AW: Reading Notes - Week One

Once you get past the syrupy positive thinking pablum of this chapter, Ms. Cameron presents a few concepts that are interesting. Unfortunately, she doesn't comeback to revisit them very much in her later chapters. The first concept is that the creative block that one experiences is a result of some form of emotional trauma with respect to their creativity and work. She delves pretty deeply in this chapter into exposing the trauma and the effects of it. Her 'time traveling' exercises are effective. They are, however, not to be undertaken lightly.

In some cases, the time traveling exercises will open one to deep trauma that is unrelated (at the surface) to the creative block. As one may have noticed as I work on my morning blog posts, at times I talk about traumas that I have experienced that are not "This person told me that my work was bad when I was vulnerable." Ms. Cameron has a somewhat cavalier approach to working with trauma and seems to operate under the assumption that creative blocks only stem from when an artist is criticized harshly in their formative years. It is a dangerous approach for people who have suffered deeper traumas such as sexual assault or severe bullying and harassment. One can not recover from these deep traumas with mere positivity and proverbial letters to the editor rebutting negative feedback.

The next concept that Ms. Cameron presents discusses 'blurts' and negative habits of thinking getting in a creative person's way of expression. She explains 'blurts' as one's reflexive denial positive arguments and affirmations regarding their work. She encourages the person working through this chapter to list their 'blurts' and then rephrase them as positive statements. If it is not possible to rephrase the 'blurt' as a positive statement, one is instructed to replace it with the appropriate positive rebuttal to this reflexive argument against their creative work's value. This is a practice used a great deal in cognitive behavioral therapy and is highly effective. 

She fails, however, to introduce the third part of this process which is called 'thought stopping'. When one becomes aware of an unhealthy thought process, in this case what Ms. Cameron describes as a 'blurt', they are actively encouraged to envision something like a stop sign and shift focus. The failure to include thought stopping in the process of dealing with negative or unhealthy thought processes can lead to persons who have cascades of these sorts of thoughts feeling like a failure for their inability to rapidly switch gears. There needs to be the pause where the unhelpful/unhealthly/negative thought is recognized for what it is. This is what thought stopping is for. It is a check-in with oneself to determine what their mental and emotional state is before proceeding. This allows them to uncover the correct replacement for the undesirable thought by correctly identifying the source and nature of the undesirable thought.

Ms. Cameron's work on positive affirmations is dated. It is also vaguely Christo-centric which makes it a bit off putting for people who are not interested in the conventional overculture approach towards that deity being the assumed source of all things. It is still a good template to work from for one to develop positive affirmations that works for them. She also does a reasonably good job of presenting how the regular repetition of positive affirmations can help train one's mind to be more positive and self-affirming.

The exercises at the end of this chapter are not the best. Again, there is the question of if a person has the time to complete them and the means to do so. It is clear that Ms. Cameron is writing for creative persons who fall within the middle-class part of the socio-economic spectrum. Some of the things she suggests, like the imaginary lives exercise, can be completely out of reach for some people to accomplish. The example that she provides of being a 'cowhand' and encouraging the reader to get horseback riding lessons is a fine demonstration that she failed to consider that there are struggling creatives who barely have enough money to put food on the table. Equally tone deaf to this part of her audience is the suggestion that the struggling creative person decorate their creative work space and acquire nicknacks and toys. There is a significant population of struggling creatives who simply do not have the space, time, or money to engage in this practice (which she encourages through out the book).