The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron, is a 12 week self-study program. Each week there is the reading, working through exercises, tasks, and then a check in. Each time I’ve gone through the program I’ve learned a great deal about myself as an artist (and person), and experienced a considerable change in my creative process. The course has also helped me claim my identity as an artist.

Week one is about Recovering a Sense of Safety. I remember the first time I started the course and read the title “Recovering a Sense of Safety,” I had no idea of what that meant but the phrases listed in the Contents Page for week one said, “Shadow Artists; Your Enemy Within: Core Negative Beliefs; Your Ally Within: Affirmative Weapons and Creative Affirmations.” That quickly let me know that the chapter wasn’t about safety tools, or OSHA regulations.

I found that as I dug deeper into who I am as an artist, as a creative, I was gaining a better understanding of my sense of self. I also began to understand that I had mental barriers regarding my inner artist. Each time I’ve delved into the program I learn something new about myself and my creativity.

Cameron starts week one of with the Shadow Artist. Shadow Artists are people “who were not supported in early artistic endeavors by their nuclear family and immediate circle, and as a result they do not know or maybe even believe that they are artists. They are themselves ignorant of their true identity–they’re usually found ‘shadowing’ declared artists.”

“Shadow artists often chose shadow careers—those close to the desired art, even parallel to it, but not the art itself…Shadow Artists are gravitating to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright–hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, freaful that it will disintegrate to the touch.” ~Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, Week 1

Over the years, especially when I was in my twenties and thirties, raising my children I often found myself longing for a creative life, longing for my dream of being a writer, instead I was toiling away in the finance industry, and secretly reading books about how to become a writer. Later on, when I went back to college (in my thirties) I began to get involved in poetry readings, worked at the campus bookstore, and hung on out on the fringe of a creative life.

I’ve experienced both sides of the shadow. I have been the shadow artist, and I have been shadowed by others. I’ve encouraged and helped others go back to school (college), and helped others by tutoring them in Creative Writing, but never did anymore more than dip my toe in the waters of my own writing (poetry anthologies, short story anthologies, school newspaper, etc.). But I dreamed. I found NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is coming up in November.

I have been in and out of that shadow. As a content creator, I have found myself shadowed. And I have found myself backing off of my own creative dreams, mostly out of fear (that damn self-doubt), and shadowing my dreams, my true purpose, true calling.

Cameron also introduces some of the core negative beliefs that often hold artists back. She says that much of our “fear of our own creativity is the fear of the unknown…we have some pretty awful notions about what COULD happen.”

Out of the 20 beliefs she lists the one that resonated most with me was:

“It’s too late. If I haven’t become a fully functioning artist yet, I never will.”

Oh, how you gotta love that either or thinking… that really hit me in the gut this go round.
Cameron provides 20 creative affirmations for us to use as a method for working through negative beliefs, and claiming a sense of safety. These are positive statements about creativity that can be used as mantras/affirmations throughout the day and ways of ending the daily morning pages routine.

Two Three of the affirmations that I found really stuck with me, even now as I’m in week 4, are:

1. My creativity heals myself and others.
2. I am willing to use my creative talents, (and)
3. I am willing to be of service through my creativity.

Most of my negative core beliefs were/are part of the conditioning that I had picked up over the years (from childhood on). I am in the process of working through the issues that know and feel need to be unlearned, relearned, and/ore re-written. As of now, I have found ways to rewrite most of them into statements that strengthen my core confidence.

Week 2, Recovering a Sense of Identity

“I like to think of the mind as a room, we keep all of our usual ideas about life, the Universe, what’s possible and what’s not. The room has a door. That door is ever so slightly ajar and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out there…Now that we are in creative recovery, there is another approach we need to try. To do this, we gently set aside our skepticism for later use, if we need it. And when a weird idea or coincidence whizzes by, we gently nudge the door a little further open.”

Cameron starts Week 2 by talking about the ebb and flow of gaining strength and falling back into self-doubt. One of the things I that I understand, way too well, was that as we grow, there can be ‘doubt’ even in the growth itself…Cameron advises us not to “let your self-doubt turn into self-sabotage.” What exactly is self-sabotage? Self-sabotage is when people do (or don’t do) things that block their success or prevent them from accomplishing their goals. Oh yeah! I know all about self-sabotage.

One of the big take aways (for me) about this week, was the importance of paying attention. Cameron talks about “transfusion,” and how the “act of paying attention is healing. She also says, “One of the great misconceptions about the artistic life is that it entails great swathes of aimlessness. The truth is that a creative life involves great swathes of attention.”

My very favorite part of this week were the Rules of the Road:

1. Show up at the page. Use the page to rest. Dream. Try. Show Up in the Studio, use the time to express myself to play, paint, and learn (some of this is my own added bits).
2. Fill the well by caring for my artist…inner artist
3. Set small and gentle goals and meet them
4. Pray for guidance, courage, and humility
5. Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do that work
6. Be alert, always, for the presence of the [Great Creator} Creative Spirit leading and helping my artistic self
7. Choose companions who encourage me to do the work, not just talk about doing the work
8. Remember that it is my job to do the work, not judge the work
9. Remember that the Creative Spirit loves creativity
10. Relax…Universe, Creative Spirit [Great Creator], I will take care of the quantity you take care of the quality.

One of the hardest things for me has been boundaries. I am constantly working on my boundaries. I wasn’t taught very many boundaries..Physical boundaries yes, but the kind of boundaries that we need in order to say “no” we can’t do something or “no” I can’t help, or “no I don’t want to go…” In the South, women are taught to be well mannered, people pleasers, who are meant to be seen and not heard (my mom’s generation, or maybe my mom’s family), needless to say, I am learning about boundaries, and how to stand my ground, to stand up for myself and my own self care. “I will no longer pay attention to or listen to people who undermine my happiness, my creative passions or what I do–whether they are doing it outright or subtly. I will no no longer listen to or pay attention to others judgments about me, my creativity or as an artist, or what I do.”

“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery that you miss by going too fast–you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” ~Eddie Cantor