Dealing with Your Creative Energy

Julia Cameron's Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity has been a special book for me for some time. I remember buying the book when it was first released n 1992. I was on a business trip in Washington, DC and had an hour between meetings so I visited a local bookstore. I committed myself to Cameron's 12-week course on "Discovering and Recovering Your Creative Self." It was just what I needed at the time. My morning journal began at that point and I began to accept that I was a creative human being.

This morning I re-read Chapter 10 of the Artist's Way, which deals with how we block our creative energy. Cameron says that when we are clear about who we are and where we are going, our creative energy flows freely and we experience no strain. When we resist that flow and what it might show us, we have a tendency to shut down that flow.

Creative energy is spiritual energy. It's a part of us all the time, regardless of whether we use it or not. Sometimes we ignore what our creative energy has to tell us because it asks us to be open and flow with the Universe in ways that we don't want.

How do we shut down our creative flow? Some people head for the refrigerator and gorge themselves on ice cream or another food of choice. Others grab the bottle and drink themselves into a stupor. For others, their work is how they block their creative energy. Cameron reminds us that we need both courage and grace to admit and surrender our blocking devices.

Technology makes it easy to block our creative energy. Our television, computer and yes even our cell phone can block our creative energy. And yes, we can use these things to spur our creative flow.

Life cycles around and through us. I needed to remind myself of how I sabotage my own creativity at times. Re-reading a part of the Artist's Way was just the reminder that I needed.


You might enjoy a visit to the Artist's Way website. Go here.