Here’s The Truth & Nothing But The Truth

All you need is twenty seconds of insane courage, and I promise you, something great will come of it.

~said by Matt Damon as he portrayed Benjamin Mee in We Bought A Zoo

I’m gonna let you in on a lil’ peek of what happens here behind the scenes at Dirty Footprints Studio some times.  I’m gonna tell you about last week.

Oh, last week.

Well, first, let me say that I have to set deadlines for myself.  I have to.  Or nothing I do will ever be done, created, or launched into the world.  Nothing.  Including things like doing the bills, the laundry, and even the dishes.

If I don’t set a date or time by when things “need” to be finished–they’ll sit for aeons.

Second, I do my best work right up against the wire.  Always been this way.  It’s just how me and my Muse like to kick it.

So for months and months and months I set the deadline of Monday, January 23rd as the date I would launch IGNITE into the world and put it on sale.  I wrote it in my day planner, marked it on my iCal, and had a few fluorescent pink sticky notes here and there to remind me.  As the date got closer–I began to tell people this is when I would launch it.  People who emailed me about it–or even my beloved FEARLESS® Painters.

Basically, it was set.  No turning back.

Now that you know how I roll, let me tell you about last week.  The week that I was planning on doing my best work–as I give it my all to meet my deadline.

So guess what happens?

Well, first my Mac dies.  Just totally crashes.  Boom. Bang.  Kadoom.

Honestly, I had a feeling that this might happen–so slowly for the last couple weeks I’ve been transferring files, photos, and such over to an exterior hard drive.  But, (maybe because I didn’t set a deadline for myself on when I should have had it all transferred)–I didn’t get everything and lost quite a bit to the Mac Crash of 2012.  Including precious work I had done for IGNITE.

Ok.  Freak out time for a little.

Then, I just had to bite the bullet and dish out money I wasn’t planning on, to purchase a new computer.

Back in business.  Hello deadline.

Well, guess what happens next?

Our modem dies.  Sizzle sizzle bo bizzle. Dead.

No more internet at the homefront.

Ok.  Freak out time number two.

After a good cry I drive across town to the cable store where I need to get a new modem to find out that for some bizarre reason they are close till Monday.  Monday, January 23rd.  The deadline.

Enter freak out time number three.  The Big Doozey as I like to think of it.

Now after a good cry, throwing a few small objects out into space, and yelling at poor Hansel on the phone for nothing at all, I moved on.

I decided well, I’m just gonna have to sit in a few good coffee shops now until this baby is finished and get over it.

So I headed over to Starbucks.  Purchased a “venti refresh tea” (with only one tea bag thank you), sat down, plugged in the laptop and hit the Safari icon.

Nothing.  No internet connection.

I look around and I see college kids everywhere all of them with head phones on and internet connection.

All of them.

I try everything.  I even walk over to a few of them and ask for help.

Nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing.

I don’t get it.

I call the Mac store where I purchased my computer.  They’re close.

By this time, I’m over the freak out.  It has purely turn into comedy.  One of those tragic comedies.

I won’t lie.  I started to think that maybe…just maybe…this is the Universe trying to tell me something.

But, anyways, I decide to keep moving and go to a different coffee shop.  Once again I pack up, drive across town, order  a “large peppermint tea” (only one tea bag please and thank you)–basically the same thing I had at Starbucks–sit down, open the laptop, hit the Safari icon and….

We have lift off.

Breathe.

So for the next couple days I drank alot of peppermint tea and hung out for long hours at random coffee shops–except the one we won’t mention again.

Now Sunday night arrives.  I have everything in place.  My eyes are fried, the tips of my fingers are numb, and I’m feeling all high and gooey from that feeling you get when you create something you totally believe in with every ounce of your body, soul, and existence.

And guess what?

The biggest obstacle of all appears.

FEAR.

We’re talking FEAR in all capital letters wearing a three piece suit and carrying a suitcase kind of FEAR.

The type of FEAR that makes an entrance, comes with back up, and takes no prisoners.

That kind of FEAR.

The worst kind of FEAR.

The kind that makes the Mac Crash of 2012 look like stepping in bubble gum.

Yep, FEAR.

All I needed to do now is hit submit.  Submit on my email newsletter.  Submit on my blog dashboard.

Submit.  Submit.  Submit.

And I couldn’t.  I was terrified.

FEAR pulled out his suitcase and he had files and files and files of information on how and why I was certainly going to fail–and how this was all in vain.  How nobody was going to care.  How it was pointless.

Useless.

Ridiculous.

So, I got a cookie.

A chocolate chip peanut butter cookie.  And I ate it.  And I sat there re-reading everything I wrote as FEAR looked over my shoulder pulling out even more files on my predicted demise.

So I did something that I always do when I’m afraid.

I put my hands together, closed my eyes, and prayed.

If I wasn’t seven months prego already and getting up and down from the floor wasn’t such a challenge–I thought of even  pulling a Tebow right there.  But instead I wasn’t looking for dramatics–I was looking for the truth.

And my truth always comes to me when I close my eyes and go inward.

My truth is always there.  My truth carried me past every obstacle that presented itself to me that week.  My truth stays with me through the ups and downs of living a life as an Artist.  My truth whispers and flows and never rushes or appears once in awhile…like FEAR does.

My truth is what has gotten me this far.  My truth has known more than any thing FEAR has ever predicted.

My truth is always right.

My truth is always right.

I opened my eyes.  I took a deep breath.

I hit submit.

I hit submit.

I closed my laptop.

I went home.

This morning, as I write this, I have here seven, printed out, BEAUTIFUL, completed registrations from women eager, a little nervous, and just as excited as I am to begin IGNITE this October.  Seven women ready to follow their truth.  Seven women ready to IGNITE the world with their passions–their dreams.

Seven women and it’s only been one day.

FEAR was wrong.  It always is.

Believe me, it always is.