Week 02 ยท Welcome
Recovering Identity
You've finished the first week. Even if you didn't do everything, you've already taken the most important step: starting. This second week we go one layer deeper. We're going to explore who you really are โ beyond the roles you've played to fit in, please others or survive.
If Week 1 was about safety, Week 2 is about identity. About remembering tastes, dreams and ways of being that you abandoned along the way. Cameron warns: "a lost self can be found again."
"It is in the act of paying attention that we begin to encounter ourselves."
โ Julia CameronWhat did you lose to fit in?
All of us, growing up, learn to fit in. We give up parts of ourselves to be loved, to be accepted, to belong. The price is often invisible: we lose contact with what really lit us up.
Perhaps you stopped singing because someone laughed. Perhaps you stopped writing because no one read what you wrote. Perhaps you chose a career that wasn't yours because it was "the sensible thing". Whatever it was, it's still inside you waiting.
The "crazymakers" in your life
Cameron uses this striking term to describe people who, even unintentionally, sabotage our creativity. The friend who always needs an emergency. The partner who criticises every decision. The boss who creates chaos so that we depend on them.
Crazymakers aren't always toxic people โ they may even love you. But around them you lose your centre. This week we identify who they are and how to protect ourselves without confrontation.
Signs you're surrounded by a crazymaker
They create constant emergencies
Their drama always becomes your priority. Their crises eat your time.
They make you doubt yourself
After being with them, you feel less clear, less capable, less yourself.
They drain your energy
It's not what they do โ it's what their presence consumes.
They appear when you're creating
Curiously, they need you most when you're about to focus on your own art.
Essential practicesThis week, the foundation continues
This week the practices stay the same: three morning pages every day and one Artist Date. Don't add anything. Don't skip anything. Trust the rhythm.
Week 02 ยท Inner work
This week's exercises
Exercise 1 โ The list of those you were
Write a list of 5 or 10 "identities" you've had through your life. Not professions โ ways of being.
For example: "the silent child", "the responsible teenager", "the over-functioning adult", "the romantic dreamer", "the cynic who pretends not to care".
Next to each, ask yourself: what did that version of me create? What did they read? What did they listen to? What's still alive in me from that?
Exercise 2 โ Tastes you've forgotten
Make a list of 20 things you used to love and you've stopped doing. Don't think it through. Write fast.
Examples: bike rides at sunset, browsing record shops, eating ice cream alone in the park, drawing in the margins of notebooks.
Then choose 3 and do them this week. Without justification, without explanation.
Exercise 3 โ Your crazymakers
Make an honest list of the people who block your creativity in your current life. Not to confront them โ to see them.
For each one, ask yourself: what specifically do they do? When did this pattern start? How does my body feel after being with them?
Then ask yourself the difficult question: what part of me allows this to happen?
Affirmations
Choose 3 of these affirmations and write them every morning after your Morning Pages.
"I have the right to be who I really am."
"My creativity grows when I take care of my limits."
"I can protect my energy without explaining."
"I trust the rhythm of my creative process."