Let God do their frickin’ work, Rock Star! | 2023 03 22 Top offers 2: “The Artist”

photo (outtake) “Halloween Concert” by Katrina Cooper-Hinton https://somerandomchick.picfair.com/

Try not to yawn – if you do, this post is definitely for you! – but today I made my terms and conditions.
After having been in business officially for a month, and unofficially for multiple months already, I finally sat my ass down and not only did it pan out okay;
It absolutely rocked.

My terms and conditions went from something I had sought legal advice and insurance advice over, and that had been on my to-do list pretty much ever since I knew I would start a business again, only to then have it holding me back like a ball and chain-
to something I put my heart and soul in, the moment I decided to do it my way!

After months of not making any headway with them – and expensive months too because I did not grow my audience, and didn’t actively sell because not having my legal stuff in place made me insecure –
my terms and conditions flowed out of me without any of the micromanagement and bitterness of small print;
But with the urgency of a manifesto!

And it made me realize the importance of knowing you are an artist and the impact it has on your life, cannot be overstated.
You can never know too much about this, in particular because so little is common knowledge.

The artist is an archetype barely present and poorly understood, in our society today.

Athletes, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs.
We have role models in many areas, and we have ideas, experiences and have given thought to many of the roles that we play in our lives such as being a partner, a parent, an employee or a leader.
We have ideas, about what it means to be “good” at them.

Yet do we know what it means to be an artist?

No.
Or at least I didn’t.
Not until I discovered that similarly to with the Terms and Conditions, I simply block when I encounter an area of life where society has a lot of “shoulds” around.
Whenever I encounter a situation where there is a lot of built-in expectations, mandatory requirements, and a distinctive smell of unfreeness?
I know exactly, what it means to be an artist.

Because being an artist means way more than just the areas that are your craft, skill or profession.
It means that EVERYTHING, needs to be done with the same surrender as what is officially your art or work. Everything bears the same significance, as what it is you are known for.

And maybe you do not totally block, like I did.
Maybe you don’t waste months, underachieving and coasting in your business.
But even then; You know where you are investing, and giving and losing way more than you receive or get back.
And more than you logically should.

Finance, relationships, legal shit, more relationships, complaints from people, housekeeping, taking care of your loved ones (I know that’s a risky one to put out!), taking care of yourself (better?);
The list of things that feel pointless and frustrating and the enormous pull they have, swallowing your whole life into quicksand, that list?
Is endless.

And the reason this is, is that – I would say “unfortunately”- we have no other choice than to figure them out top to bottom, all by ourselves.
Take them apart and rebuild them, so that they stop standing out like a sore fake thumb, and become a lived-through thing, that is in integrity with who we are.

That, is what being an artist means.
Because an artist is not just a creator, but it is a creator with a message. And as long as there are aspects of our lives that still convey the message of others, or of society at large; We. Will. Suffer.
You, will suffer.

Me, being slowed down by the ball and chain of how to properly set up my Terms & Conditions, waiting for the magical moment I would finally make myself copy, paste, and mimic, what others had done in that area?
Oh, I was planning for a horrific, inauthentic, wouldn’t-be-found-dead-with-it move, in what was supposed to be my dream business. 

So that is the bad news:
If you are an artist, you will need to take apart aspects of Life others can just borrow, copy and paste.

Good news is of course, the satisfaction and almost post-sex glow on your face once you do, and rocked it!
Once you have personally designed an area in your life everybody says you cannot do yourself, and you have to do it like this and that, and then you create something new entirely?
Oh, the sweet smell of artistic success!

But sure, I would agree with you that it would be nice to, for a chance, be able to use other people’s work and just go with the flow.
Just that every time I try this tempting short-cut, I end up losing time, money, or blowing the whole thing up because I just don’t want anything to do with it anymore.

So there is all that, about being an artist.
You have a message, and it wants to express itself.

And that message, that authenticity, is part of a bigger artistic “divine assignment” a.k.a. A Calling. Something is coming through you, work only you can do. And the catch is, only you know what this is.

And perhaps not even that;
You don’t know WHAT the highest work is, but you only know these weird projects, these effortless curiosities, that you follow.
You know when you are deeply involved in activities that give you so much joy, yet you have no idea where it will lead to.

Bingo.
“Highest work”.
Keep doing that thing that fills your heart with joy.
And for God’s sake, stop doing the things that suck the life right out of you.

But even with as little as we ourselves know about what our highest work is, we still know more than others who view us from outside.

I could have used normal Terms and Conditions, and no one would have noticed.
But I would have noticed.
And from that moment on, it would have been a countdown to the moment I had burned my company down to the ground.
Every time I attached that diabolical document to an email, a nail to the coffin.

Only you know when something is “off”.
And only you know, what you’re here to do.
And even when you don’t know, you still know better than others!

.
This is my definition of an Artist:

To be an artist is to be in an active and committed relationship with a craft, a calling, a message or a vision, as it is coming through.

This relationship takes shape in following curiosity, passions, hunches.
In following your Heart.

An artist is not responsible for expressing their highest work;
But for keeping the pathways clear, so their highest work can express through them.

Suzanne Beenackers

My curiosities are being offline and living in a fictional past.
No idea how this is ever to amount to any official “art”, but I know it is what I have to do.

My passion is writing, I have 10.000 blogs, give or take 😉 
I write with the same visceral need others suck their thumb. Although I also suck my thumb.

And my purpose is to live a Rock Star life, and to advocate the message of freedom.

Every time I do something that contradicts or denies those things, I don’t just work against my own nature, my own purpose;
But against the integrity of our time together, at this company Catacombe.

Every time I stray and end up being some kind of sterile, dried up, proper-business version of me, it violates the Rock Star quality, the juiciness, the sex, the luscious unpredictability and rebel nature of our rule-breaking work together.
And I have reduced the Rock Star tagline of this company t
o just some fuckin’ marketing gimmick.

In the same way you too, know what your highest work is.

It’s the work that comes with great ease, with great joy. It’s the work that makes you feel alive, on purpose, happy, in your power.
The work that makes you feel sexy, in love, creative, a bringer of Life here on this earth.

The work you, Artist, are here to do, is the work that awakens the Rock Star within you.

Because the Rock Star within you, was given to you for a reason. They are not just there residing inside of you, to bring out whenever the circumstances are right and you think you are welcomed.
They’re not a party trick.

You were given this strength and this power, for a reason;
To
bring your work and your message, into the world.

And rock them all.

.
~Suzanne
become the Rock Star you were born to be

Let God do their frickin’ work, Rock Star!
| 2023 03 22 Top offers 2: “The Artist”
is the eighth Catacombe Rock Star post

Subscribe to this blog to receive them in your Inbox

Catacombe offers international Rock Star mentoring & business coaching:
https://catacombenijmegen.com/current-offer/
“The Artist” is one of my top three offerings.
The other ones are Rock Your Business, and THE ROCK STAR.

& in-person business coaching in Nijmegen.
https://catacombenijmegen.com/nederlands-dutch/

Let YOUR work be reborn. The Rock Star way. | 2022 12 25 Christmas

1985 02 22 Madonna by Ken Regan

There was a moment that you knew.
You knew this thing had your name on it.
You knew it was yours.
You didn’t know details, or hows, or whys, but you knew what you knew!

This was what you wanted.

Yet you waited a while, didn’t you?
No worries.
But I think you waited because you couldn’t believe this one was meant for you.
Not just why it landed in your lap, but also why others didn’t fight you over it.
They barely showed interest in it.

Maybe they mocked it, but that was focused at you. Maybe they were jealous of the attention you would be giving this thing, and that’s why they gave you a hard time over it.
But it is not because they envied you for having it.
Or for discovering it.

Your craft.
Your passion.
Your art.
Or an area of expertise that already bore the contours of the professional work you’d be known for, in this lifetime.

And if that was you, I see two options;
Either you stuck with your vision, followed the path, and are now rocking whatever it was you were shown.

Or, like me, you made too many mistakes, and you lost the dream.
Like I did with my vision to become a yoga practitioner and then later a yoga teacher.
In hindsight, I really did not make that many mistakes.
Just one.

I did not understand what I was shown.

And to make matters worse? Even now, I would not be able to tell you what it is, I was shown.
But I do know one thing though;
It wasn’t “yoga”.

Just like you, if you had that experience of seeing that one thing with your name on it;
That experience of that thing landing in your lap and you seeing your future;
Just like you, were not shown that thing either.

You were not shown;
Your profession.
Your passion.
Your area of expertise.

Not the way you parent, the way you govern, the way you do business, the way you create;
Not the way you love, not the way you move, not the way you ARE.
You were not shown a way at all.

You were shown a VISION.
When you, and I, thought we were shown A WAY.

I thought my way was yoga, so I started practicing yoga and took classes, yoga teacher trainings and started teaching. And the further along down the path I went, the further I moved away from my vision.

So hail to you, if you are rocking whatever it is you were shown.
You did not lose your dream along the way, not by luck, but because you stuck with the vision.
Not the way.
Not the HOW.

You were not swayed by what others said were the right ways and the proper hows, to go with your vision.

And we, the ones that failed, did.

We were never shown a how, nor a path;
We were shown a vision.
You can’t follow a ten step formula, not a four year education, not a parenting course, not the protocol of how things are done in whatever industry or area of life you think your vision belongs.
That’s not how you bring a vision to life.

That’s how you kill it.

So go back.
Go back to when you knew.
Go back to the beginning of the beginning when that thing landed in your lap and you looked around if no one else came to claim this beautiful, meaningful, exciting thing… if it was really meant for you. 

And pick it up from there.

Because do you know why no one fought you over it?
Why no one bothered to go after what you would have given anything in the world for?
Because they saw something else entirely. They saw only the worldly, material, recognizable aspects of it.

It is not just that others cannot see, what you have always understood was yours;
But also that they aren’t meant to.

It was your vision.
Let it be reborn today.
And commit not to the recognizable worldly aspects, but to its wholeness.

Or even;
Its holiness.

.
~Suzanne
become the Rock Star you were born to be

Let YOUR work be reborn. The Rock Star way. | 2022 12 25 Christmas
is the second Catacombe Rock Star post

Subscribe to this blog to receive them in your Inbox