on shame and obligation

I had no idea when I started this project, how much it would involve myself, and what emotions i would experience. I had counted on some mild sadness and maybe a bit of anger … and I was kind of surprised at the reactions of some friends who said: oh wow, once you´re through that you and your art will have changed … you will be liberated ….
I wondered what they meant … now I am beginning to get an idea ….

I found a second hand book on shame a couple of weeks ago (for free ….) („Healing the Shame that binds you“ by John Bradshaw)and I have been reading parts of it event since … it´s a bit too „heavy“ for fast reading and i only manage a couple of pages at a time … it´rather revealing on how „toxic shame“ works and I am finally getting some explanations on why I feel the way I feel …. why I am always slightly ashamed of what I am doing … why I am ashamed of my art. ashamed of being an artist, or feeling I am not good enough to be called an artists (or to call myself an artist …)
And I even used to be ashamed when someone else was proud of what I did …..

Well, I am still reading and wondering how it took me so long to see these mechanisms and who I was repeating old stuff I had „endured“ in my childhood and teenage years over and over again ….

And i am allowing myself to feel anger and not only sadness when it comes to my parents ….

Yes, all this may sound like ego-centric psycho babble to you …. but for me it´s rather mid blowing ….
So, instead of posting hundreds of pictures of my mother…. I am talking about myself …. It´s all part of understanding who my mother was  … and the consequences this had / has on people connected to her.

I constantly have this bad conscience though that this project is not evolving the way I had anticipated … but then I have been reading Twyla Tharp´s book on creativity ( The Creative Habit) in which she explains how „obligation“ is a killer of creativity … and that nothing mind blowing will ever come from a creative mind that creates out of a sense of obligation … in my case: I wrote a project proposal and now thins are evolving in a different way …. what am I to do … force myself to make what I have „promised“ of go with the creative flow and see what the results are when I allow myself to create exactly that what I wish to make … ?