What If the Messy Stage Is Actually Part of the Transformation?

Have you ever felt like you were in a messy stage of life? (watch the full video)

Not dramatic collapse, Just… unstructured. Unclear. Uncomfortable. Like everything is in transition, but nothing has fully landed yet.

I’m in one of those stages right now, and honestly, my artwork reflects it.

For the past 30 years, I’ve built a career as a therapist and art therapist, and I’m incredibly proud of what I created. I built something meaningful from nothing. But over the last few years, I started feeling burnt out and discouraged by the realities of working within the insurance system. Deep down, I knew something needed to change.

So now I’m restructuring my life and business. I’m moving toward retreats and speaking, and creating experiences that feel deeply aligned with who I am now. And it feels vulnerable and terrifying at times.

The irony is that I teach people how to quiet their inner critic through creativity. I teach others how to tolerate imperfection, uncertainty, and emotional discomfort through the creative process. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hear my own inner critic whispering:“You should stay in your lane.”“What if this doesn’t work?”“What if people don’t want to hear what you have to say?”

I hear all of it.

But I also know that courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is choosing to move forward while fear is sitting right beside you.

Today I am painting with the themes of boundaries and perspective. Both feel like powerful metaphors for this season of my life.

When I began this painting, I started by creating structure and borders. It feels symbolic right now, because I’m learning to create healthier emotional and professional boundaries in my own life. I’m also becoming fascinated by perspective, not just artistically, but psychologically. In art, perspective means things become smaller as they move farther away into the distance. In life, perspective changes depending on where we’re standing emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Sometimes the same situation looks completely different after we’ve healed, slowed down, or stepped back.

What fascinates me most is how much the creative process mirrors personal transformation.

I sit down to paint and immediately want the painting to be finished. I want it to look good right away. I want clarity immediately. I want certainty now. But creativity doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes you have to let the layers dry. Sometimes you have to sit in the uncomfortable middle. Sometimes you have to tolerate not knowing.

That is exactly where I am right now.

I look at these paintings and think, “I don’t like this. It feels messy.” And then I realize that’s exactly how I feel internally. Not everything in my life fits neatly into place yet. Not everything feels aligned. Some parts still feel unresolved and unfinished. And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe healing and reinvention are not supposed to look polished while they are happening.

At one point while painting, I grabbed a thick black Sharpie marker and thought, “This could completely ruin the piece… or maybe it will finally pull it together.” I was nervous to make the mark, but I did it anyway.

So much of transformation feels like making bold moves before you fully know the outcome.

I think many of us are waiting to become confident before we change our lives. But creativity teaches something different. Creativity teaches us that confidence often comes after the action, not before it.

I also notice how much my personal history finds its way into my work. I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, surrounded by factories, steel mills, and power lines. Those industrial shapes and lines still show up in my artwork decades later. Our art carries our memories, our environments, our emotional landscapes, and the stories we are still trying to understand.

That’s why I believe creativity is so powerful. Not because it makes us “talented.”Not because it produces perfect paintings. But because it reveals us to ourselves. Creativity teaches us how to stay present through uncertainty. How to tolerate imperfection. How to see possibility before we fully believe in it. How to become someone new while still honoring who we’ve been.

I think one day I’ll look back at these paintings and immediately recognize this chapter of my life. I’ll see the uncertainty, the courage, the vulnerability, the becoming.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe growth looks messy before it becomes meaningful.