If you know me personally, you know that I love to sing the praises of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Like a lot of women, I went through a period of really questioning my identity after I had my son. I needed to reevaluate my life goals, my beliefs, and my purpose. Someone (thank you, Becky Yawn!) had given me their copy of the book about 8 years previous to my identity crisis and I had always intended to go back to it when I had the time. Thankfully, I finally made the time.
It wasn't easy. I had to get up at 5am for a while to make it work. I hate waking up early. (Honestly, I just hate waking up. Sleeping is the best. Waking up is ... ugh. Yeah, this is an ongoing battle in my life.) I was also uncomfortable answering questions about myself and writing a brain drain every day. I felt exposed and embarrassed; some of my entries were really raw and some were so dramatic that it made me cringe to reread them. The emotional stuff was a struggle for me but I'm so glad I went through it. Before The Artist's Way, much of my life was unexamined and many of my emotions were ignored or swept under a rug - by me! I made so many revelations in such a short time and it made me stronger and braver. Now, I'm much more inclined to face issues in my life and assume a position of power instead of constantly relinquishing that power to others.
Why am I telling you all of this stuff? Because it's an ongoing journey and I'm probably due for a refresher. Because I need a creative community. But also because of a chat I had with another mom on the school playground. She commented that I was very passionate about the book and the process and that I should teach it to others. I considered it - why not share this recovery process in a really personal way with people that I care about? I've been giving out The Artist's Way as a Christmas present for several years but I never really follow up afterward. So I came up with this: I'm going to do a week by week study of The Artist's Way, starting Monday. If you are curious, you can just follow along on my journey or you can read the book and participate with me. If you do participate, be sure to tell me how it's going in the comments; I will answer every comment and question because I want this to be a discussion and a powerful shared experience.
So ... yeah. If you want to know more about what The Artist's Way entails and if it would be useful to you, check out the Amazon page.
