SPOILER ALERT: If you want to do The Artist’s Way, start here before reading this post.

The end is always the beginning. We say this all the time in our Hopeful World classes. The end of one thing, the beginning of another. So here we are at the end of The Artist’s Way! I really didn’t plan to have it coincide with Passover AND Easter! What is the cosmic significance of that?! Emancipation and resurrection!!! A little synchronicity right here on the blog, friends!

Recovering a Sense of Faith

What’s funny is that I didn’t realize I had lost my faith but upon reflection I think I did. Around this same time last year, I was really committed to swimming upstream and doing things I had no business doing for the sake of doing something “important.”

A couple of weeks ago, I sat across the table from Danielle and cried. I couldn’t help it. As much as I generally and genuinely want to put on a happy face for the world this process of exposing myself and my art every day has required all my courage. I have to battle that inner voice that says, Oh puleeeease, you’re not starving or in danger of being gunned down by warlords. You’re drawing! And another thing… YOU’RE DRAWING!!!

I told Danielle that for the first time (maybe ever), I feel the wobbliness of being really vulnerable—not hiding behind Suzanne who is supporting moms in the so very important role of birthing and raising our future or Jen, who is creating a whole new Hopeful World! Their “bliss” surely are more worthy of attention. And Danielle reminded me that what I’m doing (yes, drawing!) is important in a different way and showing my kids what courage looks like.

How apropos, seeing as it was my daughter who inspired me to get to this point. She’s always saying, “My mom is an artist.” I finally heard it. I finally saw what she saw, mirrored back to me. And I was scared… because what is an artist that doesn’t make art? How can I expect my children to claim themselves if I couldn’t?

The clarity and wisdom of my 13 year old (who seven years ago picked the name “Faith” as her online persona), the quiet persistence of my elders, and the encouragement of my friends—all of these got me here, to the last chapter of The Artist’s Way in 2015.

What’s different? What do I know now after this 12-week journey? To be honest, I was kind of expecting a big reveal, like on the home makeover shows… when the homeowner comes back and discovers something she never ever expected was possible!!! And yet, it’s still her stuff in the room—minus a few things and plus a few things and put together in a way she didn’t think of before. What did my “person makeover” reveal?

So simple: I’m an artist. I always have been. But now I make art. Every. Day.

That’s what it means to be an artist: make art—good art, bad art, art that people love, art that people buy, art that people don’t care for, art that no one sees—it makes no difference. My job is to make it. That is enough. It seems so simple and yet, not so easy.

Julia’s parting thoughts in The Artist’s Way are on Sacred Circles—of creating a community that nurtures creativity and art. We all need a tribe.

The End is the Beginning

So again, a synchronicity. Without knowing what was coming in Chapter 12, I had the urge to start a monthly art giveaway for members of my tribe. The first Share Sunday is tomorrow, Easter/Passover Sunday!

Also this month, we’ll begin the Artist’s Sketch series. I’m inviting other artists to share their thoughts on creativity and the artist’s life, in short form. Not an hour-long audio or 30-minute video or 200-page memoir. Just a “sketch”— a 5-question Q&A that can be taken in like a warm and welcome cup of tea.

Please Join Me

Please join me in creating a Sacred Circle right here on the blog. If this feels like nectar to you, I invite you to be part of it. Sign up for your monthly gift of art AND a heads up of each Artist’s Sketch as they happen.

First Name:

Email:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your presence here holds me up and means the world.

The Artist’s Way Posts

Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety
Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity
Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power
Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity
Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance
Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection
Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength
Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion
Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection
Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith

Keep going! Only 3 more chapters to go… which will mark the very first time I’ve made it all the way through The Artist’s Way. We can totally do this!

DON’T TURN BACK NOW! That’s the main gist of Chapter 9, actually. Julia shares lots of stories of people who consciously (or unconsciously) sabotage their creative lives. There are all sorts of ways that fear can start to undermine what we’re doing. It can present itself in different forms but when it comes down to it, it’s just plain ol’ fear. I’ve totally felt it… during Chapter 7, during Chapter 8 and now. This is the part where Coehlo’s “Beginner’s Luck” starts to run out and you are running and running and thinking omg, what was I thinking? There’s no end to this. I should just go back over there to my cozy little box and screw this Hero’s Journey nonsense! That’s for the movies! The real deal is way to hard, long, scary.

Stick with it.

Speaking of Hero’s Journey, there’s actually a part of that cycle that’s called Crossing the First Threshold. Perhaps this is it, the time when you meet some resistance that tests your commitment to the transformation you wished for. It’s when the universe tests you, saying Are you for real? If you’re for real, you’ll keep going.

Keep going!

I’m going to keep going. I hope you will to.

p.s. Wait. Where’s the compassion part? It’s in calling a spade a spade… you’re NOT lazy or unfocused or not committed or whatever judgements you are throwing at yourself right now about your artistic/creative life. You’re AFRAID! Call it what it is: FEAR. Name your fears, bring them into the light, love them and KEEP GOING! 😀 You’ve got this.

She says. To herself.

“Pray to catch the bus then run as fast as you can.”

Creativity is a spiritual issue. This.
This here, my friends, is the crux of Chapter 5. And probably why I’m having all sorts of issues writing about it. The title of the chapter is Recovering a Sense of Possibility and that is tied up with all sorts of other things like worthiness and propriety and faith….

This may be where I throw in the towel and say, yeah, you should go buy the book because I’m not going to come close to doing it justice. I’ll do my best.

I supposed there’s no way to write about creativity without reference to the Creator–with a capital C. Perhaps you know this feeling too when you are writing, singing, painting, dancing—of not being the only one it the room. According to Julia, this is where our sense of possibility comes from, the belief that we are not limited by our own abilities. Through our connection to Source, we are truly unlimited! Our job is to tap into that river of possibility.

In order for me to recover this sense of possibility, I have to accept that I have access to this unlimited supply, just like you or anyone else does. Any limitations I have are based on a belief system of scarcity and lack that I’ve inherited or learned. This, Julia says, is not natural and not real.

But I do get some kind of secondary benefit(s) from maintaining this belief system. So the task of this chapter is to unearth the ways I sabotage myself to stay stuck. Hmmmm.

If I stay stuck then…
I suppose I wouldn’t have to put my art out there and have it be rejected.
I wouldn’t have to turn my art into work.
I wouldn’t have to take this thing that I loved and “produce it” to death (as Ira Glass says).
I would have to be a grown-up artist, whatever that is.
I might have to embrace an artist’s life, and you know I had/have all those ideas about what that is.
I also might have to give up some stuff… like acceptance and belonging. Whut?

Our culture puts a lot of value in being nice, good, unselfish, helpful. We give up so much of ourselves, our energy, our time just so that we can be perceived by our spouses, children, co-workers and parents as… those things. But at what cost? If we are not conscious of it, at the cost of our art and that true self of ours. I guess that’s why so many artists are known for being curmudgeony hermits! This is all in the book, I swear.

So if I were to pretend for a minute that I’m NOT nice or good but rather selfish and unhelpful, what would I do?

These are the questions Julia asks of us. If you are doing this, speed write your answers — quickly, answer as fast as you can, no editing allowed!

• What are five things I would try if they weren’t so crazy?
• What are five things I would do if they weren’t too selfish?
• What are 5 things I love and would love to do but am not allowed to do.

And, finish this sentence…. 20 times!

I wish ___________________________________________

This list of “forbidden joys” is your true self talking. Is it surprising? Julia says she’s astonished at how mean and miserly her students are to themselves!!!

So by doing stuff like writing down wish lists down and entertaining possibilities (yes, daydreaming) Julia says we begin to reconnect with Source and thus, creativity. I know, I keep saying “Julia says” because in all honestly, I’m a work in progress on this. I am a teeter totter, going from extremes of faith and doubt.

The only thing I seem to do consistently is just show up: writing, drawing, making.

“Pray to catch the bus then run as fast as you can.” I can do that. This is, after all, my theme word for 2015: Craft.

I can keep running.
When the bus shows up, I’m always a little surprised. 🙂

The Artist’s Way Posts

Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety
Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity
Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power
Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity
Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance
Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection
Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength
Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion
Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection
Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith

Officially, the chapter’s title is “Recovering a Sense of Integrity.” But for me, this is where things start getting real. First off, SPOILER ALERT! This is the chapter where Julia reveals something kinda important. So if you haven’t been following along and doing your morning pages, artist’s date and chapter tasks, you might want to STOP HERE, turn around and go back to Chapter One or wherever you left off. I say this because I’m not sure if finding out this key piece of information without doing the exercises up to this point will ruin it’s effectiveness. Okay?

You’ve been warned. Proceed at your own risk.

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life” ~ Chekhov

That seems to be the theme of Chapter 4. Julia adds this juicy morsel to that, “In order to have self expression, we must first have a self to express.”

So here’s the spoiler, folks. The you that’s been showing up every day in your morning pages, that’s the real you. Yup, the whiny, complainy, angry, irritated one? That’s you.

The one that puts a smile on and says, Everything’s fine; the accepting, nice, tolerant self is just the self you put on for show.

But if you knew that piece of info to begin with and were instructed to write down your real feelings in your morning pages, rather than getting, Whatevs. Just write down whatever pops in your head, no biggie, you’d be editing yourself there too. So Julia comes at this sideways, trying to sidestep our mental editor into revealing ourselves to ourselves. Make sense?

The point of the morning pages is to get us passed It’s okay, when it’s really not. And you know those days when you just don’t want to do them or just don’t do them at all, it’s probably because if you did, you’d gain some unpleasant piece of clarity about yourself. If you’re like me, when you are emotionally triggered by anything at all, you’re not going to want to do the morning pages. I try rationalizing my evasive maneuvers — I’m running late, it’s too cold, it’s too early — by telling myself that wallowing in whatever crap I’m feeling is just going to make it worse anyway. But the truth is that writing all of it down, unedited, is one of the best way to process and then reflect on what’s going on in my internal world.

Here’s the kicker for all of us artists. If we don’t connect with our emotions, there is no art.

Sorry, folks. It’s the truth. I spent the first 36 years of my life convincing myself that everything was okay because I didn’t want to feel any discomfort, pain or suffering. That’s all well and good except that when you block out all that stuff, you don’t feel anything at all. You don’t feel love, joy, connection…. and then life is what? Just sleeping, eating and laundry.

Remember my earlier post about my false beliefs about artists. You don’t have to suffer to be an artist. But you do have to feel something. And that, requires feeling whatever suffering comes along with the other stuff. If you’ve ever watched Finding Nemo, one of my favorite lines is where Nemo’s dad says, “I promised him that I would never let anything happen to him.” And Dori says, “That’s a funny thing to promise. Then nothing will ever happen to him.”

On the plus side, when I consistently do my morning pages, I don’t just get the problems, I usually get clarity and I get answers too. Again, there are lots of people who subscribe to this method of raising self-consciousness. One of my favorites is Janet Conner, author of Writing Down Your Soul.

Now you see why I say everything starts getting real right here in Chapter 4? Thoughts might start to appear in morning pages like “I have outgrown this job/home/marriage/friend.” Eek.

Julia says the process of knowing ourselves involves loss as well as gain. We clarify what of ourselves is real and what is illusory… and this kind of clarity creates change. Does that sound scary to you? That’s okay. I mean, it’s okay to admit that you’re scared of it, you don’t have to say that it’s okay. 🙂

I have no reassurances to offer except that if you keep going, the prize at the end is YOU. For some people, that’s worth it.

Chapter 4’s task: Reading Deprivation. Another eek! I know, right?

Julia says words are like tiny tranquilizers for most artists. If we give up reading, we force ourselves into the sensory world. Another way to think about it is to get out of your head! Reading is a great way to fill our heads with other people’s thoughts so that we can avoid our own thoughts and feelings. So. NO READING! The book was written before the internet (I know!!!) So that means… no Twitter, no Facebook, no Medium. And if the point is to be fully present, I’m making the assumption that this means no media as well.

You can be scared.

Of course, I’m also doing a 5-day cleanse right now. No food, no reading. What the heck will I do with myself?!?!?! Julia has some suggestions:
Listen to music
Wash the dog
Sort closets
Write friends
Repot plants
Pay bills

Okay, I’m sure we can come up with better suggestions!!! Mend. She actually suggests “mend.”
Sorry, I’m a little crabby, I’m at the end of Day 2 of 5.

Check in if you wish… how many days have you done your morning pages? Artist’s date? Any experiences of synchronicity to report

I’ll signing off the blog until next week’s check-in… since you won’t be READING until next week, right? 🙂

The Artist’s Way Posts

Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety
Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity
Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power
Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity
Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance
Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection
Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength
Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion
Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection
Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith

In Chapter Two, one of Julia’s “tasks” is to make one small change.

As much crazy as I’ve created in the last six years, I’ve also very deliberately and consciously created a lot of joy, personal fulfillment and true aliveness. This, I also attribute to boundaries. If you are interested in this conscious creation stuff, I highly recommend the book, The Not So Big Life by Sara Susanka. When I was blogging for My Mommy Manual I got a chance to do a skype interview with Sara. This book was pivotal in my life design. Sara is an architect and is credited for the Not So Big movement in house design. Her whole premise is that we don’t need McMansions, we need spaces that fit our lives. Of course, this requires that we know what’s important to us. She wrote the Not So Big Life in response to understanding that your inner space, ideally is reflected in our outer spaces.

I’m not going to go into that book here but just as an example, I’ll share one of Sara’s anecdotes from the book. Sara loves writing (obviously). But prior to her life overhaul she would spent 14 hours working and in the fading moments of the day, sit down to write. Her passion wasn’t getting the best Sara, but rather , the dregs.. What she did getting her best attention was the flood of emails that would come into her inbox first thing in the morning. Only when she had responded to all of the fires could she begin her work day and on and on until right before bed when she could barely squeek out a few sentences.

I can’t recall how she got to this point, whether she made a list of her priorities, passions, etc. but she made a small adjustment to her daily schedule: instead of checking her emails first thing, she checked them twice a day, at 10 and 4 and devoted the first hour or so of her day to writing instead. Doing the thing she loved first thing meant 1) it got done and 2) to her surprise, she discovered that most of the fires that came to her via email resolved themselves before she ever got to them!

Now that is an everyday miracle right there! For me, it was a tangible example for how making a small change that aligns yourself with your values can make a HUGE DIFFERENCE.

So my “small” change was cutting out television. Small is in quotes because I cannot tell you what a profound impact that had on me. 1) I didn’t have to pay for cable 2) my kids stopped fighting over what shows to watch after school 3) I found hours upon hours in my day/week and 4) without all those ads, I was clueless about the things I was supposed to want but didn’t have yet 5) I was so much less stressed out by not watching LOST and Law & Order.

Okay. Your turn. Can you think of one small adjustment you can make in your life that will align yourself with your values/passions/creative life?

Affirmations. Yes, that is what people call those things I wrote in Monday’s post — the things we use to defend against our negative beliefs. Perhaps you’ve used affirmations before and maybe they make you think of Stuart Smalley but there’s actually something about affirmations and how our brains work that make them pretty darn powerful.

In preparation for a class I teach, I did a bunch of research on the science of storytelling. I could go into a whole long thing but I did that in the last post. Haha!

To quote the great post-modern Stephen Sondheim in Into the Woods “Careful the tale you tell. That is the spell.” 

So as you write your affirmations, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
• Write them in the present tense… I am, I have, etc. rather than I want, I will etc.
• Write them in the positive... I am abundant, I am safe… no hidden negatives like I am not poor, I am not scared etc.

And if you just can’t find the time, I have a little gift for you. I’ve written 10 affirmations that you can just adopt for yourself.

Bonus… let’s have some fun with this!
1. Download the PDF of affirmations here. I left lots of blank spaces so you can fill in your own.
2. Print them out and cult along the dotted lines
3. Roll them into little scrolls and put the scrolls into a bowl.
4. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and pick one!

This will be your affirmation for the rest of the week/chapter. Say it out loud before you do your morning pages. Say it out loud before you go to bed. Put it in your wallet, tape it to your steering wheel or your mirror or your computer monitor, put it above your kitchen sink, on your refrigerator — anywhere you will see it often throughout the day.

The theme for the week is creating a safe place for the artist in you to come out and play.

I am going to ease into this process myself and stick to the very basic tasks. Of course, feel free to do more. This is go-at-your-own-pace-choose-your-own-adventure experience. Remember? You can’t mess this up as long as you do it. You can do it!

The important action item for this chapter is protecting the artist you are so that your early efforts are encouraged. Julia says judging these early artistic efforts is artist abuse! So NO JUDGEY! Go gently and slowly. Find an encouraging and accepting audience, if any at all.

Chapter One Debrief
Chapter one explores safety and fear. Julia starts off sharing various stories of “shadow artists,” people she knows who were too afraid to pursue their art because they did not receive the proper encouragement so instead become art collectors or art teachers or art therapists or who marry/date artists. Shadow artists go into advertising, become illustrator/photography reps etc. etc. etc.

Often, we block an aspect of ourselves because it feels safer. This is very true for me. I was one of those people. I’ve been in advertising and marketing for the last 20 years! ;P Conversely, that must mean that being/becoming an artist felt unsafe to me for some reason.

My morning pages and reflecting on this really helped me to identify the negative ideas/beliefs I have had about artists. It was a mystery to me since I was one of the fortunate ones. I had a family that actually celebrated my art! My grandmother enrolled me in art classes all summer long all through my childhood. I had a great art teacher at my elementary school. My family really wanted me to get my MFA and were kinda disappointed (I think) that I decided to go into advertising instead. My aunt was the one who gave me The Artist’s Way all those years ago. So in my case, the problem was not my family and friends.

I discovered that my negative beliefs about artists came from art school! Here’s what I “learned” in art school:
artists are weird
artists don’t have ordinary lives
artists have to suffer to make art worth making
artists are poor

Let me paint the picture for you (pun intended). My painting instructor was Ed Paschke. One of my T.A.’s was Audrey Niffeneger. They are both totally weird! And I say that with the deepest respect, considering that Ed was the first living artist to have a retrospective at The Art Institute of Chicago. And Audrey… she did write a NYT bestseller that was made into a movie. Also, I’m pretty sure that they both would wear “weird” like a badge of honor!

There was that. And then there was the graduate student in my program who was so brilliant and amazing and I wanted to be just like him until I found out he was homeless and bathed himself in the sink in his studio.

So it was a math problem:
A = artists are weird/crazy/unstable
B = i don’t want to be weird and/or unstable
A + B = i am NOT an artist

Considering I had organized my entire life around becoming as normal as possible and around the avoidance of suffering (I know, crazy me), becoming an artist did not feel good to me.

So. Advertising.

What’s happened? What changed since then?
Time.
I aged… I grew up, might be a kinder way to say it.
20 years happened.
And marriage, kids, divorce.
People I loved died.
You know, life!

But seriously, I spent up until my mid-30’s doing the “normal” thing and that didn’t really work out so well. I’ve spent the last six or so years licking my wounds and reclaiming all the weird things about myself that, as it turns out, makes me who I am. I started hanging out with amazing artists like Jen and Sharon and Janet. I did a lot of soul searching, meditating, etc. etc. and I discovered that just as we are our own worst enemies, we can also be our own best allies.

All those negative beliefs have corresponding positive beliefs that I could just as easily adopt…
artists are weird artists are unique and magical
artists don’t have ordinary lives artists have extraordinary lives
artists have to suffer to make art worth making life will have suffering. artists transmute suffering into expressions of humanity.
artists are poor artists are rich in everything that makes it possible for my soul to breathe.

Sorry that this debriefing became the brief synopsis of my life. But I thought it might help if I shared my process through the chapter. Perhaps it will help you ponder similarly…

What am I afraid of? Why?
Where did I get these negative ideas/beliefs about art?
Can I hold a different possibility, even if only for today?

Here are the prompts for this week. Feel free to share your discoveries in the comments below for the rest of the week… or not.

So happy you’re reading this right now.
Happy MLK Jr. Day and…
Til next time, stay wild and and weird,
🙂
R

The Artist’s Way Posts

Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety
Week 2: Recovering a Sense of Identity
Week 3: Recovering a Sense of Power
Week 4: Recovering a Sense of Integrity
Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance
Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection
Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength
Week 9: Recovering a Sense of Compassion
Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection
Week 11: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith

So if “seminal work on the subject of creativity” sounds a little intimidating to you, no worries. I’m doing The Artist’s Way, light. Book optional.

I firmly believe that on the matter of creativity (and art), our path is our own, which can be a comfort in that there’s no wrong way to do this. BUT, I’ve also found it extremely supportive to find a group of like-minded souls who can hold hands along the way and help me to feel safe during the dips and and turns into dark corners. Your presence would be such a gift.

Just bookmark this blog or subcribe to the posts. I’ll publish a prompt or activity every couple of days beginning on Monday to help keep us on track.

Til soon…
R