The Artist’s Way: Week Seven

Overview:

This week, in “Recovering a Sense of Connection”, we discuss four main topics. These are:

• Listening

  We use morning pages to listen to our thoughts and to hear past our censor. In morning pages, no one is judging us - no one else is reading these pages, so you can literally say anything you want to. Artist dates help us to listen to our intuition - do what feels good, and it helps us listen to the voice of inspiration. Julia Cameron stresses that art is not about thinking something up; rather, it is getting something down. (Remember, done is better than perfect!) She goes on to say that when you experience synchronicities, listen to your gut feeling here; your intuition - this is the voice of the universe speaking to you.

• Perfectionsim

  Julia Cameron says that perfectionism is a closed system that prevents you from moving forward. It crushes originality, and becomes something uniform that lacks passion and spontaneity. Basically, using perfectionism is a way to tell ourselves that we’ll never be good enough, and so we hold ourselves back.

• Risk

  We’re scared of creating because we want to be the best that we can be. (Hence, our use of perfectionism above, but what we don’t realize is that not taking risks holds us back). Taking risks asks a lot of us, but expands our sense of accomplishment and makes us feel like we can do anything.

• Jelousy

  We limit our perspective when we feel jealousy. Usually it’s an emotion that we can’t initially stop, but we can curb our reactions to it. For example, if someone else creates a work of art and gets rewarded for it, their way doesn’t mean it’s the best way. In reality your originality is the way forward.

Thoughts:

I am a big believer in listening to my intuition. It can sometimes be a voice in my head, but usually it’s a feeling that begins in my gut. Perfectionism is the death of creativity. An example of this that I experienced recently was in a planning session. I was attempting to lay down a sticker and for some reason, I couldn’t get it down straight. After ten minutes passed, I realized not only was I wasting valuable time, I was also wasting that time that I could be thinking of other ways of being creative and decorating my planner pages. The last thought I had on this topic this week was about trusting in the process. Whether I’m creating an art piece, or doing my makeup, at first it might appear crazy or not make sense. But at the end, everything comes together and it looks beautiful. It’s all about trusting in the process and having faith that everything will turn out okay in the end.

Morning Pages

My experience:

I’ve sincerely been enjoying morning pages with each week I progress. I truly believe that I’ve created a life long habit. Sometimes I do get frustrated (especially on weekends) when I sleep in. If I’m not in utter quiet, I cannot focus and morning pages take forever! I’m talking when my kids, or other people are with me, I can’t think at all, and sometimes morning pages have taken me literal hours. It still doesn’t take away the pleasurable factor for me though. This practice is something that I won’t be able to live without.

Artist Date

My experience:

I finally did an artist date this week! I practiced singing some songs that were new to me. I do feel a little guilty about it, because maybe I feel that singing and dancing aren’t the type of creative tasks I should be doing. But, they did take me away from work. Although I was doing it to be able to sing a new song at karaoke, I had immense fun. The only thing I did that was “against the rules” was allowed my two younger children to participate - I sang and we had a dance party in our living room.

Tasks

My Experience:

I completed six out of the ten tasks this week. I used my hand lettering skills to letter one of the mantras I repeatedly read over this week. It felt good to add that creative touch to the work. Also, I find listening to the birds in the early morning hours brings me a lot of joy - although they actually don’t start singing until about 6am, and I get up at 5am.

Conclusion

I felt like this was a successful week. The chapter, although a bit short, made sense to me. Perfectionism for example is something that I see all the time in my line of work - especially from other content creators online. I do tend to believe we should always put our best foot forward. I hold by the mantra that something worth doing is worth doing well, otherwise you shouldn’t give it your time or attention.

I’ve been on the lookout for synchronicities which I also envision as seeing signs from the universe. The only way in which I know how to interpret these signs is with my intuition. I always used to ask myself how would I know if it was a sign or a coincidence, and I’ve learned pretty quickly in my spiritual growth that there is no such thing as coincidences. We just need to pay attention, and understand that things are meant to happen for a reason. Remember, if one door closes, this means that the universe is gently guiding you in the direction of another open door.

Thanks for reading and we’ll see you again next week at the end of Week 8!

❤️Sandra