Excerpts from interview with Julia Cameron:

Well I think that people are often ungrounded and at a loss as to exactly what their position is in life.  I find that if people work with morning pages, where they get up every morning and write 3 pages of long hand writing, telling the universe or, whatever you care to call it, exactly where they are and how they feel, they begin to become more centered.

I think it’s an interesting thing, morning pages work for lawyers and judges and housewives and people who have not previously declared themselves to be artists, and they also work for artists.   They are very powerful centering technique.

I just had someone say to me, “Julia I’m blocked on writing a new book”, and I said to her, start morning pages, those are the grease slide to creativity and I believe that’s true.

What happens is that as we become more in touch with ourselves, we become more deeply in touch with our intuitive guidance, and we find that there is a pathway, and that as we proceed a step at a time, we are led.  So I think that what I’m teaching people is essentially a spiritual radio kit.  With the morning pages they are sending.  They are saying, this is what I like, this is what I don’t like, this is what I wish I had more of.  And something, whatever you care to call that something, is definitely listening.

I probably should explain to you a little bit about what morning pages are and what they aren’t.  They are not high art.  You do not need to be a writer to do morning pages, and in fact sometimes it’s a little bit harder for writers because they feel morning pages should be quite real writing.  But what they are, are 3 pages of long hand early morning, stream of consciousness about absolutely anything.  So it might be I forgot to buy kitty litter yesterday, I didn’t call my sister back, I didn’t like the way Jeff spoke to me at the staff meeting,  I wonder if I should paint my kitchen yellow.  So they jump around.  I often tell people when you do morning pages its as if you have ADD because you go from topic to topic to topic to topic.

Another way to think of these, it’s a meditation technique for westerners.   We sometimes have a hard time sitting and doing nothing for 20 min, so I say why don’t you sit there and do something.  What happens is, in meditation we have what we all cloud thoughts which are thoughts that sort of just drift across your consciousness.  In morning pages, you write your cloud thoughts down.

So often morning pages  may feel petty.  You feel like you are being bugged by little teeny things.  They may feel like you’re griping.  I have an ex-husband who says that I always make them sound so negative, and that actually sometimes they are sometimes delightful.  So I should say, and yes, sometimes they are delightful.  You don’t necessarily very often get a direct line between morning pages and creativity.  It’s a little bit more zen.  You do morning pages and behind your back you start to be more creative.

One of the things that happens when you do morning pages is you identify who your naysayers are and you begin to say that’s not the truth, that’s just their belief system.  I have a tool called crazy makers where you look at your circle of acquaintances and you say which people get in the way of my creativity.  Often a crazymaker is very dramatic, and the creative person in his midst finds himself rescuing and being overly concerned about the crazy makers crazy agendas.

As we start to unplug from our crazy makers,  we learn to be much more self loving and self forgiving.  We learn to be more tenacious and we learn to say who does make me feel more good about myself.   I think I’ll spend a little more time there.

The producers of Beyond Belief are proud to announce that Beyond Words Publishing is now distributing Beyond Belief media products, and will be at the International New Age Trade Show (INATS) on June 26, where Julia Cameron will be appearing, along with Gary Zukav, Denise Linn, Marianne Williamson, Joan Borysenko, Lisa Williams and John Holland.

Beyond Words Publishing has distributed films such as The Secret, The Living Matrix, Hidden Messages in Water, and promoted transformational leaders such as Michael Beckwith, John Assaraf, Wayne Dyer, Dr Masaru Emoto, and many more.

Beyond Word Publishing is a ‘partner in transformation’ and works to inspire people to gain wholeness, to learn, grow and find solutions, with many books published in over 40 languages, including many bestsellers, in addition to their DVD and CD distribution.

Present Course Media, LLC. is grateful to be in partnership with such a powerful community of transformational leaders.

by Julia Cameron

The following is an excerpt from the interview with Julia Cameron for the documentary Beyond Belief.

I think that people have a lot of mythology around artists, they think that real artists are born knowing they are artists, and they are fearless and they pursue their craft w/out any thought of criticism.  In fact, the truth is, quote real artists are people who have learned to live with their fears and make their art anyway.

So if people come to me hoping to be taught to be fearless, I say I can’t really teach you that, but I can teach you to live with your fears, and when they start living with their fears, and becoming more intimate with themselves they begin to get just the smallest glimmering of, “Hey it might be fun to try this, or I’d like to try that”  and that’s the little tell tale whisp of creativity that people learn to listen for more and more clearly.

I think we come from a culture which demonizes creativity.  We have a belief system that says artists are broke, artists are crazy/  We have a lot of confusion with alcoholism and creativity, because many of our finest artists were also alcoholic, and so we think in order to be an artist I have to be a down and out alcoholic, and we hold these beliefs as a sort of club over our head, and we say if you try creativity you’re going to really rock the boat.  What I tell people is, well maybe you’re going to rock the cradle and not the boat.  Maybe it’s a much more gentle process than you believe it is.

As people start working, I have them do a tool called shadow artists.  I have them take a look and see in what ways they have been batteries for someone else’s creativity, someone who is officially creative, and very often we find that people surround themselves with other people, or a significant other, who they say their dreams are more important and they are more talented.  So what we start to do with morning pages is say your dreams matter, you are talented, try gently to do just a little bit today.  As people do this they begin to experience an alternative to their negative belief system

That inner voice isn’t the truth, and I have people do an exercise where I ask them to write out the reason I can’t be a brilliant and prolific creative artist is…??  ..and they will find that they have lots of irrational thoughts related to being an artist.

Many times people have either or thinking:  either I can be an artist, or I can be in a loving relationship, either I can be an artist, or I can be solvent.  Usually they put something that they hold precious high up on the list of what they will lose, and then they scare themselves, they terrify themselves out of trying art.  Because, you know, who wants to be an artist if it means you’re going to be crazy, who wants to be an artist if it means you’re going to lose your house, who wants to be an artist if it means you’re going to be a bad parent.  So when we get people to look at these subconscious beliefs, people begin to say, oh, that’s sort  of silly, that’s not true.  I have them do an exercise where they replace their negatives with positives.

Artists are crazy might translate into artists are free-spirited.  Artists are broke might translate into artists are solvent.  So we just sort of peak under the rug of people’s consciousness and see what the lumps are.

When people start to connect to themselves they can be lead in many different directions.  One of the things I find kind of sad, is how thorough our brainwashing is around money, and how deeply we tend to believe if we work our creativity we’ll be broke.

People are often very surprised to move into their creativity and find that their earning power in fact goes up.  I can’t promise you, work The Artists Way and you’ll be solvent and self-supporting through your art, but I can say work The Artist’s Way and you’ll be led to more sense of support.

I believe that when people pursue their creativity they are in effect pursuing a spiritual path, they begin to have more intution, they begin to have more coincidence, they begin to experience guidance.

NOTE:  Extra interview clips that were not featured in the documentary may be found on the Audio CD Set at:  www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com/store

Present Course Media LLC Announces the Release

of an Inspiring Self-Empowerment Documentary

Present Course Media LLC is proud to announce the release of Beyond Belief, a compelling documentary film that will change your life. The DVD is now available on the film website:  www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

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Embark on a journey of expanded awareness Beyond Belief. This innovative film reveals the role beliefs and the subconscious mind play in creating your experience. Uncover the source of limiting beliefs that stop you from having what you want.

Beyond Belief provides tools to release limiting beliefs and remove obstacles that are blocking you.  Discover the powerful resources you have buried deep inside.  Unleash the potential of your creative mind.

Wake up…to your dream life.

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Beyond Belieffeatures some of the top authors, researchers, scientists, teachers, psychologists, personal transformation experts, healers, and spiritual leaders in the world.  Experts from the films The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know join inspiring leaders in delivering a powerful message that will transform your life.