There was a time several years ago when I committed to figuring out how to successfully run a “creative business.” I believed that was the only way to make an income as an artist, and turn my passion into my career.
What I didn’t know is that in my search for answers and guidance, I would become suffocatingly entangled in so many unnatural processes and beliefs that the modern concept of “business” holds. I would go after ideas and projects that satisfied the “shoulds” instead of the deep inner calling, but I couldn’t even see the difference.
I was determined to get it “right” - to be “successful.”
Even though I was on the right track in some ways, trying on everyone else’s way of doing things led me farther from myself than closer to where I wanted to go… which does not work for me.
I reached a breaking point a little over a year ago, and started questioning all of the “rules” and “strategies” and “best practices” surrounding how to make money as a creative, to the extent that I decided for the sake of my mental, emotional, and physical health it was time to walk away from “business.”
Each time I tried to kick myself back into gear, to put myself back out there, to “keep going,” it was like something inside of me was saying, “yes, you’re excited. Yes, you’re passionate, but this isn’t the way for you.”
Excitement, passion, and drive can take you a long way… but to what end?
Because over and over, I felt that while it might give me temporary gains in the financial or “business” sense, I wasn’t at peace with myself or where I was going in my everyday life.
So I put myself in metaphorical time-out. I took a pause.
I decided that I wasn’t going to participate in any of my concepts of “business” until I felt at peace with myself, at peace with my life, and at peace with my own purpose and truth. And I was going to try to keep my oversharing self from telling anyone about it. I was just going to do it for me.
When I say “business,” know that I’m using one word to encompass all that the concept of business brought with it for me - hustle, grind, perceived wealth and success, hours, hard work, consistency, branding, launching, marketing, rules, having to know everything and plan everything, anxiety, control…
I didn’t know that by choosing to fully commit to unraveling myself from business, I was signing up for being completely cracked open and initiated onto a path of relearning and rediscovering identity, perception, spirituality, intuition, embodiment, abundance, confidence, self worth, natural cycles, and change.
It is all connected.
And “this” side of things is where there’s freedom.
This.
What I’ve found in this unraveling, is freedom.
Freedom from to-do lists, from anxiety, from scrambling to figure out how everything is going to play out, from questioning if I’ll ever “make it,” from turning to everyone else outside of me to find out the “how” and the “shoulds” of what I am called to create in this world. Freedom to be myself.
And there were, and still are, days that were scary AF.
Because to throw yourself into the complete opposite of what “experts say” feels not only rebellious and thrilling at times, but also evokes the “what if I’m wrong?” response.
I had to get to a place where I was okay letting go of everything “creative business” myths promised me if it meant that I would gain a world of freedom, peace, and the gift of just being myself.
And what happened when I got to that place was a chance to see my role in all of this - who I am, what I am, what wants to be created through me, why, and how.
I wouldn’t have been able to see the difference between those aspects of myself and my calling if I didn’t slow down and decide to let peace dominate in my life over fear of never realizing the visions that call to me.
I didn’t even know it was fear that was driving.
“What if I never make it? What if my dreams never come true? What if this doesn’t work? What if I never make any money and I have to work some stupid job that I hate for the rest of my life?”
That kind of fear.
What it boiled down to for me was learning that I can trust the work that I’m given to do, and I can trust that the money will follow me. I learned that I don’t have to do something for a living to do it whenever I want. I learned that getting paid thousands of dollars for my art doesn’t qualify me as an artist, having millions of followers doesn’t qualify my voice or my truth, having 2 listeners on Spotify doesn’t mean I have a bad song.
None of it means anything, and that taught me everything.
If you would have asked me years ago if any of those things mattered at all, I would have told you no. I would have said that none of those things make you who you are - but years ago, I also wasn’t in the middle of throwing myself into the reality of facing those very concepts and how I actually DID believe those things mattered, because if I didn’t believe those things mattered, why would they bring me down? Why would I chase them?
For me to be able to chase the actual dreams and bring the actual visions into my present reality, I had to stop chasing fear-based beliefs and start tuning into being my truest, most authentic self.
How do I want to live? How do I want to feel? How do I want to work? What do I actually want to spend my time on? What do I want to create? What would make me feel most alive?
I started asking those questions of myself everyday and fully trusting the answers as signs of what I actually needed to be and do.
And let me tell you what things were not answers to those questions: spending time on social media, marketing, following a “plan,” hustling, owning a business, putting my projects on a timeline, coming up with freebies/giveaways, writing “content,” planning strategies, trying to meet goals, rushing to finish something…
I stopped allowing those things to take up space in my life, and only allowed space for the honest answers to those questions.
Everything then fell into place.
Not because I had a plan, not because I put myself on a timeline to make it happen, not because I had it all figured out.
It simply led me back into my body, back into my purpose, back into my truth, back into knowing, back into alignment, back to the “me” that I actually want to be.
So what were the answers to those questions?
I wanted to play.
I wanted to hug trees.
I wanted to eat vegan one day and animal fries from In and Out the next.
I wanted to dance in the kitchen to club music, with the lights off.
I wanted to paint really vibing paintings, without trying to meet a deadline or make a sale.
I wanted to wait until I knew exactly what a song was meant to feel like before I added one more note.
I wanted to infuse raw energy into everything I created, through music, movement, and dance.
I wanted to savor time and moments, however they came.
I wanted to move slower, to work slower, to process slower, and to sleep more.
I wanted to communicate with my ideas and let them tell me how they wanted to come to life in this world.
I wanted to fill a Starbucks tumbler with champagne and go lay out in my bikini alone at the creek to celebrate my life and all that I’ve accomplished just by living and learning and staying true to myself.
And what were the results of those answers?
I am not a business owner, I’m an artist.
I am not Lusterling, and Lusterling is not a business.
Lusterling is a message.
They are not paintings, they are transmissions of light.
I don’t just write songs, they stream through me.
It wasn’t a self-help book I started writing, it is a memoir.
I don’t need to sell a watered-down paper version of a “vision guide” - I am the vision guide.
I am a magician. I work magic through my artistic expression, in many forms, such as paintings, songs, and written words, but it doesn’t end there. I turn darkness into light. I breathe life into people. I move energy. I am a channel, and when you experience my work, you are seeing the messages that I am bringing through for you.
Can you feel the difference?
I can, and It. Is. Amazing.
“Results” don’t need to be concrete accomplishments, bank account balances, or social media metrics.
Simply knowing who you are and how you are created to live and be in the world is enough for all things to come together.
When those pieces are clear, when those pieces are trusted and activated, the path literally becomes highlighted and steps are obvious.
It feels light, and easy, and fun.
It doesn’t feel like work, it feels like play.
It doesn’t feel hard, it feels like turning a light switch on and then being able to see everything around you.
It feels like a giant permission slip to just be myself, always.
Just knowing those key things about myself gives me all the freedom in the world to just do what only I can do, and trusting that living out what that means is perfect.
And the best part?
I literally have no idea what is going to happen next, and that, my friends, is the most magical place to be.
“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” C.S. Lewis