The Big Peace

Week 5 and spring has sprung in Maria Dodds’ writer’s life:

“Spring has arrived here in the north east of England.  It’s sunny with a mild breeze.  People are smiling again and some daring to wear shades (okay that’ll be me then).  Our thick winter attire has been replaced with newly washed fleeces and t-shirts.  Long may it continue!

My Artist’s date this week was a visit to my T’ai chi class.  There was the promise of connection, laughter and life force to be had to I drove myself there on Tuesday evening and basked in the simplicity of it all.  My favourite exercise is pheonix rising.  We’ve all had those pheonix rising times in our lives.  Times when we know we can’t stay ‘down there’ and we gradually nudge our way back; rising to the person we were meant to be; whole and authentic.

My morning pages have been important this week.  Like many other people sharing their journals I’ve been letting go of what the wonderful Martha Beck defines ’soul shrapnel’.  I guess it’s the equivilent of dusting and hoovering the home.  Only morning pages deal with the home of the soul.
Julia Camerson’s words continue to inspire me.  I love expression’s like ‘low self-worth shirt’ and crazy-makers.  These are new to my vocabulary and very significant.

Yesterday was a good writing day for me.  I’ve stopped counting words and started observing the way I feel instead.  Is this writing good quality stuff?  Can I do better?  Maybe it’s okay for now and I can come and enhance it soon.  My inner sat-nav always lets me know what my best soloution is.  Enjoying the process is what is of most importance.  Enjoyment, fulfillment and flow are my writing aims.  A bit like pheonix rising they are effortless and feel just great!”

Our guest blogger Marilyn gets honest, real and a little crazy in Week 4 – but finally gets to call herself an artist. Read on:

Marilyn says:

“Your old life has crashed and burned; your new life isn’t apparent yet.  You may feel yourself temporarily without a vehicle. Just keep walking.”

Yes, yes and yes. This week has been particularly tough.  You want truth and honesty?  Boy I got it.  The morning pages have been telling me straight, and I’ve had to face up to some clear truths – I need to have courage of my convictions, I need to get out more, I need to start living MY life.

When I read the exercise to address the situation where you are still stuck, I thought ‘That’s not me’… until I did the morning pages and they told me otherwise.  Those things that were ‘OK’ I’ve had to admit I’m not fine with, and I now have to do something about it.

I have felt very emotional this week, positive and energetic one minute, then angry the next with stabs of sadness in between (and I’m wondering why DH is approaching with caution, a quizzical look on his face…). Mostly I’ve felt incredibly fragile as the new me emerges. I’m very conscious to protect it and keep it safe.  I think Julia Cameron describes it best as the ‘place between bafflement and faith’.

Ok let’s get to the biggie, Reading Deprivation.  Sunday I don’t think it really sank in and I found myself languidly flicking through the free Sainsbury’s magazine reading about food intolerances…when bang!  It hit me that I wasn’t meant to be reading at all.. and definitely not this.

Monday saw me half crazed, scrubbing the house from top to bottom in a cold turkey frenzy.  By Tuesday I was exhausted and looking longingly at tube adverts (‘go to confused.com and save yourself a bicycle’ over and over again).  But I have held out, steadfastly refusing my usual diet of internet surfing, crap telly and reading shampoo bottles.

It has been worth it.  I’ve had so much more time, and more time to THINK.  Instead of surfing online, spiralling down the black hole of time wasting, I’ve looked around me and noticed the present. I’ve focused on one activity at a time.  And my mind has doodled and meandered around the paintings in my head and a story I’d like to tell.

To my utter astonishment, I’ve had many moments of serendipity this week just gifted to me when I actually make the effort to get out of the door.  I’ve been asked to write an article, been offered some work, met a good friend that somehow I haven’t seen for 8 years.  All those miraculous helping hands that Julia Cameron talks about are so effortlessly happening, I just have to make one step in their direction.

And for the first time ever, I’ve been able to say, quietly, I am an artist.

I’ve had a wobbly week 3 so Gina Langton’s guest post made me sob, because I resonated with it so much. Thank you for your wisdom and courage, Gina. Suzy x

Gina says:

“Well, how did week 3 go for you?  Have you started to feel part of a magical process yet?  Are some of you already trusting the process and allowing yourself to jump into free-fall, realising that all you have to do is open your lofty hearts up to see what you really need to see, and take the action that you really need to take?   Or do you still feel at the behest of your emotions, as if on a rollercoaster – upside down one second, screaming the next, rolling up, around and down, knowing there is another nine weeks of this, and wondering if things are ever going to improve?

In reading the part where Julia Cameron writes about taking responsibility for our prayers – that really struck me, to the very core, and made me reflect deeply all week.  How much responsibility for my life am I taking? What does taking responsibility mean?   I think it’s my attitude that I need to challenge.

The more I’ve reflected, the more I’ve been able to see that I need to pull down the scaffolding around my heart – the hurt, the grief, resentment, lack of trust, blame, and shame, and prise away those heavy poles that I have become so attached to.  Surely, I won’t fall into a state of collapse, even though they have been holding up my life and decisions have been made for so many years.  Will I?

Rather than suffer and strategise and think too much, I have decided the best way to navigate through is to bravely keep applying myself to the tools and the tasks set by JC, so the magic of the Artist’s Way can do its work.  It’s got a proven record after all, and in my experience I fare better when I follow instructions properly.  And I am serious and eager for change. The resistance is fierce, though. Unconsciously, I must be quite frightened of going beneath the surface – of looking in more deeply. On the surface, I am full of bravado – happy to punch the air – everything is fine.

So what then, are the conclusions that I draw from doing Week 3? It’s that pushing open those groaning doors to my creativity are making me go into a catatonic state one minute, angry and wanting to self-protect the next.  But, with the armoury of daily journaling, doing weekly exercises and morning pages, I am telling myself these are good signs. I am resolute, and optimistic; at the same time I am not giving myself false hope.  I am choosing to believe that my life is experiencing a kind of long tail effect from every new action I am taking, and that will bring about a renewed passion and desire to do open up more with confidence, courage and self-belief.

They say the heart is a skilled painter.  It is the heart I have to nurture, the heart that has to emerge unfettered by the scaffolding of poles of the past and I have to accept that what holds me back is none other than mere illusion – stuff that made my heart grow at the time, but are no longer of any use.

Have a great Week 4 everyone!”

Gina Langton

27^th March 2010

I love this post by Bronwyn – as it comforts me that I’m not alone in my resistance and inspiration. Suzy x

19/03/10 Bronwyn writes:

I don’t think I’d be by myself saying that I felt some resistance towards the process this week.  At the beginning of the week I didn’t even want to write my morning pages, let alone anything else.  I persevered with the morning pages and then FORCED myself to start writing out some 500 word blocks on my ever growing list of topics.

I decided that the quality didn’t matter; I just needed to get it down on paper.  That sounded good in theory, but when I read back what I’d written, the quality did matter.  I’d been repeating to myself, Universe, I’ll take care of the quantity and you take care of the quality.  Well HELLO!  I was there, I’d shown up and the Universe seemed to be on a coffee break!

I was all action stations at the laptop, fingers poised, ready to carve out a fictional masterpiece that would have readers enthralled and clamouring for more.

Instead, I got something a bit like this ‘one day I went to the shops for a bottle of milk and then at the shops I thought I’d buy a paper and then I went to the other shop and bought an apple.’  Mmm, riveting stuff.  I’d have them lining up outside WH Smith to buy that novel wouldn’t I?  It was a wonder I even knew how to speak English, as I certainly didn’t seem to be able to write it.

I was pissed off.  I was angry.  Why did I suck so badly?  I felt like I’d never get there, so I turned to my journal and had a bit of a moan.  Ellesters chipped in with some great advice, seriously, this whole community thing has a lot going for it as we keep each other company, share the same experiences and bolster each other’s courage to move ahead in this exciting creative journey.  Her advice was to get it all down and come back later to give it polish and make it come to life.

I’d read the same piece of advice from the book ‘Writing Down the Bones’ a few months ago.  I was only reading the book then, I wasn’t writing at the same time. This time I’m actually writing (because I’m a writer and that’s what I do) and the words struck a chord, enabling me to write 500 words every day since.  It also got me thinking about remembering to be kind to my new emerging writer.

Then during the week something quite magical happened.  I developed a passion for writing and I’d be in any situation and thinking about how I’d write it down.  Everyone I saw or knew could play a character in my novel.  I’d be reading and examining how it was written and planning how I could write something similar.  Then towards the end of the week my morning pages took on a life of their own, literally.  I was writing questions and they were being answered, and I swear it wasn’t me writing the answers. This creative malarkey is pretty powerful, or I’m slowly losing what semblance of mental acuity that I have left.

So I read the chapter on crazymaking this week and didn’t really think it applied to me anymore.  I’d read up about crazymaking extensively a couple of years ago, as I was extracting myself from a volatile relationship.  I haven’t heard from him in two years.  But what do you know, the week I’m reading about crazymaking he pops up like an unwelcome boil.  Reading through the chapter again was a gentle reminder from the universe that I did make the right decision and after the legal steps fall into place over the next six weeks I don’t have to hear from him ever again. Life is so good and freedom is so sweet.

I did my life pie and I definitely need to work on a few sectors to get a more balanced looking picture.  One of the segments that could use some attention is exercise, which currently only consists of me walking to and from the tube.  So I’ve decided that my artist’s date for the week is going to be a yoga class.

Have fun over the next week everyone, I hope you can spring clean any crazymaking people out of your world, or at the very least make sure they don’t hinder your creative journey.

Namaste

(I’m already practising for yoga)

xx Little Miss Writer xx

Week 1 is up and I’m delighted to introduce guest blogger Deb Macaulay on how she found the first week:

“Week one of the Aritist’s Way and I am enjoying the journey although I must admit I have had a little bit of travel sickness.

I love doing my morning pages, although I am not too sure that there is any content in them that anyone else would find of any value or inspiration .  I can easily fill 3 pages and 3 A4 sizes at that.  I had a bit of a heart sink moment when I realised that I hadn’t been writing enough as to begin with warm up week I had been writing in my nice posh moleskine not the right size journal – little miss perfect had a moment where I was ready to throw it all in as I thought shit I can’t even get the page size right (“my inner pessimist shouting why did you sign up for this course, what artistic talents do you have,  you can’t even do the mp’s right, give up” ) , !!!! Now I am writing on my A4 writing pad from the pound shop.I’m saving my moleskine for the tasks. The tasks have been an eye opener , stiring up lots of memories and emotions.  Im not too keen at looking at the monsters.   Pretty Scary !!!! Then moving on to the champions I wasn’t too sure that there were any.  So did that mean I am a crap writer and should give up now on week 1 or does that mean that I’m just choosing not to acknowledge them. ?    I am getting up a little earlier than I normally would and I have told everyone not to disturb me .  That is if they happen to get up at the crack of dawn.

My reason for doing the Artists Way is I have a gut feeling that there is a book in here somewhere, something that I need to get out there in the big wide world . Although my inner critic doesn’t seem to think so and I have had lots of moments this week where I have questioned why I am actually doing it, lots of I’m not good enough, nothing to say that is any different from what has already been said blahblahblah.   I’m writing a self-help book/programmes etc and listening to me I need to hurry up and write and get published as I could do with reading it.

I have already been on one Artist’s Date this week, Julia says that if you feel blocked in anyway then it is good to double up on the dates. Is there anyone out there that feels like me and is worried that they could be in danger of becoming an Artist’s date junkie.    I only went to Starbucks for a coffee and to pretend to be a published author (only pretending to myself, I managed to contain myself and didn’t ask the girl behind the counter if she had read my book) lots of authors have a spot in Starbucks or so I’ve heard.  Anyway Starbucks wasn’t filled with inspiration in fact I’ve realised I write better at home and can sprawl out more . I wonder what the rest of you do.  Are you all neat and tidy or do you sprawl like me, do you have a particular pen/pencil , do you have a writer’s desk, have you got a ritual, a lucky crystal, do you meditate before hand, what are you inspired by?, what gets your creative juices flowing?.. Share please any tips are welcomed.    This is all new to me , I have always wanted to write but somehow never did (or rather never showed anyone my writing) it was interesting to realise Julia would say I’m a shadow artist.   Well I have now decided to step out of the shadows and into the sun ready to shine and share my work with the world .  So hello everyone , great to meet you I’m the one in Starbucks pretending to be an author .  See you next in Waterstone’s under Self Help.”

Here is a tip for you all – Turn off the word count, have some fun, Come out to play, Let yourself Shine.

I love this quote  Every Child is an artist .  The problem is having to remain an artist when he grows up.  Pablo Picasso.

5 things that I have learnt from the AW this week .
1.  No matter how many times I have told myself that I have nothing to say.  The morning pages have proven otherwise.  I    have filled 3 pages each day.  I may well class those pages as drivel.  yet that drivel has been useful.

2.  I have got way too many things going on in my mind.   I could do with making my life more relaxed.  The mp’s have helped me to gain some clarity.  (note point 1, there you go useless drivel isn’t so useless)

3.  I could do with some TLC – I am full of blurts and there I was thinking I had done so much work on myself and I wasn’t writing because I just wasn’t a writer.

4.  Artist dates , although I am going to need to juggle lots around in order to go on my dates deep down I am really looking forward to them as I will be doing something different which will be great writing material .

5.  I like the thought of doing the Artist’s Way as part of a group – We are all in this together.  I’m rooting for you rooting for me feels good.

Here is a quote for all the parents out there that may feel guilty and self indulgent.

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children
than the unlived life of the parent.
Carl G. Jung

And one for all of us with the need to follow our dream/our intuition.

Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about…….say yes quickly,
if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.
Rumi

Deb Macaulay

I have done The Artist’s Way a few times now and every time I seem to learn something new about myself – and become more creative. Last year, with the Artist’s Way bubbling away in the background, I wrote and finished writing my Big Peace book in 3 months.  Without The Artist’s Way, I’m not sure I would have made it intact.

I was joined by over 250 of you last year – and it was a brilliant, challenging and creative time. Not all of us finished, many of us resisted, all of us laughed, cried, and some of us punched through some old thinking in order to become more creative, (others melted resistance with a gentle sigh.)

Last year, we communicated via my blog but this year I have invested in a new membership site where we will able to communicate better together, support each other, share our thoughts and journey. Because of the investment, I’m charging a small fee of £3 a week. (Think of it as your bus fare to your class)

But be assured, you’re paying for the room, you’re not paying for me as your ‘self-appointed’ guru. I’m going to facilitate, invite guest bloggers, interview a few artists about their processes but I’m not going to be the expert here.

Cameron says: “If there is any emissary, it is the work itself, as a collective composed of all who take the course, at home or otherwise. Each person is equally a part of the collective, no one more than another. While there may be ‘teachers’, facilitators (that’s me!) who are relied on during the 12 week period to guide others down the path, such facilitators need to be prepared to share their own material and take their own creative risks.”

Be assured, I intend to do that.

I was lucky enough to go and see Julia Cameron live in London last year and got to interview her too. Here’s the interview:
http://www.bigleaplife.com/audios/juliacameron.mp3

If you wish to take part in the Artist’s Way, click here:

The warm-up week starts March 1st. You need to buy The Artist’s Way, if you haven’t already got it. We start week 1 on March 8th.

I look forward to walking this 12 week journey with you,

Suzy x

Join The Artist’s Way now:

We all did Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way last year, with me championing and cheering from the sidelines. I want to do it again in 2010 starting week 1 on March 8th (warm up week 1st March) – via my lovely new membership site. If you’re interested in receiving more information, sign up here.

I ended up at the kind Dr David’s book launch last night at Alchemy, in Camden. (the best venue ever – do check it out if you’re in London)

Once again, he was inspirational, fabulous and rather gorgeous. He also explained how kindness affects the body – makes you look young, thin and makes you feel happy.

I’m now on day 14 of the 21 day kindness challenge that I’m writing about for the Daily Mail on the concept of being kind for 21 days – and although I’m not sure if I look younger, or thinner – I’m definitely feeling rather ecstastically happy. Maybe because I’ve been doing the loving kindness meditation every day that he recommends on page 21 (strangely enough). I’ve just launched The Big Love Experiment (do join us!) and I’ve made it a basic tool of the programme, I’m so impressed with it.

If you’re still not convinced meditation is for you -  listen to the interview I did with David on how and why meditating – especially on loving/kindness will build a citadel of feel-good in your brain and get rid of your wrinkles (better than botox, says David!).

Here’s the interview:

www.bigleaplife.com/audios/davidhamiltonlove.mp3

And here’s how to do it:

HOW TO DO A LOVING KINDNESS MEDITATION (From David’s book)

Start by sitting or lying comfortably. Relax and pay attention to your breathing, breathing in a slow and comfortable rhythm.

Now bring your attention to your heart and say, either out loud or mentally, ‘May I be well. May I be happy. May I be loved.’

Now think of someone you love or care about. This time say, either out loud or mentally. ‘May you be well. May you be happy. May you be loved.

Do this for all of your loved ones. You can name them individually if you like by inserting their name in place of ‘you’.

Now move to other people in your life – friends, work colleagues, people whom you see from time to time and repeat the same process, inserting their name.

The move on to people you don’t get on with.

Keep going in an ever widening circle until you wish wellbeing, happiness, and ease for the whole world, including people you consider to be your enemies.

You don’t have to do all the circles in one go. A shortened version is just to wish wellbeing, happiness and love for your loved ones. You can take the circle as wide as you wish.

At the beginning of this year, I was devastated by an email that someone sent to my Big Peace blog. A keyworker at a charity that I had been championing (but who we no longer support) via Big Peace had been accused of child abuse charges.

It would be an underestimation to say that I have been devastated and at a loss of how to process this.

It felt that my Big Peace work had been duped by some kind of evil force. That something so pure and loving that I had created (that had been such a massive part of my own self healing process) had been corrupted and defiled by the darkest of forces. It’s taken me a while to process this all. And I’m not there yet.

But what I do know is that there are people in the world that do terrible, terrible things – but there are others who don’t.

I refuse to lose faith in people that do good.

Love and healing needs to win.

I will always champion love over hate and abuse.

This is all I know for now.