Last January, I was just starting to dip my toes into writing. I was working on a breezy short story about the aftermath of a breakup and I was delighted to explore writing fiction. I was up for anything about writing and creativity at that point. I accidentally stumbled on a comment on Emma Gannon’s substack where someone mentioned that people are planning to do the Artist’s Way on Little Things by Ali Vingiano. I was like, I have no idea what this is but it sounds interesting. I heard Julia Cameron’s name before in a context of how great she is, so I thought this must be amazing, I should try it. I did not put any research into it. I ordered my copy at my favourite English bookseller and in a few weeks I plunged myself into the most earth-shattering experience of my life.
What is the Artist’s Way? For those of you who don’t know (and for myself who vowed to do it last year) is a 12-week course for rediscovering your creativity, your inner artist and basically the best self-help book ever with amazing reading materials and tasks for you to dig into yourself and your issues. It consists of morning pages, artist dates, weekly reading and weekly tasks. Morning pages is journaling your thoughts on 3 pages every morning (or how I like to do it: whenever I get to during the day). Artist dates should be done once a week and it’s basically a date with yourself to nourish your inner artist (*cough* child). The readings are always about how you should lift yourself up and tasks for each reading are for doing the heavy lifting of implementing those ideas you read about.
Last year this experience led me to burnout. I pushed myself hard throughout those twelve weeks. At the half of it I was starting to notice how low I felt all the time, how tired I was to do anything. I had 18-month-old twins then so I thought hey, maybe that’s why. It definitely factored into it but there was a huge awakening happening that felt like a boulder on my shoulder pushing me down. I think my emotions started to flow out of me, instead of being stuck as they were for years and years. And at the same time, I started to take steps towards my authentic self and my dreams but my resistance was stronger than ever. At the end of it, I had debilitating anxiety and something had to change. First I went to sick leave as I wrote about this before and later resigned from my job to get my shit together and heal. So the immediate effect of this impulsive decision was a growing sense of self and a massive burnout episode.
I wanted to do this again but without the burning out part, obviously, and actually getting to know my creative parts more deeply and supercharge my creative projects through it. So when Ali announced that she’s going to do it again, I was all in. First, I wanted to do it the same way I did last year but after week one when I pushed myself to do all the tasks (because I wanted to do the ones I skipped last year but I also wanted to do those I already did and compare the results), I had to have a hard think. I decided to not put pressure on myself to finish one chapter in one week. I wanted this time for things to settle and not just cause a massive storm. I wanted to give myself time and space to do as many tasks as I wanted to. Not out of perfectionism but out of curiosity. So the second week took 2.5 weeks, the third week 3 weeks. The reading/media deprivation week (week 4) was only one week because it was brutal for me. I deleted Instagram and I did not read anything, not even books or substack posts. I didn’t really miss Instagram, only Florence Given’s heartwarming pep talk reels (check her out!) but reading was different. I had such an intense urge to read every book on my bookshelf and I was super irritated throughout that week. Books are my safe spaces, they provided comfort throughout my whole life so taking them away made me feel unsafe. But it was still a valuable experience. I’m now finishing week 6 and I’m okay with it. I don’t think I’m behind though. I’m immersing myself in the theme and also doing most of the tasks, sometimes on the assigned week, sometimes a few weeks later when I arrive at that mental/spiritual place to do them. I think this course is really fast-paced, no wonder so many people drop out of it. You have to immediately start writing morning pages every day (you can reflect later on that you didn’t do them x amount of times but still, the wording is like that), and doing the artist dates weekly (I’m super shitty about that one still). There are a lot of tasks too and most of them are super exciting to delve into even if some leaves you gut-wrenched. And even though the Introduction states that it was designed to not have enough time to do all tasks in a week, I like the idea of doing them in a less hurried pace. Last year the only way I could finish the course was not doing tasks at all in the second half of it, only reading and my morning pages. It’s more gentle and delicious doing it this way.
Let’s talk a bit about morning pages. I’m still not very mindful of the whole process but I get more and more insight into it. Journaling every day for me is a must now. I rarely skip a day and it’s not even a burden. But sometimes I still feel like, oh it’s no use of my time, even though it always is. When I’m sad or stuck, it helps me move forward. When I’m happy and content, it helps me cement this state in my mind. I can come back to it more easily because of it. I talk about journaling as if it were a completely different entity from me. But it’s not. It’s just me listening to myself. Writing down my thoughts is a game changer for me. It gives me a little bit of space between me and my thoughts and feelings and with that, helps me be more gentle towards myself, improves my memory and propels me in life forward. If you write your thoughts and feelings down, especially bad ones, you exorcise them and clear the way for new ones to emerge. Whenever I encounter a block, it’s physically hard to write, I dissociate in like every minute but when the dam is broken it’s a flood gushing out of me and it feels amazing.
The other day I went shopping. Initially I wanted to buy Frozen sunglasses and some short sleeve T-shirts for my girlies but I wandered into the adult section. I have found lots of lovely pieces. I went to the changing room with their usual horrible lightning which makes you feel like the ugliest person alive. But this time, I looked in the mirror and even though tiny stubs of hair were already poking out around my knees and my hair hadn't been washed in 3 days, I saw the Joan Jett oversized T-shirt and flowy leopard print skirt I wore and thought: You look absolutely stunning. You look gorgeous, I love your outfit and I’m so happy for you. I think it’s because I live my life (mostly) according to my own liking. And I’m sure I have the Artist’s Way to thank for this.
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"Books are my safe spaces, they provided comfort throughout my whole life so taking them away made me feel unsafe." - this was my exact fear before starting media deprivation week. It ended up being a profoundly revelatory experience, but I was nervous to try it. I also broke the "rules" and allowed myself to read after a bad fish curry shredded my digestive tract!