The Artist’s Way, Week Six: Recovering a Sense of Abundance

This is my series on The Artist’s Way, a workbook focused on creative recovery.  Check out my posts on Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, and Week 5 if you haven’t already. This week focuses on one of the biggest creative blocks that exists - money.

The Great Creator

‘The starving artist’ is a well-known archetype for creative figures. To be an artist of any kind these days, people assume that you are either broke or born into riches. This week, Cameron challenged the reader’s views about God as a Great Provider. Many of us have confidence that God will provide our bare necessities - food, clothes, shelter - but fails to provide above and beyond what we could imagine to live a fulfilling and creative life. Cameron urges us to live extravagantly; by reaching for our dreams, we are reaching for God’s purpose in our lives. God will provide all the means we need to achieve said purpose.

“As you expect God to be more generous. God will be able to be more generous to you.”

— Julia Cameron

Cameron challenges the reader to indulge in luxuries to nourish our inner artist and to practice self-care. This is an exercise that combats a feeling of constriction and a sense of powerlessness around the almighty dollar. When deciding what to invest in, ask yourself, ‘What gives me true joy?’ Let your joy lead you.

Treating yourself to luxury isn’t just about choosing how to spend your money, it’s also about choosing how to spend your time. Carving out time to complete Morning Pages, take yourself on Artist’s Dates, or do any kind of act of self-care. Luxury also includes carving out a creative space for yourself in your home, whether it’s as small as one bookshelf or as big as an entire room dedicated entirely to your creative practice.

Counting, An Exercise

The task for this next week is to track where every single dollar is spent. This will give you a clear and honest picture of where your values lie, and where you may be frittering away unexpectedly large amounts of money. Lucky for me, I already have a spreadsheet that I update on every payday, tracking where every penny comes in and goes out of my bank account.

Tasks

At the end of every chapter, Cameron lists several ways we can take action on this week’s lesson, we are meant to choose a couple that speak to us and complete them throughout the week. 

Here are the tasks I chose for myself this week:

1. Nature Abundance: Find five pretty or interesting rocks. I enjoy this exercise particularly because rocks can be carried in pockets, and fingered in business meetings. They can be small, constant reminders of our creative consciousness.

2. Creation: Bake something. Creativity does not have to always involve capital-A art. Very often, the act of cooking something can help you cook something up in another creative mode.

3. Communication: Send postcards to five friends.