Fear’s inevitable. Now, what can we do about it?
Feel the Fear…and Do It Anyway!
As you know, in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (“JC”). This week is Week #8: Recovering a Sense of Strength.
In Chapter 8, JC asks us to beware of all the ways our inner turmoil can derail us from walking our creative path:
- To beware the “teacher” whose suppression of their own Inner Artist has caused them to give us poor advice, like an inaccurate or unhelpful assessment of our creative capabilities.
- To avoid being a victim of chance, the whims of the industry, and/or decisions from gatekeepers that we can’t control.
- To make sure we aren’t refusing creative opportunities that come to us because of our own self-doubt.
- To create our own creative opportunities by looking for the “other door,” when what we originally tried has failed to work for us.
For each, JC does a fantastic job of illustrating all the ways in which we can get stuck when we believe in false narratives and fall into a hole of rumination. And she describes many ways we can protect our egos by not trying:
- When we delay our creative work until retirement or another time that’s “better.”
- When we act like our creative work will completely derail our relationship/life plans, when it really won’t.
- When we allow our minds to waste time contemplating “the odds” of “making it,” as if we’re being asked to leap off a cliff, when that’s not what we need to do at all.
That’s a lot of mental pitfalls.
But, I love how JC shows us…
It’s NORMAL for Creatives to wrestle with all this inner drama.
How can we save ourselves?
We just need to focus on taking the next ”right step.”
And she gives us plenty of examples from her and other artists, to demonstrate how we can save ourselves from getting stuck in these mental traps.
Ultimately, what’s the takeaway?
Feel the Fear…then Find a Way to Do It Anyway!
I definitely recognize these mental traps in myself.
For example, for the longest time, I told myself I could not post any music because I didn’t know how to record my piano playing well.
And I didn’t have a full backing track to sing any songs.
I told myself lots of stories about this, like no one would want to listen to my singing a cappella, without any music to accompany it.
Then, one day, I decided to tell a story about an incident that happened to me when I was in middle school, when a fellow classmate criticized my singing.
Like JC said in Ch. 8, this past criticism derailed my willingness to sing again publicly.
But, as I described in the video I recorded, I learned to overcome it with a lot of healing & humor.
I posted the story with my singing, entitled [SING-ALONG STORYTIME VIDEO] How to Use Humor to Heal & Flip the Script on Limiting Beliefs, and I was so thankful when it was well-received on Substack.
It was a great lesson for me to learn: Limiting beliefs can be overcome, when we feel the fear and take action anyway.
I’ve done a few more videos like it since, that I now call my “Sing-Along Storytime” Series.
For me, this represents my taking the “next right step.”
I wonder what other “next right steps” I can take? Perhaps I can study how other people make high-quality audio recordings for their piano playing.
Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:
⭐️ Do you recognize any mental traps in your own creative journey?
⭐️ Do you have a plan to get yourself out of a creative hole?
⭐️ Is your plan too complex? Can you come up with a simpler plan to take the “next right step”?
⭐️ Have you ever challenged a Limiting Belief by taking a smaller step, like me?
⭐️ Are you in the process of finding the “other door” that you can open, right now?
⭐️ If you can’t see any “other door” at the moment, what’s a “next right step” that might lead you there?
The Feelin’-Fear-&-Doin’-It-Anyway Creative in me honors & respects the Feelin’-Fear-&-Doin’-It-Anyway Creative in each of you,
Marisa
⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️
We can find solutions, together!
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From Monday 2025–10–20:
It’s WEEK #8 of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron: Recovering a Sense of Strength.
Please share your thoughts in the Chat!
Let’s support each other so we can all grow in the direction that we choose for ourselves.
We got this! 🔮💪🙋🏻♀️🙌🔮
From Wednesday 2025–10–22:
STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT — 🤗 Let’s SUPPORT EACH OTHER with a NOTES & POSTS BOOST! 🚀
Let’s celebrate the Messy Middle with “WEDNESDAY WIPs”! Post a Note featuring a Work In Progress — to intentionally celebrate what we are in the process of creating, so we can SAVOR & CELEBRATE the Messy Middle before it’s finished!
It’s a fun way for us to see what we’ve been up to, cheer each other on, & Like/Comment/Restack, so we can all GROW!🙌
Like the Sketch I included in the CHAT. It’s a sketch that represents my willingness to listen more & enter a state of Receivership, as JC recommends in The Artist’s Way.
The Before & After Sketches I shared (above) show the MESSIEST MIDDLE for my figure drawing: HANDS!
From Friday 2025–10–24:
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