The Artist’s Way: Recovering a Sense of Possibility (Week 5)
Why I don't want to be a "good girl" anymore
Welcome to Life after Trauma; I’m Clare Egan. We’re in Week 5 of The Artist’s Way, a community exploration of the intersection of creativity and recovery.
In case you’re new here, here’s a quick overview: each week, we read a new chapter of The Artist’s Way and do our best to write our Morning Pages and schedule an Artist’s Date. On Tuesdays, I share my reflections on that week’s theme and on Fridays, we gather to share our experiences in the weekly thread. Here’s our schedule for April:
The Artist’s Way Week 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility
How’s everybody doing? Last week was a tough one for a lot of us, myself included. Over the weekend, I took a walk by the sea to stave off the burnout I feel nibbling at my heels. It really helped. If you’re struggling right now, please be kind to yourself. We knew this process wouldn’t be easy, but we decided to show up anyway. I’m proud of us for that! Together, we’ll find our way through.
Week 5 is about limitations, virtues and forbidden joy. It felt like an easier lift after last week’s media deprivation. The chapter starts off quite God-heavy, which my past self decided to amend:
Language aside, I would really like to challenge my mindset around money, scarcity and security. Like many people, my scarcity mindset was necessary for survival. When my mother died, I was plunged into financial precarity. Someday, I’ll write about all the gritty details but the short version is that in the years immediately after her death, I was broke. That’s not my life anymore. I have a safe home and enough money to take care of myself, and enjoy the things I love. But my mindset hasn’t caught up with my new financial circumstances. And the fear that I might end up back there, subsisting on tinned tuna and cheap biscuits, still looms large. I try to breathe through the fears, to remind myself - and especially my body, where the fear lives like an anxious rodent at the back of my throat - that things have changed. I’m not broke anymore. I have a safe and cozy home. I have savings. I have a freaking pension. But my body doesn’t always remember that.
This is an area of life where I have room to grow, and I’m happy to explore it through this process.
When I first read this chapter, I thought a lot about my mother. That’s probably because Cameron includes a couple of examples of artist parents who neglect their creative lives in order to be present with their children. I also recently re-read
’s oped in the New York Times about how she felt like her mother’s captor. I related to it deeply. My mother loved me and my siblings completely. She devoted herself to caring for us, and made innumerable sacrifices in order to give us the best start in life she could. I remember the day she grimly pointed out that if she crossed the street and cared for someone else’s children, she would have been paid for it. Because we were her children, her labour was considered valueless. She spent almost 20 years working for free and though she was often fulfilled by it, it was fundamentally unfair. I know she sometimes resented it.Loehnen writes:
“It is tough to be your mother’s jailer. My mom gave me everything, and for this, received nothing that she wanted in return. That is a heavy inheritance. As Carl Jung famously said, nothing is more influential in a child’s life than the unlived life of the parent. My mother’s unlived life ricochets inside my life.”
Part of the agony of losing my mother in a car accident when she was only 53 was grieving the life she never got to live. Her children were growing up and she was going to have a new chapter of independent, creative living. That life was stolen from her when a young driver lost control of her car on a wet night, and killed her.
Self-sacrifice is what was modelled to me as a child. It was what women of that era did without question. I’m struck by how it echoes with Christianity too: my mother gave up her life for us, just as Jesus did. It’s no surprise that when I think about the biggest blocks to my creativity, people-pleasing is top of the list.
I suspect these lines will be familiar to a lot of us who’ve survived horrible things. When our bodies are overwhelmed with terror, we disassociate. Our body might be present, but our deepest selves have fled the scene. They’re hiding somewhere, observing from a distance.
Those of us who were raised to please others, to be “good girls”, to put our own needs aside and quietly seethe with resentment rather than communicating openly about our desires, we have to unlearn the idea that we don’t matter. We have to learn that we’re allowed to take up space. By taking care of others, it might seem like we’re good, moral people, but often what we’re doing is abandoning ourselves. We’re gathering up resentments to nurse when we wake at 2am to grieve our creative losses.
Sometimes, of course, our responsibilites do come before our creative work, and I wish the book acknowledged these challenges outside the realm of parenting. Our society has a lot of language for the challenges parents have in balancing their own wellbeing with the responsibilities of having and raising children. We are less culturally familiar with conversations about “balance” when they’re about the challenge of managing chronic mental or physical illness, rebuilding after trauma, other kinds of caregiving responsibilities for ourselves or others, and countless other things that come between us and our creative work. I wish there was more cultural understanding of this reality, though perhaps that’s a critique of our society more broadly rather than Cameron’s work in particular.
I really resonated with the section on creative solitude, which is something I’m really craving in this season of overwhelm. I’ve been dealing with persistent health issues (not serious, just time consuming), juggling work responsibilities and the looming stress of a big life event (our wedding!). I’m really craving some time to just be, to sit and breathe and just exist for a while. It’s why last week’s failed media deprivation experiment stung: what I need the most (some room to breathe) is often the most difficult thing to find.
“We may even continue to produce creatively, but we are leaching blood from ourselves, vampirizing our souls”
This line echoes our modern day language about burnout. When you keep working beyond the point of exhaustion, you are stealing from your future creativity, productivity and wellbeing in order to be able to do it. I’ve recognised that I’m on the precipice of this, and am actively making choices to find my way out. I’m also taking ownership over the choices that landed me in this situation. For a few days, I was angry and resentful and blaming others. But on a peaceful early morning this week, I realised that it was me. I kept quiet when I needed to speak up. I took on more. I neglected myself. I asked too much of “the soft animal of my body" and am in the process of realigning my commitments to make more space for myself.
Other thoughts & reflections from Chapter Five:
“We work slowly and gradually, clearing away the wreckage of our negative patterning, clarifying the vision of what it is we want, learning to accept small pieces of that vision from whatever source and then, one day, presto” I’ve never had a ‘presto’ moment in my creative life. I’ve done The Artist’s Way 1.5 times. I’ve been writing and publishing for decades. I’ve had some creative success and still.. no “presto” moment.
“I want to sound a cautionary note here for all artists who put their creatives live into solely human hands” This resonates with me. While I lost the faith I was raised in, I do believe in something beyond what we can see. I can’t spend time in the forest and not know the majesty of life beyond our human realm. I appreciate the opportunity to stretch toward the unknown this week.
“Most of us find that as we work with the Morning Pages, we begin to treat ourselves more gently” I’m really curious about your perspectives on this. I know lots of folks who avoid Morning Pages because they trigger so much self-loathing. There are times when I do too.
“With each day, we become more true to yourself, more open to the positive” I’m also curious about your reflections on this one! It’s such a broad, sweeping statement that sometimes feels true to me, and sometimes doesn’t. I don’t think it’s as simple as Cameron makes it out to be.
Tasks
“Experiment with this two-step process: ask for answers in the evening; listen for answers in the morning [through your Morning Pages]” This wasn’t listed in the ‘tasks’ section but I’d still like to try it this week. I like the idea of using speed writing to write a wishlist, and see what I discover. I’m going to start with this questions: “shat payoff are you getting for remaining stuck at this point in your expansion?”
Start an image file. I’ve wanted to make a vision board for this year, but I never got around to it. I really liked
’s idea of creating a vision board where you initially use placeholder images, and then replace them with photos of you throughout the year.If I were 20 and had money, list five adventures. This is a fun one. When I was 20, I was lost in grief and completely broke. But it might be nice to imagine an alternative reality.
List 10 ways I’m mean to myself. Only 10? 🙃
List 10 items I’d like to own that I don't. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I haven’t bought myself anything new through this experience. Not a new notebook, not the massage we talked about, nothing.. I’m in a lean moment, saving for our wedding but I also know some part of me feels like I don’t deserve nice things. I’d like to tease this out a little more this week.
Best of luck with The Artist’s Way this week.
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I really struggled with the God language in this chapter. She completely lost me here, “God has lots of money. God has lots of movie ideas, novel ideas, poems, songs, paintings, acting jobs.” P. 92 She centres God as a source of abundance and creative power, but then she attributes concrete man-made things to God, like money and acting jobs? She also seems to interchange God with “the creator within,” which could work for me, except how does the creator within have lots of money – a capitalist invention that has nothing to do with creativity? I feel like there is inconsistency throughout around how she uses language around God and spirituality, which I think adds to my difficulty in searching for meaning and validity in her words. Maybe this will be addressed more in Chapter Six (or I will continue to question her ideas) since a peek ahead has Cameron suggesting that Nancy, who doesn’t believe God gets involved with money, needs an overhaul of her God concept.
Clare, I understand this completely: "I would really like to challenge my mindset around money, scarcity and security." I grew up in a poor household and had to count every penny to put myself through university and pay off student loans. I save items that I think might be useful (to save money and the environment), and make careful decisions around purchases. I know logically I don't have to be concerned about financial security and haven't had to for decades (recent stock market drops aside), yet it is always a concern at the back of my mind and informs decisions I make and how I guide my children. Thank you for reminding me it's my body that remembers even though my mind knows otherwise.
I hope you'll take good care of yourself! I know you had it in you, you know how important it is and you shoo away exhaustion and burnout! Sending love🩷
I loved your recap as always🩷 I'm sorry but I laughed out loud at this: 'List 10 ways I’m mean to myself. Only 10? 🙃' :DDD I laughed because I'm the same. It's such a valuable insight though! Phrasing and writing your mean thoughts about yourself, letting them go starts with noticing them while you do them. THEN you can stop them!