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Well, I think the problem is that we do take life too seriously and we beat ourselves up if we're not being creative.
And when we say, no, I want you to just try this tool.
Then you say, try? Well, that doesn't sound too hard. And when you find yourself saying that doesn't sound too hard, then you find yourself saying, well, I think I could give it a try.
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Radio Headspace.
So a few years ago, I had a little bit of writer's block and I stumbled upon The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, which is the guidebook designed to help anyone reconnect with their creative self.
And I have to say, it works.
Now one of the key practices is something called morning pages, which is a process where you write out the first thing that comes to mind.
You do this every morning.
So I invited the icon herself, herself, Julia Cameron, on the show today to help us rediscover our inner artist. I really hope you enjoy this conversation.
Hi, Julia. It's so nice to meet you and to have this conversation with you.
I've been looking forward to it for a really long time.
Well, I've been looking forward to talking to you, too.
I love your name. Thank you.
I guess we should back up just a little bit for people that aren't familiar with The Artist's Way, which is one of, I think, if not the most effective piece of literature that helps us in creating great habits.
So what inspired you to write The Artist's Way, if you don't mind sharing?
I came up with it through practice.
this. I found myself living alone at the end of a little dirt road in a little adobe house and I was lonely and I had a table that looked out on Taos Mountain which was a big mountain that changed weather every day and I started getting up and I would look out the window at the mountain and I would write, today it's cloudy, or today it's clear, or today there's snow on the crest. And I found myself writing three pages a day and that they were a form of witness for me.
I was no longer lonely.
I had morning pages to talk to.
And I think when people are blocked creatively they're very lonely yes they feel like oh what's the use and when I say well the use is just try it yeah and coax them into it and what they do is they discover that they're interesting and previously when they're blocked they were saying Oh, I'm so boring.
I can't think of anything to say or do.
And I would say, well, just try writing these three pages and see if something doesn't come up for you.
Yeah. Julia, what was the goal of The Artist's Way?
The goal of the book was to help, I thought, a small group of people who were my friends who were blocked.
But what I found was that it caught on very quickly.
It became a pivotal tool for a number of people.
So I didn't set out thinking, I'm going to write a book that will sell 5 million copies, which is what it has done.
But I thought, I'm going to write a book to help people.
You have absolutely created that.
I think the goal has been met.
Can I ask you, I'm like, can I ask you a question?
I'm just so curious if you have ever experienced a period in your life where other priorities like having an unfulfillment, having like an unfulfilling job or family responsibilities or financial stress, anything that detracted you from doing creative work and if you did like how did you deal with that?
Well again I had the toolkit.
I had the experience of working with the tools and having breakthroughs.
So what I found was that I was very stubborn.
When I was faced with a block I would keep on using the tools.
And using the tools that way persistently gave me a way to break through.
And if you're asking if I've ever had a block, I've had many blocks and they all yield to the tools.
I think for me, one of the biggest obstacles I encountered, you know, when I first, you know, started doing my morning pages, which was 20 years ago, was the sort of fear of rejection, like feeling, and it wasn't necessarily that I was wanting to become a writer.
It was more of what you've talked about in being an artist, being a creative.
I just felt like, what if I bring my full self to the world and I get rejected?
Well, this is where I think morning pages are so useful, because there's no wrong way to do morning pages.
You just write whatever occurs to you, and you don't reject it.
You say, this is how I happen to be feeling today.
And I think that the habit of writing how I happen to be feeling today becomes a daily challenge.
And you find yourself saying, I think I have an idea for a novel.
Then you say, but who'd read it?
And then you say, well, actually, I think I'd read it.
And I think my friends would read it.
And I think it's a good thing to have a goal.
and I think it's a good thing to allow yourself the freedom to dream and I think that's what happens when people start working with the tools is that they begin to discover that they do have dreams and that they have the freedom to pursue those dreams yeah that's a really it's a really really great point.
And it's nice to have the permission to do that, to dream.
I think so many times we just don't even allow ourselves the space because we feel like who are we to dream about being a novelist or dream about being an artist or a musician or a poet or whatever it is.
I think we don't even allow ourselves to have that framework because we're so quickly using the fluctuation of thought to stifle it.
Well, we have a problem in this society, which is that we have a desire to not be too big for our britches.
And so when we first start dreaming and our dreams are large and we find ourselves hoping for their fulfillment but doubting their fulfillment, then I think it becomes a question of doing the pages despite our doubts and people will sometimes say to me Julia how can I get rid of my sensor the inner critic that says you can't do that you're too little and I say well actually I don't think you can get rid of your inner critic i have an inner critic named nigel did you name it i named nigel and i recommend everybody should name their inner critic something but i thought nigel was a persnickety name
so i chose nigel and nigel will tell me me things like, Julia, you're boring.
Or, Julia, you've said this before.
Or, Julia, why are you even trying?
And I have learned to say in the morning pages, Nigel, thank you for sharing.
And I find that if you repeatedly say to your critic, thank you for sharing, you begin to diminish the critic.
And when you start out, it's a big, booming, damning voice, and the critic is the voice of doom.
But if you keep saying, thank you for sharing, you miniaturize your critic until it's just a little cartoon character, sort of like the relative that always ruins family picnics by being negative.
Yeah. The critic is habitually negative, and we learn to stand up to the critic.
I think that is such a sound and efficient way to minimize the intensity of that, Because I feel like for many people, that inner critic is a bit loud and obnoxious.
And I think that when you give it a name and you acknowledge it, it's like in mindfulness, the noting technique when we are naming the feeling or we're naming the experience, we're in a way externalizing it from us, the core of who we really are.
And I think it's really helpful to minimize it in that way, because it makes it more manageable.
It's interesting, because I was having this conversation with a friend of mine who, I told her I was having this conversation with you.
And she was so excited.
She's also done morning pages.
And she's like, I have so many questions.
And I was telling her, I do too, you know, so I'm going to try and be as efficient as I can.
And this conversation about imposter syndrome, and I'll put it in the same category as the inner critic came up.
And I thought it was really interesting how for her, one of the biggest obstacles in this experience isn't necessarily the inner critic so much as it is the feeling of exhaustion when, you know, she comes She comes home from work and, you know, she has to deal with family and her partner and she just feels like she's exhausted and she doesn't have she has every the best intentions to, you know, do morning pages.
It's like there's this idea that doing morning pages or writing or doing any of the techniques are too heavy of a lift, if that makes sense.
So I want to talk a little bit.
First of all, if you do the morning pages first thing upon awakening, you may be grumpy, but you're not exhausted.
So you do your morning pages first thing.
But there's a second tool, which I think is very important to combat the sense of exhaustion.
And that is a tool that I call an artist's date.
And it's going out once a week by yourself doing something festive, something that your inner child approves of, something that's just plain fun.
And people will say, play?
I don't see what play has to do with working on my creativity.
And I will say, well, actually, it has everything to do with working on your creativity Because when we work on our creativity, we're drawing on an inner well And if we are working hard on our creativity And we are dipping into the well And we are taking the time and care to replenish the well Then it does become difficult so I want you to play and you find people coming back saying Julia, I had the most uncanny experience I think I felt, well, God and I'll say, oh, maybe you did maybe you had a sense of a benevolent something that was helping you along along uh and the benevolence something that helps
you along fights exhaustion i got the artist's way toolkit here and i wanted to just read this because i think that the artist states for me are probably one if not the most valuable and and i love what it what you wrote in here it says regarding to the artist state.
The artist state is a once a weekly solo expedition to do something that enchants or interests you.
And I love that you use the word enchant because I feel like we don't allow the magic of those little moments that add to our well, like you're saying, you know, because we're so wrapped up in the mundanity of life.
Sometimes we come home from work, we're exhausted.
I'm going to do air quotes exhausted because now, now I'm thinking, oh, maybe we're just grumpy.
You know, it's like we wake up earlier.
I'm not going to be exhausted.
I'm just going to be a little bit grumpy, but we sort of don't create the space for those little moments that ultimately help us feel that surge of, of energy, maybe even and inspiration that we're looking for, right?
Well, I think that you do feel a surge of inspiration when you do an artist state.
You do feel festive and your age drops away.
We haven't talked at all about how people can feel.
Well, I'm just too old to try these tools.
Oh, let's talk about it.
I think that what I say is when you use the tools, you are timeless, and you begin to have a sense of a benevolent universe that's on your side, and you do become enchanted.
And I think it's an accurate term for the feeling that you get where you have a sense of hope, a sense of timelessness, a sense of humor.
There's this idea like not to take our creativity or life too seriously.
What do you think about that?
Well, I think the problem is that we do take life too seriously.
And we beat ourselves up if we're not being creative.
and when we say now I want you to just try this tool then you say try well that doesn't sound too hard and when you find yourself saying that doesn't sound too hard then you find yourself saying well I think I could give it a try and giving it a try.
I think what happens with morning pages is that they convince you to take risks.
So you're writing your pages and you say, what should I do next?
And your pages say, you will write radiant songs.
This is what happened to me.
And I said, I'm 45 years old.
I can't write radiant songs if I were the least bit musical I would know it and the pages insisted you will write radiant songs and 2 weeks later I was up in the Rocky Mountains visiting a girlfriend while I was teaching and I said I keep praying for what to do next and I keep getting told I will write radiant songs songs.
And I don't think it's very likely.
And she said, well, why don't you go sit down by the stream and see what happens.
And she pointed down the hill of the Rocky Mountains to a little creek.
And I went down and I sat by the creek on a big boulder.
And I was sort of, oh, half -assed meditating.
And all of a sudden I heard, my green heart is filled with apples.
Your dark face is filled with stars.
I am the one that you've forgotten.
You are the one my heart desires.
So, dance when you think of me, sing to remember me, sing till your heart can see who we are.
Dance when you think of me, sing to remember me, sing till your heart can see who we are.
And I found myself saying, that sounds suspiciously like a radiant song.
And since then, I've written three musicals.
And it was all because the Morning Pages urged me to try.
They said, well, Julia, just sit down by the creek and see what happens.
And this is part of this idea as well of our ability to trust that inner guidance.
And it's like, I don't know that a lot of people may feel like they could trust that guidance.
Well, I think it comes down to taking risks.
And it's the idea of trying it that opens the door.
So, Julia, the idea then is if we do morning pages every day, it allows us to access our creativity more for other projects?
Well, it does. You write morning pages, and that becomes a habit.
And then they make a suggestion of a risk, and you try the risk, and then the risk becomes a habit.
it. And I think that you become more able to try things.
The trying, I think, is what helped me.
And I don't know, people are listening to this, if they're familiar with Morning Pages, if they're familiar with your work or the artist's way.
I know that it's had a bit of a resurgence Thanks to artists like Dochi, she's an incredible rapper and singer who opened up about doing this practice that helped shape her creative process and documenting her journey as she was doing it has inspired so many people.
I think all of us have a secret dream that we are creative, and I think that as you pursue creativity, you find yourself feeling inspired.
I think you have a chance of catching yourself happy, and I think that what happens to people who aren't artists, who start working the artist's way, is that they find themselves saying, oh, I think I could try that.
that I'm curious Julia for you what keeps you inspired despite having this really busy life and I'm sure you have many demands on you like what keeps you inspired still today I think the answer is fun doing something festive I have a favorite artist date which is going to a pet store where they have a big gray and white bunny named George.
And when I pet George, his silky coat gives me a sense of bliss.
And I feel inspired.
Another thing that's fun to do is to go to a children's bookstore and look at the titles.
And the titles are are fun, but they're scary, all about reptiles, all about big cats, all about choo -choo trains.
And I think that a children's book usually has just about the right amount of inspiration aspiration to move us from stagnation into action.
Julia, as we're heading to the end of our time together, which I feel like we just started, if you were to give the people listening right now just one small creative action that they can do today or even right now for them to get started on this journey to creativity, what would you say to them?
Well, at the risk of sounding like a fanatic, I would say, please try writing morning pages.
Please get your hand on the page, move it across the page, and see what it reveals.
Another thing we would talk about that's called asking for guidance.
and this is a tool that I used to think sounded too woo woo I I um I ask a question what about x and then I listen for an answer and I do get answers and I ask when I teach for people to experiment with asking for guidance pick an issue that you're having trouble with and ask for help with it and see what happens what they find is that they get a very precise guided calm answer I will give it I will give an example I was married 50 years ago we unfortunately got divorced and it's 50 years later and whenever I think about the first husband I I think but I love him.
And then I beat myself up and say, Julia, isn't that awfully codependent of you?
50 years, don't you think you should be over it?
So finally, I went to guidance and said, what should I do about still loving X?
And the guidance came back, just love him.
Just love him. Love is eternal.
just love him. Getting that simple guidance allowed me to drop the rock and stop calling myself codependent and start having some self -respect.
I think that's wonderful advice.
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that.
I am, again, so honored and inspired by I, you and your work and the experience of Morning Pages in my own life have been so monumental, and I couldn't be more grateful for you.
So thank you for that.
Well, you're very welcome.
And I have to say this interview has been enticing.
I have loved your questions, and I have felt like they were truly guided excited and that we were giving people necessary information.
Thank you. That's always, I hope that that's always the, the experience.
So thank you so much for that.
For people that are listening to this or watching this right now, where can they go for more information or to connect with you?
Well, I have a website, which is juliacameronlive .com.
and it has a lot of art a lot of poetry a lot of plays a lot of work that you could look at just for fun and for free and i like to say it's actually a wonderful artist state to go to juliacameronlive .com Thank you so much, Julia will add those links or that link in the show notes.
Or if you're watching this on YouTube, we will put in the info description section.
Julia, thank you so so much for being here with us.
We enjoyed every second with you.
And we hope that people listen to this and feel at the very least like they can try.
morning pages. Thank you.
