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A Self-Coaching Journey through Eric Maisel's

The Van Gogh Blues

The Creative Person's Path through Depression

By Chris Dunmire, CoachingYourCreativity.com

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Chapter 8: Nurturing Self-Support

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel offers the affirmation “I am the beauty in life” to help creators change their mind and heal their hearts. What do you think about this affirmation? Is it true for you? Why or why not?

• Maisel declares that “A vital aspect of self-support is reminding yourself that success is not a measure but a feeling.” How thought-transforming is this new attitude for you in a downward-spiral of success-measuring?

Chapter 9: Disputing Your Happy Bondages

This chapter details how addiction, like depression, is a meaning problem, and that “restoring meaning is the centerpiece solution to the problem.”

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel describes the usual “path” to an addiction. How will understanding the precipitators to this path aid you in dealing with your addictions? What is an addiction?

• Maisel discusses why a “happy bondage” is anything but happy and outlines the “Addicts Task” if you are to dispute your happy bondage and prevent the addiction from winning. What further suggestions can you make if you’re struggling with an addiction?

Chapter 10: Confronting Narcissism

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel distinguishes between healthy narcissism and unhealthy narcissism. Note that both can contribute to meaning problems and depression. Can you gauge any type of narcissism you exhibit?

• Maisel lists eight ways to reduce unhealthy narcissism and increase healthy narcissism. Is this something you can do for yourself?

Chapter 11: Repairing the Self

Questions for Reflection:

• Regarding the chance to repair oneself, Maisel states, “It is on your remaining freedom that you must bank everything.” How do you characterize that freedom?

• Maisel sums up the chapter with pointed questions about self-repair. How will you answer them?

Chapter 12: Forging Relationships

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel states that “intimacy is neither a myth nor impossibility.” Do you agree? Explain.

• Maisel brings out that “Unfriendly relationships between two artists is all too common,” but yet, “there will be more meaning in a creator’s life if they forge relationships with other creators.” If you are an artist (of any kind), can you see the benefit in forging these relationships?

Chapter 13: Meaningfully Creating

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel declares “The centerpiece of a meaningful life for creators is meaningful creating.” How do you know when you are engaged in meaningful creating?

• Maisel describes the state of “soulfulness” that creators regularly feel when they fully engage in the creative process. Can you identify with this feeling? When's the last time you were in this state?

Chapter 14: Taking Action

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel states that “There is no meaning without action,” and “meaning does not exist until it is made and that life has no meaning until a meaning is forced upon it.” Have you resisted taking action? How will you begin taking action?

• Maisel illustrates several ways he might assist clients to “act out” singing, painting, or writing in order to “enact a problem in real time.” Will you consider doing something like this on your own?

Chapter 15: Making Meaning

Questions for Reflection:

• Maisel makes note of a “practiced response” that will be needed to thwart off meaning threats and meaning crises “or else paralysis and depression will set in.” Do you have the courage form these practiced responses?

• Maisel introduces the concept “for the sake of the peach.” What does this illustration bring up in you? How will it help you?

© 2008 Chris Dunmire, CoachingYourCreativity.com. All rights reserved. (01/10/08). Please do not duplicate this article elsewhere without my permission.

About the Author
Chris Dunmire is the author of the Dollar Bill Origami Money Plant and driving force behind the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She finds meaning as an artist, humorist, and creativity coach and channels her overactive imagination into multiple containers on display at ChrisDunmire.com.