A Tool for Unblocking Our Creative Flow.

This is Part 2 of my talk with Luna. Here's Part 1 of our talk if you missed it.

The Artist’s Way, written by Julia Cameron, is a well known tool for understanding and clearing the blocks which hold us back from knowing and expressing our creativity.

In this episode, we go deep into the tools which The Artist's Way provides and share our own experiences of going through the course and the continued use of the tools well after completing the 12-week course.

I began my Artist’s Way Journey at the end of 2012. I had just finished my degree in Film and was at a dead end creatively. I had so many film ideas and wasn’t working on a single one of them. I would procrastinate big time and do anything not to work on them even though I wanted to! Sounds crazy right?

I knew my creative expression was blocked and that I was afraid of making a film which no one liked or making a film in the wrong way, but I didn't know why I was feeling this way.

My mum had a copy of The Artist's Way and I would often find it laying around the house and flip through and read the inspiring quotes.

Overtime I began procrastinating in more and more elaborate ways and still wasn't feeling free to create. I wanted to understand why I was so scared of making a film. It was around this time that The Artist's Way came up in conversation with a friend and we decided to start the 12-week journey together.

I completed the course in early 2013 and found it helped me uncover some answers to why I was experiencing such a high degree of creative-blockedness. The tools it provided were invaluable and I highly recommend the Book to anyone seeking to understand and reconnect with their creative expression.

Highlights and Takeaways

* Sharing your work regularly makes it easier to take action on the creative urges you have.

* The outcome is irrelevant, it’s the creation that matters.

* You can discover what you want to express creatively by asking yourself, what experiences have I had? and which of these experiences do I want to share with others?

* Using free-form writing we can re-connect with our creative urges and identify the things we are doing which don't feel good for us.

* Asking yourself, with genuine care and curiosity, what it is you'd like to be doing now, strengthens your connection with your creative voice.

* Creativity is infused into life. There's no way for you not to be creative.

Show Notes

What is The Artist’s Way? [06:20]

* Luna: The Artist’s Way is a 12-week program (in a book) that is about uncovering your creative capabilities and creative style; and uncovering the heart of who you are.

* There a two consistent practices featured in the book: The Morning Pages - which is writing three pages of free flow writing as soon as you wake up, and Artist’s Dates - where you go and do something that inspires you once a week.

* Ben: Artist’s Dates are really fun.

* Luna: Those are so fun, and also really challenging to make yourself go to sometimes. That’s one of the most interesting things in The Artist’s Way process is watching where you resist stuff. It’s so interesting to watch yourself resist doing certain tasks because some of the tasks feel so uncomfortable because you have to uncover things and tell yourself the truth about things, and that can be very hard. We’re so good at distracting ourselves from those kinds of things.