If you scream into the trees that you are ready, prepare for an answer.
I was in a slump like never before. I’ve been out there battling demons, and I was grasping for a foothold to get back to the light. I was falling apart regularly, trying to keep that cheery outside appearance going, but torturing myself because the careful laid plan I had for my new business life just wasn’t quite gelling in its first year. I journal daily, seek therapy, practice visualization, and I am trying to heal the parts of me that are still holding me back from my dreams. I’ve started carrying crystals and taking action daily, but by God, something just hasn’t fit quite right in the last six months. I’d been quietly begging and pleading with God, allowing myself to be open to opportunity and connection when they arise. I had finally opened up to my kids about all I was feeling, bawling and stammering the whole through as I frantically swiped tears on the way to a family dinner out. I let it rain, pulled up my big girl pants and ate a kid’s meal at Culvers while Magic Matt made a balloon mermaid for my daughter tableside on a random Tuesday evening. We went to the movies, and that is when the email came through.
Two weeks prior, I had applied for a grant through the Springfield Art Association. It was open to artists who were pursuing creative endeavors in their field. The grant was in honor of two art educators, one who worked in my last school district and had meant quite a bit to me. It felt perfect. There was a workshop with Jonny Edward in Denver the week after grant recipients would be notified that I desperately wanted to attend. I had met Jonny at a photography conference in Arizona and was enamored with his presence, his creativity, and his openness to making meaningful art.
I wrote the grant by lamplight in the middle of the night, inspired by all I had read about his workshops. The descriptions of finding your artistic purpose, exploring and allowing yourself to open up to new ways of working, and connecting with other creatives was everything I needed. It sounded like the safety net that was the college of arts in my late teens and early twenties. I desperately needed to be surrounded by creatives again. I NEEDED to find my spark. I hit send and somehow, I just knew this opportunity was mine. I even started looking up flights.
I had read a book last year by Denise Duffield-Thomas and it started with a story about how she and her husband had applied to be travel writers for Honeymooners, where she would essentially live in luxury hotels around the world with all the best amenities and write about it for newly engaged readers. Tens of thousands of people applied and if I remember right, before she had even won, she had already leased her apartment, taken off of work, sold most of what she had owned, told people she was going to win this, scheduled the travel on her calendar, etc… I was shocked at the audacity and the confidence. Leave your job and your home for a competition add you saw for your dream job on the back of a very popular magazine with no guarantees whatsoever? Trying to control what I can’t and obssessively planning is what got me in this dump of a mindspace, so the idea of believing wholeheartedly and visualizing the life you want to fruition were new to me. Isn’t getting to the finish line about working your everliving butt off and earning it? (Ooooof, even writing that and I can see just how much my mindset has grown in the last year!)
With a pair of 3-D glasses on, I bawled my eyes out during the opening credits of Lilo and Stitch. This CONGRATULATIONS email was going to change my life. I knew that with absolute certainty and conviction. There was no way this all came together so fast, other than for the simple fact that it was meant to be. I had, in fact, done exactly what this book had recommended without even thinking twice less than a year after being so perplexed by what Denise Duffield-Thomas had advised. I had told God I was ready for the next step. I listened to the universe’s nudges and acted on them. I visualized myself winning the scholarship, wrote the conference in my calendar, looked up flights, coordinated with my brother on housing and travel, and journaled. And as it turns out, I must be fairly good at grant writing. In all of my art career, I have only ever lost one, so maybe, just maybe, this is another nudge from the universe to lean into my strengths. I am grateful for the beautiful opportunities and travel that these grants have brought into my life, and I cannot wait to share what I learned with you in the next post!
Until then, peace, love and big dreams!