Week # 12 "Recovering a Sense of Faith"

"Remember, there is a creative energy that wants to express itself through you." "Don't judge the work or yourself.” “You can sort it out later." "Let the divine work through you." The theme of this week is “Recovering a Sense of Faith”

Julia writes on page 193, “In this final week, we acknowledge the inherently mysterious spiritual heart of creativity. We address the fact that creativity requires receptivity and profound trust—capacities we have developed through our work in this course. We set our creative aims and take a special look at last-minute sabotage. We renew our commitment to the use of the tools.

Tasks for Week #12 (pages 200 - 201):

1. Write down any resistance, angers, and fears you have about going on from here. We all have them.
2. Take a look at your current areas of procrastination. What are the payoffs in your waiting? Locate the hidden fears. Do a list on paper.
3. Sneak a peek at Week One, Core Negative Beliefs (see page 30.) Laugh. Yes, the nasty critters are still there. Note your progress. Read yourself the affirmations on pages 36 and 37. Write some affirmations about your continued creativity as you end the course.
4. Mend any mending.
5. Repot any pinched and languishing plants.
6. Select a God jar. A what? A jar, a box, a vase, a container. Something to put your fears, your resentments, your hopes, your dreams, your worries into.
7. Use your God jar. Start with your fear list from Task 1 above. When worried, remind yourself it’s in the jar—“God’s got it.” Then take the next action.
8. Now, check how: Honestly, what would you most like to create? Open-minded, what oddball paths would you dare to try? Willing, what appearances are you willing to shed to pursue your dream?
9. List five people you can talk to about your dreams and with whom you feel supported to dream and then plan.
10. Reread this book. Share it with a friend. Remember that the miracle is one artist sharing with another. Trust God Trust yourself.

Good luck and God bless you!

Help to create as well as to benefit from the group energy.Go to our new bulletin board at http://www.phpbbforfree.com/forums/theartistsway.html and share your "The Artist's Way" experiences, successes, thoughts, difficulties and/or questions.Also please e-mail me any ideas and/or suggestions you might have for improving this blog. The intention here is to support each other and as Julia says to "build a sacred circle of believing mirrors to potentiate each other's growth, to mirror a "yes" to each other's creativity."

Week #11 "Recovering a Sense of Autonomy"

"Remember, there is a creative energy that wants to express itself through you." "Don't judge the work or yourself.” “You can sort it out later." "Let the divine work through you."

The theme of this week is “Recovering a Sense of Autonomy”. Julia writes on page 179, “This week we focus on our artistic autonomy. We examine the ongoing ways in which we must nurture and accept ourselves as artists. We explore the behaviors that can strengthen our spiritual base and, therefore, our creative power. We take a special look at the ways in which success must be handled in order that we not sabotage our freedom.

Tasks for Week #11 (pages 190 - 191):

1. Tape your own voice reading the Basic Principles. (See page 3). Choose a favorite essay from this book and tape that as well. Use this tape for meditation.
2. Write out, in longhand, your Artist’s Prayer from Week Four. Place it in your wallet.
3. Buy yourself a special creativity notebook. Number pages one through seven. Give one page each to the following categories: health, possessions, leisure, relationships, creativity, career, and spirituality. With no thought as to practicality, list ten wishes in each area. All right, it’s a lot. Let yourself dream a little here.
4. Working with the Honest Changes section in Week Four, inventory for yourself the ways you have changed since beginning your recovery.
5. List five ways you will change as you continue.
6. List five ways you plan to nurture yourself in the next six months: courses you will take, supplies you will allow yourself, artist’s dates, and vacations just for you.
7. Take out a piece of paper and plan one week’s nurturing for yourself. This means one concrete, loving action every single day for one week: please binge!
8. Write and mail an encouraging letter to your inner artist. This sounds silly and feels very, very good to receive. Remember that your artist is a child and love praise and encouragement and festive plans.
9. Once more, reexamine your God concept. Does your belief system limit or support your creative expansion? Are you open minded about altering your concept of God?
10. List ten examples of personal synchronicity that support the possibility of nurturing creative force.

Help to create as well as to benefit from the group energy.Go to our new bulletin board at http://www.phpbbforfree.com/forums/theartistsway.html and share your "The Artist's Way" experiences, successes, thoughts, difficulties and/or questions.Also please e-mail me any ideas and/or suggestions you might have for improving this blog.
The intention here is to support each other and as Julia says to "build a sacred circle of believing mirrors to potentiate each other's growth, to mirror a "yes" to each other's creativity."

Week #10 "Recovering a Sense of Self-Proteciton"

"Remember, there is a creative energy that wants to express itself through you." "Don't judge the work or yourself.” “You can sort it out later." "Let the divine work through you." The theme of this week is “Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection”. Julia writes on page 163, “This week we explore the perils that can ambush us on our creative path. Because creativity is a spiritual issue, many of the perils are spiritual perils. In the essays, tasks, and exercises of this week, we search out the toxic patterns we cling to that block our creative flow.

Tasks for Week #10 (pages 175 - 178):

1. The Deadlies: Take a piece of paper and cut seven small strips from it. On each strip write one of the following words: alcohol, drugs, sex, work, money, food, family/friends. Fold these strips of paper and place them in an envelope. We call these folded slips the deadlies. You’ll see why in a minute. Now draw one of the deadlies from the envelope and write five ways in which it has had a negative impact on your life. (If the one you choose seems difficult or inapplicable to you, consider this resistance.) You will do this seven times, each time putting back the previous slip of paper so that you are always drawing from seven possible choices. Yes, you may draw the same deadly repeatedly. Yes, this may be significant. Very often, it is the last impact on the final list of an annoying “Oh no, not again” that yields a break, through denial, into clarity.
2. Touchstones” Make a quick list of things you love, happiness touchstones for you. River rocks worn smooth, willow trees, cornflowers, chicory, real Italian bread, homemade vegetable soup, the Bo Deans’ music, black beans and rice, the smell of new-mown grass, blue velvet (the cloth and the song), Aunt Minnie’s crumb pie. Post this list where it can console you and remind you of your own personal touchstones. You may want to draw one of the items on your list – or acquire it. If you love blue velvet, get a remnant and use it as a runner on a sideboard or dresser, or tack it to the wall and mount images on it. Play a little.
3. The Awful Truth: Answer the following questions:
Tell the truth. What habit do you have the gets in the way of your creativity?
Tell the truth. What do you think might be a problem? It is.
What do you plan to do about the habit or problem?
What is your payoff in holding on to this block?
If you can’t figure out your payoff, ask a trusted friend.
Tell the truth. Which friends make you doubt yourself? (The self-doubt is yours already, but they trigger it.)
Tell the truth. Which friends believe in you and your talent? (The talent is yours, but they make your feel it.)
Which destructive habits do your destructive friends share with your destructive self?
Which constructive habits do your constructive friends share with your constructive self?
4. Setting a Bottom Line: Working with your answers to the questions above, try setting a bottom line for yourself. Begin with five of your most painful behaviors. You can always add more latter.
If you notice that your evenings are typically gobbled by your boss’s extra assignments, then a rule must come into play: no work after six.
If you wake at six and could write for an hour if you were not interrupted to look for socks and make breakfast and do ironing, the rules might be “No interrupting Mommy before 7:00A.M.”
If you are working too many jobs and too many hours, you may need to look at your billing. Are you pricing yourself appropriately? Do some footwork. What are others in your field receiving? Raise your prices and lower your work load.
Bottom Line:
I will no longer work weekends.
I will no longer bring work with me on social occasions.
I will no longer place my work before my creative commitments. (No more canceling piano lessons or drawing class because to a sudden new deadline from my boss the workaholic.)
I will not longer postpone lovemaking to do late night reading for work.
I will no longer accept business calls at home after six.
5. Cherishing:
List five small victories.
List three nurturing actions you took for your artist.
List three actions you could take to comfort your artist.
Make three nice promises to yourself. Keep them.
Do one lovely thing for yourself each day this week.

Help to create as well as to benefit from the group energy.Go to our new bulletin board at http://www.phpbbforfree.com/forums/theartistsway.html and share your "The Artist's Way" experiences, successes, thoughts, difficulties and/or questions.Also please e-mail me any ideas and/or suggestions you might have for improving this blog.
The intention here is to support each other and as Julia says to "build a sacred circle of believing mirrors to potentiate each other's growth, to mirror a "yes" to each other's creativity."

Week #9 "Recovering a Sense of Compassion"

"Remember, there is a creative energy that wants to express itself through you." "Don't judge the work or yourself.” “You can sort it out later." "Let the divine work through you." The theme of this week is “Recovering a Sense of Compassion”. Julia writes on page 151, “This week finds us facing the internal blocks to creativity. It may be tempting to abandon ship at this point. Don’t! We will explore and acknowledge the emotional difficulties that beset us in the past as we made creative efforts. We will undertake healing the shame of past failures. We will gain in compassion as we reparent the frightened artist child who yearns for creative accomplishment. We will learn tools to dismantle emotional blocks and support renewed risk.

Tasks for Week #9 (pages 160-161):

1. Read your morning pages! This process is best undertaken with two colored markers, one to highlight insights and another to highlight actions needed. Do not judge your pages or yourself. This is very important. Yes, they will be boring. Yes, they may be painful. Consider them a map. Take them as information, not an indictment.
a. Take Stock: Who have you consistently been complaining about? What have you procrastinated on: What blessedly have you allowed yourself to change or accept?
b. Take Heart: Many of us notice an alarming tendency toward black-and white thinking: “He’s terrible. He’s wonderful. I love him. I hate him. It’s a great job. It’s a terrible job,” and so forth. Don’t be thrown by this.
c. Acknowledge: The pages have allowed us to vent without self-destruction, to plan without interference, to complain without an audience, to dream without restriction, to know our own minds. Give yourself credit for undertaking them. Give them credit for the changes and growth they have fostered.
2. Visualizing: You have already done work with naming your goal and identifying true north. The following exercise asks you to fully imagine having your goal accomplished. Please spend enough time to fill in the juicy details that would really make the experience wonderful for you:
Name your goal: I am ___________________________________
In the present tense, describe yourself dong it at the height of your powers! This is your ideal scene.
Read this aloud to yourself.
Post this above your work area.
Read this aloud, daily!
For the next week collect actual pictures of yourself and combine them with magazine images to collage your ideal scene described above. Remember, seeing is believing, and the added visual cue of your real self in your ideal scene can make it far more real.
3. Priorities: List for yourself your creative goals for the year. List for yourself your creative goals for the month. List for yourself your creative goals for the week.
4. Creative U-Turns: All of us have taken creative U-turns. Name one of yours. Name three more. Name the one that just kills you. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for all failures of nerve, timing, and initiative. Devise a personalize list of affirmations to help you do better in the future. Very gently, very gently, consider whether any aborted, abandoned, savaged, or sabotaged brain-children can be rescued. Remember, you are not alone. All of us have taken creative U-turns. Choose one creative U-turn. Retrieve it. Mend it. Do not take a creative U-turn now. Instead, notice your resistance. Morning pages seeming difficult? Stupid? Pointless? Too obvious? Do them anyway. What creative dreams are lurching toward possibility? Admit that they frighten you. Choose an artist totem. It might be a doll, a stuffed animal, a carved figuring, or a wind-up toy. The point is to choose something you immediately feel a protective fondness toward. Give your totem a place of honor and then honor it by not beating up on your artist child.

Help to create as well as to benefit from the group energy.Go to our new bulletin board at http://www.phpbbforfree.com/forums/theartistsway.html and share your "The Artist's Way" experiences, successes, thoughts, difficulties and/or questions.Also please e-mail me any ideas and/or suggestions you might have for improving this blog.
The intention here is to support each other and as Julia says to "build a sacred circle of believing mirrors to potentiate each other's growth, to mirror a "yes" to each other's creativity."