The Road to Creative Recovery

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter that explores what it means to be a modern-day creative. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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I caved and started The Artist’s Way. 

Well, re-started it if we’re getting technical. 

For those unfamiliar, The Artist’s Way is a 12-week self-paced program that unblocks your inner artist and guides you toward creative recovery. I did it once before, in the fall of 2020, and it was extremely beneficial (Many of the topics I talk about here were subconsciously inspired by it). 

I wanted to go through it again last fall but never got around to it. I’ve recently been on this journey of rediscovering my creativity and realigning to my true self, so I’ve been thinking about going through it again. So when I talked to my friend Zoé last week, she suggested we do it together this summer. It was July 1, the first day of the new quarter, so naturally, I was in. 

To be honest, I was a little hesitant about doing it again because I wondered just how much I’d benefit from going through it a second time. It turns out that a part of my inner artist still needs to be unblocked. 

After going through the first week, I decided that I’m going to take you all along this journey with me. It’s completely on-brand for this newsletter and a representation of how I’m making time and space for creativity, which is what this newsletter is all about. So, for the next 12 weeks—minus my interviews (bonus points if I can tie the two together)—each issue is going to touch on a lesson I take away from each week of The Artist’s Way (I’ll be abbreviating it TAW) along with own findings about my own creative recovery as I’m working through the program. 

First up, creative recovery.

Creative recovery is the general theme of TAW. It’s the emotional turmoil we experience as we reclaim our sense of self and what we desire creatively. Most of us have squandered our own creativity by giving in to the hopes and dreams of others. As a result, we overextend and misplace our creative energy. Creative recovery allows us to excavate and bring our buried dreams to the forefront. 

It’s almost like a mourning period and withdrawal that we go through trying to reconnect with our true creative selves. We have to overcome perfectionism, fear, negativity, and self-doubt and instead allow ourselves to be vulnerable, kind, and non-judgmental toward ourselves throughout this process. 

Learning to let ourselves create again is like learning to walk. We need to move gently and slowly. It’s going to be awkward and embarrassing. We must be willing to be bad artists and have a beginner's mindset. We should aim to strive for mystery, not mastery. 

Creative recovery pits our artist brain against our logic brain. Where our logic brain fills us with self-doubt and negativity, our artist brain allows us to play. To recover, we must listen to our artist brain over our logic brain. 

Additionally, to have a relationship with our creativity, we need to cultivate it. It’s an act of self-nourishment where we’re refilling our inner creative well. 

TAW has two ways to do this:

1. Morning pages: 3 pages of stream-of-conscious writing every morning designed to rediscover the creative being inside of us and uncover insight and inner wisdom.

2. Artist dates: Time we spend nurturing our inner artists, opening ourselves up to insight, inspiration, and guidance.

Whereas morning pages send and notify the universe of your creative dreams, artist dates turn them into reality. Morning ones are what we think and think we need; artist dates offer solutions. 

Creative recovery means telling ourselves that it’s ok to be selfish regarding our creative dreams. It means reframing our negative beliefs into positive affirmations. It means allowing ourselves to participate in creative living, even if others might not understand it or become jealous because we dare to do what they wish they could. Above all else, it means healing a part of ourselves that has been suppressed for too long.

Have you ever done or are currently doing The Artist’s Way? Reply to this email and let me know!

Week 1 Findings

• Being open-minded and seeing the creative possibilities in anything. Capturing b-roll for Reels has been my latest creative challenge. I dread it. But last week, I took a different approach and filmed anything and everything I thought could be good material. It made me pay closer attention to moments that could make for good content and storytelling. It also helped me get excited about filming and develop a better attitude toward it. 

• Paying closer attention and capturing to the inspiration around me, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem. I’ve always been good about capturing inspiration online, but last week, I challenged myself to find more of it out in the wild. Doing this helps me identify my interests, tastes, and what naturally catches my eye, supporting my journey of self-realignment. We can all look for inspiration but not find it unless we allow ourselves to see it.  

CREATIVE CORNER

• 🎞️ What I’m Consuming: I watched Space Cadet on Amazon Prime. It gave me major Legally Blonde meets Second Act vibes.

• 💡 What I’m Loving: I finally put the learnings I read about in Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle in practice last week, and it was the biggest life hack in helping me feel so much better going into the weekend.

• 🎨 What I’m Working On: I’ve been on a photography kick lately, playing around with my camera and editing some of the photos in my backlog.

• 💭 Weekly Musing:

Thank you 💕

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I’m so grateful for all of your support!

Alexa Phillips is a writer, brand strategist, and multi-passionate creative. She is the founder and Chief Brand Architect at Bright Eyes Creative, a creative studio that helps coaches, creators, and consultants monetize their zone of genius and creativity through courses, content, and productized offers.

Where to find me:

• Join the waitlist for my new offer, Musing to Monetized, launching soon!

• Listen to my recent podcast episodes here