The Artist’s Way Week 1 Recap
In conjunction with the 100-Day Challenge, I am also doing The Artist’s Way again for the umpteenth time with a couple of my friends from church. I love The Artist’s Way for it has provided me with several key concepts that I still hold onto today, which are the foundational activities to the program, morning pages and artist dates.
For the next twelve weeks, each week will have a focus on an area that the blocked artists will recover from. Week one was recovering a sense of safety.
A few quotes that struck me this time around are the following:
“…often audacity, not talent makes one person an artist and another a shadow artist…”
“All too often, it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to center stage.”
“Much fear of our own creativity is the fear of the unknown.”
“Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way.”
I resonated way too much with these quotes, especially the ones speaking about audacity. I was so taken with the word “audacity” that I had to look up the definition to make it really sink in for me.
Audacity refers to a bold, daring, or confident willingness to take risks, often with a reckless or arrogant disregard for conventions, rules, or the opinions of others.
I’m going to be honest, I thought I knew what audacity meant, but more so in the negative context, but to see it in a positive light, it has changed my perspective on the word completely. How many of us can say that we live an audacious life? My immediate thought always goes to Peter and Jesus. He was literally just living his life, tolling away like any normal fisherman and then one day he was tapped and asked to drop everything and everyone to go follow someone with a radical message of love, hope, grace, and peace.
Peter showed a great amount of audacity in leaving all that he knew behind to go forward and toward something that he didn’t. He didn’t have a play by play workbook. He didn’t know what the outcome was going to be. He simply listened to the call and answered.
As for me, and this week of The Artist’s Way, I struggled. I’m a control freak. I like to know how things are going to play out and if I don’t like the direction then I do everything I can to make sure that reality is different than what is projected. As you can assume, this hasn’t always gotten me favor.
Throughout the week, I did my creative activities and I did the posting, but I also still had that lingering question in the back of my mind, “what is the purpose to all of this”? Reality, I don’t know what the purpose is and I may never know. But what I do know is that I’m like Peter and am answering the call that I feel has been placed on my heart. The call to be in NYC even though I don’t exactly understand why just yet. The call to lean into this creative coaching business, even if I don’t have any clients yet. The call to create and explore and play in a city that I dreamt of being in for YEARS, has finally come to fruition.
There’s freedom in knowing that I don’t need to know everything or to control everything. I can just be and hold Him accountable to being the God of provision and access and clarity. He did it with Peter, He did it with Adam, and I know He will do it for me too.
And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:19-20
