The Map of Your Mind: Journeys into Creative Expression

As a writer and psychotherapist, Maureen Jennings has long believed deeply in the need for creative expression. Life is a hot issue, she points out, and we all need some place to express ourselves. Some people seem to be able to do that effortlessly, but for many of us there are “stoppers,” nagging, internal voices that say things like “Whatever makes you think you are creative?”

Jennings reminds us that being creative isn’t reserved for the talented few, nor is it limited to writing and art. We all start out in the same way, full of life and curiosity, but somewhere along the line we often lose track of that part of ourselves, and spend our lives longing to get it back.

The Map of Your Mind, full of common-sense advice and encouragement, is intended as a guide into the creative self.
Here are suggestions for equipment, for ways of training yourself to be open to what goes on around you, as well as a program of timed and graduated excercises (mostly written) to be worked through alone or, preferably, with a group of friends. She includes examples from her own groups of what various members have done with each of the excercises. She also encourages you to throw out all expectations, urging you instead to simply allow yourself to come alive and explore your creative self. As a therapist, she also knows how this can help you to know and accept your own uniqueness. As the leader of many groups that explore creative expression, she also knows how support can help.

Whether you already make your living in the arts, or whether you just want to satisfy that old, nagging yearning, this book is a practical, encouraging, and trustworthy guide into creative expression.

• In the tradition of bestselling authors Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way and Veins of Gold) and Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind)
• There is real hunger in people to explore their creativity
• Maureen Jennings is eminently qualified to advise on creative exploration

Maureen Jennings has been a psychotherapist in private practice for 25 years, and has been conducting creative-expression groups for 16 of those years. As a writer, she has published three historical mysteries, one of which, Except the Dying, was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award and the Anthony Award. She has also written short stories and plays. Maureen Jennings lives in Toronto.