61: The Artist‘s Way: Recovering a Sense of Compassion (Week 9)

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁'𝘀 𝗪𝗮𝘆: 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝟵
𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯

This episode is about week 9/12 in the course and book The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. 

My artist date this week was creating my manifestation list!

I started this episode by reading the Foreword from Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. She describes how this book about creativity, spirituality and authenticity showed up as she wrote every day to find her Real Life. This is sooo aligned with The Artist's Way and I couldn't believe that a Spirit Crumb brought me to finally take that book off the shelf for the first time since I got it! 

Week 9 is all about finding compassion for ourselves in the process of recovering our creativity. Taking away the rigidity and disappointment in ourselves that comes along with creativity can help us to see that failure and self sabotage are part of the process. Through fear, enthusiasm and Creative U-turns (self sabotage), we talk about how to reframe some beliefs that may be contributing to negative self talk and the inability to start.

An Exercise

By looking at our fears and past creative u-turns, we can identify what patterns are showing up and keeping us blocked in a new project!
- What fear (resistance) is coming up?
- What resentment (anger) is surfacing?
- What do you gain from not doing this project?
- Write your agreement with the Universe: You take care of the quality, I'll take care of the quantity"

I would love for you to share on the podcast your experiences with this series and how creativity and spirituality have been shifting your life and perspective. Reach out if you'd like to be featured in an episode!

The tasks for Week 9 were:

1. Read your morning pages. What have you been complaining about? What insights are helpful? Feel proud that you've done the work and don't judge what is on the page.

2. Visualizing. Put yourself in the present tense with your dream or goal. Read it out loud. Put photos of yourself in your dream collage to make it feel more accessible.

3. Creative Goals. List your creative goals for the year, month and week.

4. Creative U-turns. List any you can remember from the past and focus on the one you're still kicking yourself for! Forgive yourself and consider if any of them can be completed or taken in a different direction. 

5. Artist Symbol: Choose something you have a fondness for - stuffed animal, figurine - and give it a place of honour where you can see it. When you are being hard on yourself, look at it and talk to yourself like you would talk to that sweet object.

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