I was staying in a very basic wooden bungalow with a verandah and a hammock, perched on the edge of the Mekong River on a quiet little island of farming families in Laos…there was no electricity, my rent was a paltry $1 a day and it took literally HOURS to get meals from the local family who owned the property (everything was made from scratch, and if you wanted chicken or fish the wait was longer – the fish had to be caught and the chicken be-headed!)

It was one of the happiest times in my life…sure I was young and travelling on my own which was an amazing experience…but it was more than that. It was the first time in my life that I had truly begun to foster a deep connection with my inner self – to the point where I absolutely REVELLED in solitude, I felt content and happy in my own skin – in need of no outside validation or company, a time when I discovered latent passions and creativity and life just felt incredibly rich and juicy.

The time alone was part of it, but the real magic came from a couple of practices I was doing at the time, as I worked my way through the brilliant book The Artist’s Way.

For those of you unfamiliar with the book, don’t think it’s just for artists or “creative-types”…it’s actually a 12 week program for unblocking creativity (so perfect for those “I-don’t-have-a-creative-bone-in-my-body” types too!). The basic premise is that your creativity is intrinsically connected to your spirituality – that the nature of God/The Universe/Whatever-you-wanna-call-it IS creative, and it is through our creativity that we find connection to both our inner selves and our source. The exercises change week to week, but the 2 core practices you must commit to throughout the whole course are “morning pages” and the “artist’s date”.

The “morning pages” require you to write 3 pages in a journal upon rising – whatever you want, it can be rambling; stream-of-consciousness stuff; whinging and whining or just random thoughts and feeling floating around your head. It doesn’t matter, the idea is just to WRITE a minimum of 3 pages EVERY morning.

The “artists date” is a little weekly solo-adventure you must take to feed your inner muse…in could be anything – a visit to a museum or a junk store, a hike in nature, reading poetry in the park – again it doesn’t really matter, as long as you don’t invite anyone else along and you make sure it isn’t something bound up with any sort of “duty” – it has to be something purely whimsical, pleasurable or fun…

So these were the practices I started and kept up with for a long time, that slowly led to a feeling of self-empowerment; a direct line to intuition and inspiration and a thrilling reverence for the myriad possibilities in life. And these are the practices I have come back to, just this week in fact, after feeling a bit blah, and a little like life was becoming a bit hum-drum, serious and dry. And in just a few days since dusting that same, well-travelled 15-year old copy of The Artist’s Way off and beginning the practices again, I can feel my inspiration, creativity and excitement for life flooding back again.

So why are these practice so powerful?

The author, Julia Cameron, writes “the pages are a pathway to a strong and clear sense of self…(they) lead us out of despair and into undreamed-of solutions (and) anyone who faithfully writes morning pages will be led to a connection with a source of wisdom within.”

Journalling has long-been known as a powerful tool for problem-solving, and finding deep insight. Spiritual and creative insights occur in our right brain, but for many of us we are rarely in touch with that side of ourselves in day to day life. Journaling keeps the left side of our brain occupied while at the same time allowing our right brain to express feelings, creative insights and intuitions. After recording our inner wisdom, we can then read over this guidance and allow it to infuse the way we live.

As you write about your life regularly you begin to see the truth of your situation and recurrent patterns, behaviours and tendencies begin to emerge. You get a bird’s eye view of your own thought processes and a clearer idea of how you may contribute to your own problems and situations. After releasing pent up feelings and writing down scattered thoughts, the mind can then begin to focus. This inner clarity eventually precipitates outer change, after all, there is only so long you can keep complaining about something in your journal day after day without realising that you have to DO something about it.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about journaling is the recording of your own personal journey in life. Over the years  I have accumulated shelves of journals and they are my most precious possessions. I love going over them once every few years and reliving parts of my life at different ages, reminding myself of insights or nuggets of wisdom from times gone by. It’s an incredible way to track our own growth and change, as well as see how we have matured…it’s also nice to see the enduring parts of ourselves that never change;  as well as observing ongoing issues that sometimes follow us through the years.

And the “artist’s date”?

Julia Cameron encourages us to think of the 2 practices as being like a 2 directional radio-receiver – the morning pages allow us to get everything out and the artist’s date is about receiving: opening yourself to insight, inspiration and guidance. How can we expect to feel connected to our inner selves if we don’t spend any time with them? The artist’s date is a time for self-intimacy…it’s a chance to nurture yourself and feed your inner well with sensory input: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. It’s not about doing what you think you should do – often our inner selves are child-like and need some magic…so when it comes to your artist date, choose something fun or delightful.

Some ideas for artist’s dates could be:

• Visiting an aquarium or a museum
• A solo beach trip
• Perusing second-hand book stores
• Going to see a film
• Exploring an ethnic neighbourhood
• Going to a concert or a play
• Wandering the city and grabbing a coffee at a cozy coffee-shop
• Buying art supplies and having fun creating something
• Taking a long walk in nature
• Playing arcade games
• Visiting a farmers markets and treating yourself to some delicious produce
• Watching a sunrise or sunset

Artist dates get you out of stale rhythms and routines and open you up to new experiences – and as I learned from both my artist-dates and travelling alone, solo-adventures allow you to experience the moment in a very different way than if you were interacting with others – plus give you some fascinating stories to share when you are with your loved-ones.

So if your feeling a little lost and disconnected from your true self, or like life has lost it’s magic spark, I encourage you to try these 2 simple practices yourself, or even better, read The Artist’s Way and do the whole course!