Do You Know How To Spark Your Creativity?
As SWC continues to explore the theme of creativity, we are looking at ways to help foster the creative process.
Author Julia Cameron believes that we are all born with a creative spark, but that many of us become conditioned over time to tamp it down. She says we need a reawakening of sorts to remember our natural creativity.
In her book “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” Cameron sets out a twelve-week process to develop your creativity, which you can customize to your needs. The program is based on two main concepts:
The “morning pages.” Cameron says: “Morning pages are three pages of longhand writing that you do first thing in the morning, before the rest of your day. I urge people to spill out of bed onto the page.They can be a very potent form of meditation, but they work a little differently from conventional meditation. With conventional meditation, if something’s bothering you and you take it into meditation, by the time you’re done meditating, you feel you don’t need to do anything about it. You’ve sort of meditated it away. With morning pages, if something’s bothering you, by the time you get to the end of the pages, you think, Oh, I goddamn well better do something about it! The pages move you into action. It’s like you take a broom through all the little corners of your life and bring the debris into the center of the room where you can get a good look at it.Some people shred them; some people burn them; some people save them faithfully. I say don’t read them at all.
The “artist’s date.” This is a “once-a-week solo expedition to do something that interests or enchants you. So it might be going to a pet store. It might be going to a children’s bookstore. It could be going to a gallery. It could be going to a botanical garden. The point is that it’s fun.”
A common theme in discussing creativity is how perfectionism can get in the way. Cameron says the morning pages are intended to be a relief from the ego’s demand that everything should be perfect. She also says that it’s important to do the artist’s date alone, so you can be more in touch with your own thoughts and experience.
If you want to learn more about this approach, go deeper here:
https://goop.com/wellness/spirituality/tools-for-creative-growth/
Will you be writing morning pages and trying an artist’s date this week?
With love and light,
Denise