Julia Cameron writes in The Artist’s Way, “I like to think of the mind as a room. In that room, we keep all our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible and what’s not. The room has a door. That door is ever so slightly ajar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out there. The ideas we are comfortable with are in the room with us. The other ideas are out, and we keep them out.”
“In our ordinary, prerecovery life, when we would hear something weird or threatening, we’d just grab the doorknob and pull the door shut. Fast.”
“Inner work triggering outer change? Ridiculous! (Slam the door.) God bother to help my own creative recovery? (Slam.) Synchronicity supporting my artist with serendipitous coincidences? (Slam, slam, slam.)
“Now that we are in creative recovery, there is another approach we need to try. To do this, we gently set aside our skepticism – for later us, if we need it – and when a weird idea or coincidence whizzes by, we gently nudge the door a little further open.”
“Setting skepticism aside, even briefly, can make for very interesting explorations. In creative recovery, it is not necessary that we change any of our beliefs. It is necessary that we examine them.”
“More than anything else, creative recovery is an exercise in open-mindedness. Again, picture your mind as that room with the door slightly ajar. Nudging the door open a bit more is what makes for open-mindedness. Begin, this week, to consciously practice opening your mind.” Julia
Yesterday I was panicked due to my one-day weekend, and I was not open to letting the chores go and just using it as my play day as I had threatened to do. I slammed the door on playing, staying with old habits of getting my jobs done first.
I was crabby but doing the work. Resenting that I couldn’t play.
It is like being locked in a room to which you have the key, yet unable to actually use it to turn yourself free.
There is an exchange I can’t see to agree with, messy house in exchange for playing!
I want both. And if I stay that course, I will continue exchanging playtime for work time, for as we all know there is always another job to be done.
She is suggesting that we ‘use’ this excuse in order to keep our Artist from going to explore the wide-open world, that we have become comfortable in the cramped workspace.
My grumpiness spread like a virus, or tried to, but most left me alone in my unhappiness.
My daughter took her playtime first, and later on in the fading daylight mowed the grass. My resentment at her is that she has mastered the art of play over work time…and is doing what I can’t allow me to do.
I blame her for me being unable to exchange playing for a clean house.
As I sit with this thought, I used to get appreciation and attention for keeping my mother’s house in order…and the opposite may be true, wrath if I didn’t help.
I recall many siblings not caring where I cared too much.
When I thought I cared about a clean house, in fact I cared what my mother thought of me.
Perhaps, this is the issue that needs to be examined.
”I am better if I have a clean house, even if I am grumpy.”
Who do I like better or who feels better inside?
It seems my self-identity is wrapped up in what I do and how external things look.
How brave to let it all go and play…That is the challenge this week...being a child doing what she feels like, letting go of responsibilites that can wait. The 'mother' in my head may want me to slam the door to fun, but I have to be strong enough to nudge it open and enter in.
