Thoughts on the fear of failure and the ever changing nature of identity.

Hi Lovers,


I wanted to write about something thats been in my field lately and it's a little embarrassing. for my first article but bear with me. A small dip in my Etsy statistics recently sent me completely off the rails, which sounds dramatic until you realize it wasn’t really about the stats.

After becoming a mom, my creative life changed completely. For years I painted surreal portraiture. Now I find myself drawn almost entirely to abstract work. The movement, emotion, texture, gestural mark making, and COLOR. Around the same time I had my son, I opened my Etsy shop and started sharing about this new chapter publicly.

IT’S BEEN A BIGGER IDENTITY SHIFT THAN I EXPECTED.

At first, the shop grew steadily. More views. More favorites. More sales. Enough momentum to make me feel like maybe I was “on the right track.” But the moment things slowed even slightly, I noticed how attached I had become to the numbers.

Growth meant my art was worthy. A slow day made me question myself. Suddenly I was checking constantly, searching for certainty in graphs and analytics and trying to find some control. That’s when I realized I needed to revisit David Hawkins’s Letting Go. If you’re unfamiliar, one of the central ideas in the book is that suffering often comes not from the thing itself, but from attachment — from resisting what is, grasping for outcomes, or needing external conditions to stabilize us internally. And I could feel myself gripping. Gripping the need for reassurance that this new version of myself and my work was “working.”

And underneath all of that, perhaps something even deeper: Am I safe to do what I love?


Because this really is a beginning again.A new medium, new goal, a new rhythm of life with a newborn and a new identity inside motherhood. I don’t think the answer is to stop caring. I think the answer is learning how to care deeply without emotionally dissolving every time something fluctuates. So lately I’ve been practicing noticing what I feel in my body and not intellectualizing. Then returning to the actual work. Returning to painting and to my inner knowing that everything ALWAYS works out for me. For this I needed to make sure I could get on board with blind faith. When it looks like it’s not working and you still believe, thats the magic. Because let’s face it, the work unfolds better when it comes from trust instead of fear. But for my practical girlies here are 5 steps to help get you out of your head.


When you notice you’re being pulled into fear, try this:

  1. Stop checking the analytics.
  2. Notice what’s happening in your body before you start analyzing.
  3. Let yourself actually feel the disappointment, fear, urgency.
  4. Remind yourself that the numbers fluctuate, but nothing about your ability to create changed.
  5. Return to whatever you were creating before you started looking for reassurance.


With all my love,

Em