The Artist’s Way: Week 2 – Recovering a Sense of Identity

I’ll be honest with you all, I’m struggling. I got through 4 of 7 days for morning pages and still have not gone on an artist date. Do I have excuses? Yes. Are they good excuses? Eh.

This weekend was nuts. We repainted our stairwell/hallway and our guest bathroom. It took all day Saturday and half the day Sunday. It also wore me out. We got it done, but I didn’t have much left in the tank to do anything else. So Sunday evening was mostly a rest/relax time rather than a “put in the work” time (by which I mean I watched anime and did my laundry).

But, let’s see what I actually learned about myself this week.

I found that the “Rules of the Road” were extremely helpful and I want to print them out for my own space. I even made a cute little graphic for it on Canva:

I didn’t get to the tasks this week, but I did love the reading. I want to sit down with them tonight, before I get into the swing of Week 3. This includes:

• The basic principles of creativity as affirmations
• Thinking about where my time goes (ironic…since I didn’t have much this weekend)
• 20 things I enjoy doing
• A “life pie” which I have done previously years ago
• 10 tiny changes I’d like to make for myself (do one this week)

The rules of the road will definitely be helpful since I’ve had trouble getting to the page this week. I know that once I sit down in front of my writing, I eventually get something done. Even if it’s not the project I’m “supposed” to be working on. A lot of the past couple of weeks has been about paying attention, to myself, to my work, to the world. The Artist’s Way is incredibly influenced by mindfulness practices and also spirituality.

I haven’t really gone into my own spirituality on my blog, but I’m sure it will come up as I keep going through this process. After all, a big piece of what Julia tasks us with is the allow space for a “great creator” and let something else guide us (be it a god, a creator, or even just simply the universe). It’ll be an interesting piece to be sure.

Happy Creating!

Rachel