Artist's Way - Recovering A Sense of Safety

Week #1

Last week I restarted the 12-weeks journey with Julia Cameron’s transformative book ‘The Artist’s Way’, which is a powerful aid for creative recovery.

My first serious attempt at following through the book earlier this year from January to May was quite a transformative experience. I felt the need to up the rigour and complete the journey this time. Amongst the accountability frameworks I have created this time around, I am adding this weekly reflection post too. So, expect the next 12 editions of this newsletter to feature my Artist's Way journey with my friends too. :)

Julia Cameron mentions the process of Artist's Way as a Spiritual Chiropractic. We undertake certain spiritual exercises to achieve alignment with the creative energy of the Universe. One of the chief changes to look out for in this process is synchronicity, i.e, as we change the Universe furthers and expands that change. Carl Jung calls synchronicity as 'meaningful coincidences'.

Many of us squander away our creative energies by investing disproportionately in the lives, hopes, dreams, and plans of others. However, as we practice true abhyāsa, i.e., a movement towards one's own true self, we become more empowered to articulate our own boundaries, dreams, and authentic goals. This will be experienced in an enhanced personal flexibility and reduction in our malleability to others' whims and fantasies. In short, a heightened sense of autonomy and possibility.

Part of this creative recovery process is also taking time to mourn the suicide of the "nice" self we have been making do with. Encountering this personal grief is part of the journey. Julia says our tears moisten the otherwise barrenj ground and prepares us for the future growth. As I entered the first week of the Artist's Way journey, I faced this immense grief along with other magical serendipities.

Practices

Morning pages, the three full pages of stream of consciousness writing first thing in the morning, became a safe space for the grief to pour out and transform into the divine discontent, one with a potential for transformation. Artist's Date, the weekly 2 hours time set aside to nurture my creative consciousness and the inner artist, replenished the self with the luxury of time and creative joy.

Affirmations

Working with mapping the negative affirmations and designing creative affirmations was an intense experience. Mapping my 'Monster Hall of Fame' surfaced the voices of those whose negative affirmations impacted and shaped some of my belief systems. Making a cartoon of some of them helped ease the intensity.

I also realised I held a deep seated bias against the idea of affirmations. Somewhere it felt like a fakery. I got to unlearn and re-engage with this modality anew with an open mind. And I'm glad I did! Working with some of the negative affirmations and framing the creative affirmations also brought forth the 'Blurts' or the Judge voice that I had internalised from different people who influenced me over time. It was a painful and intense experience to document the blurts.

I could discover the power of safety and hope that affirmations can invoke in oneself.

Shadow Artist

I could identify the ways in which the self-doubt and insecurity of the child artist in me started showed up as a shadow artist in different spaces and contexts in the past. Shadow artists choose shadow careers - those close to the desired art, even parallel to it, but not the art itself. In my case, I remembered the decade when I didn't feel confident to leave the tech world but actively pursued different healing modalities ranging from counseling to NLP to energy healing. Luckily and with grace, I also acknowledge at some point I owned the courage to pursue a path with a heart and took the plunge to actively pursue a career in working with people and organisations seeking to heal and transform. I really resonated with Julia's statement, "Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist."

Nurturing the Artist Child Within

I also grieved the times I missed nurturing the Artist Child in me. This showed up in the ways I was being self-critical of my own creative endeavours comparing my beginner's work against the masterworks of veterans in the field. "Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.", says Julia. And "in order to recover as an artist, you need to be willing to be a bad artist." These statements hit home hard!

Champions

Working with the statements of those who championed me whole heartedly brought a healing touch and joy to this week's explorations. I was filled with immense gratitude for SO many teachers, friends, mentors, and family members who saw potential in me which I didn't see many times for myself. I could see how those words, intents, and prayers moved me through phases that were challenging and gruelling over these years.

Serendipity

I don't wish to disclose the serendipities that happened this week. But suffice to say that it has been magical! I'm staying with the magic of it all as I type these words. Awe and wonder define my feeling space now.

And, thus, with a renewed sense of safety and hope, I enter the Week 2 of the Artist's Way journey!