Week 3 of the Artist's Way and here I am staying in a castle that Hans Christian Anderson wrote about in his fairy tales. My friends Michael and Lissen live here (in fairytale castle, as you do!) and they have both so much to teach me in terms of creativity.
Michael is a food and motoring writer - writing books prolifically about his culinary journeys to Japan, Paris and now Denmark - with lovely his family in tow. His last book Sacre Cordon Bleu was Radio 4's book of the week. Michael is a living, breathing example of earning a wonderful living from his creativity, while also living a lifestyle that most of us would kill for.
They don't own the castle - but rent it and stay here for a while, soaking up the atmosphere and creating a stable base for a few months. Because next they're all off to India for Michael's next book, about their gastronomic and spiritual journey to India. The past three years, they lived in the middle of Paris, while he wrote about his journey to be a cordon bleu chef! They live a millionaire lifestyle without the millions, are creative every day and their lives are an incredible adventure.
Michael got here by being brave. And as Michael will admit, he's not a brave man. But he takes risks every day. He risks being rejected, risks getting it wrong, risks failure. Now he is reaping the benefits of his risks but at the beginning (we met at journalist school) it wasn't always this good. Michael inspires me because he has kept going, taking risks, knocks, rejections - and he's a sensitive soul so it's not been easy. But he has persevered despite the internal and external blurts that could have potentially floored him.
I introduced him to his wife Lissen, one of my favourite friends and they have now been married 10 years. Lissen is equally creative and makes fantastic jewellery and runs her own jewellery business. www.lissenm.com Her inspiration for her jewellery is imperfection! "It's the flaws I like in people and life. That's what makes people and life interesting. Once you give up on being perfect and truly embrace our imperfection - you can start living and playing from a very free place. It's a fun way to live life. Especially in Denmark, as we are generally a race known for living by the rules. It's interesting to see what happens to you when you refuse to live by the rules that everyone else thinks you should."
What happened to Lissen and Michael is that they get to live an adventure every day, and today, it's in a castle. I hold them up as my inspiration of what happens when you truly surrender to your creativity and think big.
So for me, ending Week 2 spending my time with the opposite of 'crazymakers' can only be good thing.
Week 3, we're recovering a sense of power. And I love the validation of anger! Being a good girl and people pleaser, I've always found it really hard to roar in anger but recently, I've become really good at it. So I was ever so pleased to read that: "Anger tells us that your old life is dying. It tells us we are being reborn, and birthing hurts.....Anger is the firestorm that signals the death of our old life...Anger will tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. It will always tell us that it is time to act in our won best interests. Anger is not the action itself. It is action's invitation."
So this week is about taking action - whether you are angry or not.
It's also about synchronicity. When life opens the doors in an unexpectedly spooky and fabulous way.
I think it's going to be dynamic week.
Enjoy.
Week 3 Exercises:
Morning pages - keep it up!
Your Artist's Date - what's your plan?
And make sure you do at least half the exercises at the end of the chapter. Do the ones you like the look of and the ones you have the most resistant to.
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