Week 1 : Recovering a Sense of Safety

This week initiates your creative recovery. You may feel both giddy and defiant, hopeful and skeptical. The readings, tasks, and exercises aim at allowing you to establish a sense of safety, which will enable you to explore your creativity with less fear.

Shadow artists.

Artists need encouragement. All too often, our families of origin will ignore or suppress our artistic inclinations. Usually with the best of intentions. Amber: an artistic and horse-minded child grows up knowing that horses are something she loves but that are impractical. She's raised to become a doctor. She continues to collect horse-themed art, contribute to local horse shows financially and sit in the bleachers watching others pursue their dream of riding because… “she is a responsible woman.”

These are some of the things we may have heard growing up.
“Stop daydreaming! You'll never amount to anything with your head int he clouds… be practical, be sensible, grow up.” The closest we come to expressing ourselves is that we, like Amber, support others in their pursuits. We become lawyers because we like words, or executive assistants to men doing the thing we're fascinated with. Instead of riding, we instead organize the tack room again and again (and again).

“We have been taught to think that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic.” -Susan Jeffers

The fix: Creativity is play, but for shadow artists, learning to allow ourselves to play is hard work.

Protecting the artist within:

The artist within is a child, and her early efforts will be like learning to walk: baby steps. The shadow artist will use the ineptitude that you exhibit to discourage continuing exploration.

Judging your early artistic efforst is artist abuse.

To begin this process, you need to relax and allow it to take as long as it takes.

“But, do you realize how old I'm likely to be, then, when I finally learn to ride?”

Just as old as you'll be if you DON'T. Time is irrelevant.

Core Negative Beliefs.

Most of the time when we're blocked it's because we feel safer that way. Fear of creativity is quite often fear of the unknown — at least we know HOW to be blocked, and how to be unhappy. If I am fully creative, what would that mean? We have an inner set of core negative beliefs that our psyche has set up to protect us from what it once experienced as a real threat. We have wonderful coping mechanisms, don't put them down! They keep us sane. But… they are buried deep, and they keep us locked up as well.

We think things like this.

“I can't be successful at what I want to be because…”

• I'll never be as good as others;
• It's not important;
• I'll embarrass myself or my family;
• I can't be responsible for what I create;
• People will dislike me or try to shoot me down;
• I'll think I'm good at it, and then discover I'm deluding myself;
• I'll never make a living at it;
• I'll never make a contribution worth making with it;
• I'll overshadow my mentor;
• I'll go crazy;
• I'll be unattractive to men (or to women);
• I'll turn out just like… fill in the blank with the name of some jerk doing your thing;
• I'll be alone;
• I don't deserve to be successful;
• I will only have one good piece of work in me, the rest will be pointless;
• It's too late, I'm too old, I'm past the point that you can start this.

None of these beliefs, or whatever yours are, is true. They are beliefs we took on from important people, or inferred from events we experienced when we were vulnerable.

What you are is scared. Core negative beliefs make sense out of fears, and they keep you scared. They attack your jugular, they go right to your core. How do you counter them? With… affirmations. Now. Isn't it interesting that affirmations seem foolish, dumb, hokey and embarrassing. But bludgeoning ourselves with negativity seems rational. Censors LOATHE anything that sounds like real self worth.

Exercise one.

1. Pick an affirmation. Perhaps, “I am a gifted and talented rider and trainer.” OR something else, something that affirms you in what you are and who you want to be.
2. Write your affirmation down ten times. You'll hear the objections blurting out of your subconscious already: You may hear something like, “Who do I think I AM calling myself a trainer!” This works, stuff will surface, and it will feel real.
3. Notice, and jot down, each objection your inner critic spews out. These “blurts” are your core negative beliefs surfacing. Make a list of these “blurts”. They hold the key to your freedom in their sticky little claws.
4. Now: Where do these beliefs come from? Usually you can trace them down, with a little conscious time travel, to some one who had a major influence on you in your life. Your mother, your father, a teacher, a trainer, an idolized friend. Time travel a little… you have made a science of negative self talk, based on beliefs inherited from your childhood experiences. “Who do you think you ARE?” Who said that? Taste it. Roll it on your tongue, figuratively speaking. Get to as early a memory as you can that feels right for the idea… identify the source of the negation. Then…
5. Invent an affirmation that specifically addresses THAT negative statement. “I not only THINK I am, I KNOW I am, a fine, successful woman, and a gifted equestrian.”

This week.

This week's tasks, DO NOT OVERTHINK THESE. Do not obsess, and do not skip.

1. Daily Morning Pages. Do not read them. Do not share them. Do not judge them. You can write laundry lists, describe stubbing your toe, write why you hate to write, write your dreams, write an imaginary letter to President Bush. It makes no difference. Just… write.
   
2. Artists Date: take yourself out for a treat that you and your inner child will love. One hour, just you, the only rule is that you start rooting out things that nurture you inside. So… notice. Am I nurtured? Am I … delighted?
3. Hall of Monsters. Jot down Three Monsters. A list of three people who, whether intentionally or not, said things to you that became negative beliefs you've held for all this time. “Fifth grade, Mary Bunce, idolized Art teacher: “You're so clue-less you can't be counted on, even when you try to do the right thing you'll screw it up!”” Be specific. Just three for now, more if you find they are surfacing like dynamited fish.
4. Time Travel: Select one horror story from your monster hall of fame, and in a very brief but concise manner, describe the details of what happened. Where were you? The way people looked at you, the way you felt, what your parents did or didn't say when you told them about it. Include whatever rankles you still, “And then I remember she rushed over to take the record off and she sort of tut-tutted at me with her posture, like I was just nothing.”
5. Write a letter to the editor in your defense. Mail it to yourself, or email, or leave it under your pillow for the tooth-fairy to read. She loves that stuff. Write it from your child self. “How was I supposed to know that the yelling and cursing didn't bother you and the weird big word at the beginning of that one song was the one you meant not to play? YOU were the adult, not me.”
6. Hall of Fame. Jot down three champions of your creative self worth. Who said something, or did something, that made you feel really good about yourself? Be specific. Even if you don't believe what they said, or it sounds hokey, every encouraging word counts — and it may well be true. Write one compliment out long hand. Put it where you can see it this week.
7. Write a thank-you letter, and a piece of encouragement. Mail it to yourself or to the mentor.
8. Imaginary Lives: if you had five other lives to lead along with this one, what would you be? What would you study or pursue? Do not over-think this — just jot down 5 alternate life paths that seem like they might be even more fun than the one you're on. Select one. Play at that, in some small or large way, once this week. Want to be a dancer? Turn on the music, let it rip.
9. Keep working with your affirmations and negative blurts — keep a record of the hall of monsters as it grows, and of the hall of champions as well. Work with each blurt individually. Turn each into a specific affirmation, and say it to yourself out loud.

As Equestrians –

We might recognize that many negative core beliefs come from other equestrians we've worked with or around, learned from or idolized in our past. They might be from family who were not horse-inclined and couldn't understand our interest in those “hay burners,” as one of my uncles liked to refer to them in my presence as a child.

But don't forget that creativity often comes in multiples. We may be drawn to horses but often we're also drawn to other artistic endeavors as well. Many equestrians double as writers, artists, actors, inventors and so on. Allow yourself freedom this week to explore the many facets that make up your creative inner child. Perhaps you are a professional equestrian who also longs to be painter but have been told by a horse-inclined family that horses are the more sensible professional pursuit and art can only ever be a hobby. The door swings both ways, make sure you explore both sides.

Feeling excited, nervous, anxious, hesitant heading into the exercises for this first week? Share where you're at in this moment in the comments. What exercises are you looking forward to and which do you want to push to the back burner? Often we strongly resist the exercises that we need the most, make a mental note of the ones that put you off and ask if there might be a deeper reason you're inclined to avoid them.