The Big Peace

Guest blogger Kirsty Norton says...

Guest blogger Kirsty Norton talks about her Artist's Way journey:

"Wow, what a journey this has been. I started the Artists Way with such great gusto as it was just what I needed to give me the strength and courage to follow my dream of being a full time yoga teacher/writer and wellbeing expert. I committed myself to the project and started off so well, I thought it was a 'nice' thing to do and was going to be great fun, la la la, easy peasy etc. 

It's not easy is it?! To confront yourself and who you are and how you sabotage your own plans has been a great journey for me. When I say 'great' I don't mean I've enjoyed it all - its been scary and upsetting and I've felt wobbly and insecure and at times just a mess!

It was probably at this point I managed to find lots of excuses not to do the weekly chapters... 
I had so much buzzing around in my head - I got up at 6 to do my own yoga practice then went to work, taught yoga in the evenings, came home and did my website, admin and put actions into place for my new way of life. I really didn't know where to fit in the Artists Way as well and can't believe I'm still trying to make excuses and justify my actions to you by writing it all down here. In fact it makes me laugh. Some things take a little longer to change in yourself... 

When Suzy got in touch to ask me if I could do my week 7 blog I felt a disappointment in myself from not doing as I had intended and sticking to the book 100%. Then I took a step back and looked at how much I've achieved since starting this and I'm now a full time yoga teacher with offers of teaching posts left, right and centre and the private clients are really rolling in and I've been writing articles - the most recent one for Italian Glamour magazine. I'm thrilled to bits. 

Thankfully I'm back into the Artists Way and am thrilled this week is about a sense of connection - it has come at a key time and working out who I envy is just perfect to help me focus on where I go next. The thing I'm most looking forward to is the collage which I've put some time aside to do tonight. My big risk is to start uploading free videos onto YouTube for those people that cant get to yoga classes. It'll be scary being in front of a camera and allowing the public to judge me but I'm doing it, its all part of my dream. 

Good luck to all of you finding your connection - we're over half way through and I really hope you are all benefitting from this as much as I am. Its so good to know that there are others out there doing this, a sense of community is what we're missing these days and to have this reminder that it does exist has also made me really grateful. "

Here's kirsty's fab website address:
www.kirstynorton.co.uk

 

Artist's Way Week 8

How are we all doing? How has your week been? I've had a much better week. I have been much kinder to myself - more bubble baths, less inner beat-up. I've also had great fun creating my collage. I was suprised to see how strongly 'home' featured. And I think I'm going to be dying my hair bright platinum blonde - as every single picture of the women I cut out had bright blonde hair. Not quite sure what that says...?

My artist's date was supposed to be with a Tibetan monk Palden Gyatso, and his screening of the film Fire Under Snow about his imprisonment in a Chinese Jail. He was speaking in London last night.

But I didn't make it. I ended up in a field in the sunshine today and fell asleep by a river. Not sure if that counts as an artist's date but it did feel a bit Thomas Hardy.

What have you been doing on your artist's dates?

We're on to week 8 now. This is going to be an interesting week - 'filling the form'. I love this exercise as it's fairly close to the Big Leap philosophy of baby steps. "Instead of writing a business plan, just write a few figures on the back of an envelope, I say. Just start, do something, anything, I cry!" Cameron also urges us to do the same. To turn up to the page. I've been writing my Big Peace book for the past 3 months (due in on the 30th) so have definitely had a visceral experience of what that feels like. Just writing a few pages a day and today I checked and suddenly there are 96 pages. Nearly there.

The exercises are lovely too - we're reinventing our childhoods and creating our ideal days - bliss!

Have a lovely week. Keep at the morning pages and let me know how you're doing with your artist's dates.

Have a good week.

Suzy x

The Artist's Way Week 7.

How was week 6 for you? Are you feeling abundant? Because of all the research I'm doing on writing my Big Peace book, I'm feeling completely inspired. Everything from Buddhist Monks writing about happiness to Carl Honore (see post below) on the Slow Movement and why the recession is the perfect time to slow down.

But it's interesting that the more I become inspired, the more I tend to sabotage yourself. My drinking ban went out of the window on Thursday and Saturday and felt awful - physically and emotionally and I was back to whining about the wine in my pages.

 And all week, I've found myself saying yes, when I meant no, doing non-nurturing things that means that I can't fit in my morning pages or artist's date. So this has been a very interesting week for me. I think I'm seeing how I limit my own abundance by being mean and miserly with myself. I can be quite horrible to myself sometimes. My poor old little inner artist becomes miserable and then sulks. And everything closes up shop. Mmm, interesting how this Artist's Way shows us our tricks and ticks - isn't it?

What's been your journey this week?

 Week 7 and we're recovering a sense of connection. And although I'm feeling a bit tender after last week, i'm relieved to see week 7 has two of my favourite exercises in it. The envy one.....figure out what or who you envy or feel jealous  about and then work out from there - what is it that they have that you want. Then take action and create it for yourself. 

The other is about taking risk. I always say we big leapers are not so much more talented or special than the average person (although we are special and talented), we're just braver. So I think the 'risk' exercise will be a doddle this week. We know how to take risks - and no matter how scared - we do it anyway.

I'm also looking forward to the collage-making. I know at Big Leap, we use this 'vision boarding' idea quite a lot but I recently found my collage from the last time I did the Artist's Way - and it's quite spooky what's on there.

And this week - I will definitely be focusses on the mantra:
TREATING MYSELF LIKE A PRECIOUS OBJECT WILL MAKE ME STRONG.

Homework for this week:
Morning pages.
Your Artist's Date.
Three or four exercises - choose the ones you like the look of and the ones you most resist.

Choose three or four exercises

I'm running late this week....

Excuse me...I'm running late this week. Perhaps because I've been attempting to slow down.
I have been very inspired by the Slow Movement this week. This is a brilliant article written by founder of the Slow Movement Carl Honore.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/24/ethicalliving.creditcrunch

So, I've been very, very slow this week and I have given up running around like a blue A**e fly.

So week 7 of the Artist's Way will be up a bit later today - bear with me.

Week 7 we are recovering a sense of connection so let's connect later. x

The Artist's Way - Week 6

Phew! I'm just back from a day of 'design your creative life' with the Swedish writing coach and publisher Ann Ljungberg. What a day! I was privileged to be speaking along side Fay Weldon - the brilliant author who regaled us with her journey to write  her last novel in her basement 'with the spiders' in only 8 weeks. Particularly inspiring for me - as my deadline approaches for my own book The Big Peace - which has to be finished in 3 weeks. Can't wait to read Fay's new novel 2013.

American creativity coach Cynthia Morris and novelist and writing coach Jacqui Lofthouse were also speaking and giving us step by step, practical advice on everything from how to finish that novel to how to garner self belief.

Eric Maisel, billed as America's foremost creativity coach also had me up on stage role-playing being the editor listening to Cynthia's pitch of her new novel. Very interesting to understand what it feels like to be on the other side of the table and hear a writer - who you know to be accomplished and talented - pitch a story to you. I understood how subjective the process was and how succinct you need to be to grab an editor's attention.It's very interesting to log on to Eric's site The Atheist's Way too. If you struggle with Cameron's spiritual bent, you may find Eric's belief system inspiring and useful. His subtitle for the site and his book is Living Well without Gods.

It was an exceptional day and I learnt a lot from the other experts -  inspiring, useful and just wonderful to be in a dialogue about creativity and swop techniques and tips on how to harness it. 

How are you doing on The Artist's Way journey? This week we were recovering a sense of possibility. How was that for you? I had a wonderful piece of synchronicity as I procrastinated some more with my screenplay. I'm on to the fifth draft but haven't touched it for months - not sure whether to send it out or not. I needed a baby step - some last feedback - and an email popped into my inbox from a script reading service The Script Surgeons. It felt like a little 'sign', something to keep my sense of possibility bubbling.

Have struggled with the 'virtue trap' somewhat this week. I've spent a great deal of my life striving to be 'good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish' so I've been noticing particular resentments this week - not wanting to help friends, wanting to retreat, not listen, not help but to shrug and walk away.

I felt physical envy that made my top lip stick to my teeth in a rictus smile today as Fay Weldon talked about retreating from the world to just write for 8 weeks. Forget a 'room of one's own', get yourself a basement - even with the spiders.

How have you found week 5?

Week 6 - we're half way through. Are you still with us? Are you hanging in there? Embracing the process? Hanging on by a thread?

Not sure I'm particularly looking forward to week 6 - which probably speaks volumes about my attitudes towards money and abundance. But that's why I'm probably looking forward to the 'counting exercise' - making a note of every penny I spend over the next week. I want to know what the hell I do with my money. I love to fritter but Cameron is right, it is often at the 'cost' of denying myself the luxuries that I do want to buy. Another interesting week ahead.

Homework this week:
Morning pages - how many days did you do last week?
The Artist's Date - I managed a bath with a magazine last week, which a friend openly scorned. 'Not exactly an artist's date,' she scoffed. I'm doing the best I can!
Try the exercises you like the look of and the ones you resist the most. I'm going to practise saying 'yes' to the freebies.

Let me know how you get on.

Suzy x

P.S It was also fantastic to meet so many Big Leapers at the London's Writer's Club on Thursday. Great to meet you all and can't wait to discover how the group will unfold. See you there next month.

'Nothing is impossible,' says guest blogger Tom Koukoulis

Guest Blogger Tom
Week 5, Recovering a sense of possibility.

 

I remember when I was in NYC a couple of years ago, we needed to exchange some greyhound tickets to ones with a more suitable time as our plans had changed. Not being familiar with how things work in the US we were worried we may be stuck with some tickets that didn’t suit our revised schedule.

 

We hoped that it would not be too difficult to have them exchanged and decided to try our luck at the ticket office. We approached the lady at the ticket booth, a middle-aged black woman who looked very youthful and content in what I thought an unusual setting for someone to look content. Her impressively polished nails caught my attention as my friend approached her and asked if it was possible to change the times on our tickets. The lady looked up with a look that conveyed a sense of contempt and compassion at the same time before she spoke. ‘Honey, nothing is impossible!’ she announced in an assertive but reassuring tone. I immediately felt a smile dawn on my previously concerned face, not sure if it was due to the fact we could change the time on our tickets or because of this lady’s contagious optimism.

 

Remembering Suzy talk about our big peace at an event a few weeks ago, I now think back and feel this woman must have had found her big peace, right there at the ticket booth of the greyhound coaches office in NYC.

 

The image of that woman’s gratified face has haunted me ever since. ‘Nothing is impossible…’ I kept repeating in my head. But how can this be, it surely is nothing more than a cheesy sportswear marketing campaign motto, less so a life affirming dictum.

 

Last week a dear old friend arrived from Greece. Our friendship has been one of the turbulent ones, like Mediterranean people know well, with long periods of us feeling we’re soul mates, followed by periods of falling out and feeling cross with each other to be followed by periods where we make up, forgive but not forget and that gets repeated, hopefully not ad infinitum. We’re obviously on our sunny patch of friendship at the moment. We were born on the same date; that surely is not just a coincidence.

 

If indeed we are soul mates, I wouldn’t expect our relationship to be a walk in the park. This time our argument lies in possibility. He loves mixing music and I ask him why doesn’t he become a DJ? ‘That’s not possible,’ he replies, ‘I don’t have the talent to be a DJ?’ ‘You are talented,’ I protest. He doesn’t reply and I feel my words have gone to waste. ‘Why don’t you come to live in London?’ I say in an attempt to continue the conversation. ‘That’s not possible,’ he continues, ‘I don’t have that sort of money to live in London?’ ‘You’ll make the money!’ I proclaim almost in despair. But what is it that drives me away from my Big Peace at that moment? Do I need to convince myself that I’m talented, that I can make the money before I can convince other people? Do I need to convince myself that nothing is impossible? Certainly that lady had convinced herself of that.

 

Perhaps I have achieved the impossible. I have achieved to live and make a life in a big and often scary city like London despite coming from a small and safe village in Greece of five hundred inhabitants, nothing like the fictitious Kalokeri depicted in Mamma Mia (and certainly with no Greek old ladies dancing to ABBA songs) and a family whose income could just about afford the basics, who had embraced and indulged in their limits. However, I took the plunge and came to London, battled with depression and unemployment during the recession following the year 2001 and now eight years later, I managed to be doing the job of my dreams at Greenpeace and have a great circle of friends in the most exciting city in the world - and I don’t want to hear any nonsense about NYC being the most exciting city, that used to be the case years ago.

 

I feel its now time to embrace my inner artist; come out of the shadows and into the spotlight. It’s time I indulged in the possibility of being a successful and prolific writer. Perhaps indeed, nothing is impossible.

 

Thank you Suzy and thank you Ms Cameron for this invitation to recover our inner artists.

 

Love and gratitude,

 

Tom

I'm doing a creativity talk on sunday

Just in case you haven't got plans for the weekend, I'm doing a talk in London on Sunday at a creativity conference - alongside Fay Weldon and Eric Maisel, one of America's big creativity gurus.
Anne who is organising it has offered a last minute price of £110 to any Big Leaper who wants to go. (original price £210)
http://www.designyourcreativelife.com/

How are you doing this week? I'm actually having a wonderful week. I'm firing on all creative cylinders, I'm sleeping like a baby and feel very calm. No tantrums or resistance. I'm surrendering! It's working!

How about you?

or phone +44 750 34 33 863

Did anyone manage a week's reading ban?

I was so embroiled in my own resistance that I didn't discover the benefits?

Who managed to go the full 7 days without reading - how did you find it?

The Artist's Way Week 5

How was week 4 for you? I certainly was hitting my resistance wall. "It's not working, It's not working, I hate this!" I was heard to cry. "I'm going to read if I want to, so there!" Tantrums? My inner three year old was in full cry, my inner artist was left quivering in the shadows.

I've heard from quite a few of you this week everything from 'I've blown it' to 'this is utter crap and writing the pages is like torture.' So it was lovely to know I wasn't alone.

But to my mind, there isn't any way to ‘blow' this process is there? Please god, I hope not. Isn't this about journey? Not about getting to week 12.

I believe it's about pulling out the insights that you need.

Do it your own way. There is no way to fail this – is there?

Because if there is, then I will be expelled for not doing my morning pages (1 out of 7 last week) and for reading as much as I can this week and putting two fingers up at the reading ban. I’m just trying to observe what’s going on with me. I’m never very good with rules or authority so it’s no surprise to me that I’m behaving badly! But that’s just interesting to acknowledge in itself.

But there is certainly stuff shifting - I took another 5 bags to the tip, I've created a yoga/chill out room beside my office - a space for just me. I had my coaching call this week and my coach commented on how I had to stop being 'nice' and get through this anger that was simmering throughout our call. So I went and chopped some wood for my fire. With a great big axe! If anyone saw me, they would think I was a woman demented. But I must say, it was certainly one of the most therapeutic moments of this month.

And now we're going to be let loose on Week 5 -god helps us! We're going to get ourselves out of the virtue trap, stop playing nice and get off 'the treadmill of virtuous production' and stop 'vampirizing our souls'. (Funny I had a dream about vampires last week).

And we're going to lean more into some spiritual dependency. Which sounds blissful. I'm ready to stop resisting this week. It's too exhausting. I want to trust. I want to trust that this is the right path for me. I just want to surrender, lean in, be held and know that all I need to do is trust.

This will be a big leap but one I'm itching to make.

Homework:
Morning pages (try to do better than I'm doing!)
Artist's Date.
And try to do the exercises that you like the sound of the most and the ones you want to ignore.

Speak to you this week!

Mika stops procrastinating and acts....

This is from our lovely guest blogger Mika Simmons (http://www.mikasimmons.com/) I read her entry and promptly burst into tears. I resonated so much (not with the acting) but with everything else. Here's to you, Mika! And to all of us on this journey. WE ARE A BRAVE, WONDERFUL TRIBE AND HERE'S TO MAKING THAT PHONECALL, TAKING THAT BABY STEP, SENDING THAT EMAIL......

Right here, right now.

xxx

From GUESTBLOGGER Mika 25th February 2009.

 

Synchronised confessions of a recovering artist

 

Let’s do the Artist’s Way?

Yes great idea

If I sign up – I might just finish it this time!

 

You need to be writing a Blog - I am told by my Astrologer

 

Want to blog? - Suzy asks the next day

Wow - I think - that’s weird

OK

 

Week 9 – She says

No problem – I smirk. A deep, dark subconscious voice whispering - that gives me loads of time to catch up when I get behind

The chapter title ‘Recovering a sense of Compassion’

Easy - I think - after all, I am a Pisces and a therapist

 

Change of plan - Suzy says - need you for Week 4

I race to my book to check the chapter’s title – ‘Recovering a Sense of Integrity’ - it says

 

I am busted!!

I leap

And we are off ……..

 

 

Week one

 

Is anyone else procrastinating? - Suzy asked

Maybe a little bit - I thought – but no, not really, not me, nope

I’m just really busy

My ‘things to do’ are not procrastinations they are real

Next week will be clearer, for sure

 

 

Week two

 

Surprisingly, things are pretty busy again

But my ‘things’ are definitely not procrastinations – I protest - they are genuinely, incredibly important things that just have to be done or the world will fall apart

 

Don’t get me wrong, I am on board. The morning pages are being done, I am scraping through the exercises, and I do have enough compassion for myself to feel this is good enough

 

 

Week three

 

Hang on

I am still really really busy

And suddenly I realise - ‘busyness’ is my procrastination

 

Procrastination is not just the cup of tea, the phone call or the email I squeeze in

It is the diary filled with commitments to friends, family and clients

Commitments that leave only a very small piece of the Pie for my creative self

Unless I get a handle on my busyness I am never going to recover my inner artist

 

And what do I want to do with a larger piece of creative Pie?

 

Through my morning pages I have worked out that, while satisfied and excited daily about my work as a Craniosacral Therapist, the creativity I am still longing for is Acting

And that I also want to write

And paint

 

Nicole Kidman recently said in an interview that she lives in her imagination – that’s me! - I thought. I have plays, scenes and characters running around in my head just like Beatrix Potter had bunnies

 

And so - with renewed commitment - I keep writing my morning pages and keep intending - I want to act I want to write I want to act I want to write I want to act I want to write.

And I slowly being to understand it has to begin now.

Not next week when I am less busy

But right now

So I start to use my morning pages more creatively.

To write about stories I could develop, ideas on how a play might look

 

And then on Tuesday something really amazing happened

I was writing my mantra (I want to act I want to write I want to act I want to write) and mid flow I thought - hang on I’m going to call a director I know and find out the name of the casting director who offered me a part two years ago on Casualty, which I had to turn down due to a clash with my craniosacral training

 

It was very important I did this right then

 

(I do this a lot - interrupt my morning pages with other very important busy things to do – occasionally to the extent I don’t make it back to them at all)

 

And just as I am leaving a message for my director friend, I get an email from the BBC

An availability check

Now I don’t have an Agent any more and I thought I’d given up Acting

But the BBC would like me to go in and read for an episode of a TV show

 

Blow me down with a feather!

I was shocked through to my core to be honest

More than a little shaky actually

I wanted to see this as a coincidence but

Julia

had just warned me I’d feel that.

Talk about having your prayers answered

 

 

Week four

 

I have a confession to make

I am a huge procrastinator

I will put everything and everyone else’s needs before my own to stop me having to be the creative being that I am

I often watch wonderful films or read great books hoping that through osmosis I will suddenly produce a play or an Oscar winning performance

But this is not how things are created

I have to be creative

Me myself

What stops me?

Fear

Fear of failure

Somewhere deep inside I ask myself ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’

Actually, who am I not to be?

 

And so I am finding the discipline, attention and space to be an artist

And I have seen that - when I do - synchronicity ignites

 

And I am grateful to you Suzy

Thank you