The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

[Papa Coco]

I've read and/or listened to The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron a few times now. It's kind of a sleeper. At first glance it seems a bit fluffy or silly, but the more often I listen and re-listen to it on audio books, the more incredible wisdom I hear in Julia's writing. Chapter Two, for example, is all about who took our creativity away from us. She calls them "Crazy Makers". Her in depth description of how these crazy makers took away our creative juices is a one-to-one description of a narcissistic parent, friend, relative, or sibling. Each time I listen to her describe the ways the crazy-makers in my life (My narcistic friends and siblings), convinced me that I don't have the right to be creative, the more I find myself laughing at how right she is. She has it down.  It's like, "OMG! That is EXACTLY what my evil sister used to do to me!" I laugh, not out of comedy, but out of obviousness of how right she is.

This book has opened me up to accepting that I was indeed born with creativity but was raised in the lies that made me ashamed of it. By the time I'd grown to be a man who could make my own life's choices, I had lost all ability to know what my original wiring was created for. I wanted to be everything and nothing. I wanted to be a singer, writer, painter, musician, architect, and more, but at the same time had been taught to KNOW that I am nothing but a servant to my narcissistic friends and family members.

When I first listened to the audio book, I spent the first half hour thinking it was dumb. But soon enough, Julia hit some nerves and I became enthralled with her wisdom and her explanations of, not only how my creativity was taken from me, but of some ways I can begin to find it again. It's there. We all have it. I believe now, that part of the emptiness, loneliness, hollowness, that we with CPTSD live with, is driven by that little part deep down inside us that knows we have a creative spark still alive in us that would make us feel amazing if we'd just use it, while the rest of our inner parts are too afraid to accept that, so they are fighting to keep that part from becoming known. Our inner parts have assumed the roles of our original bad parents and siblings and have become the protectors who are trying to protect us from being humiliated again by the world that originally beat the creativity out of us.

I recommend this book for anyone who is really struggling to believe that you have a purpose but can't seem to find that purpose.

Our creativity is not gone. It's still there. At this point, the flames are cooled, but the spark is still there awaiting a day when we might give it permission, and oxygen, and fuel to reignite and bring us the joy that we know is there for us. It's there.

I entered into this book with a lot of cynical opinions that it was just a fluff book. I am now finding that it brings a flicker of hope that I just might be able, one day, to loosen my own bindings that keep me from experiencing the otherworldly joy that a person finds when we become who we were originally born to be...before narcissists and crazy-makers tricked us into abandoning just to feed their own jealous hatred of seeing others happy.