Tag: Julia Cameron

Tidbits, Continued

I told you that my main activity this past long weekend was reading. Here are some more interesting thoughts that I came across as I joyfully read and read and read:

+ I have a fair amount of subscriptions to decorating magazines. I find them to be so visually stimulating and beautiful. One thing that I have often noticed, even in the higher end designer magazines like Architectural Digest and Veranda, is that no matter how opulent the home, no matter how exquisite the decorations, no matter how rare the antiques and art collections which fill the homes, more often than not, the owners are photographed in their homes with their beloved dogs. And that’s what makes their homes even more beautiful. One of the late Gloria Vanderbilt’s apartments were featured in one of the magazines and she is quoted as saying, “Decorating is autobiography.” I love that sentiment and I find it to be absolutely true.

+ I read another article about a woman who had to move from her beloved home that she had built and designed herself, for a job change in another city. She was distraught about leaving the home, so she started journaling about it. She wrote a long list of everything that she loved about this house that she and her husband had built and everything about it that she would miss. Then, to be even, she started writing a list about everything that she didn’t like about the house and what she would have changed if she could have changed it. Much to the writer’s surprise, the list of what she didn’t like ended up being a good bit longer than what she actually liked about the house. I remember reading that this is a good exercise to do with anything which you are having to leave, give up, move from, or stop – relationships, jobs, habits, hobbies, etc. We all know that it is wonderful to focus on the positive things in life, but to get through the grief of losing something or someone, it doesn’t hurt to be honest with yourself about the negatives that you will also be “losing”, too. This being real with yourself, helps move the grieving process along, in a purely balanced, authentic way.

+ Recently I shared a meme on the blog that said we should choose not to compete, but instead to excel. I always remind my family that “Comparison is the thief of happiness.” All of our lives, and starting gates, and personalities and backgrounds and genetics, will never make for level, even playing fields. Our individual lives are too complicated to be played on a racetrack. Supposedly Fitbit has an advertisement that asks, “What’s strong with me?” This is an inverse to what we often ask ourselves when we are caught up in the futile comparison game – “What’s wrong with me?” Once again, this is just another example of what a shift in focus of your thoughts will do for you, in keeping things and your overall life in perspective. So, my readers, “What’s strong with you?” Please contemplate that question today. I would love to see some of your answers in my Comments section.

+ In pondering the second half of life, I love this quote which I came across from my readings over the weekend: “The first half of life is pursuing happiness, often with the operating system being one’s ego. The second half of life is seeking contentment, with our heart and soul being our guiding influences.” – Chip Conley, CEO of the Modern Elder Academy Isn’t it wonderful that a gift of aging is getting a much better, upgraded operating system?

+ Julia Cameron, author of the timeless The Artist’s Way book, which is a manual/workbook about stimulating your creativity, has come out with a new book that talks about how connected our creativity and our spiritualty can be, if we open our hearts and our minds to this idea. She says this, “I’ve come to see that if you work on your creative life, you develop a spiritual one – they feed each other.” I couldn’t agree more. I have never felt more connected to the higher forces in life than when I am working on a creative project of my own, or I am gazing in awe at someone else’s creative masterpieces. What is more spiritual than creation???

+ I saved my favorite “tidbit” for last. Kitty Sheehan owns a company that writes obituaries for people who have lost loved ones, and who are having trouble putting their loved ones’ lives into words. Kitty said that she once was writing an obituary and the family made a point that Kitty must include the late person’s lifelong friendship to a man named Lenny. They felt that an overall picture of this deceased man’s life would not be complete without mention of Lenny and their beloved friendship with each other. Kitty has since added the question to the list of questions that she asks her clients, “What was it like to be this person’s friend?” When I was reading this article, I decided that this question is a vital one, especially while we are still alive. We can ask ourselves (and we can even ask the question to the others in our lives, if we are brave and choose to get clarity and understanding), “What is it like to be my friend? What is it like have me as a mother? What is it like to have me as a wife? What is it like to have me as an employer or as an employee? . . . . .” If we aren’t particularly proud of the answers, we are still alive to make the answers better. And if we are proud of the answers, doesn’t it feel good to know this about ourselves? Sadly, it is unlikely that we will read our own obituaries. But we are living what will be written in them, right now. What is it like to be me?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

MP

I am in the middle of reading The Listening Path. Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way, reiterates her insistence, in her latest book, that the quickest path to yourself, and to your creativity, is in writing “Morning Pages.” Writing Morning Pages is the practice of writing three pages, in your own handwriting, a stream of consciousness, before you even get out of bed, every single morning. I think that I tried this once, decades ago, and I only lasted a few days. Back then I had a house full of young children, who all had the uncanny ability to hear the hinges of my eyelids open, every morning, and to bound into my room, ready to start their/our day. I have restarted the process of writing Morning Pages. I have three days in, so far, and I am hoping to make it last. Cameron calls writing the Morning Pages part of your “Believing Mirrors” because they can get you in touch with your deepest dreams, and they can help you to believe that you can attain these dreams. She says that writing the Morning Pages (which are for your eyes only) helps to heighten your intuition, and writing them helps you to hone in your attention, as to what really matters to you.

“Morning Pages are simple but dramatic. They turn us into who we want to be. What could be better than that?” – Julia Cameron

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Battery Life

“Many of us have spent our lives being batteries for others.” – Julia Cameron.

Julia Cameron is the author of The Artist’s Way. Many creatives consider that book to be the one holy book, for getting creative juices to flow. I read The Artist’s Way once. Admittedly, at the time that I read the book, I was half-hearted about doing the activities described in the book, so I can’t honestly say that it moved me, in the way that this book has inspired so many other creatives. Recently I picked up Julia Cameron’s latest book (she has written about 40 books), The Listening Path, in hopes of maybe getting a better understanding of what I may have missed in The Artist’s Way. Truthfully, I like the fact that The Listening Path is a much skinnier book than The Artist’s Way. When I started reading The Listening Path last night, and I got to the quote written above, I got up from the couch, and I found a pen, and I underlined the quote three times. In fact, I must have been pressing so hard when I underlined that sentence that the line shows through with a teeny hole, on to the opposite side of the page. I find it hard to believe that I am the first person to do this. Certainly, I am not the first mother to do this.

No one asks us to be their batteries. It is not fair to put that onus on anyone else. But it is something we motherly types tend to do, and to become. I was having a text conversation with some friends yesterday, and we were talking about the fact that we will never stop worrying about our children, until forever. (and we are all mothers of mostly adult children) Yet, when we took on the role of “mother”, we never fully understood the depth of that responsibility, nor also the mother role’s deep, echoing emotional reach. When we put on the “mother robe”, it never fully occurred to us, that the mother robe is not removable, ever, and it can be a heavy robe, at times. When we entered into motherhood, it was like entering into any new adventure, like a new job, or a budding romantic relationship, or a new place to live – you have some ideas and expectations, of what you are getting yourself into, but you are never fully prepared. Pregnancy or adoption, is signing you on to an experience that you will have some level of responsibility for, (and also a whole heap full of vulnerability, and love like you’ve never felt, and sometimes even a few negative emotions like guilt, fear and resentment) for the rest of your life, and perhaps even beyond, without escape. And you sign on to this mother role, without fully grasping what this lifetime role really means for you, and for your children. Because no matter how good a storyteller, experience cannot really ever be fully captured in its entire scope and its full essence. Experience must be felt and it must be absorbed, while it is happening to you.

Therefore, when we mothers reach this emptying nest stage of our lives, where our family members are coming into their own “extended life battery” charge, it’s a jarring experience. We complain about being “drained”, but then we sometimes feel a little useless and listless, like a dangling plug. But yet we are also excited about the prospect of recharging our own batteries. Still, it feels rather foreign to us, to allow ourselves to take most of our own power back, for our own dreams and for our own goals. It feels a little strange and a little nerve-wracking, yet also extremely exciting and reinvigorating, to nurture our own selves, and our own passions, with the energy reserves that we had mostly given away, when raising our families. It is one of those times in life, like entering any new adventure, where we have some ideas and expectations, but we are never fully prepared. This is a new experience and experience must be felt and absorbed, while it is happening to you.

The interesting thing to note is that even now, in this empty nest stage of parenting, by giving the majority of your energy stores back to yourself, you are still, inadvertently, doing a crucial part of your mothering role. You are showing your children to value themselves, and to value their individual lives and dreams, and this example, might very well be the most important lesson which you ever impart to your precious children. You are freeing your children from feeling emotionally responsible for your life, and for your happiness. You are the one, bravely pulling the plug, knowing that your loved ones have the natural ability to keep themselves charged. You also know that a Universal Everlasting charge is always available to them, as it is, and has always been, available to you, for the rest of all of your lives.

We know by now, that our mother robe never comes off. And with experience under our belts, we fully understand what that means. But truthfully, as mothers, we don’t want the mother robe to come off, but still, it feels good to remember that we are the ones wearing the robes. Just as mothering is a profound pleasure and a great privilege, it is also a special pleasure and a privilege, to get reacquainted with, and curious about, the interesting, and multi-faceted “wearer of the robe,” and where her next adventures in life will lead her.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.