The Artist’s Way: Week Seven

Week Seven in the books! This week seemed to fly by. The theme was “Recovering a Sense of Connection.” The connection referred to here is the one with ourselves, our dreams and creative interests. In the chapter, Julia Cameron discusses the perils of perfectionism (guilty as charged,) saying: “Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop - an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck…It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough.” She also encourages us to take risks and be ready to accept whatever outcome occurs, knowing that just the willingness to take a risk is a win.

I had a ton of ideas bubble up this week - all sorts of sober curious-themed workshops and coaching offerings. I’m not sure these are particularly risky ideas, but they are new ways to use my skills, and definitely not something I envisioned for myself a year ago.

Week Seven also entailed dissecting our jealousies to uncover what hidden desires, needs, and fears our jealousies reveal. Often, jealousy stems from an assumption that there isn’t enough to go around. This belief and the shame we have about our jealousy keeps us stuck. Exploring our jealousy and choosing small action steps we can take toward our dreams helps us get unstuck. This was an interesting exercise for me! I went back way to childhood and found a definite theme to my jealousies. A surprising theme on the surface (privilege) but underneath I think the real jealousy is of people who don’t pretend to be what they aren’t. I spent a lot of time in my youth trying to be seen a certain way. I still catch myself doing it now. And the people I envy are those who never bothered with that - they just knew they were OK being themselves and carried on enjoying life without trying to control how others perceived them. How liberating!!

I had no issues getting my morning pages done this week. And my artist date was a trip to the library where I paged through a bunch of art, home decor, and garden design books. I brought a few home and even tried out some of the art techniques using some old paints I found. This little gem is the product of my work with oil pastel crayons. It was an inspired week! Catch you back here after Week Eight.