by Intention InspiredWeek 2, Day 3 of The Artist's Way
Today, let's acknowledge how others can be a destructive block to our creative work.
CRAZYMAKERS
Crazy makers are the kind of people who can take over your whole life.
Whether they appear as you're overbearing mother, your manic boss, your needy friend, or your stubborn spouse, the crazymakers in your life share certain destructive patterns that make them poisonous for any sustained creative work.
- Crazymakers break deals and destroy schedules.
- Crazymakers expect special treatment.
- Crazymakers discount your reality.
- Crazymakers spend your time and money.
- Crazymakers triangulate those they deal with.
- Crazymakers are expert blamers.
- Crazymakers create drama—but seldom where they belong.
- Crazymakers hate schedules—except their own.
- Crazymakers hate order.
- Crazymakers deny that they are crazymakers.
If you are involved now with a crazymaker, it is very important that you admit this fact. Admit that you are being used—and admit that you are using your own abuser. Your crazymaker is a block. You chose yourself, to deter you from your own trajectory. As much as you are being exploited by your crazymaker, you, too, are using that person to block your creative flow.
The next time you catch yourself saying or thinking, “he/she is driving me crazy!” Ask yourself what creative work you were trying to block by your involvement.
(The Artist's Way, 2016, p. 44 – 49)
I acknowledge when others are being self-destructive in my creative growth.
⬇️ download printable affirmation card 🎴
Take a sheet of paper. Draw a circle. Inside that circle, place topics you need to protect.
Place the names of those you find to be supportive. Outside the circle, place the names of those you must be self-protective around just now. Place the safety map near where you write your morning pages. Use this map to support your autonomy. Add names to the inner and outer's fears as appropriate: “Oh! Derek is somebody I shouldn't talk to about this right now.”
“What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.”
– Shakti Gawain
What is one way you can lovingly free yourself from the self-destruction of a crazymaker?
We'd love to hear in the community comments.
Taking an honest look at how well-meaning others (those who don’t mean well are pretty easy to avoid) might be affecting my creativity is challenging—yet profound! A simple relational adjustment can do wonders for cultivating a healthier dynamic with those closest to me that will allow us all to be more creativity freeeeee! First things first … be extra intentional in noticing how my relationships affect my creativity.