The Artist's Way (Week Four)

The Artist's Way: Buried Dreams, An Exercise

1. List five hobbies that sound fun: playing an instrument, creating pottery, gardening, bowling, poledancing
2. List five classes that sound fun: cooking class, painting class, Spanish class, candlemaking class, dance class (this is taking too long... I had to find a list!)
3. List five things you personally would never do that sound fun: skydiving, bungee-jumping, horseback riding, salsa class, improv class
4. List five skills that would be fun to have: read music/play instrument, killer chef, watercolor/drawing, hair styling, home decor
5. List five things you used to enjoy doing: writing fiction, dancing, basketball, tennis, being a leader
6. List five silly things you would like to try once: sex toy class, dance in public, sing in public, slacklining at Muscle Beach, coffee shop people watching musings


The Artist's Way: Reading Deprivation

No reading for a week! No newspapers, no novels, no reading for work or school! Some things to do instead of reading:

Listen to music. Knit. Work out. Make curtains. Cook. Meditate. Wash the dog. Fix the bike. Have friends to dinner. Sort closets. Watercolor. Get the stereo working. Pay bills. Rewire the lamp. Sort bookshelves (a dangerous one!). Write old friends. Paint the bedroom. Go dancing. Repot some plants. Rearrange the kitchen. Mend.


The Artist's Way: Week 4 Tasks

1. Environment: Describe your ideal environment. Town? Country? Swank? Cozy? One paragraph. One image, draw or clipped, that conveys this. What's your favorite season? Why? Go through some magazines and find an image of this. Or draw it. Place it near your working area.

2. Time Travel: Describe yourself at eighty. 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?

3. Time Travel: Remember yourself at eight. What did you like to do? What were your favorite things? Now, write a letter from you at eight to you at your current age. What would you tell yourself?

4. Environment: Look at your house. Is there any room that you could make into a secret, private space for yourself? Convert the TV room? Buy a screen or hang a sheet and cordon off a section of some other room? This is your dream area. It should be decorated for fun and not as an office. All you really need is a chair or pillow, something to write on, some kind of little altar area for flowers and candles. This is to help you center on the fact that creativity is a spiritual, not an ego, issue.

5. Use you life pie (from Week One) to review your growth. Has that nasty tarantula changed shape yet? Haven't you been more active, less rigid, more expressive? Be careful not to expect too much too soon. That's raising the jumps. Growth must have time to solidify into health. One day at a time, you are building the habit patterns of a healthy artist. Easy does do it. List ongoing self-nurturing toys you could buy your artist: books on tape, magazine subscriptions, theater tickets, a bowling ball.

6. Write you own Artist's Prayer. (See page 223.) Use it every day for a week.

7. An Extended Artist Date: Plan a small vacation for yourself. (One weekend day. Get ready to execute it.)

8. Open your closet. Throw out—or hand on, or donate—one low-self-worth outfit. (You know the outfit.) Make space for the new.

9. Look at one situation in your life that you feel you should change but haven't yet. What is the payoff for you in staying stuck?

10. If you break your reading deprivation, write about how you did it. In a tantrum? A slipup? A binge? How do you feel about it? Why?


Saturday Check-In

1. How many days this week did you do your morning pages? (Tantrums often show up as skipping the morning pages.) How was the experience for you?

2. Did you do your artist date this week? (Does your artist get to do more than rent a movie?) What did you do? How did it feel?

3. Did you experience any synchronicity this week? What was it?

4. Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.

The Artist's Way (Week Five)

The Artist's Way: The Virtue-Trap Quiz

1. The biggest lack in my life is taking the time to focus on me, take care of me.
2. The greatest joy in my life is moments when I can be in the present and finding the beauty.
3. My largest time commitment is work.
4. As I play more, I work feeling sad there is not more time for play and things that I enjoy.
5. I feel guilty that I am not truly doing the work to improve love myself.
6. I worry that we will not be able to afford a place to live on our own.
7. If my dreams come true, my family will relocate with me to another country.
8. I sabotage myself so people will not be inconvenienced or displeased.
9. If I let myself feel it, I'm angry that I don't prioritize myself and my wants.
10. One reason I get sad sometimes is I don't surround myself with enough beauty.


The Artist's Way: Forbidden Joys, An Exercise

List ten things you love and would love to do but are not allowed to do.

1. Travel.
2. Go on vacation.
3. Get involved in grassroots organizations that align with my politics and interests.
4. Have more pets.
5. Move to a bigger place/have my own decorated space.
6. Daily coffee shop people-watching.
7. Speak my mind and spread compliments freely.
8. Audition for a play.
9. Carry a sketchbook.
10. Get a drumset.


The Artist's Way: Wish List, An Exercise

As quickly as you can, finish the following phrases.

1. I wish I could love myself.
2. I wish I could improve.
3. I wish I could be healthy.
4. I wish I could have confidence.
5. I wish I had savings.
6. I wish I went on regular vacations.
7. I wish I didn't have to work 40 hours a week.
8. I wish 24 hours (or less!) was the standard work week.
9. I wish I could visit a bunch of other countries, or even just one.
10. I wish Biscuit didn't have ringworm anymore.
11. I wish Luka and I were happier together.
12. I wish I didn't get so triggered with Evelyn.
13. I wish I could lavish my pets more.
14. I wish I could spend my days the way I want to.
15. I wish I could write something great.
16. I wish I could feel comfortable in my own skin.
17. I wish it was easier to make time to see my family.
18. I wish I could work for myself.
19. I most especially wish my life was filled with more love.


The Artist's Way: Week 5 Tasks

1. The reason I can't really believe in a supportive God is . . . List five grievances. (God can take it.)

2. Starting an Image File: If I had either faith or money I would try . . . List five desires. For the next week, be alert for images of these desires. When you spot them, clip them, buy them, photograph them, draw them, collect them somehow. With these images, begin a file of dreams that speak to you. Add to it continually for the duration of the course.

3. One more time, list five imaginary lives. Have they changed? Are you doing more parts of them? You may want to add images of these lives to your image file.

4. If I were twenty and had money . . . List five adventures. Again, add images of these to your visual image file.

5. If I were sixty-five and had money . . . List five postponed pleasures. And again, collect these images. This is a very potent tool. I now live in a house that I imaged for ten years.

6. Ten ways I am mean to myself are . . . Just as making the positives explicit helps allow it into our lives, making the negative explicit helps us to exorcise it.

7. Ten items I would like to own that I don't are . . . And again, you may want to collect these images. In order to boost sales, experts in sales motivation often teach rookie salesmen to post images of what they would like to own. It works.

8. Honestly, my favorite creative block is . . . TV, overreading, friends, work, rescuing others, overexercise. You name it. Whether you can draw or not, please cartoon yourself indulging in it.

9. My payoff for staying blocked is . . . This you may want to explore in your morning pages.

10. The person I blame for being blocked is . . . Again, use your pages to mull on this.


Saturday Check-In

1. How many days this week did you do your morning pages? Are you starting to like them—at all? How was the experience for you? Have you discovered the page-and-a-half truth point yet? Many of us find that pay dirt in our writing occurs after a page and a half of vamping.

2. Did you do your artist date this week? Have you had the experience of hearing answers during this leisure time? What did you do for your date? How did it feel? Have you taken an artist date yet that really felt adventurous?

3. Did you experience any synchronicity this week? What was it? Try inaugurating a conversation on synchronicity with your friends.

4. Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.