the artist way: identity ✿ pt 2 field notes

week two of the artist’s way gave me mushrooms, rain, tiny observations, and deeply inconvenient identity realizations.

⋆༶⋆˙⊹ identity loading ⊹˙⋆༶⋆

the video diary

what if i knew who i was the whole time? what if it was just the people, places, panic, and performance around me that made me forget?

^{✩°｡⋆ 01. identity grows underground ⋆｡°✩}

field note 01 finding evidence of who was already there ::

i knew week 2’s chapter on identity was coming once i started the book last week, lol. what i didn’t expect was the constant presence of mushrooms around me. and how i was romanticizing wet grass for the first time in my life, and journaling to rain sounds, noticing flowers. making tiny observations that made a big difference.

Julia began the chapter warning me to notice poisonous playmates in my life but giiiiirl, i already got rid of them all. 🧿 nextttt, i thought. but i was wrong about that, about thinking i was done with the chapter because i had a recently downsized friendship circle.

what slowly came to me in this chapter was the realization sis wasn’t asking me to block toxic people. she was asking me to get real honest about the things i share, in any public-facing manner. to me this meant recategorizing existing friendships into who was and wasn’t “safe.” i scoffed at the safety map chapter task at first, but it actually did help me visualize and see what i feel comfortable talking about and what i’d rather stay in the subtext… out here defining boundaries for myself, lets gooooo.

what parts of myself came back quietly this week? it stormed between my last field notes the artist way reflection and week 2 beginning, a heavy rain that blew shit around and came down across the open lake in sheets. i have to say, the sunrise i saw on that first Monday of week two?

incredible.

something magic, that’s for sure. i can’t explain why. i look at the same view every day. but i can’t get rid of this insane amount of gratitude i carry around while i see it. i hope i never forget how strong my gratefulness feels to be out of wherever i was and into wherever i am now.

i suppose it makes sense, right? with a sense of safety locked in, you’re able to start unearthing your sense of identity. i’m grateful, but i was skeptical at first. like, tf i just did all this identity work and alter ego shifting lastttt yearrr and here i am wrestling with myself again? oh, the dread! the horror. i didn’t want to do it, thought about putting down the book. i felt overwhelmed, in a way, with tackling my identity. this was a big chapter. a big puzzle piece to enrichment, happiness, esteem, and self-actualization.

was i ready?

i’ve been deep in thought on some ideology given to me by my talk therapist regarding IFS, Internal Family Systems. the way she described it to me is that i have many parts of myself, and they’re all sitting at the dinner table with me. something chapter 2, recovering a sense of identity, did for me? i was given permission to explore inner parts of myself that i had stopped listening to long ago, like my inner artist and inner child… the lil’ artist internet girl who just wanted to code broken Neopets pet page layouts all day.

that girl was awesome, why have i been ignoring her?!?!

i could feel my body reacting to the passing of the storm. the clearer skies, the more saturated colors. my nervous system was finally able to gasp an exhale of relief, for real for real, in this chapter. i didn’t know i was still feeling guarded and self-protective until i actually let my inner child/artist come out and play by doing weird nonsense and following my dopamine.

“no headphones. just raw dogging my nature walk.”

_{from my morning pages: “found a tiny pinecone”}

^{✩°｡⋆ 02. mushroom logic ⋆｡°✩}

field note 02 identity wasn’t missing. it was underground, waiting for better weather ::

the very first thing I remember noticing in week 2? monday daytime walk: bam. mushroom ring. and then suddenly? mushrooms everywhere, all week. and then i was noticing it constantly. I was fully enamored by the romance of stumbling on none of these shrooms just days ago, walking the same spots… as they were hiding underground!

shroom collection

“seeing the mushrooms made me soooo happy like real life whimsy just manifesting in real time.”

and that is exactly what identity felt like to me this week: no forced “new me who dis” announcement needed. just a return to mindfulness, a return to my innermost parts. my attention chose mushrooms as the symbol because something in me feels like it’s emerging too… this is field note explorer secret clubhouse inner child girl inner self is surfacing.

field note girl notices the mushrooms.
my inner child takes their photo.

…and adult self me keeps the bug spray in my bag, lol.

identity can emerge as multiple different inner parts, when the body stops using all its capacity just to survive the day. or some realization like that.

✩°。⋆ synchronicity questions from nikki ::

✩ what keeps appearing in my life like a tiny symbol?
✩ what does emergence look like when it is small, quiet, and real?

☾₊⊹ 03. yellow kept showing up suspiciously ⊹₊☾

field note 3 just my nervous system learning the color of alignment ::

golden yellows, creams, off-whites, and the color of butter have all been following me around this week. pastel signals of the universe waving their hands at me, encouraging me to keep going. even in my media journal, out of an hour and a half long documentary displaying many different birds, i end up doodling a yellow warbler. how funny.

media journal notes on a birdwatching documentary

i can only accept it for what it feels like now, in retrospect: welcome to my highlighter theory. this is a synchronicity moment, where the universe is reaching out its invisible helping hands and literally highlighting the important things for me, like an annotation marker taken right to my life. it made me pay attention.

butter yellow and natural creams feel like stability and safety to me. brighter yellows feel whimsical, like the sun on a summer day… orrrrr a huge ass caution sign from life sharing with me little micro miracle moments of “👍”. either way i’m addicted.

any signs of growth and change have me immediately feeling a type of way. i’m paying so much attention to small, unserious things in life lately. the move away from constant hyper-vigilance is the real cue from the universe i’m on the right path. i’m just gonna keep doing what feels like it’s working… which low-key feels like just throwing out Julia’s masked religious mess of a text and filtering it through my own personal therapy-coded agenda.

⋆。°✩ 04 the love is in the details ✩°。⋆

field note 4 apparently my life philosophy was hiding inside my photography tagline. ::

art mantra “the love is in the details” has always been part of my photography and client-care mantra.

something i’ve always said is “the love is in the details” aka details matter… they aren’t just pretty decoration, they are proof of aliveness. which matters a great deal to me in my photography portraiture art. i’m realizing in this moment though… it’s a life mantra for me, too. what makes life worth living is making those tiny observations… noticing the details. because presence is the whole point, for real.

week two of the artist way showed me this is not just a business motto, but also a real life philosophy for me. noticing the details is how i communicate love, interest, and care to others in my relationships. i can’t believe survival mode had me forgetting to apply mindfulness to the rest of my freaking life, too. allowing myself to play and be curious… without desperately needing to control the process or outcome of it. /hides.

⋆。°✩ 05. being liked is not the same as being seen ✩°。⋆

field notes 05 a very rude identity lesson, unfortunately ::

my brain kept telling me i had to hold the weight of looking sane, and put together, and intelligent, and professional, and happy, and smiling, and bubbly, and calm and reflective, and gentle… constantly over-functioning to be liked and accepted and welcomed and heard and seen.

but it took looking at the mushrooms for me to realize i’m not. i’m not seen. people only see themselves. i essentially proved to myself i am not a friend to many, when i thought i was. instead, i was just a mirror.

and it clicked for me why certain people constantly projected themselves onto my words and why that triggered me. it’s because my body knew i was done being a perpetual damn mirror in favor of self-abandonment. my body was just waiting for my brain to wake up about it: being liked because i’m resourceful isn’t the same thing as being really, truly seen and witnessed.

say it again for all your inner parts sitting at the table!

the lesson was actually a question: who am i when i stop trying to just be easy to love? i am meant to be more than a doormat, a pathological people pleaser, my entire life.

sometimes “being understanding” to a fault is just self-erasure in disguise.

⋆。°✩ 06 my body is not a productivity app ✩°。⋆

field note 06 identity work got a lot clearer after sleep, food, quiet, and less noise. rude but fair ::

i can feel my brain and body exhale in the quiet, in the still darkness. calm. peace. serenity. that good good kinda under-stimulation my soul deeply craves.

it took real, genuine peace of mind to wash over me in order to realize… i genuinely think sometimes i am just tired, thirsty, hungry, or overstimulated and that’s why i feel annoyed at everything.

from my diary: “sleep. sleep. sleep, my brain cried and cried.”

which is crazy, because i wrote Nikki’s Hierarchy in the first week, to remind myself of this very notion. and here i am forgetting that the foundational level 1 begs for food, sleep, water, body care, while the next step up, level 2, is all about sensory and safety needs… aka being able to exist in a quiet, calm environment.

i’ve learned sometimes an “identity crisis” is actually my body screaming for basic care and nutrition. #ADHD

only then does identity work become clearer.

and did.

⋆。°✩ 07. creative play, not content ✩°。⋆

field note 07 the part where i remembered making things can just be fun ::

a large part of my identity i explored this past week was based around my inner child / inner artist self. substack was my inspiration: zines! essays! poetry! photography photo essays! i was reminded that people do want to consume art on their feeds, and such a realization has felt so positive and uplifting: i just had to find my people!

chapter two may be about recovering a sense of identity… but my artist date micro moments were convincing me on a daily basis that identity for me right now is largely just about play, and finding creative abundance.

it was on a monday morning. i was up by 6am. i had sat in my car in the quiet watching the sunrise and edited my artist way pt 1 video… all in the spirit of creative play, not content. and it felt good, so freaking good, to make. was it perfect? heccccc nooooo! but it was FUN.

which is a direct example of witnessing my own inner parts: secret clubhouse inner child and field note girl inner parts collaborating with each other. insane.

one wants play.
one wants documentation.
together, we make artifacts.

this was the moment i became obsessed with play for this week, and hopefully forever.

_{a digital rough sketch of my past self and current self parts...}

…who recognizes the characters/art reference ???!

⋆。°✩ 08. poisonous playmates, protected whimsy, and other rude little truths ✩°。⋆

field note 08 a chapter task made me realize guilt is not always guidance ::

i am metabolizing chapter 2 slowly… felt like it wasn’t clicking for me. i felt like i couldn’t relate it back to my life. and then it just clicked for me:

protect your whimsy.

i don’t know, this was a big revelation for me.

because through that lens, i can see past relationships differently. even now, i feel guilt and grief over relationships that i don’t want in my life.

i think that is my doormat people pleaser persona coming out again.

the old people-pleaser in me cries and blames myself, shames myself, and the guilt manifests thereafter. guilt has always felt like proof of doing something wrong. guilt has always felt like a strong parental guiding hand steering me towards obedience, towards second-guessing, towards abandonment.

but now i know it’s not always proof of anything, except maybe emotional dysregulation, lol.

i’ve been afraid to admit that the guilt i feel is unfounded. i’ve been afraid to let myself off the hook, afraid to absolve my grief. but the truth? i feel like i’m doing better than ever.

over-stimulation, over-functioning emotional processing, and feeling constantly unseen make me feel like i’m gonna die though.

and i am desperate to protect my wonder at all costs.

the protector part of me still feels wounded, guarded, questioning:

are we safe?
can we relax?
can we play?

i’m doing what i need to do for the answer to be yes.

⋆。°✩ 09. the old place closed, and something in me opened ✩°。⋆

field note 9 sometimes identity recovery is also turning in the keys ::

week 2 marked a milestone for my nervous system. the end of May was the last i’ll ever have to see or think about my old apartment ever again.

it’s a big, huge, important affair. i’ve outgrown masking my true self just to be misunderstood.

my new place by the lake is the opposite in every way. necessary hyper-vigilance made me forget myself.

everything changed once i realized the muscle tightness in my back could unlock. now i chase that release, every single day: i call it play, rest, and digest. the lake and the ducks help me remember myself. a full body exhale.

my current self moved to a new space at just the right, divine time: metaphorically and literally/psychically leaving a past self behind.

✩°。⋆ reflection questions from nikki ::

✩ where have i been choosing being liked over being seen?
✩ what tiny symbols keep finding me lately?
✩ what place, person, habit, or version of myself helps me remember who i am?
✩ what wants to emerge now that the ground is safer?

✿

_{Closing thoughts: identity is the inner self resurfacing… once you stop abandoning her.}

✧･ﾟ note filed ･ﾟ✧

xoxo, nikki 🍄‍🟫