Creative Affirmations 1. I am a channel for God’s creativity, and my work comes to good. 2. My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them. 3. As I create and listen, I will be led. 4. Creativity is the creator’s will for me. 5. My creativity heals myself and others. 6. I am allowed to nurture my artist 7. Through the use of a few

Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.

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

For all shadow artists, life may be a discontented experience, filled with a sense of missed purpose and unfulfilled promise. They want to write. They want to paint. They want to act, make music, dance … but they are afraid to take themselves seriously.

CREATIVITY CONTRACT When I am teaching the Artist’s Way, I require students to make a contract with themselves, committing to the work of the course. Can you give yourself that gift? Say yes by means of some small ceremony. Buy a nice notebook for your pages; hire your babysitter ahead of time for the weekly artist dates. Read the contract on the

In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do—spiritual sit-ups like reading a dull but recommended critical text. Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery.

The artist brain cannot be reached—or triggered—effectively by words alone. The artist brain is the sensory brain: sight and sound, smell and taste, touch. These are the elements of magic, and magic is the elemental stuff of art.

As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them—to restock the trout pond, so to speak. I call this process filling the well.