Episode 5: Learning Luxury and Leaving Wet Blanket Mode
What are god and money doing in our creative process? This episode is rethinking definitions of spirituality and talking the benefit of unburdening ourselves through a little bit of faith. What if you could relieve some of that pressure to conjure greatness and instead, listen and respond? What's going on with our rigid definitions of success, need for security, and tendencies to restrict ourselves out of a sense of virtue?
It's all leading to this: "Buy the raspberries." This episode pairs with Weeks 5 & 6 of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Ask Molly discusses what to do when your ideas are so amazing you're afraid to write them down--worried they won't live up to your expectations.
MOONLIGHT HIGHLIGHT
“We must learn to let the flow manifest itself where it will—not where we will it."
"Making art begins with making hay while the sun shines. It begins with giving yourself some small treats and breaks.”
- Julia Cameron
ASK MOLLY
I think that the hardest aspect of writing for me is just getting started. I have a tendency to get really excited about the ideas and possibilities swimming around in my head, but then I won't start because I’m afraid of disappointing myself. I’m afraid of not being able to translate my ideas onto paper, because I never feel like my writing could live up to those ideas. What do you think?
Thanks,
Started Swimming
That pesky inner critic, propensity to perfectionism--whatever you call it and however it shows up for you--that's the tough stuff for sure. It may not ever go away completely, but that doesn't mean it has to win. One thing that helps is increasing your attention to noticing when those worries and fears interrupt your flow or your attempt to write. It sounds like you, or it sounds like something that could be true, but that doesn't mean it is. If you can separate those thoughts and fears from what you believe, from your sense of reality, and just see them as your inner saboteur coming for you, the easier it is to tell them--not today Satan! Give yourself permission to write the "worst junk in the world" (in the words of Natalie Goldberg), let rough drafts be messy, let your first attempts not match your ideal of what you'd like to create, and don't judge new writing! It can take many words, words that end up getting cut, moved, erased, re-written, and worked over many many times to get to the version you want. Practice makes progress! The sooner you can lean into the process of writing without expectation of a perfect end result now, in two hours, or in two weeks, the sooner you'll get some peace (and make some art!) Keep up your efforts!
TEXT EXCAVATION
ARE WE CULTIVATING SPIRITUAL DEPENDENCE? DO WE HAVE TO?
Cameron’s text raises a lot of questions with her suggestion that the reason many of us don’t like the whole “god” thing in here is because we anthropomorphize god into a mean, fickle, chastising man. This seems to be just one more area in which we may limit ourselves without realizing it. What’s possible to imagine for yourself if you were to expand your idea of god, “source of flow” out of that framework?
This reframing helps me understand what I think “the point” is of involving a higher power regarding creativity. A practice of faith with or without god, faith that with trust, with open-mindedness, open-heartedness, receptivity—there’s more possible than when we try to do it all ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I can definitely use a little help when attempting to pull beauty, truth, and art out of midair.
Cameron also calls us out for what she says is a common tendency to be caught between the extremes of taking ourselves too seriously, and not seriously enough. We think we can control everything, determine our outcomes, be responsible for it all, or we throw up our hands, quit without trying. She’s got another approach in mind— “Let the flow manifest where it will, not where we will it.” This shift allows us to hear, experience, and feel rather than grasp. There’s a balance to strike between what we “do” and what we “allow.”
Many of us feel hard wired to chug along and try, to put at times aggressive effort towards our desired ends, even when we know, somewhere deep down, it’s just not working. Even when trying something new we get caught up thinking that we know better, stubbornly seeking specific outcomes or definitions of success that ultimately limit our opportunities. Where might space open up for you if you entertained an alternate route?
THE VIRTUE TRAP
Part of the problem with the common idea of a Bad Dad version of good, is that it comes with a lot of restriction. It’s easy to fall prey to a sense of duty, morality, and virtuousness that requires you to become a martyr. In this system of belief, we can get away with self-destruction because it’s under the veil of goodness. Unfortunately, the false sense or superiority we get from “not being selfish,” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Caring for others or restricting your sense of pleasure only goes so far in its satisfaction if you’re using it as an easy route. It IS easier to follow this supposed moral code rather than take responsibility for your own desires. The real hard work before you may in fact be about letting in a little more joy.
Tune in to Episode Five for more on the place of luxury as an antidote to these creative blocks, why luxury isn’t all about wealth, and more on how everything we believe ends up relating to creative practice somehow!
RESOURCES & NEXT STEPS
From Stephen King’s Book On Writing—“Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground... Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered, pre-existing world.”
God is a Woman? Journal Prompt 1: If you're struggling with the place of spirituality or g.o.d. in this book and in your creative practice, do some creative thinking to imagine an expansive force of flow, spiritual good, unlimited energy, gifting source, generous resource, that never has too much and never has too little, is always in supply, always accessible. What if there was a friendly, rich, continuous reserve always wanting the best for you—enthusiastic about your bold leaps and able to guarantee you would be held through the unknowns. What would you call it?
Journal Prompt 2: How do your ideas about money shape your ideas about creativity?