Finding Your Playful Muse: A Journey to Unleash Your Creative Fire

Week 12, Day 5 of The Artist's Way

Today, let's work at learning to play by seeing all of life as an artist's date so that we can further fulfill our purpose as creative beings.

THE IMAGINATION AT PLAY (continued)

It is a paradox of creative recovery that we must get serious about taking ourselves lightly.

We must work at learning to play. Creativity must be freed from the narrow parameters of capital A art and recognized as having much broader play (that word again).

As we write, digging ourselves out of denial, our memories, dreams, and creative plans all move to the surface. 

We discover anew that we are creative beings.

The impulse cooks in us all, simmering along all the time—without our knowledge, without our encouragement, even without our approval. It moves beneath the surface of our lives, showing in bright flashes, like a penny, in our stream of thought—like new grass under snow.

We are intended to create.

As gray, as controlled, as dreamless as we may strive to be, the fire of our dreams will not stay buried. The embers are always there, stirring in our frozen souls like winter leaves. They won’t go away. They are sneaky. We make a crazy doodle in a boring meeting. We post a silly card on our office board. We nickname the boss something wicked. Plant twice as many flowers as we need.

Restive in our lives, we yearn for more, we wish, we chafe.

We sing in the car, slam down the phone, make lists, clear closets, sort through shelves. We want to do something but we think it needs to be the right something, by which we mean something important.

We are what’s important,

and the something that we do can be something festive but small: dead plants go; mismatched socks bite the dust. We are stung by loss, bitten by hope. Working with our morning pages, a new—and gaudy?—life takes form. Who bought that azalea? Why the sudden taste for pink? Is this picture you’ve tacked up a you you’re going toward?

The clock is ticking and you’re hearing the beat. 

You stop by a museum shop, sign your name on a scuba-diving sheet, and commit yourself to Saturday mornings in the deep end. You’re either losing your mind—or gaining your soul. 

Life is meant to be an artist date. That’s why we were created.

(The Artist's Way, 2016, p. 196 -198)

I am a creative being who is meant to create.

I am what's important and I allow myself to embrace small and festive acts of creation in my daily life. I am confident in my ability to bring my ideas to life and I am gaining my soul as I embrace my creativity.

Sneak a peek at Week One, Core Negative Beliefs:

1. Everyone will hate me.
2. I will hurt my friends and family.
3. I will go crazy.
4. I will abandon my friends and family.
5. I can't spell.
6. I don't have enough good ideas.
7. It will upset my mother and/or father.
8. I will have to be alone.
9. I will find out I am gay (if straight).
10. I will be struck straight (If gay).
11. I will do bad work and not know it and look like a fool.
12. I will feel too angry.
13. I will never have any real money.
14. I will get self-destructive and drink, drugs, or sex myself to death.
15. I will get cancer, AIDS—or a heart attack or the plague.
16. My lover will leave me.
17. I will die.
18. I will feel bad because I don't deserve to be successful.
19. I will have only one good piece of work in me.
20. If it's too late. If I haven't become a fully functioning artist yet, I never will.

Laugh. Yes, the nasty critters are still there. Note your progress. 

Now read yourself the affirmations from Week One:

1. I am a channel for God’s creativity, and my work comes to good.
2. My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.
3. As I create and listen, I will be led.
4. Creativity is the creator’s will for me.
5. My creativity heals myself and others.
6. I am allowed to nurture my artist.
7. Through the use of a few simple tools, my creativity will flourish.
8. Through the use of my creativity, I serve God.
9. My creativity always leads me to truth and love.
10. My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.
11. There is a divine plan of goodness for me.
12. There is a divine plan of goodness for my work.
13. As I listen to the creator within, I am led.
14. As I listen to my creativity I am led to my creator.
15. I am willing to create.
16. I am willing to learn to let myself create.
17. I am willing to let God create through me.
18. I am willing to be of service through my creativity.
19. I am willing to experience my creative energy.
20. I am willing to use my creative talents.

Lastly, write some affirmations about your continued creativity as you end the course.

“Play is the exultation of the possible.”

– Martin Buber

How are you inspired to play today?

Share in the comments below👇