’m currently working through a 12 week program to help me tap back into my creativity and inspiration via the book: The Artist’s Way at Work: 12 Weeks to Creative Freedom by Julia Cameron, Mark Bryan, and Catherine Allen.
This is the business version of the very famous original book, The Artist’s Way also by Julia Cameron.
I started this project after feeling like I’ve been in a bit of a rut when it comes to working on my own, non-client-related work.
You can read more about this in my intro post right here.
I’m going week by week and reporting on the tools that were most effective for me from the book. There are always way more exercises and information in the book, so please get a copy and follow along!
Week 12: Resting in Authenticity
Tool: Trusting Trust
Exercise
- Take out a sheet of paper
- Number 1 through 5
- List 5 emerging interests
- Number 1 through 5 again
- List 5 actions you would take if you had faith in them/yourself
- Pick one and do it.
My Experience
It certainly felt easy to pick 5 emerging interests. I’m not clear if the 5 actions were supposed to be connected to the emerging interests or not. I did make mine related to the interests. And it felt good to pick out a class to take related to one of my emerging interests – gardening.
Tool: Mining Our Mystery
Exercise
Pick some symbol for yourself – a patron saint, animal, plant, person, etc. and begin to collect representations of that symbol.
My Experience
I’ve got a couple – one is the hummingbird because my grandma decided it for me (in a good way. I appreciate it!) and since then I’ve always noticed them around me and the places I live and think of her. So, I’ve got a hummingbird tattoo and some little figurines. I also have a small collection of swans.
Tool: Playing at Play
Exercise
Go to a toy store and play for an hour.
My Experience
It is still COVID city around here so I did not go to a toy store. I did color for several hours. It was fun and much nicer than scrolling the internet all evening. I’m continuing to look for other ways to add more play into my life and I think it helps my mental state.
Tool: Every Picture Tells a Story
Exercise
The official exercise is to make a collage out of magazines and put it on poster board for what you want your life to look like in the next 5 years.
Don’t limit yourself to what you think is realistic.
My Experience
I don’t have tons of magazines and the ones I do I like and I will not cut up. So, I made a pin board and it was fun! I pinned solar panels and lots of other things that don’t seem realistic right now but who knows.
Tool: Gratitude
This is the last exercise of the 12 week project!! No matter how imperfectly, there is a lot to celebrate and be grateful for.
Exercise
List as many things as you can think of about this work that you’re grateful for.
My Experience
So grateful! Making the list showed me how far I have come even if I did take longer than I’d hoped to originally.
I’m grateful that this project got me to post on my blog again, that it gave me lots of tools to move forward and take baby steps when I feel frozen. I’m grateful to have a consistent 3-page Morning Pages practice back and feeling more confident and clear. I’m grateful for the Time Outs or Artist Dates that helped me learn and try new things. There’s so much more. But whoo hoo! Just happy to say today I complete the project.
Check In
- Morning Pages. I’m committing to keeping them up since they’ve been so helpful.
- Artist Dates. I’m re-committing to my Time Outs/Artist Dates this week. I did slack off on them a bit or squeezed them in without a lot of care. I’ve got one scheduled for this week.
- Celebrate – really! I’m all for celebrating! I blocked off Sunday for a home spa day to celebrate the completion of this 12 week project + I will do the works all day. No chores allowed.
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