In the Victorian language of flowers, the striped carnation meant, "Refusal" which can play out many ways. I refuse your advances. I refuse to listen to your offer of love. I refuse to be friends with someone so toxic or, even, I refuse to continue my own self sabotage.
I think you can see what direction I am heading. Week Two of the "Artist's Way" is all about getting unblocked as an artist. How we allow others to sabotage our recovery attempts. Do you have toxic friends or friends that are all about all the drama all the time?
If you're playing the supporting role, your toxic friends and your dramatic friends are not going to be happy if you're on the road to finding your creative voice. If you're going from supporting role, to the leading role in your own life and recovery process, those friends will try to derail your recovery.
Try to keep your eyes open to those sort of friends. If they aren't happy for you, if they aren't supporting you, you may want to question whether or not they truly belong in your life. Refuse to allow anyone to derail your recovery process. You deserve to be leading your best life; your most fulfilling life.
The worst saboteur, however, is often yourself. We are often are own worst enemy. We get comfortable in our ruts, even those that are bad for us. We may not be happy but we've resigned ourselves to a sort of continuous misery. Maybe we think that we don't deserve happiness or to be fulfilled. Look deeply into your own motives. The more your psyche resists the exploration, the more closely you may want to examine that resistance. Getting better can sometimes hurt at the beginning, but push past your fear.
Try to remember that you are the hero of your own story. Heroes often stumble on their journeys. Forgive yourself for poor choices in your past. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you've made along the way.
Try framing your life story as a "Hero's Journey". You are the chosen one and only you can be the hero of this story. Reframe your mistakes as obstacles that have to be overcome. Luke Skywalker let his anger get the better of him. Buffy fell in love with the wrong vampire.
Chosen ones makes mistakes. Forgive yourself and make those mistakes part of your story. Work at overcoming the obstacles in your path (even the ones you created). You are the hero. You will be victorious.
Recovery can be a long process: a few steps forward and then a few steps back. You will get there. We will get there, together.
Pick up your copy of the "Artist's Way" and join me on this journey. Together we can forgive ourselves for the mistakes of our past. We can stop the self sabotaging words of our Inner Critic. We can remove the toxic friends from our lives and find people that will truly support us on our journey.
We can recover our Creative selves, together.
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