Recovering a Sense of Possibility

Let’s explore The Artist’s Way Chapter 5

Hello Friends!

How is your creativity expressing itself this summer? I’ve been doing a lot of coloring (I found the sweetest Beatrix Potter coloring book) and writing. Morning pages have become a more generative place for me. Sometimes my pages are nonsense, but every so often a hidden treasure rises to the surface and surprises me.

If you’ve been skipping these posts because you don’t consider yourself an artist, (hi, I see you!!) may I suggest you read this one? It applies to so many areas of life, not just the arts. Is there an area of life where you feel stuck or where you’re holding yourself back from growth? I think you’ll find something valuable in Julia Cameron’s below.

Chapter 5: Recovering a Sense of Possibility

Chapter Five focuses on recovering a sense of possibility as an artist. Cameron focuses on two themes in this section.

The first theme is limits. She suggests that we limit the possibilities of our work because we either put boundaries around God’s movement and abundance in our artistic lives or we don’t believe God is for us in an artistic capacity. This resonated with me on multiple levels, artistic and otherwise. Cameron writes, “If we learn to think of receiving God’s good as being an act of worship—cooperating with God’s plan to manifest goodness in our lives—we can begin to let go of having to sabotage ourselves.”

I found the idea of self-sabotage both intriguing and off-putting until I realized how many times I’ve tried to force open locked doors in the writing world when down the hall unlocked doors were swinging open for me. The opportunities didn’t look the way I wanted them to look, and it took time and many inner adjustments for me to receive what was given. I spent a lot of time looking back over my shoulder at what could have been instead of enjoying what was right in front of me.

Cameron asks these three important questions: