A surprisingly good read from a clinical psychiatrist,  Ben Michaelis, from Huffpost that can be pointed in many directions! Your life, your art.

I confess to not being much into psychiatrists  and further confess that I think half of them are full of BS. (my apologies to those who think otherwise) but I think this guy has a good handle on reality and so many artists need a bit of positive reinforcement that they may not be getting elsewhere!

Furthermore, many artists are NOT doing well in this current economy judging from my emails, so branching out and adding new elements to what you already do involves a commitment (There’s that word) of a new type!

<This (following) is not a popular concept, just a true one:

Anything worth doing (e.g., living a mentally healthy life) takes commitment.

When I refer to work I mean a real commitment — not just involvement. You may be wondering about how these are different. This was explained to me once by a salesman I met years ago — I’ll try to get his accent just right for full effect:

“Sunn [sic], the difference ‘tween involvement and commitment is the same as the difference ‘tween eggs and bacon. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed.” It’s hard to argue with that.

Commitment is key for making and sustaining real change in your emotional life. I don’t expect you to go ahead and turn yourself into bacon, but what’s needed is not just a wish to change in five sessions or less, or to have a therapist “fix” you, but an actual commitment to do something different — to push through when the going gets tough, because unfortunately it does.

A true commitment to personal change requires three things:

1. Vision
2. Promise
3. Energy

Let’s look at each of these things in turn.

Vision: It’s wonderful if you know exactly what you’d like the New You to look like, but it’s not necessary. All that that you need is to be open to imagining yourself and your life as different than they are now. You can explore the particulars along the way.

Promise: When you commit to change you implicitly make a promise. The promise is not to your husband, your sister, your kids, or even your Labradoodle. The promise you make is to yourself. It’s like writing a check with your mind. The way you cash that check is with work.

Work: Yes, work is a four-letter word, blah, blah, blah… But when you truly believe in something, when you are moving with purpose, work is not just not bad — it’s good. Work means throwing your energy at something you believe in to make a change — to make it the way you want it to be.

Commitment is the recipe for change. When you commit with your vision, promise, and work, it pays off in something better than bacon (if there is such a thing)… real change.>