Peeling the onion
Tonight was the final class of my Artist’s Way group. We met for 13 consecutive Thursdays and it was really special. I so enjoyed how they became more and more comfortable with each other and seemed to really build trust over time.
What is amazing about Julia Cameron’s book is its timelessness certainly, but also the way it allows you to use it as a motivator whenever you need to unblock or tap into your creativity. First-timers get a wonderful introduction to her concepts and tools; repeaters get to peel another layer of the onion.
I have been on the student side of The Artist’s Way twice — once with my friend Eyleen and once with Julia Cameron herself — and I’ve now taught it about a half dozen times. Each time I see something I didn’t see before. This time I was acutely aware of all the New Thought concepts in the book. Interestingly, I think The Artist’s Way was my introduction to New Thought; I just didn’t know it at the time.
What I do know is that I now have a much deeper understanding of what she means by surrendering in the creative process as opposed to trying to control it. It’s all about letting things flow and being open. At one point, that stuff sounded like hocus pocus to me. Now it’s becoming a way of being. And it feels damn good.
The group that met for its final class tonight is strongly considering assembling again for the sequel, Walking in This World. I hope it comes to pass. We all have another layer to peel.
Visiting Sin City
I just saw a screening of Sin City and it immediately made me think of a post I wrote here last week. It was about exercising those writing muscles that tap into the imagination in an outsized way.
This film, chock full of stars, brings a comic series to life, makes its characters and seedy setting three-dimensional. Thinking of my book-in-progress, I found myself marveling at how far artists will go into the dark recesses of their minds to bring a vision to fruition.
Honestly, I could have lived with a little less — OK, a lot less — blood and gore. But overall I was transfixed and very much aware this was a film outside of my usual personal taste “zone.”
Bravo.
Sweet music
I love what I do for a living. Have I said that before? It bears repeating.
I did a coaching consultation with a fascinating woman today. We laid out her goals, three of them. She was jazzed. I was jazzed. Sweet music.
I can hardly wait to see them come to fruition. That’s what it is about this profession. Not only do you get to see your own goals realized, but you get invested in your clients’ goals.
So affirming and inspiring.
Clean up
I met a friend for coffee at a local Starbucks the other day. She said that just the day before she had been in that same Starbucks and a local political candidate was at the next table. When the candidate and entourage left, the table looked like “a 3-year-old had eaten a muffin there,” my friend said. “It was a mess.”
I love this story. I thought of the song my sister-in-law sings to my 3-year-old nephew. “Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up .. ” Imagine all the money these people are spending on ads, the articles being written to educate us on where they stand on the issues. When, in fact, all we really needed to know was we have a candidate who missed the “clean up after yourself” lesson in pre-school.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Book smart
Three times within 10 days someone mentioned author Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist to me. This was weeks ago. I took the hint from the universe and read the book. It changed everything. I had two major insights about my own book and have been working on it every day since.
Imagine that. Being unblocked by casually reading a book. I am ever grateful that I have learned to heed signs, to be open and, in some cases, to stop resisting. A friend was reading the book last summer, but his copy was in Spanish so I couldn’t borrow it. Then it fell off my radar. Until recently.
I believe I was supposed to read that book exactly when I did. Had I not deviated from my usual Sunday afternoon routine and instead found myself sitting with the book and a cup of coffee, I may have never had the epiphany I did. The experience has helped me to process and embody the nuanced concept that no matter what happens in life, it is all for the good.
Twice in the last week Life of Pi by Yann Martel has crossed my path. I bought it. I’m on page 73. I can hardly wait to find out why the universe wanted me to pick it up.
Cup o’ coffee
I have discovered Island Coconut coffee. Back in the fall I was on a Pumpkin Spice coffee kick. Then my local joint started carrying French Toast flavored coffee. Can you imagine? I like to make a regular cup and just put a splash of the flavored stuff on top.
So now it’s Island Coconut. Kind of tastes like a Mounds bar. Nothing like morning pages and a cup of that. Not too sweet. Just enough to be a treat.
That’s all for today.
Inspiration by mail
Today I had one of those moments of self-doubt regarding self-employment. These are (thankfully) far outnumbered by moments of exhilaration and determination, but when they hit, they hit hard.
So I asked for a sign. You know, something telling me what a fantabulous, inspirational coach I am and how I should keep on truckin’. And so the mailman delivered it into my mailbox. It was a letter from a guy named Mike.
Nearly two years ago Mike and I met for a coaching consultation, but he couldn’t swing the fee to hire me. He’s a photographer who lives a simple life so he can be in his art. So he wrote me this week to tell me he had applied for a Guggenheim fellowship (a $37,000 award), but had just received the rejection letter.
“But … the first money that I was going to spend was hiring you,” he wrote. “Now … no money and no clarity. But my gratitude to the cosmos for what I have been blessed to ’see’ is unending.”
I feel blessed as well. There is magic in coaching.
Diva delight
Yesterday, my last “official” day working at the senior center, I was doing some research on Greta Garbo. I was trying to write a blurb for an event I had booked where an archivist will come in and do a slide show on the actress. That’s how I came across this wonderful website about divas — http://www.divasthesite.com/index.htm.
My favorite feature is the list of quotes from all the divas. Here are some of the highlights:
“With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn’t consider dying.” — Bette Davis
“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.” — Sophia Loren
“I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.” — Barbra Streisand
“I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me.” — Bette Midler
“I don’t want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures.” — Greta Garbo
And, my personal favorite:
“If I had my life to live over again, I’d live it the same way. The truth is, honey, I’ve enjoyed my life. I’ve had a hell of a good time … ” — Ava Gardner
Untangling the web
There is a peach of a man redesigning my website. I was so daunted by the task and he has shepherded me through the process unscathed (so far!). But seriously, there is something very big about expanding and reconfiguring what is essentially my online brochure. It has made me ask myself where I want my business to go and it has tested my commitment to my dream.
What caught me by surprise was how heady it was to revise my bio. I wrote the current website bio about three years ago and it needed some tweaking. Seemingly small changes to anyone else’s eye signaled huge breakthroughs for me. Perhaps most significantly, I added a line about being in the process of writing a book about life coaching — what a feeling of commitment!
This all hits me today because my web guy sent me some pages he’d finished for my review. It all looks so good. I can’t wait to launch it. I have more copy to send him, so I’m happily off to it …
A sense of autonomy
As is often the case, the chapter my group is reading in The Artist’s Way this week feels very synchronous to me. We’re in Week 11, which means just one more to go. This one’s about recovering a sense of autonomy, something artists often struggle with and something I feel like I’m finally getting my footing on. It’s also about being true to your “artist” personality rather than trying to fit into a mold that doesn’t feel quite right.
“As an artist, my self-respect comes from doing the work,” Julia Cameron writes, using the first person for effect. “One performance at a time, one gig at a time, one painting at a time.” This week I might add, “one book at a time.” She really taps into the feeling of being in stride with your artistic side when she talks about self-respect. It is immensely satisfying to be in that place.
“As artists, we are spiritual sharks,” Cameron writes later in the chapter. “The ruthless truth is that if we don’t keep moving, we sink to the bottom and die … The stringent requirement of a sustained creative life is the humility to start again, to begin anew.”
So true. That is why it is so challenging to break through blocks and weather rough patches. Because we perceive ourselves as stagnant and we don’t want that sinking feeling Cameron describes.
She also hits on her two tools that have been instrumental in my own creative success this last year or so — exercise (particularly walks) and morning pages. Cameron writes, “Exercise is often the going that moves us from stagnation to inspiration, from problem to solution, from self-pity to self-respect.” Yes, yes, yes. She also refers to morning pages as meditative, something that particularly resonates with me lately. Mine have gone from occasionally meditative to almost always meditative. The words just pour out and I can go to that place no matter where I am. It might very well be a case of practice makes almost perfect.
Thank you, Julia.
