Process

Little Lessons from Big Projects

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Pretty much everywhere else, I have been speaking about this e-course of mine from a selling place... telling people what they will be getting and how helpful it could be to them. But this space, this is where I want to talk about the process of things. About the hard parts of making this. 

It's been one of the more challenging things I've done in a while, this e-course. I've had to face a whole lot of fears and self-doubts all along the way. You'd think after years of facing such things, it would get easier. Maybe it does, but in the face of more self doubt and fear, it sure doesn't feel any easier! 

I think that's the most exhausting part. Trying like hell to stay out of your mind. Waking up in the morning and trying to find the balls to push aside the mind chatter that you will suck royally at this, that no one else cares if you do this, that it's all going to flop, and just do the thing anyway. And then do the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next... with very little reward or proof that it will be any kind of success. That's seriously so much harder than I feel like anyone lets on. It's grueling, to work on your own thing that has so much of your heart in it... to risk putting it out there with no guarantees of what will happen. It's incredibly scary.

I'm finding that once I do start to get into a rhythm with things, the doubts and fears become much quieter though. I don't think they really go away... they sort of settle down and decide to sit and watch you for a while and see what you're up to, which is nice. 

The biggest hurdle I have run into thus far with this project is probably the same one I run into with many other projects - and one that we all hit now and again...

getting down to the real work. 

I spent about a month preparing a lot of other components... working on the fundraiser, creating graphics, getting email templates set up, creating a sales page that sings beautifully of the course. I breezed through all of that, because it's all the stuff surrounding the REAL thing. When it came time to make content though, I was a deer in headlights.

For two weeks in fact, I was so stuck that I did almost nothing to move this thing forward. I went in to full-on procrastination mode... cleaning the house, working on my website, going for hikes, researching other businessy things that have nothing to do with my current project... all in the name of not writing that content. It was a bitch of a thing to get started on, I tell you! 

After a few longer-term creative projects, of various kinds, I have found there does seem to be a natural period of hitting the wall in there. It usually seems to last a few weeks, and be just before the scariest part - naturally! In those weeks, I am generally restless, stressed, beating myself up about not getting "the thing" done day after day, yet some part of me is also saying I need time to settle my feet before I jump. Some part of me tries to tell me to slow down. I probably shouldn't stress about hitting this point, as it always seems that I make it over it within a few weeks time... somehow, I just begin to feel more ready. Or maybe just my discomfort with avoiding becomes greater than I can handle. Probably that. Yeah, it's that. 

In those weeks of floundering, I discovered something important though... part of why I hit the wall so badly in the first place. I didn't break things down into small, doable, bits. I had broken out every step of what needed to happen for the initial part of making course, creating a schedule that kept it all on track. When it came to writing the actual course content though, I simply gave myself three or four weeks to make it happen. Somehow I imagined this would just magically work, and all content would get written as needed. What the hell was I thinking?  

As soon as I made a daily schedule of what to get done when, I started to see exactly what needed to happen to make a certain due date. Breaking it down daily made everything feel so much more doable, and less giant. With this schedule in place, I dove into the course material now with only minimal fear. So that wall it seems, can sometimes be an indicator that we need to look at the problem or the next steps of the project in a new way. 

That lesson is probably so obvious to a lot of people. Someone is probably thinking I am a moron right now for not knowing that. Oh well! It's where I am, and I'm okay with being a little behind on some things, because I know there's a lot of other folks who are too. 

This has been a major learning process in how to project plan successfully, and how to do it in a way that works for me and still keeps me motivated and excited about what I'm doing. I don't work on it the same way every day, for example. Some days, like today, I'm up at 7am and get straight to work. Other days, I run errands or spend my mornings refueling with other creative things and start writing in the afternoon. As long as I block out 2-3 hours a day though, I've found myself able to keep on track and stay committed. That schedule has done wonders for holding me accountable and keeping me serious about my work each day. 

It's amazing, even before starting this course, others are teaching me. The very act of having to create something to teach others is revealing so much more to me - about grief, and using creativity to heal, and teaching. 

Two of the most important things I'm learning about right now are writing for the purpose of teaching, and lesson planning - both are new to me. Even if I don't end up with some wildly successful career hosting e-courses... I know, the skills I'm learning now will continue on with me for years and help me in a myriad of other ventures with my passion to help others learn and grow. In fact, having to sit down every single day and write something for a few hours... I am already beginning to see how one writes a book, in a very tangible way. Maybe the thing that comes out of this will eventually be that it helped me to finally get into writing books, which has been on my list for many years now. Who knows!

For more information about my Meaningful Making E-course, visit the E-Course page here!

Week 31 / The Barrier

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While I was out shooting on the beach for last week’s image – wandering the grassy, windswept dunes – I came across a peculiar sight. Every plant on the beach was bright green and vibrant with life that day. Rich olive green sea grasses and succulent fat-leaved emerald vines with ripe yellow flowers. There must have been an unseasonable amount of rain recently because everything was really blushing. You could feel it – like all of nature had just taken in a deep breath.

But then, right in the middle of it all, I noticed this one particular type of plant. They were large – towering over me by at least a few feet. And every single one of them, as far as my eyes could see, over each rolling dune down the beach, was dead. All of them. There was such an eerie metaphoric nature to it… these clusters of death pitted right down in the midst of so much life. It seemed almost deliberate. Certainly hard to miss when you are closely observing a landscape as I often am.

With mosquitos biting boldly at my ankles and arms, (I will remember to add insect repellant to my camera bag from now on!) I grabbed my gear and climbed into a thicket of these otherworldly dead plants to explore. The leaves were a silvery blue-green hue – like faded sage. I had no plan. No idea what I even wanted to capture. I just began shooting, trying different ways of interacting with this mesmerizing space.

It is images like this one that make me realize how important it is sometimes to let go of our plan and follow wherever our feelings and intuition guide us. To not be so alarmed if we do not have a plan, and to trust that one will unfold for us.

Out of all the variations I shot for this image, this is the one that spoke to me instantly. It is because of the personal meaning which began to come out of it for me as I sat with it in the days after shooting. Mostly, it is in the eyes. There is a very specific kind of darkness there – a hollow vacancy which takes me right back to the year of my fiance’s death.

It was June when he died. 2012. I recall by the time autumn arrived, there was so little energy left in me. After endless minutes and hours and days and weeks and months of fighting and crying – of screaming desperate animal sounds into the air – there came a time when there was nothing left in me but to just sit and stare blankly. And so I did, many days, just sit outside on the back porch at the ranch and stare off into space. Broken. Hollow-eyed. Feeling the cavernous wind against my skin – which only to endlessly whisper of how far away spring was. Or that spring, for “us”, was never coming back again.

I don’t know if others saw this expression externally in those early days or not, but I do know that this is what it felt like on the inside. Every moment of every day for a long time. Vacant. Lost. Staring into nothing. Searching. Without words.

And then death – the quiet, dangerous barrier that divided me from everything. From him. From my future. From my past. From myself. From everyone else. On the other side of his death, I couldn’t see any other part of me or life that once existed. I could not see the woman who loved to rock climb and kayak, or the woman who dreamed of being an artist someday. Or the woman who loved animals and old western movies. I couldn’t see anything but the woman who just lost everything.

When people looked at me from the other side of that barrier – it felt like all they could see about me was death too. As if I was nothing more than the remains of his death and a reminder to them of things they didn’t want to know intimately. With the exception of a few individuals, it felt like no one could see me.

Two and a half years later, the spring is beginning to come for me. Life is starting to be vibrant again. I am able to see the other parts of myself again, as are others, it feels. I am starting to actually love life again – which astounds me to even say. There is still a part of me standing in the thicket of his death though. I think there will always be. And I think there should always be a part of me that stands there. To me, it is the place that always serves to remind me of how glorious the rest of the landscape is that surrounds me in this “after” life.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >

- About the Artist -

Sarah Treanor is a fine artist and writer out of Northeast Ohio. She explores connections to nature and personal growth/wellness in her art and writing. Her visual art is available both for private collection as well as image licensing for books, music albums and more. She welcomes encaustic commissions, writing/teaching opportunities and image licensing partnerships. If you’re interested in working together, get in touch here!

Week 30 / Warrior Woman

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I have wanted this shot for a long time. Despite having the visual of this in my head for most of this year… I’ve learned I cannot entirely plan when they will be created. They come when they are ready. I am so thrilled this one was finally ready.

(The music I would play with this image)

I’d been wanting to take a trip down to the coast for some time now for the series and finally could not ignore the calling any longer. So last week, I packed up all my gear and drove down to my hometown just a few hours south of here. Padre Island National Seashore is just a 20 minute drive from where I grew up and is somewhere I spent a great deal of my time as a child. The wilds of that beach ground me in ways no place else on earth does. I only had one morning to shoot, and what luck that a beautiful overcast sky rolled in just in time that morning. I shoot almost entirely under overcast skies or at dusk and dawn when the light is softest.

The weather made for a bit of an added challenge. About every ten minutes or so for the entire morning, an intermittent drizzle would start up. That’s not a terribly big issue normally – I have a poncho for my camera – but when you have to angle the camera upwards facing the grassy slope of a sand dune… well, the whole front of the lens is defenseless! At least I got in a good workout having to run up and down the slope every time it began to drizzle. Arg.

It was worth it for this shot though. It is so much more than what I first envisioned all those months ago. It represents a very new place and energy within this journey for me…

Tears come to me while trying to write about this image. She is the warrior in me. The part of me that has stared into the face of unfathomable pain and death and has not backed down. She wields the darkness around her – commands it, uses it, does not let it overtake her. She is the part of my that faces the unknown with bold determination.

Even on the very week of his death, when I was broken beyond anything I have ever felt or imagined… when I could not even feed myself… there was an ever-so small part of me standing up on this hill. I even recall telling a friend in those early days that “life can take everything it wants from me, but it will not ever stop me”. That part of me – so inexplicably determined – was declaring my right not only to survive, but to thrive. And ever so slowly… crawling through mud, climbing from pits, struggling beneath grief, she has grown strong. She has been waiting for this image for a long time.

I know this was the time for it to come because of a few major events of the week which fueled me with some serious strong energy. Something I haven’t shared within these blog posts is the other weekly obsession of my life: Crossfit. This intense sport focused on a combination of high intensity cardio, strength training and olympic style lifting has had me hooked from day one – which coincidentally enough, was just a week after I began this photo series.

So these two long-term committments have been with me week in, week out, all year… pushing me mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And the weekend prior to this shoot, I competed in my first competition.

I never dreamed I’d be competing in a thing like this – or in anything athletic. I quit believing I was an athlete around the age of twelve. This year has changed that. And this past week at the competition, I got back in touch with that little athlete I was so many years ago. I found her, and discovered – to my complete joy – that I am still every bit the fierce competitor I was all those years ago. I just didn’t give her a chance to shine until now. When I walked out of that competition, I felt strong. Stronger than I have felt maybe ever in my life. And prouder than I’ve ever imagined to be of myself. I can say with certainty that the physical and mental journey of growth in Crossfit has fed into my work immensely… probably most notably in this week’s image.

I also gained a bit of a viral surge this past week via a few wonderful blog posts – which were shared by others blogs, on Facebook and Twitter. Then a few more blogs contacted me to share it, and just today I had another request! Comments have been flowing in from so many (thank you ALL!). The exposure has brought me to tears and broken my heart wide open in the most amazing way. I have poured so many endless solitary hours into it’s making, doubting if it will ever make much of an impact out there to anyone. Lonely hours. Frustrating hours. Deeply emotional hours. Tired hours (speaking of, it’s already 1am as I write this!). I have wanted nothing more than for it to have a great value to others going through the darkness of grief. To inspire them in some way. Give them hope, or at least an image to relate to.

Suddenly, with this surge of exposure, it feels like the tides rushing into me – each comment and share washing away me from all the solitary time spent. Allowing me a glimpse of where I dream it might go one day. It gives a bigger meaning to his death and my “after” life. The more people it reaches, the more deeply connected I feel to him – as if we are co-creating this thing together. I rather think we are. Still a team somehow, just in a very different way than ever before.

And remember how strong you are.

About the Series: Through 40 weekly photos and accompanying essays, 'Still, Life' captures a deeply emotional and psychological journey of what it means to grieve, to heal, and to live on.

VIEW THE FULL SERIES >