I skipped my meetings to hang out with lions. 🦁 (Highest Excitement Part 3)

Hey Art Friend,

As an artist and a life-long freelancer, it has always been my responsibility, and mine alone, to make sure I’m doing the right thing at the right time to stave off a hell’s-worth of imagined disasters.

Deep down I believe that if I don’t “figure it out” and hustle my ass off… life will come crashing down.

(I mean, shit, a loaf of bread and a carton of eggs now cost more than a tank of gas did in my old Honda Civic.)

Well, this mindset led me into a crisis last week:

My ART comes from an inner place of freedom and excitement – following childlike wonder into flow states outside of time…

But paid coaches had convinced me that in order to be successful, I had to set audacious money goals and regiment every part of my day toward them.

I‘d just broken up with one coaching program and was about to join a different (and even more expensive) one, when overwhelm knocked me to the floor.

I called my friend Leah – who is blessed with the art of welcoming what is – before long I was face to face with my deep fear of failure.

My response was panic – a pure fight or flight response!

“No! I will figure it out! It’s all on me! I have to keep fighting as hard as I can. I refuse to let my family down. Just tell me the steps to succeed and I’ll do it!”

Whoa.

She said, “until you’ve acknowledged this fear – let it get close enough to see it clearly – it will keep driving you.”

And that’s exactly what was happening. I didn’t actually want to invest thousands of dollars to be even more tied to my computer doing digital marketing.

But my fear was driving me to think I could be in control this way. New task lists conquer. New mentors to impress. New benchmarks to prove I’m worthy of the rewards I seek.

I didn’t join the program.

I resolved that until the end of the month I would conduct a Bashar* inspired experiment of following my highest excitement every day.

So Thursday, after a night of dreams about big cats…

I ended up at the Denver-freaking-Zoo! 🦁

An artist friend just happened to be 10 minutes away when I texted her, so together we ran around with camera and sketchbooks, taking luxurious amounts of time to observe and sketch dozens of majestic animals.

It was magic!

My “inner child” was GIDDY!

AND – I ended up missing two “important” zoom meetings that I’d totally forgotten about in my flow state fun.

So this experiment is starting to get real…

There are casualties! But what is most important?

Would I trade back my day at the zoo for the calls I missed?

Hell no.

But, I can already hear the voice of my parents and teachers and colleagues and partners, and worst: My own masochistic inner abuser saying:

“Look!” it hisses. “You’re screwing up again. You can’t just do whatever you feel like… Eventually you’ll have to pay the piper. And it’s going to hurt.”

But is that really true?

Or is it THE gas-lit lie that keeps us locked in productivity-jail, rather than trust our higher self’s wisdom to excitedly see the lions before we all freaking die???

What voice do you hear when you take your foot off the gas?

That voice might not be your truth.
It might just be the warden of productivity-jail, clanging their little cup on the bars.

Stay tuned for more! 🦒

– Ryan

*Bashar is an “alien entity” channeled by Darryl Anka – (which sounds bat-sh!t crazy but his words are super compelling):
Bashar: Follow Your Highest Excitement