52: The Artist‘s Way: Recovering a Sense of Identity (Week 2)

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁'𝘀 𝗪𝗮𝘆: 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟮
𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺

This episode is about the second of twelve weeks in the course and book The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. 

My artist date this week was spending some time playing with watercolours. I also spent some time watching some artist videos on TikTok to fill my well and get inspired!

In this chapter, the focus is on exploring our self doubt and external factors that contribute to it. Instead of suppressing doubts, be curious about why you believe them and where they are coming from. It is challenging to believe that we are creative and that our creativity is a divine gift. We need to protect our inner artist and ensure that we are choosing supportive people to share with, especially at the beginning. We trust our doubts more than our dreams for the first stages of recovering our creativity.

"Crazymakers" are people who create drama that distracts us from our growth. As if our own self doubt and inner skepticism wasn't already enough, these energy vampires show up to demand our attention just when things are gaining momentum. We need to strengthen our boundaries to prevent these people from giving up on our creative path. Eventually, we will trust ourselves enough to ignore them, but we may need some distance when we are still vulnerable. Staying stuck can feel safe and crazymakers want to make sure that we don't move forward so they enable our self-sabotage.

Attention determines how you experience life. Even in the most difficult times, you can notice the everyday miracles. When we pay attention, we are open to new possibilities and synchronicities and we are in the present moment. 

"Draw a sacred circle around your recovery. Give yourself the gift of faith. Trust that you are on the right track. You are."

The exercises that I talked about for Week 2 are:

• List your top 5 activities this week and note how much time you spent on them, if they were for someone else, and if they are wants or "shoulds"
• Create a safety map circle. Inside the circle, write the activities that are important to protect and the people who will support you. Outside the circle, write the crazymakers and others that should be avoided
• List 20 things you enjoy doing and when you last did them. This is a great resource for artist dates
• Select 2 things from the list as goals and take small steps toward them or spend a short amount of time on them
• Review your affirmations from last week and choose 2 that you have a strong reaction to. Write them 3 times each in your morning pages and explore your reaction
• Imaginary Lives: List 5 more lives you could lead if anything was possible. 
• Life Pie: Draw a circle and split it into 6 pieces. Label them spirituality, exercise, play, work, friends, romance/adventure. Draw a circle in each wedge. Draw it near the center if you are less fulfilled in that area, closer to the edge if you are fulfilled. Connect the dots to see how jagged (out of balance) or circular (fulfilled) you are overall. Use a different colour every few weeks to check your progress
• Ten Tiny Challenges: make a list of 10 small actions you have been avoiding that would improve your quality of life and boost your trust in yourself. I finally put up some removable wallpaper I've had for a long time!

Let me know how you're enjoying the series if you're following along!

𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀

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