The Complete Artist's Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice (27 page)

As the poet Theodore Roethke phrases it, “We learn by going/Where we have to go.” We have found that when we fill the form, we do not often need to make large changes. Large changes occur in tiny increments. It is useful to think in terms of a space flight: by altering the launch trajectory very slightly, a great difference can be made over time.

EARLY PATTERNINGS, AN EXERCISE

Although we seldom connect the dots, many of our present-day losses are connected to our earlier conditioning. Children may be told they can’t do anything or, equally damaging, be told they should be able to do absolutely anything with ease. Either of these messages blocks the recipient. The following questions are aimed at helping you retrieve and decipher your own conditioning. Some of them may seem not to apply. Write about
whatever
they trigger for you.

1. As a kid, my dad thought my art was ______. That made me feel _______________________.

2. I remember one time when he _____________.

3. I felt very __________ and __________ about that. I never forgot it.

4. As a kid, my mother taught me that my daydreaming was _________________________________________.

5. I remember she’d tell me to snap out of it by reminding me _____________________________________.

6. The person I remember who believed in me was ___.

7. I remember one time when _________________________.

8. I felt __________ and __________ about that. I never forgot it.

9. The thing that ruined my chance to be an artist was ________________________________________________

10. The negative lesson I got from that, which wasn’t logical but I still believe, is that I can’t _________ and be an artist.

11. When I was little, I learned that __________ and __________ were big sins that I particularly had to watch out for.

12. I grew up thinking artists were __________ people.

13. The teacher who shipwrecked my confidence was __________________________________________

14. I was told _________________________________.

15. I believed this teacher because _________________.

16. The mentor who gave me a good role model was ___.

17. When people say I have talent I think they want to ________________________________________________

18. The thing is, I am suspicious that ___________.

19. I just can’t believe that _____________________.

20. If I believe I am really talented, then I am mad as hell at ______ and ______ and ________ and ________ and ________.

I am in the world only for the purpose of composing.

FRANZ SCHUBERT

AFFIRMATIONS

The following affirmations affirm your right to the practice of your creativity. Select five affirmations and work with them this week.

I am a talented person.
I have a right to be an artist.
I am a good person and a good artist.
Creativity is a blessing I accept.
My creativity blesses others.
My creativity is appreciated.

I now treat myself and my creativity more gently.

I now treat myself and my creativity more generously.

I now share my creativity more openly.
I now accept hope.
I now act affirmatively.
I now accept creative recovery.
I now allow myself to heal.
I now accept God’s help unfolding my life.
I now believe God loves artists.

TASKS

1. Goal Search: You may find the following exercise difficult. Allow yourself to do it anyway. If multiple dreams occur to you, do the exercise for each one of them. The simple act of imagining a dream in concrete detail helps us to bring it into reality. Think of your goal search as a preliminary architect’s drawing for the life you would wish to have.

The Steps

1. Name your dream. That’s right. Write it down. “In a perfect world, I would secretly love to be a _____.”

2. Name one concrete goal that signals to you its accomplishment. On your emotional compass, this goal signifies true north. (Note: two people may want to be an actress. They share that dream. For one, an article in People magazine is the concrete goal. To her, glamour is the emotional center for her dream; glamour is true north. For the second actress, the concrete goal is a good review in a Broadway play. To her, respect as a creative artist is the emotional center of her dream; respect is true north. Actress one might be happy as a soap star. Actress two would need stage work to fulfill her dream. On the surface, both seem to desire the same thing.)

3. In a perfect world, where would you like to be in five years in relation to your dream and true north?

4. In the world we inhabit now, what action can you take, this year, to move you closer?

5. What action can you take this month? This week? This day? Right now?

6. List your dream (for example, to be a famous film director). List its true north (respect and higher consciousness, mass communication.) Select a role model (Walt Disney, Ron Howard, Michael Powell). Make an action plan. Five years. Three years. One year. One month. One week. Now. Choose an action.
Reading this book is an action.

2. New Childhood: What might you have been if you’d had perfect nurturing? Write a page of this fantasy childhood. What were you given? Can you reparent yourself in that direction now?

3. Color Schemes: Pick a color and write a quick few sentences describing yourself in the first person. (“I am silver, high-tech and ethereal, the color of dreams and accomplishment, the color of half-light and in between, I feel serene.” Or “I am red. I am passion, sunset, anger, blood, wine and roses, armies, murder, lust, and apples.” What is your favorite color? What do you have that is that color? What about an entire room? This is your life and your house.

Your desire is your prayer. Picture the fulfillment of your desire now and feel its reality and you will experience the joy of the answered prayer.

DR. JOSEPH MURPHY

4. List five things you are not allowed to do: kill your boss, scream in church, go outside naked, make a scene, quit your job. Now do that thing on paper. Write it, draw it, paint it, act it out, collage it. Now put some music on and dance it.

5. Style Search: List twenty things you like to do. (Perhaps the same twenty you listed before, perhaps not.) Answer these questions for each item.

Does it cost money or is it free?
Expensive or cheap?
Alone or with somebody?
Job related?
Physical risk?
Fast-paced or slow?
Mind, body, or spiritual?

6. Ideal Day: Plan a perfect day in your life as it is now constituted, using the information gleaned from above.

7. Ideal Ideal Day: Plan a perfect day in your life as you
wish
it were constituted. There are no restrictions. Allow yourself to be and to have whatever your heart desires. Your ideal environment, job, home, circle of friends, intimate relationship, stature in your art form—your wildest dreams.

8. Choose one festive aspect from your ideal day. Allow yourself to live it. You may not be able to move to Rome yet, but even in a still-grungy apartment you can enjoy a homemade cappuccino and a croissant.

CHECK-IN

1. How many days this week did you do your morning pages? (Have you been very tempted to abandon them?) How was the experience for you?

2. Did you do your artist date this week? (Have you been allowing workaholism or other commitments to sabotage this practice?) What did you do? How did it feel?

3. Did you experience any synchronicity this week? What was it?

4. Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.

WEEK 9

Recovering a Sense of Compassion

T
his week finds us facing the internal blocks to creativity. It may be tempting to abandon ship at this point. Dont’! 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 reparent the frightened artist child who yearns 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. Most of us have spent years using the wrong names for our behaviors. We have wanted to create and we have been unable to create and we have called that inability laziness. This is not merely inaccurate. It is cruel. Accuracy and compassion serve us far better.

Blocked artists are not lazy. They are blocked.

Being blocked and being lazy are two different things. The blocked artist typically expends a great deal of energy—just not visibly. The blocked artist spends energy on self-hatred, on regret, on grief, and on jealousy. The blocked artist spends energy on self-doubt.

The blocked artist does not know how to begin with baby steps. Instead, the blocked artist thinks in terms of great big scary impossible tasks: a novel, a feature film, a one-person show, an opera. When these large tasks are not accomplished, or even begun, the blocked artist calls that laziness.

Do not call the inability to start laziness. Call it fear.

Fear is the true name for what ails the blocked artist. It may be fear of failure or fear of success. Most frequently, it is fear of abandonment. This fear has roots in childhood reality. Most blocked artists tried to become artists against either their parents’ good wishes or their parents’ good judgment. For a youngster this is quite a conflict. To go squarely against your parents’ values means you’d better know what you’re doing. You’d better not just be an artist. You better be a great artist if you’re going to hurt your parents so much....

Parents do act hurt when children rebel, and declaring oneself an artist is usually viewed by parents as an act of rebellion. Unfortunately, the view of an artist’s life as an adolescent rebellion often lingers, making any act of art entail the risk of separation and the loss of loved ones. Because artists still yearn for their creative goals, they then feel guilty.

This guilt demands that they set a goal for themselves right off the bat that they must be great artists in order to justify this rebellion.

The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist.

The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.

Finding it hard to begin a project does not mean you will not be able to do it. It means you will need help—from your higher power, from supportive friends, and from yourself. First of all, you must give yourself permission to begin small and go in baby steps. These steps must be rewarded. Setting impossible goals creates enormous fear, which creates procrastination, which we wrongly call laziness.