Let's Hear it for the Boys! Week One Meeting

Last night, I met with Oreste, Scott & Dave for the second time. It was the end of their first week and our meeting took about twice as long as I thought it would but there were some great revelations both for them as artists and for myself as group leader.

We spent a lot of time talking about the morning pages. The guys have decided that when pages are missed they will make them up (Emily & I are a little easier on ourselves). Dave tends to break it up when he misses a day (4 pages for the next 3 days), where Scott saves up the work, sometimes doing 9 pages at a time. Yikes! He is struggling with streaming, but really game to keep trying and experimenting. Oreste showed a sample of his~ he uses line breaks to indicate the end of an idea. I use indentations... but I feel like I'm more in the flow when there are less of them. ;)

Scott went here for his artist date and it may lead to them carrying his pot racks. He's visiting a similar shop for this week's artist date to see if they'll sell the coffee table he made. I wish I could post a picture of that! It's an amazing work of art. I'm happy for him to make connections and see results... but I also have a wish for him to enjoy some truly indulgent artist dates that are sheer enjoyment without any additional motive or expectation.

Oreste treated himself to a trip to half-price books. He bought a stack, including a copy of Julia Cameron's Vein of Gold... thanks, Oreste! He has a hard time with the artist date concept since he feels that he's already given himself a huge pamper by not having a job. I come up against this sometimes, too, since I'm underemployed and have time to just do what I want, too. I'm really grateful because I feel this process is helping me focus that, though, from pointless TV watching and lying around to constructive activity.

Similarly, this came up while discussing the written exercise in Chapter 2 where you list 20 things you like to do. I challenged Oreste to write a list that's a simple and obvious as possible. He reluctantly accepted when pushed.

Dave didn't have an artist date, which was a source of despair and consternation for him. He considered not coming to the meeting so he could take some time for himself and then check in with us by skype. It was one of those things where he was worked up enough that he didn't know what to do and I guess ultimately his decision to come came from me. Hopefully it was the right thing for him to do. We decided he gets two artist dates this week. =)

I got a couple of really great things out of this meeting:
** I can still be looking for blurts in my morning pages and thinking about affirmations that counter negative or expired messages that I give myself. I did that as instructed as a written exercise for chapter one, but it's sort of ridiculous to assume you could catch them all in one go, anyway.
** In a group setting, it's important to know how people like to get feedback. For example, Oreste prefers super-direct, whereas Dave likes potential criticism to be phrased in the form of a question.
** It's a great idea to know what kind of learners you have in a group, too!

Thanks, guys!