A little scared to say this out loud

I just finished my collection (We are) Never Broken (you can read the story behind it here). It was hard work, both practically and emotionally. Some pieces were a struggle, but I kept going, and the entire collection came together in the end.
To be honest, I’m proud of it. It’s a little scary to say this out loud, but it’s my best work so far.

Next step: the art fair itself. I’m nervous.

Fear of failure is very familiar to me. I’m good at being anxious. But it’s utterly exhausting, and that’s not a route I’m willing to go right now. So I asked for advice, and an other artist gave me some great advice:

Examen all the other emotions you have about this event, besides the fear.

That gave me the prompt to look at the upcoming week in a different way, because:

• yes, I am excited to see what will happen

• yes, I’m curious about the people I’ll connect with

• yes, I’m eager to learn from this adventure

• and oh yes, I can’t wait to find out how this will inspire me in the future.