Tandaan

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Recovering a sense of Integrity

“This week may find you grappling with changing self-definition. The essays, tasks and exercises are designed to catapult you into productive introspection and integration of new self-awareness. This may be both difficult and extremely exciting for you. Warning: Do not skip the tool of reading deprivation!”

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Week 4 Tasks

Additional assignment: Reading deprivation

Depriving ourselves of outer noise. If you are not filling your inner silence with words, then your mind will be forced to fill it’s own silence, and in turn you will begin to play.

Since this was written decades ago and “reading newspapers” is not so much a big thing now, I’ve had to re-define more clearly what I’ll be depriving myself of. Honestly I don’t really “read” per say, most of today’s content leans more toward video and audio than it does reading.

Months ago, I had already jumped off social media. I hated being handed stupid videos, as if I was just stupid enough to consume them. I hated the constant need to weed out AI, as if the “non AI” content was even worth my time either. What was I looking for? How did it benefit me? It didn’t.

I found myself trying to relate to people and problems that didn’t connect to my life at all, I was in a worse mood for it.

I only watch long form YouTube videos now, but I’m aware that even that is social media too.

Although, I think some long form content on YouTube is still good. If the videos I watch are video logs of people’s journeys, design inspiration, or deep analysis of visuals and stories, then I think that content can be valuable to me.

Often I am just listening to music, but when I choose to put on a video, I need to make sure I avoid content that does not add to my well. Content should inspire me to write, to paint, to finally declutter that corner I’ve been looking at for weeks.

The junk-food-videos will have to wait in line, one at a time, for the once or twice a week that I’ll allow myself to consume them and only after I’ve treated my inner artist well that week.

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1. Describe and visualise your ideal environment

My ideal place is in the humid heat of the Philippines (if only it was realistic to imagine living in my homeland, I could probably only have a holiday home there!), somewhere I can touch the ocean at any time, close to a clean beach while feeling safe. If not a beach then somewhere private on the edge of the city, in a safe rural suburb. A place where I look out my windows and can watch birds in the trees. When I open my doors or windows for the breeze, I don’t hear traffic or cars zoom past on roads, I don’t even really hear my neighbours, I only hear the wind in the trees and the songs of the birds, and I suppose the crashing of waves too in my beach-side scenario. I walk my dog down the street and there is lots of grass, beautiful old trees with little leaves, tidy paths and non-busy roads.

My home would have a lot of wood in its floors, walls, doors, and furniture. It would feel warm and bright with natural light coming through the windows. But the furniture would have silver details and interesting forms! I have a real growing facination with natural materials mixed with chrome metal… In both my clothes and my interior design!

My home keeps me dry and healthy, I’m warm in cold winters, and cool in hot summers. I would have a space all to myself, a studio that is all mine, also warm with wood, and bright with windows.

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2. Describe yourself at eighty, write a letter from your eighty your old self directed at you now

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3. Describe yourself at eight, write a letter from your eight your old self directed at you now

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4. Convert a space in your home into a private space for yourself

Look, I don’t think I can have a private space for myself, I share a house with two others and there is no little only-me room. But, in my morning pages I was reflecting on my teenage self and her bedroom and was asking myself HOW she was constantly drawing and creating. A big part of my room was the amount of personality I had on display! I had every wall covered in either artwork of my favourite characters by my favourite artits, or digital and painted artwork that I made! Some of the art was references for my characters, and the scenes that show up in their stories, some was reference of the art styles I loved, and some of it was art that I specifically made just to fill a gap in the wall. I walked into my room and was immediately greeted by art, reminded of my own art and reminded that I was capable of creating constantly!

I need to somehow incorporate that again? Somehow…

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5. Revisit your life pie

Okay so, I know a lot more about myself, which is inner progress… But what external, impactful actions have actually changed during the past 4 weeks?

1. I bought a Cyber-shot U20!! A mini digi cam that I can keep in my purse and take more photos with. It makes me want to be more adventurous and playful
2. I hold onto my thoughts longer now and tend to do something with them, writing them down so I’ll remember, expanding on them in my journal, or acting on them when I have the time and understand their importance
3. I watch less TV at night and spend that time writing instead, or just resting before bed
4. I think about my creative stories more often and that I want to do them!
5. I speak more with my best friend / partner about our creative journeys, dreams, and blocks
6. I also bought a cabinet, which helped organise my space and gave me a more hopeful mindset

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6. Write your own Artist’s Prayer, use it every day this week

Dear Lord,

Thank you for what you have given me.

Thank you for the opportunities I’ve had to bring me to where I am today.

I hope to continue to grow, to continue to follow the path that you have set out for me.

I hope Lord that you will continue to watch over me. Help me to make the right choices.

Guide me, guide us.

Guide us to love one another, to nurture each other, to understand one another.

Guide us to create, to become our truest selves as you intended in our creation.

Amen.

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7. An extended day long Artist’s Date

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8. Throw out one low-self-worth outfit from your closet

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9. Look at one situation in your life that you should change, reflect on the pay-off of staying the same

Well I actually asked myself something in my Morning Pages…

I first thought about my answer when people ask me “what have you been up to?“

Right now, my answers are always the same (and I hate them all)

• Not much.
• Just working.
• Just cleaning.
• Just gaming.
• Just chilling.

What would I rather say?

• I was finishing a painting I’ve been working on
• I just wrote the second draft of my comic script
• I was writing the final chapter of my short story
• I was printing the photos I took at an outing
• I’m in the middle of editing a new youtube video I filmed last weekend

I want these parts of me to change, I want to do them more, this is the me that I want to present because it’s a me that will be happier.

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10. If you break your reading deprivation, write about how you did it, how you feel about it, and why

It was really really hard!

Okay, other than “filling empty brain space”, what other reasons do I actually have something on in the background? Usually it’s because I’m working and there’s a noise I can’t control, like loud gardeners, the dishwasher, or the washing machine. One of these things are usually on once a day…

If I’m putting a video on for fun, it’s usually before bed, like 10 minutes before I sleep, or because I just want to hear someone talk okay! I’m alone MOST of the time, and the creators I watch are genuine people, they talk about things they actually enjoy and want to share, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all to watch them.

Sooo I didn’t go cold turkey!! I still watched a video here and there, but I mostly listened to music, or sometimes just nothing at all when my neighbourhood allowed for it, which it did most days!

I noticed how much muscle memory went into contantly reaching for the remote just to choose the next video. When that happened, I chose to turn the TV off or switch to music instead. And when my brain couldn’t even find a song to focus on, I took that as a sign that I was overstimulated, so I turned everything off.

This exercise wasn’t about torture, or total discomfort, or forcing myself to listen to the dishwasher for hours. It was about actually hearing my mind behind all the noise I usually fill it with. I’m noticing now when I’m filling the air just because it’s easy, and when I’m choosing to watch something because the moment is right for it.

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Additional assignment: Buried dreams exercise

Wow this is crazyyy! What interesting insight into my brain… must reflect on these in my morning pages!

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Week 4 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? Every day babyyy!!

Did I do my artist date this week? I’d love to say that I did, I’d love to just do something so I can say that I got the date done, but honestly I haven’t. We’re waiting for a storm to hit, and I feel like I’m in that awkward waiting energy, you know? Waiting for my boyfriend to get home so I can’t craft inside, and waiting for it to rain so I can’t go outside. Feeling a bit paralysed is how I’d describe it!!

I’m great at planning and thinking, but I’m the worst at doing. I need as little friction as possible to be able to act. I can’t say I’m not disappointed in myself, but I also can’t say that this is what will stop me from trying. I’m a total homebody and honestly a bit agoraphobic, it’s really hard for me to leave on my own even if my heart really, really wants to. I’m strong in my reading and writing, but in my doing I’m still improving, and that’s okay. Next week, I hope to do more. I think I’ll aim for it earlier in the week, as clearly waiting for the weekend doesn’t help.

Were there any issues significant for my recovery? Things are feeling okay actually, I think now in the process its truly up to me to make the move. The variables in my life are quite supportive of my creativity, it’s just my inner artist that has to finally get going.

“Once we engage in the process of Morning Pages and Artist Dates, we begin to move at such velocity that we do not even realise the pace.”

This was my favourite line from this week’s reading. I’m struggling to put into words the emotion that this summons in me… Hope? Inspiration? Motivation? Belief in that this effort is worth it? Maybe it’s that it’s proof, though invisible, that I am in fact moving onward even if I cannot clearly see my footprints behind me?.