<aside> 💡 “This week addresses self-definition as a major component of creative recovery. You may find yourself drawing new boundaries and staking out new territories as your personal needs, desires, and interests announce themselves. The essays and tools are aimed at moving you into your personal identity, a self-defined you.”
</aside>
Exercise 1, Morning Pages: Check off the days you’ve done morning pages.
Exercise 2, Artist Date:
Details of Date:
Exercise 3: Affirmative Reading - Read the Basic Principles to yourself. Be alert for any Attitudinal Shifts.
[ ] Day 1
Notes:
[ ] Day 2
Notes:
[ ] Day 3
Notes:
[ ] Day 4
Notes:
[ ] Day 5
Notes:
[ ] Day 6
Notes:
[ ] Day 7
Notes:
Exercise 4, Time: “List your five major activities this week. How much time did you give to each one? Which were what you wanted to do and which were shoulds? How much of your time is spent helping others and ignoring your own desires? Have any of your blocked friends triggered doubts in you? 1.
Take a sheet of paper. Draw a circle. Inside that circle, place topics you need to protect. Place the names of those you find to be supportive. Outside the circle, place the names of those you must be self-protective around just now. Place this safety map near where you write your morning pages. Use this map to support your autonomy. Add names to the inner and outer spheres as appropriate.
Topics to protect:
People I find supportive:
People I’m self-protective around:
Exercise 5: “List twenty things you enjoy doing. When was the last time you let yourself do these things? Next to each entry, place a date.” 1.
Exercise 6: “From the list above, write down two favorite things that you’ve avoided that could be this week’s goals. These goals can be small: buy one roll of film and shoot it. Remember, we are trying to win you some autonomy with your time. Look for windows of time just for you, and use them in small creative acts. ” 1.
Exercise 7: “Dip back into Week One and read the affirmations. Note which ones cause the most reaction. Often the one that sounds the most ridiculous is the most significant. Write three chosen affirmations five times each day in your morning pages; be sure to include the affirmations you made yourself from your blurts.”
Exercise 8: “Return to the list of imaginary lives from last week. Add five more lives. Again, check to see if you could be doing bits and pieces of these lives in the one you are living now. If you have listed a dancer’s life, do you let yourself go dancing? If you have listed a monk’s life, are you ever allowed to go on a retreat? If you are a scuba diver, is there an aquarium shop you can visit? A day at the lake you could schedule?”
Exercise 9, Life Pie: “Draw a circle. Divide it into six pieces of pie. Label one piece spirituality, another exercise, another play, and so on with work, friends, and romance/ adventure. Place a dot in each slice at the degree to which you are fulfilled in that area (outer rim indicates great; inner circle, not so great). Connect the dots. This will show you where you are lopsided. As you begin the course, it is not uncommon for your life pie to look like a tarantula. As recovery progresses, your tarantula may become a mandala. Working with this tool, you will notice that there are areas of your life that feel impoverished and on which you spend little or no time. Use the time tidbits you are finding to alter.”
Exercise 10, Ten Tiny Changes: “List ten changes you’d like to make for yourself, from the significant to the small or vice versa (“get new sheets so I have another set, go to China, paint my kitchen, dump my bitchy friend Alice”). Do it this way: I would like to ___________________. I would like to ___________________. As the morning pages nudge us increasingly into the present, where we pay attention to our current lives, a small shift like a newly painted bathroom can yield a luxuriously large sense of self-care.”