During the process of vectorisation I had a massive backchat about many things. Firstly I was dissatisfied with the NGO leadership that did even not educate themselves about how final logo format should be before they organised the design contest. Then I was disappointed about my logo not being selected despite of me being very professional in terms of making sure that it would be scalable, applicable and easily reproducible. I was unhappy about spending so much money on designer who was so unprofessional that he or she did not provide the logo in clean vector shape.
After I continued with inspecting the source file of the logo I noticed that the elements that were to represent a plant were so unnatural that people would notice and criticise it when the logo would be reproduced on some larger canvas. I started to wonder if I should take the initiative and do the corrections that I considered to be in the best interest of the organisation or if I should stick strictly to the original shape. Of course I could send such questions to the NGO leaders but they were very busy and had quite long response time. And many projects were stalled and could not move on before the logo was prepared so there was also a time pressure.
What I was asking myself during the vectorisation process was if my work will be accepted, recognised and rewarded or if it will be criticised and refused. So I was quite worried about many things and I felt confused and anxious. I was also not sure about what is the procedure to become clear about the things that I wanted answer to since I was not clear about the roles in the NGO or who would be the most appropriate person to query. I wanted to do a good job however all the thinking created a depressed feeling and heaviness around my eyes.
I started to wonder why I am having so much trouble with such a relatively simple task while some individuals in the organisation seem to deal with their task very easily. Then I finally realised that I remembered how my father constantly pushed and criticised me while I was working in his family visual communications company. I was the only one using the computer to scan the logos from the flyers or business cards that clients delivered and I had to vectorise them very accurately and as fast as possible.
The next step of my responsibilities was to engage in the pre-press, do colour separation and films for the screen-printing department that my younger brother was in charge of. And if I made a single mistake, which I occasionally did, but it was discovered only after several hundred pieces of deliverables were printed, it resulted in quite some material damage and massive anger that was clearly expressed by my brother and my father. So during my design and pre-process I was in constant fear of later being emotionally attacked and blamed for damages.
Despite my brother taking over our family business about 17 years ago, me not working there anymore and moving to different part of our country, I still occasionally do some design work for my father using Skype and screen sharing. Lately we go along quite fine but occasionally he still comes with his pattern of getting inpatient and emotions of anger that trigger unpleasant feelings within me. And I am getting so much tired of living in constant expectation when he will call me next and fearing that after I do something for him he will be unsatisfied with my work.
Such experiences engrained and rooted deeply into my body to the level where they influence also myself in unpleasant way when I am working for any other client or do other work that can even not involve computers at all. So I am now going to apply the tools of writing and sounding self-forgiveness and self-commitments in order to shatter crystallised patterns that limit my self-expression and creative potentials:
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid about what others will think about the results of my work. I realise that despite my work is a sort of extension and a part of me, the feedback given by others is often influenced by their projections and different kind of reasoning. When and as someone criticise my work and my mind produces thoughts like: “Oh no, they do not like me as a being.” I stop and breathe. I commit myself to in such cases breathe effectively, listen to the feedback within emotional stability and see if I can improve the result of my work so that it will serve end users as best as possible in a practical way.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel pressured when engaging in a creative design process since it takes quite some time and inspiration to come with a good and fresh idea and then to also manifest it in a tangible form. I realise that despite of being pressured and not allowed enough time to creatively express during the period of me being employed by my father I am now my own boss and am able to take as much time as needed for me to be completely satisfied with the result. When and as I start with creative design process and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Time is money so you must hurry or the client will have to pay you much more money than needed.” I stop and breathe. I commit myself to find clients who value high quality design and are also willing to pay fair price for it so that I can focus on being creative without any kind of unnecessary pressure.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become depressed in cases when I do not know who in organisation that I collaborate with is responsible for what. I realise that the only solution for something that I am not clear about is to ask questions and get answers no matter how long it takes for me to be completely clear about whatever I need to know in order to move forward. When and as I am unclear about something and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Oh no, I will now have to spend time to write the questions and wait for the answers and thus the work will have to wait.” I stop and breathe. I commit myself to be aware that being clear about things is the most important in life and that I am diligent in making all the necessary questions and be patient at receiving the answers. And during the time while I wait for a needed answer for me to be able to move on with a project, there are always many other tasks that I can do, especially perfecting myself by writing mind constructs like in this blog post.
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