I listened to this book and once again, it wasn’t the correct format for absorbing it. The book gives a little intro on things to do which works well enough in the audio format, but then it goes into a 12 week program where you are supposed to follow specific tasks and answer questions each week. By listening to it in my driving time, I was not able to truly utilize the book as it was meant to be used.
The main theme of the book is to help unlock your creativity mostly by healing your wounded inner artist. The main three methods are the Morning Pages, Artist Dates, and looking for Synchronicity.
The morning pages are journaling. The author prescribes 3 pages a day every morning. I believe in journaling every day, but I think her prescription is a little too strict. I personally prefer to do them at night and I think the page count should be very flexible. Having said that, she did at some point mention that you might find a breakpoint in your journal where you have real breakthroughs and that might be around 1.5 pages. Basically, you can fill a page or two every day with random stuff, but if you force yourself to do three pages, something real will eventually start to come through. Maybe? I honestly don’t know, but it’s interesting and I’ll have to try pushing my journal sometime.
The Artist Date is also an interesting concept. The concept is to take your inner creative child to do something fun, just you and your inner child. Nobody else is allowed to join in. For me, this concept resonates more as a little bit of quiet time where all work and social pressures are set aside and you can just enjoy. She recommends one artist date a week, which can be tough to accomplish if you think big, but it really doesn’t have to be big, just something your inner child would enjoy.
The final of the main points it to look for Synchronicity. This concept is where the book gets a bit airy fairy. I do think there’s something to be said about finding the things you’re looking for. We miss opportunities all the time because we don’t realize we’re looking for them, but once our mind is on it, we notice those opportunities. The author seems to believe those coincidences are basically the work of God. She leans quite a bit into God in her book and I’m not totally a fan even with a disclaimer about it in the opening.
There are plenty of details and tasks to do during the 12 week course. I did not do them, so I didn’t get the full benefit of the book. Would they work? Maybe in some ways. I don’t think there was anything outright bad and a lot of things would be worth a shot if I was a blocked artist (I am).
I can’t say I totally resonated with the book, but I wouldn’t mind buying a paper copy and going through the book again to follow the course to some degree. It would be interesting to test it on myself, but I don’t know that I’m motivated enough to ever try.