If I’m going to get through this 12 weeks and actually make any actual artwork, I’m going to have to speed up writing about it – I spent so long on my Check-In from Week 1, that this post will have to get straight to the point, which is this week’s tasks:
- Affirmative Reading: every day, morning and night, quiet & focused – read the Basic Principles (below) to yourself. Hmm , can I do that?
- Where does time go? List your 5 major activities this week. How much time did you give to each one? Which were what you wanted to do and which were shoulds? and then make a Safety Map (a series of spheres) to support your autonomy.
- List 20 things you enjoy doing. Then write next to each one the date you last did it… This list is an excellent resource for artist dates. I’ll do this on Friday after yoga.
- From the list above, write 2 favourite things that you’ve avoided that could be this week’s goals. Hmm not much time to do them, but Saturday is a doing day!
- Dip back into Week 1 and read the affirmations. Note which one causes the most reaction, then write 3 chosen affirmations 5 times each day in your morning pages
- Return to the list of Imaginary Lives – add 5 more. I love this exercise!!
- Life Pie: – a wheel of life, divided into at least 6 sections: review on Thursday
- Ten Tiny Changes: list 10 changes you’d like to make for yourself : Friday
- Select one small item and make it a goal for this week. Saturday’s looking busy!!
- Now do that item!! I missed this when I wrote it out already!!
The image above is of a series of photographs by Helena Almeida, on display at CAC Malaga – the place I went for my Artist’s Date in Week 1.
ARTIST’S WAY – BASIC PRINCIPLES
- 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
- When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
- We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves
- Creativity is god’s gift to us. using our creativity is our gift back to god.
- The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
- When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to god: good orderly direction.
- As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
- 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 towards our dreams, we move toward our divinity.
Have you bought your own copy of The Artist’s Way yet? Click here to visit Julia Cameron’s site or here to buy from Amazon.
How are you getting on? Please share your experiences below (click on Comments to bring up the box).