Mastering Emotion

June 26, 2025

Artists are emotional creatures, it’s our nature. We feel deeply, see the world in heightened hues, and carry the weight of emotion like an instrument always tuned to a different frequency. It's this sensitivity that allows us to create work that reaches into the hearts of others. We translate our joys, sorrows, doubts, and questions into visual poetry, melody, movement, and story. Our art speaks because it feels.

But this emotional depth is a double-edged brush. While it fuels our creative fire, it can just as easily set fire to the very studio we create in.

There are days when an unexpected critique lands like a punch to the gut. A single offhand comment, a perceived slight, or an unkind review can spiral into self-doubt. Then there are those moments—perhaps more insidious—when we look at where we are and feel the quiet, creeping panic that we should be further along. More accomplished. More seen. Or those days when life just happens—flat tires, rough conversations, burnout—and suddenly our ability to show up to our practice is compromised.

This is where emotional mastery enters the frame.

Emotional mastery doesn’t mean suppressing how we feel. It’s not about numbing the emotional landscape that gives our work its soul. Instead, it’s about learning to navigate it. It’s about pausing before reacting, noticing what’s present, and choosing where to place that energy. It's not letting the critique become a creative block. It's recognizing disappointment, but not letting it dictate our worth. It’s using frustration or sadness or longing as raw material instead of a reason to shut down.

Because here's the truth: when we allow emotions to lead the way unchecked, they can turn our practice into an emotional minefield. But when we learn to work with our emotions—to sit with them, understand them, and channel them—we become alchemists. We turn the messiness of life into art that resonates not just because it's beautiful, but because it's honest.

Mastery isn’t perfection. It’s presence. It's choosing to return to the canvas even on the messy days. It’s developing tools that help us ground ourselves when the internal tide threatens to wash away our momentum. And it’s realizing that the very feelings we wrestle with might just be the seeds of our next great work.

So to the sensitive souls, the feelers, the creators out there: you are not too much. Your emotions are not a flaw in your design—they are the lifeblood of your expression. Just remember that you are the artist and the vessel. And with practice, grace, and emotional mastery, you can choose how your emotions serve your art, rather than how they sabotage it.

Your emotions are powerful.

But you are more powerful still.