💬 Let’s chat about Week 8 of The Artist’s Way
On recovering a sense of strength
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!
How did you get on this week?
I’m ending this week feeling the kind of exhaustion I know to be wary of. I snapped the above selfie at 6pm last night, and wrote a proud note about how I was going to stop working and read instead. Ha! I somehow got dragged back into my laptop, and ticked off a few more things.. My goal for this weekend is the same as all the ones that came before: rest. Fingers crossed you’ll be able to get some too!
I missed two Morning Pages sessions this week, but I used that time to get out in nature which felt restorative in another way. I haven’t managed a “proper” Artist’s Date yet this week, but I did make a particularly delicious batch of hommous. There’s something about the process of soaking the chickpeas, simmering them in a pot and whizzing them into a perfectly-balance condiment that I find deeply restorative. My secret ingredient is a dusting of sumac on top. So good 🤤
Over to you….
How did you get on with your Morning Pages this week? Our goal is to spend some time with them every morning, but I actually think it takes more commitment to come back to the practice after you’ve skipped a day or two (or 6!)
How was your Artist Date? Or do you have something planned over the weekend? It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. A simple walk in the park works!
💬 Did you enjoy chapter 8? 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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As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, I didn't feel up to a lot of heavy emotional work this week so I gave myself some grace around the tasks. I experimented with affirmations which I found quite emotional, repeating "I am a talented person" touched a sensitive nerve and I plan to keep working with it over the weeks ahead.
I didn't complete the Early Patternings exercise and I think that's OK. I'm sure it'd be a powerful one, but I know my limitations and think I was right to leave it aside.
One thing I've learned through this process is that it's important to choose a few lighter tasks that feel fun and energising alongside the more emotionally intense ones. Planning my ideal day is a great example of that. It was fun to imagine, and brought a lot more clarity to what actually matters to me.
Curious to hear how you got on this week too..
I seemed to need a bit of a break from the heavy lifting, too, and some of the tasks just didn't resonate with me. Maybe I'll have to revisit at a later date in my morning pages.
I enjoyed the ‘name your dream’ and ‘colour scheme’ exercises.
I did morning pages every day, artist date was planting my seedlings in our greenhouse. It was a good feeling to see the ground turn from black empty dirt to rows of small plants.
I was wondering about an old friend over the last couple of weeks and my husband “coincidentally” ran into their son, whom he hasn’t seen in years.
It was a good week, but I found it difficult to focus on the tasks and getting traction to put my thoughts into this response even though I read the chapter and had my notes ready early this week.
All the best to everyone in the coming week.