I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for an even warmer day today and for the way alcoholics show up for one another. I’m grateful for conversations with my sponsor, for some time off from work next week, for quiet mornings and for changing perspective. I’m grateful for coffee, good books, communication and for how things change for the better.
Good morning my friends!
As always, I hope everyone has been enjoying the week and is excited for the weekend :)
I’m struggling with what to write today and I just keep thinking about The Artists Way and how I started to read it and kind of just fell off because, we’ll I don’t really have a reason why, just because life took over, I guess. I have The Artist’s Way sitting on our table, another creative book next to it, my drawing pad in the closet, my camera in the other closet and I have these sudden bursts of creativity, but they often fade away.
They usually fade away after I try to be creative, don’t like what I made and then the thoughts of “who do you even think you are” start coming to mind.
The Artists Way will tell you those thoughts are your “censor” and you censor doesn’t want you to do anything outside of the norm because it’s scary and unknown so it tells you, you just can’t do it instead. My censor will tell me I am never going to be able to achieve my creative dreams because I’m just not creative. To go out on a limb, write a book? Fuck off, it tells me. I’m pretty good at taking photos but…. that is just a hobby and there is no way for me to make it an actual career, it also tells me.
My “censor” goes hand in hand with my alcoholism. My disease tells me “You’re not really an alcoholic, maybe a little dramatic, but not an alcoholic.” All my disease wants is for me to go back out there, my disease wants to finish the job, it wants me to die.
I have learned that I don’t have to listen to the censor or my disease. Those thoughts are not facts, those thoughts want the worst for me. I don’t have to listen to them or believe them ever again.
I am an alcoholic and I say it proudly. I am a creative and I working on putting myself out there. All the thoughts that tell me otherwise are not more powerful than me or my Higher Power or the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The Artists Way also says that whenever anyone creates, they are a channel from a power greater than themselves. And so, I like to believe that whatever I write is exactly what is meant to come out. When I do pick up my camera, my drawing pad, my paint brushes, it’s not meant to be perfect in the beginning. But I am meant to keep trying.
Above all else, those thoughts that tell me I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, I don’t belong in AA, are not they answer. The answer is right here, with all of you, it’s in my Higher Power, an AA meeting, in conversations with my sponsor, in the Big Book, in prayers and mediation, talking to other alcoholics, picking up the camera, not giving in, and becoming the person I was always meant to be.
None of us, ever have to listen to those voices again.
Xx
Jane
I say to that voice, “Thank you for sharing, now STFU.” And I don’t use initials.
That wisteria photograph is absolutely stunning, Jane! 🙌
I dabbled in The Artist's Way around three or four years ago - I only got about halfway through, if that! I'll get back to it sometime, maybe.
Ali Vingiano recently did a series in which she took on The Artist's Way in the company of paid subscribers - her round-up of it is superb (and not paywalled). https://aliv.substack.com