The Artist's Way

In my opinion, one of the secrets to being ageless is to continue learning. I use the term ageless, because it feels to me as a more realistic approach to trying to feel "young".  Since time is man made, my age doesn't mean anything (except in the morning when I wake up and feel stiff and it takes awhile to get moving).  In recent conversation with a friend, we both agreed that we have so many things that we want to learn, to do, or to try we will never be bored, just may run out of time.

With these thoughts in mind, at the beginning of this year I started a journey of deeper self discovery. I made a commitment to myself to take a class pursuing higher creativity. It is based on the book the Artist's Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. I say it was a commitment because it is a 12 week course with a meeting each week, a book to read and tasks to preform. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get out of it, but I was very curious. I found a class being held locally and facilitated by an acquaintance, so I thought "just do it". I'm glad I did and would recommend it for anyone regardless of age. The weekly meetings were enjoyable, the reading very thought provoking, the tasks were achievable or I just selected not to do them, but what I learned was life changing.

What can be taken from this class is surely different for each student. Basically what it does is put you in touch with the power of your internal creativity. It makes you be aware of your own destructive behaviors, helps you remove negative thoughts you have about yourself and teaches you to nurture yourself.  It is very interesting what you discover by just doing 2 of the class commitments which are morning pages and artist's dates.

Morning Pages--each morning you write 3 long-hand written pages of whatever comes into your mind (likes, dislikes, dreams, regrets). It becomes a form of meditation and clarifies your thoughts.
Artist's Date--once a week you do something by yourself. You receive answers in the solitude and learn that it is okay to be kind to oneself.

We are all creative, it is a life force that we all have the ability to experience. So while this class did not remove any wrinkles, it is helping me be ageless by being more confident and encouraging me to express my own style. I want to live "artfully" and try to do so everyday. More about that in future posts.

In the meantime, check out these wonderful women:

www.advancedstyle.blogspot.com