Soul Wisdom is a weekly newsletter. Please feel free to share parts of this letter that connect with you, or send to someone you love. A special shout out to all the new subscribers who joined since the last newsletter. Thank you for valuing my work when there are so many things that can take your attention online. I appreciate you. It means everything. 🖤
I once had a client who told me she loved sketching. People often complimented her work, but she hadn’t picked up a pencil in years.
So I asked her, “Do you consider yourself an artist?”
She shook her head.
“I’m not an artist,” she said quickly.
“Who gets to call themselves an artist?” I asked.
She paused for a moment.
“Someone who creates art at a very high level,” she replied.
“But not everyone is going to create the Mona Lisa every time they pick up a brush. Does that mean they’re not artists?”
What defines art, anyway?
Our lives are art.
We are constantly creating in how we dress, how we speak, how we love, how we cook, how we write, how we build, how we dream.
Art is expression.
So why do so many of us hesitate to call ourselves artists?
Somewhere along the way, we start believing we need to earn the title. That it has to come with accolades, audiences, or perfect technique. We start to believe that self-expression must be justified, polished, or productive to count.
We stop giving ourselves permission to play and we judge ourselves against others.
What if you did give yourself the permission to express more?
What if you embraced the label of “artist” not because you’ve reached some arbitrary level of mastery, but simply because you’re human, and you express?
How would you show up differently in the world?
What dormant art is living inside you, waiting for a moment of courage?
Art doesn't have to be grand. It just has to be true.
Sometimes it means fewer words. Simpler strokes. Quiet expression. All of it counts.
You don’t have to be famous. You don’t need a gallery, or followers, or a blue tick. So many forms of art live quietly in people all around you.
I guess the only rule to being an artist… is to claim that you already are one.
How would you show it differently if you gave yourself permission to fully embrace the word artist? What art is living inside you waiting to be expressed?
With love,
V
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Thank you for this. I love this perspective. I still struggle to think of myself as an artist or as a creative person because I don’t put my work out there and am not constantly creating like others are. 🩵