Creative Recovery - August 2019

I have set myself a project for August - Project Creative Recovery. The project is inspired in part by the Creativity as a Spiritual Practice Summit that I have been listening to recently. I have always been interested in creativity through art and design and in the creative process. I studied the creative process and creative personalities during my MA in Creative and Media Enterprises, this was quite a while ago and tbh I've forgotten a lot of it (I have my notes but they are in a box in the garage underneath empty flower pots and gardening equipment so I'm probably not going to be referring to them). I remember being a little unconvinced by some of the more problem solving and results based theories but I was interested in the role of intuition and the state of flow (which could also be referred to as mindfulness). I have since completed a short course in Art Therapy and become more interested in ideas around the creative process as healing and as a way of connecting to the unconscious. Art psychotherapy of course links greatly to the ideas of Carl Jung who was himself interested in the spiritual connection with the creative process. In the last few months I've become more interested in spirituality and it's connections to healing, authenticity and life purpose, as well as energy healing. I'm particularly interested in the work of Caroline Myss. As I have been on a full time mission to recover from ME/CFS for the last four years, it's perhaps not surprising that I've begun to look at a broader approach to healing.

From a personal creative point of view I've been feeling a bit stuck lately, everywhere seems to lead to a dead end, and truthfully I feel the same about my life in general. Being inspired by the Creativity as Spiritual practice summit and the conversations with creative and spiritual teachers, I've set myself a project. I'm hoping the experience will connect me more to my inner creative self and allow me to work intuitively to create without any pressures of producing a certain product and outcome. I will do my best to silence my inner critic and overcome my inner procrastinator.

So here's the plan

• 3 pages a day of writing - stream of consciousness writing, margin to margin, not worrying about spelling, punctuation or grammar - as inspired by Julia Cameron's Morning pages (I'm not the best at mornings so I'm not being too strict with myself about the time of day I do this). Journalling as also discussed by Albert DeSilver and Jacob Norby in the online series

• Painting - free form intuitive painting everyday, no plan, no preconceived outcomes, just painting and see what happens. I've felt for a while that I'd like to paint. Then I seemed to come across a lot of people talking about how painting has been therapeutic for them (including Dianna Minich in the online Fatigue conference from the Optimal Health Clinic -yes I love an online free summit, and Marie Mbouni and Flora Bowley in the Creativity and Spirituality conference.

• Post photos of my paintings and any thoughts, comments or experiences that come from the process.
• Post any articles or pieces of writing that come about as a result of this process. I won't publish my journalling as I feel this needs to remain private in order for me to remain open and intuitive and not self censor.
• To overcome my resistance and inertia, I will use SARK's Micromiracle method of doing something for five minutes. The idea is if you can do something for 5 minutes you are most likely going to continue with it for longer but 5 minutes sounds and feels manageable.