Art & Money - Day 98.1

The art I sold

Here I am sharing from a DIP Lite assignment from a few weeks ago.
Relevant posts:
Art & Process - Day 98
Self as "Artist" - Day 98.2

Memory:

I remember having sold an art piece about 4 years ago for a decent amount of money. I "miss" having this piece of art to myself, though, and so when I remember this art piece and the fact that I sold it, I have a negative/emotional reaction.


Self Forgiveness:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in regret when I think about having sold this art piece.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, in reaction to this regret, have the thought that I would not like to sell any more of my art as originals because I do not want to "lose" them and I do not want to have to "miss" them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a dysfunctional relationship with the art that I create where I want to hold onto it as evidence of what I am capable of creating but then within other aspects/dimensions of this dysfunctional relationship, I do not participate in making art on a regular basis. So I have created an identity for myself as an "artist," yet I do not make art.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed my dysfunctional relationship with money to interfere with my experience of selling art, where instead of feeling "proud" of myself for having made something someone else wants to buy, and instead of using common sense and good business sense to make money to support myself financially through art that I create, and instead of using the money that I make from that art to support myself, I have instead resented that I sold art because that money basically went "nowhere" which is to say that I have such a horrible time managing my own finances that I have no idea what I spent that money on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed my dysfunctional relationship with money to interfere with my experience of selling art, where instead of establishing within myself a reasonable price point for selling my art, I instead establish that no amount of money is worth selling my art because "chances are" that the money will basically just "disappear" within my reckless spending / mismanagement of my money.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become overwhelmed by and at the point of looking at my debt that I lose sight of how to diminish that debt and instead feel hopeless and helpless because I will likely never receive/earn an amount of money that will make the debt go away in one fell swoop, and so I do nothing to chip away at it bit by bit because I feel so overwhelmed and helpless/hopeless.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to bear the weight of money and debt within my relationship to and as myself making art as an artist.


Self Commitments:

When and as I see myself participating in a relationship/connection between money and art, I stop and I breathe. I realize that I create art for myself as expression of myself. I commit myself to this end.

When and as I see myself becoming overwhelmed at my debt and reacting within that overwhelmingness to where I feel helpless/hopeless, I stop and I breathe. I realize that within this reaction I am paralyzing myself and self-sabotaging wherein I am not supporting myself to decrease my debt but am instead reacting emotionally which not only is not productive toward decreasing my debt but also often has the effect wherein I end up spending money recklessly because "it doesn't matter," "the debt will never go away," and "I don't know how to manage my money." So when and as I see myself making excuses for myself in relation to my debt and being able to pay off my debt and appropriately manage my money, I stop and I breathe. I realize that these excuses are self-sabotage and are simply not true or do not have to be true if I direct myself to consider the ways that I actually practically can get myself out of debt. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to put myself in debt. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to continually increase my debt. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be reckless and careless with my money under a multitude of excuses and justifications.

I commit myself to taking proactive practical steps toward decreasing and paying off my debt. I commit myself to learning more about financial planning and management.