Gina R. Evers’s Reviews > The Complete Artist's Way : Creativity as a Spiritual Practice > Status Update

"Committing to help others, we may undercommit to ourselves."

"As artists, we must learn to think of our energy the way a person thinks about money--am I spending my energy wisely here, investing in this person, this situation, this use of my time? As a rule, artists are temperamentally generous, even spendthrift. This natural inclination must be consciously monitored. An artist must return enough to the inner well to feel a sense of well-being."

"If we stop trying to improve ourselves and start trying to delight ourselves, we get further as artists. If we lean into what we love instead of soldiering toward what we 'should,' our pace quickens, our energy rises, optimism sets in. What we love is nutritious for us."

"It is one of the mysterious happinesses of the creative life that when we become willing to listen, the 'still, small voice' seems to grow louder."

"Goethe told us, 'Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it, because action has magic, grace and power in it.' This was no mere bromide. It was a report on spiritual experience -- an experience that each of us can have whenever we surrender to being a beginner, whenever we dismantle our adult's aloof avoidance and actively ... start anew."

"Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control."

"As artists, we are travelers. Too heavily encumbered by our worldly dignity, too invested in our stations and positions, we are unable to yield to our spiritual leadings. We insist on a straight and narrow when the Artist's Way is a spiral path."

"It is the accurate mapping out of our own creative interests that invites the term ORIGINAL. We are the ORIGIN of our art, its homeland. Viewed in this way, originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves."

"Over any extended period of time, being an artist requires enthusiasm more than discipline ... What other people may view as discipline is actually a play date that we make with our artist child: 'I'll meet you at 6:00 A.M. and we'll goof around with that script.'"

"Rather than take a scary baby step toward our dreams, we rush to the edge of the cliff and then stand there, quaking, saying, 'I can't leap. I can't. I can't. ...' No one is asking you to leap. That's just drama, and, for the purposes of a creative recovery, drama belongs on the page."