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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
