Looking for Weeks 1-4? Go here!
Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
For four weeks now, we’ve worked on uncovering the fears, negativity, and doubt that reside in us that keep us from reaching our full potential. Through the practice of morning pages and the artist’s date we started week 1, we’ve also been exploring new-found interests and stepping into a world where our inner artist is beginning to emerge and shape the person who we were meant to be.
In Week 5, we are continuing this work of uncovering hidden blocks so that we can start believing in a world of abundance and possibility, and readily receive all that it has to offer.
A note on abundance (and recognizing and letting go of self-placed limits!) adapted from everleafdesigns.com
Believing in abundance means believing in an unlimited supply of good that is available for all of us to receive. This includes things like ideas, love, friendships, jobs, projects, wealth, success, goodness, happiness, etc. (you fill in the blank). Everyone has access to this supply, and there is enough for everyone to receive.
Abundance is a river that flows generously, and all are welcome to receive the goodness it brings. As blocked creatives though, we don’t access this river for one of two reasons: (1) we don’t believe in it (we function from a mindset of scarcity where we believe that our “luck” is limited and that we will run out of good ideas/good fortune), or (2) we don’t think we’re good enough to drink from the river (we believe there’s no room for us and that we don’t deserve it).
Week 5 is about changing our mindset, finding the river, and accepting its generosity.
The Virtue Trap
The Virtue Trap is one of the biggest blocks that keep us from finding the river.
Here’s how Julia describes it:
“We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish. We want to be generous, of service, of the world. But what we really want is to be left alone. When we can’t get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves. To others, we may look like we’re there. We may act like we’re there. But our true self has gone to the ground.
Like a listless circus animal prodded into performing, it does its tricks. It goes through its routine. It earns its applause. But all of the hoopla falls on deaf ears. We are dead to it. Our artist is not merely out of sorts. Our artist has checked out. Our life is now an out-of-body experience. We’re gone.”
- Julia Cameron
It makes sense - most of us want to be good, helpful, unselfish, noble, and generous. And that’s why it’s so easy to fall into this virtue trap. We trick ourselves into believing that we’re living a fulfilled life because of all the “good” that we’re doing. But if we take a closer look, it’s a life of never having the heart to say no, having little to no boundaries, making others happy while you quietly suffer, and never having time for yourself or the things you love. As you can see, when we get stuck in the virtue trap, it isn’t honorable or virtuous - it’s self-destruction.
Are you stuck in the virtue trap? Take the virtue trap quiz in Julia’s book to find out!
Daily/Weekly Rituals:
Every morning, set your clock one-half hour early; get up and write three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness morning writing. Do not reread these pages or allow anyone else to read them. Ideally, stick these pages in a large manila envelope, or hide them somewhere welcome to the morning pages. They will change you.
Take yourself an artist date. . A sample artist date: go to a park and take some colors and paper. Sketch something out and color it. DO NOT evaluate it. Enjoy the process of looking, capturing, and coloring.
Movement and meditation
Weekly Tasks: In addition to the Virtue trap and I wish exercise there are several tasks this week. If you struggle with believing in abundance, I encourage you to look at Task 1! All the tasks are powerful and integrate with your practices this week!
Weekly CHECK-IN : You will do this check every week. If you start running your creative week Sunday to Sunday, do your check-ins each Saturday. Remember that this recovery is yours. What you think is important, and it will become increasingly interesting to you as you progress. You may want to do check-ins in your morning- pages notebook, It’s best to answer by hand and allow about twenty minutes to respond. The purpose of check- ins is to give you a journal of your creative journey. It is my hope that you will later share the tools with others and in doing so find your own notes invaluable.
How many days this week did you do your morning pages? Seven out of seven, we always hope. How was the experience for you?
Did you do your artist date this week? Yes, of course, we always hope. And yet artist dates can be remarkably difficult to allow yourself. What did you do? How did it feel?
Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. –Henry David Thoreau
Mindfulness and Movement Exercises for the week
A noting meditation and chair yoga practice from Terri!
Look back mid-week for a heart chakra meditation and gentle backhanding sequence from Crystal!
And if you’re looking for a longer, physically challenging practice NOW, reminder of the 75 minute heart practice from Crystal posted on Week 1
Week 6: Recovering a Sense of Abundance
We talked a little bit about abundance in week 5, and here in Week 6, we are talking specifically about abundance in terms of money and luxury. This can feel like a sensitive topic, yet as we’ll see, it’s an important conversation to have as part of our creative recovery.
Many of us don’t really consciously ask ourselves what our ideas and beliefs around money are, yet those ideas are deeply embedded in us and hugely affect the decisions we make and the way we experience life. When it comes to creative recovery and nurturing our inner artist, not only do our beliefs around finances affect our actions (or inaction) towards our creative dreams; they shape our overall feelings about creativity.
Week 6 is all about identifying those beliefs and shifting our mindset to one of luxury, specifically creative luxury.
Here’s a snapshot of one of the powerful exercises around money. Every time I do it, I find more blocks!
Complete the following phrases:
People with money are __________________.
Money makes people ___________________.
Id’ have more money if __________________.
My dad thought money was ______________.
My mom always thought money would _____.
Creative Luxury
So what is creative luxury and what does it look like? Here’s the simple answer:
“What gives us true joy? That is the question to ask concerning luxury, and for each of us the answer is very different.”
Here are some examples of what creative luxury might look like for different people:
Carving out 15 minutes of uninterrupted time every day for you to sit and do something creative
Claiming one small corner of the house as your creative space and organizing it with all the things that make you happy
Treating yourself to those art supplies that you’ve been eyeing for months
Signing up for that creative workshop or online course
Taking a weekend trip as a creative retreat with your artist friends
Daily/Weekly Rituals:
Morning pages: if you have been blocked and not doing pages, or not doing them regularly, give yourself a restart this week- set your clock for 10 minutes this week and write non-stop for 10 minutes; When you feel success with that, bump it up to 15 and so and so forth. Whatever you do, WRITE EVERY DAY!
Take yourself an artist date. Consider how this might link up with a creative luxury for you! Remember to be creative with your artists date. They may not look the same as they would have looked pre-pandemic.
Movement and meditation
Weekly Tasks: There are some great tasks this week to support abundance, creativity and play. I love the cooking one!
Weekly CHECK-IN : You will do this check every week. If you start running your creative week Sunday to Sunday, do your check-ins each Saturday. Remember that this recovery is yours. What you think is important, and it will become increasingly interesting to you as you progress. You may want to do check-ins in your morning- pages notebook, It’s best to answer by hand and allow about twenty minutes to respond. The purpose of check- ins is to give you a journal of your creative journey. It is my hope that you will later share the tools with others and in doing so find your own notes invaluable.
How many days this week did you do your morning pages? Seven out of seven, we always hope. How was the experience for you?
Did you do your artist date this week? Yes, of course, we always hope. And yet artist dates can be remarkably difficult to allow yourself. What did you do? How did it feel?
Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. –Henry David Thoreau
Mindfulness and Movement Exercises for the week:
60 minute energetic practice - this is an audio, so give yourself grace while following along without a visual!
I will load an additional practice and meditation mid-week, please check back!
WEEK 7: RECOVERING A SENSE OF CONNECTION
“Don’t worry about mistakes,” said Miles Davis, “there are none.”
Remember: Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure, creative energy. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life — including ourselves. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.
LISTENING.
The ability to listen is a skill we are honing with both our morning pages and our artists date. Your artists date may be a horseman’s date. It may be a dancer’s date. It is fifteen minutes, an hour, a moment — that you plan — that brings you absolute delight. The morning pages train us to hear past our Censor. The artists dates help us to pick up the voice of inspiration. While both may be apparently unconnected to the practicing of our particular art, they are critical to the creative process.
PERFECTIONISM.
You may call it “getting it right,” or maybe, “having standards,” or “fixing it before I go any further.” Perfectionism is not about getting it right, having standards, or fixing things. Perfection is all about not allowing you to proceed. It is an obsessive, debilitating closed loop. Obsessed with doing things perfectly, we get mired in tiny details.
RISK
QUESTION: What would I do if I didn’t have to do it perfectly?
ANSWER: A great deal more than I am.
We’ve all heard that the unexamined life is not worth living, but consider too that the un-lived life is not worth examining. The success of a creative recovery hinges on our ability to move out of the head and into action. This bring us squarely to risk. Most of us are practiced at talking ourselves out of risk. We are skilled speculators on the probable pain of self-exposure. I encourage to complete the risk activity!
JEALOUSY
Jealousy is a map. Each of our jealousy maps differs. Each of us will probably be surprised by some of the things we discover on our own.
Jealousy is always a mask for fear: fear that we aren’t able to get what we want; frustration that somebody else seems to be getting what is rightfully ours even if we are too frightened to reach for it. At its root, jealousy is a stingy emotion. It doesn’t allow for the abundance and multiplicity of the universe. Jealousy tells us there is room for only one — one poet, one painter, one whatever you dream of being.
To take a deeper look at jealousy, take a look at the jealousy map!
ARCHAEOLOGY, AN EXERCISE
The phrases that follow are more of your sleuth work. Very often, we have buried parts of ourselves that can be uncovered by some digging. Not only will your answers tell you what you missed in the past; they will tell you what you can be doing, now, to comfort and encourage your artist child. It is not too late, no matter what your ego tells you.
COMPLETE THESE PHRASES.
As a kid, I missed the chance to . . .
As a kid, I lacked . . .
As a kid, I could have used . . .
As a kid, I dreamed of being . . .
As a kid, I wanted a . . .
In my house, we never had enough . . .
As a kid, I needed more . . .
I am sorry that I will never again see . . .
For years, I have missed and wondered about . . .
I beat myself up about the loss of . . .
It is important to acknowledge our positive inventory as well as our shortfalls. Take positive stock of what good you have to build on in the present.
Daily/Weekly Rituals:
Morning pages: if you have been blocked and not doing pages, or not doing them regularly, give yourself a restart this week- set your clock for 10 minutes this week and write non-stop for 10 minutes; When you feel success with that, bump it up to 15 and so and so forth. Whatever you do, WRITE EVERY DAY!
Take yourself an artist date. Consider how this might link up with a creative luxury for you! Remember to be creative with your artists date. They may not look the same as they would have looked pre-pandemic.
Movement and meditation
Weekly Tasks: The tasks this week take you on more creative journeys, invite in luxuries, and encourage time for joy! I encourage, try at least one, or more!
Weekly CHECK-IN : You will do this check every week. If you start running your creative week Sunday to Sunday, do your check-ins each Saturday. Remember that this recovery is yours. What you think is important, and it will become increasingly interesting to you as you progress. You may want to do check-ins in your morning- pages notebook, It’s best to answer by hand and allow about twenty minutes to respond. The purpose of check- ins is to give you a journal of your creative journey. It is my hope that you will later share the tools with others and in doing so find your own notes invaluable.
How many days this week did you do your morning pages? How was the experience for you?
Did you do your artist date this week? Y What did you do? How did it feel?
Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.
Any synchronicities? Describe them.
Mindfulness and Movement Exercises for the week:
25 minute yoga mat. + meditation practice- focused on heart chakra
Week 8: Recovering A Sense of Strength
So far, in Weeks 1 through 7 of The Artist’s Way, we’ve:
covered some foundational practices for creative recovery (morning pages and the Artist’s Date),
discussed some new concepts to get us into an artist child’s mindset (synchronicity, abundance, and creative luxury), and
identified some larger creative blocks and how to deal with them (The Virtue Trap and perfectionism).
Most of the readings and exercises until now have focused on unraveling negative mindsets/belief systems that have kept us creatively blocked, but starting from last week, the readings focus more on taking action towards our creative goals and dealing with some new blocks that may surface as we move forward.
In Week 8, we’re talking about recovering a sense of strength and building resilience in the face of failure and loss. We’ll look at some strategies that can help us to keep going, and the importance of “filling the form” (aka taking small, but consistent action towards our creative goals).
Persisting Through Artistic Losses
As we start to put our creativity into practice, it’s inevitable that we will experience some type of loss at some point. Julia mentions a few types of losses in the book - loss of hope, loss of face, loss of money, and loss of self-belief. These losses can come in the form of rejection, criticism, lack of sales, or negative (or zero) feedback.
Experiencing these losses for the first time (especially if you glossed over them or didn’t allow yourself to feel in the past) can feel like serious blows to our artist child, but here are some strategies to persist through them:
1. Acknowledge the loss.
Julia says that when artistic losses aren’t openly acknowledged or mourned, they become “artistic scar tissue”, creating more blocks towards our artistic growth. So even if it’s a tiny act of buying yourself flowers or letting yourself take a day off, make sure to acknowledge the loss (and the feelings it brings), and treat your artist child as a mom would treat small child who is in pain. As Julia puts it, “Ouch. That hurt. Here’s a little treat, a lullaby, a promise…”.
2. Put your focus back on the process, not the final result.
The moment we accept our artistic losses as the “final answer” is the moment we get ourselves completely stuck. Instead of obsessing over the results, remember that we are on a creative journey that comes with ups and downs and all-arounds. Focus on the lessons learned, reflect on what you can do better the next time around, and remember that moving through your losses is an important part of your creative journey. These losses will strengthen you and become a part of your bigger story. And continuing to move forward will take you exactly where you’re meant to be.
3. Choose to move forward.
We can choose to let our losses define us and block us from moving forward, or we can choose to get back up and keep going. Julia says, “I have learned that the key to career resiliency is self-empowerment and choice”. The best way to handle artistic loss is to turn those losses into strengths and continue to make that daily choice to press on towards your goals. Therein lies the key to building resilience and reaching true success.
FILLING THE FORM
Simply put, filling the form is this: taking that next small step towards your larger goals. It’s usually something small and seemingly insignificant - cleaning your paintbrushes, opening your sketchbook, or clearing your desk. And although it might seem too small to really make a difference, it’s the commitment to taking small, consistent action every day that “fills the form” and sets you in forward motion. When I notice I am overwhelmed or feeling like the project is not possible, I often start with looking for the visuals or deciding on the font for creating an advertisement for the project (with no ties to it being the final product) or writing an email or sending a text to someone I’m working on the project with. A small, easily reverse-able next step, that is practical, doesn’t take much time or thinking, and is often enjoyable.
Filling the form can be a powerful practice because it removes us from a mindset where we are thinking in grandiose terms. It is an antidote for black and white, all or nothing, thinking. We like to think that there is one big action that will change the course of our artistic careers, but this mindset causes us to: (1) put too much pressure on the next step we need to take, and (2) lose sight of the fact that large changes usually happen in tiny increments over time.
When we keep things simple and small, we allow ourselves to take things one step at a time - with a lot less pressure and anxiety riding on our decisions.
Daily/Weekly Rituals:
Morning pages: if you have been blocked and not doing pages, or not doing them regularly, give yourself a restart this week- set your clock for 5 minutes this week and write non-stop for 5 minutes; When you feel success with that, bump it up to 10 and so and so forth. Whatever you do, WRITE EVERY DAY!
Take yourself an artist date. Remember to be creative with your artists date. They may not look the same as they would have looked pre-pandemic.
Movement and meditation and breath exercises.
Weekly Tasks: The tasks this week offer you some more excavating and also, move you toward ACTION! A key to recovering strength.
Weekly CHECK-IN : The purpose of check- ins is to give you a journal of your creative journey. It is my hope that you will later share the tools with others and in doing so find your own notes invaluable!
How many days this week did you do your morning pages? How was the experience for you?
Did you do your artist date this week? What did you do? How did it feel?
Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.
Any synchronicities? Describe them.
Mindfulness and Movement Exercises for the week: Please note the majority of these exercises (and even these pages) are unlisted on Google or Youtube, so you will not be able to find them without the direct link. However, I will keep these pages alive for you, including after the journey! So please bookmark these pages for later use :)
Core/Solar Plexus plus meditation with Crystal
Core/Solar Plexus on the mat practice with Crystal
Week 9: RECOVERING A SENSE OF COMPASSION
We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way.
John Holt, educator.
This week finds us facing the internal blocks to creativity. It may be tempting to abandon ship at this point. DON’T! We will explore and acknowledge the emotional difficulties that beset us in the past as we made creative efforts. We will undertake healing the shame of past failures. We will gain in compassion as we re-parent the frightened artist child who years for creative accomplishment. We will learn tools to dismantle emotional blocks and support renewed risk.
FEAR.
One of the most important tasks in artistic recovery is learning to call things — and ourselves — by the right names. We want to be creative and successful, and we are blocked. We call it laziness, we call it a lack of guts, we call it a lack of talent, we say, “I just never rise to meet my potential.” We chew on our own hearts and tear at ourselves with criticisms, comparisons, and abuse. This is not merely inaccurate. It is cruel. Accuracy and compassion serve us far better.
ENTHUSIASM.
People will tell you, “It must take such discipline to learn to ride so well.” What a seduction, they invite us to preen as though we are some kind of Spartan hero. This image is false. Military discipline will carry you forward only so far. The discipline itself, not the creative act, becomes the point, and locked into our regime we feel we’ve answered the call. We have, but the quiet voice of the inner artist child is not the call we answered.
Being an artist, tapping into that creative voice, requires enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional storm, it is a spiritual commitment. A loving surrender to our creative process, to all the creativity around us. The word Enthusiasm comes from the Greek: “Filled with God.” It is an ongoing energy grounded in play, not work. Our inner creative spirit is a child at play, and we want to play with her. It is joy, not duty, that bonds that child to her playmates.
You may set a regular schedule, but it is to meet up with that artist child. Treat work as play. Make your workspace a play space, make it magic. Remember that art is a process. The process is supposed to be fun, it’s our creative self at play in the field of time. And at the heart of this play is the mystery of joy.
CREATIVE U-TURNS.
Recovering from artists block requires a commitment to health. At some point, we must make an active choice to relinquish the joys and privileges accorded to the emotional invalid. A productive artist is quite often a happy person. This can be very threatening as a self-concept to those who are used to getting their needs met by being unhappy. We often have a whole lot of ego invested in our uniquely tragic back stories and our special, troubled lives. Deciding to define ourselves as successful and happy means no longer having that persona as the center of our being. This can be very disorienting.
BLASTING THROUGH BLOCKS.
In order to work freely on any project, the creative person must be at least functionally free of resentment (anger) and resistance (fear). This means buried barriers, including buried payoffs to not working, must be aired to let you move freely. Blocks are generally not mysterious, they are recognizable defenses against what is perceived (rightly or wrongly) as a hostile environment.Remember the creative part is a child part. It sulks, throws tantrums, hides under the covers. It falls to you to be the warrior, champion, parent, guardian who makes the environment safe and convinces the artist child to come out and play. It’s a good idea to start any new project with a few questions that help remove the bugaboos between your artist child self and unobstructed flow of creative energy.
Daily/Weekly Rituals:
Morning pages: Whatever you do, WRITE EVERY DAY!
Take yourself an artist date. Remember to be creative with your artists date. They may not look the same as they would have looked pre-pandemic.
Movement and meditation and breath exercises, some guided video practices are below!
Weekly Tasks: Check out the weekly tasks to work on a sense of compassion this week!
Weekly CHECK-IN :
The purpose of check- ins is to give you a journal of your creative journey. It is my hope that you will later share the tools with others and in doing so find your own notes invaluable!
How many days this week did you do your morning pages? How was the experience for you?
Did you do your artist date this week? What did you do? How did it feel?
Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.
Any synchronicities? Describe them.
Mindfulness and Movement
Exercises for the week: Please note the majority of these exercises (and even these pages) are unlisted on Google or Youtube, so you will not be able to find them without the direct link. However, I will keep these pages alive for you, including after the journey! So please bookmark these pages for later use :)
Meditation 5 min focus on the Artists Prayer
Sacral Chakra 20 Minute Yoga Practice
Another 20 minute yoga practice: strength and sacral chakra! with Crystal
WEEK 10: RECOVERING A SENSE OF SELF PROTECTION
This week we explore the perils that can ambush us on our creative path. Because creativity is a spiritual issue, many of the perils are spiritual perils. In the essays, tasks, and exercises of the week, we search out the toxic patterns we cling to that block our creative flow.
DANGERS OF THE TRAIL.
Creativity is the energy of the Universe flowing through us, shaped by us, like light through a crystal. When we are clear about who we are and what we are doing, the light flows unimpeded and we experience no strain. When we resist what it shows us or where it takes us, we often experience a shaky out-of-control feeling. We want to shut down the flow and regain a sense of control. We slam on psychic breaks. We block our own creativity.
We may block it with chemicals: food can be used this way. Sugar, carbs can leave you feeling more dull and blurry. Of course, drugs and alcohol work as anesthetics too. For many, work is the drug of choice — you’re both too busy to feel anything, and you’re socially appropriate. Drama can be an effective creativity deterrent, staying fascinated with one emotional crisis after another, one passionately wrong love affair after another, some family crisis… the obsessive thoughts drown out the little voices saying to rearrange your furniture, paint something, try a new technique with your horse.
WORKAHOLISM.
Workaholics are addicted. If you’re too busy to do your morning pages, to take your artists date, you’re too busy to hear your own inner creative voice suggesting the path to your own outrageously creative life. The phrase “I’m working” has an unassailable goodness and duty to it. That’s why it’s so much easier to get people to do the morning pages than the artist’s date. The pages are dutiful. The date is a delight. Play can make a workaholic very nervous, it has no borders, it is … fun. And fun is scary. We work to avoid our real feelings and to avoid experiencing our real lives! So finish the workaholism quiz you started, or do it if you haven’t yet, and get more self-aware and curious (and kind with yourself) about “working!” In order to recover ourselves as creatives, we need to see workaholism (and the other blocks) as the addiction it is. We are Cinderella: always dreaming of the ball, and living with the ball and chain. Work is synonymous with worth. We are hesitant to jettison any of it. The difference between healthy work and obsessive work is the emotional content — zestful work toward a cherished goal is one thing. Treadmill, resentful, overbooked work is another.
DROUGHT.
There are dry seasons in any creative life, times when life loses its sweetness and our work feels mechanical and we don’t feel we have anything to say, and we’re not feeling that creative juice flowing. These are the times the morning pages are the most difficult and the most useful. The doubts slide up like sidewinders… what’s the use? The pages are like slogging through the desert in a straight line, one foot after another, they are our lifeline out of the desert. During a drought, we are suffering from loss of faith in the Universe and in ourselves. Everywhere there is the feeling that none of what we’re doing matters. And yet we write the morning pages because we must. Droughts seem endless, and yet, those long airless seasons make us grow, give us compassion, and blossom like the desert with unexpected lowers. Droughts feel endless, yet they do end, and the morning pages keep us moving through them. We have doubted, but we have stumbled on. In a creative life, droughts are a necessity. The desert brings us clarity and charity. When you are in a drought, trust that it has a purpose, and keep the morning pages going. To write thing is to Right things. Sooner or later a path will emerge, and an insight will be the landmark that leads us out of the wilderness.
FAME.
Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls, we know that. Fame is addictive, though, and it leaves us hungry. Fame can produce the “How am I doing?” syndrome. This question is not “Is the work going well?” it is instead “How does the work look to them?”
The point of the work is the work. Fame interferes with that perception. It is a drug. It creates a continuous feeling of lack, there is never enough. Wanting fame snaps at our heels discredits our accomplishments, erodes our joy in another’s accomplishments.
COMPETITION.
So… someone you know is suddenly the talk of the trade. Instead of saying “That proves it can be done!” we feel, “He or she will succeed instead of me.” Along with fame, competition is another addiction that blocks our success. Comparing ourselves to others we ask the wrong questions and those questions give us the wrong answers.
We have to stay with our own process. We can’t afford to wander off into competition and it’s sideline concerns. The desire to be better than makes it really hard just to be. It has its place for judges, but not for riders. For critics, not for artists. Looking for that short-term win instead of the long-term process, we get lost in the lesser lights of instant fame instead of living in the quiet glow of a healthy, lifelong process.
TASKS.
THIS WEEK DO ALL OF THE TASKS.
Daily/Weekly Rituals:
Morning pages: Whatever you do, WRITE EVERY DAY! If you miss a day or two, or six, listen to the voices that tell you there is no reason to pick it back up. Protect yourself from these voices and get back after your pages!
Take yourself an artist date. Remember to be creative with your artists date. They may not look the same as they would have looked pre-pandemic.
Movement and meditation and breath exercises, some guided video practices are below!
Weekly Tasks: Check out the weekly tasks to work on a sense of self-protection this week!
Weekly CHECK-IN :
The purpose of check- ins is to give you a journal of your creative journey. It is my hope that you will later share the tools with others and in doing so find your own notes invaluable!
How many days this week did you do your morning pages? How was the experience for you?
Did you do your artist date this week? What did you do? How did it feel?
Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.
Any synchronicities? Describe them.
Mindfulness and Movement
Exercises for the week: Please note the majority of these exercises (and even these pages) are unlisted on Google or Youtube, so you will not be able to find them without the direct link. However, I will keep these pages alive for you, including after the journey! So please bookmark these pages for later use :)
30 minute meditation + on the mat practice with Kellie and Terri. I started the meditation recording a couple of minutes in, so set up your seat or recline, and jump right in when it starts!
24 minute on the mat and meditation practice with Crystal