Week 2: The Artist's Way!

We made it through week 1. I found myself go through a lot of resistance in week 1. I only managed to do the morning pages 4/7. Too busy, said my inner pessimist. 'Stop messing about with this creativity crap, get back to the real work.' So he was quite loud and proud in my head. How about you....?

Affirmations? Did anyone try them? ..I changed my affirmations to appreciations and gratitude. Every day once I had splurged on the page my moanings and bitching and blah-ing in my morning pages, I ended by writing down 5 things I appreciate about my life and 5 things I'm grateful for. Why? Because my inner pessimist only shows up when I'm scared and did you know according to medical psychologists it is neurologically impossible for your brain to create emotions such as gratitude and appreciation while simultaneously feeling afraid?

So that's been helping me this week. Still off the wine, which is also helping me enormously to get to what's really bothering me. When I'm not whining in my morning pages about wine, I drop down a level so I'm talking about the things that are swilling a bit deeper in my psyche. 

How did you find the exercises this week? I think I loved the Imaginary Lives one the best. I want to be scuba diving instructor when I grow up. I didn't like the exercise about writing the letter to enemy but it was cathartic. How did you find it?

Let's chat in the Big Leap Zone if you don't want to comment here. Go to www.thebig-leap.com and go to the big leap zone and then use the password LEAP.

So WEEK 2 BEGINS....This week we are recovering a sense of safety - choosing our creative playmates  wisely and creating strong boundaries around the rest.

I love the part about CRAZYMAKERS in this chapter. I've been on both sides of the fence with this one. I've had all manner of crazymakers in my life and I think I may have been a crazy maker once or twice too. 

I love the exercises in this chapter too because it gets us firmly focussing on what do we enjoy....and often I think we just completely lose sight of that - of our own wants and needs. I've just come out of a 15 year marriage and that's one of the most extraordinary things I'm rediscovering - MY wants and needs (versus having to factor in someone else.) It's lovely to be selfish again and indulge in my choices of music and decoration and films.
And I love the exercise about 10 Tiny Changes....Can I start us off....?
I would like to....buy a duck down pillow for my bed.

Other Exercises this week:
Morning pages every day if you can.
Plan your artist's date.
And try out some of the exercises at the end of the chapter - try the ones that look the most fun and the ones that you have the most resistance too. 

Enjoy this week!

Comments

[Caite]

I am finding the morning pages such a chore...the last time i did the Artist's Way was the same.....don't have a problem with the Date's or the other tasks....I'm not sure what it is they're supposed to do..... am I supposed to feel better, decluttered of junk in my head? is it just me .....? Is it because I'm not a writer but more visual? I'll carry on with it but I don't want to turn into a martyr I just don't get anything from writing this stuff down.....help

Caite x

[Ade]

Page 1 of the morning pages is often the hardest for me and by the time i get to page 2 all i am doing is focussing on the destination (1 more page to go!) and missing the journey. However what i do know is that on the days i write the morning pages, its feels like such a detox.

I came across a quote by Graham Green last week which hit it on the head... 'Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes i wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human condition'. Well, who knew!