Clare, would you ever be open to sharing that poem you wrote on the beach? I, too, have been experimenting (playing!) with poetry more these days, and I have found doing so has reinvigorated my love of language. Paying sharp attention to external observations, I believe, is molding me into a better writer overall. And poetry can convey something that prose cannot, especially by using white space.
Anyway, about jealousy--I am learning that when I feel jealous/envious, I can give myself some time to have that inner temper tantrum, where I whine and shake my fists and say, "It's not fair!" Usually, I cool off and am able to grasp a more balanced and healthier perspective about my place and my voice.
Recently, I had one of these tantrums to myself, and I reminded myself that my voice matters just as much as the celebrities who are showing up on this platform. Even though my audience is much smaller, it doesn't matter. There is a place for ALL of us at this huge Substack table! And I also remind myself that what matters most is that I show up as my authentic self each day, because no one else can share my story through my unique lived experience.
Love this Jeannie, thank you for sharing it 💕 It makes me shy to think about sharing that poem. (I feel like I should put it in quotation marks - "poem" - because I've no right to say I wrote a real poem...) But maybe it would feel more real if I shared it. Maybe I could share it knowing that it isn't "good" and doesn't really "qualify" as a poem, but it's still a piece of writing I did and someone might like to read it. It's buried in an old journal somewhere but if I'm feeling brave, I might try to dig it out..
Love the framing of inner temper tantrums too. We all need to vent and huff and rage sometimes, even if only inwardly. And like you, I usually feel a lot better once those emotions have been given some room to breathe.
Oh, Clare, I hear you! I do not consider myself a poet AT ALL, yet I have enjoyed playing with language through line breaks and stanzas and cadence. How about this? I will share one of my poems with you if you want to share one with me. And if not, that’s okay, too! Just an offer. :)
Wow, Clare, I could picture this scene so clearly. And the title says so much. It really set the stage for perception of the reader. Thanks for sharing this! I need to type up my poem about “The Golden Family.” Maybe I will share it with you. :)
Thank you my friend 💕 I was really nervous to share this, and I really appreciate your encouragement. Look forward to reading "The Golden Family" whenever you're ready to share it.
Yes! We can have our tantrums, and then move beyond them. Stifling our emotions serves no-one, so here's to huffing and raging and throwing our toys out of the metaphorical pram whenever we need to! 💕
Clare, loved your take on this chapter and thank you as always for exploring it so deeply and honestly. I agree with you here: "She ignores the deep subterranean roots to our perfectionist tendencies and instead says, ‘stop doing that’. Perhaps this is an instance where there’s value in just trying: in choosing something that feels outside your creative comfort zone and giving it a shot.For me, it would probably be poetry."
First, I do claim the identity of perfectionist, or rather I did claim it with a begrudging sense that it was a personality trait I should rid myself of, that it got in the way of my happiness. And certainly "maladaptive" perfectionism does that. But in 2023 I happened to read a book The Perfectionist's Guide To Losing Control by the psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schaffler and it flipped everything i thought I knew about perfectionism on its head. I recommend it to everyone who feels perfectionism is part of their identity, and a trait they'd rather not have. When we can see our perfectionism as a kind of superpower, by not warping in its more maladaptive behaviors, we can own it with pride. We are perfectionists because we care. Because we strive to do better. Because we have ambitions for ourselves, others, this world. It is also a beautifully written, warm-hearted book and it remains one I turn to again and again when I find myself dipping back into a more maladaptive frame of mind. So yes, Cameron is not at all in sync with me when she bascially says, "Get over your perfectionism. It is bad for you." And I totally agree with you that when perfectionism makes us unhappy, the driver is fear, not pride. The maladaptive perfectionist in me lacks pride in her work which is why she keeps striving. She fears it will never be good enough.
On the poetry example you gave, about trying something outside of our creative comfort zone, yes! I am writing "poemish" things as part of Jeannine Ouellette's Writing in the Dark community and it does make you pay much more close attention in a detailed, concrete way of our surroundings, and the feelings it evokes, like when you note down what you observe in nature. Jeannine calls these "shimmers and shards," because sometime they shimmer beautifully and sometimes they are shards that cut a little, that don't appear to be beautiful or pleasant but are important to pay attention to nevertheless.
On Jealousy, I do think it can be a teacher for us. It always reveals a shadow within us, as Carl Jung teaches. What we envy in others, we want for ourselves and often something is preventing us from daring to go for it. It is easier and safer to hide in our jealousy than to explore what it is there to tell us.
Also, this week for my artist's date I finally bought myself a basic watercolor kit, brushes and a paid of paper and markers so I will attempt the mantra exercise and maybe just let my little five year old artist self play. I find it so hard to let her simply play, with all the adult things we have to get done each day.
Week after week, the exercises elude me. I either avoid them, or rather, they don't call to me as much as other daily writing and medititative and self development exercises do. I am not sure why. I think perhaps because I have "done" the Artists' Way so many times before and assume, even if I can't remember, that i did the exercises. But that is a flimsy excuse. I am a different person, a different artist than I was then, and there is more to be discovered about what is blocking me and what may inspire me.
What I'd love to happen as I move forward in these remaining weeks is to return on a daily basis to the novel in progress that excited me so much last summer and into the fall but which has been dormant for half a year now. I am part of a writing group and in two weeks I have an opprtunity to share up to 30 pages of writing with my attentive group of writers and I don't want to miss the chance. I think the exercise, some of them, can help me unlock why I don't prioritize returning to my first and best writing love, which is fiction.
Thanks for this Amy. I always love reading your reflections 💕
I'm going to dig out that book on perfectionism. I love the idea of reframing it as a superpower, rather than a limitation. As you say, there is a distinction between perfectionism that's rooted in care and empathy and one that's rooted in avoidance and I wish Julia Cameron had been more nuanced in this chapter. Perhaps this book could be a useful companion text for those who need a bit more rigour, analysis and warmth around this topic.
I also don't think of myself as a perfectionist, and yet have lots of thought-processes and behaviours that reflect a perfectionist's mindset. It's been a fruitful thing for me to journal on this week.
Thanks for the recommendation of Jeannine Ouellette's community too. I've been meaning to dive into those exercises in more detail. I love the language of "poem-ish" things too. That feels so much more achievable to me. I'm not a poet, but I do sometimes write poem-ish things.
"I find it so hard to let her simply play, with all the adult things we have to get done each day" - oof, that resonates. I am the same. I have found it useful to put 'playtime' on my to do list for the day. It helps me see it as something worth prioritising and while my inner teenager rolls her eyes at the dorkiness of scheduling fun, it works for me. 🙃
Best of luck with your return to novel-writing. It sounds like a writing group could be a really good container for that ambition, and I wish you lots of luck in working through the blocks and getting some words on the page. I, on the other hand, have accepted that I just don't have capacity for fiction writing right now. But while my own work is paused, I'll be cheering you on from Dublin 💕
I haven't read that chapter... I think I didn't get to that point last time either? Interesting, because on the topics of perfectionism and jealousy, I have A LOT to think about/work through.
I love people who are not perfectionists - I mean, I do get annoyed when they're not paying attention to details to the point I have to correct their work, which, at work, does happen - but I try not be a bitch about it, especially because they bring another kind of energy that's also very much needed. We need diversity and balance!
Says the person who has no capacity for balance. I usually go from perfectionism to not giving a fuck, because the middle is so much more uncomfortable: it forces me to do, and to confront what I do poorly. So much lazier to not care and never revisit. I'm getting better at it -- a poetry course I took in the fall actually taught me a lot about this, and it's a skill I really need to develop, since so much of solid writing is REwriting.
"[perfectionism] often grows from a childhood experience of never feeling good enough, of needing to be perfect in order to retain the love you need to survive."
Or a futile effort to "deserve" but yes, you're bang on!
Oof, I know the discomfort of that middle ground where you're trying to be attentive and present and do good work, but know that it won't be your best work. The squirminess of it often makes me over-deliver, which is a speedy path to resentment because lots of people are really happy with good (but not great!) work. To lots of folks, doing OK is enough. It doesn't need to be great. In my experience, there's something almost Buddhist about trying to find acceptance in doing enough but not too much. In not fearing that I'll somehow get in trouble for doing sub-par work, while everyone else seems satisfied with it. I dunno if this makes sense outside my weird, twisty mind but I wanted to share it anyway.
So interesting that poetry was the thing that helped you untangle some of these knots too. I am a big re-writer, though I find that it makes my perfectionist tendencies worse. You know that scene in Friends where Joey uses the thesaurus to change every word in a recommendation letter because he wanted it to sound fancier? I often find myself on a similar path with my work, though I can assure you it isn't funny!
I also love (& envy) the non-perfectionists. They have so much to teach us.
Thanks for being here my friend. Always appreciate you sharing your perspective 💕
Chapter 7 felt short to me which isn’t a bad thing.
I really got a lot out of going back to the earlier posts and comments during our week break. It was a nice refresher and fed my morning pages a little more.
I’m also looking forward to the jealousy map and will be back with a more detailed update about my thoughts on the chapter
I found Chapter 7 shorter too, though as you say not necessarily a bad thing! I'm so glad that you've been revisiting earlier posts/comments and finding them useful. We're creating a beautiful archive here, which I hope will be a resource to folks who find it long into the future. 💕
As someone who found you and these posts "late" (it's June 9 and I just started week 7) I have to say it's been a MARVELOUS resource. Thank you (and your wonderful community here) for sharing your thoughts and reflections.
Your insights on the chapters have helped me so much - and I shared your substack with a friend also going through TAW; she echoed my feelings! "I'm loving Clare Egan!😍 thank you so much for sharing that. She nails exactly some of the things that don't land quite right about TAW sometimes"
Clare, would you ever be open to sharing that poem you wrote on the beach? I, too, have been experimenting (playing!) with poetry more these days, and I have found doing so has reinvigorated my love of language. Paying sharp attention to external observations, I believe, is molding me into a better writer overall. And poetry can convey something that prose cannot, especially by using white space.
Anyway, about jealousy--I am learning that when I feel jealous/envious, I can give myself some time to have that inner temper tantrum, where I whine and shake my fists and say, "It's not fair!" Usually, I cool off and am able to grasp a more balanced and healthier perspective about my place and my voice.
Recently, I had one of these tantrums to myself, and I reminded myself that my voice matters just as much as the celebrities who are showing up on this platform. Even though my audience is much smaller, it doesn't matter. There is a place for ALL of us at this huge Substack table! And I also remind myself that what matters most is that I show up as my authentic self each day, because no one else can share my story through my unique lived experience.
Love this Jeannie, thank you for sharing it 💕 It makes me shy to think about sharing that poem. (I feel like I should put it in quotation marks - "poem" - because I've no right to say I wrote a real poem...) But maybe it would feel more real if I shared it. Maybe I could share it knowing that it isn't "good" and doesn't really "qualify" as a poem, but it's still a piece of writing I did and someone might like to read it. It's buried in an old journal somewhere but if I'm feeling brave, I might try to dig it out..
Love the framing of inner temper tantrums too. We all need to vent and huff and rage sometimes, even if only inwardly. And like you, I usually feel a lot better once those emotions have been given some room to breathe.
Oh, Clare, I hear you! I do not consider myself a poet AT ALL, yet I have enjoyed playing with language through line breaks and stanzas and cadence. How about this? I will share one of my poems with you if you want to share one with me. And if not, that’s okay, too! Just an offer. :)
OK, deep breath, let's do it my friend. 💕 I present to you:
Misogyny goes to the beach
A woman, lithe and polished
From her coral toe tips to the eyebrows carved onto her forehead
Her man, calloused by life
Nicotine fingertips, a thatch of hair under his arms
A wink of hollow from between his sagging trunks,
Sky blue stamped with stars, a dirty gold
Her, a gleaming silver that would sell for new
Him a pudgy sculpture, abandoned
A slice of spine between her jiving shoulder blades
Her bikini, black, effortless
There was nothing effortless about it.
Her body a monument to preparation
His, an ode to ease
(August 2024, on a beach in Siphnos, Greece)
Wow, Clare, I could picture this scene so clearly. And the title says so much. It really set the stage for perception of the reader. Thanks for sharing this! I need to type up my poem about “The Golden Family.” Maybe I will share it with you. :)
Thank you my friend 💕 I was really nervous to share this, and I really appreciate your encouragement. Look forward to reading "The Golden Family" whenever you're ready to share it.
Oh, I posted it, Clare, on Notes. Now I need to find it and tag you!
Beautiful observation, Jeannie. Here's to allowing ourselves to have inner temper tantrums. They are needed!
Yes! We can have our tantrums, and then move beyond them. Stifling our emotions serves no-one, so here's to huffing and raging and throwing our toys out of the metaphorical pram whenever we need to! 💕
I think so, too, Amy!
Clare, loved your take on this chapter and thank you as always for exploring it so deeply and honestly. I agree with you here: "She ignores the deep subterranean roots to our perfectionist tendencies and instead says, ‘stop doing that’. Perhaps this is an instance where there’s value in just trying: in choosing something that feels outside your creative comfort zone and giving it a shot.For me, it would probably be poetry."
First, I do claim the identity of perfectionist, or rather I did claim it with a begrudging sense that it was a personality trait I should rid myself of, that it got in the way of my happiness. And certainly "maladaptive" perfectionism does that. But in 2023 I happened to read a book The Perfectionist's Guide To Losing Control by the psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schaffler and it flipped everything i thought I knew about perfectionism on its head. I recommend it to everyone who feels perfectionism is part of their identity, and a trait they'd rather not have. When we can see our perfectionism as a kind of superpower, by not warping in its more maladaptive behaviors, we can own it with pride. We are perfectionists because we care. Because we strive to do better. Because we have ambitions for ourselves, others, this world. It is also a beautifully written, warm-hearted book and it remains one I turn to again and again when I find myself dipping back into a more maladaptive frame of mind. So yes, Cameron is not at all in sync with me when she bascially says, "Get over your perfectionism. It is bad for you." And I totally agree with you that when perfectionism makes us unhappy, the driver is fear, not pride. The maladaptive perfectionist in me lacks pride in her work which is why she keeps striving. She fears it will never be good enough.
On the poetry example you gave, about trying something outside of our creative comfort zone, yes! I am writing "poemish" things as part of Jeannine Ouellette's Writing in the Dark community and it does make you pay much more close attention in a detailed, concrete way of our surroundings, and the feelings it evokes, like when you note down what you observe in nature. Jeannine calls these "shimmers and shards," because sometime they shimmer beautifully and sometimes they are shards that cut a little, that don't appear to be beautiful or pleasant but are important to pay attention to nevertheless.
On Jealousy, I do think it can be a teacher for us. It always reveals a shadow within us, as Carl Jung teaches. What we envy in others, we want for ourselves and often something is preventing us from daring to go for it. It is easier and safer to hide in our jealousy than to explore what it is there to tell us.
Also, this week for my artist's date I finally bought myself a basic watercolor kit, brushes and a paid of paper and markers so I will attempt the mantra exercise and maybe just let my little five year old artist self play. I find it so hard to let her simply play, with all the adult things we have to get done each day.
Week after week, the exercises elude me. I either avoid them, or rather, they don't call to me as much as other daily writing and medititative and self development exercises do. I am not sure why. I think perhaps because I have "done" the Artists' Way so many times before and assume, even if I can't remember, that i did the exercises. But that is a flimsy excuse. I am a different person, a different artist than I was then, and there is more to be discovered about what is blocking me and what may inspire me.
What I'd love to happen as I move forward in these remaining weeks is to return on a daily basis to the novel in progress that excited me so much last summer and into the fall but which has been dormant for half a year now. I am part of a writing group and in two weeks I have an opprtunity to share up to 30 pages of writing with my attentive group of writers and I don't want to miss the chance. I think the exercise, some of them, can help me unlock why I don't prioritize returning to my first and best writing love, which is fiction.
Thanks for this Amy. I always love reading your reflections 💕
I'm going to dig out that book on perfectionism. I love the idea of reframing it as a superpower, rather than a limitation. As you say, there is a distinction between perfectionism that's rooted in care and empathy and one that's rooted in avoidance and I wish Julia Cameron had been more nuanced in this chapter. Perhaps this book could be a useful companion text for those who need a bit more rigour, analysis and warmth around this topic.
I also don't think of myself as a perfectionist, and yet have lots of thought-processes and behaviours that reflect a perfectionist's mindset. It's been a fruitful thing for me to journal on this week.
Thanks for the recommendation of Jeannine Ouellette's community too. I've been meaning to dive into those exercises in more detail. I love the language of "poem-ish" things too. That feels so much more achievable to me. I'm not a poet, but I do sometimes write poem-ish things.
"I find it so hard to let her simply play, with all the adult things we have to get done each day" - oof, that resonates. I am the same. I have found it useful to put 'playtime' on my to do list for the day. It helps me see it as something worth prioritising and while my inner teenager rolls her eyes at the dorkiness of scheduling fun, it works for me. 🙃
Best of luck with your return to novel-writing. It sounds like a writing group could be a really good container for that ambition, and I wish you lots of luck in working through the blocks and getting some words on the page. I, on the other hand, have accepted that I just don't have capacity for fiction writing right now. But while my own work is paused, I'll be cheering you on from Dublin 💕
Thanks for this thoughtful and encouraging response Clare. I appreciate you 💗here’s to letting ourselves play!
💕💕
I haven't read that chapter... I think I didn't get to that point last time either? Interesting, because on the topics of perfectionism and jealousy, I have A LOT to think about/work through.
I love people who are not perfectionists - I mean, I do get annoyed when they're not paying attention to details to the point I have to correct their work, which, at work, does happen - but I try not be a bitch about it, especially because they bring another kind of energy that's also very much needed. We need diversity and balance!
Says the person who has no capacity for balance. I usually go from perfectionism to not giving a fuck, because the middle is so much more uncomfortable: it forces me to do, and to confront what I do poorly. So much lazier to not care and never revisit. I'm getting better at it -- a poetry course I took in the fall actually taught me a lot about this, and it's a skill I really need to develop, since so much of solid writing is REwriting.
"[perfectionism] often grows from a childhood experience of never feeling good enough, of needing to be perfect in order to retain the love you need to survive."
Or a futile effort to "deserve" but yes, you're bang on!
Another great post. :)
Thank you Albe. So glad this post resonated 💕
Oof, I know the discomfort of that middle ground where you're trying to be attentive and present and do good work, but know that it won't be your best work. The squirminess of it often makes me over-deliver, which is a speedy path to resentment because lots of people are really happy with good (but not great!) work. To lots of folks, doing OK is enough. It doesn't need to be great. In my experience, there's something almost Buddhist about trying to find acceptance in doing enough but not too much. In not fearing that I'll somehow get in trouble for doing sub-par work, while everyone else seems satisfied with it. I dunno if this makes sense outside my weird, twisty mind but I wanted to share it anyway.
So interesting that poetry was the thing that helped you untangle some of these knots too. I am a big re-writer, though I find that it makes my perfectionist tendencies worse. You know that scene in Friends where Joey uses the thesaurus to change every word in a recommendation letter because he wanted it to sound fancier? I often find myself on a similar path with my work, though I can assure you it isn't funny!
I also love (& envy) the non-perfectionists. They have so much to teach us.
Thanks for being here my friend. Always appreciate you sharing your perspective 💕
I would love to attend May 4.
Amazing! Looking forward to seeing you then 💕
Bummed out I can't join you this weekend, at the right time and everything, but oh well, maybe for the next one! Have fun, you beautiful artists!
We'll miss you Albe 💕
Looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend.
Chapter 7 felt short to me which isn’t a bad thing.
I really got a lot out of going back to the earlier posts and comments during our week break. It was a nice refresher and fed my morning pages a little more.
I’m also looking forward to the jealousy map and will be back with a more detailed update about my thoughts on the chapter
I found Chapter 7 shorter too, though as you say not necessarily a bad thing! I'm so glad that you've been revisiting earlier posts/comments and finding them useful. We're creating a beautiful archive here, which I hope will be a resource to folks who find it long into the future. 💕
As someone who found you and these posts "late" (it's June 9 and I just started week 7) I have to say it's been a MARVELOUS resource. Thank you (and your wonderful community here) for sharing your thoughts and reflections.
Thank you so much Nica. I really appreciate your kind words 💕
Your insights on the chapters have helped me so much - and I shared your substack with a friend also going through TAW; she echoed my feelings! "I'm loving Clare Egan!😍 thank you so much for sharing that. She nails exactly some of the things that don't land quite right about TAW sometimes"
Your work is MUCH appreciated!!!
Thank you so much, Nica. I'm so glad to have shared this experience with you, and I really appreciate your kind words 💕