The Artist’s Way --
Recovering a Sense of Identity
This week addresses self-definition as a major component of creative recovery. You may find yourself drawing new boundaries and staking out new territories as your personal needs, desires, and interests announce themselves. The essays and tools are aimed at moving you into your personal identity, a self-defined you.
KEY IDEAS:
Going Sane -- Going sane may feel, at first, like going crazy
-- Making changes and accepting those changes
Poisonous Playmates -- Friends giving negative feedback may also be blocked
-- Blocked friends may find your recovery disturbing
-- Be careful to safeguard the newly recovering artist
Crazymakers -- These are personalities that are enormously destructive
-- Crazymakers sabotage you – destroy schedules, expect special treatment, discount your reality, spend your time/money, triangulate, blame, prioritize only their schedules, hate order, deny they’re crazymakers
Skepticism -- The secret doubt – “I can’t believe_____________________”
-- We keep our own thoughts about what’s possible and what’s not
-- Accept “coincidences” and flow with them
Attention -- Attention, not aimlessness, is a way to connect & survive your unfolding creative energies
-- The quality of life is in proportion to the capacity for delight
Read Chapter Two and do Tasks at the end
Read “Rules of the Road”, page 55.
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read created Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Week 3- Recovering a Sense of Power
The Artist’s Way --
Recovering a Sense of Power
This week may find you dealing with unaccustomed bursts of energy and sharp peaks of anger, joy, and grief. You are coming into your power as the illusory hold of your previously accepted limits is shaken. You will be asked to consciously experiment with spiritual open-mindedness.
KEY IDEAS:
Anger
“Anger is fuel.”
Synchronicity
“watch out what you pray for – you might just get it!”
Shame
“The act of making art exposes a society to itself.”
Dealing with criticism
“Artistic child abuse creates rebellion creates block.”
Detective work: An exercise
Page 73.
Growth
“Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one
step back”
Read Chapter Three and do Tasks at the end (reserve tasks 8, 9, and 10 for the next class meeting)
Do the “Detective Work” on page 73.
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Recovering a Sense of Power
This week may find you dealing with unaccustomed bursts of energy and sharp peaks of anger, joy, and grief. You are coming into your power as the illusory hold of your previously accepted limits is shaken. You will be asked to consciously experiment with spiritual open-mindedness.
KEY IDEAS:
Anger
“Anger is fuel.”
Synchronicity
“watch out what you pray for – you might just get it!”
Shame
“The act of making art exposes a society to itself.”
Dealing with criticism
“Artistic child abuse creates rebellion creates block.”
Detective work: An exercise
Page 73.
Growth
“Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one
step back”
Read Chapter Three and do Tasks at the end (reserve tasks 8, 9, and 10 for the next class meeting)
Do the “Detective Work” on page 73.
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Week 4- Recovering a Sense of Integrity
The Artist’s Way --
Recovering a Sense of Integrity
This week may find you grappling with changing self-definition. The essays, tasks, and exercises are designed to catapult you into productive introspection and integration of new self-awareness. This may be both very difficult and extremely exciting for you. Warning: do not skip the tool of reading deprivation!
KEY IDEAS:
Honest Changes
What do we mean by, “I feel okay”?
When we have engaged the creator within to heal us, many changes
and shifts in our attitudes begin to occur.
Buried Dreams: An Exercise
Page 86.
Are you remembering more of your dreams?
Reading Deprivation
No reading – by emptying our lives of distractions, we are actually
filling the well.
Read Chapter Four and do Tasks at the end
Do the “Buried Dreams” on page 86.
Start the Reading Deprivation
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Recovering a Sense of Integrity
This week may find you grappling with changing self-definition. The essays, tasks, and exercises are designed to catapult you into productive introspection and integration of new self-awareness. This may be both very difficult and extremely exciting for you. Warning: do not skip the tool of reading deprivation!
KEY IDEAS:
Honest Changes
What do we mean by, “I feel okay”?
When we have engaged the creator within to heal us, many changes
and shifts in our attitudes begin to occur.
Buried Dreams: An Exercise
Page 86.
Are you remembering more of your dreams?
Reading Deprivation
No reading – by emptying our lives of distractions, we are actually
filling the well.
Read Chapter Four and do Tasks at the end
Do the “Buried Dreams” on page 86.
Start the Reading Deprivation
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Week 5- Recovering a Sense of Possibility
The Artist’s Way --
Recovering a Sense of Possibility
This week you are being asked to examine your payoffs in remaining stuck. You will explore how you curtail your own possibilities by placing limits on the good you can receive. You will examine the cost of settling for appearing good instead of being authentic. You may find yourself thinking about radical changes, no longer ruling out your growth by making others the cause of your constriction.
KEY IDEAS:
Limits
We tend to draw very limited amounts of the power actually available to us – we believe in scarcity.
Finding the River
Acquiring a sense of movement and change in our lives.
We are becoming less rigid.
Replacing “no way” with “maybe”.
The Virtue Trap
For an artist, guiltless withdrawal is necessary.
The artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude.
The urge toward respectability and maturity can be stultifying, even fatal.
The Virtue Trap Quiz, page 101.
Forbidden Joys; An Exercise Page 101
Wish List; An Exercise Page 102
Read Chapter Five
Do the exercises on pages 101- 02
Do Tasks #2, #4, #5, and #7 – be prepared to share next week
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Recovering a Sense of Possibility
This week you are being asked to examine your payoffs in remaining stuck. You will explore how you curtail your own possibilities by placing limits on the good you can receive. You will examine the cost of settling for appearing good instead of being authentic. You may find yourself thinking about radical changes, no longer ruling out your growth by making others the cause of your constriction.
KEY IDEAS:
Limits
We tend to draw very limited amounts of the power actually available to us – we believe in scarcity.
Finding the River
Acquiring a sense of movement and change in our lives.
We are becoming less rigid.
Replacing “no way” with “maybe”.
The Virtue Trap
For an artist, guiltless withdrawal is necessary.
The artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude.
The urge toward respectability and maturity can be stultifying, even fatal.
The Virtue Trap Quiz, page 101.
Forbidden Joys; An Exercise Page 101
Wish List; An Exercise Page 102
Read Chapter Five
Do the exercises on pages 101- 02
Do Tasks #2, #4, #5, and #7 – be prepared to share next week
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Week 6- Recovering a Sense of Abundance
The Artist’s Way --
Recovering a Sense of Abundance
This week you tackle a major creative block – money. You are asked to really look at your own ideas around God, money, and creative abundance. The essays will explore the ways in which your attitudes limit abundance and luxury in your current life. You will be introduced to counting, a block-busting tool for clarity and right use of funds. This week may feel volatile.
KEY IDEAS:
The Great Creator
Many of us equate difficulty with virtue and art with fooling around.
Expecting divine help, we tend to receive it.
If you want to make some art, make some art.
When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open to us.
Luxury
It is critical that we pamper ourselves for the sense of abundance it brings to us.
In order to thrive as artists, we need to be available to the universal flow.
Luxury is a learned practice for most of us.
What we are talking about when we discuss luxury is often a shift in consciousness . . .
Creative living requires the luxury of space and time.
Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play.
Counting: An Exercise
Buy a small pocket notepad and write down every nickel you spend.
Money Madness: An Exercise Page 113
Read Chapter Six
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Recovering a Sense of Abundance
This week you tackle a major creative block – money. You are asked to really look at your own ideas around God, money, and creative abundance. The essays will explore the ways in which your attitudes limit abundance and luxury in your current life. You will be introduced to counting, a block-busting tool for clarity and right use of funds. This week may feel volatile.
KEY IDEAS:
The Great Creator
Many of us equate difficulty with virtue and art with fooling around.
Expecting divine help, we tend to receive it.
If you want to make some art, make some art.
When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open to us.
Luxury
It is critical that we pamper ourselves for the sense of abundance it brings to us.
In order to thrive as artists, we need to be available to the universal flow.
Luxury is a learned practice for most of us.
What we are talking about when we discuss luxury is often a shift in consciousness . . .
Creative living requires the luxury of space and time.
Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play.
Counting: An Exercise
Buy a small pocket notepad and write down every nickel you spend.
Money Madness: An Exercise Page 113
Read Chapter Six
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Week 7- Recovering a Sense of Connection
The Artist’s Way --
A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Recovering a Sense of connection
We turn this week to the practice of right attitudes for creativity. The emphasis is on your receptive as well as active skills. The essays, exercises, and tasks aim at excavating areas of genuine creative interest as you connect with your personal dreams.
KEY IDEAS:
Listening
Art is about getting something down – being engaged in the listening.
We are the instrument more than the author of our work.
Learn to accept that the universe is helping you.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead.
The perfectionist creates with one eye on the audience, grading the results.
A normal part of creativity is the ability to let go.
Risk
In order to do something, we must first be willing to do it badly.
Safety is a very expensive illusion.
“So do it – if you win, you win; if you lose, you win.”
Jealousy
Jealousy is always a mask for fear.
Jealousy strips us of our will to act when action holds the key to our freedom.
The Jealousy Map: An Exercise Page 124
Even the biggest changes begin with small ones.
Archeology: An Exercise Page 125
Read Chapter Seven
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Recovering a Sense of connection
We turn this week to the practice of right attitudes for creativity. The emphasis is on your receptive as well as active skills. The essays, exercises, and tasks aim at excavating areas of genuine creative interest as you connect with your personal dreams.
KEY IDEAS:
Listening
Art is about getting something down – being engaged in the listening.
We are the instrument more than the author of our work.
Learn to accept that the universe is helping you.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead.
The perfectionist creates with one eye on the audience, grading the results.
A normal part of creativity is the ability to let go.
Risk
In order to do something, we must first be willing to do it badly.
Safety is a very expensive illusion.
“So do it – if you win, you win; if you lose, you win.”
Jealousy
Jealousy is always a mask for fear.
Jealousy strips us of our will to act when action holds the key to our freedom.
The Jealousy Map: An Exercise Page 124
Even the biggest changes begin with small ones.
Archeology: An Exercise Page 125
Read Chapter Seven
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
Week 8- Recovering a Sense of Strength
The Artist’s Way --
A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Recovering a Sense of Strength
This week tackles another major creative block: time. You will explore the ways in which you have used your perception of time to preclude taking creative risks. You will identify immediate and practical changes you can make in your current life. You will excavate the early conditioning that may have encouraged you to settle for far less than you desire creatively.
KEY IDEAS:
Survival
All artists must learn the art of surviving loss.
Our artist is a child.
Unmourned disappointment becomes a barrier that separates us from future dreams.
The Ivory Power
Creativity cannot be quantified in intellectual terms.
The thrust of intellectualism runs counter to the creative impulse.
Gain Disguised as Loss
Art is the act of structuring time . . . every end is a beginning.
When hit by loss, ask the right questions – “what next?” instead of “Why me?”
Age & Time: Product & Process
“I’m too old” – an excuse to save ourselves from the emotional cost of ego deflation involved in being a beginner.
Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are ageless.
Filling the Form
Taking the next small step instead of skipping ahead to a large one for which you may not yet be prepared.
Early Patternings: An Exercise Page 144
Affirmations Page 145
Read Chapter Eight
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Recovering a Sense of Strength
This week tackles another major creative block: time. You will explore the ways in which you have used your perception of time to preclude taking creative risks. You will identify immediate and practical changes you can make in your current life. You will excavate the early conditioning that may have encouraged you to settle for far less than you desire creatively.
KEY IDEAS:
Survival
All artists must learn the art of surviving loss.
Our artist is a child.
Unmourned disappointment becomes a barrier that separates us from future dreams.
The Ivory Power
Creativity cannot be quantified in intellectual terms.
The thrust of intellectualism runs counter to the creative impulse.
Gain Disguised as Loss
Art is the act of structuring time . . . every end is a beginning.
When hit by loss, ask the right questions – “what next?” instead of “Why me?”
Age & Time: Product & Process
“I’m too old” – an excuse to save ourselves from the emotional cost of ego deflation involved in being a beginner.
Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are ageless.
Filling the Form
Taking the next small step instead of skipping ahead to a large one for which you may not yet be prepared.
Early Patternings: An Exercise Page 144
Affirmations Page 145
Read Chapter Eight
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week
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