Facing Fear

I would have never painted this if I had given in to my fears.

It wasn’t even the plan to buy the 24x30-inch canvas. A year ago, I was at Michaels Arts & Crafts store, simply browsing, and I saw a sign that said “buy one, get two free.” I immediately thought “hell yeah!” and grabbed three of the nearest 16x20 stretched canvases, a size that I was very familiar with. Then I thought, well, for a few more dollars, I might as well buy the next biggest one, and proceeded to put the ones I had back and go for the bigger ones.

One thought lead to another thought, and before I knew it, I was out the door with three 24x30 canvases in hand. Talk about the phrase “go big or go home”!

So at home that night, I contemplated on what to paint on these canvases. And the more I stared, the more I felt that I wasn’t ready. So I put the canvas to the side and painted on the smaller canvases that I was used to.

Every time I got out my less-intimidating work-in-processes, that 24x30-inch blank canvas was there to greet me, staring back at me and silently saying “paint me”. But the voice of fear inside my head was full of discouragement.

“If you paint it and mess up, then you would have wasted a big canvas…and for what?”

“Do you know how long it will take you to just paint the background? And forget about an actual design…you will never finish! It will be a waste of time.”

Unfortunately, I listened to my fears for a long time. Too long.

Then, one day, I found out that my aunt in India passed away from cancer. Although I didn’t know her well, a lot of people said that I looked like her, so I felt a special connection towards her. My heart grieved for this loss, for my dad losing his baby sister and for my cousins who lost their mother. And it got me to thinking…life is short. It’s too short to look back on it with a heart full of regret. Yes, there are things in my past that I wish I could do differently. But what about the opportunities that are available to me in the present? What about taking “the path less traveled by?” Then I thought about that 24x30 canvas. Those fearful thoughts came flooding back into my head, and I was about to dismiss this idea as an “exception to the rule”. But then a little thought came along.

“Isn’t it worth trying? That it could potentially turn into something good?”

And that thought ended up drowning out the rest.

So I decided to take the plunge. I pulled out that 24x30 and started painting with no prior planning…just whatever ideas came into my head. Below is the timeline of how long each step generally took (and keep in mind, I was working on this every day after work from 6pm-11pm).

Step One (2 days): I tried painting dark purple and merging it with dark blue. It ended up looking black (a.k.a epic fail).

Step Two (3 days): Grabbed the turquoise paint, and painted several layers of it to drown out the dark purple and blue.

Step Three (15 days): I couldn’t shake the dark purple out of my head, so I started painting designs with it. I didn’t like the way it looked, but kept going, hoping that it would all come together in the end.

Step Four (92 days): Grabbed the metallic gold paint and started painting small details overtop of the purple designs.

112 days later, and voila! I was finished. But during each step, I contemplated giving up, especially when things didn’t go the way I was expecting them to. Thankfully I didn’t, or else I wouldn’t end up with the painting in the picture above, titled “My Angel’s Halo”, dedicated to my late aunt. Because of the journey I went through to paint it, it has become my favorite painting and the one I am most proud of.

If there is something that you’re scared about, but you know that it’s something that you should do, then take it from me…face your fears and jump into it head on. Life is about taking risks, right? The riskiest of risks usually end up being the most fulfilling, and it helps you learn more about yourself. It also helps you discover and practice one of your greatest qualities – your strength. That’s exactly what happened to me, and I have faith that it will happen to you, too. But you won’t know until you shut those thoughts of fear in your mind down! I know you can do it!

I hope my experience can give you the strength to face your fears.

Until next time :-)