Not you making everything harder than it needs to be
Week 6: The Bare Minimum Artist's Way
We’re on week 6 (!!!) of our 12-week journey through The Bare Minimum Artist’s Way — an ADHD-friendly version of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
If you’re just landing here for the first time — welcome! We’re suspending the dogma rules about morning pages and artist dates and doing the bare minimum with The Artist’s Way, because we believe half-assing it is better than giving up on Week 3 .
Sound like you? Join us here on Substack and listen to our weekly companion episodes every Wednesday on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
When we think of the word abundance, our brains tend to go straight to yachts, penthouses, and chihuahuas in diamond-studded dog collars.
We’ve been brainwashed to believe that luxury means excess (thanks, Capitalism!) But we’re wrong! Abundance isn’t about having more, it’s about realizing you already have enough and actually letting yourself enjoy it.
In Week 6 of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron tries to shake some sense into us about this. She points out that luxury isn’t about private chefs or silk pajamas (although we wouldn’t be mad about it).
Luxury and abundance are about the small, deeply personal things that make us feel good—things that are usually way more accessible than we think.
However, most of us (especially artists) have been programmed to believe that struggle = virtue. So, we hesitate to dote on ourselves. We hoard the nice journals. We refuse to use the “good” pens. We agonize over where to place our stickers.
We act like our own enjoyment has to be earned, and in order to enjoy things, the circumstances must be perfect. What a load of bullsh*t.
The invisible fun-sucker
If abundance is all about letting ourselves have nice things, scarcity is the little gremlin whispering, You need to suffer a little longer before you can feel like you’ve earned it!
And exactly how long do we need to suffer, dear scarcity??? Hmmm?
Scarcity is why so many of us believe deep down that work has to feel like work, and having fun? Being creative? Who on earth do we think we are!!!
It’s why we feel more legit struggling in a soul-sucking corporate job than making money doing something we actually love.
It’s why we hesitate to take our creative dreams seriously—because if it’s fun, surely it’s not real, right? Surely, this will all go away if we admit we’re enjoying it, right?
Scarcity wants us to believe we have to choose: be responsible or be creative. Pay rent or have fun. Meanwhile, we could just opt out of that nonsense entirely and start treating ourselves like humans instead of productivity robots.
The extraordinary joy of little luxuries
Luxury is not a $500 spa day or a first-class ticket to Paris. Again, thanks Capitalism! Luxury is about fully engaging in the sensory experience of life. And as artists, that’s kind of our thing!
It can be something as simple as:
Drinking coffee from your favorite mug instead of the chipped one from that sad corporate job you left three years ago.
Wearing perfume even if no one is around to smell it but your dog.
Buying the $6.99 flowers because life is too short to talk yourself out of it again.
Giving yourself permission to lay in the park and read your book for an afternoon.
And the same goes for creativity. You don’t need a six-month sabbatical or a perfectly curated workspace to make art. You can do a little doodle on the back of a receipt. You can record a voice memo song while stuck in traffic. You can write a terrible poem just for fun.
Creativity doesn’t require permission from someone else. It requires us to stop overcomplicating and overthinking it.
That is true abundance — seeing what you already have and actually using it instead of waiting for some magical future where you’ve finally “earned” the right to enjoy yourself.
You don’t need justify why you’re having fun
If you’ve been running on a scarcity mindset for most of your life (and let’s be honest, most of us have), letting ourselves indulge in anything without guilt might feel…wrong.
Like, Wait, I didn’t finish my to-do list. Can I still sit here and read my book when there are dishes in the sink?
YES.
Julia Cameron reminds us that so many of us harbor this subconscious belief that if we dare to make art, we’d better be prepared to suffer for it. That God (or society, or capitalism, or the fun police) wants us to be broke if we’re audacious enough to pursue creativity.
But what if we just…didn’t go there?
What if we let ourselves enjoy things without needing to justify them? What if we picked one small, accessible luxury just for us and really let ourselves enjoy it?
This chapter reminds us that life does not have to be a grind. You do not have to suffer for your art in order for it to be valuable.
In fact, you should have more fun, because that leads to more abundance. When we move more lightly through the world, we become magnets for more creativity, more connection, and more joy.
Now go light the nice candle. Drink from the fancy glass. Make the thing. Let it be easier and more fun.
Want to follow along with us?
New podcast episodes & Substack articles every Tuesday!
👉 Subscribe to the Internet People podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
👉 Subscribe for free on Substack to get the weekly articles:
Read the companion article for Week 7:
PS — quick note from who writes these: This was the easiest and most enjoyable of all the Bare Minimum Artist’s Way write-ups to do. I’m not going to overthink that and continue editing it into infinity. I’m letting it be fun and easy!!!