On this week’s episode of Creative Space, we’re diving into Chapter 7 of Julia Cameron’s seminal book on creativity, “The Artist’s Way.” The focus for this week is “Recovering a Sense of Connection.”
There is so much to cover but there are four core principles we’ll talk about: Listening, Perfectionism, Risk, and Jealousy.
My favorite passage from this chapter: “We deny that in order to do something well we must first be willing to do it badly. Instead, we opt for setting our limits, at the point where we feel assured of success. Living within these bounds, we may feel stifled, smothered, despairing, bored. But yes, we do feel safe. And safety is a very expensive illusion.”
If you’re interested in reading "The Artist’s Way" and/or following along with the podcast as you complete the work, you can purchase it here.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Creative Space, a podcast where we explore, learn and grow in creativity together. I'm your host, Jennifer Loge, and just as a reminder for the next few weeks, we're going to be doing something different. On the podcast I'm doing the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for the first time. Last week we talked about chapter six, Recovering a Sense of Abundance, and this week we're diving into week seven, Recovering a Sense of Connection. We're going to discuss four key topics in this chapter listening, perfectionism, risk and jealousy. With listening, Cameron opens up by saying we are honing our ability to listen by doing our morning pages and artist's dates. With our morning pages, hearing past our inner critic or sensor, and with artist's dates with being open to the call of inspiration. So that's how we're working on our listening every day with the Artist's Way. She says a very powerful line in the section art is not about thinking something up, it's about getting something down. This resonated with me so much.
Jennifer Logue:
My favorite pieces of work were the results of a flow state where I simply was a vessel for the creativity. I didn't judge it, I didn't force it, I literally got the idea down. But there have been other times where I force things. I want things to be a certain way. In this situation, I'm thinking things up, there's a strain, and the end result is never anything I feel all that great about. Creativity is a vibe, especially when it comes to music. Can you relate to that at all in your own art? Can you think of times where you got something down versus thought something up when we get something down?
Jennifer Logue:
Cameron says we're engaged in listening and, apart from listening, we can further develop our abilities by following our intuition to play a bit. Try this, do this, say this. As Cameron says, we are more the instrument than the author of our work. Now I will rebuttal this idea a little bit. Personally, I believe there's a balance to creativity. Yes, we need to listen. Yes, we are vessels for creativity, but don't think that all you have to do is just sit there and a great work will just fall into your lap. I mean, sometimes for me a song will write itself and that's wonderful. But all the other times I have to depend on craft, I have to force myself to get my button seat and write something, even when I don't particularly love it at first, Even when it's hard. Just because we're listening doesn't mean it's always going to be easy to hear the direction.
Jennifer Logue:
The next topic Cameron discusses is perfectionism, and it's not a good thing. In your creativity, Cameron calls it a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It gets you stuck in the details and makes you lose sight of the whole. We could instead move freely and allow our mistakes to be viewed as insights, and she references a great Miles Davis quote here do not fear mistakes. There are none, Cameron says.
Jennifer Logue:
The perfectionist creates with one eye on the audience instead of enjoying the process. And this was so me. When I was a young songwriter. The majority of the time I was always thinking about writing songs for an audience rather than simply enjoying the process and expressing myself as an artist. I was stuck in the logical part of my brain for the longest time. So that really hit home, and I think for a lot of artists these days, especially with social media, we can become fixated on results. Oh my gosh, my new painting didn't get that many likes. Should I redo it? Same thing with music, this pursuit of likes and going viral and all of that stuff. I think it kills the joy of the creative process. And there's nothing wrong with having success. That's a good thing. Having your work resonate, that's a good thing, but when you create with the intention of manipulation to get those results, it hurts the energy of the work. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know.
Jennifer Logue:
Another topic we discuss in this section is risk, and it features my favorite passage of this chapter. We deny that in order to do something well, we must first be willing to do it badly. Instead, we opt for setting our limits at the point where we feel assured of success. Living within these bounds, we may feel stifled, smothered, despairing, bored, but yes, we do feel safe, and safety is a very expensive illusion. Cameron wants us to take risks by breaking through our accepted limits. When we say we can't do something, it's usually because we don't do it unless we can do it perfectly. And this is how I felt when I first took my improv class years back. I went into improv thinking I'd be a natural, and I was horrible, horrible, just awful, and I dreaded every class, to the point where I didn't even finish the classes. Then this year I decided to try improv again, this time with a different mindset, this time thinking you're going to suck at this and it's okay, but you're going to have fun and you're going to exercise some new muscles. So the second time around, taking that risk with the right mindset, made for a much better experience.
Jennifer Logue:
And the last topic Cameron addresses in this chapter is a good one jealousy, which I think we could do a whole episode on. I actually heard a podcast with Mel Robbins where she talks about jealousy being a tool to figure out what it is you really want, and Cameron does something similar here. Cameron uses herself as an example. She admits that for the longest time she was the harshest critic of female playwrights, until she wrote her first play. Once that happened, her jealousy vanished. She described the jealousy as being a mask for fear of doing something she really wanted to do, and that's true for all of us.
Jennifer Logue:
There's another great passage here. Jealousy tells us there is room for only one one poet, one painter, one, whatever you dream of being. The truth revealed by action in the direction of our dreams is that there is room for all of us. Can you think of times where you've been jealous? What is the fear behind the jealousy that's keeping you from taking action towards your dreams? Anyway, this was such a great chapter. There was so much to cover and I only touched on a little bit of it, but that's all I have for this episode of Creative Space. Next week we'll be diving into chapter eight of the artist's way recovering a sense of strength. If you're interested in checking out the artist's way by Julia Cameron and doing the work on your own, I've linked to it in the show notes. My name is Jennifer Loge. Appreciate you taking the time to listen to Creative Space Until next time.