<aside> 💡 This week tackles another major creative block: time. You will explore the ways in which you have used your perception of time to preclude taking creative risks. You will identify immediate and practical changes you can make in your current life. You will excavate the early conditioning that may have encouraged you to settle for far less than you desire creatively.

</aside>

  1. Exercise 1, Morning Pages: Check off the days you’ve done morning pages.

    How many days this week did you do your morning pages? (Have you used them yet to think about creative luxury for yourself?) How was the experience for you?

  2. Exercise 2, Artist Date:

    Details of Date:

    Have you had the experience of hearing answers during this leisure time?

    What did you do for your date?

    How did it feel?

    Have you taken an artist date yet that really felt adventurous?

  3. Exercise 3: Did you experience any synchronicity this week? What was it?

  4. Exercise 4: Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.”

  5. Exercise 5, EARLY PATTERNINGS: Although we seldom connect the dots, many of our present-day losses are connected to our earlier conditioning. Children may be told they can’t do anything or, equally damaging, be told they should be able to do absolutely anything with ease. Either of these messages blocks the recipient. The following questions are aimed at helping you retrieve and decipher your own conditioning. Some of them may seem not to apply. Write about whatever they trigger for you.

    1. As a kid, my dad thought my art was _______. That made me feel ________________________.
    2. I remember one time when he ____________.
    3. I felt very ______ and ______ about that. I never forgot it.
    4. As a kid, my mother taught me that my daydreaming was _________________________.
    5. I remember she’d tell me to snap out of it by reminding me ____________________________.
    6. The person I remember who believed in me was __.
      1. I remember one time when ___________________.
    8. I felt ________ and ________ about that. I never forgot it.”
    9. The thing that ruined my chance to be an artist was ____________________________.
    10. The negative lesson I got from that, which wasn’t logical but I still believe, is that I can’t ______________. and be an artist.
    11. When I was little, I learned that __________ and ___________ were big sins that I particularly had to watch out for.
    12. I grew up thinking artists were ___________ people.
    13. The teacher who shipwrecked my confidence was ______________________.
    14. I was told _________________________.
    15. I believed this teacher because _______________.
    16. The mentor who gave me a good role model was___.
    17. When people say I have talent I think they want to _____________________________.
    18. The thing is, I am suspicious that ______________.
    19. I just can’t believe that ______________________.
    20. If I believe I am really talented, then I am mad as hell at ______ and ______ and ______ and ______ and ______.

  6. Exercise 6: The following affirmations affirm your right to the practice of your creativity. Select five affirmations and work with them this week.

  7. Exercise 7, Goal Search: You may find the following exercise difficult. Allow yourself to do it anyway. If multiple dreams occur to you, do the exercise for each one of them. The simple act of imagining a dream in concrete detail helps us to bring it into reality. Think of your goal search as a preliminary architect’s drawing for the life you would wish to have.

    The Steps:

    1. Name your dream. That’s right. Write it down. “In a perfect world, I would secretly love to be a_____.”

    2. Name one concrete goal that signals to you its accomplishment. On your emotional compass, this goal signifies true north. (Note: two people may want to be an actress. They share that dream. For one, an article in People magazine is the concrete goal. To her, glamour is the emotional center for her dream; glamour is true north. For the second actress, the concrete goal is a good review in a Broadway play. To her, respect as a creative artist is the emotional center of her dream; respect is true north. Actress one might be happy as a soap star. Actress two would need stage work to fulfill her dream. On the surface, both seem to desire the same thing.)

    3. In a perfect world, where would you like to be in five years in relation to your dream and true north?

    4. In the world we inhabit now, what action can you take, this year, to move you closer?

    5. What action can you take this month? This week? This day? Right now?

    6. List your dream (for example, to be a famous film director). List its true north (respect and higher consciousness, mass communication.) Select a role model. Make an action plan. Five years. Three years. One year. One month. One week. Now. Choose an action. Reading this book is an action.

  8. Exercise 8, New Childhood: What might you have been if you’d had perfect nurturing? Write a page of this fantasy childhood. What were you given? Can you reparent yourself in that direction now?”