Ramblings....: Artists Way Week 8 (Re-Do)...

Recovering a sense of strength.

Looking at this week I did last time I thought - hmmmmm, I didn't seem to do much. But I must have just not - because there was ALOT of writing tasks.

There was a set of 20 questions - basically about your childhood. I was surprised by a few things I wrote. I seemed bothered by my dad always thinking my brother was a better athlete than I was - even though I was just as good. I wrote that my friend Mic believed in me. I remember when he cast me in Jungle Book - honestly I was terrible - but he took a chance on me. Then he kept taking chances on me and I truly believe he helped me get the courage to keep acting. I wrote to him this week and thanked him. I wrote about when me and my friend Susan used to make bracelets out of flowers and catch lady bugs. I'm trying to re-connect with her this week. A good role model for me was my friend Mel. She's getting a note from me this week too.

We picked 5 affirmations off a list. 2 out of the 5 I chose last time. This time I chose:

I am a talented person. (Same as last time)

I am a good person and a good artist. (Same as last time)

I now treat myself and my creativity more generously.

My creativity is appreciated.

I now act affirmatively.

I think last time I was daunted by all the writing tasks but I found myself doing them all for the most part this time around. The one I really got into was the Dreams Exercise. We were to write a dream then there were 5 other questions/tasks about it. If you had multiple dreams you did these 5 things for each. But the thing is - I have one big encompassing dream now. That's to live my life happy and consistently doing creative things. Whether that be cooking, writing, acting, photography or traveling. Why do they all have to be separate. I don't want them separately. I want them all. I want them all to be a part of my life on a consistent basis. My goal is to make sure I'm doing something creative at the very least - and I mean very least - once a week. I want creativity to just be a part of my every day regular life.

I am finding that doing this process and probably anything similar to this is what's helping me get into a routine. Well 12 weeks isn't going to be enough for me. I found out there's another book after this one called Walking in this World. I plan to purchase that before this process is done and start right into that one next!

We were to right about our favorite color as a living thing. Incorporate it more into our home. Green is my color. Green is the color of my Irish eyes. Green is the color of nature and calm. When we bought our condo last year I was excited to decorate our living room with accents of green. The best part - my very own photography adorns our walls!

I've also changed my Morning Pages to Night Pages. I have finally got myself back on my workout routine in the mornings before work. Unfortunately I just can't fit everything I want to do before work (I already get up at 5am), and the morning pages are the least priority. But - I do like the idea of these so I'm still doing them, just at night before bed. And I did them every night!

For my Artists Date this week I wanted to incorporate a morning workout into my date, so I did something I love - hike. It took an unplanned turn though. My original plan was to hike to the geocache I've hidden out on the trails I used to live by and just make sure it's still there with all the weird weather we've been having. Well it must have been a little too early because it was just me out there (my poor pooch has a belly ache so he didn't join me) and it's a little intimidating when you're alone. Sure enough a trio of coyotes was blocking my path. Nope. Turned right around and headed back towards my truck. I was really upset and didn't want to not hike. When I got back to my truck there were some mountain bikers parking next to me. Ok I thought, there's some other people now...so I pulled up my big girl pants and headed back out a different way. This would change my geocache maintenance plan but at least I'd still get a little hike in. It ended up being just lovely and I got up to where I almost made the sun rise (which was also a goal) and got in a good workout.