Week 10: Inner Child Healing
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It’s NotesOnDawn, and I am so happy to be back in our little 'AllAboutBooks' corner. I hope you have all been well and have been soaking up the truly lovely summer days we’ve been having.
If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, my life has been a whirlwind of cardboard boxes and farewells. I’ve spent "the last month and a bit packing up my life" [00:27], saying a fond goodbye to Birmingham, and "moving to London" [00:27]! It’s been chaotic and thrilling and full of Big Feelings, and I cannot wait to share all of those new adventures with you.
But through all the chaos, I’ve been clinging to my one constant: my Artist's Way journey.
My recent vlog was a very cosy and chill summer weekend as I wrapped up Week 10: Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection.
I have to be honest, when I first read that chapter title, I bristled. "Self-Protection" sounds so... defensive. It sounds like building walls, hiding, and being prickly. But as I’ve worked through the week, I’ve realised I had it all wrong.
It’s not about building walls. It’s about building a greenhouse.
It’s about "slowing down" , as I mentioned in my video, and creating a safe, warm, nurturing environment for my creativity to grow. It’s about protecting my process from the harsh elements of self-doubt, external pressure, and "competition" [01:27].
And for me, this week, that protection looked like four very distinct, and very magical, things: looking back with kindness, dancing with my inner child, championing my friends, and claiming my own story... permanently.
Amazon UK - The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
1. Self-Protection as an Archive: Reading My Own Past
One of the main tasks for Week 10, as my vlog showed [03:10, User Prompt], was to go back and read my Morning Pages from the very beginning of the challenge. I cracked open that first notebook, my hand slightly shaking, and found my first entry from "the beginning of April" .
My loves... it was like reading a letter from a different person.
The pages were saturated with anxiety. I could feel the old panic, the "what ifs," the frantic energy. The transcript of my vlog mentions that this week’s tasks had me "dive into... what Fame and success for means for me as an artist" [01:35]. Reading my April pages, I saw that old definition so clearly.
My old self was terrified. She had "so many anxieties" [paraphrase of [03:27] in previous video] about starting her new job. She was obsessed with the idea that "in order to do that [be a writer] I have to be successful famous to get that stability" [01:51]. She believed, in her bones, that there was "no other way I could possibly have a living where I purely write" [02:05].
As I sat there, in my sunny room in July, with my new job secured and my life in motion, I felt this profound wave of compassion for her. And I realised, with a jolt, that those anxieties... their "grip" [from my own reflection] had lessened. They weren't gone, not entirely, but they weren't screaming at me anymore.
This is what "self-protection" means for a writer.
It’s the protection of the process. The Morning Pages, those three messy, unfiltered, daily pages, work. They are the "greenhouse." They are the safe space where I can dump all that toxic panic—all the fears about "Fame and success" [01:35] and "competition" [01:27]—so that it doesn't leak into my actual creative writing.
Reading back on them is the ultimate act of self-trust. It is tangible, written proof that this works. It protects my future creative self by showing me, in my own handwriting, that my anxieties are temporary and that I am capable of moving through them. It’s the kindest, most powerful archive of my own growth.
2. Self-Protection as Play: The Inner Child Dance Party
This week, "slowing down" also meant listening. And the voice that came through the loudest was my "neglected" inner child.
She, it turns out, just wanted to play.
There’s a clip in my vlog [02:32] where I am just... dancing. I’m in my room, the sun is streaming in, and I'm having a one-woman dance party to Chappell Roan. It’s "silly." It’s unproductive. It’s pure, unadulterated joy.
And it is a radical act of creative self-protection.
As writers, especially those of us who love books, we can be a very serious bunch. We think about theme, and structure, and craft. The world demands we be "productive." This, combined with my old, anxious mindset about needing to be "successful famous" [01:57], can be suffocating. It leaves no room for the very thing that sparks all creation in the first place: play.
Protecting my inner artist is protecting my inner child. It’s about setting a fierce boundary around her right to be "silly," to be curious, to have fun without a goal. That dance party was me, as the adult, telling my inner child, "You are safe here. You don't have to perform. You don't have to be 'successful'. You just get to be joyful."
When we do this, when we protect our right to play, we are protecting the wellspring of our best ideas. All our best stories, all our most unique characters, come from that playful, curious, non-judgemental place. Protecting your creativity means, sometimes, you just have to put on a good song and dance.
3. Self-Protection as Community: My Friend's Book Launch
This was, perhaps, the most beautiful and 'AllAboutBooks' moment of my entire week.
My best friend, Christi, is a phenomenal poet. And this weekend, I got to go to her poetry book launch [05:27].
Seeing her stand up there, reading from her very own, very real, very published pamphlet... I was just bursting with pride. "It's just so cool seeing your friends like live out their dreams," [paraphrase of [05:38] in previous video] I whispered in my vlog. It was "so wonderful to watch and so affirming" .
Her pamphlet is called This is Where I Find the Softest Hurt, and it’s published by the incredible independent Fawn Press. You can (and absolutely should) buy it from their website here: https://fawnpress.co.uk/product/pre-order-this-is-where-i-find-the-softest-hurt-by-christi-steven/.
This is where the Week 10 theme of "competition" [01:27] clicks into place. The "creative monster" of jealousy is so common. It’s that bitter voice that whispers, "Why them? Why not me?"
But "self-protection" means protecting yourself from that voice. And the antidote to competition is community.
Being there for Christi, cheering her on, buying her book, and celebrating her win felt like the most powerful "self-protection" I could practise. Because her win is our win. It's "affirming" because it proves that the dream is possible. It takes the abstract goal of "getting published" and makes it tangible. I held her book in my hands. I saw it. It’s real.
As writers, we cannot survive in a vacuum. We need each other. Protecting our creativity means protecting our community. It means showing up. It means championing our friends' successes as loudly as we hope they'll one day champion ours. It means rejecting "competition" [01:27] and choosing community, every single time. Holding her book, I felt protected by her success, inspired by it. And I am just "so proud of her" [paraphrase of [06:01] in previous video].
4. Self-Protection as Identity: My First (Bookish) Tattoo
Okay. The big one.
I did something this weekend that I’ve "always wanted to do" . I got "my first tattoo" [09:14].
It was a "little stick and poke" [00:09:47 in previous video], a quiet and personal experience. And, as my vlog hints, it’s "from one of my favorite books" [00:10:20 in previous video].
I feel like "most people didn't expect for me to get what i did" , because it’s not a big, obvious symbol. It's subtle. It's for me. But here, in our 'AllAboutBooks' family, I feel like you will all understand.
Getting a literary tattoo is the ultimate act of "self-protection" for a book lover.
As writers, we live in our heads. Our identities feel fluid, our confidence brittle. We suffer from imposter syndrome. We constantly question if we are "real" writers.
This tattoo... it’s an anchor. It’s an act of claiming my identity. It’s taking a story that helped shape me, a story that lives inside my heart, and placing it on the outside. It's a permanent, physical declaration of who I am and what I love.
It’s "a little bit of a reminder... to not take things too seriously" [00:10:30 in previous video], which, as you saw from my Morning Pages, is a lesson I desperately need. It’s a protection against my own "successful famous" [01:57] anxieties.
It’s a tiny, permanent piece of armour. It’s a non-verbal way of saying: "I am a person who loves stories. I am a person who is a story." It protects me from my own self-doubt. I can't argue with it. It’s there. It’s real.
The Greenhouse We Build
So that was Week 10. It wasn't about building fortresses at all.
It was about the gentle, conscious work of building a greenhouse. It was about protecting my past self by reading her words with kindness. It was about protecting my inner child by giving her permission to play. It was about protecting my community by rejecting competition and choosing to celebrate. And it was about protecting my identity by etching my love of books right into my skin.
It’s been a beautiful, affirming, and surprisingly "chill" week of discovery. And now, I’m packing up these lessons and taking them with me to London. A new chapter, in every sense of the word.
Thank you for being here with me.
With so much warmth,
NotesOnDawn