November Update: A Mindset Shift.

Howdy y'all!

I hope you are enjoying your fall so far. I know I am. The cooler mornings and evenings have really been bringing me back to life!

In October I had several breakthroughs and mindset shifts that I feel are really important for my life and the way I show up for this business and brand I have created. 

This year as a whole has been... well to be honest depressing. I think is spent more time on the couch waiting for this "energy" to pass than I did actually moving forward in my life. Along with the depression I was uncovering and processing a lot of trauma. Some final boss level shit. 

This year I assessed my relationship with the physical world. I'm talking physical body stuff, like health, fitness, emotional well being, work, interpersonal relationships, etc. 

I went on a journey with how I eat and move, to how I show up for work, to how I show up for relationships.

I realized in May that I was living in survival mode. It took me going home to visit my narcissistic father for the first time in four years to really have this mindset shift, that I spent my entire life in fight or flight mode, and that no one was going to save me, it was up to me. 

I know that sounds really harsh, but I felt a lot of closure in that trip and in a way a part of me died and it was my responsibility to nurture the new growth in these areas of my life. I realized that my relationship with my father and the rockiness of it all wasn't my fault. That the fact that he can't stop talking long enough to truly listen to anyone else isn't something that's wrong with me. It's his own wounded inner child screaming for attention. I was able to truly see the scared, hurt child that has been dictating his life for as long as ive known him. I also had the realization that nothing I ever do or say will wake him up. That he is exactly who he is and it's not my responsibility to help him become a more enlightened person.

I know that it seems so obvious when written out. Ive seen it and said it a million times. It's so funny how our mindset really created our reality The things that we loop on a lot of the time are programming that might be so old youve been looping on it you're entire life.

With these big realizations I felt free and halted at the same time. Like i mentioned before, it felt like i went through another metaphorical death. The person I was after that trip was entirely different than the person before the trip.

The summer and fall looked like the regrowing process after the death. The assessing how I show up in life. Realizing that being in survival mode means being constantly in a state of fight or flight. And that the stress hormones coursing through my veins at all times were creating a lot of chaos in my life.

I started going to therapy again, and have learned a lot of tools to regulate my nervous system. Learning how to relax, how to convince my brain that I am in fact safe has taken a lot of time and energy. It looks like showing up for yourself every single day. Valuing true, grounding, self care over work. It's looked like me assessing every area of my life where there is stress and evaluating if it is for me or not.

I found that in October I was feeling really burnt out before the holiday season even started, and I knew if i was going to survive the next few months of crazy festivals and social interaction I would have to make some changes in my life. 

It was one afternoon, during an anxiety fueled spiral that I finally broke down and admitted defeat. My loving partner watched my spiral, which felt so shameful at the time, but he was truly so helpful in my major mindset shift, and for that im forever grateful.

I felt like there was too much to do and no time to do it. Being my own boss, I decided whats important and what needs to get done and when. I was definitely being an asshole corporate boss. Always putting more and more and more on my plate.

My business hasn't fully supported me for a long time, but I kept trying to force it to happen. Stubbornly not getting a day job, and constantly being stressed. It was really putting me in survival mode, not having enough money for rent and food. The basic needs for survival in this modern society. I thought that if I put down this burden, that I was a failure. That I would be a huge joke and that I would probably never make art again.

My partner and my therapist helped me realize 1. that it's okay and essential to ask for help. and 2. that if it isnt something that brings me joy, I dont have to do it anymore.

To be honest the pressure to constantly be performing and making art that will sell is a lot. Especially for a young, not quite established artist who wants to explore other mediums and styles, but feels boxed in by past pieces and styles. 

The pressure to create compiled with my shitty boss-ness and the massive amount of trauma healing processing I was doing was just too much. To be honest the processing alone feels like a full time job. 

As a result I have decided to slow down a lot with Left Handed MFG in 2022. I will only be releasing one major newsletter a month with a few reminders and sales in between. I will be allowing myself to work for other companies to make money to support myself. I will be making pieces that speak to me in the ways I want, without the pressure for them to be anything more than beautiful things. I want to play with clay a lot more. I want to paint differently, I want to mix all of the mediums together, and I want to foster a real, supportive community.

In the three weeks since this major mindset shift, I will say that my life feels overall much more peaceful.

I have been assessing every situation in which i feel chaos or stress and cutting out as much as possible. There is so much unnecessary stress that we inflict on ourselves. So much pressure to perform, or to produce more more more.

I can't help but feel like we are all just parts of a whole. Just pieces of the greater puzzle that is the universe. And a lot of the magic and beauty in life is done through play, and having fun. We think that playing is only for kids, and that adults have to be so serious, and work so hard, and hustle to get by. But I want to make a point of rejecting that in my life. We are here experiencing life in human form. and all we have to do is just experience life. Stay present to the moment you're in. Love those around you as hard as you can. Be grateful for everything.

This life is such a gift, and you get to choose how you spend it. Do you want to be strung out, stressed, over worked, and devoid of joy and play? Or do you want to have fun, dance in the moonlight, feel the energy coursing through you and your life? Your mindset really does determine the kind of life you live, and I am interested right now in only doing things that are fun. I'm interested in giving myself the fun and carefree childhood I never got. 

So yeah. All that to say I'm slowing down a bit on the business side of things. I'm giving myself a chance to calm down and have some fun. I will continue to make jewelry and other art things. I will be focusing on making newsletters more entertaining and informative for you all. My goal is to be off of instagram in 2022, so all major updates will come through the emails and behind the scenes content will be moved over to tiktok. 

Thanks so much to everyone who has made it this far, I know I can be long winded, but sometimes I feel like the background info is necessary. Peace and blessings to you all, and Ill talk to you again in December <3

-Sabina