A couple of days ago I had a kryia.
I didn't know it was a kryia until I read about it the same day in Week 4 of Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way'. Kryia is a Sanskrit word Julia is describing as spiritual seizure or surrender. 'We all know what a kryia looks like' she says, 'it is the bad case of the flu right after you've broken up with your lover.' It's that moment when you're so down that the only way is up. When your body is telling you something's gone really wrong and you must correct course if you want to survive.
See, I've started to tend to my creative self because I reached an important conclusion: that my desperate quest for love is really just like trying to cure depression with paracetamol. I realised it was my creativity that needed looking after before love can flourish in my life. No runner can run with a crouch so it's important to heal the various parts of yourself that need healing in the right order. And so I started some serious recovery with the help of Julia Cameron. And yes, I wake up every day a bit earlier than usual and I write my morning pages, I do my exercises, I purge every day.
And she's right, it's a crazy process. I am all over the place. And my ego is hating it because it feels threatened. More threatened than ever. And so it decided a few days ago that I needed a reminder of how I haven't met anybody yet, how every guy I meet disappears sooner or later, how I am getting old etc etc. And for a while, of course, I believed every word. Mainly because I am a bit worried. I have about three and a half months left of my Love Project and still no happy ending in sight. Will I be able to end it with fireworks? Or will I end it the same way I started it?... Single, again. My 7th year of singledom... Then what would my project have achieved? Have I worked hard enough on it?...
All these questions are paralysing. So, of course my ego, had free reign to walk all over me. But true to my creative rescue routine, I woke up with puffy eyes and started writing my morning pages. I asked God what His plan? Why was He doing this to me? What was the lesson He wanted me to learn that I haven't learnt yet? I asked all these questions on paper over and over again until I realised that I have ever only thrown tantrums about why this, why that... I have never simply just asked, prayed for something. So I ended up praying for a happy ending for my book. Or at least an important lesson to share. And I have prayed that my ego leaves me alone and stops bothering me with stupid things like that. And I have prayed for the right person to come into my life but if he never does, well then at least I prayed that I can learn how to live with it peacefully.
I have literally surrendered. And that was my kryia. My cry for help, like Julia calls it. I think I've read somewhere (I wish I remembered where) that in every big project there comes a moment when the whole work seems pointless, when the author starts doubting it, when there's doom written all over it. But that's the very moment which makes the project stronger, bigger, better.
I hope that was my moment. Because I think the exercises do work, there's a real artist in me just waiting to come out and play.
I didn't know it was a kryia until I read about it the same day in Week 4 of Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way'. Kryia is a Sanskrit word Julia is describing as spiritual seizure or surrender. 'We all know what a kryia looks like' she says, 'it is the bad case of the flu right after you've broken up with your lover.' It's that moment when you're so down that the only way is up. When your body is telling you something's gone really wrong and you must correct course if you want to survive.
See, I've started to tend to my creative self because I reached an important conclusion: that my desperate quest for love is really just like trying to cure depression with paracetamol. I realised it was my creativity that needed looking after before love can flourish in my life. No runner can run with a crouch so it's important to heal the various parts of yourself that need healing in the right order. And so I started some serious recovery with the help of Julia Cameron. And yes, I wake up every day a bit earlier than usual and I write my morning pages, I do my exercises, I purge every day.
And she's right, it's a crazy process. I am all over the place. And my ego is hating it because it feels threatened. More threatened than ever. And so it decided a few days ago that I needed a reminder of how I haven't met anybody yet, how every guy I meet disappears sooner or later, how I am getting old etc etc. And for a while, of course, I believed every word. Mainly because I am a bit worried. I have about three and a half months left of my Love Project and still no happy ending in sight. Will I be able to end it with fireworks? Or will I end it the same way I started it?... Single, again. My 7th year of singledom... Then what would my project have achieved? Have I worked hard enough on it?...
All these questions are paralysing. So, of course my ego, had free reign to walk all over me. But true to my creative rescue routine, I woke up with puffy eyes and started writing my morning pages. I asked God what His plan? Why was He doing this to me? What was the lesson He wanted me to learn that I haven't learnt yet? I asked all these questions on paper over and over again until I realised that I have ever only thrown tantrums about why this, why that... I have never simply just asked, prayed for something. So I ended up praying for a happy ending for my book. Or at least an important lesson to share. And I have prayed that my ego leaves me alone and stops bothering me with stupid things like that. And I have prayed for the right person to come into my life but if he never does, well then at least I prayed that I can learn how to live with it peacefully.
I have literally surrendered. And that was my kryia. My cry for help, like Julia calls it. I think I've read somewhere (I wish I remembered where) that in every big project there comes a moment when the whole work seems pointless, when the author starts doubting it, when there's doom written all over it. But that's the very moment which makes the project stronger, bigger, better.
I hope that was my moment. Because I think the exercises do work, there's a real artist in me just waiting to come out and play.
