The One You Feed - Julia Cameron on Finding Your Creativity

Starting point is 00:00:00 Perfectionism is a boogeyman, and it stands between you and your creativity. Artists who have succeeded are artists who have learned to dismantle their perfectionism. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious,

Starting point is 00:00:52 consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

Starting point is 00:01:31 We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Julia Cameron, an American teacher, author, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and on and on and on. She's best known for her book, The Artist's Way. Today, Julia and Eric discuss that book, creativity in general, and her exercise of

Starting point is 00:02:06 morning pages. Hi, Julie, welcome to the show. Thank you. Good to be here. It's such a pleasure to have you on your book. The artist's way is been around a long time. I know I discovered it a long time ago, and it was really beneficial to me and I got a lot out of it. So I'm really excited to have you on and talk about it. But we'll start like we always do with the parable. There is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second. She

Starting point is 00:02:51 looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do? Well, I think that my tools are basically feeding the good wolf. I get up every morning, I write three pages of longhand morning writing, and I get my grousing and my angers and my resentments all on the page where they evaporate. my resentments, all on the page where they evaporate. So I think that I would say I feed the good wolf a couple of ways. By morning pages, by taking little adventures,

Starting point is 00:03:42 which perk up the good wolf, and walking. And I do something that I think is a little bit woo-woo, which is that I ask for guidance. I will say, LJ for little Julie. And then I'll say, yesterday I was saying, what should I do about Michelle, who is a girlfriend of mine who's been getting on my nerves? friend of mine who's been getting on my nerves. And the answer came, try forgiveness. So I tried forgiveness. I gave Michelle a little check of extra money for her help. And as I handed over the check, which was an act of generosity, the good wolf perked up and said, yes, that's it exactly. Don't have a resentment. Don't have a grudge. So I do another thing, which is again a little bit woo-woo, which is that I pray for people that I resent. And I have a woman in Los Angeles right now who's bossy And when I talk to her on the phone, I get a resentment

Starting point is 00:04:51 And so I called up another girlfriend of mine and said, I'm paralyzed by resentment What should I do? And she said, well, you need to remember that she's been a teacher for 25 years and teachers are frequently bossy. So I also sing, which cheers me up. And I send postcards to my friends and I let them know I'm thinking of you, even though we are here in COVID hell. Yeah. So all of that is a way that I think I feed the good wolf. I love it.

Starting point is 00:05:33 Those are a lot of really beautiful and practical strategies for doing that. Let's talk for a minute. So much of your work has been about what you call creative recovery. What is creative recovery? Well, I think it's a process of tracking back to our original selves. I think when we're little kids, we have enthusiasm, we have curiosity, we have energy, and we go after what we want and we grab for it. We grab with words. And I think a creative recovery is an attempt to restore us to that original self, so that when we take a risk, we feel brave instead of frightened. And a creative recovery is sort of a tracking back to the original impulse that comes up as you write your morning pages, the three pages of longhand morning writing. They dare you to take risks.

Starting point is 00:06:42 And at first you say, I can't do that. And then they nudge you again, and you say, I don't think I can do that. And then they nudge you the third and final time, and you just give in and you say, all right, I'll try it. And that's a creative recovery. I love it. So, so much of your work is about creative recovery. It's about helping people find their creative nature. And you say at one point, no matter your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.

Starting point is 00:07:24 Yes, I believe that we can all recover. I've had people who are in their 70s become novelists. And I've had people in their 50s become playwrights. And a lot of times they'll say, Julia, I'm too old. And I say, well, what age do you feel when you're creating? And when you are in the act of creation, we feel timeless. We do. And you really connect creativity to a spiritual practice. You believe creativity is a spiritual practice. And you believe that creativity is a

Starting point is 00:08:06 way of connecting to a greater and deeper reality. Absolutely. I think when you do your morning pages, it's as if you're sending a telegram to the universe, to God, the higher power, to whatever larger benevolent something you conceive. And you're saying, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. This is what I want more of. This is what I want less of. You're sending the telegram out. And what happens is that when you relax and you do something playful, you begin to get a hunch or an intuition of an answer back. It's as though the benevolent something is sending you a telegram back that says, it's all right, sweetheart. It's going to be okay.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Right. For people who, when they hear the word creator or benevolent creator or God, there may be some resistance there. You say, for many of us, thinking of it as a form of spiritual electricity has been a useful jumping off place, or as the poet Dylan Thomas called it, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, that original life energy. Yes, I think it's possible to work my artist's way tools as an atheist. I recently had an interview with a man who began the interview by saying, I just need you to know I'm an atheist. And I said, I need you to know I'm a believer. We sort of stared at each other for a beat. And then he said, I have been doing morning pages for 22 years, and I have written 13 movies in 22 years. So I kidded him a little bit.

Starting point is 00:09:56 And I said, well, you don't believe in God, but God clearly believes in you. So, all right, we can't go any further now without talking about what morning pages are. Now that you've referenced them several times, listeners are probably going, okay, hang on, what is this? So tell us about morning pages. Okay, I'm sorry if I've been racing ahead. No, no, you're just fine. You are just absolutely right where we should be.

Starting point is 00:10:24 No, you're just fine. You are just absolutely right where we should be. I'm so eager to explain this technique, which is you get up in the morning and you go to the page, eight and a half by 11, and you write three pages of longhand morning writing, stream of consciousness about absolutely anything. I forgot to call my sister back. The car has a funny knock in it. I didn't buy kitty litter. I hated what Fred said to me yesterday. You range from the petty to the profound. And it's as if you have taken a little whisk broom and you're poking it into all the corners of your life. it into all the corners of your life and you're whisking your negativity and your fears and your resentments into a little rubble pile in the center of the room where you can begin to deal with them. And I say that morning pages are a form of meditation, but there's an important difference.

Starting point is 00:11:21 With conventional medication, if you have an issue and you take it into meditation for 20 minutes, at the end of 20 minutes, you don't feel you need to do anything about it. You've meditated it away. With morning pages, if you have an issue, you take it into morning pages, and at the end of three pages, you think, oh, I goddamn well better do something about this. So they move you into action. They move you into expansion. They move you into optimism. faster than I write? Can't I do them on the computer? And I'll say speed is not what we're after. We're after depth and authenticity. And that comes through handwriting. So you handwrite three pages every day, no negotiating. And if you have nothing to say, you write, I have absolutely nothing to say. And you keep writing that and it eventually moves you into something.

Starting point is 00:12:31 Yes, I am a multiple time morning page. I don't like the word failure, but we'll use it. Morning page failure, somebody who has tried them on and off over the last 20 years and does them for a day, you know, three days a week and then sort of abandons them. What's your guidance for folks like me? Keep writing. Don't stop, idiot. I have a friend, he's actually an ex-husband, that we used to teach together. an ex-husband that we used to teach together. And I talked to him on the phone recently, and I said, are you still doing morning pages?

Starting point is 00:13:17 And he said, oh, Julia, whenever I get in trouble, I do morning pages. And I said, well, sweetheart, if you kept them up consistently, you wouldn't get in trouble. Yeah. This is why we're divorced. Well, Morning Pages has a very large and devoted number of people who are very successful in the artistic community who swear by them. So, I mean, they, they come highly recommended from a lot of really reputable sources. So I have a question for you on this show. We talk a lot about behavior change. We talk about how to create and build habits. And one of the strategies that we use is that if you say you want to exercise an hour a day and you just don't do it. That maybe you should start by trying to run

Starting point is 00:14:05 or exercise for 10 minutes a day and get that down and then move to 15 and then move to 20. What about morning pages? You're very specific about three pages of longhand notes, but have you seen people have success by saying, you know what, that feels overwhelming, so I'll start today and I'll do a page for the first week. And then the next week I'll build up and I'll build up and I'll build up. What are your thoughts on that approach for morning pages? I don't like it. I didn't think you were going to. But what I feel is that with morning pages, the first page and a half are pretty easy. And the second page and a half is more of a strain and you have to reach deeper inside to get onto the page.

Starting point is 00:14:53 You know, when you go to therapy, you have a 50-minute hour. And you go to therapy and you spend 48 minutes talking about grocery shopping and your resistance to going to the grocery store. And then in the last two minutes, you say, oh, P.S., he stole my money. And the therapist stops you and says, we've just spent 48 minutes talking about your grocery list. And now you're telling me you were robbed? So what I find with morning pages is it's the same thing. You write a page and a half, and it's pretty easy. You write a little further, and then right at the very end of morning pages, and this is the carrot for people like yourself, at the end of morning pages,

Starting point is 00:15:48 for people like yourself. At the end of morning pages, you have the breakthrough. So I say keep writing for three pages and don't write more than three pages. Because what happens, some people get very enamored of themselves. And they want to keep going and go to six pages. And I say, they want to keep going and go to six pages. And I say, no, you don't understand. If you go more than three pages, you're getting into self-obsession. And if you get into self-obsession, you're not going to get into action. And morning pages are specifically aimed at moving you out of inertia into action. Excellent. So the three pages actually allows you to get deep enough into your subconscious that good things start to happen. Deep enough, but not too deep. Yep. Well, writing more than three pages, in my case, I can assure you is not a danger. I'm always of the opinion, why use 10 words when

Starting point is 00:16:41 you could just use one? So although Chris, who has to edit this podcast, may beg to differ with that statement. There's a line you use, quoting Aaron Copland, that I just want to use that I think is so great. You say, inspiration may be a form of super consciousness or perhaps of subconsciousness. I wouldn't know, but I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness. Exactly. And that's why we don't write more than three pages. The perfect quote. You've hit the nail on the head.

Starting point is 00:17:11 And you say when people ask, why do I write morning pages? You joke to get to the other side, but you're actually not kidding. Yes, absolutely. I think it's an important thing to say that when you write morning pages, you'll hear a negative voice that says, Oh, Eric, you're repeating yourself. Or, Oh, Eric, you're boring. And it attacks you. And what we learn to do with morning pages is to write past the attack. is to write past the attack. So in effect, morning pages miniaturize your critic or your censor, and you learn to say, thank you for sharing, and to keep on going. And what happens is that you are training yourself that you are able to take risks, and you are able to step past fear.

Starting point is 00:18:07 And that becomes a portable skill. So when you work on morning pages, you are also working on being an actor, being a writer, being a painter, being an improv comic, because you are learning to step past your sensor into free performance. Right. And morning pages are not, you make a good point there, just for people who want to be writers. It is for everybody who wants to be more creative in whatever they do. Yes. Unfortunately, writers sometimes think they should sound writerly and they want their morning pages to be art. And what I say is morning pages are artless. Just scribble onto the page. I have a girlfriend who wrote a book called Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg. And Natalie says, just keep your hand moving

Starting point is 00:19:02 across the page. And I don't want you taking what I call mental cigarette breaks, where you're writing along and then you think, ah, and you pause. We want you to keep going. The point is, this is not writing in the sense that we would normally think of it as trying to be coherent or clear or anything. It is just stream of consciousness. Let whatever's in there come out, get it out in whatever form it takes. Well, I think it's important to say that you're writing down what we, in meditation circles, we call cloud thoughts. And those are thoughts that just come drifting across your consciousness and may not

Starting point is 00:19:45 be connected to anything and what happens is that when you meditate and you have cloud thoughts they just evaporate when you write morning pages you put your cloud thoughts on the page and in the same way that you can't replay a meditation, I ask you to not reread your morning pages, to trust that they are sort of a tough love friend and that they will tap you on the shoulder and say, this is important. Yeah, another thing there's no danger of me wanting to do

Starting point is 00:20:21 is go back and read my read my morning pages. There's an awful lot of that. As you've said, I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say that shows up in them. You write beautifully about attention. And I want to talk a little bit about attention because I think it's so important to life in general.

Starting point is 00:20:42 And some of your writing on it really, as I was going back through it, sort of stunned me. And you say that art is born in attention and its midwife is detail. Absolutely. I think that we have an idea, a mythology that says creativity should be grand and vague. And what I say is, no, creativity actually should be specific. So when you're thinking about your lover, you think about the curve of your lover's neck, and it gives you something specific to write about. And someone reading it can connect to that and connect to the person you're describing. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

Starting point is 00:22:04 And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Starting point is 00:22:27 Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir.

Starting point is 00:22:41 Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really.

Starting point is 00:22:50 Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You say that art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that's because pain serves to focus our attention onto details. Yes, absolutely. And I think it's important to say that creativity can spring from happiness as well as from pain. And I wanted to find and read you a little poem I wrote that sprung from pure joy.

Starting point is 00:23:34 Okay. This is a great happiness. The air is silk. There is milk in the looks that come from strangers. I could not be happier if I were bread and you could eat me Joy is dangerous It fills me with secrets Yes, kisses in my veins

Starting point is 00:23:57 The pains I take to hide myself are sheer as glass Surely this will pass The wind like kisses, the music in the soup, the group of trees laughing as I say their name. It is all Hosanna. It is all prayer. Jerusalem is walking in this world. Jerusalem is walking in this world. I wrote that when I was falling in love. Thank you for sharing that. That's a lovely poem. And I think that art that comes out of joy and happiness, I love it. It's hard to do it well. It's hard to do it well. I think that the thing with creativity for me, particularly at this juncture in my life,

Starting point is 00:24:46 is that it's its own reward. Yes. I find during the pandemic, I live alone. I have a small dog, which I could show you. I saw him or her walk in with you. Yes. And other than that, I'm alone. And other than that, I'm alone. I have two people who are COVID safe who visit me during the day. So I'm not entirely alone. But what I find is that if I'm not writing, I get lonely. And if I put the pen to the page and try and risk, even if I think I sound a little silly, then I stop feeling so lonely. Yeah. You write, one of the great misconceptions about the artistic life is that it entails great swaths of aimlessness. The truth is that a creative life involves great swaths of attention.

Starting point is 00:25:42 Attention is a way to connect and survive. And that's what you were just saying, that your writing is a way to connect and survive the loneliness. Like I said, I think your writing on attention is really beautiful. And I'll read a little bit more just based on what you said about loneliness. You say the reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain, the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream, but what is healed finally is the pain that underlies all pain, the pain that we are all, as Rilke phrases it, unutterably alone. More than anything else, attention is an active connection. I learned this the way I have learned most things, quite by accident.

Starting point is 00:26:32 Absolutely. I wrote that particular essay when I had been going through, I've been married two times. I'm 72. So I was married once in my 20s and once in my 40s. And the one in my 20s absolutely shattered my heart when it ended. And I started walking every day. And I would walk up a big hill behind my house. And I would pass a calico cat. And I would pass a parrot. I found myself connecting and feeling a sense of, again, I want to say the benevolent something that touches you as you walk. And I think that the reward for paying attention to the parrot and to the calico cat and to the salmon-colored rose coming over the slatted fence, and to the salmon-colored rose coming over the slatted fence. The reward for attention is a sense of well-being that counters loneliness. Very well said. You tell a story in that section of The Artist's Way about your grandmother.

Starting point is 00:27:37 Yes. Will you tell us a little bit about her? I think that it's a lovely little story. Well, my grandmother was named Mimi. Her real name was Hazel Isabel, but she didn't like that. So we called her Mimi. And Mimi wrote long letters to my mother. And she would say, oh, I spotted a lizard sunning on a satin rock. Oh, the ponies are underneath the cottonwoods down by the creek because it's cooler. Oh, our boxer dog likes to lie in the cactus bed.

Starting point is 00:28:10 Can you believe it? And Mimi's letters were full of details. And my grandfather, her husband, was, I want to say, a charming ne'er-do-well. He would set up a household and then he would, by his own hand, tear it down. So Mimi's life was filled with disruptions. And the way I learned from her to handle a disrupted, sad patch was to pay attention. Yeah. Yeah. You say say my grandmother knew what a painful life had taught her success or failure. The truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion always to the capacity for delight and the capacity for

Starting point is 00:28:59 delight is the gift of paying attention. Exactly. I talk a lot about attention and how important it is. Must have internalized some of that from reading you so long ago. It must be part of it because when I read it again, I was just, I was really struck by it. So let's talk about a second key component of creative recovery. Morning Pages is one foundation. The other foundation is something you call artist dates. Tell us a little bit about those. Well, in normal times, an artist date is an expedition outside of the house where you find yourself doing something that delights you. And in this case, you should be trying to please your inner eight-year-old. So you want to do something that's festive, enjoyable. I have an artist state I love,

Starting point is 00:29:48 which is going to a pet store where they have a great big bunny named George. And if you visit the pet store, you're allowed to pet George. And when you pet George, you have a wonderful sense of, oh, this is a marvelous creature and this is a marvelous world. Now, during the pandemic, when we can't leave the house or we have to leave in a very guarded fashion, artist states involve finding something delightful to do within the house. So you do something that's festive, listening to a piece of music you don't normally listen to, taking a bubble bath, sketching, listening perhaps to a podcast. I happen to know a good one. Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:39 Yeah, artist dates are harder. As I was reading the book, I was thinking, you know, yeah, it's more challenging in these times where we can't go out and do the same sort of things. My most recent sort of artist date thing has been I've decided to start trying to do wood carving, which is likely going to result in me having less fingers than I currently have. But I went to the woodworking store, which was wise because I bought this glove that I can wear. That's this very protective glove to protect against cuts. So I'm trying to make a bird. I'm not sure how well it's going to turn out, but it's something fun to do. Uh-huh. So artist dates, you've defined them perfectly, are something fun to do. And what I find when I'm teaching is if I am explaining the tools, the basic tools, artist dates, morning pages, walking, and I say to them, I have a tool. It's a nightmare. You have to get up at half an hour early And you have to go to the page

Starting point is 00:31:46 No matter how you feel People will say, oh I get it Work, work I'm going to work on my creativity And then if I say Now I have a second tool And what I want you to do is go out once a week and play For just a couple hours, just yourself, just something festive. People go play. I don't see what play has to do with creativity, even though we have an expression, the play of ideas, but we don't realize that that's a prescription, and it actually is. Talk about why this artist state,

Starting point is 00:32:27 going out and doing something fun, or festive as you put it, how does this tie back to me being more creative? Well, when you are committing creativity, you're drawing from an inner well. If you're writing, you're reaching for images. And we use images in all of our art forms. So what happens is that if you are writing flat out, it goes brilliantly and then it dries up. Julia, I was doing so well and now it's dried up. What's wrong? And the answer is you've overfished your well. You haven't restocked the images. You need to restock your creative images so that when you reach for an image, you have plenty to hook. So that's what you're doing with artist states,

Starting point is 00:33:22 is you're replenishing your inner well. And it's not very linear. It isn't like, well, I go do an artist state on X and then I write about X. What happens is you do an artist state on X and then maybe you're writing about Z, but you still have an image to fish up. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor.

Starting point is 00:34:31 We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom cruise really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian kranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight

Starting point is 00:34:56 welcome to really no really sir bless you all hello newman and you never know when howie mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, no really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:35:23 You use the analogy of the well, and you you say 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. I love that. Think mystery, not mastery. That's so important. I think that is so helpful with creativity across the board. This might be a good place to transition into is that so many people don't take up creativity because they think, I'm not any good at this thing. They're thinking mastery. They're right away thinking, I should be good at this. If I'm not right away. They're right away thinking, I should be good at

Starting point is 00:36:05 this. And if I'm not right away, then I must not be meant to do it. Let's talk about that myth. Well, there's a mythology that you're touching on right now that says that artists are born, not made, and that they are born perfectly, and that they are able to create without fear. And what I have found is that artists are often discovered late in life. People will sometimes say to me, Julia, aren't you afraid you're unblocking a lot of bad art? And I say, actually, my experience is the opposite. And I say, actually, my experience is the opposite. I find that many people who are unblocked late in life turn out to be wonderful artists. And you think, how could they have not known they were wonderful?

Starting point is 00:36:55 And that comes back to perfectionism. And one of the exercises that I have people do when I teach is, if I didn't have to do it perfectly, I'd try. You do that 10 times. If I didn't have to do it perfectly, I'd try. And what happens is that you begin to see that perfectionism is a boogeyman, and it stands between you and your creativity. man and it stands between you and your creativity. So I think that artists who have succeeded are artists who have learned to dismantle their perfectionism. When I was teaching, I said to my

Starting point is 00:37:35 fellow teachers, I was a film teacher, let's show our students our early student films. our students are early student films. And they said, Oh, Julia, we can't, they'd never respect us. So I sent off for famous directors, and said, Can we see some of your early films? And I particularly remember a film by George Lucas that was terrible. And you look at it, and you think, Oh, george why not try accounting but george had learned to step past his perfectionism that film was just a stepping stone and of course he went on to do star wars right yeah i think that's such an important point is that ability to realize that if you're going to do something creative, you're not going to do it well at first. And for me, it's even gone beyond that. It's gone into really trying to let go of the results so much as the process itself, you know, the joy of creating. I have had the experience again and again,

Starting point is 00:38:46 that's the one you describe of creativity, feeling like I'm hooking up to, I'm connecting to some bigger life flow, something more true and real. And then what actually comes out is far less important to me at that point. It's the experience that matters so much to me, at least at this point in my creative journey. Well, I'll talk about a famous director that I know well, Martin Scorsese. And when he came to the pandemic, he was immediately panicked and thought, how will I be able to go forward making films? So he started making little films on video just because, like you're saying, he was connected to the process. He was in love with the process of creativity more than the product. And the little movies that he made may never be shown anywhere, but he had the delight of making them.

Starting point is 00:39:44 Yeah. My primary creative outlet is playing the guitar. And I've just gotten to the point where I used to, anytime I would play something that I thought was interesting or good, I'd be like, I've got to capture this. I've got to get it. I've got it. And now I'm less concerned about capturing or getting it right. Or I actually would probably do better to do a little more of that. But my creative recovery had a little bit to do with always trying to make something. I want to make something. I want to capture it. I want to turn it into something. And then I want it to do something or be received in a certain way. And so I almost had to go to the opposite extreme of like,

Starting point is 00:40:20 I'm just making it to make it because it does something inside me. As you say so well, it's a spiritual practice for me. Well, and I think what you're talking about is America, that we have a conviction that something should make money. And we want to create a product that's salable. So we have a tendency to not want to go down what we perceive of as dead ends. And what a creative recovery says is try it all. It not only stands in the way of creativity in the sense of making what we would consider art, it stands in the way of doing so many things in our lives. And so you say, perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It well said. Thank you. in creative glee or any glee at all for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter. Yes, absolutely. Very well said. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:41:49 So I think a lot of us can recognize that perfectionism is getting in our way, but what are some ways of letting go of it? Well, here we go back to the basic tools again. You're writing your morning pages and your perfectionist is telling you you're boring. And you're saying to your critic, thank you for sharing. So you're moving past perfectionism on the morning pages. Artist dates are frivolous and festive. So your serious self who says, you should really be taking that computer class instead of going to visit the bunny.

Starting point is 00:42:29 Again, you're moving past your perfectionist. Walking, which is the third creative tool, is another time when you're focusing on your attention on the environment, and you're not perfecting it. You're saying, oh, look at those petunias. Oh, look at the cat in the window. And you're taking delight in what is presented to you without needing to fix it. And I think that our compulsion with fixing something till it's perfect destroys a lot of art. Yeah, I agree. So let's talk about walking. You've got a pretty specific prescription for morning pages, as you and I have discussed earlier, three longhand pages.

Starting point is 00:43:16 We talk about artist dates, doing them once a week. Talk about walking. What's the recommendation there? Well, this is where when I wrote The Artist's Way, I was 42 years old and I knew a certain amount. And what I did was I got all the way to week 12 and I said, oh, P.S., exercise is important. When I wrote later books, I said, walking is important. Try walking twice a week for 20 minutes. And then later on, I said, even better, try getting out for a daily walk. So I want to

Starting point is 00:43:53 bring up my partner. Yes, please. I'm always happy to see any dog listeners. Sorry, this was going to be an experience that, oh, hello. So this is Lily. Hi, Lily. And Lily is my walking partner. And my daughter got a puppy, and she sent me a video of the puppy, and Lily wanted to leap through the screen. So she pays close attention to all puppies and all kittens. Anything that sounds like a young thing is of interest to her. non-negotiables in my life. So we are nearing the end of our time here, but I would like to talk very briefly about something you call the secret doubt. You say perhaps the greatest barrier for any of us as we look for an expanded inner life is our own deeply held skepticism. Well, I think what we're talking about here comes back to believing in a benevolent something. I recently wrote a book on prayer, and I sent it to my British publisher, who called me up later and said, I'm a Jew and an atheist.

Starting point is 00:45:19 But I found that the book spoke to me. And I think that we have a skeptical sense that says that the higher power isn't going to be interested in little us. So one of the things that I like to do is guidance. And I recommend doing it at the end of morning pages. And I do LJ for little Julie. Can I hear guidance about? And then I listen. And I encourage my students to try this, because what they will find is that the voice of guidance is kind, intuitive, truthful, generous, supportive, and you can go back and reread the guidance and you will in fact feel those things. That's a lovely practice. I am also a fan of frequently asking whatever power may be out there for guidance. At the very least, it puts me in a receptive frame of mind.

Starting point is 00:46:28 Yes. Well, I have only done this one other time on the podcast, but I am going to make a public commitment to doing morning pages for 30 days. Oh, bravo. The first time I did this, I made a public commitment to doing a plant-based program for 30 days. And I have been vegetarian ever since. So it stuck. Like I said, I have done morning pages on again, off again, all through the years. So commitment, 30 days listeners, you are welcome to make your own

Starting point is 00:46:57 commitment to it and to pester me and see if I'm sticking to it. Julie, thank you so much for coming on. Like I said, I have been a fan of your work for a long time, and it's a real honor to have you on. Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level, and become a member

Starting point is 00:47:55 of the One You Feed community, go to oneyoufeed.net slash join. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign jason bobblehead the

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The One You Feed - Julia Cameron on Finding Your Creativity

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