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 don't have a post ready for today, my vertigo has calmed down but I am still dizzy and the part of my brain that can put a post together is not quite online 🙂
But I wanted to share a question I wrote in my Dream Book a few weeks ago:
What if it is a part of my magic is to get flattened by the hard stuff, and spend time totally debilitated by fear?
I mean - just the experience of being debilitated is magic. Not just the part where you heal and grow because you work through it, you know?
And then related, right now: what if being debilitated by vertigo and dizziness is a part of my magic and a part of my process? What if I accept that I am where I am, rather than focusing on getting myself to where I want to be?
Creative Dream Alchemy is the balance of meeting ourselves where we are and moving towards where we want to be.
What if the way I feel that "balance" is changing?
I am making space in my schedule and in a journal to go deep in the meditation and then take it deeper in journaling and art-making about it after.
I’ve worked through some big layers of FREAKING OUT ABOUT CHANGE and am feeling so grounded and sure about this decision now.
I am shifting my self concept from “being a creative entrepreneur and running the Creative Dream Incubator” (which is obviously a VERY creative endeavour anyway!) to “artist”.
And I don’t mean I am focused on producing any particular creative project. I mean I want to be DEEP in my creative process and follow the process where it leads, instead of trying to lead it. So, I am NOT focused on the Outer Work of the art at all. (for now!)
AND Outer Work needs to be done! So as I am re-creating my routines, I am also looking at what kinds of structure and system I need to keep everything running smoothly. These weekly meetings are one of those things.
THIS IS SO HARD TO DESCRIBE!
But it feels similar to the de-clutter, re-organize and re-decorate project for 2025. I want to go through everything in my space, give away anything that doesn’t serve me now, re-think how and where I store things and what I want it all to look like - so that my home serves me in living my best life, where I am now AND supports my dreams by making it easier for me to do the things I want to do.
I am doing the same thing with my schedule, routines, and how I run my business.
I’m sharing this be cause I am noticing all the ways that I judge my dreams - or parts of them. This is too small. This is impossible. This is ridiculous.
What counts as a dream?
A few examples:
Feeling more joyful in your daily life
Sleeping better and having all the gifts of feeling well rested
Making more art
De-cluttering your home
Finding ways to be the change you want to see in the world
Writing a book that changes the world
Nothing is too big or too small.
When you have that “I WANT THIS” feeling - that’s a dream. That’s your own soul saying: this is the path. Go for it. As you walk down that path, more will be revealed.
YOU DESERVE TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS.
Pursuing a dream is an alchemical process. Which means it will heal and grow you… so you don’t need to feel ready and you don’t need to feel capable because you will BECOME the version of you who can do this… by doing it.
It’s not that you have to do your best to make every dream happen or you are failing at life!
It’s just that you will be happier when you VALIDATE your dreams.
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 don’t want to do the year of hope today.
When I remember how I felt about this project before I started, how excited I was for this commitment to show up for hope and optimism and to make space for the process of holding onto hope…
That just feels very far away.
Now I feel a lot of heaviness and resistance and I just want to distract myself from how far away hope feels.
I don’t want to summon the inner strength to be my most alive and creative self. I want to rest.
And that seems legit, everyone is tired, rest is valid!
AND/BUT
There is something in there that doesn’t feel straightforward.
Like - why can’t I rest AND be my most alive and creative self? Like why would I even need to choose?
I DO NOT WANT TO BE MY DREAM SELF.
I WANT TO BE ALL CURLED UP IN A BALL.
I see a snail that’s tucked into its shell.
Hey snail. Do you need anything in there?
No. I never want to need a thing ever again.
OK wow that’s intense!
No it’s not. It’s cozy.
Well, everyone has needs.
It’s all too much.
Agreed! It really is.
I’m just too tired to even think about this.
Yeah, I get it.
So why are you pushing me?
Oh that’s a good question. I guess because I am afraid that if you just curl up in your shell and never leave or do anything - you are going to die.
You want me to live?
I want all of us to live. Like, really LIVE. To feel free and happy and at peace.
Oh, yeah I see how hiding in my shell in the dark forever doesn’t exactly feel happy.
And I see how forcing yourself out of your shell doesn’t feel happy either! So what can we do?
I could get behind a little picnic in the meadow.
A picnic in a meadow sounds great.
OK putting pressure on myself to feel alive and happy does make me want to just hide under the covers forever.
I didn’t want the Year of Hope to be pressure, I wanted it to be a safe space to explore.
And some days, exploring feels like pressure.
Maybe my internal sense of “what is pressure” vs “what is encouragement” is changing. That would make sense!
What is the “let’s have a picnic in a meadow” equivalent to journaling in my Year of Hope journal?
Painting. Collaging.
Doing it laying on the floor. Or in bed. (Well, using paint pens in bed would work) With a cup of tea and a cookie.
OK yeah I can fill pages with colour. Listen to nice music. Be in the VIBE of Year of Hope without doing any parts that feel hard.
Show up for practicing hope WHILE ALSO meeting myself where I am.
This is a part of a lot of the Creative Dream Alchemy meditations I share in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership. We work on connecting with this part of us, and making decision from this part of us.
I believe this is true. I can’t always FEEL IT, but I always do believe that this part of me exists, in there somewhere.
Some of our members don’t believe that they have a part of them that ALWAYS believes (which is valid!!) and we’ve had interesting conversations about that.
Lately I notice that when I am in touch with this part of me, I really feel unstoppable. Like the magic is really potent right now.
But the times when I am not in touch with this part of me, it feels so far away that it may as well not exist. Like the despair is potent too.
I think this is well summed up in the video I shared yesterday. Your dreams are more important than ever. And working with them is harder than ever.
So what does this mean for your practice? How does this impact how you show up for your dreams?
I was taking a bath and I "saw" this journal page in my mind and got out and made it.
It feels SO satisfying to see it outside of me.
The little bits of blue and pink that got mixed in with the white - I have no idea what that means but it feels so RIGHT to see it that way, and then put it on the page that way.
Not that it offers any answers.
But one of the things that I have found is more helpful as a coach is to encourage people to make more space for their questions. Get in there, sit with it, make it a cup of tea and really spend some time with it.
We all have a lot to hold right now! And we have more options than we think about HOW we choose to hold it all.
At first, we don't think we have a choice.
We do. But we usually have to sit with our feelings before we can find that place where we can choose how to respond.
And one thing that does come to mind is that Dream Book is a really good way of holding complex and multi-faceted processes, and doing a Dream Book for "surviving these times" could be very helpful!
I wrote this post before Trump started at trade war with Canada. I am Canadian and I've had a LOT of feelings since then and have been exploring this all a lot more deeply. And I'm still giving myself grace and space to be in the mess of it all.
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.
The news hurts my head.
The answer isn’t to stop reading all news. Though part of the answer is to find the right balance between being informed and losing my mind by keeping up with everything that is happening. We all know that the shock and awe is happening on purpose, in order to impact us exactly how it’s impacting us.
So what do we do?
I am making art. Feeling my feelings.Meditating. Practicing the best self care I can.
Looking for places where I can make a difference.
I am deep in the Year of Hope project. And one thing I find hopeful today is the growing movements in Canada to stop the far-right from taking over our country at the next election this year. I’ve never seen this much grassroots political engagement ahead of an election and that is hopeful.
And I am really trying to validate my feelings without getting stuck in them. Another balancing act.
But mostly - I think I need to accept that I am where I am. As a sensitive person, I am struggling with it all. So I need to validate the struggle.
I have/had SO MUCH RESISTANCE TO THIS but when I can do it, everything feels easier.
It's another "new normal" to adjust to. And we're going to adjust. And we're going to respond. (I know loads of people are already responding). And we're going to create a better world for everyone. This is not the end.
When I drew that picture about my head hurting - that made it feel better.
Expressing feelings helps process them and makes more space to see them.
And I want to point out that a three year old could have drawn this. It's not about "making Art".
I think drawing your feelings is MORE effective when the drawings don't look anything like "real Art".
Feeling your feelings is an alchemical process. Let it change you.
I wasn't having a lot of feelings at the time, it just came to mind.
And being in the magic of making, it felt so right to write it out...
And then later in the day when I had uncomfortable feelings, I hated this advice. I felt kind of betrayed that this was what I had created today, lol.
It's come up on our last few group calls that a lot of us are feeling... off.
Are we sick? Stressed? Overwhelmed? It's hard to know.
I'm limiting my news like never before, and even still the little bits that get to me have me in tears some days.
And as much as I hate it, and as much as none of us know how to navigate these times... I do know for sure is that NOT feeling our feelings doesn't lead anywhere good.
The process of divorce has shown me more than anything else ever has, the alchemical power of feeling our feelings.
And when I use the word alchemy, I ALWAYS mean that the process of transformation brings us closer to ourselves. It's not some random thing.
So I am trying to trust that this isn't different - in that regard. The feelings are uncomfortable, the situation is unwelcome... and this is my life. And all life is sacred. So I will feel it and be with it and keep figuring out how to show up for what feels true to me.
So, continued from yesterday about making space for my new dream... I had my plants on the mural primed and was wondering… what am I going to paint here?
Then I remember, oh yeah, one reason why I hadn’t done this yet is… have you seen the price of paint? All of the "how much money do I get to spend on my joy" stories swirled around.
And I say to myself… well, I want to do it so I am doing it. I am making a commitment to following my creative practice where it goes. I am buying art supplies as needed. That’s just a part of this.
I have this problem that didn’t seem connected to this.
My bedroom closet is so cluttered! Like, I don’t even have that many clothes, what is even going on in there? That's a part of what I want to de-clutter and re-organize this year, but so far I had avoided looking more deeply at what was in there. And then I just happened to look closer and...
It turns out that TWO BOXES OF PAINTS is what is going on in there, lol!!!!
Which I had put into the closet because I wasn’t sure if I was finished the mural I had been painting up there and just wanted them out of sight. And I guess.. out of sight out of mind because I thought I had NO paint to start from. Turns out I do have wall paint - in all of the colours I like
It feels like following our creative dreams wherever they go, not letting the inner voices stop us and getting creative about getting around the outer obstacles…. solves problems and creates new possibilities that WE CANNOT SEE in advance.
I just love this.
A practice is an ALCHEMICAL CONTAINER.
The work is just to stay in it, and keep listening and following it. I think when we want it to look a certain way or create a certain outcome, we can thwart the magic and power of it.
I flipping LOVE my new wall.
It feels like a "dreamscape" and sitting at my desk feels more magical and creative.
I did MAKE SPACE for new dreams to emerge here.
And it freed up some energy and I did get a good start on organizing art and office supplies.
There is a program within the Dream Book program called SPACE-MAKING. It’s for when dream work is too overwhelming, it's a way to make space to even begin to dream.
And sometimes we shift back and forth between dreaming and space making. I think of that as a part of the practice of creative dreaming.
There’s also the physical space making, which we also need to do regularly.
So often, when I am coaching someone through a gnarly part of the creative process, the next step is to re-organize the art studio to MAKE SPACE to do the new work.
The part of the loft that is my workspace now, used to be our bedroom when I was married, and I had painted a mural in there for my husband, with tropical plants, which he loved. I wouldn’t have chosen tropical plants for myself and every time I look at it I remember that I made it for this man who I am no longer married to.
It’s this symbol of “I really tied to make that work” and for a while that made me so angry, because he didn’t try the way I thought he should. And then I came to understand that he did try really, in his way, which is different from mine. And then I came to appreciate the ways I try, how I do give things MY ALL, and how I appreciate that about me EVEN THOUGH it doesn’t mean I will always definitely get the outcome I want.
There is a “if you work hard enough you will succeed” story running through me, coming from past generations, and I am working on dismantling it while also appreciating the gifts of it. Hard work HAS brought me a lot of good, it just doesn’t come with any guarantees and sometimes that can break your heart.
Anyway, painting over the mural while I was still in process with all of my layers of feelings about it felt so overwhelming. Now that I mostly feel acceptance, it’s a fun project that’s not about erasing the past or fixing a mistake or sticking it to my ex, it’s about creating space for my new dreams.
The plants in the mural were outlined in black paint, so I am starting with a few coats of primer over the outlines and some parts of the plants, I’m not trying to block ALL of it from being seen, I think it will make a cool base layer for a new mural, as long as those black lines are lightened enough to not be distracting.
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'm in my fifth week of my daily journal practice with hope.
It's been more intense than I thought it would be, to keep showing up for this practice along side my dream work practices. Some days I have so much resistance.
The word MORTIFIED keeps coming up in my journaling.
I made a big change last week to prioritize my creative practice in my daily routine, which felt amazing and unleashed all of this energy and then… it's like it just stirred up EVERYTHING.
Which dreams tend to do! I know this! And yet, I am surprised and discouraged by it.
I am mortified by how long it has taken for me to prioritize my art making and creative practice.
This has been a dream for a long time. This has been a PLAN even, going back as far as late 2019. When I launched the Dream Book program January 2020 (which is the current version of it, there were a few smaller versions before, in case you are remembering doing Dream Book before 2020) my plan for marketing was to go all in on my own creative practice using the Dream Book content as the structure.
Like, I wanted to make art about my Dream Book experience. Images from the meditations, quotes from ideas that came to me, etc. And I wanted to share that art instead of coming up with promotional content.
I have done this, to some extent, but I have never done it in the way I wanted to.
And it makes sense, I mean - a lot has happened since 2020.
Plus, it's just really important to me and super vulnerable and sometimes it takes time to do the things that matter most.
AND it feels like this is a path that leads somewhere that scares me a bit. AND it feels like that path is the one I want to be on.
I was trying to explain all of this to my therapist to explain why I feel so creatively blocked, and I realized that this is how we all feel about our dreams.
IT'S JUST SO FUCKING VULNERABLE.
So I am mortified about how long it has taken me to get to this point.
AND I am so grateful to be here.
AND... something I want to take into my creative practice... where does the mortification come from? Like, where did I get the idea that I "should have" done this by now? Who decides what's the right timing?
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.
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.
