I am having one of the days I have been DREAMING of.

I woke up feeling alert and happy and excited to start my day. No convincing myself to get moving, no laying in bed as long as possible. I felt genuine joy to get up and get the day started.

It's not that I have been unhappy, I've just been overwhelmed. I am probably burnt out. I wonder if we all are?

But the little shifts I made to my routine, which feel so big and like I've changed my whole life, are really what I need.

I fed my cat, made coffee, and put on my headphones with music that is a cross between meditation music and mellow dance music.

I danced. I drew. I painted. I wrote. It felt like a moving meditation.

I feel like I am re-connecting with ME and all of the magic inside.

I have been wanting to have more time for unstructured/unfocused art making for a long time.

Like even just 1-2 hours a day. Which I DO have time for, but I don't always have ENERGY for, especially since I have been prioritizing other things.

I was thinking that I had to get other things done first... but actually, I think I've been scared.

The "what if I'm not good enough" which leads to "Like really, what if I give this my all and I find out I just suck?" which sends me down a deep spiral of "And then how will that feel, to know I am not good enough? Doesn't it feel better to keep putting this dream off to the future"

I wanted to keep this AS AN OPTION. And I know that if I take a chance on it, it may not work out like I want it to.

These words feel so trite but the feelings are intense and this can keep us from doing what we want to do with our lives.

So we do need to be gentle with ourselves! Find the little ways in. Keep practicing.

Because logically - by doing the thing that lights me up FIRST, I will have MORE energy and then can also do the things I need to do. But my inner critics don't care about facts.

 

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I just sat down at my “new” desk.

Yesterday I had an intense therapy session and when I came home, I re-arranged my furniture to support my new life. (I still have not really started the "declutter, re-organize and re-decorate project" but I have all year for that!)

I realized I had been using my “dining table” as more of a “creative work table” and it would FEEL more like a work table if I moved it over to my desk, art + sewing area.

AND doing that made the whole lower floor of the loft feel like an art studio, which is what I was going for.

So, I sat down at my new desk in my new art studio. (Formerly my dining table, lol)

I am ready to make a big change, and re-orient a big chunk of my time and energy towards ART MAKING.

Oh wow writing that as a HEADLINE feels powerful.

I’ve been wanting this for so long.

And I have been tangled in EVERY creative dream trap that I have seen every person I work with get tangled in.

But I didn’t know I was tangled I thought I just had to “finish this other thing first”.

Which is the ultimate tangle, when we have ourselves convinced that it’s a legitimate thing we are waiting on.

I don’t want anything to change with the Creative Dream Incubator membership. What I want to change is to shift most of the time and energy I spend on the “business stuff” over to art making.

I think from a purely strategic perspective, this is the smartest thing for me at this time. But more importantly this is what feels ALIVE.

(Rather, my most wise and grounded and creative and brave self thinks this. I have many selves who are terrified about it)

The business stuff has been so important to me because my marriage ended, which instantly doubled my cost of living, and then the cost of living kept rising and my peri-menopausal brain just couldn’t do the things I used to AND even if I could do them, the things I used to do don’t work the way they used to. So it’s been a lot to sort through and figure out.

And I thought I would come to this place where it felt like “For sure I am done sorting through and figuring because I make so much more money than I need so I am free to go make art”

But that’s not what is happening and I’ve come to a point where it’s either keep making myself do “business stuff” that my heart is NOT in which I think will start to endanger my soul….

(I am NOT saying that doing the work to support your business is soul destroying!!!! This is just the point I am at)

OR do the thing that feels alive and inspiring and…. FEELS LIKE THE MAGIC OF THE CREATIVE DREAM INCUBATOR.

AND, when I look at the “business stuff” I’ve been working on - I honestly believe that sharing more art is the thing that will enliven my marketing because it puts me deeper into the magic.

(Because this last year+ of really working on it has been good! I feel like I have shored up my marketing, I am really proud of what I have done, it’s just not bringing in the big bucks)

And I will still write newsletters and promote the membership because I FUCKING LOVE what we are doing in there and want more people to find us but more of my time and energy are going to go to art.

I can’t explain how tangled up I have been about all of this.

Again, therapy was INTENSE yesterday. 

It feels like a lot of things are coming to a head.

It feels like ALL the things I talk about in the Principles of Creative Dream Alchemy. My soul is calling me towards my truth. That’s intense!!!

But I am sitting at my “new desk” and I feel ready to start my “new life” where I am devoted to art making in the ways I have been dreaming of. 

 

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Life feels intense. Getting the legal divorce done, adjusting to where I’m at in my perimenopause journey (which had briefly felt “solved” when I went on hormones because it felt like such a relief to have that support, but several months in I can see… it’s not a magic wand, it’s SO helpful and I’m grateful every day but there are still a lot of difficult symptoms), adjusting to the cost of living and the state of the economy and no longer having a partner to help with the bills or his really good health insurance, the political landscape, the way the climate crises just gets more dramatic.

It’s a lot and I feel like “like is just too fast, I need it all to slow down” and I (understandably!!) get a bit stuck in a freeze response.

Plus it’s winter, it’s like nature is calling me to hibernate.

But in the midst of all of that there are also amazing things. I have these moments of hope and optimism and this sense that I am a snake shedding its skin and my new self is about to emerge.

And this feels so confusing sometimes. And I have a lot of despair and depression which hold me in that freeze response.

But every time I sit with it…

Every time I process my thoughts and feelings and give everything space and listen to my truest truth…

I come to the same answer.

Make more art. Go deeper into the creative dreaming practices.

BUT THEN

This voice of self doubt emerges like a giant stepping out of the ocean. “You’ve been trying to do that for so long. You’ve failed. You can’t”

As a coach, I know that the BIG self doubts show up when the BIG breakthroughs are near. Or when a dream is REALLY IMPORTANT. Or when there are no real obstacles on the outside, and that’s terrifying in its own way, so self doubt comes in to create some.

As a coach, I KNOW that the big self doubts are never telling the truth. Ever.

As a human, and a sensitive one at that, it’s hard not to listen to the self doubt and feel defeated by it.

So, I am circling.

And doing what I can to shore up my self care practices, like the Year of Hope, to support me in aligning deeper with my new emerging truth and detaching from the self doubt.

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

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Every Monday in 2025 there will be a new journal prompt in the Year of Hope classroom in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership.

​Get this week's journal prompt here.​

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. The discussions already have been so good! Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.

I want hope to help me create a whole new way of being

I have been circling this for a bit.

I want to be more hopeful, like deep down inside where it’s just automatic. I want my FOUNDATION to be hopeful.

I want that hope to be so powerful that I just… feel it. All the time. 

And act accordingly.

And then I am also a highly sensitive and easily overwhelmed person living through stressful times. 

I can wake up in the morning in a fog and it can be difficult to get out of that fog.

I can be very anxious and self doubt can take over.

For the last 14 years I’ve been self employed with the Creative Dream Incubator and the first half of that I was actively figuring out what kinds of routines would help me BE the person I wanted to be.

So I know what works.

And….

I don’t want to “make myself” do those things. I want to genuinely feel it in the moment.

But...

I don’t always genuinely feel it in the moment.

Just writing this out feels BLEH and embarrassing because…

We have to do the things to take good care of ourselves and no on genuinely feels like doing those things every single day. That’s just a fact.

AND

I want to be feeling different about HOW I am doing the things I am doing.

AND

I can’t quite articulate HOW I want to be different but I am feeling around for it.

 

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Yesterday's post I wrote about how I was feeling like I landed in a new place in my practice and hope felt easier.

And it did stay that way for a bit, but this morning everything was heavy fog.

Hope was there, glowing gently but the fog was heavy, stopping it from shining out very far and my whole head was filled with fog.

I was trying to be with the fog in a compassionate way, but I had this judging self show up "See! You skipped your morning routine that wakes you up and helps you be your best/most creative self and that was so stupid!!!! You know what works for you, so why don't you do it?"

And I felt frustrated, can't I take a day off from my routines and still feel alive? It's so great that I do know what helps me feel how I want to feel. But, like, can't I have a day off?

And, ironically, this is happening on a Monday when I did have two full days off, mostly alone at home, sewing and watching trashy tv. I even ended the weekend with a salt bath and yin yoga and meditation and early bed and shouldn't I feel amazing today?

So, I'm being compassionate with this part of me too. Making space for the part of me who wants a day off. And making space for the part of me who wants to do stuff.

No wonder I feel foggy! So many selves with conflicting agendas.

Just sitting with it, making space for all of my feelings and conflicting desires without resolving anything seemed to help though.

Eventually I make an iced coffee and put on a playlist of ecstatic dance music and soon I am swaying to the music, feeling clear headed and getting ready to get to work in an enjoyable way.

I have a strong and growing desire to be more creatively engaged in my life.

I am coming out of the fog of divorce and the re-building phase and I want to be CREATING more.

I am still sewing like crazy. Partly to get rid of my stash, partly I feel like I am in a new stage of life and want new clothes for it and want to make them myself.

That's a good start... I want to be doing more though. Decorating projects. Art projects.

But I am still in the process...

So, trying to be patient with the parts of me who just want to take a nap, without letting them making all of my choices for me.

 

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On Zoom on Friday, one of our Creative Dream Incubator members said she thought launching the YEAR OF HOPE for 2025 was really DARING and it felt really good to be a part of that DARING way to approach this time. I mean - the world around us is giving anything but hope!

I feel that way about the Hello 2025 Blessing Ceremony, which is happening on Zoom this Friday (January 17).

To choose to BLESS our dreams and our selves and our lives as the world around us sinks deeper into dystopia can seem delusional but I think it’s vital.

Life is sacred. 

Our political and economic systems don’t treat it as such but that doesn’t mean we just give up. I think it means we need to devote ourselves more deeply to honouring all life as sacred.

To bless is to MAKE HOLY. That is what we will do together on Friday (replay provided so you can do this whenever it works for you).

You deserve to know yourself as sacred.

You deserve to know your dreams as sacred.

You deserve to feel fully blessed, supported and encouraged in your life and with your dreams. 

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

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Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.

 

If you're not a member - join us here!

I had several really hard days with my hope practice. Lots of hopelessness and "WTF am I even doing?"

Combined with so many destructive things happening in the world it was a lot.

And I was thinking very deeply about a lot of things. And feeling intensely a lot of feels.

Then it felt like Alice in Wonderland, and I was moving through different worlds and I landed in this new one.

The ground felt more solid beneath me. The sun shone brighter. Things felt clearer.

It felt like there was more space for hope inside me, and so I had a firmer ground beneath me to dream from.

That's when I wrote the post I shared yesterday where I was feeling so sure about what to DO.

And I also came up with a hope art project. I don't know where it's going to go, but it feels like starting it is another way to sit with hope and that feels like a lot.

This year of hope project really is like any dream.

If you show up for it and keep showing up when ALL THE HARDS are landing around you - a new path will appear, or more often you will realize that you had the means to build the path all along, but now you'll get it and feel ready to DO IT.

 

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.

Every Monday in 2025 there will be a new journal prompt in the Year of Hope classroom in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership.

​Get this week's journal prompt here.​

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. The discussions already have been so good! Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.

 

I sent this as a newsletter on Friday morning, and shared it on social media - but it just feels important so I am sharing it here too.

I want to come out of this with my ability to dream intact. This feels important to me.

My ability to dream means my connection to my soul, my creativity, my feelings, my sense of what feels right, true, meaningful and important to me. And my ability to ACT on all of that.

By “this” I mean all the ways our political and economic systems and our climate itself are collapsing. And I know this state of collapse will likely continue for the rest of my life. So maybe I don’t want to come out of it as much as learn how I want to be in it?

In my morning scroll just now I saw a lot of conspiracy theories that sparked dread in my heart because we cannot solve the problems that we refuse to SEE. And the conspiracy theories have us looking in the wrong direction entirely.

The fires in LA are not weird, or deliberately set (I mean it seems like one maybe was, but that’s after the others had been raging for days?) to cover up crimes. They were entirely predicted and predictable, if we listen to climate scientists. Climate change IS increasing “natural disasters” that get bigger and more destructive. A lot of what we will experience as climate change will be our increasing inability to rebuild. 

We’re in it. And to pretend we are not, to choose to believe conspiracy theories or keep our heads in the sand only keeps us moving deeper into it instead of making choices that can protect the future.

This is why we need the skills of creative dreaming:

⚡️ the courage to face the hard stuff head on

⚡️the groundedness to sit with it, and get more information, and learn

⚡️the emotional capacity to begin to process the magnitude of what is happening

⚡️the emotional capacity to find hope somewhere in there

⚡️the commitment to LIFE, like really being present with the wonder and mystery of life and not being checked out

⚡️the ability to DREAM and IMAGINE beyond what our colonialist capitalist culture has ingrained in us (extracting non-renewable resources from the planet to hoard wealth for yourself is a really lazy and unhealthy dream)

This is why even though everything feels futile to me sometimes, I will keep holding space for the people who want to do this work with me in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership.

We can create a better future together. 

This Friday, January 17, we are doing a Blessing Ceremony for our dreams for 2025. 

This feels so important right now, to get some support for our dreams, to plug into the magic of community and set intentions together. I hope you join us!

Members: get the call details here.

Everyone else: join us here.

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

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Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.

The thing that was first on my mind when I opened my Year of Hope journal was: DESERVING.

We deserve to feel hopeful!

We deserve to feel optimistic about the future. We deserve to feel calm, loved, supported, safe, energized, etc, etc, etc.

And then it hit me how many people don't feel these things. How much of the world is set up to make this impossible.

How much I have struggled to feel I truly deserve what I have.

I'm feeling like I opened up a real can of worms.

The main feeling I have now: sadness.

So I am sitting with the sadness and offering it care.

I journaled.

I made a big batch of chickpea stew.

I went for a walk.

I still feel sad, and let down that the intentional practice of calling in hope has called in it's opposite.

I know this is a part of it. Facing and processing hopelessness makes more space for hope.

Still, it sucks.

 

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Continued from yesterday’s post about my new dream…. once I had accepted all of this and was feeling good about this dream… then I started making a plan to get it all one ASAP.

Like - go get a TON of boxes, and commit a whole weekend and try to get all of the de-cluttering done in one go. Accepting that I can't do it all in a weekend but I could get a big chunk of it done, and then keep going every weekend....

And then I stopped myself because that doesn’t feel fun. 

And also…. what’s the rush?

And then a few things I had ordered online arrived and they came in boxes within boxes and once it was all unpacked I had my pile of boxes, lol! And I knew I didn't want to get them filled with things to give away ASAP so I broke them down and put them away so I can take this slow.

I am still thinking about where I want to start. But I know how I want to approach it: 

• small bits at a time, let’s not make it overwhelming 
• aim to get rid of anything that doesn’t feel like it supports the life I want to be living (does my Dream Self love this?)
• as I do this, really think about how I want to organize and store things, and what kinds of store things I need to make that happen

It's not just about getting rid of stuff, it's about re-thinking stuff. What do I have and why? How does it serve me? What stuff would serve me best?

For example - the clothes I wear when I'm just hanging out at home are pretty worn out. What if I made myself a small wardrobe of lounge wear that is just as comfy but emotionally feels amazing to wear?

And also: "worn out" isn't bad! Especially when it comes to clothing, I like mending my clothes and I LOVE finding ways to mend that add more creative flair.

Even if I want to replace some things with other things - overall I want this to be about LESS consumption, not more. AND more thoughtful consumption.

So going slower with this whole project gives me space to consider all of this and come to better solutions.

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

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I want to de-clutter and re-organize every inch of my home. Every drawer and cupboard and random little space.

I have lived here for 12 years. I did a HUGE de-clutter when I moved here and there were no closets and I made this commitment to not accumulate stuff, since I had nowhere to put it... Then I got married and my husband built closets, lol. 

But it’s interesting that I still think of myself as this person who did a HUGE de-clutter and now doesn’t accumulate stuff… because it’s just not true anymore!

But as I think about that’s next for me creatively and how I want to live my life in my 50s and beyond… a giant de-cluttering and re-organizing feels really supportive of all of that AND feels supportive of the process of figuring out my next steps with everything.

I am creating space for my new life. I love this.

I wrote about this over the holidays - how I wasn’t really accepting that I am DREAMING of this, I was thinking of it as a chore.

And now I am really letting myself DREAM of it….  it’s getting bigger.

Like, I want to really think about how I want to store things, and get the right containers to make that easy to keep neat.

And… I want to decorate! I want DIY decorating projects!

This really does feel like MY HOME and CREATIVE SPACE… and what if it also felt like my Dream Self’s home and creative space? Because as I have been sitting with that question I realize it’s really not her space. 

This is the part where this dream merges with another dream and I realize that this is another place where I’ve been tangled up about this dream.

I have been dreaming of renovating the loft… but I see as “when I have more money than I know what to do with and can hire people to tear things down and re-build and I go to a hotel for a few weeks and they get it all done”

Which is… not realistic. And it keeps my dream unattainable.

But when I think of re-decorating as something I do as a part of this de-clutter and re-organization… taking little steps at a time... well now it feels like a fun creative project that I can definitely start…. now!

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

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Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.

It’s Friday morning. I woke up achy and headachy and crabby and I am worried I am coming down with something and I have plans this weekend that I really want to do.

So that’s the vibe I went into my daily hope practice with.

And I could not “glow hope in my body” in the meditation. I just felt frustration as a dark cloud.

So I painted my page which did make me feel a little better while I was doing it but didn’t change anything.

So I wrote about how I was feeling.

This is what makes a practice ALCHEMICAL. To have space to be with whatever comes up even and especially when it is the opposite of what you wanted.

Right now, in this moment, I HATE THIS. 

But, my frustration needs tenderness and presence.

So, hello frustration, I’m sorry you’re so uncomfortable. How can I help?

Frustration is a crabby old man who lives in the fog. He reminds me of my father’s frustration and I get this image of the fog of frustration stretching through generations.

I make it a cup of tea and give one of my gingerbread cookies from the freezer (that I made too many of on Christmas Eve when I was in the holiday spirit). (And to be honest, taking leftover gingerbread out of the freezer and dipping it in hot tea is a favourite after-Christmas childhood memory and so I want to "make too much" gingerbread most years)

I see that usually when you show up, my whole body gets agitated. We never sit calmly together. We don’t drink tea together.

“No, we really never have. I am THRILLED we are doing this now!” This old man now looks more like an elf or wizard or jolly old man. He’s dressed in so many colours.

I wonder if he has things to teach me.

I realize I don’t think I have anything to learn from frustration in the way I feel I can learn from fear or doubt. I just see it as an annoyance but it’s a feeling, it’s MY feeling, and according to my own beliefs, doesn’t that make it valid and likely even wise?

“Oh yes, I am not a crabby old man I am a WISE old man”

Well that’s fantastic! What wisdom do you have for me today?

“REST.”

Oh. Rest? Really? I’m just starting to get back into the swing of things from the holidays. I want to CREATE! And DO! NO I don't want to rest.

“Girl! It’s Jan THIRD. What are you rushing for?”

Yeah! I always get ovewhelmed in the holidays, just the way my routines get trampled. My routines NOURISH me! I want them back ASAP!

“But your routines are also about your work/creative life. What you need right now is rest. I promise you, your most hopeful self is well rested. And right now is time for more rest. You said it yourself - you woke up a little under the weather this morning.”

And then I think…. of I HAVE routines around rest and self care, like my evening routines. And those I have been doing through the holidays so….

Oh my gosh, frustration is RIGHT!

I am putting too much pressure on myself to “get back to work”

I was working on Year of Hope stuff DURING the holidays. And nothing needs to be done today so…. 

I will rest.

Wow frustration did have something to teach me.

Now I DO feel hopeful. And it feels completely true: I can't be my most hopeful self if I am not rested. And also: I can't do the kind of work I want to do if I am not well rested.

Rest/replenish is exactly where I am today. Frustration came from trying to override that to have the day I had intended to have.

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.