“I cannot paint within the lines” – I lamented to Subha Sreenivasan Iyer, an ex-colleague, artist and now my friend and art therapist. Yes you heard it right. I am taking therapy for helping me guide and understand my emotions.
Her reply was simple and beautiful – “Who told you that you need to be within the lines.”
As I related and absorbed this statement into my being, I was relaxed about one of the things I felt was impossible for me to do, paint.
I have this childhood memory of being ridiculed in a class for drawing crooked beaks. To be fair to the teacher, I didn’t do as what expected and the pictures I drew didn’t look much like the beaks of birds. But this wasn’t my biggest mistake. I allowed my mistake to condition myself as being not good in painting, art or any of the related fields.
I have a passion for animation and shied away from the field in my growing up years as I thought I wasn’t good enough.
In my corporate career I learnt to work with my strengths, or collaborate with people or technology that could help me do things I didn’t feel I could achieve in the first place.
Now I have found a better way, to have courage and do things which I want and do them to the best of my ability. More importantly, drop the conditioning and belief that I can’t, even if I don’t meet expectations.
I painted the picture – ‘Inner World’ which accompanies this article.
Even though, sometimes things don’t fall within the lies, I vow to walk this beautiful life being true to myself and unleash my potential. Would you like to join me?
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