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ABOUT THE BOOK

Whether in painting, poetry, performance, music, dance, or life, there is an intelligence working in every situation. This force is the primary carrier of creation.

If we trust it and follow its natural movement, it will astound us with its ability to find a way through problemsand even make creative use of our mistakes and failures.

There is a magic to this process that cannot be controlled by the ego. Somehow it always finds the way to the place where you need to be, and a destination you never could have known in advance.

When everything seems as if it is hopeless and going nowhere... trust the process.

SHAUN MCNIFF is internationally recognized as a founder and leading figure in the arts and healing field. University Professor at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he is past president of the American Art Therapy Association and the author of several other books including Art As Medicine, Trust the Process, and Creating with Others.

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TRUST THE PROCESS

AN ARTISTS GUIDE TO LETTING GO

SHAUN MCNIFF

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2011

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts02115

www.shambhala.com

1998 by Shaun McNiff

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McNiff, Shaun.

Trust the process: an artists guide to letting go / Shaun McNiff.1st ed.

p. cm.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2688-5

ISBN 978-1-57062-357-8 (alk. paper)

1. Creative abilityPsychological aspects. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology) 3. ArtistsPsychology. I. Title.

N71.M35 1998 97-40182

701.15DC21 CIP

For every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

ECCLESIASTES 3:1

CONTENTS

I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE SUPPORT and insightful dialogue offered by Kendra Crossen Burroughs at Shambhala, my editor of many years. Kendra has been my closest advisor through every phase of this project. The process of creating with her has been one of the most rewarding parts of bringing the book to life.

Linda Klein gave an early reading of the manuscript and our discussions ignited many ideas about creation that found their way into the text. Bob Evans is another of my art idea collaborators and I thank him for license to create which emerged from one of our conversations.

My children Liam, Kelsey, Elyse, and Avery have been my mentors on childhood imagination.

And thanks to the students, colleagues, and studio workshop participants who have trusted me in the different roles I continue to play as a keeper of the process which never fails to teach us all.

A persons license to create is irrevocable, and it opens to every corner of daily life. But it is alwayshard to see that doubt, fear, and indirectness are eternal aspects of the creative path.

W E ARE LIVING IN AN ERA WHEN people hunger for personal relationships with the creative spirit. This desire has generated industries of creative consultation, therapy, teaching, and self-help, all offering support and guidance on how to make the spirits of creation more accessible.

As we begin to express ourselves in movement, painting, creative writing, performance, and other media, there is an almost universal sense of, I didnt know I could do this. I never realized what I have inside me.

Those of us involved in offering opportunities for creative expression to others observe how success involves giving ourselves permission to create. There is a pervasive sense in our culture that creative expression is restricted to an anointed group.

From childrens art we see that everyone carries an inherent license to create. Somehow, through the course of school experience, this freedom is restricted for the majority of people as the identification of talent tends to overshadow universal participation. There are many forces at work in the repression of creation, and I do not want to speculate here on all the possible causes. I simply want to declare that a persons license to create is irrevocable and it opens to every corner of daily life. The ways of creation are as natural as breathing and walking. We live within the process of creation just as much as it exists within us.

The discipline of creation is a mix of surrender and initiative. We let go of inhibitions, which breed rigidity, and we cultivate responsiveness to what is taking shape in the immediate situation. The creative person, like the energy of creation, is always moving. There is an understanding that the process must keep changing.

I have written this book as a guide that is different from the more conventional strategy of laying out a series of steps or developmental stagesthe one, two, three, four of creative fulfillment. The elements of creation work together in endless combinations.

I cannot augur the creative spirits labyrinthine ways. As a creator, I know that the process doesnt work that way. It is more unpredictable, complex, perverse, subtle, and intimately associated with the idiosyncratic landscapes of the personal imagination. Creation thrives on inspiration and affirmation rather than direction. When approached through explanation, the creative spirits fly away beyond our grasp.

Travelers through the process of creation also realize that the truly essential spirits are experienced on the way. Once we arrive, the pleasures are usually attached to reflections on how we got there. And if there is a feeling of satisfaction, it is likely to be ephemeral, since the creative spirit longs to get onto the road again, to create anew.

I hope to convey an unlimited sense of the ways of the creative spirit. I practice many different disciplinespainting, writing, movement, drumming, and performanceand each one invariably leads to another. This is a text dedicated to like-minded travelers who admire all of the different spiritual disciplines but can never stay in one place and be one thing alone.