The Artist's Way ~ FINAL Check-in Week Twelve ✅
What's The Payoff Holding You Back?
“By trusting, we learn to trust”
Week 12, the whole course now done and dusted, where is the trumpet crescendo and confetti please? Oh well, I shall happily settle for a good cup of tea and a wagon wheel (the jammie kind).
Something fun that happened this week is that I started writing a song. I haven’t written a song in 19 years, but the words started to come and keep coming. I’d love to do something with it but I’m happily incubating it atm.
I also wrote a letter of encouragement and wisdom to my teenage self. I recommend it.
An small excerpt:
“You’re quite lovely, you know that? You’re sparkly and fun and have a deep creative heart. It would really help you to trust others, the right kind of others, like that drama teacher from 1993, remember him? It’s a superpower to be a self-starter but a weakness to not need other people. Don’t isolate yourself, broaden your circle of love. Yes, you’ll open yourself up to more pain but you’ll also gather in more love.”
Week Eleven: Recovering a Sense of Faith
Morning Pages - 7/7
“The experience of creative living argues that hobbies are in fact essential to the joyful life.” Page 196
Takeaways —
Maintain Velocity.
The absolute importance of finding your tribe, gathering to yourself those who get you, who champion you, who allow you to risk and fail and pick you back up again. People who can see more in you than you might see in yourself.
“In order to achieve escape velocity, we must learn to keep our own counsel, to move silently among doubters, to voice our plans only among our allies, and to name our allies accurately.” Page 199
This Course is For Life Not Just Creativity.
I’ve lost count of the instances where the practice of MP has spoken into my present circumstances. In working through my personal struggles I’ve been able to clear my mind (mostly) to see above and onto other projects. The MP have become a key to my personal flourishing.
Remember to pre-jot Questions.
Something I keep forgetting but really benefit from when I do remember, is to jot down any questions during the day ready to revisit and work through in the next day’s MP. How many times do I tell myself I’ll remember that thing and then forget it!
Keep Reaffirming!
Be your own best friend, fire the inner critic or at least constrain it to the basement when it dares raise its ugly little head!
TASKS —
Write down any resistance, angers, and fears you have about going on from here.
That I’ll forget about the impact this has had on me, the progress I’ve made.
I won’t stick with my MP routine.
Anger at the influence and impact of other’s life choices upon my life and how that affects my creativity, ability to think straight, see straight.
That I haven’t gleaned all I could have these past twelve weeks due to the above mentioned. I’ll need to go back and repeat the course.
That this will begin to feel like work, a chore, an obligation.
That I’ll lose heart and interest.
That I won’t have time to do my MP.
That I won’t make time to do MP.
List 5 People Who Support My Dreams.
I actually listed seven and count myself very very lucky. You know who you are 🫶🏻
Current Payoffs From my Procrastination.
Nothing ventured, nothing disappointed.
No risk, no failure.
Safety.
It won’t be good enough.
It will be a waste of time (which is ridiculous as I write this as I waste so much time doing NOTHING!)
This question was one of the most revealing for me, especially that last [point and realisation. I literally burn the fossil fuel of time on so many empty things, time I can never get back.
Artist’s Date —
I found this adorable book in a charity shop for £2 and thought the illustrations would look lovely on a wall. I look after a little boy two days each week and wanted to brighten up his book and toy strage area with these. It’s always sad cutting up a beautiful book but as it was in the charity shop and had some imperfections I didn’t mind, I also added a new copy to my Amazon wish list 😜 I cut out the pages I liked and layed out a rough plan on the floor before sticking them up. I managed to work on this while he had his afternoon nap, it was a lovely way to spend my AD.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
https://open.substack.com/pub/aimeeguest/p/home-is-a-place-of-belonging?r=gz38w&utm_medium=ios. This post reminded me of your recent dip back into theatre
Jacqui! This is lovely. You are lovely. The collage is lovely. So proud of you for persevering through this journey both the doing the AW and MP but sharing your thoughts and encouragements with us. Love you muchly!
“You’re quite lovely, you know that? You’re sparkly and fun and have a deep creative heart.” ALL TRUE! 😘