This piece is called metamorphosis. With the beginning of the New Year, I find myself reflecting on my life a lot. As an artist who creates pieces based on my reflections, emotions, and experiences it is pretty darn awesome that I can fill a sketchbook simply by reflecting on my year.
I love looking closely at circumstances that caused me to stress out a bit. Hindsight the “stressing” was unnecessary, in fact in most cases, what ever was going on didn’t resolve itself until I decided I was done stressing. Funny how that works.
A long time ago, well, what feels like ages ago, I was typically stressed out about something. You would usually find me depressed, angry, overwhelmed, and complaining about something. A few years ago, I walked away from that version of me. I decided life was too short to spend every day, every year. Every moment, repeating the same drama over and over. I realized it wasn’t any of the myriad of things I was blaming… It was me, my perspective was whack. I held on to so much drama and blame, that I lived it over and over every day.
Things are very different for me today…
Every day, I try to think about things that make me feel good. Things that make me feel empowered, beautiful, awesome and any other fantabulous word I can think of. I was done talking down to myself and became my biggest cheerleader.
I decided I was done feeling guilty about stuff. I realized that things just kept adding up. I was punishing myself over and over because of mistakes I had made 20 years early and adding them to things I felt guilty about now. I realized I wasn’t going to move forward if I couldn’t forgive myself. Along with guilt usually comes regret… You can’t go back and change anything, get over it and move forward.
This piece is based on letting go and moving forward. Changing your story and emerging from the old story like a butterfly, taking flight in your own destiny.
Metamorphosis By Rafi Perez was originally published on Rafi Was Here Studios
Klee Angelie
Artist Rafi Perez