It's 4 am. I was wide awake, writing in my head, so I decided to make myself a latte and come upstairs to my studio and write for real.

My daily blogging challenge is over and I have blogged every day for six weeks!

I've been thinking back to when it started and some of the ways it felt awkward and uncomfortable, which is so interesting because now it feels so easy because I have a routine with it.

I may stop sharing the daily posts (I mean for my public blog - I'll keep doing them in here). I don't know know yet and I don't feel any pressure to figure out my next steps right this minute.

But I do feel like this experiment was 100% a success. It doesn't have to become a "forever thing" to be worth doing.

Over the last two years my big dream has been becoming the artist and writer I want to be.

This is a much more expansive dream than I can really put into words but that kind of sums it up.

And it's not really about what I am doing or how it is reaching people, it's about how I feel and how I am using my creative energy.

I don't take for granted that my business has stayed stable throughout all of the instability of the last two years. I don't take for granted that I've had a lot of new opportunities this last year especially, to share my work in new places, in new ways. And I don't take for granted that, thanks to my business, I actually DO have the time to become the artist and writer I want to be.

I have talked about how I've failed in some of the business goals I had for this year. But at the same time - really good things have happened that I wasn't planning for, and I had opportunities I wasn't going after, and so my business also grew in ways I wasn't expecting or planning for.

That's how it is with dreams. There are no guarantees, but more often than not your dreams will surprise you if you stay devoted to them.

Another way I grew this last year was in my own relationship with myself. So many aspects of my inner world have shifted in ways that astound me.

When I compare the business goals I didn't reach with the ways I grew and changed I feel like I got the better gift, if that makes sense. The ways I've changed on the INSIDE feel so much more significant than the ways I wanted some things to change on the outside.

And I feel more than capable of achieving my goals.

AND I have more clarity about where I've been ambivalent about those goals.

AND I think in 2023, as I keep working with the same goal, I am going to find all new ways to approach it. I think something in me needed to change before I could see a different way.

Creative Dreaming is a practice and a process. Not a destination.

I share a lot more about the places where I stumble and flail than I share about the things that go well.

This is because I want to normalize the idea that some parts are hard, and that the hard parts actually heal, teach and grow us in important ways. Because I want to encourage you to never give up on yourself.

Our culture shoves perfectionism on us as though anyone who stumbles, doubts or fails along the way is not worthy of having their dreams and should give up immediately.

We all deserve everything. But I don't meant that in a capitalist hoarding kind of way. I mean we are all equally deserving of the things that are necessary for a good life.

Your Creative Dream is a map from your soul that shows you who you really are.

Using this map to navigate your path will bring you the healing and magic that you need most, right now, while it also grow you into the version of you who is doing your next-level dreams.

To me - the healing and magic I receive from engaging with my dreams in this way is as important, if not more so, than the external outcomes. This is the thing I want most in my life, and I get to choose to have it, every day.

So, for 2023, I will keep enjoying the process.