Finding Your Way out of the Labyrinth

A Guide for the Struggling Artist

I love labyrinths. I’ve worked with labyrinth imagery for years in a series of novels I’m revising, and in them the labyrinth is a place of confusion, misdirection, and fear, but eventually, it becomes a place of intention, manifestation, and mastery. I’m not sure what it was that drew me to them other than that at one point in my life about 10 years ago, I realized that the myth I related to most was Theseus and the Minotaur--except I felt connected to Ariadne. I’m entranced by her. I’ve read a lot about her. I’ve tried to get inside her. Doing so helped me find my own way out of a personal labyrinth more than once. 

Flash forward to a few months back: I lost my job as an associate professor of English at a small, private liberal arts college. This college had been around for 148 years. I thought it was untouchable from the decline in enrollment and other factors that had been affecting higher ed for years. I was wrong. So after 27 years in the profession, long-tenured, with loads of publications and a stellar teaching record, at the very peak of my career, it was stolen from me. The entire English department was laid off permanently when our college was sold to the local HBCU. Great news for the HBCU--I’m happy for their achievement in buying up a small private college--but it wasn’t great news for the rest of us.

Or was it? Because let’s face it, some of us found that we were entirely burnt out on higher education. So we are trying to move on. What I think we have in common with a lot of people leaving other professions is that something about the timing of the pandemic and the economy and a host of other factors woke us up to the fact that WE WERE NOT HAPPY. We were not even a little bit content. We were not fulfilled. The careers that we thought were amazing, creative, and autonomous had become pure drudgery in many ways. We were clinging to an old model, trying to make the best of bad situations working for employers who refused to see our worth and compensate fairly. We were making pro/con lists of “reasons to stay or go” in our minds or on paper for a long time. 

Sometimes being kicked out of a place--hard--by the universe--is a wake-up call. That’s what happened to me. 

You could say I’m making the best of a bad situation by trying something new, but I think my purpose feels a whole lot larger. So over the summer, when I could have been applying for jobs teaching elsewhere, I cooked up an idea. How about I apply for jobs as a writer. As a tutor. As an editor. How about I change EVERYTHING up and take my skills and turn them in the direction of a new career, the one where I’m my own boss? 

It’s like there is this voice that’s inside me screaming DO IT SUSAN IT IS NOW OR NEVER. So I’m doing it, but guess what? Did starting up something new get me out of that labyrinth of pain and grief from my career being “stolen” out from under my feet? Nope. It did not. And this is where I’ve had another sort of epiphany that I think can help others in the same position. In other words, I bet you thought that when you left a career, or it left you, that you would need a little time to regroup, but that little time is stretching into this endless fog of 8 million questions floating through your mind about “are you doing the right thing?” and “how do I figure out how to run a business?” and “am I even good enough to do the thing?” And that, my friend, is being stuck in another personal labyrinth. It’s awful. 

In the past few days, I have found the way OUT. I’m going to tell you how it happened and still is happening for me in hopes this will help you. These are the mantras you need to repeat to yourself when you are stuck:

1. I am an artist (or writer/creative/however you wish to define yourself). Not “I will be an artist,” but “I am.” It doesn’t matter if you haven’t sold X amount of your work. If you wait to sell X amount, I bet then you reach it and tell yourself “well that was nice, but I’m not really an artist until I reach Y goal.” It is an endless road and you will never meet the end. If you create, you are an artist. Period. 

2. I deserve to be here. This goes along a little bit with number one as it’s another way of attacking imposter syndrome, but it’s worth its own mantra because for a lot of us, this is a tough one. There are probably naysayers in your life. They make you question your worth, especially in terms of making your way down a new nontraditional path. Keep repeating that you deserve this. Your brain wouldn’t have told you to go for it if your higher self didn’t already believe you had the right to play in the sandbox. 

3. My art is needed and wanted by others. You have to find them, and that’s going to be HARD. But they exist. Everyone who is successful (which I think for most means a self-sustaining business in which your art is center stage) tells the same story about how hard it was in the beginning. It won’t always be that way. But someone someday is going to be healed by your painting or your story or your sculpture. More than one person will be. The bonus is you will be as well. So keep going. 

4. I can learn new things. This is especially important to remember for people with no prior business, marketing, or technology experience. There are a lot of new skills to learn. Don’t try to do them all at once. Take a couple of weeks and learn how to make your website. (I can’t recommend Squarespace enough but everyone has their favorites). Get that skill down before you start tackling Instagram marketing, and so on. Network with people who are doing these things well. Ask questions. Read all the free material you can online. Prioritize, then learn. You can do this.

5. I can network with other small business owners. I can’t take credit for this gem, because I read it in The Freelance Academic by Katie Rose Guest Pryal, but she strongly suggests networking with other entrepreneurs so you can bounce ideas off one another or vent or be cheerleaders for one another. You will not feel as alone in your endeavor if you start talking to others in the same boat, and you can promote one another and perhaps even form friendships. 

6. I am a leader, not a follower. Ok so it takes a lot of guts to break away from the traditional “work like crazy for someone else till you die” mode in life, because the majority of people are doing that. Some of them are happy in their jobs, and that’s great. Some of them are languishing or in toxic work environments and they are dying inside. You are a leader because you have recognized that the way you used to live is no longer serving you or your higher purpose. You are taking the leap RIGHT NOW, my friend, and EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE is now hard because you are not going with the old flow. The old way for you might have been tough in its own ways, but at least you had it memorized. Every day now is completely up in the air, isn’t it? That is undeniably a rough place because you can’t feel the ground. So just choosing to be here? This makes you a leader. Embrace your drive. Embrace your sheer nerve. 

7. I am excited by possibilities. Ok, I’ll admit, this is the toughest one, isn’t it? Because it is SO EASY to think about the future and imagine the worst case scenario: your business never succeeds. You think about that all the time, don’t you? Why don’t we EVER think of how it might be the MOST AMAZING THING EVER? That would be so much easier. So instead of trying for that brass ring because you tell yourself it’ll never come, how about focus on something more achievable, which is just sheer possibility? Ex.: you wake up and tell yourself, it’s another new day. What if I come across something online that will light my fire and I’ll make something new that wasn’t even in the cards for me until I was inspired? Or maybe because I work from home or a studio now, I take a walk during my work day and I see something and it just drives me to create. The fact is that you have so much FREEDOM now by running your own show that the possibilities for creation are all around you all the time. Only if you’re adopting the model of “it’s never going to happen for me”, you’re not seeing them. It’s like your spiritual guides are all hanging out and trying to get your attention, but your head is looking down and your eyes are shut. Lift your head, open your eyes, and DREAM. Every. Single. Day. 

The bottom line is that you can walk right out of that labyrinth if you can train your mind to focus on your gifts, your freedom, and your options instead of taking on the weight of all the ways we are conditioned to not break free. You are SO DESERVING of a life now and in the future that aligns with who you are on a soul level. It is a Herculean task, of course, to break out of the negative thought patterns and your own personal labyrinth. But you’re Ariadne. You’ve got the enchanted thread. Use it.