Recovering a Sense of Identity: The Artist’s Way Month Two Recap (Chapter Two)

Multiple paintbrushes covered in rainbow paint. Recovering a sense of identity with The Artist's Way.

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The Artist’s Way Month Two Recap: Chapter Two: Recovering a Sense of Identity

Hi! If you’re new here: I’m doing a year-long series where I work through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and document it here on the blog. This is the second post of the series. You can find the explanation for this series here.

Recovering a sense of identity: self doubt

In terms of recovering a sense of identity, one theme in this chapter of The Artist’s Way that really hits home for me is self doubt. Even this far into my creative journey—and having done a graduate degree in art therapy, which is all about creating freely—I still wonder sometimes if I’m “good enough” at what I do. But lately I’ve been trying to fight back against the little voice that whispers this by countering it: what even is “good enough”? And good enough for what? For me, the whole point of creating is to have fun and try something new. With this in mind, there’s no room for “good enough”—whatever I create is whatever I create! As long as I have fun doing it, then I’ve already succeeded at what I set out to do.

Recovering a sense of identity: sabotage from friends

One thing from this chapter that really didn’t hit home with me was the mention of being on the lookout for sabotage from friends. It may just be the people I surround myself with, but I’ve never had a friend tell me not to do something creative, and I’ve never felt like I’ve had to work on recovering a sense of identity because of it.

I’m constantly coming up with new ways to create—I’ve just decided 2024 will be the year I learn to crochet granny squares—and not once has someone tried to discourage me. In fact, the most common response is something along the lines of “Amazing! Show me when you’re done/let’s try it together.” But again, this may just be because of the people I hang out with (a bunch of lovely, artistic people!).

Recovering a sense of identity: “Easier to write than to not write”

Within this chapter of The Artist’s Way, there’s a comment about it being “easier to write than to not write,” which I find to be wholeheartedly true. For me, being creative is something that’s become woven into my everyday life and truly is part of my identity at this point.

I’m constantly writing something—poems, fiction, nonfiction, journal entries—or knitting, drawing, sewing, or even baking. I can’t imagine living a life where being creative isn’t at the forefront, and I imagine if I tried to go back to living a life where I wasn’t creative, it would be far more challenging than incorporating creativity into my days.

Morning pages

Morning pages written this month: 27/31

For those of you unfamiliar with The Artist’s Way or morning pages: morning pages are a daily writing exercise where you dump everything in your brain onto the page. You’re supposed to just write—no stopping or reading back on what you read—for three whole pages. If you don’t know what to write, you write “I don’t know what to write” until you do.

Personally, I’ve never been all that good at following rules or instructions (no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life!). However, I do take these as guidelines. So, for the first few days, I was writing my morning pages by the book: three pages, no stopping or looking back.

But, aside from my morning pages, I have a journal where I write every day: thoughts, ideas, what I’m planning for the day. Basically, morning pages, but smaller. And because I didn’t want to give up this journaling practice, and I also didn’t want to do three morning pages and write in my journal, I ended up combining them, which has worked so well for me.

There’s something about journaling every morning, even if just for a few minutes, that helps clear my head and get me sorted for the rest of the day. I actually only started this practice last October (almost exactly a year ago!), but I never want to go back to how often I was doing it before (sporadically, at best).

Artist dates

Another pillar of The Artist’s Way is artist dates, where you (the artist) take yourself on at least one date a week. This could be anything from writing in a coffee shop to visiting an art gallery to making art in the park. The goal of this is to “nurture your inner artist,” as Cameron states in the introduction of the book.

You can read about how I’ve bent the rules to this in this post.

During October, I took myself on six artist dates:

Went to two writing nights with friends at a local coffee shop
Went for two nature walks (solo)
Made art in a local coffee shop (solo)
Had a long, drawn-out library visit (solo)

Tasks

In every chapter of The Artist’s Way, Cameron outlines a list of tasks for the reader to engage in. Each chapter’s list is extensive, and so I choose just a few to do. This month, I chose:

“List twenty things you enjoy doing. When was the last time you let yourself do these things? Next to each entry, place a date. Don’t be surprised if it’s been years for some of your favourites. That will change. This list is an excellent resource for artist dates.”

“From the list above, write down two favourite things that you’ve avoided that could be this week’s goals. These goals can be small: buy one roll of film and shoot it. Remember, we are trying to win you some autonomy with your time. Look for windows of time just for you, and use them in small creative acts.”

“Ten Tiny Changes: list ten changes you’d like to make for yourself,from the significant to the small or vice versa. Do it this way:

I would like to ______________________

As the morning pages nudge us increasingly into the present, where we pay attention to our current lives, a small shift like a newly painted bathroom can yield a luxuriously large sense of self care.”

—Above quotes are taken from The Artist’s Way, Chapter Two

Some important creative things of note for this month:

After not working on my novel for a little while (whoops), I’ve now hit 45,073 words.
I finished knitting the crossbody bag I mentioned last month.
I’ve knit all the squares for the rug I started last month, and started putting it together.
I started knitting a pair of mittens (First time ever! No pattern!!).
I created a blog chart to help me figure out what I’ll be posting when (and have decided to try posting every week).
I’ve done the same with Youtube videos, but I haven’t decided if I’ll be posting weekly or bi-weekly yet. I’m hoping to start ASAP, though!
There’s been a turn of events, and now I’m accepted to a self employment program which will help me set up an art therapy business (something I was going to do anyway and now get business training for!).

How did you make time to be creative this month? And what did you create?

xoxo

Catherine

Free Printable Planner Page

P.S. As part of my creative journey, I’ve started making printables! Some of them will correspond with blog posts, others will just be useful things to help you in your day-to-day lives. You can download the most recent one here!

I’ll also be planning on adding all printables to my Etsy shop, Toad in the Attic. If you want to support my work, you can buy the printable there!

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