💬 Let’s chat about Week 7 of The Artist’s Way
On recovering a sense of connection
Welcome to Life after Trauma; I’m Clare Egan. We’re currently taking part in The Artist’s Way, a community exploration of the intersection between creativity and recovery and it’s not too late for you to join us! Our goal is to explore our creativity in a gentle, low commitment way and to show up each week to cheer each other on. Here’s an overview of our approach if you’d like to learn more!
📅 Our next virtual gathering is happening on Sunday, May 4th at 1pm Irish Time and I’d love to see you there.
Please leave a comment below or send me a DM if you’d like to come along, and I’ll forward the event details. For safety reasons, I don’t want to post them on the internet.
How did you get on this week?
I’m ending this week feeling tired but very happy! I prioritised giving myself a little more room to play this week, and I’ve really felt the benefit of it. Like a lot of people, my life is ruled by my to do list. In general, that really works for me. (✔️ Love to tick off a task!) But sometimes, I need to just live/mess around/have fun.
I lost some momentum with Morning Pages this week. I spent the early part of the week in Rome, and came home deeply exhausted. I still wrote my pages most days, but they were a lot shorter, sloppier and more rushed than I like. I’m hoping to reprioritise them over the weekend.
Can shopping be an Artist’s Date? I hope so, because it might have been my most creatively fufilling task from this week. I needed to find an outfit for a friend’s wedding and due to some complicated inter-personal dynamics, I really wanted to feel confident in my clothes. I brainstormed a bunch of ideas, and found a suit I feel really good in. There was something about trying to find the colours/textures/shapes I wanted that was deeply satisfying for my brain, and I was also proud to have bought myself something. That doesn’t always come easily to me.
Over to you….
We’re more than half way through this process, and I feel deeply in the rhythm of our weekly activities. Are you enjoying them? Do they feel too rigid or too loose? I’m really curious to hear. Remember: you don’t need to do The Artist’s Way perfectly in order to be part of this. Even if you’re not actively participating, you’re still very welcome to contribute.
💬 Did you enjoy chapter 7? Are there any insights from your experience that you’d like to share? As always, I'll get us started with some reflections on my tasks from this week.
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I enjoyed this week’s tasks perhaps more than any other week.
I tried to write some poetry, which was much harder than I remembered. The last time I did it was on a beach last summer and it felt fun and playful. It was much harder this time, probably because I tried to squeeze it in around work, with an enormous to do list looming over me. But I’m glad I tried. It was nice to stretch my mind in a different direction and while I didn’t complete a full poem, it was nice to challenge myself to engage with language in a new way.
The archeology exercise was interesting to explore. It felt a little repetitive after tasks in earlier chapters of the book (I’m thinking of the one where we had to grieve our creative losses, in particular) but it was also nice to reflect on the positives during this task. I found myself writing more about my life more generally, rather than just my creative work. Maybe I’m beginning to see how much overlap there is between creativity as an artistic practice, and the other things we create in our lives. Things like relationships, families, communities.. My understanding of creativity is expanding beyond the practices we need artistic supplies for. This might also have been due to the fact that I completed the exercise while in Rome with my partner’s family. Sitting around the family table celebrating my in laws 50th wedding anniversary, I was struck by all they built together. They have two children, who now have families of their own. Sitting at that table, it was remarkable to feel how much life has grown from that single choice to make a life together. It’s a beautiful thing. 💕
Curious to hear how you all got on this week too...
Although I am not actively participating in The Artist's Way, I find it inspiring to read about the weekly activities, prompts and challenges. This week has been very difficult and it feels like I am drowning in my own fear and confusion. I've struggled to find the motivation within me to journal daily, which is a practice I lean on during difficult periods.
Instead, inspired by a few of this weeks tasks about writing lists, I started sketching out my feelings, worries and dreams. I mapped out my emotions, desires and fears, and while it was difficult to untangle the endless stream of feelings built up inside of me, I'm glad I tried. Like Clare said, it activated and challenged my mind in a different way, and I think I gained a lot of helpful insights from this new type of journal entry.