Week 12: Preparing to be on my own...

In Week 11 and 12 Julia is getting us ready for life after The Artist's Way book. But as I reported back in Week 6,  I've been converted to the religion of creativity so I won't stop with the practices and guidelines set out in the book. But I do need constant reminders, so I'm glad for all the tasks in these last weeks that have me making plans and lists of things to do as I go on.

One task that was actually pretty hard was to make a list of 10 dreams or desires for each of 7 categories: Career, Health, Possessions, Leisure, Relationships, Creativity and Spirituality. That's 70 things to want! But I've learned through this process that making lists longer than you think they should be usually brings out the most interesting and unexpected answers. Now I have lots of lovely images to visualize and meditate on as I do my daily walks. Because....

I started reading Vein of Gold the very day I did my last check in for The Artist's Way. In this book, I still do morning pages and Artist Dates, but I also add a 20 min walk when I think about things I want in my life. I love it already. I almost always get back to my desk feeling inspired and motivated. I've even realized that sometimes these things I want are a little scary because they are just so different from what I have now. So it's good to spend a little time each day getting used to the idea of being a rich, successful hit songwriter full of great ideas who takes Caribbean vacations, has a garden and a letterpress print shop in her shed, and somehow stays skinny even though she eats amazing cheese and drinks fun cocktails every night. It's hard to quite understand why that would be scary, because it sounds awesome on paper. Does anyone else feel a little scared of getting what they want?

So what can I say at the end of this process? Well, I guess mostly that it's not the end. I've learned a ton, but I won't stop learning, trying, failing and getting back up again. That's what life is, right? But I do really like being pushed and nudged and nurtured and affirmed by the book. I think it would be awesome if we could all do that for each other out there in the real world. I'm gonna try a little bit every day. 

Weeks 9-11: The Holiday Drag

Where has the time gone? It was Thanksgiving and Christmas and Boxing Day and then New Year's and then the girls trip to Sedona and I fins that almost 2 months have gone by, and I haven't worked through 3 weeks of The Artist's Way. I haven't given it up totally. I've been doing morning pages and some of the tasks, but just slowly. And giving myself much more than a week to get through a "week." During Week 10, in my morning pages, it came out that I'm scared of getting through the whole book and that is probably a big reason for the stalling. I feel pressure to have some kind of big, momentous transformation or success at the end of the book. And I'm scared that I'll be lost and stop growing without Julia's guidance. As soon as I wrote that, I felt the pressure lifting. Not that I made it through Week 11 any faster, but at least I know why.