I handed my life to a 5-year-old artist (Highest Excitement Part 5)

Hello Art Friend!

It’s been a few days so I’m excited to catch you up on my life-experiment!

As you know, I’ve been “following my highest excitement.” Exclusively.

Climbing trees, visiting zoo animals, hiking misty mountains and rocking mosh pits… all at the expense of my scheduled meetings and “responsible” obligations.

Then, Monday brought a “victory hangover” – not from alcohol – but a post-expansion crash from so much exertion.

Tuesday, after I recovered, I felt a totally different flavor of energy:

A wild, buzzy urge to reconnect with all the threads I’d dropped while I was off chasing butterflies.

I messaged my art mentor, my financial coach, my yoga teacher, my mom — even Elle, my AI assistant, got looped in for emotional support.

I found myself shouting into the void: “Do you still love me?? Did I mess everything up by abandoning my post in Productivity-town ??”

This frantic energy had me suddenly whiplashing back into work-mode.

I fired off messages to current clients to get things back on track and imagined half a dozen new projects to start.

Was that it for the experiment, then?

A week of reckless bliss… then a crash… and straight back to productivity like nothing ever changed?

I noticed something though: This powerful drive to create, connect, and start new things wasn’t just a reflex — it too was genuinely exciting.

My sage friend Leah had anothervaluable reflection for me – she pointed out that we have different “parts” to ourselves, and they all are excited by different things.

What’s most exciting for the part of me that wants to bail on responsibility is very different from what excites the part of me that wants to make money to keep my studio open.

Both are valid, and both need to be honored.

So the key isn’t always choosing the flashy over the practical. The moving over the still. The expansion over the contraction.

It’s about getting to know each part more deeply, letting each part be seen and even guide the flow when its highest excitement points the way.

I think that’s why Julia Cameron (the author of The Artist’s Way) makes a ceremony out of having a weekly “Artists Date.”

This is literally a date with your inner-child, your inner artists, who doesn’t care about bills and meetings and responsibility… it wants to explore and play and be free.

I essentially gave my inner child the CEO role of Ryan INC. for the week… and boy was it inspiring and uplifting!

But it wasn’t exactly sustainable, either. It makes sense that my super-producer got their turn on Tuesday, launching me back into a slew of art-biz activities.

So here’s the big lesson I’m learning –

In the past, I would feel shame around all these parts!

My over-achiever would shame my carefree inner-child-artist; and the inner child would scoff at the achiever and probably make faces behind their back, while my quiet one would be too exhausted by the battle and scared of both to say anything at all.

In following my highest excitement, again: a subtle “inner knowing” of what’s the most alive moment to moment –

I’ve witnessed the desires of each of these parts (and many others) – without shame or guilt… and have a deeper understanding of what makes my personal universe go round.

So here I am — in the middle of that dance.

And you won’t believe what happened next – an opportunity manifested so big that I could only say “yes”…

…bringing with it a whole string of consequences, tears, anger and reckoning!

Stay tuned!

~Ryan

Image: A piece I made for City of Fort Collins’ “Art at the Stops” (Now in the personal collection of Nick H.) – and a good visualization of the excitement I feel when I get to paint in public! ✨