It’s my favourite day of the month, as a 10/10 baby, and today I’ve been listening to the audiofiles I’m editing of FULLY COMMITTED:The Sacred Sojourn of NOW.
While the book and ebook are now available I have postponed the official announcement of its availability because I am putting together an experience for those who wish to support me with the book that transformed my identity in the five plus years it took for me to get it on the market. Details will be available soon, it’s just this past week has been consumed with recording and editing the audioprogram to accommodate those who prefer listening to books than reading them firsthand.
I also attended a court hearing this week with an unexpected bout of excitement that will make for a good story soon, it just all takes time and we’re limited to the 86,400 second lottery we win each day until we don’t.
I’ll share that story after I’ve got the audioprogram completed which is my priority, yet I did commit to weekly summaries of Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” and so I’m fitting that in today too. Given the theme of this week’s message is “Recovering a Sense of Identity” the task was relevant to what I’ve been working on anyway. So let’s dive in.
To listen to the chapter reading (sped up by yours truly with movement to inspire you to move while listening too) click this link here.
GOING SANE: Changing familiar patterns can be a maddening experience and others might not know how to take you because they’re used to the version of you they’re used to.
“There is a recognizable ebb and flow to the process of recovering our creative selves & as we gain strength, so will some of the attacks of self-doubt” that arise when changing (mental) tracks that feel unfamiliar.
The saboteur within will naturally try to undermine and minimize positive changes we make in our lives so we must remember that “buying into the [self-doubt] enables us to remain stuck and victimized… we can neutralize (negativity) once we recognize it as a sort of creative virus.”
“Self-doubt can lure us into self-sabotage” and sharing our progress with blocked artists who can’t relate is an unconscious tool for self-hate. Don’t take the bait.
POISONOUS PLAYMATES: “Your artist, like a small child, is happiest when feeling a sense of (INNER) security” which is why our response-ability is to ensure we only entrust our creative babies to safe companions.
Our recovery threatens blocked creatives who prefer to phantasize and dream than seem to call their vision into reality, through effort and attention, and if they’re struggling with your recovery it’s because they’re still getting a payoff from remaining blocked. They may even be comparing your results with the art they imagine creating and how much better they believe it would be, yet they’re scared to find out if it’s true.
Guilt and accusations of selfishness or ‘being different’ are red-alert signs you are being called back to your old ways for the sake of someone else’s comfort so resist the urge to comply with their insecurities. Julia promises “You will be led to new sources of support as you begin to support yourself” so be careful to safeguard your newly recovering artist from other people’s plans for you.
“As blocked creatives, we focus not on our responsibilities to ourselves, but on our responsibilities to others” and now is our chance to realize that our energy is akin to a well that must be poured back into lest we become frustrated and discontent.
“The best thing you can do for your friends is to be an example through your own recovery. Do not let their fears and second thoughts derail you… your own healing is the greatest message of hope for others.”
CRAZYMAKERS: These charismatic souls love drama and getting others involved to satisfy their (crazy) whims, often with complete disregard for the devastation it creates in the lives of those they claim to care for.
Famous artists often fall into this category because they feed on the life energies of those around them, especially when talented souls “subvert their own talent in the service of the Crazymaking King.”
“The crazymaking dynamic is grounded in power, and so any group of people can function as an energy system to be exploited and drained” which I speak about in FULLY COMMITTED as energy harvesting which is far more common than is currently being discussed.
If we find ourselves in a relationship with a crazymaker we can rest assured we are either crazy ourselves, self-destructive, or both, and need to accept where we’re at so that we can rise above our self-imposed limits we’ve allowed them to impose in our life. Julia says “you are using your own abuser… as a block you chose yourself, to deter you from your own trajectory. As much as you are being exploited by your crazymaker, you, too, are using that person to block your creative flow.”
SKEPTICISM: Julia calls this ‘the secret doubt’ because some part of us doubts that it’s okay for us to be creative.
“Any little bit of experimenting in self-nurturance is very frightening for most of us” Julia writes because she equates the mind to a room that stores our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible and what’s not. She says there is a door to this room that is cracked open so we can see a dazzling light outside with new ideas we consider too far-out for us and so we keep them out there; only familiar ideas are accepted and so we like to keep our world small until we practice expanding our comfort zone; this reflects our self-image and is part of the focus of FULLY COMMITTED.
“Creative recovery is an exercise in open-mindedness” that requires our ATTENTION which is the way we bring ourselves back to the present moment where all of our power to create exists.
“The reward for attention is always healing” because attention is an act of connection and “the pain that underlies all pain is the pain that we are all utterly alone (to quote Rilke, as Julia does).”
Pain is what often teaches us to pay attention to the small things, instead of only noticing or focusing on ‘the big things’ in life that only account for a small percentage of how we use the TEEAM players we play at life with; these being our Time, Energy, Effort, Attention and Money.
Many of the tasks in this chapter are useful exercises to consider and reflect on, but to hear what they are you’ll have to listen to the chapter.
Until next time,
Laura JeH – Namaste
PS. Sun-day Summaries of The Artist’s Way is now hyphenated so the weak-end stretched into this sunny day, to work for me instead of feeling disappointed I didn’t get it up on the intended day… I have learned to be more kind to the artist within and hope you will follow suit with your own.
PPS. I did start writing this blog on Sunday but finished it in the wee hours of the 11th, a number reflective of new beginnings just as I hope this recovery of your inner artist will be for you too 🙂
