it's no Picasso

Well, I'm back at it again.

Last fall I took the Oprah.com/Brene' Brown online class based on Brene's book The Gifts of Imperfection. I absolutely loved the class and when I heard that she was going to offer a part two (to cover the last half of her book) in April, I about jumped out of my chair!

Part two started on Thursday of this week. I didn't get a chance to do any of the work until yesterday, so I felt a little bit behind. 

There were three or four short videos to watch. 
And, then, the creative assignments.

One of the very first assignments Brene' wanted us to do was to draw our self portrait. 

Using ONLY crayons. 

Oh. My. Gosh. 

"Let's get back to that place where we created art with wild abandon."

~Brene' Brown

I don't know if I ever have drawn a self portrait! And, surely not without sketching in pencil first and erasing and sketching and erasing until I nearly had erased all of the paper away. 

Because, that is how much of a perfectionist I am! 

It just amazes me how deeply ingrained in me is this compulsion to edit myself. To edit the version of me that anyone sees. This editing is done subconsciously most of the time to protect myself.

it's no Picasso, but it's me

In fact, this blog is an attempt to put my true self out there. As I said this week, it took a lot of courage to attempt a blog. Two of them went by the wayside until A Ready Listener was born.

Writing my heart is one thing. 

Drawing an elementary quality drawing of myself and letting other people see it, is an entirely different story.

I sat down yesterday afternoon. In front of me was my journal. 

And, my daughter's box of 48 Crayola crayons. The only consolation is that the crayons are basically brand new, and who doesn't love coloring with brand new crayons?

I soooo wanted to go find a pencil! No one would notice! No one was watching me and making sure that I followed Brene' Brown's rules for this creative assignment! I could have sketched to my heart's content and then covered the pencil lines with crayon.

But, I did what Brene' told me to. (I am compliant that way.) Plus, you know what? Brene' had already done her self portrait crayon masterpiece and showed the world. It was no Picasso, and she was smiling and even laughing and poking fun at her drawing saying, "Do you see the resemblance?"

I thought to myself, if Brene' Brown can do this and show everyone in the world, I can do this. 

So, I sat there staring at my blank journal page a few minutes. 

{Oh, actually, I have to say that I did look up a very basic drawing demo and he told where the eyes needed to be (half way down on the oval face) and where the tops of the ears should be (even with the eyes).}

Is that cheating? Nah!

That's all I did to prepare. Honest.
Then, my crayons went on the white page. 

Once I drew half of the oval because I didn't want my "apricot" crayon I used for my head to show in my hair, and I started putting on the other features and drawing my hair, I actually started to have fun. 

Do you think that is Brene' Brown's point for these creative assignments?

Brene is testing my self compassion

Well, that, and... 

giving up on the misconception of perfection and embracing imperfection.

I'm game for kicking these perfectionist tendencies to the curb.

Stick with me. I'll be sharing more of what I'm learning from the class as I go along!

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Thanks for stopping by!

Linking up today with Beth at Three Word Wednesday.