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In reading chapter 5 in The Artist’s Way, Recovering A Sense of Possibility, she speaks of being self-destructive, and yet she isn’t talking about what we usually think of self-destructive behavior.

 

We usually think of drugs, alcohol, abusive type behaviors, but never just being nice or being good.

 

That is the self-destructive behavior that I struggle against. 

 

Julia Cameron writes.

 

“A young father with a serious interest in photography, years for a place in the home to pursue his interest. The installation of a modest darkroom would require dipping into savings and deferring the purchase of a new couch. The darkroom doesn’t get set up but the new couch does.”

 

“Many recovering creatives sabotage themselves most frequently by being nice. There is a tremendous cost to such ersatz virtue.”

 

“Many of us have made a virtue out of deprivation. We have embraced a long-suffering artistic anorexia as a martyr’s cross.  We have used it to feed a false sense of spirituality grounded in being good, meaning superior.”

 

“ I call this seductive, faux spirituality the Virtue Trap. Spirituality has often been misused as a route to an unloving solitude, a stance where we proclaim ourselves above our human nature.  This spiritual superiority is really only one more form of denial. For an artist, virtue can be deadly. The urge toward respectability and maturity can be stultifying, even fatal.”

 

“ We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish. We want to be generous, of service, of the world. But what we really want is to be left alone.  When we can’t get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves. To others, we may look like we’re here. We may act like we’re there. But our true self has gone to ground.”

 

“What’s left is the shell of our whole self. It stays because it is caught.  Like a listless circus animal prodded into performing, it does tricks. It goes through the routine.  It earns its applause.  But all of the hoopla falls on deaf ears. We are dead to it. Our artist is not merely out of sorts.  Our artist has checked out. Our life is now an out of body experience. We’ve gone. A clinician might call it disassociating. I call it leaving the scene of the crime.”

 

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” we wheedle, but our creative self no longer trusts us. Why should it?  We sold it out.”

 

“Afraid to appear selfish, we lose our self. We become self-destructive.  Because this self-murder is something we seek passively rather than consciously act out, we are often blind to its poisonous grip on us.”

 

“The question “are you self-destructive?” is asked so frequently that we seldom hear it accurately.  What it means is Are you destructive of your self? And what that really ask us is Are you destructive of your true nature?”     Julia

 

What I had known was that I left myself behind to take care of and be responsible for others, leaving my needs alone on an island far far from my awareness and I called this being a good girl.

 

I would not have called this behavior as being self destructive, but I had the experience of waking up at 46 shocked that I was no where to be found.

 

Now, 6 years later I am much more conscious of a self, my self, and in the past few years begun taking care of her in ways that I had never done before.

 

I am learning to let go of the responsibility and care for others or at least balance it out between self care and other care.

 

I am not completely there, but now have an eye on me.

 

The Artist’s Way is to bring more attention to this self, to bring her right up in front and out in the open, to display her and showcase her in your life and be the main Feature and not the sideshow.

 

It is wildly exciting and intimidating and it feels strange to dive into thoughts, ideas, dreams and experiences that have been long forgotten…and a part of me wonders and doubts, while another part feels the forbidden fruits I am reaching for.

 

Dare I reach and grab onto things that only I want?

Dare I consider only my self?

 

I can feel the long forgotten parts of me ready to awaken, but unsure if they should trust? 

 

Like a see saw between coming alive and staying comfortably dead…my spirit hangs in the balance.

 

What seems to be shocking even to me is that I was able to stand by my self through out the revelation of my father’s abuse and the aftermath, that I was able to find a strong voice and a steady stance… but doing frivolously artful living seems like a luxury.

 

Finding a self in the sea of abuse and taking care of my self as I unraveled seems like an honorable thing, but to just do fun things, artful things, things that make me come alive and tickle me, seems so careless or playful.

 

And sadly being care less or play full is not what I know how to do.

 

I don’t know how to play.

 

I don’t know how to do frivolous things.

 

Imagine I need to learn how to play.

 

My self doesn’t know play.

 

My self isn’t a natural player.

 

I will have to cultivate the Art of Play.