Thursday, 19 March 2025

As a child I was taught this exercise by a psychologist - to hide my feelings of joy because they were a problem for others. What I took away from it? A huge amount of insecurity that I only manage to dissolve now - 30 years later.

Week 1 is all about recognizing past wounds that hinder us from living our creative identity. We get encouraged to listen to the negative believes we repeat to ourselves and to reflect on their origin and validity. Then, she offers strategies for altering our belief system to create a more supportive environment for creative growth.

Shadow Artists

In this chapter, Julia shares stories of what she calls "shadow artists"—people who become aware of their creative nature at a young age but choose a more "reasonable" path. A storyteller becomes a lawyer, a potential painter ends up a stockbroker with an impressive art collection, and a writer becomes a therapist.

It made me reflect: What was my artistic identity as a child, and how did it manifest through years of being a scientist? I know science was deeply satisfying for me because I find it inspiring. Nature is inherently aesthetic and beautiful. The elegance of mathematical and physical concepts can be breathtaking.

Creative Chemist = Chef?

When I worked as a chemist, I never wanted to leave the lab for my desk and its paperwork. It was the hands-on work with all the glassware that thrilled me—making crystals, watching color changes in flasks, carefully pouring liquids, measuring powders, heating, distilling, creating... I never got tired of it. And those are the things I miss most about my former career.

I think the idea of becoming a chef stems directly from that experience. I hardly dare say this out loud, but in my last job at a research center—where I made electrodes for lithium-ion batteries—I started a side project on my own. I changed the drying process to see how the porosity of the electrodes would change. I examined their adhesion and pore size distribution, but honestly? What really excited me were the patterns—how the electrodes formed different cracks and holes. The esthetics of that were my true motivation.

Exploration

I guess every creative process is also a process of exploration. And if I had to choose one word to describe my life, it would be exploration. How does that relate to my artistic identity? I don’t think I’ll ever settle on one discipline, one style, or one medium. I think my path is to explore the arts. Yes—that resonates.

Sometimes—actually, most of the time—I’m convinced that as humans, we are made to create. For me, creativity is the essence of being human. Any kind of progress should ultimately give us more time and energy to be ourselves. The industrial revolution was a first step, and now artificial intelligence will ease our access to knowledge and skill-building even more. I'm optimistic about the future—if we manage to survive our current crises. We’ll either go extinct due to ignorance or thrive through our creative nature.

Some time ago, I came across a theory suggesting that Homo sapiens most likely survived because of its creativity. Isn’t that encouraging?

How to step out of the shadow?

"It takes nurturing to make an artist."

"...shadow artists must learn to take themselves seriously."

And it takes opportunity to become an artist, too. I feel incredibly grateful for my current situation. Thanks to the decisions I’ve made, I now own all 24 hours of my day. Of course, it’s not sustainable—my savings are dwindling, and I’ll eventually need another job. That’s a given. But for now, I have the freedom to explore this book and my creativity. That’s truly amazing, and I’m thankful to everyone and everything that helped me reach this point.

"Creativity is play, but for shadow artists, learning to allow themselves to play is hard work."

"Your artist is a child. Find and protect that child."

"Learning to let yourself create is like learning to walk."

"Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse."

"Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist."

It’s always good to remind ourselves how essential mistakes are in the learning process. I hope I’ll be able to keep my inner critic at bay—I'm aware of its destructive power. I also hope I can be patient enough to take the baby steps this journey requires. I know myself: I like to leap and jump, and I’ve hurt myself more than once because of it. This is a reminder to myself to move with care.

Core negative beliefs:

"Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it’s because we feel safer that way."

Shocking, but true. Following Julia's instructions I wrote down the negative beliefs that hold me back from being an artist:

I can’t be a successful, prolific, creative artist because...

• It will trigger people and then I have to deal with that.
• I’m not good enough to create something valuable.
• I’m not talented or skilled and have no training.
• I don’t want to depend on emotions.
• It will isolate me.
• I don’t want my life to change.
• I’m too rational.
• I don’t want to be judged.
• I don’t want my ideas to be criticized.
• I don’t want to be laughed at.
• I don’t want my ideas to be influenced from outside.
• I started too late.
• I want to be taken seriously.
• I don’t want to be a moody person.
• I don’t want to be that kind of person.
• I don’t like being the center of attention.

"Most blocked artists carry unacknowledged either/or reasoning that stands between them and their work."

"All too often, it is audacity—not talent—that moves an artist to center stage."

My reasoning: I can either be respected or be an artist. I can either be a scientist or an artist. I can either be this Patricia or the other. I can either be down-to-earth or be an artist. I don't like audacity and don't think I could pull that of.

In order to confront and dissolve these thoughts, which are obstacles on our Artist’s path, Julia recommends working with:

Affirmations

"If we can become one-tenth as good at positive self-talk as we are at negative self-talk, we will notice an enormous change."

"Saying nice things about ourselves is notoriously hard to do."

Why is that? I think it's because society doesn’t view it as a virtue. In fact, the opposite is true—we’re expected to be humble and never boast about what we’ve done.

When I was a child, I was sent to see a therapist because the adults around me thought my joy in doing well at school — and expressing it — would harm others, as it made them feel bad about their poor grades. I was in elementary school. The teacher spoke to my parents, and my parents sent me to a therapist, from whom I learned to hide my emotions — resulting in a deep sense of self-doubt and insecurity that I have carried with me ever since. This story resurfaced while I was working through this week’s tasks, and I realized I had never truly acknowledged its potential severity. It might just be a story I’m telling myself to make sense of my lack of confidence, despite everything I have done and achieved in my life. However, unfortunately, it does sound very plausible to me.

I understand that a child must learn to consider others' feelings. But it should not be shameful to openly feel proud of who we are.

Watch your inner critic

Julia now asks us to say aloud:

• "I deserve love."
• "I deserve fair pay."
• "I am a brilliant and successful artist."
• "I have rich creative talents."
• "I am competent and confident in my creative work."

That feels... interesting. The responses it triggered in me, which Julia calls blurts, were:

• "Don’t set your expectations too high—you’ll be disappointed and hurt."
• "It’s ugly to be overly confident."
• "Don’t you dare think you’re better than others."
• "Thoughts like that are not allowed."
• "You’re not supposed to think this or enjoy it."

I’m pretty sure these blurts come from my time in elementary school—when I kept getting in trouble with a teacher for being “too” confident. It really upsets me that an adult, especially a teacher, could have such an impact on a child.

A sidenote on adult responsibility

I know humans are flawed and these things happen, but I wish we lived in a world where adults truly understood the responsibility they hold in front of a child. It makes me sick that people project their unresolved pain onto others—especially the vulnerable.

And yet, I know that even that adult was once a child who had the same thing happen to them. They were both the victim and the perpetrator. It's crucial to break that cycle. We, as adults, have to reflect on our past wounds and make sure we don’t pass them on.

This is something I deeply care about. If I could, I’d go back to that moment and take my younger self aside and say, It’s not you. It’s them. They’re just frustrated adults projecting their own suffering. It’s okay to feel joy. I’m happy for you. You’re beautiful, and you will have an amazing life.

Resolving blurts

In order to weaken the power that our blurts have over us, Julia proposes using affirmations specifically tailored to counter the blurts we have discovered. My affirmations are:

• It’s okay to dream big and trust in my resilience.
• I embody both shining confidence and kindness.
• I welcome my thoughts and feelings with pride.
• I enjoy my worth while honoring others.
• My inner world is safe, and I am free to grow.

Reflection on this weeks tasks

The exercises Julia gave us this week made me dig deep. I unearthed a wound I’ve carried since childhood. Writing letters to the people involved made me feel a bit guilty—it felt wrong to be angry or vengeful. But it also felt good to give those thoughts a voice, to put them on paper. Maybe that will help me move on. At the very least, I’ve let them out and I guess that's always a good idea.

Reflection on this weeks Artist date

For this week’s Artist Date, I did something pretty unusual (for me): I signed up for a rehearsal as a backup dancer for a comedy show that would take place at the end of the week. It wasn’t a big event at all — in fact, I was the only candidate who showed up. The choreography I learned was less than a minute long, and what can I say... the show took place last night, and it was a lot of fun! 😄 Especially not knowing anyone from the improv group or in the audience helped me stay relaxed. It also helped that it was a comedy show and they had specifically been looking for beginners — the more mistakes I made, the funnier it became. People definitely had their laughs! Afterwards, we went out dancing some more, which felt really good too. Now I wonder what I’ll come up with next. It feels like I’ve set a really high standard to begin with.

Reflection on Morning Pages

Oh sweet morning pages. The way I did my morning pages before starting to reread the book was very lax and little structured. I did them any time of the day, any length and on the computer. Now I have this Notebook and a pen in front of me and I have to say: I enjoy it a lot less. I didn't really expect that to happen, but it is as it is. Hopefully I will find a routine that will make it work out. I'm certainly not there yet.