Hello, dear soul, and welcome to the Light Bears Library. My name is Kate Harmony. In today's journal entry, I want to talk about an antidote to feeling like a failure. As sensitive souls, as I talked about in my last journal entry, we can feel like failures when we compare ourselves to the external world, which is all about valuing money and speed and metrics and all the things that just kind of make us feel like, why, why would we want to live in this world? You know? And we start to feel stuck and paralyzed, and we kind of lose our our reason to engage with life because it's like when we can't meet those standards, it's kind of like, well, what's what's the point? And that can be one way that we get stuck is thinking those thoughts. But I've found that creativity or creative play, and I like even like playfulness, right, is an act of rebellion. It's not just a hobby, it's not something we do on the side as sensitive souls, it's something that we actually need to do for ourselves, you know, to reclaim our will to live, to reclaim our life force. And it's a instead of doom scrolling or engaging in bad habits and bad addictions and all the things that are not good for us and we know are not good for us, this is our medicine, is our antidote to all of those feelings. Because creating something that wasn't there before provides us with like undeniable proof that we are capable, even when the rest of our life feels chaotic and unfulfilled, and we haven't reached dreams that we thought we were going to reach. It's like, um, but we we can end up spiraling in all of those thoughts of feeling like I haven't fulfilled those those dreams. And that only leads one place. It leads us down and down and down into more and more darkness and more and more hopelessness. And so we we have to we have to say to ourselves, okay, okay, I I honor that, I honor that feeling, but but do I want to live the rest of my life feeling this way? It's like, no, okay. So so I think one of the first steps we can take that's just ever so tiny is to do something creative, to make something that wasn't there before, that at least for me, that's been the way one the way that I have step by step moved myself from the pit of despair. And I'm not out yet, just just to be clear. But the cr creative act is is so powerful, and it's like and I I I don't know about you, but for me, when I I I knew this, I know that creativity in my life in the past has been so empowering and life-giving, life-enhancing. And for me, my life was mostly about music. It was about expressing myself through music, making music, recording music, playing music, music, singing. Singing was what I envisioned for my life, what I wanted to do with my life. And that the the the the music muse, as I like to call it, um, has gone walkabout. It's gone somewhere else. And um maybe she's visiting you, and that's wonderful. But you know, she's not currently here. And while there is a sadness currently about that, it's something that and maybe you feel this about something else in your life writing, or you know, you used to do something, and we can we can just feel that sadness and n and hope that maybe the the muse returns. But in the meantime, in the meantime, we have to we have to find other other creative muses. Um so it's about trying something new, engaging with something, you know, new that can yeah, can inspire us and bring us back to life. So if that's you and you you're feeling kind of stuck in your what you have currently found as a creative outlet, maybe try something new. It it it it revives us and maybe it makes you inspires you to get back into that other thing. And for me, the thing that kind of brought me to life again was crochet. And um, so I'm gonna share a a big project with you in a minute um that I just finished, but I just want to um finish what I'm talking about. So um, and I think that when we we it's like letting the old one rest, we can we can find that joy again. So um now I think that the smallest pro working on the smallest project, whether it's a a small, small poem or a small crochet dishcloth or a small um whatever, whatever it is. Starting small is always great, right? It gets you into a routine and a rhythm of showing up to the creative process. And um, it can bring us a sense of accomplishment. But there's something about a larger scale project that that gives us a bigger challenge, I suppose. And when we challenge ourselves, it's you know, it's great. It's so good for us because that's that's life. Life has challenges. And I find when I can't face the big challenges in my life, to some extent, when I'm feeling paralyzed and frozen with what to choose next or where to go next, when I have a small creative project, or I'm I'm well, I'm talking about a larger creative project, it helps me to to feel like I can accomplish something when I finish it. So um, and I you have to face, I mean in small ones as well, but in bigger projects, you have to face the the you know, the voice inside that says, I can't do this, you know, or I don't know how. How many times does that come up where it's like, I don't know how? Okay, okay, but we can figure out how, right? You know, I can't. Well, we've if you've done it before, like I've done many of many crochet projects before, and it's like, I figured it out, I can do it. So when the voice comes up that says, Oh, I can't, it's like, no, no, that's not true. So we keep showing up, we breathe, and we start to trust ourselves more when we keep showing up for our creative projects. And um, so then when we finish a bigger project, it can bring us this sense of pride in ourselves that we can feel like we can tacker tackle bigger creative projects and life tasks, you know, we we can then face tasks in our life and say, okay, well, I figured out that creative thing in my creative project, so now I can, you know, face this overwhelming thing in my life. And it's maybe not so overwhelming if I face it just like a creative project. So it gives us hope and energy to keep living, you know, another day. So I want to share with you my project that I finished. This is a commission that I did um that I had for this big project. So I probably wouldn't have that's the thing, right? I probably wouldn't have have started this project without the impetus of someone saying, Hey, can you make me this this thing? You know, and um so without further ado, I will not, I will not hold you in suspense any longer. If you are on the podcast, please come look at the video because it's pretty cute. But this is a mushroom guy. I don't know if the lighting's gonna help here, but he's really, really big. So he's almost two feet, he's 21 inches tall. And the lighting isn't great, you can't kind of see see him, but he's got a little bum, and he's just the cutest little thing ever. Well, little. He's not little, he's big. But it just it was so much fun, and I really, you know, really had to challenge myself on all the steps, right? It's like, I don't know how. Okay, well, learn how, you know, and so it took me about 25 hours to make him. I kept track, plus all the amount of research that I did about how to put him together. Like lots of people have made this particular pattern. And so I was getting getting I wanted to it to be because I'd never made this one before, so I wanted it to be to be excellent for my my client, so my customer. And um, so I wanted to get it perfect the first time. So I did a lot of research on how other people went through all the mistakes, and that's that's really great. I didn't have to make those mistakes because they already did, and then they came up with ways of doing it better. So I'm really grateful for all the people that shared their information on how they did it. So I'm quite quite proud, and I just wanted to share it today because he's going to his forever home soon, um, along with some other other ones. The the this the mom, this is for her. She's got this one to go in her reading room. So I'm very excited for him to go and and hang out in a reading room. How wonderful to have a reading room, right? I was like, of course I'll make you that for a reading room. And um, yeah, so anyway, I'm feeling I'm feeling proud and and full of life because I finished that. And I'm kind of thinking, what should I make next? Um, probably not something that big, but um, you know, it's it gives me that sense of accomplishment and like, okay, all right. Life is not life is not all a failure. I'm not a failure. Look, I made this thing, right? So um, yeah, I would love to hear from you what it is that you're working on. I know a lot of you are writing, um, writing books, writing poetry and making music. So I would love to hear what what what creative projects you're working on. Yeah, because it's always so inspiring to me and it's inspiring to others to read what it is that you're doing. And um yeah, because it's such a better way of of using our time than scrolling. And um anyway, that's all I've got for today. I wish you so many blessings. And if this was encouraging, please do give me a thumbs up and subscribe to the Light Bears Library. I love having you here. It's so wonderful to have kindred spirits. Okay, well, I'm wishing you many blessings signing off for today. XOXO Kate.