Quotes from Julia Cameron

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. —MOTHER TERESA

Today, I comfort my threatened heart. I affirm my safety in times of change. I accept the comfort of spiritual sunlight. I am warmed by the truth that I am loved and protected even in the midst of chaotic change. Despite my shock, I survey my new spiritual surroundings with a sense of possibility.

Today, I am flexible and evolutionary. I am a meadow with varied seasons and wealth in each one. I am blessed with abundance and I am abundant in the blessings that I offer to others. The right to change is a blessing that I offer to my friends. We are miners striking new ore at every depth.

Today, I welcome the winds of change. Today I cooperate with the new experiences coming to my soul.

Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.

put us in touch with our spiritual core. For others, it's a trip to a greenhouse. The point is that even the slightest attention to our impoverished areas can nurture them.

Unfold your days with me and lose your sense of panic and loss. This earth is abundant. It holds joy for you, and contentment. Bring me your restless heart. Allow me to gentle your soul.

La creatividad florece cuando tenemos una sensación de seguridad y de autoaceptación.

Optimism is a practiced choice.

Great Creator, I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality.

To be truly human, we all have the right to make art. We all have the right to write.

Looking at God's creation, it is pretty clear that the creator itself did not know when to stop. There is not one pink flower, or even fifty pink flowers, but hundreds. Snowflakes, of course, are the ultimate exercise in sheer creative glee. No two alike. This creator looks suspiciously like someone who just might send us support for our creative ventures.

By its very nature, discipline is rooted in self-admiration. (Think of discipline as a battery, useful but short-lived.) We admire ourselves for being so wonderful. The discipline itself, not the creative outflow, becomes the point.

Be careful to safeguard your newly recovering artist. Often, creativity is blocked by our falling in with other people's plans for us. We want to set aside time for our creative work, but we feel we should do something else instead. As blocked creatives, we focus not on our responsibilities to ourselves, but on our responsibilities to others. We tend to think such behavior makes us good people. It doesn't. It makes us frustrated people.

Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly our options widen.

I now act affirmatively. I now accept creative recovery. I now allow myself to heal. I now accept God's help unfolding my life. I now believe God loves artists.

People are told to JUST LET GO. And they would, if they knew what they are holding on to.

As we gain - or regain - our creative identity, we lose the false self we are sustaining. The loss of this false self can feel traumatic: I don't know who I am anymore. I don't recognize me. Remember that the more you feel yourself to be terra incognita, the more certain you can be that the recovery process is working.

Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us.

pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate, and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me ... In the exact now, we are all, always, all right ... Realizing this, I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty.

The first trick, the one I am practicing now, is to just start where you are. It's a luxury to be in the mood to write. It's a blessing but it's not a necessity. Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.

When I make this point in teaching, I am met by instant, defensive hostility: "But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?" Yes … the same age you will be if you don't.