💬 Let’s chat about Week 9 of The Artist’s Way

On recovering a sense of compassion

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?

This has been a good week. I woke up feeling wildly anxious this morning but sorted through those feelings in my Morning Pages. Turns out, I’m probably not going to get cancer and die soon!¹ 🙃

I had one really good day when I set the goal to be as embodied as possible. I did my Morning Pages in bed and read a chapter of a memoir (Currently reading Love in Exile by

Shon Faye

- it’s so good!). I did a yoga practice which was both physically tough and very emotionally discombobulating. I have a photo of my mother on a bookshelf and for some reason, I kept catching her eye as I huffed and puffed through sun salutations. It made me feel both sad and connected to her. I made myself a delicious lunch (this cabbage, leek, cracker concoction developed by

Justine Doiron

) and took a long, quiet walk in the park. Looking back, I see it as a kind of extended Artist’s Date. I wanted to try to prioritise my body ahead of my ‘to do’ list and on this particular day, I managed to. (Full disclosure: I also spent many hours glued to my desk ticking off tasks on my sprawling to do list. It wasn’t all peace and embodiment, but I managed to get all most of my work done while also taking care of myself!)

I also watched to share this ice-cream cake I made for friends on Monday night. It requires zero cooking, but made everyone ooh and ahh when I serve it.

Look at those layers! It’s made with Oreos, Iceberger ice-cream sandwiches, mint chocolate chip ice-cream and chocolate shavings 🤤

I also experienced some beautiful synchronicity:

I’ve been thinking about how to extend the magic of The Artist’s Way after we finish the book, and one idea is to make our virtual creative gatherings a recurring part of our community. I’ve made a quick poll to see if you might be interested in that. I’d really welcome your thoughts on it in the comments too!

Over to you….

I curious to hear how you got on with your Morning Pages and Artist Date this week. Remember: it doesn’t have to be perfect. Showing up regularly-ish, and giving it a try is enough! It counts as “doing The Artist’s Way”, and you are very welcome to share your experiences in the comments!

💬 Did you enjoy chapter 9? 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.

A reminder: Next week will be our final rest & integration week! I’ll be back with Chapter 10 on May 27th.

Huge thanks to our paid subscribers whose support makes this community possible. If this exploration of The Artist’s Way has made a positive difference in your life, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll get access to bonus content (including my collection of resources & the popular Ask Clare column), and you’ll help to keep my work freely accessible to every survivor who needs it.

Thanks so much for being here. It’s an honour to be in community with you 💕

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1. Or if I do, at least I’ll be able to say that I called it!