The Artist's Way Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity
Hoooooboy howdy
This chapter begins with the heading “GOING SANE.”
I appreciate this, as my unfolding and evolving over the past two years has sometimes felt like going insane. But, in an insane, inhumane society, what is sanity?
The morning pages (of which I managed 5 out of 6 mornings this week!) have felt quite grounding. Julia Cameron is right—if you dump out all your mental rocks and gravel first thing in the day, you don’t spend the rest pick-axing away at trivial concerns. I felt all loosey goosey after my morning page on Monday, so I kept writing: I wrote down a list of all the personal admin tasks I wanted to do last week, and I actually did them all. I just did one a day until they were all done. I made a dentist appointment and vet appointments, I Drain-O’d my bathtub, I mailed in a rebate for my contact lenses…none of which were assignments from chapter one, but all of which I did because I slowed down enough each morning to actually consider what would feel great to get off of my mental to-do list. I actively unloaded my mental burden to make room for creativity.
For my artist’s date this week, I took myself to the Dumbarton Oaks conservancy and wandered totally aimlessly through the forest without any time restraints. My inner artist loved this, the freedom, having no plan or direction, picking up rocks and throwing them into the river (the great American pastime), seeing a bunny and gasping, “bunny!” to no one but the bunny, who high-tailed it away.
Ok, let’s get into Week 2
Trusting our creativity may feel threatening to us and to our close friends and family.
We may feel—and look—erratic, which is a normal part of getting unstuck.
“It is important to remember that at first flush, going sane feels just like going crazy.”
When fear and self-doubt crop up, neutralize them with your affirmations from week 1.
Do not let self-doubt turn into self-sabotage.
Your artist, like a small child, is happiest when feeling a senes of security.
Watch out for poisonous playmates—people threatened by your recovery.
These people are feeling some kind of payoff for suppressing their own creativity—maybe a sense of martyrdom or a righteous self-pity. Maybe they feel smug for how much more creative they could be than those who are actually making work.
Be on the look out for people who even subtly diminish your attempt to become unblocked.
You cannot afford to take on anyone else’s doubt right now, even if it is couched as concern.
Trust the Great Creator and move out in faith.
Repeat: The Great Creator has gifted us with creativity. Our gift back is to use it.
The best thing you can do for the people around you is to be an example through your own recovery.
As your creative recovery progresses, you’ll find it’s actually easier to write than not write, paint than not paint, etc.
You will learn to enjoy the process of being a creative channel and to surrender you need to control the result.
A related thing creatives do to avoid being creative is involve themselves with crazymakers: those personalities that create storm centers, often charismatic, charming, inventive, and persuasive; folks who are long on problems but short on solutions.
Allowing a crazymaker in your life distracts you and drains your energy.
Next time you catch yourself saying or thinking “He/she is driving me crazy!” ask yourself what creative work you are trying to block by your involvement.
Let go of the false safety of skepticism. Harboring doubts masquerading as being “reasonable” is not actually reasonable. You’re undermining yourself.
Accept synchronicities as such, as gifts, not as mere coincidences.
The reason we think it’s weird to imagine an unseen helping hand is that we still doubt that it’s okay for us to be creative.
“With this attitude firmly entrenched, we not only look all gift horses in the mouth but also swat them on the rump to get them out of our lives as fast as possible.”
“One of the things most worth noting in a creative recovery is our reluctance to take seriously the possibility that the universe just might be cooperating with our new and expanded plans. We’ve gotten brave enough to try recovery, but we don’t want the universe to really pay attention.”
We need to gently set aside our skepticism—for later use, if we need it—and when a weird idea or coincidence whizzes by, we nudge open the door for it to guide us.
Creative recovery is an exercise in open-mindedness.
One of the great misconceptions about creative life is that it entails great swaths of aimlessness. The truth is that a creative life involves great swaths of attention. Attention is how we connect and survive.
Success or failure: the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.
The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.
The reward for attention is always healing.
Rules of the Road: In order to be an artist, I will:
Show up at the page. Use the page to rest, to dream, to try.
Fill the well by caring for my artist.
Set small and gentle goals and meet them.
Pray for guidance, courage, and humility.
Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work.
Be alert, always, for the presence of the Great Creator leading and helping my artist.
Choose companions who encourage me to do the work, not just talk about doing the work or why I am not doing the work.
Remember that the Great Creator loves creativity.
Remember that it is my job to do the work not judge the work.
Place this sign in my workplace: Great Creator, I will take care of the quantity, you take care of the quality.
Tasks
Affirmative reading: Every day, morning and night, get quiet and focused and read the Basic Principals to yourself. Here is a photo you can save to your phone if you’d like (but really, buy the book):
Spend some time thinking about where your time goes each week.
List twenty things you enjoy doing. When was the last time you let yourself do these things? This is now a resource for artist’s dates.
Draw a circle, divide it into six pieces of pie. Label the pieces spirituality, exercise, play, work, friends and romance/adventure. Place a dot in each slice to the degree to which you feel fulfilled in that area (outer rim = great, inner circle = not so great). Connect the dots and see where you’re lopsided.
List ten tiny changes you’d like to make for yourself. Select one change and do it this week.
Until next week,
Elizabeth