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Perfectionism Doesn't Believe In Practice Shots. It Doesn't Believe In Improvement. Perfectionism Has Never Heard That Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly--and That If We Allow Ourselves To Do Something Badly We Might In Time Become Quite Good At It. Perfectionism Measures Our Beginner's Work Against The Finished Work Of Masters. Perfectionism Thrives On Comparison And Competition. It Doesn't Know How To Say, "good Try," Or "job Well Done." The Critic Does Not Believe In Creative Glee--or Any Glee At All, For That Matter. No, Perfectionism Is A Serious Matter.

-Julia Cameron

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Perfectionism Doesn't Believe In

Julia Cameron

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Perfectionism Doesn't Believe In Practice Shots. It Doesn't Believe In Improvement. Perfectionism Has Never Heard That Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly--and That If We Allow Ourselves To Do Something Badly We Might In Time Become Quite Good At It. Perfectionism Measures Our Beginner's Work Against The Finished Work Of Masters. Perfectionism Thrives On Comparison And Competition. It Doesn't Know How To Say, "good Try," Or "job Well Done." The Critic Does Not Believe In Creative Glee--or Any Glee At All, For That Matter. No, Perfectionism Is A Serious Matter.

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Perfectionism Doesn't Believe In Practice Shots. It Doesn't Believe In Improvement. Perfectionism Has Never Heard That Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly--and That If We Allow Ourselves To Do Something Badly We Might In Time Become Quite Good At It. Perfectionism Measures Our Beginner's Work Against The Finished Work Of Masters. Perfectionism Thrives On Comparison And Competition. It Doesn't Know How To Say, "good Try," Or "job Well Done." The Critic Does Not Believe In Creative Glee--or Any Glee At All, For That Matter. No, Perfectionism Is A Serious Matter.

Writing Is Medicine. It Is An Appropriate Antidote To Injury. It Is An Appropriate Companion For Any Difficult Change.

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Creativity Is A Fact Of Your Spiritual Body

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When We Stop Playing God, God Can Play Through Us.

Anger Is Meant To Be Acted On. It Is Not Meant To Be Acted Out. Anger Points The Direction. We Are Meant To Use Anger As Fuel To Take The Actions We Need To Move Where Our Anger Points Us. With A Little Thought, We Can Usually Translate The Message That Our Anger Is Sending Us.

Art Is An Act Of The Soul, Not The Intellect. When We Are Dealing With People's Dreams - Their Visions, Really - We Are In The Realm Of The Sacred. We Are Involved With Forces And Energies Larger Than Our Own. We Are Engaged In A Sacred Transaction Of Which We Know Only A Little: The Shadow, Not The Shape.

Mystery Is At The Heart Of Creativity. As Creative Channels, We Need To Trust The Darkness.

I Believe That The Dark Night Of The Soul Is A Common Spiritual Experience. I Believe, Too, That The Answer Is Continued Seeking And Perseverance. It Helps To Know That Others Have Endured A Loss Of Faith.

All Change Can Be Expansive In Potential. The Choice Is Ours.

Wherever You Are Is Always The Right Place. There Is Never A Need To Fix Anything, To Hitch Up The Bootstraps Of The Soul And Start At Some Higher Place. Start Right Where You Are.

My Will For You Is Not Harsh Or Unpleasant. It Is Gentle And Perfectly Tailored To Your Unique Needs. Do Not Fear My Direction. I Am Your Heart's Happiest Guide.

The Creator Made Us Creative. Our Creativity Is Our Gift From God. Our Use Of It Is Our Gift To God. Accepting This Bargain Is The Beginning Of True Self-acceptance.

People Frequently Believe The Creative Life Is Grounded In Fantasy. The More Difficult Truth Is That Creativity Is Grounded In Reality, In The Particular, The Focused, The Well Observed Or Specifically Imagined.

Growth Is An Erratic Forward Movement: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back. Remember That And Be Very Gentle With Yourself.

The Artist's Way Is A Spiritual Journey, A Pilrimage Home To The Self.

Writing Is An Act Of Cherishing... It Is An Act Of Love.

Because If You're Trying To Write And You Have Unlimited Time, You Can Procrastinate An Unlimited Account, But If You Have Limited Time, You Rush To The Page Trying To Get Something Down In The Little Bit Of Fragment Of Time That You Have, And You May Write A Great Deal That Way.

You Need To Create Pathways In Your Consciousness Through Which The Creative Forces Operate.

Spirituality Can Release Blocks, Lead You To Ideas, And Make Your Life Artful. Sometimes When We Pray For Guidance, We're Guided In Unexpected Directions. We May Want A Lofty Answer And We Get The Intuition To Clean Our Bedroom. It Can Seem So Humble And Picky And That You Don't Necessarily Think Of It Spiritual Guidance.

Pivotal To A Happy Writing Life Is A Practice Of Daily Personal Writing.

In Order To Create, We Draw From Our Inner Well. This Inner Well, An Artistic Reservoir, Is Ideally Like A Well Stocked Fish Pond... If We Don't Give Some Attention To Upkeep, Our Well Is Apt To Become Depleted, Stagnant, Or Blocked... As Artists, We Must Learn To Be Self Nourishing. We Must Become Alert Enough To Consciously Replenish Our Creative Resources As We Draw On Them - To Re-stock The Trout Pond, So To Speak.

When We Let God Be God And Work Through Us, We Experience Both A Sense Of Serenity And Excitement.

I Am What I Am Again: A Writer. I Have Metabolized The Injury Into Art.

When I Listen To Love, I Am Listening To My True Nature. When I Express Love, I Am Expressing My True Nature. All Of Us Love. All Of Us Do It More And More Perfectly. The Past Has Brought Us Both Ashes And Diamonds. In The Present We Find The Flowers Of What We've Planted And The Seeds Of What We Are Becoming. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In My Heart. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In The Hearts Of Others.

It Is My Experience Both As An Artist And As A Teacher That When We Move Out On Faith Into The Act Of Creation, The Universe Is Able To Advance. It Is A Little Like Opening The Gate At The Top Of A Field Irrigation System. Once We Remove The Blocks, The Flow Moves In.

Taking The Time To Write In Our Lives Gives Us The Time Of Our Lives. As We Describe Our Environments, We Begin To Savor Them. Even The Most Rushed And Pell-mell Life Begins To Take On The Patina Of Being Cherished.

My Heart Holds The World In Tender Awe.

We Are Not Accustomed To Thinking That God's Will For Us And Our Own Inner Dreams Can Coincide.

I Ask To Be Made Beautiful Like The Trees Are Beautiful, Each Growing According To A Unique Plan. Lop Off A Limb And And The Tree Will Accommodate It's Loss, Still Growing And Still Beautiful. It Is My Hope To Be Able To Flourish In A Similar Fashion, Taking On The Shape And Dimensions That Is Intended For Me.

When Writing Becomes Too Dominant, It Gets Leached Of Its Own Power. We Spend More And More Time Writing And We Have Less And Less To Write About.

Creativity Is God's Gift To Us. Using Our Creativity Is Our Gift Back To God.

The Opposite Of Prosperity Is Not Poverty. It Is Anxiety.

It Is Not The Act Of Making Art That Is Painful. It Is The Desire To Make Something And Not Acting On It That Causes Pain....a Day When I Don't Write Is Less Happy. This Is Not Discipline. It Is Affection, Enthusiasm, Adventure-any Number Of Other Words Besides Discipline.

A Sketch Book Freezes Time. It Is An Instantaneous Form Of Meditation Focusing Us On The Worth Of Every Passing Moment.

Passing Moments

Writing-and This Is The Big Secret-wants To Be Written. Writing Loves A Writer The Way God Loves A True Devotee. Writing Will Fill Your Heart If You Let It. It Will Fill Your Pages And Help To Fill Your Life.

When We Walk, The Two Halves Of Our Brains Converse.

Art Is A Spiritual Practice. We May Not, And Need Not, Do It Perfectly.

What We Focus On, We Empower And Enlarge. Good Multiplies When Focused Upon. Negativity Multiplies When Focused Upon. The Choice Is Ours: Which Do We Want More Of?

As Artists, We Belong To An Ancient And Holy Tribe. We Are The Carriers Of The Truth That Spirit Moves Through Us All. When We Deal With One Another, We Are Dealing Not Merely With Our Own Human Personalities But Also With The Unseen But Ever-present Throng Of Ideas, Visions, Stories, Poems, Songs, Sculptures, Art-as-facts That Crowd The Temple Of Consciousness Waiting Their Turn To Be Born.

Making Art Is A Rite Of Initiation. People Change Their Souls.

Pray To Catch The Bus, Then Run As Fast As You Can.

You Are Either Losing Your Mind -- Or Gaining Your Soul.

Clock Is Ticking

In Recovering From Our Creative Blocks, It Is Necessary To Go Gently And Slowly... These Are Baby Steps. Progress, Not Perfection, Is What We Should Be Asking Of Ourselves.

Progress Not Perfection

Selecting A Challenge And Meeting It Creates A Sense Of Self-empowerment That Becomes The Ground For Further Successful Challenges.

Creativity Is Always A Leap Of Faith. You're Faced With A Blank Page, Blank Easel, Or An Empty Stage.

Creativity Is The Life Force That Dylan Thomas Called 'the Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower.

Practice Being Kind To Yourself In Small, Concrete Ways. Look At Your Refrigerator. Are You Feeding Yourself Nicely? Do You Have Socdks? An Extra Set Of Sheets? What About A New House Plant? A Thermos For The Long Drive To Work? Allow Yourself To Pitch Out Some Of Your Ragged Clothes. You Don't Have To Keep Everything.

When We Open Ourselves To Exploring Our Creativity, We Open Ourselves To God: Good, Orderly Direction.

We Are Ourselves Creations. We Are Meant To Continue Creativity By Being Creative Ourselves. This Is The God-force Extending Itself Through Us. Creativity Is God's Gift To Us. Using Creativity Is Our Gift Back To God.

I Am Compassionate. I Allow My Heart And Imagination To Embrace The Difficulties And Concerns Of Others. While Maintaining My Own Balance, I Find It Within Myself To Extend Sympathy, Attention, And Support. When They Are Grieved, I Listen With Openness And Gentle Strength. I Offer Loyalty, Friendship, And Human Understanding. Without Undermining Or Enabling, I Aid And Assist Others To Find Their Strength. I Allow The Healing Power Of The Universe To Flow Through Me, Soothing The Hearts And Feelings Of Those I Encounter.

An Artist Requires The Upkeep Of Creative Solitude. An Artist Requires The Healing Of Time Alone. Without This Period Of Recharging, Our Artist Becomes Depleted. Until We Experience The Freedom Of Solitude, We Cannot Connect Authentically. We May Be Enmeshed, But We Are Not Encountered. Art Lies In The Moment Of Encounter. We Meet Our Truth And We Meet Ourselves And We Meet Our Self-expression.

For Today, All You Need Is The Grace To Begin Beginning.

In Dance, In Composition, In Sculpture, The Experience Is The Same: We Are More The Conduit Than The Creator Of What We Express.

All Of Us Are Far Richer Than We Imagine. None Of Us Possesses A Life Devoid Of Magic.

Setting Skepticism Aside, Even Briefly, Can Make For Very Interesting Explorations. It Is Not Necessary That We Change Any Of Our Beliefs. It Is Necessary That We Examine Them.

If You Are Too Busy To Develop Your Talents, You Are Too Busy.

Answered Prayers Are Scary. They Imply Responsibility. You Asked For It. Now That You've Got It, What Are You Going To Do? Why Else The Cautionary Phrase Watch Out For What You Pray For; You Might Just Get It?

If We Are Forever Yearning For More Time, We Are Forever Discounting What Is Offered.

We Must Attend To What Our Inner Guidance Is Nudging Us Toward.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness... Bright Ideas Are Preceded By A Gestation Period That Is Interior, Murky, And Completely Necessary.

Gestation Period

If You Want To Write A Novel, It's The Divine Mind Wanting To Express.

We Should Write Because Writing Brings Clarity And Passion To The Act Of Living. Writing Is Sensual, Experiential, Grounding. We Should Write Because Writing Is Good For The Soul. We Should Write Because Writing Yields Us A Body Of Work, A Felt Path Through The World We Live In.

What We Really Want To Do Is What We Are Really Meant To Do.

We Are Meant To Midwife Dreams For One Another. Success Occurs In Clusters

Sometimes, In Order To Go Forward, You Must First Go Back.

Perfectionism Has Nothing To Do With Getting It Right. It Has Nothing To Do With Fixing Things. It Has Nothing To Do With Standards. Perfectionism Is A Refusal To Let Yourself Move Forward. It Is A Loop-an Obsessive, Debilitating Closed System That Causes You To Get Stuck In The Details Of What You Are Writing Or Painting Or Making And To Lose Sight Of The Whole.

The Beginner's Humility And Openness Lead To Exploration. Exploration Leads To Accomplishment. All Of It Begins At The Beginning, With The First Small And Scary Step.

I Started Writing Morning Pages Just To Keep My Hand In, You Know, Just Because I Was A Writer And I Didn't Know What Else To Do But Write. And Then One Day As I Was Writing, A Character Came Sort Of Strolling In And I Realized, Oh My God, I Don't Have To Be Just A Screenwriter. I Can Write Novels.

Making Art Has Taught Me That The Tiniest Smidgen Of Progress Is Something To Be Cherished.

When We Put The Pen To Paper, We Articulate Things In Our Life That We May Have Felt Vague About. Before You Write About Something, Somebody Says, 'how Do You Feel?' And You Say, 'oh, I Feel Okay.' Then You Write About It, And You Discover You Don't Feel Okay.

In A Sense, As We Are Creative Beings, Our Lives Become Our Work Of Art.

There Is A Connection Between Self-nurturing And Self-respect.

In Order To Have A Real Relationship With Our Creativity, We Must Take The Time And Care To Cultivate It.

If You Think Of The Universe As A Vast Electrical Sea In Which You Are Immersed And From Which You Are Formed, Opening To Your Creativity Changes You From Something Bobbing In That Sea To A More Fully Functioning, More Conscious, More Cooperative Part Of That Ecosystem.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness.

Gestation Period

We All Have Time To Write. We Have Time To Write The Minute We Are Willing To Write Badly, To Chase A Dead End, To Scribble A Few Words, To Write For The Hell Of It Instead Of For The Perfect And Polished Result.

Water Seeks Its Own Level And Water Rises Collectively

Each Of Us Has An Inner Dream That We Can Unfold If We Will Just Have The Courage To Admit What It Is, And The Faith To Trust Our Own Admission. The Admitting Is Often Very Difficult.

Love Is Not Love If It Is Compelled By Reason And Driven By Logic - Love Exists In Spite Of Those Things, Not Because Of Them. It Is A Emotion Which Needs No Fuel To Fire It Or Oxygen To Feed It; If You Have To Look For The Why, Then Stop Looking; It Was Never There At All.

If You Work On Your Creativity, You Deepen Your Spirituality. And If You Work On Your Spirituality, You Deepen Your Creativity.

We Should Write, Above All, Because We Are Writers, Whether We Call Ourselves That Or Not.

Technology Teaches Passivity. Absorbed In Our Devices - At Any Age - We Are Absorbed In Someone Elses Perspective.

We Tend To Think Being Hard On Ourselves Will Make Us Strong. But It Is Cherishing Ourselves That Gives Us Strength

Writing Is A Combination Of Being Alert To Your Outer Surroundings And Alive To Your Inner Reality.

When We Seek Daily Spiritual Guidance, We Are Guided Toward The Next Step Forward For Our Art. Sometimes The Step Is Very Small. Sometimes The Step Is, "wait. Not Now." Sometimes The Step Is, "work On Something Else For A While." When We Are Open To Divine Guidance, We Will Receive It. It Will Come To Us As The Hunch, The Inkling, The Itch. It Will Come To Us As Timely Conversations With Others. It Will Come To Us In Many Ways--but It Will Come.

Divine Guidance

The Refusal To Be Creative Is An Act Of Self-will And Is Counter To Our True Nature. When We Are Open To Our Creativity, We Are Opening To God: Good, Orderly Direction. As We Pursue Our Creative Fulfillment, All Elements Of Our Life Move Toward Harmony. As We Strengthen Our Creativity, We Strengthen Our Connection To The Creator Within. Artists Love Other Artists. Our Relationship To God Is Co-creative, Artist To Artist. It Is God's Will For Us To Live In Creative Abundance.

Some People Find It Easier To Picture The Stream Of Inspiration As Being Like Radio Waves Of All Sorts Being Broadcast At All Times. With Practice, We Learn To Hear The Desired Frequency On Request. We Tune In To The Frequency We Want.

A Career Must Be Husbanded. Care Must Be Taken. Everyday Must Bring Some Small Bit Of Progress. How Would An Artist With Any Self-worth Act? Act That Way.

Creativity Makes Life Useful To Us. It Also Makes Us Useful To Life.

Progress, Not Perfection, Is What We Should Be Asking Of Ourselves.

Progress Not Perfection

Creativity Requires Faith. Faith Requires That We Relinquish Control.

In Our Human Lives, We Are Often Impatient, Ill-tempered, Inappropriate. We Find It Difficult To Treat Our Intimates With The Love We Really Hold For Them. Despite This, They Bear With Us Because Of The Larger, Higher Level Of Family That They Honor Even In Our Outbursts. This Is Their Commitment.

It Is All Too Easy As An Artist To Allow The Shape Of Our Career To Be Dictated To Us By Others. We Can So Easily Wait To Be Chosen. Such Passivity Invites Despair. To Remain Healthy And Vital, Artists Must Stay Proactive In Their Own Behalf.

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Lorraine Hansberry

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