366 5-Minute Mentoring: Overcoming Fear of Sharing Your Artwork

Sharing your creative work can be a very daunting task.  What people are going to say?  Will they like it?  Is your art “good enough?”  If they don’t like it, does that mean you’re not a "real artist?"  

If this sounds familiar, you’re in good company.  Everybody feels some trepidation about sharing their work from time to time.  

It's a normal reaction to putting yourself in a vulnerable position.  

It would be easy to shut our art away in a closet or in our studio, protected from criticism and other people’s opinions.

But art is meant to be shared!  Don’t hide it under a bushel - let it shine! ⭐

So what can you do to conquer this fear and put your art out there?  

In this episode of 5-Minute Mentoring, I share some advice that will help you push through whatever fears are holding you back and share your gifts with the world.  I call it the Five Rs - Recognize, Repent, Replace, Reinforce, Rejoice.  Check it out!  

Struggling with fear of rejection?  Here are a couple of books for further reading:

“Unlocking the Heart of the Artist” by Matt Tommey: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZLW4H2/

“Exposing the Rejection Mindset” by Mark DeJesus: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product//B07B9QCGYG/

(Psssttt…want to hear from Mark and me live and in person?  Be sure to pre-register for Unlocking the Heart of the Artist, November 1-3, in Ridgecrest, NC!  Get all the details and pre-register here! https://matttommeymentoring.mykajabi.com/unlocking-2022 )

Ready to build a business that helps you thrive spiritually, artistically, and financially?  Here are 4 ways I can help: 

1️⃣ Join Us in November - Every artist was created by God to create with Him to both experience and release His Light and Life through their creative expression. Join us for a powerful 3-day healing event for artists called the “Unlocking the Heart of the Artist Experience” where you can do just that! Click here to learn more  ➡️  https://matttommeymentoring.mykajabi.com/unlocking-2022

2️⃣  Read the Book: Check out my book “How to Price Your Art: Pricing with Confidence for Sales & Profit” on Amazon ➡️  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XBP733

3️⃣  Create Art and Profit: Discover how to create the art you love while still providing for yourself financially in my “How to Price Your Art” workshop.
Get more details here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/how-to-price-your-art-evergreen

4️⃣  Ready to truly thrive?  Join the Created to Thrive Artist Mentoring Program to discover how to build your art business and live the abundant life Jesus promised you as an artist in His Kingdom! Click here for details and to enroll!  ➡️  https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/artmentor.html

Connect with me online:

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Transcript

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Do you experience a lot of fear when considering sharing your artwork with other people, especially on social media? I'm going to tell you how to get over that today here on 5-Minute Mentoring. Music God created you to be. God created you to be. Hey, my friends. So glad that you are here with me on 5-Minute Mentoring. Listen, I think every artist that has ever created a piece of art in their life has had some fear and trepidation when it comes to sharing their work online. But really, the fear about sharing your work isn't about sharing your work at all. It's really about a root of rejection. What does that mean? Well, it's about fearing being rejected, being isolated, being said that, you know, saying you're not enough, this fear of inadequate inadequacy, this fear of being found that you're a fake, that you're a fraud, that you're not a real artist, that you're not going to measure up at all. You're going to be kicked out into the abyss of loneliness away from everybody else and away from the Lord. Listen, that is not God's best for you. And if you are struggling with that, like I did for a lot of years, you have to begin to realize that Jesus wants to heal that place in your heart. And so that you can, why? So that you can begin to walk in freedom, so that you can do what God's called you to do, which is not only create with him, but also share freely the things that God's put on your heart. Listen, anytime you have a response to something that you know, according to God's word, is not in alignment with who he is, that is, you know, you want to share your work. That's a normal thing. And all of a sudden, raw fear grips you, that fear in the pit of your stomach, all those ruminating thoughts and movies start going through your head of all the reasons why you shouldn't do it and what's going to happen if you do do it and all the emotion that comes with that. Listen, when that happens, even though it doesn't feel like it, you have a choice. You can either just say yes to those feelings and yes to those fears and go down the rabbit hole and wallow in that and stay paralyzed, or you can choose to begin to take what the Bible says, take that thought captive. You can begin to look at it. You can begin to say, does this really align with who God says I am, what he says I can do, the truth about this situation right now. And if it doesn't, then you can kick it out. You can, if you believe that lie, if you have brought that lie into your life over time, you can repent of that. All right, you can separate yourself from it, give it to Jesus and then replace it with the truth of God's word. And every time that thing begins to come up in your mind, every time the enemy begins to attack you with it, you just reinforce the new truth that God gave you from his word. And then you rejoice on a daily basis, thanking the Lord that you have a new normal, that you have the confidence, that you have the ability to be able to share your work with other people in confidence, knowing that it's God that gave it to you, knowing that it's God that's making the way for you as an artist. I call this the five R's. It's where you recognize, repent, replace, reinforce, and then rejoice. As you begin to do that in your life, that fear of rejection can be rooted out and be replaced with confidence, not confidence in yourself, confidence in the Lord and who he created you to be and what he's called you to do. Listen, if that's something that you struggle with, I want to offer you two resources today. One, I want to encourage you to grab my book, Unlocking the Heart of the Artist. It deals with so many of the heart issues that artists struggle with in really stepping into everything that God's called The second book that I've found so helpful in my own life is by a friend of mine, Mark DeJesus. It's called Exposing the Rejection Mindset. That book is so powerful. In fact, I met Mark after reading that book myself when I was dealing with some rejection issues, and we've now become friends, and he ministers at our conferences, and it's just been a big, big blessing to artists all over the world. And so both of the links to those books are right here in the show notes, and you can grab them. those. And I hope there'll be a big blessing in your life. All right. Listen, God didn't create you to be some little timid creature that's sitting back in fear, not being able to share your work. The things that you're creating with him deserve, need to be shared with the world so that you can experience the abundant life that Jesus created for you and that your work can be used to glorify him and release his light in life in the earth. I love you, my friend. Remember, you were created to thrive. All right. Bye. Hey, my friend, listen, I'm really excited to let you know about a special opportunity that we've not done in a long time. And it's something that I'm super excited about. It's called the Unlocking the Heart of the Artist Conference. You know, when I first wrote Unlocking the Heart of the Artist, it resonated with artists around the world because so many of us were dealing with what I now call subconscious obstructions, these things that get lodged inside of our heart that become a barrier or a roadblock to us walking in everything that God has for us as artists and as kingdom people. And unless we are able to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in a real intentional way and allow Him to heal those parts of us, we walk in places that God never intended us to walk. We walk in struggles that God had never intended us to walk in, and we never experience the victory and the breakthrough that Jesus designed for us when He died on the cross and promised us that we'd live an abundant life. And so the unlocking the heart of the art Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you've known me for very long, you know that healing the hearts of artists is really my passion. It's at the core of everything we're about and all the things that we do at our conferences and mentoring program and all the things that we're about. But this weekend in particular, if I could describe it in one word, I would say experiential. This is not going to be a typical talking heads conference. This is going to be an opportunity for you to hear incredibly anointed teaching that becomes a roadmap for you to do work right inside the conference, not only with between you and the Lord, but also with you and other folks that are around tables that you can have meaningful discussions with, in addition to experiential opportunities to actually use art as a processing methodology to be able to process the things that God's speaking to you, the things that you're letting go, the things that you're planting in your heart. I'm also super excited to be welcoming my friend Mark DeJesus, as well as my friend Dr. Darlene Mayo and others who will be to help facilitate these healing encounters with the Lord. I'm going to be leading worship with some of my friends as well as teaching. It's going to be an experiential encounter with each other and with the Holy Spirit, and I can't wait to see you there. Listen, all the details are right here below at the link. You can just click that, find out when registration opens, which is really soon, as well as all the details about the conference. A little bit of a note, this is going to be not a weekend conference. It's actually going to be a Tuesday night, all day Wednesday and Thursday through lunch. Don't freak out. That's why God made vacation time. And so we're giving you plenty of time to go ahead and plan that out so that you can get babysitters, get off work, make travel plans, all the things you need to do to make it a priority to be here for the Unlocking the Heart of the Artist conference. I love you, my friend. If God's pulling on your heart, tugging on your heart right now to say you need to be there, do everything you can to be with us and join us for Unlocking the Heart of the Artist coming up in November 2022. All right, see you then. Bye.