Mixed media
Gemma Steemers

“I stumble and fall, and I constantly find myself needing to change course. And even though I’m trying to to follow a map that I’ve drawn, there are many times when frustration and self-doubt take over, and I wad up that map and shove it into the junk drawer in my kitchen. It’s not an easy journey from excruciating to exquisite but for me it’s been worth every step”.

Brené Brown, author of “Daring Greatly: how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead”.

When I read these words this weekend, they resonated within me deeply. For months I have been wanting to start my creative blog but self-doubt, perfectionism and fear seemed to paralyze me. Getting my work and idea’s out there seemed to be my vulnerable spot….one I was running away from and therefore needed to work on.

As confident as I am about my work as a social psychologist with adolescents…it seemed even stranger to me that I felt so vulnerable about my work as an artist (my other part-time job).

Worst of all, if  I was encouraging my clients to dare to get out there, experience life and not hide away in their (student) rooms….. then at least I should have the courage to face my personal fears too! We all have our fears in some area or other, and this was/is mine. It dawned on me, that I could only be true to myself (and my work as a youth coach) if I dared to venture on my own vulnerability journey.

So this is it.

The above mixed media collage illustrates how I’ve felt these last weeks, delaying the moment to start this blog and get out there! But as Brené Brown puts it so clearly:

“When failure is not an option, we can forget about learning, creativity and innovation”.

(p. 18 from “Daring Greatly”)