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Welcome, Friends and Fellow Crafters,

In my last post, I mentioned that I was re-reading a book called The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. (You can find it on Amazon in varying formats through my affiliate link.)

At its core, it is a book about how to allow ourselves to be more creative. It is full of quotes, assignments, and inspirational writing that take the reader step by step through what the author calls creative recovery. It requires an hour or two per day to get the full benefit, and I highly recommend it if you are interested in pursuing a more creative existence.

I went through the course a few years ago and considered doing it again. But I have some other unfinished courses and a to-do list that never seems under control. So, I have decided to let myself go through the book as a mini refresher course. I plan to read a chapter each week and then choose one small thing from each chapter to work on, contemplate, fix, or understand better about myself.

This will be week one.

Chapter one – Recovering a sense of Safety

Perhaps it sounds a bit weird to say that being creative is not safe. Or, perhaps more to the point, it doesn’t feel safe, particularly if you are hiding in your basement, gluing, painting, or cutting something that you have recently pulled out of the recycle bin.

But I can tell you when I am asked by an acquaintance, “What do you do?” My answer is never, “I am a Blogger, Crafter, Youtuber, and Creator Extraordinaire.” I generally answer sheepishly that I am a waitress, interpreting their question as, “How do you pay your bills?” A question that no one asks. Ever.

But truly the answer to “what do you do?” is,…

I Create. I Craft. I Blog, and I make YouTube videos. I spend an enormous amount of time on these four things and am immensely grateful for that opportunity.

At my best I am hopeful that some day these things will pay my bills and I work happily toward that goal. At my worst I get angry and frustrated that I am not there yet and that my progress is so slow. I question my efforts and feel extra critical of the things I create.

Even in my most confident moments, I don’t often feel safe sharing “what I do” with someone face to face. What if they ask me a question I can’t answer? What if they don’t understand what I am talking about? “You make things out of trash?” they might question while I read between the lines and assume they must be thinking, “Well that’s weird.” Or maybe they will be rendered speechless by the absurdity of my interest in trash. Worse yet, they might be completely disinterested and tune out when I mention crafting because crafting doesn’t define what you do. Right? It’s just a hobby for little old ladies, and grade school children.

One of the points of this first chapter is that we all have some negative core beliefs that hold us back. I think I might have just been ranting about one of mine in the previous paragraph 🙂 The book lists 20 common negative core beliefs and suggests that the reader add any additional items that might come up when working through some of the exercises. For my purpose here I have decided to focus on one item only.

The negative core belief is that “I will feel bad because I don’t deserve to be successful.”

Lets set aside the fact that the word successful is a loaded term. Elusive by its very nature, an ever moving target. Your inner critic spouting “OK ,so you did this thing, but you haven’t done that one“.

For this post, I want to concentrate on the part about not deserving to be successful. Logically I know this isn’t true. I believe that everyone deserves to be successful. It sounds quite foolish and self-absorbed, not to mention whiny, to say, “Oh, I don’t deserve to be successful.”

To be clear, I never say those words out loud, but I do recognize them as a deeper fear. A fear that they might be true.

I don’t know precisely where this negative belief began, grew, or took hold. Maybe its origin is in a simple Christian upbringing where we were taught to be humble, not to covet, and that the love of money was the root of all evil. My fear is reinforced by a culture that rewards (at least financially) those with right-brain skills like mathematics, science, and boardroom braggadocio.

We who sit quietly and make things with our hands are not generally newsmakers, Pulitzer prize winners, culturally approved role models, or icons of success.

But the icing on the “I am not worthy” cake has to be the daily bombardment of societal priorities. Those messages that serve mostly to reinforce the idea that we do not quite measure up (ie: deserve, in my case, success). We tune out most of it, but the messages still get through in some subtle and detrimental way. “Buy this make up and you will be prettier” (subliminal message “you are not pretty enough.”) Or “Try this new diet!” (message, if we are being kind to ourselves “you know you need to loose some weight” or in a meaner moment of self talk “You are Fat!”)

According to societies rules I don’t drive the right car, use the right shampoo, eat at the right restaurants, brush with the right toothbrush, drink the right liquor, live in the right house and most assuredly I do not keep a fore mentioned house clean enough. But it is essential to remind myself that no one single person is responsible for all of these messages that chip away at our self-esteem. They are merely constructs of our human experience. They have no real power over us. What gives the messages power is what we allow ourselves to believe about them.

So what do we do to combat all of those soul crushing messages? How do we learn to talk more kindly to ourselves? Can we actually change those core negative beliefs? One of the tools that Julia recommends to combat our negative beliefs, is positive affirmations. This of course is not her original idea and you have no doubt heard of this technique before. There is much more information and many more techniques in chapter one, but I am keeping this simple for myself. This week I will focus on one of the positive affirmations I chose from her list. I picked it because I don’t quite believe it but I want to. I think that is the point of a positive affirmation after all.

The affirmation is : “My creativity heals myself and others.”

It’s a statement that is too daring for me. Too dauntless. Too brazen. But in some serendipitous way today’s daily quote from my day planner happens to be.

“Be bold, be bold and everywhere be bold.” Edmund Spencer

And so I will work this week on telling myself. “My creativity heals myself and others.” “My creativity heals myself and others. My creativity heals myself and others.

The first part is easy to believe, and the second part, well, I am working on it.

Perhaps you are here to see how one makes a tree out of aluminum pie tins, and all this other blathering is confusing.

If so my apologies. It’s just that my little tree is imperfect and fragile just like the one who made it. I do not share these words for sympathy; I merely share them honestly and openly.

I create, and I doubt, but I keep creating.

I suspect that I am not alone.

So be bold, my friend and know that your creativity heals yourself and others.

But lets get on with the crafting shall we? Here are some picture highlights.

You can see the full tutorial in the video below.

Cheers, and Happy Upcycling,

Advertising Disclosure: Upcycle Design Lab may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.