I had wanted to hang with Tania of Red Dot Design for quite some time. She produces the truly gorgeous This and That Images and while we had never met, we had known each other online for quite some time. 

I am an introvert of the highest order, so it was difficult for me to reach out and ask if she was interested in shooting with me. I remember her turning me down, albeit nicely, as she was quite swamped with work. I figured it was a nice way to back out of an awkward situation (going on a day trip with someone you don't know), but to my surprise she reached out to me a few weeks later to book the trip.

So earlier today we met before dawn and headed off in a random westerly direction. We shot the sun rising over the industrial smoke stacks of Hamilton, ran around the Hammer shooting old signs, ate breakfast in a wonderful little cafe, overpaid for gas and raced away leaving a perplexed gas attendant just standing there, and then raised havoc over milkshakes in an old country diner.

Tania gasped when she saw this building and so I pulled over and we scurried around the parking lot shooting in every direction.

I loved seeing what caught her eye and then using that to push myself to find different images – to see things differently.

Alone, I don't know if either of us would have been able to get this shot. Together we manage to approach, engage and get permission to take their photo!

For the first time in a long time, I had an ally to approach strangers and ask to take their photos!

We stumbled across the charred remains of an abandoned structure that had been someones cherished little country home. It was sad and a bit surprising to see that all the furniture, knick knacks, plates and mugs still laying where they fell who knows how long ago. We wandered around this farm house for about 2 hours feeling blessed to have come across it.

There is something transformative about setting out on an adventure with someone else who has similar passions, talents and interests. We laughed, shared tricks of the trade and when I sat down to look at what I shot on this trip, I realized my work had been pushed ahead by the interaction. And I had an amazing time to boot.

Here's to more crazy adventures. I vow to reach out to others and push myself to leave my comfort zone. Will you join me? What is your next adventure?

ma mère

My post on fear and anxiety laid the groundwork for how these two forces shape each of us, but it stopped short of how they impact me.

I don’t think of myself as a fearful or anxious person. I feel fear, but I’m also the first person to jump off the cliff into the murky water below. Or rather, I used to be. I was the “professional juggler” with no permanent address. I was the guy that could present anything - give me a subject and I would find a way to become the expert and wow the room.

But something changed over the last ten years of my agency life. I grew comfortable. I started to like the big paycheques and the fancy clothes. I was addicted to the titles that came with each new position or opportunity. And I was slowly deadening myself to what really mattered. My dreams and heart-felt desires could wait until some unspecified date in the future. And if my heart was too pained by this, a purchase would be made to set things right. My cupboards were full of unused cameras, baking appliances and surfing gear. 

I became exceptionally good at identifying where I could excel, like so many in the workforce. If I am absolutely honest with myself, I was actually learning the exact opposite – how to avoid every situation where I might fail. I became a true 10,000 hour expert at not failing. And while I wouldn’t say this was top of mind for me, I was definitely aware of a growing aversion to risk. I had a lack of crazy stories to tell. I had become insulated from coincidence and chance.

And then my heart burst and I had a choice to make. I could treat it like my appendix and have it surgically removed or I could walk away from everything I knew and start healing. Not surprisingly, most people told me to opt for surgery. I could fix it properly when there was time and I had enough money to retire. Just like them.

I chose to start the healing and walk away from the corporate world. Only it was much harder to do this time. I had chosen to follow my heart against reason many times in the past, but this was the first time I did so blindly as I couldn’t feel anything. It’s so hard to describe. I was numb. I could not feel the pain. I could not cry. I was immune to anything painful or uplifting in the world.

There was nothing guiding me. Just a sense of loss, deadened pain and loneliness. A malaise of drifting alone in a sea of unstated expectations. 

I wanted to launch a business, learn a craft and write down some action steps, but I couldn’t commit to anything. I felt like a failure. I had nothing to show anyone.

I needed to slow down and focus on healing myself. I had to start crying and laughing from my soul again. I needed a silent space every day where I could reconnect with what mattered. At times it was frustrating because there were no answers. I’m used to “go go go” and this was about “hurry up and wait.”

And that’s when I realized I wasn’t afraid. I was anxious. I had anxiety about what I was to become. I was worrying about things that hadn’t happened yet. I was fretting about how others would react or perceive me. “Who am I to be creating art?” “When would I grow up and get a job?” "What impact could I ever make in this messed up world?"

The first step with anxiety is to change our lives so that we aren’t confronting our anxiety every minute of every day. So I began taking meditative walks where I focused on kindness. I also began culling the people from my life who caused my insecurities to flare up. This meant dropping a ton of people off of twitter, my RSS feed, Facebook and in real life.

Step two is to get help. I chose to join a support group of likeminded artists exploring their art, their passions and building a business around their art. This blog is just one of the results.

What makes you feel anxious? Where is your help?

We all deal with fear and anxiety. They are natural emotions and one could argue that they help us make sense of the world. They even modify our behaviour to improve our chances for survival.

The problem arises when we think of these two terms (fear and anxiety) as the same thing. They are anything but the same.

Fear is an emotional response to a known or defined (real) threat.

Anxiety is an emotional response to a vague or non-existent (imagined) threat.

If a giant 3 foot spider were to suddenly drop down from the ceiling beside me, I would scream and jump back from my keyboard. I might even do my patented spider dance. This is a natural fear-based response. The spider is an unexpected but real threat. After a few moments, my pre-frontal cortex will start working again (assuming the giant spider doesn’t decide to scramble towards me) and I can then determine how best to deal with this situation.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a giant spider has never dropped down from the ceiling in my studio. For some unknown reason, I find myself imagining a large spider on the ceiling and within milliseconds my hands start to get clammy. I tell myself there is nothing to worry about even as I feel my mouth going dry. I begin glancing furtively at the ceiling to check for giant, south-american man-eating spider nests. Within a few short minutes, I am short of breath and no longer sitting in my chair. Hell, I’m no longer in the room. I am standing in the hall, afraid to move because the lights are off downstairs and I could swear I saw something move along the ceiling. 

I am now in a full-blown anxiety induced panic attack and this was brought about by an entirely non-existent and imagined threat. But if my partner were suddenly to walk up behind me and say something, I would likely scream and kick him in the face out of a full-fledged fight or flight response. I am just trying to stay alive. 

Fear is easy to bounce back from. We can see that it was actually a rubber toy our partner thought would make for an awesome practical joke. Aside from making him sleep on the sofa for a week, there is no real fallout from the event. I can see that it was not actually a giant, man-eating spider and move on.

Anxiety is not so easy to shake off. The biggest reason for this is that anxiety is self-reinforcing. There was never a giant spider or anything remotely like one, but I still found myself in a full-fledged panic attack. So the anxiety is real. The end result was the same as there being a horde of the things crawling across my ceiling.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid of change. Change is a disruptive force. It can also be an amazing force in our lives. But if you find yourself becoming anxious when nothing has changed or disrupted, then you are likely dealing with anxiety.

You can't "power your way" through anxiety. Forcing yourself to panic is not going to help make the changes you need or even want. It risks making the anxiety more of a problem in the future. Anxiety is a sign that we need help and the best thing to do is to reach out and get that help. It could be a coach, a dear friend, a therapist or a mastermind group of likeminded people. 

Many say to follow your fear. This is silly. Anxiety and fear do not make a good compass as they do not point us in any one direction. They are simply indicators that work needs to be done - that we are soulfully unfulfilled or lost. And that we are standing in fertile soil where attention and work is needed.

Copyright 2014, Sean Howard. Model is Eli McIlveen.

Self doubt can debilitate. It weakens our resolve and destroys our motivation. Worse, it is hard to spot and, once identified, difficult to fight off.

I was chatting with a friend about my Stop Dreaming and Start Doing PDF. They were working through one of the exercises and attempting to reframe a lack of confidence. Reframing is where we flip a perceived weakness on its head and explore how it actually gives us significant benefits.

I was stumped at first. How does one go about reframing self doubt?

In a world drowning in soulful advice to "just do it", "be happy" and "live the dream", it is only natural to expect our vocation to be a path of motivational posters, cheerleaders and the warm support of friends and loved ones. But what if this path was never supposed to be easy? 

Following our hearts means opening ourselves to risk, pain, soft sadness, loneliness, heartache and endless self-questioning. And as I'm reading in Pressfield's War of Art, each of these is easy fodder for resistance. Questioning ourselves can quickly become self-doubt. Loneliness can lead to distraction. Pain can direct us to turn away from our true purpose.

So here is my reframing for anyone out there who is questioning or doubting their abilities. You are a true warrior of the soul to even risk entering this territory of the heart and your true vocation/calling. The self-doubt is the sound of the enemy rallying their troops before you. It is the sign of the battle being called and the enemy is scared.

This is why most people sit unhappily at their desk jobs, waiting to win the lottery or die. I'd say they are scared, but so are we. The difference is that they are not yet warriors. 

So when you find yourself in a state of self doubt, raise your banner and charge forward with a warbling cry. You have entered into battle with the only forces that truly matter to your soul and the world.

The road less traveled. Mount diablo, California

This trip to San Francisco has been a lesson in knowing the difference between what is urgent and what is important. Each of us is flooded with urgent tasks: every alert on our device,  every email and missed phone call, all the things people have asked of us and that we have asked of ourselves. 

Learning to let the urgent go and to prioritize the important tasks is insanely hard. The important tasks are the ones we most dread doing. They are soul crushingly difficult but they are also the only ones that really matter when we are laying on our death bed looking back at our life. 

I won't be proud of how many emails I sent or how updated I kept my twitter feed. I will lay there thinking of the things that scared me — the important things. 

The important things only happen if we stop responding to urgent tasks and give ourselves the time to show up and do the difficult work. The work our soul calls out for us to accomplish or at least attempt. 

What work are you scared of doing?