The Artist’s Way – Week 1 – Recovering a Sense of Safety

This week starts the recovery of your creative self by recovering a sense of safety by recognizing ‘Shadow Artists vs The Inner Child’ and ‘Negative Beliefs vs Affirmations’ to create a sense of safety and explore creativity without feeling too constrained by resistance and skepticism. 

Before we start, don’t forget your Morning Pages and Artist Date!

Morning Pages
Jot down three pages of whatever comes to mind as soon as you wake up every morning. Don’t write to publish: morning pages are for your eyes only. This is a ritual that can help clear your mind and spark your creativity. 

Artist Date
Plan a date for yourself this week (i.e.: a day in the park, a good meal at your favorite restaurant, or a movie night). The purpose of artist dates is to reconnect your current self with your inner child, the source of your vitality and creativity. Embracing your inner child will help you heal and grow to fulfill your needs.

Shadow Artists vs The Inner Child

Confront Shadow Artists
Shadow artists are born from fears that have been instilled in us at a very young age by the fears and should’ve-would’ve-could’ve patterns of our parents, friends, and acquaintances. Many shadow artists oftentimes choose shadow careers: close to the art or sometimes parallel to it, but not the art itself (e.g.: you want to become a painter and you end up being an art dealer or gallery manager). Living life as a shadow artist can be tough as the needs and wants are often left unfulfilled (e.g.: you want to become a painter because of your love for painting, but you can’t fully express yourself through painting because you ended up being an art dealer). Shadow artist are often afraid to take themselves seriously as real artists, because they don’t believe in themselves or they believe it’s too late.

Embrace the Inner Child 
Oftentimes, the inner child is forgotten in adulthood. As mentioned before, the inner child is the source of your vitality and creativity, and embracing your inner child will help you heal and grow to fulfill your needs. Creative recovery and embracing your inner child require patience and perseverance. It is like preparing for the marathon for the first time: give yourself the time to practice the art, allow yourself to start off as a beginner instead of immediately comparing your art to masterpieces, and allow room for self-compassion during times of trial and error. If you want to become a singer, allow yourself to practice in becoming a singer. You can’t expect to become the next Beyoncé or Freddie Mercury within the next day.

Negative Beliefs vs Affirmations

Your Enemy Within: Core Negative Beliefs

I can’t become a successful, fantastic, creative artist because: 
– I don’t have the money
– I don’t deserve it
– It’s too late
– I’ll be alone
– Everyone will hate me
– I don’t have enough great ideas
– I’ll shame myself because it’s not good enough
– I’ll hurt/abandon/disappoint my family & friends
et cetera

These negative beliefs are interpretations influenced by external parties, not facts. They feed fear into your consciousness and stand in the way of being your creative self. Write them down and find out where they come from (e.g.: ask yourself why you feel this way and look back at when you felt this way for the first time) so you understand yourself more and you can become more compassionate towards yourself (e.g.: what would you say to your younger self with these core negative beliefs?).

Your Ally Within: Affirmative Weapons
Affirmations are the recipes for becoming a better version of yourself. Become aware with what you’re telling yourself when you give yourself affirmations. Write them down and place them in places that will help remind yourself of these affirmations (e.g. write them on a post it and place them on your mirror). Cameron provided a few creative affirmations shown below.

1. I am a channel for the Universe’s creativity, and my work comes to good*
2. My dreams come from the Universe and the Universe has the power to accomplish them*
3. As I create and listen, I will be led.
4. Creativity is the creator’s will for me.
5. My creativity heals others and myself.
6. I am allowed to nurture my artist.
7. Through the use of a few simple tools, my creativity will flourish.
8. Through the use of my creativity, I serve God.
9. My creativity always leads me to truth and love.

*Though Cameron often refers to God, she is not asking you to convert to a religion. Instead, this is more about being open-minded about the power of the Universe: let go, trust in the Universe, and it will help you out in your creative quest. I replaced ‘God’ with ‘the Universe’ as I feel that it applied more to everyone.

Personally, I didn’t use these affirmations. Instead, I used affirmations such as:

– I believe in myself
– I am good enough
– All my hard work will be of good use
– I am a good person
And so forth

In my opinion, you can personalise your own affirmations as long as they help you in your growth and motivate you in becoming a better person (to yourself).

Week 1 Exercises to Recover a Sense of Safety

• Morning Pages
  Set your alarm a half hour earlier and use that time to do your Morning Pages (don’t read them).
• Daily Affirmations
  Take time to do daily affirmations and convert your negative thoughts into positive affirmations. 
• Artist Date
  Take yourself out on an Artist Date (once per week). 
• Travel through time: find historical monsters
  Write down three enemies affecting your self-esteem and describe them in detail. These historical monsters are the building blocks of your deeply rooted negative beliefs. You need to take time to acknowledge the harm that has been done from past experiences so you can start the healing process and grow stronger. 
• Travel through time: blast from the past
  Pick a negative experience from your gallery of the aforementioned ‘monsters’ and write it down in detail. 
• Write a Letter
  Write yourself a letter. Write about who and what you are thankful for.
• Travel through time: find champions
  Write down three champions affecting your self-esteem, whoever gave you a compliment. This is your gallery of heroes that will support you and your creativity. When, where, and why did you feel good about yourself and who confirmed that? 
• Imaginary Lives
  If you had five more lives, who/what would you be? Don’t think about it, just write down the first few things that pop up in your mind. Pick one of them and try to live that life this week. 
• Convert Negative Affirmations
  Take time to convert negative affirmations into positive ones. 
• Take a Walk
  A 20-min. walk can change your perspective significantly. 
  
  

Next: [ Week 2 ] – Recovering a Sense of Identity

Thanks for reading!
This article captures what I consider to be the highlights of the book and articles that helped me gain understanding of the subject matter, and should only be treated as such. If you enjoyed this article, hit the follow button for more articles and summaries.

Cameron, J. (2017). The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity(12th Edition ed.). New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam.