My Journey to Creative Recovery with The Artist's Way

I finally did it! I completed all 12 weeks of the Artist’s Way journey. I read all the weekly readings, I wrote three pages of stream-of-consciousness every single morning, and took myself out on an “Artist Date” almost weekly. The journey didn’t unfold as expected, but still resulted in a lesson in resilience and follow-through.

The first four weeks were full throttle. I was invested, I was getting up early to write my morning pages, I was completing every single weekly task, I was pondering the lessons in the readings throughout the week. I had just listened to Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and I felt the creative energy coursing through my veins. The last few weeks before I decided to dive into the course, I had found myself sucked into a never-ending doom-scroll spiral. It felt like the way forward was very out of focus, and this course gave me a structured way to experiment with my relationship to creativity. For this I give The Artist’s Way big props. It’s a straight-forward way to shake up your routine. The fundamental lesson is to intentionally make time for creative action instead of just waiting for inspiration to strike. It’s easy to want to hesitate, but at times all that brings is more and more stagnation. The Artist’s Way provided a very clear pathway foward to getting back in touch with my creativity through the next three months.

Unfortunately, those first four weeks were the peak of my experience, and to be honest, I’m not sure what to blame that on. The first symptom I can think of is that my morning pages started to get annoying. I work remotely, so I’m within reach of my computer within minutes of waking up. It could’ve been a decrease in bandwidth or a pure mismanagement of my morning time, but those three pages slowly started to feel like the most needlessly tedious obstacle to place between me and starting my work. A practice that provided so much clarity in those first weeks turned into my most dreaded chore. I probably could’ve done more to make space for these things, but over time it just felt like less and less of a priority. Eventually, I was moving through the motions, but continuously just felt eager to wrap up and move on to something new.

In spite of my criticisms, in the last 12 weeks, The Artist’s Way encouraged me to:

• Kick off my monthly newsletter

• Start a mail club

• Have a solo museum date

• Go to Universal Studios alone

• Get 9 certifications!!

• Share more on socials

• Be more outspoken about my ideas

• Increase my follow-through

• Be more encouraging to others

• Regain control over my routine

So do I think it’s worth doing? Absolutely. Taking time to reflect on what we want, why we want it, and what we could do to get there is essential to a productive human experience. Reading books written about the successes of others and what they learned along the way is one of the great privileges of being a human being. We each only get one lifetime, but through books, we get to learn about as many walks of life as we want. On that note, I would keep in mind that the author, Julia Cameron has a very specific Christian POV, but if you’re willing to make the translation, the lessons and symbolism could be applied more broadly to many walks of life.

If you’re stuck, and looking for a different perspective on your approach to creativity, and you are open to taking what resonates, I’d recommend checking it out and seeing what comes of it.