Week Two in The Artist’s Way focuses on recovering our sense of identity. This is at the heart of why I want to do this project – to understand my own personal needs, desires, and interests in greater detail, and to truly define who I am. Let’s see what’s in store this week!

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.

Christian Identity

A pursuit of understanding and defining my identity has truthfully been a key theme of my life for decades, but I have recently recognized that most of my struggle with clarifying my identity has been shaped by my experiences of being gay and involved in the evangelical church in my formative years. I first identified myself as a Christian as a child – in fact, I think I was 12 years old when I was first baptized. (As I’m working through this experiment, I’m realizing that I had a lot going on at age 12!) So maybe the first major identity I took on was that of a Christian.

LGBTQ Identity

It wasn’t until I was 16 years old that I noticed feeling attracted to other girls instead of boys, and because of my Christian faith, I did not take on an LGBTQ identity until several years later when I began what I’ll call my rebellious stage. But even when I finally was willing to admit I was gay, I have never wanted to be defined by my sexuality. I’ve never really been a “flag-waving” type.

I know this exercise is about defining my artistic taste and identity, but the book’s subtitle is “A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” and maybe I’m touching on that spiritual piece now. I have had some confusion around my identity, in general, because of the ongoing dissonance where my sexuality and my spirituality are concerned. I guess you could say “identity” has been a touchy topic for me for these reasons. And because I’ve made it taboo for myself, I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of years molding myself to other people’s needs and expectations.

Achiever and CEO Identity

My next big identity shift was when I started working as an employee in the startup space and it intensified after I started my own business – the identity of a CEO. I wrapped up all of what I thought I was into this single role. It was extreme, but that’s been a characteristic of my identities at every stage. All or nothing. I’ve learned since then to find a middle ground and be a bit more flexible.

But when it comes to choosing what I want, I’ve always found it easier to go with the flow of others. Unfortunately, I just didn’t see – until recently – that this tendency has slowed my progress toward understanding my own unique taste and what I really want, and has impaired my confidence to speak up for myself by communicating my boundaries.

This chapter in The Artist’s Way speaks directly to this, first raising awareness of the “crazymakers” we’ve allowed into our lives – those people who create “storm centers” as Cameron puts it. She says that creatives involve themselves with crazymakers as a diversion we create for ourselves to avoid being creative.

Learning to Recognize Crazymakers

Cameron describes crazymakers as those folks who are charismatic and charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive. She lists out several key characteristics:

• They break deals and destroy schedules
• They expect special treatment
• They discount your reality
• They spend your time and/or money
• They triangulate those they deal with (meaning they pit people against each other)
• They are expert blamers
• They create drama
• They hate schedules, except their own
• They hate order
• And they deny doing any of the above

I’ve also heard another name for these types of people – energy vampires.

I am starting to feel called out by this book! I see that I’ve allowed these types of people into my life, but I never would have suspected that it was a sneaky, subtle scheme keeping me from learning my own authentic taste and embracing my unique identity. I’ve been guilty of allowing this personality into my life, for sure.

And I recognize now that I am responsible for the damage or delay of my creative expression that these energy vampires or crazymakers have caused me.

The Fixer Identity

Another identity I was quick to embrace decades ago was that of the Fixer. Remember my ex, K, for whom I footed the art school bill? Yeah, I like to help people a little too much at times. The more drama they have, the more I tend to think I can help them. Ouch. I’m thinking of other examples in my life where I have done this. Where I am doing this.

Cameron says that as blocked creatives, we are willing to go to almost any lengths to remain blocked, because we are just crazy enough ourselves, and we are ultimately that self-destructive. That whole, “it’s easier to go with the flow” business is a nice way of opting out of the mission to become creative.

We are not meant to go with the flow, we are meant to become the flow.

Which brings up a memory of a relevant experience – three visions which have been major catalysts for me to actively change my life. I’ll save this for tomorrow’s post since it is very late.

I did a dharma sprint this morning, but focused on my Open Loops – a practice of capturing all of my thoughts into notes and creating a plan for closing those loops. This has been another learning from Mentally Fit, and it’s an important practice to keep my mind clear of clutter, and ensure I have a trusted process for capturing and closing to-dos and ideas.

However, I’m still finding a balance with prioritizing this project and my day-to-day life – thus the late post!

Tomorrow, I’m going for a hike as this week’s Artist Date, so I’ll share how that goes, and I’ll share the three visions I experienced since 2008 that have shifted my identity each time.

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