THE ARTIST’S WAY: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron is a must-read! I prefer the bundle set of the book along with the morning pages journal. 

This book is an incredible way to discover and reconnect with your creative self. It is for anyone interested in living more creatively through practicing an art. The basic premise is that you read one chapter and then work on all the things within the chapter before moving on. While you are doing that; you also have your daily morning pages (stream of consciousness journal) and your artist date. The artist date is where you take yourself out once a week solo for at least an hour. 

My favorite excerpts from the book are: 

In choosing, we often resist what we most need.

We ourselves are the substance we withdraw to, not from, as we pull our overextended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core. 

All the angry, petty, whiny stuff that you write down in the morning stands between you and your creativity.

The morning pages are non-negotiable. They get us beyond our censor. The pages may not seem spiritual or even meditative- more like negative and materialistic, actually- but they are a valid form of meditation that gives us insight and helps us effect change in our lives. 

Logic brain is the categorical brain. It thinks in neat, linear fashion. It works on known principles. It is the brain we usually listen to, especially when we are telling ourselves to be sensible. Our artist brain is our inventor, our child, our very own personal absent-minded professor. It is out creative, holistic brain.

The pages are a pathway to a strong and clear sense of self. By doing the morning pages, you are sending-notifying yourself and the universe of your dreams, dissatisfactions, hopes. Doing your artist date, you are receiving- opening yourself to insight, inspiration, guidance. The artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you, your inner artist aka your creative child. 

The morning pages acquaint us with what we think and what we think we need. We identify problem areas and concerns. We complain, enumerate, identify, isolate, fret. 

A weekly artist date is remarkably threatening- and remarkably productive. Your artist needs to be taken out, pampered, and listened to. It is the time commitment that is sacred. Spending time in solitude with your artist child is essential to self-nurturing. Commit yourself to a weekly artist date, and then watch your killjoy side try to wriggle out of it. 

You are likely to find yourself avoiding your artist dates. This resistance is a fear of intimacy- self intimacy. 

Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way. 

Core negatives come to us from our parents, our religion, our culture, and our fearful friends. 

Make your own recovery the first priority in your life. 

The essential element in nurturing our creativity lies in nurturing ourselves.

When people don’t want to see something, they get mad at the one who shows them.

Adults who grew up in dysfunctional homes learn to use this coping device of detachment very well. It is actually a numbing out. A lifetime of this kind of experience, in which needs for recognition are routinely dishonored, teaches a young child that putting anything out for attention is a dangerous act. 

Shame is retriggered in us as adults because our internal artist is always our creative child.

The antidote for shame is self-love and self-praise. 

Kriya- is a Sanskrit word meaning a spiritual emergency or surrender. We all know what kriya looks like: it is a bad case of the flu right after you’ve broken up with your lover. In 12 step groups kriyas are often called Surrenders.

YOU ARE YOUR OWN PROMISED LAND.

One of the clearest signals that something healthy is afoot is the impulse to weed out, sort through, and discard old clothes, papers, and belongings.  By tossing out the old and unworkable, we make way for the new and suitable. When the search and discard impulse seizes you, two crosscurrents are at work: the old you is leaving and grieving, while the new you celebrates and grows strong. 

Your old life has crashed and burned; your new life isn’t apparent yet. 

Once we engage in the process of Morning Pages and Artist Dates, we begin to move at such velocity that we do not even realize the pace. 

What you have been doing is wiping the mirror. Each day’s morning pages take a swipe at the blur you have kept between you and your real self. 

THE Snowflake pattern of your soul is emerging. 

Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool-and a very frightening one. For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own. 

We expect our artist to be able to function without giving it what it needs to do so. An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. An artist requires the healing of time alone. Without this period of recharging, our artist becomes depleted. 

What we really want is to be left alone. When we can’t get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves. Our true self then has gone to the ground. What’s left is a shell of our whole self. it stays because it is caught. Like a listless circus animal prodded into performing, it does its tricks. It goes through its routine. It earns it’s applause. But all of the hoopla falls on deaf ears. We are dead to it. Our artist is not merely out of sorts. Our artist has checked out. Our life is now an out of body experience. We’re gone. A clinician might call it dissociating. I call it leaving the scene of the crime. Our creative self no longer trusts us. Why should it? We sold it out. 

 

What gives us true joy? For the cost of a pint of raspberries, she buys herself an experience of abundance. It can be as simple as a container of raspberries. They cost $1.98 to $4.50 depending on the season. I always tell myself they are too expensive, but the truth is that’s a bargain for a week of luxury. It’s less than a movie. Less than a deluxe cheeseburger. I guess it’s just more than I thought I was worth. 

 

For many blocked creatives, it takes a little work to even imagine ourselves having luxury. Luxury is a learned practice for most of us. Blocked creatives are often the Cinderellas of the World. Focus on others at the expense of ourselves, we may even be threatened by the idea of spoiling ourselves for once. 

Creative living requires a luxury of space for ourselves, even if all we manage to carve out is one special bookshelf and a windowsill that is ours. Remember that your artist is a youngster and youngsters like things that are “mine”.  My chair. My book. My pillow. 

Much of what we do in a creative recovery may seem silly. Silly is a defense our Wet Blanket adult uses to squelch our artist child.

Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. 

Creativity is God energy flowing through us. 

Saying no can be the ultimate self-care. 

To kill your dreams because they are irresponsible is to be irresponsible to yourself.

Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. 

Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before. It is the inner commitment to be true to ourselves and follow our dreams that triggers the support of the universe. Once we trigger an internal yes by affirming our truest goals and desires, the universe mirrors that yes and expands it. 

Creativity begins in darkness. Bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary.

If you would like to get this book for yourself click here.

 

 

 

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