Julia Cameron, SEEKING WISDOM: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection (A Six-Week Artist's Way Program)
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[0:41]Julia Cameron is the author of Seeking Wisdom.
[0:44]She has been an active artist for more than 30 years, and is the author of 40 books, fiction
[0:49]and nonfiction, including her best-selling works on the creative process, which most
[0:53]people are probably familiar with, called the artist's way, which is super famous and
[0:57]amazing.
[0:58]Also walking in this world and finding water.
[1:01]Her work has been translated into more than 35 languages, and has sold more than 4 million
[1:05]copies worldwide.
[1:07]Also a novelist, playwright, songwriter, and poet.
[1:10]She has multiple credits in theater, film, and television.
[1:14]Welcome, Julia.
[1:15]Thank you so much for coming on moms-don't have time to read books to discuss Seeking
[1:19]Wisdom, a spiritual path to creative connection, a six-week artist-ways program.
[1:24]Thank you for coming on.
[1:25]You're very welcome.
[1:27]It is a huge honor to talk to you, but morning pages guru, if you will, after all the
[1:32]effects you've had on the writer community, author community with your advice and your guidance
[1:39]and all of that.
[1:40]How does it feel to now be coming out with yet a new book and a new set of prescriptions
[1:47]for how to access our best writing selves?
[1:52]Well, I felt like it was a good thing to write about prayer, and it was an intimidating
[1:58]thing to write about prayer.
[2:01]And I asked for guidance about what to write next, and I was told prayer, and I said,
[2:10]oh my god, no.
[2:13]I'm not holy enough.
[2:16]That should be through somebody much more spiritual.
[2:20]But the guidance persisted and said, you will write about prayer.
[2:26]It's a worthy topic.
[2:28]So I thought, well, if I'm going to try to write about prayer, I don't want to appear
[2:35]to be talking down to people from some pedestal.
[2:40]So I think I better tell them the story of how I came to pray.
[2:46]And that's why the book opens with me not praying and then being guided to prayer and
[2:55]discovering it was a powerful resource.
[2:59]You did sort of pull the reader right in by sharing your most vulnerable self with us
[3:04]at a time where you were having a hard time controlling your drinking and your marriage
[3:10]and everything seemed to be just flying out of your control.
[3:13]And then you regrouped and in a very inspiring way, went off on this new path.
[3:20]And I was struck time and time again with how much you were willing to listen and take
[3:26]in what you heard.
[3:27]I mean, it's one thing to say I'm going to pray, which is putting things out there,
[3:31]but it's another to say I'm taking everything in and I'm getting the answers I need.
[3:35]I just have to be patient and listen for them.
[3:38]So tell me a little bit more about that.
[3:41]Well, when I was told to pray, I said, you don't understand.
[3:48]I have 16 years of Catholic education and that's the grease slide to agnosticism.
[3:58]And they said, well, you must believe in something.
[4:04]And I thought about it and I asked a girlfriend what she prayed to and she said, oh,
[4:09]I prayed to Mick Jagger.
[4:14]So I asked someone else and she said, oh, I prayed a sunspot.
[4:20]And so I thought, well, I could pray to the force that through the green fuse drives
[4:27]the flower, a line from Dylan Thomas about creative energy.
[4:34]And so I started praying to that force.
[4:38]And what happened was that my prose straightened out, previously I had been trying to
[4:46]be brilliant.
[4:49]And every sentence had to be rewritten and rewritten until there was a scratched hole in
[4:56]the paper.
[4:58]And when I started trying to be of service and write what seemed to want to come through
[5:07]me, my prose straightened out, my career straightened out.
[5:13]And I began to try and help people.
[5:16]So it's as simple as that.
[5:19]It's a piece of cake.
[5:23]Oh, my goodness.
[5:25]But how did you get, and I understand that when you, the series of events that led you
[5:32]to also be more receptive to this and having things like calling the one friend who called
[5:38]the other friend and then next thing you know, there was somebody right there who could
[5:41]help you through becoming sober and all of that.
[5:44]And that time and again, you trusted your instincts and listened.
[5:49]Was it hard to stay in that framework?
[5:52]I mean, you listen even with things like storms, right?
[5:56]And having to spend Thanksgiving by yourself and not braving the weather because you listen
[6:01]and you hear, okay, I shouldn't try that.
[6:03]And so you don't do it.
[6:05]Do you second guess yourself at all?
[6:06]Do you just take it in and then you calmly process like, how does it work?
[6:12]Well, when I ask for guidance and I find myself sometimes doubting it and then I get angry
[6:19]with myself, I say you have so many years, you have 30 years of trusting guidance.
[6:25]Why do you doubt?
[6:27]And the answer is because it's human nature to doubt.
[6:35]And so when I get a piece of guidance that seems harder and possible to me, I find myself
[6:44]reminding myself that previously it has proven to be true.
[6:52]So I have what we call sober reference and the sober reference tells me that I can trust
[7:02]what I'm hearing and that there's wisdom to it.
[7:10]So when I had the Thanksgiving storm, I didn't like it.
[7:18]I wanted to go to my friend Nick's house, but when I called Nick and told him, I think
[7:24]I should stay in, he sounded relieved and said he would bring me a playful of Thanksgiving
[7:31]food the next day, which is really the main perk of Thanksgiving anyway, right, it's
[7:38]all those love.
[7:39]Give her some.
[7:40]Well, I am inspired by this and for anyone with anxiety who tends to ruminate or second
[7:49]guess or change your mind or whatever, the notion of just sort of letting the first instinct
[7:56]live and guide is is sort of revolutionary.
[8:00]So I'm really going to work hard to to try and implement your what you do.
[8:05]Well, I think that the practice of writing morning pages trains us to trust.
[8:13]There's no called wrong way to write morning pages.
[8:18]So we write them and the little doubting voice says, oh, you're being boring, but we say
[8:26]to the voice, thank you for sharing.
[8:31]And we go right on with what we're doing and that ability to sort of step past the sensor
[8:41]is a learned skill.
[8:45]And the more we practice it with morning pages, the more we are able to accept guidance in
[8:52]other areas of our life.
[8:55]Interesting.
[8:56]And you still do morning pages.
[8:58]I mean, I know it's obviously a huge part of this book in all your previous work, but
[9:02]you do it every single day, like literally every day.
[9:06]I do.
[9:08]I do, but this morning when I was this is very early for me.
[9:13]Oh, I'm so sorry.
[9:15]Yes, and I found myself trying to write morning pages and saying, oh, I don't know if I'll
[9:23]be awake enough to be alert.
[9:26]Dear God, please give me guidance and it took a long time to rest single page.
[9:35]So basically, my podcast has ruined your streak of morning pages for
[9:40]lectures.
[9:41]I asked you about it.
[9:42]Now I've made it impossible.
[9:45]Well, I understand that.
[9:46]That makes sense.
[9:47]What do you do with all of your morning pages?
[9:50]Do you ever go back and read them and save them and share them at all?
[9:55]Has anything amazing?
[9:56]Like, where are they?
[9:58]Are they in a closet?
[9:59]What do you do with them?
[10:00]but I put them in a big bookshelf.
[10:04]And what I find is that I go back and read guidance.
[10:10]I write morning pages and then I say LJ for little truly.
[10:15]Yes, I saw that.
[10:18]Can I hear guidance about X?
[10:22]And then I listen and I write down what I hear.
[10:27]And what I find is that the guidance is trustworthy
[10:32]and helpful and deliberate and encouraging.
[10:38]And sometimes it's comforting to reread the guidance.
[10:45]So I will do that.
[10:46]I don't share my pages with anybody.
[10:50]They're top secret, but I share them with myself.
[10:55]Do you ever worry about what's going to happen
[10:58]to all the things that you write after you pass away?
[11:01]I mean, I have like all these cabinets full of writing
[11:04]and documents on the computer and all these things
[11:07]and every so often I'm like, what,
[11:09]I don't want these out and like,
[11:10]what am I going to do with all these things?
[11:12]Do you ever think about that?
[11:13]Or maybe that's too depressing at that.
[11:16]Well, I find myself saying first,
[11:19]I'll pre-make the pages, then worry about the body.
[11:27]Interesting.
[11:29]So what are your hopes and dreams for this new program,
[11:33]the six week artist way program?
[11:37]Well, I'm hoping that people will start to use guidance.
[11:41]The book opens with tools and they are familiar tools
[11:46]for people who have been working with my teachings.
[11:51]Morning pages, artists, dates, walking.
[11:57]There are all tools of introspection.
[12:00]And then I ask people to try using guidance
[12:08]and to practice using guidance.
[12:12]And what I find is that,
[12:16]people are at first astonished.
[12:20]They say, oh, Julia, what if I ask for guidance
[12:26]and I don't hear anything or more commonly,
[12:31]Julia, I ask for guidance and I hear something back
[12:37]and I'm worried that it's just my imagination.
[12:42]And I say to people, well,
[12:45]if it is just your imagination,
[12:49]your imagination is much more powerful
[12:53]and encouraging and helpful than you've previously thought.
[13:00]So it's my hope that people will start to use prayer
[13:05]in their creativity and ask to be guided.
[13:09]You made a very strong case for walking
[13:11]without distractions, getting out there,
[13:14]walking, listening, looking around,
[13:17]not putting headphones on, not using that as time
[13:20]to do something else.
[13:22]It's tempting to use walking time to get other things done.
[13:26]How do you print?
[13:28]I feel like you're so good at protecting all your time.
[13:31]How do you do that?
[13:32]How do you get other people to do that
[13:34]when they feel like life is so busy,
[13:36]and that it, well, I think if we do morning pages,
[13:40]we tend to intuitively protect our times.
[13:48]Ourself saying no to distractions.
[13:54]And I find people sometimes say to me,
[14:00]Julia, you're so productive, how do you do it?
[14:04]And I say, well, I don't watch TV.
[14:09]I don't get on the internet.
[14:11]I don't serve.
[14:14]And they say, oh, you mean we have a choice
[14:19]about these activities?
[14:21]And I say, yes, we have a choice about these activities.
[14:28]And so I want you to try to live a life
[14:33]without being sabotaged.
[14:36]Interesting.
[14:38]It's almost like we're the victims of all of the distractions.
[14:42]Well, I think we are.
[14:44]I think we are.
[14:46]I think we have a, well, I have a friend who came over
[14:51]and he was nervous.
[14:53]And I said to him, you don't seem like yourself today.
[14:58]And he said, well, I stayed up all night watching the war.
[15:03]And I thought, you have a choice about that.
[15:10]It's true.
[15:10]I've been watching, I don't know why I save it
[15:12]for right before bed.
[15:13]And then I have bad dreams all night.
[15:14]I have to do better.
[15:16]It's hard to know when something is so cap,
[15:20]you know, it's just hard to stop sometimes.
[15:25]It's hard to put those limits on.
[15:28]So how do you, do you view yourself as like a guru,
[15:33]the way that other people see you?
[15:34]Or do you just feel yourself as like,
[15:36]oh, whatever.
[15:37]I'm just gonna get up to write these pages.
[15:39]I mean, you're such an icon, right?
[15:41]And so many people can credit you
[15:44]with their own productivity and their own work.
[15:48]Does that change yourself perception on a day-to-day basis
[15:51]or not?
[15:52]No, I have a loyal group of friends who do not have me
[15:57]on a pedestal and I will call them up.
[16:01]And I will say, I'm nervous.
[16:04]For example, about this interview early in the morning,
[16:07]I said, I'm nervous.
[16:10]And my friends said, I'm lighting a stick of incense for you.
[16:15]Oh my gosh, Julia, I feel terrible.
[16:18]I feel so terrible about this interview
[16:20]as causing you to stress.
[16:22]I'm so sorry.
[16:23]We easily could have done it later in the day.
[16:27]I'm sorry, I feel terrible.
[16:29]But that's so nice that your friends lit incense for you.
[16:32]And that is so nice.
[16:35]So I think my friendships are grounded
[16:40]in what I call before during an after-friends.
[16:45]And they don't have me on a pedestal.
[16:48]They don't regard me as a guru.
[16:51]They regard me as someone who needs prayer support.
[16:57]And I ask for it.
[16:59]What are you struggling with the most right now?
[17:01]I'm writing a book on guidance.
[17:05]And I'm struggling to believe that I have enough to say.
[17:14]And I want the book to be positive.
[17:17]And I want the book to be helpful.
[17:22]And I feel like people do look to me for guidance.
[17:27]And all I can do is report my own process.
[17:31]So that's my school, that's my school.
[17:36]Do you ever, does reading help you
[17:39]when you're having a hard time focusing on a book
[17:41]or worrying about that you don't have enough to say
[17:43]or anything?
[17:44]Do you ever read just to regroup
[17:47]or do you view that also as a distraction?
[17:50]I tend to view it as a distraction.
[17:53]And yet there are some people,
[17:58]most notably, Tiknad Han, who recently died,
[18:03]the Buddhist teacher.
[18:05]And he often talked about walking
[18:10]as if each foot kissed the girl, kissed the earth.
[18:15]And he talks about mindfulness.
[18:18]And I tend to want to call it heartfulness.
[18:24]And I feel like if we do the practices of the tools,
[18:34]we wake up.
[18:35]And so what I'm trying to do with this book
[18:40]to go back to your question is to gently coax people
[18:45]into waking up.
[18:49]And I went to pray colloquially.
[18:54]They may not have as much formality
[18:57]to set aside as I did.
[18:59]But I think a lot of people are intimidated by the idea
[19:03]of prayer.
[19:05]And I think if I can say to them,
[19:08]speaking your own words, pray to a God concept that seems,
[19:15]helpful to you, then I'm done a service.
[19:19]So I have, my husband's really good friend,
[19:23]Dan is a singer-songwriter.
[19:25]And he thinks you are like the greatest thing
[19:28]since sliced bread and his followed your work forever.
[19:30]And he writes songs.
[19:31]And that's how he gets in touch with his creativity.
[19:35]So asking for him here on the topic of creativity
[19:40]in general, you have guidance.
[19:42]You have all of the tips and tools in this book,
[19:44]which of course he read.
[19:46]How can somebody who's not necessarily a novelist
[19:50]or something, but how does somebody tap into that
[19:53]creativity and keep it as part of their daily life?
[19:57]Aside from warning pages and that.
[19:59]Well, life here.
[20:00]like when you say aside from morning pages, it's like, is there a secret tool in the answer.
[20:12]There is no secret tool. Okay. The tools do work. And I don't have a tool that's mine alone.
[20:23]I just try to gently guide people along what I hope is a proven path.
[20:30]And in terms of somebody who's just trying to get their book published, do you have any advice
[20:36]for them having been, you know, international best-selling author blah, blah, blah, blah?
[20:43]Do you have any sort of industry advice? No.
[20:46]Okay. What I did with the artist's way was self-public. We Xerox copies of it. And I think there's
[20:58]a lot to be said for self-publishing and for not waiting for the powers that be to say, let it be in print.
[21:08]Interesting. Love it. Okay. Are you going to go finish your morning pages now?
[21:13]Well, I will. I couldn't tell. What kind of a name is Zibi? I have a sister named Libby.
[21:26]It's for Elizabeth. So Zibi is for Elizabeth, so is Libby.
[21:31]I get called Libby all the time. I should have just made that my nickname, but
[21:36]my parents picked this when I was one. So yes. So you became a Zibi?
[21:42]I became a Zibi. Yes. Well, it's lovely chatting with you today. Thank you for your time.
[21:49]And I'm sorry for the imposition and the timing. Well, you're very welcome. And you're so alert
[21:57]yourself at the hour that I found myself waking up a little to connect with you, which is great.
[22:05]So maybe I won't be so frightened of early mornings in the future.
[22:11]Yes. Good idea. You can do it.
[22:17]All right. So thank you so much.
[22:19]You're welcome. Okay. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you.
[22:25]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:28]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:34]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[22:38]lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for
[22:43]the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and