By “quitting”, I don’t mean giving up on the theories or practice of the Artist Dates.  I mean that I am not going to continue working through each chapter and doing the morning pages. 

I think this is a GREAT book.  I have already recommended it to several people because this book really changed the way I see myself and changed what I’m doing with my life.  I had a constant negative monologue playing in my head that I never heard until I started doing the morning pages, and I rarely did anything that I enjoy until I started going on Artist Dates.

However, I’ve gotten bogged down in the details of the book and the exercises.  Now, it’s like there’s a section of my brain devoted to The Artist’s Way of thinking.  I no longer need the book to help me do it.  I even had to get a tiny calendar for my purse because I realized I needed to schedule my life around the activities I enjoy, rather than telling myself I’m “too busy” to enjoy life.

My therapist talked about when people “proficiency” college classes, meaning they take a test and get credit for the class without ever having taken the class.  I did this in college in the form of CLEP tests, which enabled me to graduate from college in two and a half years while saving thousands of dollars.  My therapist suggested perhaps I have reached a level of proficiency with The Artist’s Way.  It’s hard for me to believe that, but I’m going to go with it and see where it takes me.

I still recommend this book to everyone.  The Artist’s Way completely changed my life for the better.  I find that I am overall happier because of the things that I have learned from the book.  I told my therapist that I wished she had been more forceful in suggesting the book to me because I realized that I could have been a lot happier, a lot earlier, had I started this book when she first suggested it to me.