Yesterday’s post has left me with a feeling of a vulnerability hangover even though I only sent the link to my wife, and five other people who have been super supportive of my creative expression recently. I sent it to these people because I wanted the accountability. I wanted a few people to know what I’m doing and to expect an update, even if they don’t read these every day because I work well with a little external accountability. It would be a big commitment if they did read daily! I don’t expect that. But I am planning to send weekly recaps in my newsletter on Tuesdays for those who want the Cliff’s Notes version. You can sign up here.

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100 Liminal Days is an experimental project of embracing my current transitional season after exiting my business by sharing an honest, real-time account of my self-initiation experience in daily posts. I’m sending shorter weekly recaps only via my newsletter. Visit Day 1/100 to learn more and sign up in the footer of this page to get the weekly recaps delivered to your inbox.

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My Creativity Myth

In the The Artist’s Way, Week One, the theme is all about recovering safety. I didn’t even realize I needed to recover my safety until I started the exercises. As I wrote about my past creative injuries – those experiences in my life that offered me subliminal messages that formed deep roots in my psyche without my awareness – I began to shine a light on those moments when I certainly did not feel safe to express my creativity. To be an artist.

One of the biggest insights for me was the new realization that it was that experience of throwing my belongings into a Hefty sack and heaving it into a big green dumpster in the church parking lot that marked the moment I stopped creating artistically. Since yesterday, I’ve tried to recall other art I created after that day and I can’t think of anything outside of creating a business, writing a business book, or that time towards the tail-end of the pandemic that I took a woodworking class and made a cutting board. That is until last year when I started painting animal skulls I call Into the Wild.

I never stopped believing I was creative, but I did tell myself that now that I’m grown, my creativity had to evolve into practical creativity. Building businesses. Writing self-help books and blogs. Configuring software solutions for slick automation. I do love building things in the digital world! Oh, that’s interesting… it just occurred to me that all of the things I’ve created over the last decade until recently are in the digital environment.

My belief about myself became this narrative that says, “I am a Type A adult who just outgrew that version of my creativity.” I reframed my creativity as productivity. Practical production, not childish creativity. I gave myself rules for what I was allowed to create. It wasn’t a free-for-all anymore. And ultimately, that just became work!

What if I begin to nurture the childish artist within? What might be possible then? Well, that’s why I’m running this crazy 100 day experiment. Stick around if you want to see how the story unfolds. We can figure it out together.

Journaling on My Journaling

Now, this is meant to follow the structure of the course laid out in The Artist’s Way, but I am also using a some journal prompts a friend shared with me. They help me explore my inner world (Physical Body, Heart/Emotional Body, Mind/Focus, Financial Wellbeing, and Spiritual) with more intention and direction, and identify one time actions or small iterations I can make day to day to improve my focus and overall wellbeing. But I’m also using this to deepen the experience of working through The Artist’s Way by journaling on my journaling. (Yes, very meta and self-centered. That’s okay. It’s an experiment to learn from.)

When I journaled about my emotional body yesterday, I noted how it feels like I need to let myself grieve the loss of all my art from my twenties. That traumatic experience has not been buried per se because I have talked about it some, but yesterday I reviewed it with new eyes. And the new emergent iteration I decided to make is to recreate one of those old drawings I threw away or lost over the years.

Emergent Action: Recreate one of those old drawings I threw away or lost.

Y’all – I was excited to find on Poshmark a $40 “vintage” 1993 LIFE Magazine with Michael Jackson on the cover! I can’t wait to receive that delivery. It’s funny because I don’t usually know how old I was when I did something or had an experience, but I knew I was 12 years old when I was obsessing over MJ because I can still visualize that little orange booklet I made and taped together with several small drawings of MJ, his Grammys, and I think maybe a Pepsi logo somewhere in there. But what I remember visually is the back cover where I wrote, “by Amber Gray” and “age 12”. It was indeed in 1993 that I was 12 years old.

So, once the magazine arrives, I plan to redraw some Michael Jackson pics with my colored pencils. That has always been a favorite tool of choice for me. I have this feeling that recreating something precious to me will be soul-nourishing. I’ll be sure to share when I do this.

Sitting with Sugar Cravings and Mindful Eating

A couple of other things that came up in my new Liminal Days journal have been related to the Physical Body. Over the last couple of weeks at least (nope, longer…I’m trying to be honest), I have been devouring sugary treats. HEB Cookies Over Texas ice cream is my favorite. OMG. One day last week, I don’t know what got into me, but I had a craving and went for it. The ice cream, a big blob of peanut butter, honey, and Chex cereal on top! Yes, it was delicious but I know that’s not good for me, especially at the frequency that I’m going to the freezer.

The iteration I’m making is not to say that I am cutting sugar out. I have decided to be gentle with myself. Instead, the approach is to notice the craving and let it be there for longer this time. This is super challenging! When Emily flies to Seattle, she always brings home Lowrider Cookies, so there were three delicious cookies on the counter when I woke up this morning. I’ve opened the box no less than three times today and each time, I have told myself to sit with the craving.

Emergent Iteration: Sit with the craving. If you still want a cookie in 20 minutes, go for it.

And you know what? I haven’t eaten a cookie yet! Win! (Even if I end up eating it tonight.)

The other Physical Body thing I noticed by journaling yesterday was that I have eaten all of my meals without thinking about it. I’m doing other things while I am eating versus slowly enjoying my food. One day recently, I was trying to remember what I had for lunch and it took a lot of effort to recall it. Food is not just fuel for our bodies. It is something to be enjoyed (even the food that is not ice cream) so I want to practice mindful eating.

Emergent Iteration: Commit to pray before my meal and avoid multitasking while eating.

I’ll admit that today I’ve already eaten twice without doing either of those things. But journaling about it a second day elevated my awareness. I’ll try again.

Timing of Dharma Sprints Matters – Hit It Early

On Tuesdays, I go to the chiropractor midmorning so my sprint today was scheduled in the afternoon. I didn’t realize how much more challenging it would be to drop in and write since I was sitting down at my desk after interacting with seven people from various areas of my life. After my appointment I had a couple of phone calls, my wife is home so I talked with her, and my niece dropped by briefly. I managed to get my workout in, and then by the time I sat down to write this, it was after 3 pm. And I struggled to focus at first.

I noticed that I had a lot of chatter in my mind – residue from all of the conversations from earlier. Some frustrations and judgements were shrouding my thoughts, and the regretful thing is that it was all about other people’s problems! I had to meditate, pray, and write about the other people just to get to the stuff below the surface that is relevant to this process.

Emergent Iteration: Prioritize dharma sprints as early in the day as possible so others don’t set the tone for my day.

And on that note, it is now almost 6 pm so I need to wrap this up. See you tomorrow!

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