So The Artist's Way – how was that for you? 12 weeks (13 for some) of wailing in our morning pages, the best Artist's dates ever (what was your favourite? Mine was falling asleep with my dog in the sun by a river. I came over all Thomas Hardy, but luckily not D H Lawrence…or perhaps not?)

What has worked for you? What hasn't? What are you taking away from this process?

And what next?

One of our big leapers has requested that she wants to keep using the Big Leap chat room to meet and work though the Artist Way some more -  you're so welcome!

Thank you so much for taking this journey with me.

x

We're at the end of our Artist's Way journey together. How was it for you?

Here is what Sue Nun has to say (www.careerinspiration.co.uk) Again, I resonated so strongly with so much of what Sue is saying here:

The email
from Suzy asking me to write the week 12 blog took me
by complete surprise.  I bought a new
laptop part way through the 12 weeks (gorgeous and shiny and bright red) lost
all my favourites and (sorry to admit this) haven’t
been following all the blogs and somehow not only did
I not realize I was writing this one but somehow I did week 12 two weeks ago
(how did that happen? I’m always ahead of myself somehow). When I finished week
12 I was so happy with the small steps I’d taken that I have gone back to week 1
and started again….so on getting Suzy’s email I’ve gone back to Chapter 12 to
remember what I did at that stage. 

Task 1
‘write down any resistance fears etc’, well my biggest fear is writing and here
I am having to write a blog.  Last week I
also went to a Nick Williams Inspired Entrepreneur’s club where he was talking
about becoming an expert. I went as I am setting up a company to run workshops
for women returners to make inspiring career choices
and gain confidence in returning to work. 
Nick said that if you want to be seen as an expert you have to ‘be seen’;
this is definitely another big resistance of mine, we had to go round the room
and say to everyone in the room “I’m here to be seen” and the other person said
“I see you”.  It was incredibly powerful,
but also incredibly difficult for me. 
Although I’ve always harboured a crazy desire
to be a weather girl or be on breakfast telly or
something similar, exposure seems very scary to me.  So thanks Suzy for giving
me the opportunity to conquer my two biggest areas of fear….well apart from sky
diving and anything that involves heights. 

In the
same download of emails as Suzy’s I received one from my local newspaper asking
for a press release and a deadline of 10^th May for a local magazine
that I have decided I need to write a publicity article for.  So not only have I got to do this but then
I’ve got two more things to write; if anyone has tips on how to write a press
release all advice is very welcome.  I
guess that’s more than enough synchronicity for this week forcing me to confront
my fears.  Week 12 also talks about tests
coming up when we are just about to ‘blast off’ and this week I’ve been
inundated with work, the non-creative type that pays the bills but that also
stops me developing my new business and saps all my energy and joy.  It really feels like its pulling me back –
and so far I’ve failed the test and haven’t said ‘no’ I don’t want that type of
work anymore.  What that means is no time
to write my publicity material or to have fun. 
But maybe I haven’t completely failed the test as I’ve chosen to write
this tonight, instead of doing my bread and butter work and hopefully this small
step will lead to more progress.

I find it
interesting where our fear comes from, I’m sure my fear of writing was getting
bad feedback at school and being inhibited about my spelling and grammar – the
fear even now of someone taking a red pen to this piece of writing.  I definitely don’t think I can write – and so
those messages really get in the way. 
The messages we tell ourselves are so powerful aren’t they, I’m great at
helping other people tackle their inner chatter to become more confident, but I
have to admit my chatter still needs a lot of taming.  It’s also interesting that my first response
on getting Suzy’s email was to log on and read everyone else’s
contributions.  I stopped myself though,
I realized that it might turn up my inner chatter – as I’m really great at
negative comparisons ‘I don’t write as well as them /I’m not as interesting/
blah, blah’  and thought that if I had
read everyone else’s I would have just bottled out.  So when this gets posted, I might take a
peep.

I guess in
week 12, as it was the last week, I also reflected on the journey the book has
taken me on. It’s been all small steps, but cumulatively they have made a huge
difference. I have been doing my pages and I’ve definitely started having more
fun. However I’ve got to own up to failing to have artist dates on my own,
having a 4 year old and working makes it trickey, but
I have painted watercolours while my son has also
painted and I’ve had a Mum’s only date to do some pottery and we’ve got another
one in a few weeks time. I’ve made pastry for the first time in years and
planted a load of seeds for an allotment that I’ve just got.  I’ve also dusted off and re-hung a beautiful
watercolour that I watched an amazing painter, Adrian
Hemming, paint on Skyros back in 1998 (those of you
who join Suzy there this year will have an amazing time) and I’ve bought a fab necklace of crocheted flowers made by Jenny Stacey,
contacted her through her web-site and then met her for an artist’s coffee.  All these things I wouldn’t have done without
the book and I definitely feel more spontaneous, creative and centred, as well as more spiritually alive. It’s been a
great journey, which is why I’ve returned to the beginning again, I hope you
will too.

I love the line in week 12 – "You're either losing your mind – or gaining your soul."
Once again going through the Artist's Date for a second time, I've been to what Julia Cameron calls 'the darkness' and back. I've seen my inner saboteurs at work, heard my inner critic scream so loudly I thought I would go deaf and also reconnecting again and again with that mystery of the creative process.
It's been a full on process for me in the last three months. This process gives you nowhere to hide – those morning pages!!! It never ceases to amaze me how negative I can be – and how it spills on to the page. I wonder, if I don't do my morning pages – where does all that go?

In our last week, we are recovering our faith. "Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control." As a recovering control freak….I can see why I find this week challenging. But I have loved, loved, loved creating my 'God jar'. How wonderful to just let go – of the dreams and the fears, knowing someone else will handle it.

Let's finish with a flourish this week.  Even if you have dropped out of the process. Keep on with those morning pages, book the best artist's date ever and enjoy this last week together.

One of our artist Way Big Leapers asked if we can still use the chatroom after the process is finished to keep in touch – absolutely.

Have a good week. I am away in Cornwall for the bank holiday but back next week and we can wrap up our process then.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

x

A client of mine – the lovely Janet Fernhead is just launching her new styling business with free styling make-overs in May. She lives in Manchester.

Phew, two more weeks to go. Hasn't it been a journey? The Artist's Way has been as life changing for me this time as it was the last time. It's been quite a roller coaster for me – grumpiness and resistance as well as the intense creative highs.

Week 11 and we're recovering a sense of autonomy. I resonated with the line: 'Cutting off our creativity makes us savage." It also makes me resentful and gloomy. When I'm freed to create and brainstorm and write, I feel like I'm living the life I truly want to live. But when I have no space to breathe – easter holidays, sick dogs, children, car tax, a million and one emails – I feel sullen, stifled and yes, savage. I want to bear my teeth.

This week I'm going to enjoy writing the list of the five ways I intend to nurture myself in the next 6 months. Mostly, that will be about space. (By the way – does anyone know a good Buddhist retreat that I can go to that will take my son and I – he's 6 – for a alternative summer holiday?)

I'm also going to binge on self nurturing this week.

Enjoy this week.

I'm running the Change Your LIfe, Change Your thinking event on Saturday 25th – I need a few volunteers on the day to help with initial registrations on the day. If there is anyone who'd be willing to help, it would be much appreciated. YOu will get to hear the speakers too – and you'll get a teeshirt!!
If you'd like to help, email me suzy@thebig-leap.com

I hope I'm not letting the side down but I need to have a week off this week. I'm still writing my morning pages, and got my artist date planned but can I post week 11 on Monday. Easter holidays, house full of dogs, children and madness and can't think straight.

Speak to you on sunday.

How is everyone doing?

Suzy x

Week 10 – Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection

"This week I realise that all my creative blocking is keeping me from my flow and only served to keep me from the very things I crave – change, freedom and (dare I say it) success.

The Artist’s Way has poked me in the ribs, knocked me on the head and shouted at me that

the actions I have been taking to ‘protect myself’ have only been shielding my fragile ego, keeping my creative self very much at bay.  What kind of protection is that?  Last week’s chapter resonated with me more than any other so far.  How relieved I was to discover that in fact, I am not a lazy good for nothing who prefers to chat on Facebook or Twitter all day, but that I am AFRAID. 

How comforting to know that I am not alone in this too.  I diligently managed my Morning Pages for the first 3 weeks but had to stop when I realised that I was obsessing and wittering on about the same subject, a long standing relationship ‘problem’ that I just wasn’t resolving.  I was boring myself silly and not putting anything creatively motivated down on paper. ‘What a waste of time,’ I thought. 

However, a couple of weeks and no MPs later it dawned on me, why wasn’t doing anything about the problem?  I was living with it, feeding it even and doing nothing to protect myself against its harmful effects on me, both as a person and as a creative being. So then came what Oprah Winfrey calls her ‘light bulb moment’.  It was serving me to keep this problem going, I was revelling in allowing it to hold me back…

I ended the relationship.  It was and is still painful, but how much lighter I feel, how much extra time I have, how relieved my friends are that I don’t constantly whine about it anymore! BREAKTHROUGH.

‘Saying no can be the ultimate self-care’ Claudia Black is quoted in Week 10 .  I have said no to this relationship and things will get better.  I also decided to drawn a line in the sand with a neighbour who has quite frankly ridden rough shod over many people in my street for the past few years.  It scared the hell out of me when I did it, but my stance miraculously worked and now instead of death ray stares over the fence, we are actually waving at each other!  BREAKTHROUGH.

In my work I have become less worried about what my clients and associates think about my creative ideas and what I have to say, if others can’t accept my ‘flow’ it is not a reflection on me personally, it is about their attitudes and beliefs and I don’t need to take responsibility for that.  Strangely with that attitude in mind, I have found that those I come into contact with have been incredibly receptive and astoundingly supportive. BREAKTHROUGH

In stopping the behaviour that I thought was protecting me I have actually liberated myself and others.  I have discovered a new way to protect myself by always trying to be brave.  I am a creative being and it is that I will endeavour to nurture.

Thank you Julia Cameron and thanks Suzy for the the tip off!

Guest blogger Catherine Shaw says: 

I love your honesty, Catherine. love it!

"I
have to admit that I have found the AW very challenging. Weeks 1 and 2 I battled
with. I stopped doing the ‘Morning Pages’ in week 3 (and I only managed a
minuscule amount of writing anyway) which means in week 9 I have nothing to read
in the ‘Tasks’!!

But
what I started to do was a morning meditation instead, which I find much more
beneficial to my soul than writing angst down.

Week
4 was relatively easy as I cleared my wardrobe out and had no trouble in the
reading ban (except for reading the news concerning the untimely death of Ivan
Cameron)…. I discovered in week 5 that my favourite creative block is my laptop,
which is  no longer allowed to accompany me to the studio…( I found myself
disappearing, like Alice, down the rabbit hole of the internet). I read in week
6 that “When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us….(the rest of the
sentence is true, page 108) But this is not always the case…..and I’m sure there
are other Artists out there who feel the same. In week 7, I had to complete the
phrases “As a Kid, I……” I look at it now that as a kid I got what I needed to
bring me to where I am now. It also made me look at how much I have in my life
already……Week 8 I was asked to look at early patterning…..I guess I was lucky as
my Father thought Art was worthwhile, my mother taught me how to Daydream,
nobody said my dreams where rubbish.

In
week 9, we are finding a sense of compassion, which involves Enthusiasm. I can
relate to this wholeheartedly as my Studio is a complete playground and a fun
place to be working in and I am living my dream, as thy say. I am full of
complete joy when I arrive at my Studio.

However,
what I can’t relate to is “Creative U Turns”…….Julia Cameron say’s “We are now
on the road, and the road is scary.” The “road” is not called scary, the road is
called “Life” and whether one is a ‘recovering blocked artist’ or not it is just
that….this is Life and it is f@%king scary at times. Creativity is not scary,
it’s just a way of expressing oneself. We can all make excuses for not doing
what we want to do in this life, we can hide behind all manor of reasons…..some
of us will “Blast Through Blocks” some of us wont. However, the reality is we
will all do the very best we can for ourselves as individuals at anyone time. It
is no one else’s fault if we don’t follow “Our Dream”…That is an excuse for not
taking responsibility for our own lives, no matter what our parents did, or our
teachers etc  I can’t think of a creative U-turn that “just kills me” and I
don’t know of anyone who has committed ”creative hara-kiri”. Shouldn’t we look
at our past so called Creative U turns as energy that we couldn’t engage with at
particular moment in time, without seeing them in this so called negative light?

It’s
my birthday on Tuesday and I had decided to take my best girlfriend (who is
having a hard time with her Catering business due to the Credit Crunch) to Paris
for a complete girlie day, Euro star, champagne, lunch, art galleries the
lot….but it all hinged on me getting a particular job……I didn’t get it…..so the
alternative was pate, French bread and wine under the Transmitter in Crystal
Palace Park. Fine as far as I was concerned but my friend decided that that
wasn’t good enough….so I was now told that she would to cook a dinner at her
home for 8 people…….and I felt CROSS it wasn’t what I wanted to do, I just felt
she was now taking over. We were at stalemate.

It
took me 2 days to step back and look at it compassionately, she was trying to
cheer me up after losing the big job, and I on the other hand, felt guilty that
she was prepared to cook a complete French Meal for 8 people. Compassion comes
from our inner core and sometimes it’s hard to find.

When
I look back over the last 9 weeks I’ve come a long way…..I’ve found and seen
aspects of myself I didn’t acknowledge. There is a lot about The Artist Way I
find flawed….and there is a lot that is pure joy to engage with. Here’s to week
10."

Huge apologies for this late posting. I have the greatest excuse though – was finishing my Big Peace book and pinged it off to Hay House on Monday. I spent day and night at the weekend writing and editing and even worked through the night on sunday and it occurred to me – as I got that 2am despair 'this is rubbish' who will want to read this' to a 4am high 'I'm nearly there' 'this is really good' – what a rollercoaster this writing business is.

And how wonderful it is to have our writing tribe to support and cheer us on. So a big thank you to all of you for taking this Artist's Way journey with me. I'm not sure if I would have hit deadline without this process as a backdrop to my writing. It has kept me sane. And thank you for all the magnifcent and inspirational quotes that you sent me. It really lifted the book to another level. thank you.

We're on week 9, this week. And it's all about compassion. Compassion is a massive theme in my book – it's actually THE best route to your Big Peace. Compassion for ourselves and others has been scientifically proven to light up the left prefrontal lobe of our brains – the part of our brain that hosts our positive emotions. When brain imaging techniques were used to observe the brains of meditating monks – the bleepers went off the scale when the monks started to meditate with compassion.

I suppose it's about being kind to ourselves and others. Sometimes we can be so rough on ourselves and others. All that does us keep us seperate and disconnected. This week, let's be very, very kind to ourselves. Here is a loving kindness meditation that is in my Big Peace book:

Here is the compassion
meditation exercise from Happiness,

A Guide
to Developing Life's Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard.

"Begin by
generating a powerful feeling of warmth, loving-kindness, and compassion for
all beings. Then imagine those who are enduring suffering similar to or worse
than your own. As you breathe out, visualise that you are sending them all your
happiness, vitality, good fortune, health, and so on, on your breath in the
form of cool, white, luminous nectar. Picture them fully absorbing the nectar,
which soothes their pain and fulfils their aspirations. If their life is in
danger of being cut short, imagine that it has been prolonged; if they are
sick, imagine that they are healed; if they are poor and helpless, imagine that
they have obtained what they need; if they are unhappy, that they have become
full of joy.

When you
inhale, visualise your heart as bright luminous sphere. Imagine that you are
taking upon yourself, in the form of a gray cloud, the disease, confusion, and
mental toxins of these people, which disappears into the white light of your
heart without leaving any trace. This will transform both your own suffering
and that of others. There is no sense that you are being burdened by them. When
you are taking upon yourself and dissolving their sufferings, feel a great
happiness, without attachment or clinging.

You can
imagine that your body is duplicating itself in countless forms that travel
throughout the universe, transforming itself into clothing for those who are
cold, food for the famished, or shelter for the homeless.

“This
visualisation is a powerful means to develop benevolence and compassion. It can
be carried out anytime and during your day to day activities. It does not
require you to neglect your own well being; instead it allows you to adjust
your reaction to unavoidable suffering by assigning new value to it. In fact,
identifying clearly your own aspiration to well being is the first step towards
feeling genuine empathy for others’ suffering. Furthermore, this attitude
significantly increases your enthusiasm and readiness to work for the good of
others,” says Ricard.

Homework this week:

Oh my goodness, we get to read our morning pages back! always an interesting exercise.

Take stock, says Cameron, take heart and acknowlege.

Do the exercises this week that feel good and the ones you most resist.

and keep up with the morning pages.

xxxx

P.S I'm going to The London Writers Club tomorrow in London – I will be celebrating getting my book in. It's at the Hub in London from 6.30pm – come if you can. xxx

Teresa McCrone is our guest blogger for week 8. I completely resonated with this…I always say procrastination is my greatest skill (after napping.) And I too have been learning to get things done with the little and often approach. Teresa says:

"In last week’s
lesson on how to not procrastinate I learned that lots of things can be
achieved despite the kitchen being a tip, the accounts not being done and the
yellow box full to overflowing.  The
yellow box is a box file full of bits of paper that need dealing with – in
theory I go through it every Friday – in practice it’s been months.

I can do flute
practice with dirty dishes in the sink. 
I can daydream about my creative entrepreneurial adventure with the
accounts of the business I’m about to close not quite organized and I can do a
bit of knitting as long as the dreaded yellow box is in a another room.

This week, amongst
other things, I learnt a very valuable lesson in life and art – just do a
bit.  I don’t have to spend at least an
hour going over the many mistakes in the Bach Partita – I can just do a few
scales.  I don’t have to roll my eyes at
the thought of never finishing the scarf which begun in a spasm of enthusiasm
18 months ago – I can just do a few rows. 
I can also just print out the phone bills off the computer and fill them
in on the account sheet before meandering off in my morning pages about how I
might organize ballroom dancing parties. 
I don’t have to transform my pocket handkerchief garden into something
Sissinghurst would be proud of in a single day. I can just do a bit of watering
and grub up a handful of weeds.

So after reading
chapter 8 last night I did pick up my knitting and do some rows.  I also did a bit more this morning while the
computer is warming up.  I might even get
to do a little flute practice – just as soon as I’ve sorted out the
kitchen.  It’s a disgrace."

How is everyone else doing this week? xx