long as you feel unworthy of accolades, recognition, and financial appreciation, you will have immense difficulty selling your art.
Eventually, you will give up needing anyone to show you appreciation for the work you create. You will give up attaching your value to your creations. Your artistic creation has nothing to do with who you are. When you attempt to sell your art now, in your present vibration, you are encountering some rejection and some acceptance. You do not appreciate the acceptance and you fear rejection. Therefore, when you receive inspiration to market your work, you fear the action. You infer rejection and you perceive it to mean that you, the person and the artist, is being rejected, not the art itself.
Your art, like all true art, is inspired. The ideas flow from the nonphysical to the physical. Not all humans will resonate with it. Some will and most will not. It has nothing to do with you, it has to do with their perception of reality. It has to do with their beliefs. All of has to do with them, not you. What some people appreciate, you do not and the opposite is true. Everyone is different. However, there is a segment of the population who will and do appreciate what you have to offer. That appreciation has much more to do with their vibration (and yours) than anything else. Do not become attached to the opinion of others. You have no control over that.
If you had the confidence and felt worthy enough, you could successfully derive financial abundance by selling your art. However, you would also be able to attract financial abundance by anything you are inspired to do. The art and the financial abundance are two very different things. Develop your worthless, not through art, but through your knowledge that you are on a very personal journey of self-discovery, just as every singe living being is. You are unique. You are as worthy as any other artist or human or living being. You are Source and cannot be separate from Source. You perceive that your limitations are real, however, they are false. They are not applied to you by anything outside of you; they are self-imposed.
You might not be able to cultivate a feeling of confidence and worthiness enough to pay your bills this month. You might need to find another source of income right now. However, understand that ultimately, you must proceed along your path of selfdiscovery. You are always being led to the truest version of you. You cannot deny the intentions you set prior to your birth. They are the invisible hand guiding you forward. You must assume that you are the greatest artist to ever live and then receive the inspiration not just to paint, but to sell your artworks. In order to do that, you must see yourself from a higher perspective.
You receive the inspiration to market your art. You sometimes act on this inspiration. You take the first steps and when you do not receive the results you want, you feel disappointed. What is disappointment? It’s an emotion that is activated so that you might discover a limiting belief. What’s the limiting belief? That you art is not appreciated, therefore you, Jeremy, are not appreciated, therefore you are rejected, therefore you are not good. This is an illusion. It’s not true. You are good. You know that. You know that how you feel in these moments is directly related to your limiting beliefs and your limited perspective regarding who you are as an artist and a human.
Those artists who receive financial abundance as a result of their art are inspired just as you are (even if sometimes you don’t believe they are). They moved through the fear of rejection believing their art was valuable and wonderful. Their perspective is different than yours. They understand their own worthiness. They did not perceive rejection in the way that you do. They understood that all rejection comes from perceptions that are simply not aligned with the art itself and that has nothing to do with the artist. They somehow detached any meaning from the initial rejection of the art and they eventually choose to persevere. They were also comfortable with the appreciation that comes as a result of success. Are you?
That’s all that’s happening here. It’s only a matter of perspective. See yourself as worthy, detach your persona from your art, receive the inspiration to market the art, push past the fears by processing your limiting beliefs, and accept that you must stretch your comfort zone and face your fears. If you can do that, little by little, eventually you will develop a level of self-understanding that will build confidence. The more confidence you develop, the easier it will be to push past fear. The fear will always be there, every single time. It will always feel uncomfortable. But something will change. You will start pushing past fear rather than succumbing to fear.
With our love,
We are Joshua