Documenting my creative recovery.
March 15 – March 21
Recovering a sense of Safety
“This week initiates your creative recovery. You may feel both giddy and defiant, hopeful and sceptical. The readings, tasks, and exercises aim at allowing you to establish a sense of safety, which will enable you to explore your creativity with less fear.”
Week 1 Tasks
1. Begin the Morning Pages. With a focus on affirmations
My affirmations of choice:
- As I create and listen, I will be led.
- I am allowed to nurture my artist.
- Through the use of a few simple tools, my creativity will flourish.
2. Go on the first Artist Date!
I went to the park! I got dressed in a pretty dress, took my picnic blanket, my new purse, an old sketchbook and my big pastels that begged for a couple years ago and hardly used. I sat under a big magical tree and just drew what I saw. I wasn’t able to be completely alone, I did have my little Lola!
3. Hall of Monsters
Who are my monsters? I’ve journaled that I never really had anyone in particular put my creativity down. I’ve been blessed with encouragement from those around me! And when someone has ever said anything non-positive, it ends up as motivation to do better than I had before.
My biggest block is my confidence, who in the past has put down my confidence I wonder? Let me do my best here to list 3 monsters of my creativity…
- Lack of confidence in how to represent myself and my skill
- Fear of rejection when I put myself on display or offer my company to people who don’t reciprocate
- Fear that what I’m capable of is not what I imagined or what others have expected.
4. A horror story about one of the monsters
There once was a girl who was a baker, she’d loved to bake cakes since she was a small child.
One day at school she tells her friends that she bakes. They ask if it’s true and to bring them a cake, the best that she’d ever made. The teachers learn that she bakes, they ask if it’s true and to bring them a cake, the best she’d ever made. She tells her family about her friends’ and teachers’ request, that they want her to bake a cake.
They say “Do it! Bake the best you’d ever made!“
The next day she wakes, and for some reason she didn’t feel like baking… but she tried anyways.She imagined something grand, she wanted to impress everyone. She baked a cake, but it came out just the same as her cakes before.
“This is so disappointing, it was meant to be better than this” she thought to herself, “what if they still want another cake tomorrow? What if they want an even better cake than this?“
But this was all in her mind, a little grimace whispering in her ear “this wont impress them” “cant you do better than that?” “don’t even show it to them” “they thought you were better than that already“…
(I really struggled to draw anything scary, everything looked cute. Eventually I realised the monster wasn’t something that should look scary at all… At some point I had decided I was shy, and it became an easy place to hide. People were nicer to the “shy girl”, I could speak quietly and infrequently, and no one questioned it. So I drew the monster in a mask, like it planted that identity in my head and used it to speak as me. It found something believable to hide inside, which made it easier to mistake those thoughts for my own personality. Even now it is hard to break those patterns. Also he looks like no-face, and to be fair he was quite a scary guy at one point.)
5. A letter to the editor(of the horror story)
Dear editor of the universe,
It’s me, little baker. I’m writing to tell you that the grimace is a dumb monster, it does nothing but bad and makes me sad. Why did you have to create him? We should squish him like a mosquito and all others who are like him as well. Little grommets and grumbles and grimaces who just bring others down. I was a brave girl once and I know I can be again despite what the grimace has said.
– The little baker.
6. Hall of Champions
Like I say, I’ve been fortunate enough that my asian parents never pulled me away from pursuing art, they’ve always supported any direction I mentioned wanting to go! And so have my friends and teachers and my partner too. But thinking about three champions in my life…
- Alfred and Sofia – My parents, both have always supported me! Even though I was awful with my studies in high school. They always want the best for me and help if I need it <3
- Barry S. – My partner of seven years. Always telling me I’m worth more than others realise. Reminding me that my hard work should be recognised!
- Marcos Stegall – My third year lecturer at AUT. (I’m gonna just rant about how great he was!) He is the first one I think of as my biggest motivator during my drudge through uni! I was a bit of a teachers pet, but it wasn’t for no reason. I could really tell that he was passionate about what he taught, and he wanted us to be passionate about it as well. He knew I had a deeper story within me even when all he’d seen of me was a silly campaign about crafting accessories together for the benefit of the environment… He somehow knew I had a story to tell before I had even brought it to my consciousness! He just made me feel seen during the difficult final leg of uni. Other lecturers had only focused on what was being designed and if I had a reason to design it, but Marcos wanted to make sure that I understood why I wanted to design it and to keep moving toward that. Not sure I explained that well but yeah he was awesome! I hope other students are able to appreciate the way he teaches!
7. Write a happy piece of encouragement relating to one of the champions
To Barry: I’m excited for you to start your own artist way journey! I know you have so much that you want to create, and hopefully these tools will ignite those in you again so we can both be creative together, just like we’ve always talked about!!
8. If I had five imaginary lives, what would I do in each of them?
- Be a lounge singer: Be glamorous and mysterious. I eat healthy, I write songs and have a band that makes music with me.
- Be a /bag designer: I love purses and these expensive ones don’t solve real problems that women who buy them to need them to! What do you mean there’s no inner pockets?
- Archeologist: Looks like hard work, down in the dirt and in the sun just to mostly find little pieces of bones and vases but it would be satisfying as well to learn so much and to contribute to science and history.
- A therapist x life coach: I would love to hear about peoples problems, read them deeply, empathise honestly and help them organise their life!
- Bouldering gym owner and instructor: I love bouldering and wish there was a gym in the city! I think I could be good and teaching it would be doable for alternate universe me since it would just be describing techniques!
I know I could’ve said “I own an island and had staff in my massive mansion etc etc” but I learned long ago to be honest with myself and actually listen, or else these manifestations, dreams and lives I’m saying I want won’t actually be true and will feel empty.
Because I want to be myself but better, not different. I think I really went into my subconscious and remembered those moments when I’ve thought about each of these lives!
9. Through the week, note blurts and convert them to positive affirmations.
The Blurt (my grimace in my ear)
The Affirmation
“Your space wont let you”
My space is mine to shift and control.
“You can’t even describe what you’re doing”
I’m capable of explaining myself.
“You’re not worth even trying to understand”
I am worth listening to, my stories deserve more.
“You could never have the confidence”
I am capable of confidence.
“Why spend so long on that? Nobody will see it.”
I know my growth and art is worth the effort.
10. Take a little artist walk, a short walk can alter consciousness.
To do: take some photos, bring the fish eye lens…
Week 1 check-in
The Artist’s Way has questions for me to answer specifically in my check ins, let me answer them now!
How many pages did I keep up with in my morning pages? Seven out of seven! Even though I didn’t always finish them in one sitting or in the mornings, I got them done each day! It hasn’t been any easier to do, but I keep being surprised anyways by the insight I gain by doing them even when I think that I haven’t got anything significant that day!
Did I do my artist date this week? What did I do and how did it feel? Since I already wrote about it above, I wont add much more. Other than saying yes I did do it and man I knew I’d struggle to do anything extreme which is why I did a very mellow date that would be easy for me to fulfil.
Were there any issues significant for my recovery? Well when I think of “issues” I just think “it was hard to have enough peace and quiet to do my pages”… But I did always get them done so I’m not sure. My issue is that I didn’t really do any ART at all! Lol I kept writing about wanting to, ad about listening to myself wanting to but then I never really did it, other than the artist date! I need to stay true to my word when I write, if I make myself promises, then I need to keep them.
I’ve been journaling in my own way for a few months now, I wan’t really sure about how this new technique would work for me. But something about being FORCED to write three entire pages really forces words out of you! In the past I would journal possibly one page max – and that was already a revolutionary change for me!
Let me break it down for you (I know how much you totally care)
Before journaling, my process was:
- Think about an aspect of life
- Have an idea
- Be happy about having an idea and move on
Journaling one page, my thought process became:
- Journal of an aspect of life
- Have an idea about it
- Have more page to fill and expand one or two steps deeper in the same idea
- Try take action or move on
Journaling three pages, this process was amplified:
- Think of an aspect of life
- Have an idea about it
- Have more page to fill and expand one or two steps deeper in the same idea
- Reflect on why I came up with this idea and its origins in my life
- Come up with another idea which strengthens my path to resolution
- Clarify my barriers and understand what I will need to change to make it through
- Have great clarity and stronger and understanding and have more motivation to move forward
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