What If You Actually Listened to Yourself?

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Each Friday, we explore identity, creativity, and the way who you are influences what you create. Then you'll receive a new mixed-media printable to spark your creativity.

What If You Actually Listened to Yourself?

I think we know far more about what we want than we give ourselves credit for.

We have ideas that keep coming back. There are things we want to create, changes we want to make, and dreams we have been thinking about for years. We also know when we’re doing something we don’t enjoy anymore, even when we have plenty of reasons to continue doing it.

The question is whether we are willing to listen to ourselves.

I remember telling my husband Mike years ago, when our kids were still little, that if an airline job in Hawaii ever came up, we should go. Somewhere along the way, I completely forgot I had ever said it.

Then years later, completely out of nowhere, an opportunity in Maui came up through the company Mike already worked for. I suddenly remembered that conversation from all those years ago. I had spoken this possibility into existence long before I had any idea how it could ever happen.

And when it actually did happen, I was scared.

Moving to Maui meant selling the house we had lived in for 25 years and moving thousands of miles away from my adult kids, my mom and my in-laws. Mike had already been living in Maui for a year while I stayed in Wisconsin, and even though I intuitively knew I needed to be here, I kept hesitating.

I still don’t know exactly why I knew I needed to be in Maui. I just knew. And I trust that eventually I’ll understand why.

Eventually, I listened.

I decided it was time to sell the house and make the move. The house sold in one day.

That’s the universe at work.

I had spoken this desire out loud years before I had any idea how it could happen. When the opportunity finally appeared, I still had to choose it. I had to trust what I had known for a very long time and take action even with the fear there.

That’s what I mean when I talk about listening to yourself. Your intuition can point you somewhere before you understand why. Your dreams can show you a direction before you know how you’ll get there. When you finally listen and take action, things can begin aligning in ways you never could have planned.

This has everything to do with identity because your identity influences what you believe is available to you. A dream can feel exciting until you start comparing it to the person you believe yourself to be right now. If the distance between the two feels too great, fear can become a reason to dismiss the dream altogether.

But the dream came from you too.

I think that matters.

Listening to yourself also means paying attention when you know you’re finished with something. We can spend years trying to make ourselves want what we once wanted because changing our minds can challenge the identity we’ve built around it.

Who you are changes. What you want can change with you.

You serve yourself when you are willing to hear your own voice and take it seriously. Sometimes fear is simply what shows up when what you want asks you to move beyond the version of yourself you already know.

Your dreams deserve more from you than being dismissed because they scare you.

They deserve your attention.

From Anaconda Art: Believe in Your Own Fairy Tale

I created this original mixed-media collage around the words “Believe in Your Own Fairy Tale.” And considering what we’re talking about this week, it feels like the perfect piece to feature.

There is a young girl sitting among the flowers with the words “I am capable. I am possible. I am resilient.” above her. Those words matter because what we believe about ourselves influences what we allow ourselves to imagine for our lives.

Believing in your own fairy tale means allowing yourself to want what you want and trusting yourself enough to follow where it leads. Sometimes the idea that keeps coming back or the dream you can’t quite shake is worth listening to.

This is an original, one-of-a-kind piece filled with layers of vintage imagery, botanicals, butterflies, texture and words that mean something to me.

You can find Believe in Your Own Fairy Tale at Anaconda Art using the link directly below.

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