spiritual awakening

Kriyā and the Art of Alignment: Writing from the Self

There’s a passage in The Artist’s Way that has stayed with me, one where Julia Cameron introduces the concept of Kriyā, a Sanskrit term meaning “action”, but which she expands to describe a kind of spiritual crisis — a deeper, almost visceral reaction we have when something in our life is misaligned. It’s the pain that hits right after we force ourselves to endure something we shouldn’t. The exhaustion that follows overcommitment. The anxiety that builds when we ignore our creative instincts. The psychosomatic warning system that lets us know when we are forcing ourselves into a life that doesn’t fit. A kriyā is the body saying, “Enough.” It’s a warning from the self we’ve ignored for too long.

She describes how, when we ignore our truth — whether by working a job that stifles us, overcommitting to obligations that drain us, or even rescuing people who should be rescuing themselves — our body protests. We get sick, anxious, lethargic. Our emotions flare up, and our energy vanishes. Cameron’s Kriyā, in this sense, goes beyond simply taking action; it requires recognising when the actions we are taking are working against us.

Through morning pages and self-reflection, we begin to see where we are out of sync. At first, this clarity feels like loss.

“I can’t keep ignoring my health or sacrificing my time for this job.“ Or “I have outgrown this job.”
“This relationship isn’t working.”
“I don’t enjoy this anymore.”

Realising these things can be painful. We often resist. We want to keep the illusion that everything is fine. We don’t want to change — we want things to change for us. But as Cameron points out, once we eliminate ambiguity from our lives — when we become clearer about who we are, what we want, and what we stand for — we also lose illusion. And while losing illusion can feel like a loss, it is also a gift. We gain something invaluable: the truth.

And yet, truth doesn’t arrive gently. It disrupts. It can bring tears and frustration. Cameron compares this process to a spiritual seizure, an upheaval that shakes us until we let go of what no longer serves us. This is where art and self-expression come in — not as an escape, but as a way to process and understand this shift.

One of Cameron’s most striking ideas is that as we clarify who we are, our creative voice becomes coherent. When we are fragmented — when we suppress parts of ourselves to fit into jobs, relationships, or roles that don’t align with us — our creative work reflects that fragmentation. It feels scattered, disconnected. It lacks a centre. But as we strip away the false selves, as we clear out the clutter — physical, emotional, psychological — our writing, our art, begins to feel like it comes from the same person. A pattern emerges.

She calls it the snowflake pattern of the soul — a unique, intricate identity that takes shape once we shed false layers. The more we remove what is not ours, the more distinct our pattern becomes. And when we create from that place, our work has coherence, continuity. Our writing, our art, no longer feels like it was made by multiple conflicting selves but by one true self.

Also, writing (or any creative work) involves tuning into what is already within us, rather than inventing something outside of ourselves. And that means confronting our real emotions, our real desires, and our real experiences. This is why Cameron insists that creativity is not based on fantasy — it is rooted in reality. Art happens in the moment of encounter: when we meet our truth, we meet ourselves. And only by meeting ourselves can we create something original.

She seems to emphasise the following points:

1. Listen to the kriyās. Pay attention to where life feels wrong, where you are forcing things. Let yourself feel the loss of illusion.
2. Write from clarity. As you refine your self-understanding, your art will refine itself too. Your writing will begin to feel like it flows from one true voice, not a chorus of conflicting selves.

Beyond its myriad interpretations and purposes, art is about becoming someone. Becoming the person who can create freely, without distortion. And in that becoming, as we align with who we truly are, our voice, our art, the snowflake pattern of our soul will finally emerge — whole, authentic, and coherent.

According to Cameron, writing (or any creative act) therefore requires a stable sense of self. We need to know, at least on some level, who is speaking in order for our voice to emerge authentically on the page. If we are constantly shifting to accommodate external expectations, our work will feel scattered, fragmented, and uncertain — reflecting the uncertainty within us. To write from the self, we must first reclaim it. We must listen to our Kriyā, recognise where we are out of sync, and make adjustments — not just in our creative work, but in our daily lives. The more we align our actions with our deeper truth, the more naturally our words will flow.

That said, I don’t fully agree with the idea that writing requires a singular, stable self. Writers like Whitman, Virginia Woolf, and David Hume remind us that identity is not a fixed entity but a shifting constellation of thoughts, perceptions, and impressions. Whitman famously declared, “I contain multitudes” while Woolf wrote, “I am rooted, but I flow”, suggesting that while parts of us are fluid, ever-shifting, there is also a deeper, more unshakable core — something immutable that makes us who we are. Hume, on the other hand, challenges even this notion of a stable self, asking, “When you enter most intimately into what you call yourself, what do you find?” His answer: a collection of perceptions in perpetual motion, never truly fixed.

In my case, the fluidity in my writing does not stem from accommodating external expectations; rather, it emerges from exploring the fluidity of the self itself. Creativity allows me to move between different facets of my identity, to express contradictions, to embrace the shifting and evolving nature of being. Even to dream myself into another existence. Rather than seeing this as fragmentation, I see it as expansion — writing as a way of capturing the many selves that exist within me, rather than fixing them into one.

At the same time, there is work to be done in letting go of how my writing will be received. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking about how something might be interpreted, whether it will make sense to others, or whether it aligns with an external narrative. But ultimately, what matters most is this is how it feels to me. Writing from that space — without worrying about how it will be perceived — feels like the truest way to honour both the clarity and the fluidity of self-expression.

Liminal Space

A state of flux.

An ineffable sense of rapture of the mind, body, and soul.

A substitute for the spirit molecule.

A place where it’s safe to be human and where the concept of being human is unravelled at various stages in a way that will add to one’s self-worth, empathy, and awareness.

The texture of reality is mutable here. Your substance might go through physical and spiritual metamorphoses in tempestuous waves. Fragments of souls that are no longer around will reflect back at you unexplored feelings and aspects of your self on a visceral level.

You will witness the miracle of the self unfold. During your paradigm-shifting odyssey into this state of overwhelming multitudes, your core will be shaken and re-examined, but despite that, you will overflow with self-love even as you go through the transformative process. Your memories and dreams will be your friends, not your foes.

There will be upheavals, eventually followed by a sense of enlightenment and profound emotional intensity that will set new foundations in stone. No more lingering intrusive thoughts. No longer projecting and no longer being affected by other projections. An elation and liberation of the self.

Inserted myself in film stills from Stalker, Annihilation, and Solaris; photos edited and composited by me.

I had actually written a little uncanny story that these images were just accompanying, but I’ve decided to integrate that one exclusively in a greater project of the future.

Inner discourse

I have always wondered what other people’s inner lives are like. Some of my greatest strengths are my perceptiveness and empathy, so I can quite easily figure out what someone is feeling, how they are likely to react, or what I should say in order to make them respond a certain way. Then again, maybe that is delusional, or surface-level stuff. Ultimately, you don’t really get to know what other people’s inner voices and discourses sound like and how they piece together their narrative. (Don’t even get me started about the unfathomable unconscious)


My external life isn’t something I tend to write about, in any direct way, as it seems quite uneventful. My inner life has always been complex. One thing I used to dream about was eternal life, as a sci-fi narrative (i.e. uploading our consciousness into an eternal body or merging with AI), rather than in a religious sense. This is a polarising subject: some are horrified by this, others see the positive side of living forever, in whatever way. Since I always felt that those unafraid of – even at peace with – death were made of a different substance from myself, I used to be part of the latter category, thinking it would be amazing to find a way to preserve my consciousness, what makes me who I am, somehow. Yet I had never viscerally contemplated how the elusiveness of this ontological concept can work against such futuristic dreams, turning them into frightening dystopias.


There have been a few shifts in my inner world. One was spiritual, taking me on a path of Enlightenment. It gave me a distinctive sense of control and harmony. Unfortunately, it was a transient feeling, experienced whilst reading a book on a relevant subject; yet it offered me a glimpse of another perspective, another lens to see and feel the world through – one that was free of worries and other negative attachments. As opposed to the mental state of an emotionally detached person to whom you could also attribute the previous description, what I am referring to is on a different wave length; it’s not emotional distancing or numbness. It’s acceptance, surrender, experiencing the lightness of being, and the sense of inner peace and control arising from that state. It must be amazing to live your whole life that way, as people who fully dedicate their life to esoteric knowledge, practices, and meditation do. Although in my case it was ephemeral, recalling the experience, knowing that it is possible to view life through that filter still marked a long-term shift in my world view, albeit less impressive than the actual experience. Similar life-changing shifts have been experienced by people on prescribed pills such as anti-depressants. A second, poetic shift happened after watching a film that constituted an uncanny experience which temporarily projected me into a derealised world. The same type of experience was repeated at a later point, in other, rather peculiar circumstances, which I will not elaborate on in this.


I look at neighbouring houses and sometimes see unknown, pensive faces behind windows. Thoughts and narratives about their inner lives form and dissolve. Enlightened masters say We are One, but our egos (in Eckhart Tolle’s use of the word, his view of ego as the self that’s stuck with negative attachments and patterns rather than the psychoanalytic use of the word) separate us. E. Tolle says true compassion for and deep understanding of other human beings are based on the acknowledgement of the duality of our ephemeral-eternal nature. I don’t know if I believe in eternity in a spiritual sense. It seems likely, though, that if we manage to transcend life and our egos, we will supposedly be at peace with everything.