“I really have that worry that I’ll wake up in the morning and think, ‘Oh God. I’m such a fraud, and they’ll find me out.’ I doubt myself a lot.”

Those are comments by one of my favorite actors, Emily Blunt, who interestingly continued, “And maybe that’s a good thing, because I think it would be limiting to have discovered my whole bag of tricks by now. Hopefully I will always be afraid of being a fraud, because then you never stop trying.”

That is from a magazine interview about her movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” which also quotes one of her co-stars Stanley Tucci: “Yeah, if you consider yourself a fraud, then no one else will. I believe that. It’s people who don’t consider themselves frauds who are the biggest frauds… I’m actually looking at a book on my dresser, and the title is ‘Doubt.’

“I think doubt is an incredibly healthy thing. You just have to know its limitations and not let it stop you from doing something fully or executing something with authority.”

Mike White has been a writer and producer, sometimes actor, on many film and TV projects including Dawson’s Creek, Freaks and Geeks, Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, Orange County, and School of Rock.

His new HBO series Enlightened, created with Laura Dern, is slotted as a comedy, but brings up many issues about personal growth and emotional health.

Dern plays Amy, an ambitious executive who suffers a nervous breakdown at work, and recovers at a rehab center in Hawaii, which includes meditation. She regains better emotional health, along with new interests in self-help books, and an awakening about spiritual and environmental issues.

One of the aspects of the show, and Laura Dern’s outstanding acting, that I really like is that this journey is not presented as something easy or sudden – the title “Enlightened” is clearly ironic. Personal change is pretty much an evolutionary process, and Amy does not return from rehab as a role model of emotional intelligence.

Upon returning to her large corporation to reclaim her job, Amy is relegated to a basement data processing center instead of her previous position – and she views it as a basement full of “circus freaks” and “losers” as she calls them, including a character played by White (photo).

In his new course Your Best Life in the Arts, creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD promises to provide “real answers to the challenges that confront you” – whether you are “just beginning to write, paint or play an instrument” or have “logged in thousands of hours at your craft.”

These are excerpts from summaries of the first seven topics of the course, which is a live tele-conference (with downloads available), running for 14 Mondays starting October 3… with my added commentaries and resources, such as articles.

Week 7.   The Passion Key
Passion—and synonyms like love, curiosity, enthusiasm, excitement and energy—is vital to the creative process. It is possible to create without passion but your art will suffer and the likelihood of you continuing over the long haul is greatly reduced…

This is another central issue for enjoying a creative and meaningful life.

One of the themes of recent books and research on talent development is that creative achievement, even genius, is less a matter of innate talent than focused practice over time – maybe a long time.

As David Brooks declared in his The New York Times op-ed essay Genius: The Modern View, “The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark…it’s deliberate practice.

“Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.”

He notes recent research supporting this has been summarized in the books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle, and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin.

In an earlier post, I quote Jan Phillips about the inner voices that can keep us from creative work: “They’re voices we inherit along the way, from our parents, our teachers, the culture, the church – voices that say ‘I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I don’t have a story worth telling, I’m not creative, I shouldn’t stand out’ – they’re all (k)nots that keep us bound up and silent.”

From Artists are Crazy; Mothers Can’t Be Artists, and Other Myths.

In an interview for the Sounds True site, she talks about other aspects of our thinking, attitudes and inner life that can prevent or allow greater access to our creativity. Here is an excerpt:

{ Continued from Part 1 }

Releasing psychic tension

In their book The Psychology of Creative Writing, Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD and James C. Kaufman, PhD write, “Artists may not be aware of what is troubling them.

“Csikszentmihalyi put it this way: ‘The impressions artists work with come from many sources. One that is very prevalent among contemporary painters contains memories of childhood.

“Whether the viewer realizes it or not, and often also unbeknown to the artist, the images that form the core of a great number of modern works represent the rage or the ecstasy of childhood which the artist tries to recapture in order to integrate it into current experience…

One of the enduring ideas about developing creativity is to that creative people such as writers need to “get out of their own way” so they can more freely express their inner experience.

It is also potentially a core benefit of counseling or psychotherapy. But what does that really mean: getting out of our own way?

Dennis Palumbo, a writer and a therapist specializing in creative issues, addresses the question:

“If I, the writer, get out of my own way – that is, put my ‘stuff’ aside so I can write – what’s left to write about? My stuff is the raw material of my writing.

Healthy criticism can help refine our creative talents and projects, enabling our pursuit of excellence.

But when criticism is based on excessive perfectionism or an unrealistic self concept, it can be destructive and self-limiting, eroding our creative assurance and vitality.

In one of his podcast series, creativity coach and psychologist Eric Maisel declares, “Criticism is a real crippler. I’m sure that you know that.

“But you may not be aware just how powerful a negative force criticism can be, how much damage it can do to your self-confidence, or how seriously it can deflect you from your path.”

“My therapist gives me permission to accept that I’m human.”

Actor Claire Danes also commented in an interview that, earlier in her life, she was “on this whole perfection trip. And that’s just totally boring. And arrogant!…

“I finally realized after years of therapy… that you can encourage yourself to move further in a nurturing way. You don’t have to be abusive.” [Allure, Nov., 1997]

Many creative people have talked about how valuable it can be to use therapy or counseling for dealing with challenges, or to enhance self-understanding.

“Whatever success I may have is not going to come from a place where I’m trying to fit a mold. It’s going to have to come from an authentic place.”

Singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles is quoted in the article “Sara Bareilles finds her focus — finally” by Amy Kaufman [Los Angeles Times, Sept 8, 2010], who notes that the musician’s first hit “Love Song” was about “the disdain she felt toward record label executives who insisted she deliver a commercial radio single.”

Some people make creative projects that are hidden from view – such as a novel that never gets published – but probably most creative expression is public at some point, to some extent.