words for the process

without a doubt one of the best decisions I made this summer was to join a small group of lovely women from my class and go through the artist's way. it's been amazingly beautiful, challenging, refreshing, hard, and rewarding, and we are only through week 4 (out of 12). one of the things you are asked to do consistently is called morning pages, where for 30 minutes each morning you sit and write. you don't think or censor but just write what comes out. and don't read over it. don't do it perfectly. just write.

this week's chapter helped put words to what I've been noticing as I've been doing these pages recently, so I wanted to share some of the goodness. I feel like I'm writing more honestly, catching myself when I'm not as connected, and am being more specific with my words.

without further adieu, words from chapter 4:


Working with the morning pages, we begin to sort through the differences between our real feelings, which are often secret, and our official feelings, those on the record for public display. Official feelings are often indicated by the phrase, "I feel okay about that [the job loss, her dating someone else, my dad's death,...]."


What do we mean by "I feel okay?" The morning pages force us to get specific. Does "I feel okay" mean I feel resigned, accepting, comfortable, detached, numb, tolerant, pleased, or satisfied? What does it mean?


Okay is a blanket word for most of us. It covers all sorts of squirmy feelings; and it frequently signals a loss. We officially feel okay, but do we?


At the root of a successful creative recovery is the commitment to puncture our denial, to stop saying, "It's okay" when in fact it's something else. The morning pages press us to answer what else.


...As we lose our vagueness about our self, our values, our life situation, we become available to the moment. It is there, in the particular, that we contact the creative self. Until we experience the freedom of solitude, we cannot connect authentically. We may be enmeshed but we are not encountered.


Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self-expression. We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows.