Take Yourself Playfully Serious

5 min

Today, let's acknowledge our critic within and begin to nurture our artist child by taking our creativity playfully seriously.

The Artist's Way Take Yourself Playfully Serious

Week 1, Day 1 of The Artist's Way

👁 INTENTION

Today, let's acknowledge our critic within and begin to nurture our artist child by taking our creativity playfully seriously.

💡 INSPIRATION

Imagine your creativity as a playful, wandering stream, not just a rigid path to follow. It meanders, explores, sometimes runs wild, but it's always moving, always creating. It's time to step out of the shadows and into the sunlight, where your dreams can bask in the warmth of your attention and intention. Let go of the fear of exposure, for in the light, your dreams don't disintegrate; they flourish.

Today's Key Takeaways:

Embrace the audacity to claim your artist's birthright.
Understand that creativity is as much about play as it is about serious work.
Nurture your artist child with gentle, deliberate effort.

🦢 ARTIST'S WAY

Shadow Artists

“One of our chief needs as creative beings is support.

As young artists, we need and want to be acknowledged for our attempts and efforts as well as for our achievements and triumphs.

Timid young artists, adding fears to their own, often give up their sunny dreams of artistic careers, settling into the twilight world of could-have-beens and regrets. There between the dream of action and the fear of failure, shadow artists are born.

Shadow artists are gravitating to the rightful trim but cannot get claim their birthright. Very often audacity, not talent, makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist—hiding in the shadows, afraid to step out and expose the dream to the light, fearful that it will then disintegrate to the touch.

Shadow artists often choose shadow careers—they close to the desired art, even parallel to it, but not the art itself.

In order to move from the realm of shadows into the light of creativity, shadow artists must learn to take themselves seriously. With gentle deliberate effort, they must nurture their artist child. Creativity is play, but for shadow artists, learning to allow themselves to play is hard work.”

(The Artist's Way, p. 25-29)

🧑‍🎨 CREATIVE EXERCISE

Take a moment to tune in to your Critic.

If you need help, go ahead and start writing your morning pages … your Critic will soon chime in to question the validity of this, badger you for that, it will do whatever it can to prevent you from putting your thoughts on the paper. Poor thing that Critic, always reacting out of fear, it really does mean well.

Now, take a “blurt” from your Critic and convert it into a positive affirmation.