This week we explore the perils that can ambush us on our creative path. Because creativity is a spiritual issue, many of the perils are spiritual perils. In the essays, tasks, and exercises of this week, we search out the toxic patterns we cling to that block our creative flow.
DANGERS OF THE TRAIL
CREATIVITY IS GOD ENERGY flowing through us, shaped by us, like light flowing through a crystal prism. When we are clear about who we are and what we are doing, the energy flows freely and we experience no strain. When we resist what that energy might show us or where it might take us, we often experience a shaky, out-of-control feeling. We want to shut down the flow and regain our sense of control. We slam on the psychic brakes.
Every creative person has myriad ways to block creativity. Each of us favors one or two ways particularly toxic to us because they block us so effectively.
For some people, food is a creativity issue. Eating sugar or fats or certain carbohydrates may leave them feeling dulled, hung over, unable to focus—blurry. They use food to block energy and change. As the shaky feeling comes over them that they are going too fast and God knows where, that they are about to fly apart, these people reach for food. A big bowl of ice cream, an evening of junk food, and their system clogs: What was I thinking? What …? Oh, never mind….
For some people alcohol is the favored block. For others, drugs. For many, work is the block of choice. Busy, busy, busy, they grab for tasks to numb themselves with. They can’t take a half hour’s walk. “What a waste of time!” Must-dos and multiple projects are drawn to them like flies to a soda can in the sun. They go, “Buzz, buzz, buzz, swat!” as they brush aside the stray thought that was the breakthrough insight.
For others, an obsession with painful love places creative choice outside their hands. Reaching for the painful thought, they become instant victims rather than feel their own considerable power. “If only he or she would just love me …”
Saying no can be the ultimate self-care.
CLAUDIA BLACK
This obsessive thought drowns out the little voice that suggests rearranging the living room, taking a pottery class, trying a new top on that story that’s stymied. The minute a creative thought raises its head, it is lopped off by the obsession, which blocks fear and prevents risk. Going out dancing? Redoing the whole play with an inner-city theme? “If only he or she would love me …” So much for West Side Story.
Sex is the great block for many. A mesmerizing, titillating hypnotic interest slides novel erotic possibilities in front of the real novel. The new sex object becomes the focus for creative approaches.
Now, note carefully that food, work, and sex are all good in themselves. It is the abuse of them that makes them creativity issues. Knowing yourself as an artist means acknowledging which of these you abuse when you want to block yourself. If creativity is like a burst of the universe’s breath through the straw that is each of us, we pinch that straw whenever we pick up one of our blocks. We shut down our flow. And we do it on purpose.
We begin to sense our real potential and the wide range of possibilities open to us. That scares us. So we all reach for blocks to slow our growth. If we are honest with ourselves, we all know which blocks are the toxic ones for us. Clue: this is the block we defend as our right.
Line up the possibilities. Which one makes you angry to even think about giving up? That explosive one is the one that has caused you the most derailment. Examine it. When asked to name our poison, most of us can. Has food sabotaged me? Has workaholism sabotaged me? Has sex or love obsession blocked my creativity?
Mix and match is a common recipe for using blocks: use one, add another, mix in a third, wear yourself out. The object of all of this blocking is to alleviate fear. We turn to our drug of choice to block our creativity whenever we experience the anxiety of our inner emptiness. It is always fear—often disguised but always there—that leads us into grabbing for a block.
Usually, we experience the choice to block as a coincidence. She happened to call … I felt hungry and there was some ice cream … He dropped by with some killer dope…. The choice to block always works in the short run and fails in the long run.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
The choice to block is a creative U-turn. We turn back on ourselves. Like water forced to a standstill, we turn stagnant. The self-honesty lurking in us all always knows when we choose against our greater good. It marks a little jot on our spiritual blackboard: “Did it again.”
It takes grace and courage to admit and surrender our blocking devices. Who wants to? Not while they are still working! Of course, long after they have stopped working, we hope against hope that this time they will work again.
Blocking is essentially an issue of faith. Rather than trust our intuition, our talent, our skill, our desire, we fear where our creator is taking us with this creativity. Rather than paint, write, dance, audition, and see where it takes us, we pick up a block. Blocked, we know who and what we are: unhappy people. Unblocked, we may be something much more threatening—happy. For most of us, happy is terrifying, unfamiliar, out of control, too risky! Is it any wonder we take temporary U-turns?
As we become aware of our blocking devices—food, busyness, alcohol, sex, other drugs—we can feel our U-turns as we make them. The blocks will no longer work effectively. Over time, we will try—perhaps slowly at first and erratically—to ride out the anxiety and see where we emerge. Anxiety is fuel. We can use it to write with, paint with, work with.
Feel: anxious!
Try: using the anxiety!
Feel: I just did it! I didn’t block! I used the anxiety and moved ahead!
Oh my God, I am excited!
WORKAHOLISM
Workaholism is an addiction, and like all addictions, it blocks creative energy. In fact, it could be argued that the desire to block the fierce flow of creative energy is an underlying reason for addiction. If people are too busy to write morning pages, or too busy to take an artist date, they are probably too busy to hear the voice of authentic creative urges. To return to the concept of a radio set, the workaholic jams the signals with self-induced static.
Only recently recognized as an addiction, workaholism still receives a great deal of support in our society. The phrase I’m working has a certain unassailable air of goodness and duty to it. The truth is, we are very often working to avoid ourselves, our spouses, our real feelings.
In creative recovery, it is far easier to get people to do the extra work of the morning pages than it is to get them to do the assigned play of an artist date. Play can make a workaholic very nervous. Fun is scary.
“If I had more time, I’d have more fun,” we like to tell ourselves, but this is seldom the truth. To test the validity of this assertion, ask yourself how much time you allot each week to fun: pure, unadulterated, nonproductive fun?
For most blocked creatives, fun is something they avoid almost as assiduously as their creativity. Why? Fun leads to creativity. It leads to rebellion. It leads to feeling our own power, and that is scary. “I may have a small problem with overwork,” we like to tell ourselves, “but I am not really a workaholic.” Try answering these questions before you are so sure:
The Workaholism Quiz
When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of men we are.
CESAR CHAVEZ
1. I work outside of office hours: seldom, often, never?
2. I cancel dates with loved ones to do more work: seldom, often, never?
3. I postpone outings until the deadline is over: seldom, often, never?
4. I take work with me on weekends: seldom, often, never?
5. I take work with me on vacations: seldom, often, never?
6. I take vacations: seldom, often, never?
7. My intimates complain I always work: seldom, often, never?
8. I try to do two things at once: seldom, often, never?
9. I allow myself free time between projects: seldom, often, never?
10. I allow myself to achieve closure on tasks: seldom, often, never?
11. I procrastinate in finishing up the last loose ends: seldom, often, never?
12. I set out to do one job and start on three more at the same time: seldom, often, never?
13. I work in the evenings during family time: seldom, often, never?
14. I allow calls to interrupt—and lengthen—my work day: seldom, often, never?
15. I prioritize my day to include an hour of creative work/play: seldom, often, never?
16. I place my creative dreams before my work: seldom, often, never?
17. I fall in with others’ plans and fill my free time with their agendas: seldom, often, never?
18. I allow myself down time to do nothing: seldom, often, never?
19. I use the word deadline to describe and rationalize my work load: seldom, often, never?
20. Going somewhere, even to dinner, with a notebook or my work numbers is something I do: seldom, often, never?
In order to recover our creativity, we must learn to see workaholism as a block instead of a building block. Work abuse creates in our artist a Cinderella Complex. We are always dreaming of the ball and always experiencing the ball and chain.
There is a difference between zestful work toward a cherished goal and workaholism. That difference lies less in the hours than it does in the emotional quality of the hours spent. There is a treadmill quality to workaholism. We depend on our addiction and we resent it. For a workaholic, work is synonymous with worth, and so we are hesitant to jettison any part of it.
In striving to clear the way for our creative flow, we must look at our work habits very clearly. We may not think we overwork until we look at the hours we put in. We may think our work is normal until we compare it with a normal forty-hour week.
One way to achieve clarity about our time expenditures is to keep a daily checklist and record of our time spent. Even an hour of creative work/play can go a long way toward offsetting the sense of workaholic desperation that keeps our dreams at bay.
Because workaholism is a process addiction (an addiction to a behavior rather than a substance), it is difficult to tell when we are indulging in it. An alcoholic gets sober by abstaining from alcohol. A workaholic gets sober by abstaining from overwork. The trick is to define overwork—and this is where we often lie to ourselves, bargaining to hold on to those abusive behaviors that still serve us.
In order to guard against rationalization, it is very useful to set a bottom line. Each person’s bottom line is different but should specifically mention those behaviors known to be off-limits. These specific behaviors make for more immediate recovery than a vague, generic resolve to do better.
If you really have no time, you need to make some room. It is more likely, however, that you have the time and are misspending it. Your time log will help you find those areas where you need to create boundaries. Boundary is another way to say bottom line.) “Bottom line, I will not ___________.” That is your boundary. See Setting a Bottom Line in this week’s list of tasks.)
As with creative U-turns, recovery from workaholism may require that we enlist the help of our friends. Tell them what you are trying to accomplish. Ask them to remind you gently when you have strayed off your self-care course. (This will backfire if you enlist the help of people who are active workaholics themselves or who are so controlling that they will overcontrol you.) Bear in mind, however, that this is your problem. No one can police you into recovery. But in some parts of the country Workaholics Anonymous meetings are springing up, and these may help you enormously.
One very simple but effective way to check your own recovery progress is to post a sign in your work area. Also post this sign wherever you will read it: one on the bathroom mirror and one on the refrigerator, one on the nightstand, one in the car…. The sign reads: WORKAHOLISM IS A BLOCK, NOT A BUILDING BLOCK.
DROUGHT
The life which is not examined is not worth living.
PLATO
In any creative life there are dry seasons. These droughts appear from nowhere and stretch to the horizon like a Death Valley vista. Life loses its sweetness; our work feels mechanical, empty, forced. We feel we have nothing to say, and we are tempted to say nothing. These are the times when the morning pages are most difficult and most valuable.
During a drought, the mere act of showing up on the page, like the act of walking through a trackless desert, requires one footfall after another to no apparent point. Doubts sidle up to us like sidewinders. “What’s the use?” they hiss. Or “What do you expect?” Droughts tell us that they will last forever—and that we will not. A haunting anticipation of our own death, approaching long before we’re ready for it, long before we’ve done anything of value, shimmers ahead of us like a ghastly mirage.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
JALAL UD-DIN RUMI
What do we do? We stumble on. How do we do that? We stay on the morning pages. This is not a rule for writers only. (The pages have nothing to do with writing, although they may facilitate it as they do all art forms.) For all creative beings, the morning pages are the lifeline—the trail we explore and the trail home to ourselves.
During a drought, the morning pages seem both painful and foolish. They feel like empty gestures—like making breakfast for the lover we know is leaving us anyhow. Hoping against hope that we will someday be creative again, we go through the motions. Our consciousness is parched. We cannot feel so much as a trickle of grace.
During a drought (during a doubt, I just accurately wrote with a slip of the finger), we are fighting with God. We have lost faith—in the Great Creator and in our creative selves. We have some bone to pick, and bones to pick are everywhere. This is the desert of the heart. Looking for a hopeful sign, all we see are the hulking remains of dreams that died along the path.
And yet we write our morning pages because we must.
During a drought, emotions are dried up. Like water, they may exist somewhere underneath, but we have no access to them. A drought is a tearless time of grief. We are between dreams. Too listless to even know our losses, we put one page after another, more from habit than hope.
And yet we write our morning pages because we must.
Droughts are terrible. Droughts hurt. Droughts are long, airless seasons of doubt that make us grow, give us compassion, and blossom as unexpectedly as the desert with sudden flowers.
Droughts end because we have kept writing our pages. They end because we have not collapsed to the floor of our despair and refused to move. We have doubted, yes, but we have stumbled on.
In a creative life, droughts are a necessity. The time in the desert brings us clarity and charity. When you are in a drought, know that it is to a purpose. And keep writing morning pages.
To write is to right things. Sooner or later—always later than we like—our pages will bring things right. A path will emerge. An insight will be a landmark that shows the way out of the wilderness. Dancer, sculptor, actor, painter, playwright, poet, performance artist, potter, artists all—the morning pages are both our wilderness and our trail.
FAME
Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.
MEISTER ECKHART
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth.
ADRIENNE RICH
Fame encourages us to believe that if it hasn’t happened yet, it won’t happen. Of course, it is fame. Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls we know that. We know—and have felt—success at the end of a good day’s work. But fame? It is addictive, and it always leaves us hungry.
Fame is a spiritual drug. It is often a by-product of our artistic work, but like nuclear waste, it can be a very dangerous by-product. Fame, the desire to attain it, the desire to hold on to it, can produce the “How am I doing?” syndrome. This question is not “Is the work going well?” This question is “How does it look to them?”
The point of the work is the work. Fame interferes with that perception. Instead of acting being about acting, it becomes about being a famous actor. Instead of writing being about writing, it becomes about being recognized, not just published.
We all like credit where credit is due. As artists, we don’t always get it. Yet, focusing on fame—on whether we are getting enough—creates a continual feeling of lack. There is never enough of the fame drug. Wanting more will always snap at our heels, discredit our accomplishments, erode our joy at another’s accomplishment.
(To test this, read any of the many fan magazines—People, for instance—and see if afterward your life somehow feels more shabby, less worthwhile. This is the fame drug at work.)
Remember, treating yourself like a precious object will make you strong. When you have been toxified by the fame drug, you need to detox by coddling yourself. What’s in order here is a great deal of gentleness and some behavior that makes you like yourself Sending postcards is a great trick. Mail one to yourself that says, “You are doing great …” It is very nice to get fan letters from ourselves.
In the long run, fan letters from ourselves—and our creative self—are what we are really after. Fame is really a shortcut for self-approval. Try approving of yourself just as you are—and spoiling yourself rotten with small kid’s pleasures.
What we are really scared of is that without fame we won’t be loved—as artists or as people. The solution to this fear is concrete, small, loving actions. We must actively, consciously, consistently, and creatively nurture our artist selves.
When the fame drug hits, go to your easel, your typewriter, your camera or clay. Pick up the tools of your work and begin to do just a little creative play.
Soon, very soon, the fame drug should start to lessen its hold. The only cure for the fame drug is creative endeavor. Only when we are being joyfully creative can we release the obsession with others and how they are doing.
COMPETITION
Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.
J. KRISHNAMURTI
You pick up a magazine—or even your alumni news—and somebody, somebody you know, has gone further, faster, toward your dream. Instead of saying, “That proves it can be done,” your fear will say, “He or she will succeed instead of me.”
Competition is another spiritual drug. When we focus on competition we poison our own well, impede our own progress. When we are ogling the accomplishments of others, we take our eye away from our own through line. We ask ourselves the wrong questions, and those wrong questions give us the wrong answers.
“Why do I have such rotten luck? Why did he get his movie/article/play out before I got mine out? Is it because of sexism?” “What’s the use? What do I have to offer?” We often ask these questions as we try to talk ourselves out of creating.
Questions like these allow us to ignore more useful questions: “Did I work on my play today? Did I make the deadline to mail it off where it needed to go? Have I done any networking on its behalf?”
These are the real questions, and focusing on them can be hard for us. No wonder it is tempting to take the first emotional drink instead. No wonder so many of us read People magazine (or the New York Times Book Review, or Lears, or Mirabella, or Esquire) and use them to wallow in a lot of unhealthy envy.
We make excuses for our avoidance, excuses focused on others. “Somebody (else) has probably said it, done it, thought it … and better…. Besides, they had connections, a rich father, they belong to a sought-after minority, they slept their way to the top …”
Competition lies at the root of much creative blockage. As artists, we must go within. We must attend to what it is our inner guidance is nudging us toward. We cannot afford to worry about what is in or out. If it is too early or late for a piece of work, its time will come again.
As artists, we cannot afford to think about who is getting ahead of us and how they don’t deserve it. The desire to be better than can choke off the simple desire to be. As artists we cannot afford this thinking. It leads us away from our own voices and choices and into a defensive game that centers outside of ourselves and our sphere of influence. It asks us to define our own creativity in terms of someone else’s.
This compare-and-contrast school of thinking may have its place for critics, but not for artists in the act of creation. Let the critics spot trends. Let reviewers concern themselves with what is in and what is not. Let us concern ourselves first and foremost with what it is within us that is struggling to be born.
When we compete with others, when we focus our creative concerns on the marketplace, we are really jostling with other artists in a creative footrace. This is the sprint mentality. Looking for the short-term win, ignoring the long-term gain, we short-circuit the possibility of a creative life led by our own lights, not the klieg lights of fashion.
Whenever you are angered about someone else beating you out, remember this: the footrace mentality is always the ego’s demand to be not just good but also first and best. It is the ego’s demand that our work be totally original—as if such a thing were possible. All work is influenced by other work. All people are influenced by other people. No man is an island and no piece of art is a continent unto itself.
When we respond to art we are responding to its resonance in terms of our own experience. We seldom see anew in the sense of finding something utterly unfamiliar. Instead, we see an old in a new light.
If the demand to be original still troubles you, remember this: each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit. It is the accurate mapping out of our own creative interests that invites the term original. We are the origin of our art, its homeland. Viewed this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves.
Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.
EDGAR DEGAS
The spirit of competition—as opposed to the spirit of creation—often urges us to quickly winnow out whatever doesn’t seem like a winning idea. This can be very dangerous. It can interfere with our ability to carry a project to term.
A competitive focus encourages snap judgments: thumbs up or thumbs down. Does this project deserve to live? (No, our ego will say if it is looking for the fail-safe, surefire project that is a winner at a glance and for good.) Many hits are sure things only in retrospect. Until we know better, we call a great many creative swans ugly ducklings. This is an indignity we offer our brainchildren as they rear their heads in our consciousness. We judge them like beauty-pageant contestants. In a glance we may cut them down. We forget that not all babies are born beautiful, and so we abort the lives of awkward or unseemly projects that may be our finest work, out best creative ugly ducklings. An act of art needs time to mature. Judged early, it may be judged incorrectly.
Never, ever, judge a fledgling piece of work too quickly. Be willing to paint or write badly while your ego yelps resistance. Your bad writing may be the syntactical breakdown necessary for a shift in your style. Your lousy painting may be pointing you in a new direction. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself. The ego hates this fact. The ego wants instant gratification and the addictive hit of an acknowledged win.
The need to win—now!—is a need to win approval from others. As an antidote, we must learn to approve of ourselves. Showing up for the work is the win that matters.
TASKS 
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.
LAO-TZU
I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.
BRENDA UELAND
1. The Deadlies: Take a piece of paper and cut seven small strips from it. On each strip write one of the following words: alcohol, drugs, sex, work, money, food, family/friends. Fold these strips of paper and place them in an envelope. We call these folded slips the dead lies. You’ll see why in a minute. Now draw one of the deadlies from the envelope and write five ways in which it has had a negative impact on your life. (If the one you choose seems difficult or inapplicable to you, consider this resistance.) You will do this seven times, each time putting back the previous slip of paper so that you are always drawing from seven possible choices. Yes, you may draw the same deadly repeatedly. Yes, this is significant. Very often, it is the last impact on the final list of an annoying “Oh no, not again” that yields a break, through denial, into clarity.
2. Touchstones: Make a quick list of things you love, happiness touchstones for you. River rocks worn smooth, willow trees, cornflowers, chicory, real Italian bread, homemade vegetable soup, the Bo Deans’ music, black beans and rice, the smell of new-mown grass, blue velvet (the cloth and the song), Aunt Minnie’s crumb pie …
Post this list where it can console you and remind you of your own personal touchstones. You may want to draw one of the items on your list—or acquire it. If you love blue velvet, get a remnant and use it as a runner on a sideboard or dresser, or tack it to the wall and mount images on it. Play a little.
3. The Awful Truth: Answer the following questions.
Tell the truth. What habit do you have that gets in the way of your creativity?
Tell the truth. What do you think might be a problem? It is.
What do you plan to do about the habit or problem?
What is your payoff in holding on to this block?
If you can’t figure out your payoff, ask a trusted friend.
Tell the truth. Which friends make you doubt yourself? (The self-doubt is yours already, but they trigger it.)
Tell the truth. Which friends believe in you and your talent? (The talent is yours, but they make you feel it.)
What is the payoff in keeping your destructive friends? If the answer is, “I like them,” the next question is, “Why?”
Which destructive habits do your destructive friends share with your destructive self?
Which constructive habits do your constructive friends share with your constructive self?
How often—even before we began—have we declared a task “impossible”? And how often have we construed a picture of ourselves as being inadequate? … A great deal depends upon the thought patterns we choose and on the persistence with which we affirm them.
PIERO FERRUCCI
4. Setting a Bottom Line: Working with your answers to the questions above, try setting a bottom line for yourself. Begin with five of your most painful behaviors. You can always add more later.
• If you notice that your evenings are typically gobbled by your boss’s extra assignments, then a rule must come into play: no work after six.
• If you wake at six and could write for an hour if you were not interrupted to look for socks and make breakfast and do ironing, the rules might be “No interrupting Mommy before 7:00 A.M.”
• If you are working too many jobs and too many hours, you may need to look at your billing. Are you pricing yourself appropriately? Do some footwork. What are others in your field receiving? Raise your prices and lower your work load.
Bottom Line
It’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
SOMERSET MAUGHAM
1. I will no longer work weekends.
2. I will no longer bring work with me on social occasions.
3. I will no longer place my work before my creative commitments. (No more canceling piano lessons or drawing class because of a sudden new deadline from my boss the workaholic.)
4. I will no longer postpone lovemaking to do latenight reading for work.
5. I will no longer accept business calls at home after six.
5. Cherishing:
1. List five small victories.
2. List three nurturing actions you took for your artist.
3. List three actions you could take to comfort your artist.
4. Make three nice promises to yourself. Keep them.
5. Do one lovely thing for yourself each day this week.
CHECK-IN 
1. How many days this week did you do your morning pages? Has reading your pages changed your writing? Are you still allowing yourself to write them freely?
2. Did you do your artist date this week? Let yourself do an extra one. What did you do? How did it feel?
3. Did you experience any synchronicity this week? What was it?
4. Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them.