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Recovering a Sense of Integrity: The Artist’s Way Month Four Recap (Chapter Four)
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 third post of the series, all about recovering a sense of power; you can find the explanation for this series here and the previous post here.
Before we begin: I started making Youtube videos again! In my first video back, I talk about what I’ve been doing, the business I’m starting (!!), books I’m reading, and this chapter of The Artist’s Way. Watch here or head over to my channel! 🙂
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Recovering a sense of integrity: honest changes
In chapter four, Cameron speaks to how doing the morning pages helps us sort out our real feelings from our official feelings (by which she means the feelings we put on display for the public).
I can’t say I disagree with this, but I also don’t feel like this is an entirely groundbreaking statement. While I do feel like this relates to recovering a sense of integrity, I always write what I truly think and feel in my journal—but maybe that’s just me. However, she also mentions morning pages as a way to “puncture our denial.”
This I can get behind: unearthing our true feelings and scraping away the excess, the things that don’t work for us—or the things we refuse to believe about ourselves or the world. For a long time, I denied that I had any sort of artistic skill. But becoming an art therapist, and now doing this workbook, has firmly pushed that denial out.
Recovering a sense of integrity: shifts in perception
Cameron also talks about how, through rediscovering our creativity, how we see the world and ourselves starts to shift. We’ll feel the need to root through our lives and get rid of no longer fits who we’re becoming: clothes, stationary, books, and relationships.
I definitely agree with all of the above, but I’d like to add another one: social media accounts. Every so often, I go through who I follow on social media and unfollow any accounts that no longer fit with what I want or need. It’s never personal; it just doesn’t serve me in the way it once did. And I always feel better once I’ve done this purge.
But I’ve felt this recently with stuff, too. Every six months to a year, I get the urge to go through all my possessions and donate any I no longer love. This in itself is an entire blog post (or series of blog posts), but what I’ll say now is that I always feel better after I’ve thinned out the things that are only holding a space in our home.
Recovering a sense of integrity: changes in energy patterns
One last thing I’d like to highlight from this chapter is Cameron’s mention of changing energy patterns. When we make an effort to change our life in some way—really overhaul it—our energy is going to change with it.
Cameron speaks to vivid dreams, which is something I’ve always been interested in. I’ve also noticed in my own life that, when I’m going through a period of change, my dreams are more intense and easier to remember.
Because of this, I’m planning on creating a dream journal tracker for myself so I can better track my dreams—and better make sense of them. Dreams are powerful, and an excellent source of information about our inner worlds. And, if nothing else, I know I could make some wicked art from them.
Morning pages
Morning pages written this month: 30/31
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.
This month, I did almost all of my morning pages: 30/31 of them! I think this is because, for me, December is a month of going inward. I seem to always lean toward spending time with myself over others—likely because the end of the month is so busy with holidays.
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 December, I took myself on 6 artist dates:
- Reading dates at coffee shops (solo and with others) x3
- A silent walk through the woods (solo) x1
- Journaling in my local library (solo) x1
- Making art in the park (solo) x1
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:
“Environment: describe your ideal environment in one paragraph. What’s your favorite season? Why? Go through some magazines and find images of this, or draw it. Place it near your work area.”
“Time travel: describe yourself at eight. What did you do after fifty that you enjoyed? Be very specific. Now, write a letter from you at eighty to you at your current age. What would you tell yourself? What interests would you urge yourself to pursue? What dreams would you encourage?”
“Open your closet. Throw out—or hand on, or donate—one low self-worth outfit. Make space for the new.”
—Above quotes are taken from The Artist’s Way, Chapter Four
Some important creative things of note for this month:
- I didn’t work on my novel at all this month, but that’s because I did so many other creative things!
- First and foremost: I’m starting an art therapy business! I was accepted to a self employment program that provides funding and support for people starting a new business, so this month has been a lot of workshops, planning, and working on setting my business up.
- As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I started making Youtube videos again—partly to document my time starting my business, and partly just for fun.
- I only made a couple pieces of art, but one was for a friend (and I love making art for friends).
- I finished knitting a pair of slippers for myself and for my sister, as well as a pair of mittens for my niece.
- I started setting up a Patreon but have yet to start posting on it. But that’s one of my plans for January! I’m so excited to get going on there and give you all a behind the scenes look at my life and running an arts-based business!
How did you make time to be creative this month? And what did you create?
xoxo
Catherine
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Thank you for reading! There’s no new printable this week, but you can see all the printables I’ve made previously in my shop, Toad in the Attic.
Some more posts you may like
The Artist’s Way Month Two Recap: Chapter Two: Recovering a Sense of Identity
Recovering a Sense of Power: The Artist’s Way Month Three Recap (Chapter Three)
But what is art therapy? The three most common questions I get as an art therapist
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