This is it, a new series!
For the ones who read my previous blogs and follow me already: welcome back!
For the ones who don’t really know who I am and what I do: Ciao! My name is Matilde, I am a writer, artist and psychotherapist born in Italy and now living in Lancashire. I have just finished my Foundation in Art and Design course at Blackburn College and I am about to start Fine Art at York St John University this Sept. More here and more here (as in the link to my latest book "a thousand names" on Amazon)
I have been always interested in connecting psychotherapy with artistic expression and energy work and I found that The Artist Way is the perfect medium for self-exploration, development, and focus. Julia Cameron’s official website is: https://juliacameronlive.com/ should you want to check her out.
So, if you have never done it before, grab your copy of the book here: https://amzn.to/3gSv9kF
Get yourself a journal because you will write (oh boy you will write!) and pencils, pens, crayons, colours, whatever you prefer. There is no right or wrong way of doing it.
No, I am lying. There is a wrong way and that is not doing it.
Every day you are requested to write 3 A4 pages by hand - no recording, no tippy-tapping on a keyboard: these do not work since they do not activate certain parts of the brain which need activating. You can come up and give me all justifications and explanations on why you prefer to think-while-walking instead: it’s not the same and we are doing it old-style here, by writing.
There is a ritualistic practice of sitting down, pen and journal, a cup of coffee or herbal tea and consciously taking time for yourself, while letting go on a page of what is going on inside, which any amount of thinking-while-walking does not do. Writing longhand slows the brain down, it allows us to look and explore recesses we thought we forgot, we can access memories and make connections of past events we can only now understand. Also, there is physical connection, a tactile experience of touching pen and paper which all other media do not provide. And there is the daily practice of sitting there, every day, taking time for yourself.
This is why we are doing it old style.
If this is your first time and you decide to dab in and out and see how it goes, please do join us anyway. Only by trying and maybe failing and trying again, you will realise how important this practice is. And as a psychotherapist, I can assure you that if you are doing it correctly - i.e. whatever that means to you, for now - it will save you hours and hours of therapy.
I will be posting updates and links, tools, hints and suggestions on the Facebook page. So, please, if you haven’t already, you can follow me on here where I invite you to share your experience, connect with others on the same path, and tell us how it is going. If everything goes to plan, we should be ending on the week of 28 Sept., emotionally rejuvenated and with some clearer ideas of where we are going next.
Please, remember that this is a creative, personal and hence also a spiritual journey and I will be treating this as such; it is open to anyone, of any faith (including the faith in nothing), practising or not. The whole scope of The Artist Way is to assist people in being more confident, assertive and self-reliant from a creative perspective, and hence free (and encouraged) to follow their own journey.
You are not requested to share anything, you are not obliged to do anything but if you think that someone else might benefit from the practice, ask them to come along and to join us by sharing the fb page or this blog post.
If you need to contact me, please do via the fb page and I am more than happy to assist you on your journey.
Re. COVID and the lockdown: if, wherever you are, the conditions allow you to meet up in person with fellow travellers, pls do. We could decide to organise zoom meetings or even to meet up outside in person weather and lockdown permitting. Let me know what you think! I am open to suggestions.
Hope I’ll see you online!
onwards + upwards ♡
mx
#blackburncollege #theartistway #artistway #juliacameron #ysj #yorkstjohn #matildetomat #fad #ual #athousandnames