Break Free from Fear
If I asked you what side of our brain was most active in an art practice, my guess is that you’d say the right brain.
And yes, the right brain is important, but the left brain might be playing a bigger role than you think. Nancy Reyner (Ep.63) says understanding that role is important especially when it comes to helping us overcome our fears around painting.
This is because the left brain works really hard to keep you safe. Part of keeping you safe is knowing the outcome of something so it can decide if you should do it.
Deciding whether or not to eat a spicy dish? Your brain can guess that you’ll probably be ok, and says let’s do it.
But starting a new business? It has less data and less information and so it tells you to maybe go do something else instead.
In painting, you don't know the end of something. Which means the left brain can go into fear mode and try to stop you.
The tricky part is that fear mode can look quite reasonable.
"Wouldn't you rather clean your studio? At the end of cleaning, you'll have a lovely clean studio!"
But that's just the left brain trying to keep you from heading into the unknown.
Put it to Practice:
The good news, Reyner says, is that you can learn to work with your left brain.
When it starts trying to make you stop, notice that it's there. Thank it for trying to keep you safe and then gently let it know that you're going to keep going.
Even better, you’ll start to learn what pushback feels like in your body. You’ll start to connect THIS feeling of resistance with starting something new or unknown. And then instead of letting your Left Brain steer you off of something, you’ll be able to gently push back.
Noticing the Left Brain's interference is a major first step in not letting it stop you from painting.