The Artist's Way: Week 2

Recovering a Sense of Identity and the Artist's Date

Recovering A Sense of Identity

Last week, we started the process of dealing with the negative feelings and beliefs that have long blocked us from our artist child. In Week 2, we are now focusing on getting more in tune with our inner artist, re-learning our sense of self, and paying more attention to the ideas and desires of our creative selves. The words that come to mind for this week are exploration, discovery, imagination, and adventure.

Here’s an excerpt from The Artist’s Way that might help you visualize the work we’re doing this week:

“I like to think of the mind as a room. In that room, we keep all of our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible and what’s not. The room has a door. That door is ever so slightly ajar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out there.

Now that we are in creative recovery, there is another approach we need to try. To do this, we gently set aside our skepticism - for later use, if we need it - and when a weird idea or coincidence whizzes by, we gently nudge the door a little further open.” - Julia Cameron

To put it briefly, Week 2 is all about peeking out that door with an open mind and letting some of that dazzling light pour in.

Challenges During Week 2

This journey of unblocking and nurturing back our inner artist isn’t a small feat. It will force us to make more space for our artist child, which means we will need to draw new boundaries and reconsider who we spend our time with and what we spend our time on. Changes will inevitably happen - and while this change is ultimately a good one, Julia warns us that there will be challenges along the way. 

Internally, feelings of resistance, discomfort, fear, and uncertainty may try to hold us back from moving forward - and externally, the people around us may not receive these changes with open arms. As you begin to unblock your inner artist, your friends and family members might find it unsettling. In some cases, they may even judge you or make you feel bad about this journey that you’re on. 

Personally, I remember dealing with friends who kept saying “You’ve changed” or family members who made me feel guilty or selfish for starting to put my needs first. When I no longer wanted to sacrifice my own needs and desires while bending over backwards for others, the people around me had a hard time understanding what was going on. To them these changes seemed sudden and confusing - but for me, they were vital to my creative recovery. 

Although the initial resistance and opposition might be tough, with time, I’ve seen that the people around you will learn to accept and respect these changes. I’d love to encourage you to keep pushing through and trusting the process if this is where you’re finding yourself. It does get better!

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“Filling The Well” and The Artist’s Date

Throughout the book, Julia talks about our creativity as an inner well - “an artistic reservoir” that needs to be replenished and refilled. As we talked about last week, morning pages will help us declutter and make more space in our lives for our inner artist, and with that, we will start to uncover some hidden curiosities and desires that we’ve previously been too blocked to even pay attention to. These are the things that we will start refilling our wells with, and one great way to do that consistently is through the practice of The Artist’s Date. 

So what exactly is an artist’s date?

“The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic” — think mischief more than mastery. Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. Since art is about the play of ideas, they feed our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration. When choosing an Artist Date, it is good to ask yourself, “what sounds fun?” — and then allow yourself to try it.” - Julia Cameron

Essentially, we are taking our inner artist on a weekly date to do something joyful and fun. It could be as simple as taking a walk to your favorite bakery and treating yourself to a pastry, or it could be a full-on day trip to your favorite museum or park. The options are endless. The only thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of these dates is to replenish our creative inner wells - filling them with new sights, new smells, and experiences that make us feel creatively replenished.

Ideas for Artist’s Dates

For my own artist’s date this week, I decided to put Ethan in the stroller and take a long afternoon walk. I stopped by my parents’ house in between, but it was about a 3 mile walk through my favorite childhood park and back. I know we’re supposed to go on these artist’s dates alone, but as a mom, that’s not always an option, so I make do with what I can. The nice thing though is that when Ethan’s in the stroller, he’s as happy as a clam and rides quietly with no objections. This gave me time to breathe in the crisp autumn air and enjoy some quiet time to myself as well. Getting outside always makes me feel good, which is why for me, a long walk is my artist’s date of choice.

What do you love to do? Or what would you like to make more time for? Those are the things I would encourage you to consider when deciding on your artist’s dates.

If you’re feeling stuck on ideas though, here are a few exercises from Week 2’s reading that might help.

• Exercise 1: List twenty things that you enjoy doing or would like to do more of (i.e., hiking, cooking, baking, reading, working out, etc.)

• Exercise 2: List ten changes you’d like to make for yourself (i.e., get new bedsheets, redecorate the kitchen, create new boundaries with a needy friend, etc.)

After making these lists, see if there are any activities that you can do as an artist’s date. Maybe you can try a new recipe, reorganize your closet, or take yourself to your favorite art store. 

And if you’re still feeling stuck, here’s a list of 101 artist date ideas I found online that might help.

Thanks for reading!