Fear, Anger & Shame, Oh My!

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter that explores what it means to be a modern-day creative. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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For the next 12 weeks, I’m documenting my journey through The Artist’s Way (TAW). Each issue will focus on a takeaway I got from each week. 

As creatives, we are no strangers to the negative emotions that often block us from doing our best work, namely fear, anger, and shame. 

For most of our lives, we’ve been taught to ignore feelings of anger. But rather than ignoring it, as creatives, we should lean into it and listen to what it’s telling us. Anger is a map showing us where we’ve been and want to go. It shows us our boundaries. It shows us what we don’t like. 

Anger is a sign of health in a blocked artist. It means we have an opinion and take a stance towards something. It shows us that we’ve reached a tipping point and forces us to change. We can use anger as a tool to help us act in our best interests and point us in the right direction. One of my favorite points Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, makes about anger is that it “propels the death of our old life and propels us into our new one.” 

Without anger, this newsletter wouldn’t exist, my business wouldn’t exist, and I wouldn’t be attempting to accomplish everything I’m trying to achieve. Anger is the fuel that inspires me to get unstuck, make a change, and move toward my dream life. I’ve had a huge year of growth because I leaned into my anger instead of running from it. 

Anger keeps company with another foe every creative knows all too well: fear. 

Fear paralyzes us from chasing our creative dreams, but not for the reason we think. We’re more afraid of the possibility of something working out than the impossibility. We’re scared of failing but even more scared of the possibility of success. 

As humans, we’re always afraid of the other shoe dropping. We’re so scared of something good happening that we always expect the worst. This applies to our creative work. We always assume that we will fail, which prevents us from trying. But anything good worth having means taking a risk. If we go into the situation expecting to fail, we are more likely to fail than if we go in expecting to succeed. 

And yet, the fear that we feel is rooted in shame. 

When we create art, it illuminates our emotions and darkness. When people see something they don’t like (often about themselves or their behavior), they get mad at whoever exposes it, often with disparaging and disgraceful criticism. 

This criticism leaves us ashamed and makes us no longer want to create. Shame triggers our inner artist because our inner artist is our inner child, and much of the shame we feel is rooted in harmful criticism we received as a child. Now, as adults, whenever we go to create, we ask ourselves, “What will they think of me?” We want to protect our inner artist from shame, and we often think the best route is not to create at all.  

However, not all criticism is destructive. When done right, it can light a new path for us and help us gain a different perspective on our work that makes it better. To protect our inner artist from shame, we can’t let negative doubts keep hold. We have to invite criticism that makes our work better, not shame us for creating it in the first place. 

Anger, fear, and shame can be huge hindrances to our creativity, but they can also be the fuel we need to unblock our inner artists. Instead of avoiding these emotions, we shouldn’t be afraid to lean into them, using them to our advantage to be better creatives. 

Week 3 Findings

• One of my biggest creative blockers is rooted in shame. I’ve wanted to be an author for a long time, but the biggest thing preventing me from writing the book is an emotional blocker—what people will think of my work—especially since writing fiction is so subjective. 

• I’m more in tune with what catches my eye. As I've been capturing inspiration, I’ve become more aware of my curation skills and taste level. I’m paying closer attention to what I’ve been capturing and understanding why it resonated. It’s been a good challenge, especially as I’m shooting rolls of film with a select number of frames. 

• Last week’s artist date(s): Walking around Ballard in Seattle, stepping into all these fun galleries and art shops, shooting on my film and digital cameras, and baking a few new recipes. 

CREATIVE CORNER

• 🎞️ What I’m Consuming: I watched part 1 of season 6 of Cobra Kai, which was SO good. I can’t wait to see how the series ends.

• 💡 What I’m Loving: My sister and I made banana pudding and focaccia for the first time—we nailed both of them!

• 🎨 What I’m Working On: Still playing around with photography—I’ve become more comfortable taking at least one of my cameras out with me when I go somewhere.

• 💭 Weekly Musing:

Thank you 💕

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I’m so grateful for all of your support!

Alexa Phillips is a writer, brand strategist, and multi-passionate creative. She is the founder and Chief Brand Architect at Bright Eyes Creative, a creative studio that helps consultants, service providers, and coaches monetize their zone of genius and creativity through courses, content, and productized offers.

Where to find me:

• Join the waitlist for my new offer, Musing to Monetized, launching in September!

• Listen to my recent podcast episodes here