The Artist's Way (6 page)

None
of
these
core
negatives
need
be
true.
They come to us from our parents, our religion, our culture, and our fearful friends. Each one of these beliefs reflects notions we have about what it means to be an artist.

Once we have cleared away the most sweeping cultural negatives, we may find we are still stubbornly left with core negatives we have acquired from our families, teachers, and friends. These are often more subtle—but equally undermining if not confronted. Our business here is confronting them.

Negative beliefs are exactly that: beliefs, not facts. The world was never flat, although everyone believed it was. You are not dumb, crazy, egomaniacal, grandiose, or silly just because you falsely believe yourself to be.

What
you
are
is
scared.
Core
negatives
keep
you
scared.

The bottom line is that core negatives—personal and cultural—always go for your jugular. They attack your sexuality, your lovability, your intelligence—whatever vulnerability they can latch on to.

Some core negatives beliefs and their positive alternatives are listed below.

For example, in a female artist, the artists-are-promiscuous cliché may have in its place a personal negative: “No man will ever love you if you are an artist. Artists are either celibate or gay.” This negative, picked up from a mother or teacher and unarticulated by the young artist, can constitute grounds for a powerful block.

Similarly, a young male artist may have the personal negative “Male artists are either gay or impotent.” This notion, picked up from a teacher or from reading too much about Fitzgerald and Hemingway, may again create a block. Who wants to be sexually dysfunctional?

A gay artist may have yet anther spin on the ball: “Only heterosexual art is really acceptable, so why make my art if I have to either disguise it or come out of the closet whether I want to or not?”

Stripped to their essence, our multiple negative beliefs reveal
a central negative belief: we must trade one good, beloved dream for another. In other words, if being an artist seems too good to be true to you, you will devise a price tag for it that strikes you as unpayable. Hence, you remain blocked.

Most blocked creatives carry unacknowledged either/or reasoning that stands between them and their work. To become unblocked we must recognize our either/or thinking. “I can either be romantically happy
or
an artist.” “I can either be financially successful
or
an artist.” It is possible, quite possible, to be both an artist and romantically fulfilled. It is quite possible to be an artist and financially successful.

Your block doesn't want you to see that. Its whole plan of attack is to make you irrationally afraid of some dire outcome you are too embarrassed to even mention. You know rationally that writing or painting shouldn't be put off because of your silly fear, but because it is a silly fear, you don't air it and the block stays intact. In this way, “You're a bad speller” successfully overrides all computer spelling programs. You
know
it's dumb to worry about spelling … so you don't mention it. And since you don't, it continues to block you from finding a solution. (Spelling fear is a remarkably common block.)

In the next part of this week, we will excavate your unconscious beliefs by using some logic-brain/artist-brain learning tricks. These may strike you as hokey and unproductive. Again, that's resistance. If internalized negativity is the enemy within, what follows is some very effective weaponry. Try it before discarding it out of hand.

As blocked creatives, we often sit on the sidelines critiquing those in the game. “He's not so talented,” we may say of a currently hot artist. And we may be right about that. All too often, it is audacity and not talent that moves an artist to center stage. As blocked creatives, we tend to regard these bogus spotlight grabbers with animosity. We may be able to defer to true genius, but if it's merely a genius for self-promotion we're witnessing, our resentment runs high. This is not just jealousy.

It is a stalling technique that reinforces our staying stuck. We make speeches to ourselves and other willing victims: “I could do that better, if only …”

You could do it better if only you would let yourself do it!

Affirmations will help you allow yourself to do it. An affirmation is a positive statement of (positive) belief, and 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.

Affirmations
help
achieve
a
sense
of
safety
and
hope.
When we first start working with affirmations, they may feel dumb. Hokey. Embarrassing. Isn't this interesting? We can easily, and without embarrassment, bludgeon ourselves with negative affirmations: “I'm not gifted enough/not clever enough/not original enough/not young enough …” But saying nice things about ourselves is notoriously hard to do. It feels pretty awful at first. Try these and see if they don't sound hopelessly syrupy: “I deserve love.” “I deserve fair pay.” “I deserve a rewarding creative life.” “I am a brilliant and successful artist.” “I have rich creative talents.” “I am competent and confident in my creative work.”

Did your Censor perk its nasty little ears up? Censors loathe anything that sounds like real self-worth. They immediately start up with the imposter routine: “Who do you think you are?” It's as though our entire collective unconscious sat up late nights watching Walt Disney's
One
Hundred
and
One
Dalmatians
and practicing Cruella DeVille's delivery for scathing indictments.

Just try picking an affirmation. For example “I, _________ (your name), am a brilliant and prolific potter [painter, poet, or whatever you are].” Write that ten times in a row. While you are busy doing that, something very interesting will happen. Your Censor will start to object. “Hey, wait a minute. You can't say all that positive stuff around me.” Objections will start to pop up like burnt toast. These are your
blurts.

Listen to the objections. Look at the ugly, stumpy little blurts. “Brilliant and prolific … sure you are…. Since when? … Can't spell…. You call writer's block prolific? … You're just kidding yourself … an idiot … grandiose….
Who are you kidding? … Who do you think you are?” and so on.

You will be amazed at the rotten things your subconscious will blurt out. Write them down. These blurts flag your personal negative core beliefs. They hold the key to your freedom in their ugly little claws. Make a list of your personal blurts.

It's time to do a little detective work. Where do your blurts come from? Mom? Dad? Teachers? Using your list of blurts, scan your past for possible sources. At least some of them will spring violently to mind. One effective way to locate the sources is to time-travel. Break your life into five-year increments, and list by name your major influences in each time block.

Paul had
always
wanted to be a writer. And yet, after a brief flurry of college creativity, he stopped showing his writing to anyone. Instead of the short stories he dreamed of, he kept journal after journal, each following the last into a dark drawer far from prying eyes. Why he did this was a mystery to him until he tried working with affirmations and blurts.

When Paul began writing his affirmations, he was immediately shaken by an almost volcanic blast of disparagement.

He wrote, “I, Paul, am a brilliant and prolific writer.” From deep in his unconscious there erupted a spewing torrent of self-abuse and self-doubt. It was numbingly specific and somehow
familiar:
“You're just kidding yourself, a fool, no real talent, a pretender, a dilettante, a joke …”

Where did this core belief come from? Who could have said this to him? When? Paul went time-traveling to look for the villain. He located him with great embarrassment. Yes, there was a villain, and an incident he had been too ashamed to share and air. A malevolent early teacher had first praised his work and then set about a sexual seduction. Fearful that he had somehow invited the man's attention, ashamed lest the work really be rotten too, Paul buried the incident in his unconscious, where it festered. No wonder secondary motives were always a fear when someone praised him. No surprise he felt that someone could praise work and not mean it.

Boiled down to its essentials, Paul's core negative belief
was that he was only kidding himself that he could write. This belief had dominated his thinking for a decade. Whenever people complimented him on his work, he was deeply suspicious of them and their motives. He had all but dropped friends once they had expressed interest in his talents; he had certainly stopped trusting them. When his girlfriend, Mimi, expressed interest in his talents, he even stopped trusting her.

Once Paul brought this monster up from the depths, he could begin to work with it. “I, Paul, have a real talent. I, Paul, trust and enjoy positive feedback. I, Paul, have a real talent….” Although such positive affirmations felt very uncomfortable at first, they rapidly allowed Paul the freedom to participate in the first public reading of his work. When he was widely praised, he was able to accept the good response without discounting it.

Turn now to your own list of blurts. They are very important to your recovery. Each of them has held you in bondage. Each of them must be dissolved. For example, a blurt that runs, “I, Fred, am untalented and phony” might be converted to the affirmation “I, Fred, am genuinely talented.”

Use your affirmations after your morning pages.

Also use any of the creative affirmations listed.

TASKS