In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron claims that what keeps artists from pursuing their art is not, as commonly thought, laziness, but rather, fear. They tell themselves they are neglectful and undisciplined people and live within a cycle of self-dislike and unfulfilled dreams.
Cameron’s point has numerous applications, I think.
Fear is what keeps us from pursuing almost anything we desire—including a beautiful home.
Friends and acquaintances often say they wish their houses were more beautiful, more organized, more reflective of their personalities, but they also share that they feel stuck in their houses and in their habits. Sighing, they appear resigned to their frustration.
I find myself caught within this mindset frequently as well. I want finally to decorate an area of my house and have visions of color and playfulness. However, I soon find myself caught in fearful apprehension of the work itself or of what might go wrong.
To address this “self-sabotage,” as she calls it, Cameron asks her readers to list all the fears that surround the practice of their art. Give voice to the hidden hesitations and doubts.
Decorating our houses, I think, might call for a similar self-examination, and so, I invite you to write out whatever fears you have about making your home more beautiful or more personal or more orderly. (Cameron encourages writing this out by hand; it makes processing easier.)
Writing down our fears is almost always clarifying and sometimes even resolves the fears themselves. I have realized that many of my fears center around finances:
I am afraid that I will not like it, and this project will be a waste of money. I am just afraid of the cost. Others have to do with identity: I am afraid my friends will not approve of this choice.
I am afraid of being a failure. Still more, in regard to order, relate to a fear of my messing up the order I have just invested in: I am afraid of being disappointed.
A note here. Financial concerns are certainly not to be dismissed. However, for many of us, such concerns are masking other fears and can be worked around. Financial concerns might require us to make some adjustments, looking at spending and reprioritizing costs. They might require shopping creatively and crafting our homes more slowly and intentionally. But all of those actions are positive and perhaps even practices in virtue.
Cameron next asks readers to articulate what they gain by not going about their craft. I think we ought to do the same.
What do we gain by not making our homes what we want them to be or what we think would be a gift to our families? What is in that for us?
In other words, what patterns of thinking and behaving have become comfortable to us, but which actually keep us from living well? We all have these. We complain about them but also continue to give in to them. Uncovering them takes courage.
Real, personal beauty takes courage too. It takes being quiet with ourselves, believing ourselves to be loved and loving ourselves as we are (even though we sometimes sabotage our own happiness). Beauty then asks us to take risks—to hope and trust.
However, the risks are less scary when we choose to acknowledge beauty as something being given to us, something we are the finders of. There is less of our own egos at stake. Instead, we are uncovering the beauty that already exists—in our homes, in our own persons, in the lives of our family, in what we love.
What are you afraid of? But more importantly, what do you love?
It is love, ultimately, that gives us the courage to choose beauty and to make it.
