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

One whole week through The Artist’s Way. I got the morning pages done 6 out of 7 days…sometimes not in the morning. I did not go on an Artist Date, mostly because I was just too tired.

This week focused a lot on making the mind a safe space for creativity. I was meant to pay attention to “blurts” and affirmations to heal they way I talk to myself. Blurts are those little statements your inner critic make when you’re trying to do something, especially something creative. I’ve spoken before about how my internal critic sometimes sounds like Red from That 70s Show. Well, a lot of times it just sounds like me now, which might be worse.

I had to look at who the enemies of my creative self were, especially those from the past who pop up still. Like that one girl from art class or the bullies from middle school, people who made me feel like I either wasn’t doing creativity right or were just plain weird for doing it. There were other smaller critics, but none stuck out as much as those. I won’t go too deep into that since it was highly personal and dragged a lot of stuff up.

The other thing that was very active in my morning pages was the self-doubt around my current job. I’ve been feeling a load of imposter syndrome and trying to navigate getting my confidence back. It’s…not been going well…but I’m still trying.

My blurts were pretty consistent:

• I’m too lazy to succeed
• I can’t finish anything
• I can’t make money from this
• I can’t take risks and still have a stable life
• I’m afraid to start new things because I know I’ll fail

vs the affirmations:

• I work hard and have already succeeded in many things
• I have finished multiple projects
• I already make money on my writing
• Risks don’t have to mean leaving stability
• Failure is not inevitable, but completely okay

I’m sure many more blurts will come up as I go, so I will try to reframe those into the truth. It’s hard now that they sound like me instead of the critics of my past.

The other piece of recovering safety is recovering the feeling of being able to put anything down on the page. For me, having had journals read without my permission before, I am recovering the sense of safety that nobody is going to read these pages. I still feel like I have to sneak off to write silently and secretly into the journal. This is very much not the case, although that constant fear of having somebody read over my shoulder is still very real.

I’m also wondering if that is part of the reason I get blocked in the first place. I’ve started worrying more and more about what others will think of me when they read what I’ve written. More fodder for the morning pages I suppose.

Week 2 is Recovering a Sense of Identity.

Happy Creating!

Rachel