Lucky, Safe, Rediscovering and Growing!

So, in addition to my wild and wacky job of being a children's performer and show manager here in St Louis this summer, I am also endeavoring to undertake some "self-improvement/personal growth" sort of initiatives. Obviously, this experience alone, of living and working with the same people in a new and unfamilar place far from home, will be a learning experience in and of itself. And of course, I am trying to learn as much as I can from this experience... I find myself constantly evaluating my responses/reactions to various situations, attempting to practice calmness and find balance at every possible turn, and simply be the very best person that I can be.

This all may sound kind of cheesy to some of you, but that's fine with me. It might also sound kind of obvious to some. But I find that the key to growth is awareness, and there's so very much going on around me at work, at "home" and inside of my own head and heart these days, I really need to work at being aware of every little thing.

I have also decided to undertake the 12 week, self-guided "Artist's Way" program (for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about here, "The Artist's Way" is a book by Julia Cameron that walks you through a 12 week program designed to help you discover/rediscover your creative self.) I must give full credit for this inspiration to my lovely little companion, Special K, who just finished the 12 week program and brought the book to St Louis and is letting me use it too. I actually own my own copy of The Artist's Way, and have endeavored to start this program a few times in the past. But this time, I think I am really going to stick with it! The foundation of the program is "the morning pages" (three free-for-all write-without-stopping pages of writing that you are supposed to do every morning), a weekly "artist date" (where you take yourself / your inner artist on an outing, whether it's to sit in a cafe and write, see a play, look at an art exhibit or go for a walk taking pictures, etc) and then the weekly writing/reflection tasks set out by the book.

I have just finished Week One: Rediscovering a Sense of Safety which is all about starting to feel safe enough to be creative again. Two of the tasks for this week were to "time travel" and go through your entire life in 5 year chunks of time and identify both the "enemies" and the "champions" of your creative self-worth. So I went through my life in five year chunks a few days ago and did the "enemy" inventory, which was, as I expected, somewhat painful. Because I realised actually that I really couldn't identify many "enemies of my creative self-worth" at all until I got to the '15-20' age range of my life... And even then, the only "enemies" that I could identify were mostly things like "the consuming nature of my family's problems..."

In a way though, this 'enemy' exercise was also totally liberating, because I felt that if all I have to contend with in terms of healing my sense of safety in being creative is a measly five years worth of shitty life experiences, I can totally handle that!

What was surprisingly more upsetting was the exercise I did this morning of 'time travelling' in five year chunks and identifying "the champions" of my creative self-worth... As I did this and found myself writing and writing for pages, tears kept welling up in my eyes as I recalled the early support and encouragement of my mother who registered me in every dance, gymnastics and art class available... And my grandmother who encouraged me with her smiles and applause as I staged one-woman shows for her and my grandfather in their living room, and sang concerts for her from atop a step ladder I would place in her kitchen as she prepared dinner... Even though these are all really happy and lovely and fond memories, they are just that: memories. And they inevitably come with a deep sense of loss because not only are those days long gone, so are those women.

But I was a lucky girl. I still very much am. I found myself thinking this morning about how fortunate I am to have been so consistently loved, supported and encouraged throughout my life so far... by inspiring mentors, teachers, directors and amazingly supportive and loving and encouraging friends, family and 'romantic partners'...

Yup, I'm a lucky and thankful girl. Very.

Love to all of you,
XOXOXOX!