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The noun of self becomes a verb. This flashpoint of creation in the present moment is where work and play merge. —Stephen Nachmanovitch
The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. —Jackson Pollock
After a week of recovering our creative selves, Cameron says, it's normal and expected to be attacked by stronger doubt and self-doubt. "I probably did the morning pages wrong" or "Okay, now I need to plan something big and do it right away" or "This is never going to work" are common attacks, and attacks like them can come from ourselves or from those around us. Affirmations, Cameron suggests, affirmations affirmations. And don't show your morning pages to anyone, really; she warns that getting them critiqued is a common form of self-sabotage.
This week's task is to separate ourselves from the attackers.
One type of external attacker that Cameron identifies is people whose creativity is still blocked. They may be good friends; they may be afraid for you in the most well-meaning of ways. But your unblocking your creativity is a threat to their creative blocks, which they cling to as you did because being blocked feels safer than taking the risk of trying to unblock. Don't let their doubts support your doubts; you don't need help like that. And don't worry, yet, about trying to help them; you need to help yourself first.
Another type Cameron names the "crazymakers" (she has a recurring theme of using the ableist term 'crazy' and I dislike it). These are the people who distort their entire worlds to center on themselves alone, who have a lot of problems that others try and fail to solve, who are consequently destructive to anyone around them. Cameron has five pages about them that I'm hesitant to try to summarize, but she does say that if you're involved with one you probably already know it. She suggests that we stay involved with such people due to our own self-destructive tendencies and our fear of the challenge of creativity; she recommends twelve-step programs for relationship addiction.
The internal attacker Cameron suspects is greatest is our own skepticism. I think she's got something there—if one is skeptical about one's ability to do a thing, one's less likely to be capable of doing the thing, I know—but what she spends these two pages discussing is the idea that changing what happens inside us can change what happens outside us, with particular reference to lucky coincidence, to the world trying to make it easier on us to be creative. I am an atheist and a skeptic and I don't buy this bit, but I'm willing to accept the possibility that I am, as she says, slamming doors shut as fast as they open or are opened for me.
Finally, Cameron says that one of the major misconceptions about artistic life is that people think artists don't pay attention. The truth is, artists need to pay attention. Look at that dragonfly, look at that vividly blue butterfly. Feel the silken softness of sunshine, listen to the soft drumbeat of raindrops. If you're not paying attention, you could easily miss those sources of inspiration, of delight, of art.
(I saw a blue butterfly the other day. I wish I'd had a camera on me; it was gorgeous.)
Don't forget to go on a date with your artist sometime this week, and do your morning pages every day!
The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. —Jackson Pollock
After a week of recovering our creative selves, Cameron says, it's normal and expected to be attacked by stronger doubt and self-doubt. "I probably did the morning pages wrong" or "Okay, now I need to plan something big and do it right away" or "This is never going to work" are common attacks, and attacks like them can come from ourselves or from those around us. Affirmations, Cameron suggests, affirmations affirmations. And don't show your morning pages to anyone, really; she warns that getting them critiqued is a common form of self-sabotage.
This week's task is to separate ourselves from the attackers.
One type of external attacker that Cameron identifies is people whose creativity is still blocked. They may be good friends; they may be afraid for you in the most well-meaning of ways. But your unblocking your creativity is a threat to their creative blocks, which they cling to as you did because being blocked feels safer than taking the risk of trying to unblock. Don't let their doubts support your doubts; you don't need help like that. And don't worry, yet, about trying to help them; you need to help yourself first.
Another type Cameron names the "crazymakers" (she has a recurring theme of using the ableist term 'crazy' and I dislike it). These are the people who distort their entire worlds to center on themselves alone, who have a lot of problems that others try and fail to solve, who are consequently destructive to anyone around them. Cameron has five pages about them that I'm hesitant to try to summarize, but she does say that if you're involved with one you probably already know it. She suggests that we stay involved with such people due to our own self-destructive tendencies and our fear of the challenge of creativity; she recommends twelve-step programs for relationship addiction.
The internal attacker Cameron suspects is greatest is our own skepticism. I think she's got something there—if one is skeptical about one's ability to do a thing, one's less likely to be capable of doing the thing, I know—but what she spends these two pages discussing is the idea that changing what happens inside us can change what happens outside us, with particular reference to lucky coincidence, to the world trying to make it easier on us to be creative. I am an atheist and a skeptic and I don't buy this bit, but I'm willing to accept the possibility that I am, as she says, slamming doors shut as fast as they open or are opened for me.
Finally, Cameron says that one of the major misconceptions about artistic life is that people think artists don't pay attention. The truth is, artists need to pay attention. Look at that dragonfly, look at that vividly blue butterfly. Feel the silken softness of sunshine, listen to the soft drumbeat of raindrops. If you're not paying attention, you could easily miss those sources of inspiration, of delight, of art.
(I saw a blue butterfly the other day. I wish I'd had a camera on me; it was gorgeous.)
Don't forget to go on a date with your artist sometime this week, and do your morning pages every day!
