…And some rambling…
Back in 2019 I was working a job I really didn’t love and struggling to connect with myself and to find joy in the everyday. For a long time my sense of worth and my identity was wrapped up in what I was going to school for and what job I was going to have after college and graduate school. So then when my original plans didn’t go accordingly and I was at a job I never pictured myself working I really felt disconnected from myself. My discontent with my job and the trajectory of my career bled into other parts of my life and I often spent my time off on evenings and weekends dreading going back to work. I want to make it clear that I worked with VERY lovely people, some of the nicest people I have ever met, but the job just wasn’t for me.
Anyway, in an attempt to reconnect with myself I bought a fancy notebook and pen and decided I would journal every morning, but more often than not the journal entry would end up a to do list or pages of ranting about this job. This type of journaling wasn’t helping. So then I tried gratitude journaling and, honestly, it felt so forced and fake. My daily posts usually looked identical to the previous one and again I felt like the journaling wasn’t helping. Then one day I googled “journal prompts to inspire change” or something like that and Amie McNee’s The Journaling Compendium (a book full of journaling techniques and prompts to help deep dive into journaling) was one of the first things that popped up. I forget how much it cost, but I bought it and it put me on a magical journaling journey. There have been times where I’ve fallen off the habit of daily journaling, but honestly whenever I’m being called to journal I go back to Amie’s prompts and techniques to help me work through whatever it is that is on my mind.
Really, check out Amie McNee! She has some great courses and books to help artists create their works in a way that feels good. I also really enjoy The Unpublished Podcast that she hosts with her husband, James.
Okay, okay. But how does this relate to the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron? Is probably what you’re wondering right about now. Well, in her introduction Amie talks about The Artist’s Way and how it had a profound impact on her life and it kicked off her journaling journey. I bought The Artist’s Way back in 2019 shortly after completing Amie’s The Journaling Compendium, but hadn’t given Cameron’s book much thought until last week, ahem four years after purchasing it.
The Artist Way is essentially an artist self-help book rooted in spirituality, but if that’s not your jam the book can still be incredibly useful. Essentially there is a chapter of reading for 12 weeks, 3 pages of stream of conscious journaling done every morning, and a weekly artist date that you go on by yourself and do something to “fill your artist’s well.”
This first week of The Artist’s Way is focused on recovering a sense of safety. Cameron writes, “ONE OF OUR CHIEF needs as creative beings is support.” She goes on to talk about how the creative in us doesn’t always get this support, specifically while we are children, and so it is up to us to, “find and protect that child. Learning to let yourself create is like learning to walk.” We need need to take creating slowly and be kind to ourselves as we recover this sense of safety in our artistic process.
“Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.”
In the next part of the chapter, Cameron discusses some of the negative core beliefs that artists have that keep them creatively blocked. Things like, “I can’t be a successful, prolific, creative artist because…everyone will hate me…I don’t have good enough ideas…it’s too late,” and the list of reasons goes on and on. But, beliefs are not facts and she encourages the readers to turn those negative beliefs into positive affirmations and to realize that being a creative means we cannot participate in either/or thinking. Our creative blocks don’t want us to see that we can be an artist and financially stable or be an artist and have a family and so on and so forth.
Week 1 has been so transformative. Through journaling, I’ve revisited parts of my childhood that I thought had scabbed over, but seemingly are a still a bit fresh and I’ve worked through some of the anxiety I’m feeling around adding another baby to our family. I’ve kept to my daily 3 pages and though sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to write about, I am feeling so much mental clarity it’s allowed me to spend other parts of my day on my work rather than stressing out about things. I took myself to see the Barbie movie for my artist date and it was incredible. There was so much overlap between the themes in the movie and my journal entries. The last scene with Ruth and Barbie made me tear up because so many of us move through life waiting for permission from someone else. So essentially, it felt like a week of therapy which was a lot and difficult, but truly life-changing.
I’m not really using this book to help me creatively in the literal sense, but as a way to create a life and business that I thoroughly love and I’m really looking forward to another week. Have you read The Artist’s Way? If so, let me know your thoughts in the comments!
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