How To Do Inner Work | Adventures In Getting Unstuck

Some thoughts on working through the hard parts

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Note: this post is from my daily Creative Dream Practice and includes links to the tools I use which are a part of the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership. You need an active membership to access those tools. You are always welcome to join right here!

This is from last week:

I’m completely overwhelmed. I did an un-sticking station session but I feel like I am just going through the motion with that... Not really in touch with my feelings.

There is this part of me who 100% believes in me and 100% believes in my dreams.

This part of me is trapped by the parts of me who are panicking and overwhelmed.

Like if I was to drawn a pie chart of how much of me feels which way - the panic and overwhelm would take up the whole pie chart and the part of me who believes in myself would be squashed underneath it.

I think usually the part of me who believes in myself gets squished small in the pie chart - not squashed completely underneath it. This is a new feeling.

Looking through my journal I remember how in touch I was with that part of me a few days ago and it’s so disappointing to not feel it today.

So what do I need?

Probably just some time.

Probably ACCEPTANCE that this is how I feel today.

Probably some self care and nurturing of the part of me who DOES 100% believe in me.

Now it's this week and I am reflecting on this.

It's SO HARD to be in an uncomfortable place and know that you need to just... be there. Accept things you don't want to accept. Feel feelings you don't want to feel.

And it's SO EASY to feel like if you're in that place today, then you'll be in that place forever.

But BEING WITH is a way of WORKING THROUGH. (note to self)

And this week, well today anyway, I don't feel any of this. I feel calm and trusting. I feel proud of everything I've done so far with my dreams, and I feel equipped to keep taking steps. I am feel really grateful to be exactly where I am with everything.

Triangle Dream Compass

This really is how it works!

This is the compass of Creative Dream Alchemy.

Inner work LEADS to outer work. IF YOU SHOW UP FOR IT. Avoiding the inner work does slow everything down.

And the thing is, it FELT LIKE everything was all slowed down last week, but I was actually processing and percolating and shifting.

So, looking back, if I could teach myself one thing it would be to try (practice!) to have more faith in this, when I hit the next rough spot.

Come dream with us

 

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.

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I’ve wandered too deep into the inner work

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Hey! Did you see Project Miracle is now open for registration?!?

If you're in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership - you already have access to this right here.

But if you're NOT a member - now you can get Project Miracle for just $33 USD!

Get the details and grab your spot here.

I often talk about how, when I first started my business, I had to have daily un-sticking stations with my fear that I couldn’t do this.

Our dreams are TERRIFYING sometimes.

And it can feel impossible to engage with a thing that terrifies us.

But we know that NOT engaging will destroy the dream.

So we can feel stuck there.

And I share my story often as a way to hopefully encourage people that - yes, you can keep showing up with ALL of you. The parts that are terrified AND the parts that want the dream.

And as we know, ignoring/avoiding something because it scares you means you are letting your fear run your life. This won’t lead anywhere good.

I feel like I’m back in that place sometimes now.

Divorce is brutal. Some days I feel so sure of the new life I am creating and I am enjoying the freedom of it. Some days I feel like all of my solid ground is gone and I just don’t know what to do.

I found this in my journal:

I think I have wandered too deep into the inner work.

I’m terrified.

That's a valid way to feel.

Our creative dreams (and recovering from divorce and building a new life IS a creative dream!) do ask us to look at our STUFF.

And that can be terrifying,

And we get stop, and say "This is terrifying" and then take care of ourselves.

This is part of the work too.

It's not all about BUSTING THROUGH this stuff.

At each step, you know what you need. Sometimes you need epic self care to soothe the things that get stirred up. Sometimes you need to take brave steps.

Always you need to listen to what feels true and right for you right now.

Come dream with us

 

Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts about this 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.

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Journal Prompts for when you’re so stuck you can’t do anything but you also can’t just give up

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(Since my year-long project on exploring my resistance has me getting more organized as a way of supporting my creative flow, I am going through things I have written. I wrote this one a few years ago and then never shared it!)

Journal Prompts for when you're so stuck you can't do anything but you also can't just give it up

I went to see a friend I hadn't seen in a long time.

In the time I hadn't seen her, she sold her business, retired, moved, and dealt with several family illnesses and deaths.

She was telling me about her new creative dream - to write a book. It's a very specific book, and as she was telling me about it I realised.... she had told me about this before. Before all these big changes, before the pandemic.

She kind of winced. "Yeah, I have been wanting to do this a long time. I mean... I did write one chapter."

But the way she said "I did write one chapter" discounted what she was saying. Like, because she didn't make the progress she wanted to make, the progress she DID make is not valid.

We were quiet for a minute and then she said "It's just so hard"

I've heard that so many times from so many people and each and every one of them felt ALONE in it.

Like everyone else is happily writing and creating and getting things done and they are just all alone in finding this all kind of hard.

But it's hard for everyone.

It's hard for everyone and that hard is magnified by feelings of shame and failure and being all alone in it.

This is why I do my work in an ongoing community -  so you can see that others are on the path with you and help normalize that it's just hard. (Join us here, it's amazing!)

When you accept that it's just hard then you don't have to get all emotionally tangled up about it being hard.

You don't have to be STUCK in the hard.

You can just face the hard parts and move through them. You take your power back. (I know it's not quite that simple, but I have a lot of tools to help you do this in Dream Book. It's absolutely do-able, with some time and work.)

It's hard because it's vulnerable.

Listening to your dreams is some of the most vulnerable work you can do. It touches on your deepest inner stuff because it pushes you to be more authentic in how you're showing up in your life.

That's vulnerable because of the reasons WHY you're not already being more authentic, creative, powerful and brave in how you're showing up in your life.

This is all very deep down hard wired and mostly lives in the shadows where you can't see it.

Working with your dreams makes it more visible because your dreams push up against this and asks you to bring healing and new possibilities to these places inside you.

So: Journal Prompts for when you're so stuck you can't do anything but you also can't just give it up:

Where are things really hard for you right now with your dream?

How does this feel? Where is this feeling in your body?

Stay with this. DO NOT move ahead to the next prompts, don’t try to get to the solution. Stay with the feelings until you feel you have fully described them. For bonus points: can you actually FEEL the feelings? Notice where they are in your body and focus on those sensations.

What are the other thoughts, feelings and questions that come up when you sit with how hard things are with your dream?

How can you validate all of these ways that you react to it being hard?

I can tell you: your thoughts, feelings and reactions ARE VALID. This is hard stuff! You’re doing great! But how can you validate this for yourself?

How can you think of yourself as a success for staying with this?

If you’re feeling like you’ve failed because this feels stuck, can you instead see yourself as being IN PROCESS? Instead of seeing yourself as stuck, can you see yourself as being incredibly brave because you’re still showing up?

Can you remember that creative dreaming is about answering your soul’s calling which includes a lot of inner healing and growth, and that your dreams often push you to face all the hardest things you have to face, all of the things you would much rather avoid, and so: it’s not that you are struggling with this, it’s that this is inherently experiment difficult work and no one moves through it in a linear way?

No one moves through it as quickly as they would like to. No one “feels successful” while they are in the middle of it. AND YET YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL HERE.

How can you offer love to the places in you that are hurting with all of this?

How can you offer love to the places in you where you feel stuck and small?

Really sit with this. Be with the sensations in your body, ask yourself what you need and give yourself some time to find an answer that feels right for you.

Can you trust that your inner genius is guiding you?

And that this means: if you have some really hard stuff going on and you feel stuck, that maybe being with this stuck is the right thing for you do right now? Can you see this as a part of your path?

Somewhere inside you, you do know how to work with this obstacle. What would help you get in touch with this part of you?

HINT: It’s RELALY hard to do this work when you are avoiding anything that you’re feeling. So you may need to repeat this process a few times before you start to get in touch with the answers… but I promise they are inside you.

Want more help with this?

If you're in Dream Book, you have a whole library of inner work practices here.

If you're not in Dream Book, check out my free courses, which include a healing circle for working through the hard stuff.

Come dream with us

 

Dream Book 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.

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You are worthy

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YOU ARE WORTHY OF YOUR BIGGEST DREAMS.

We all have a ceiling on what we think is actually possible for us and that ceiling isn't about reality, it's about our own self concept, which is completely malleable.

Though I don't believe we should be constantly pushing on that ceiling in the name of "dreaming bigger".

It's that we have a mental concept of "right size" "too small" and "too big" and sometimes our dreams push up against that, and so we try to shrink our dreams into what feels do-able.

But your dream is your soul speaking to you.

So, instead of trying to shove it into a smaller container that fits with your current sense of what is possible for you, how about you listen to what it's actually saying?

You are worthy of your BIGGEST dreams.

How about giving yourself space to consider... what do you REALLY want?

Yes, you live in a world that is hostile to dreams. Yes, compromises may need to be made. Yes, the world will judge and belittle your dreams and ask you who are you to think you can do this?

AND your dream is your soul calling you towards your true self. There is magic and power in this.

And there is a big difference between going after your dream and landing on a compromise, and making compromises about what you will ever allow yourself to dream about 👈👈👈

Your dream is here to heal and grow you. But it can only work it's magic if you accept it.

YOU ARE WORTHY OF YOUR WEIRDEST DREAMS

The call to conform is so powerful and invisible. We don't even notice all the ways we censor and distort ourselves in order to fit in.

All the ways your heart's desires stray from the mainstream point to your unique power and magic.

You're not a cookie cutter you're a living breathing mystery.

Everywhere you try to fit in you cut yourself off from your own magic

YOU ARE WORTHY OF YOUR WILDEST DREAMS

FEELING WORTHY of your dreams is magic. It's healing.

CLAIMING YOUR DREAMS is saying: This is the world I want to help create. This is what I believe in. This is what is important to me. THIS is who I am.

Though it's SO EASY to feel not good enough because dreams are so VULNERABLE.

FEELING WORTHY of your dreams isn't something you naturally have, or don't have.

It's a thing to cultivate. 👈👈👈

In all my years of doing this work, I have never worked with anyone who ALWAYS felt worthy of their dreams.

Of course it's possible that those people exist but just don't hire people like me. But it's more likely that we ALL struggle with this...

But I don't think it's human nature to doubt our dreams, I think it's a consequence of the colonialist capitalist culture we live in.

And guess what? ARTISTS AND DREAMERS HAVE THE ABILITY TO IMPACT AND CHANGE CULTURE.

But to do this we have to keep doing the work of freeing ourselves of the ways our culture negatively impacts us.

We have to DO THE WORK to cultivate a sense of worthiness.

Your dreams chose you.

You are already worthy.

It's up to you if you're going to cultivate worthiness as a FEELING and STATE OF BEING.

This was a message I received from my dream last year.

In response, I create two alchemy classes for Dream Book members:

FEELING WORTHY of your dreams

BEING OPEN + RECEPTIVE to your dreams

And I know a lot of you did this work with me then, I want to encourage you to keep doing it. (And if you didn't - join Dream Book now and do it!!!!)

FEELING WORTHY OF MY DREAMS is a daily practice.

Come dream with us

 

Dream Book 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.

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This is too vulnerable

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I talk a lot about how Creative Dreaming is sooo vulnerable.

Today I would like it to not be.

Today maybe it's too vulnerable, for where I'm at?

Creative Dreaming needs us to work from our wholeness, we can't compartmentalize and avoid parts of ourselves. We can't we don't have certain thoughts or feelings. We need to be really present with all of us to engage with this work.

So how do I do this when my marriage just fell apart and now there's this medical emergency in the family that keeps getting worse?

The first thing about Creative Dream Alchemy is: Meet yourself where you are and move towards where you want to be.

To meet myself where I am: I just want to hide under the covers today.

To move towards where I want to be: I do want to keep working on this guided journal.

And these things feel so much at odds with each other that I just can't. I CAN go lie down but I'll be thinking about the journal. I CAN sit here with the journal but I'll just be wishing I was in bed.

Where I am this morning, it's very easy to say "I can't do either, I'm just stuck" and burst into tears.

Which is a completely valid way to proceed. Some days crying IS the next step to take.

And there is also the option of going deeper.

Sitting with the feelings (The Working With Conflicting Feelings Call last week was SO good!) to see what new possibilities emerge.

So here it went today:

When I started, this felt too vulnerable, too hard, there was no way through.

Now it all feels fine. Now, there is SPACE for everything.

I'm going to work on the creative project now, knowing I have loads of time in my day for "healing cocoon" too.

 

Come dream with us
Dream Book 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.

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.

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

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Holding space for conflicting feelings

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First of all, Working With Conflicting Feelings is a class we are doing on Sept 20! (Dream Book members, details are here)

When I plan calls, I am working with the soul of the Creative Dream Incubator and the feedback I'm getting from people about where they're at and what would be helpful.

This call just seemed helpful in these wild times, but now things have changed in my life in a way that I am consistently holding space for conflicting feelings for myself, and am so happy to be doing this in a group later on this month.

So today in my practice I am naming all of the feelings I am feeling:

Noticing their shape and texture and where they are in my body. Being curious about where and how they intersect.

One of the shitty things about holding space for our feelings is having to actually feel them.

This is not actually that bad in reality, but our minds make up so many stories about how awful it is to feel a feeling, that it becomes so hard to stay with it.

What if a feeling is just a feeling? What if we let it express how it wants to?

It's the HOLDING IN, especially with conflicting feelings that keep hitting up against each other inside us like a pinball, that is harmful.

Human emotion is so rich. Letting it be what it is creates space inside us for new possibilities, which helps with the work outside of us.

As I drew out my feelings in my journal and explored what they were doing in my body, everything started to feel more calm. This is emotional alchemy.

Today I am feeling:

  • Hopeful: a light in my heart shining out (which can sometimes dim a lot depending on what other feelings are floating around it, but it's always there)
  • Rage: sharp edges, burning hot
  • A tiny spark of optimism
  • A pool of sadness it feels like it might be infinitely deep
  • More rage, but this rage is melting into sadness
  • Excitement for the future: a star that bounces around offering healing to everything it touches
  • My trust in perfect timing: just kind of floating out there
  • Inspiration and creative magic: sparkling around, it's actually permeating everything when I look close enough
  • My trust in emotional alchemy is a foundation to rest on
  • My faith in myself and the process of life: a field of wildflowers in bloom
  • Swirls of confusion: mostly swirling in my brain but flow throughout my body too
  • Bits of hurt feelings: small but with sharp edges, floating around and sometimes bumping into things and causing everyone pain

Apart from the obvious external obstacles, it's not being able to be with our feelings that holds us back the most.

AND of course, it's BECAUSE of the external stuff that being with our feelings can be so hard!!!! The more childhood trauma you had, the crueler the world has been to you, the more sensitive you are, the harder it is to make space for your feelings.

I say that to say - it's not your personal failing that this work is hard. You haven't done anything wrong.

You live in a culture that makes it harder than it needs to be, to feel your feelings.

So even just thinking about this is really brave work.

Come dream with us
Dream Book 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.

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.

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

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Outer Work + Feeling Hopeful For Our Future

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I didn't do much in my practice today, a quick check-in with my Dream Book (which I am still LOVING having it together with my planner, so I checked in with both to see how I'm doing with my plans for the week) and then I felt ready to GET TO WORK on the guided journal project.

I see the end in sight and really want to get there ASAP.

But I did keep thinking about our Co-Dreaming call on Monday and how hopeful I felt at the end, and what we can do to feel optimistic about our future - like the future of humanity.

It takes a lot of work to feel optimistic about ourselves and our own lives, but that work is necessary for any dream work to happen. So how do we translate that to the world? I did a bunch of writing about it, which is not ready to share, but it's coming 🙂

Come dream with us
Dream Book 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.

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.

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

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Radiating the qualities: Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice

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I wanted to draw the Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice practice. The ball of light and all the things it radiates out into the world.

And I wanted to leave space to keep adding things, keep sitting with this idea/question: what is it that I am offering?

I am in LOVE with all the ways this practices has changed how I do things in my business. That I now share my daily posts openly on my blog. That I now do a free call on Mondays. I feel like I am inviting people in to the world of the Creative Dream Incubator and giving them enough so they can know if they want to come in further, I don't have to promote things.

Not that promoting, or selling, are wrong! This just feels more aligned and sustainable for me right now. And that's what approaching marketing as a creative and spiritual practice will lead you to - what is aligned and right and doable for YOU as well as what delights your people.

Can't wait for next week's Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice call to keep exploring!

Come dream with us
Dream Book 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.

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.

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

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Checking in with my guided journal project

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I've been working on the artwork for the guided journal project and it's such a BIG project.

I'm at a point of feeling disconnected from it, like I am focused on small details, and I lost sight of the big picture.

So I am using the Dream Lab practice to invite in the soul of my guided journal.

The field of Creative Dream Alchemy is BUZZING with energy. It feels like being in a disco ball. Healing, transformation and creativity are all turned all the way up.

I can't quite relax into it, it does feel like a disco, so I dance with it. Sitting in my meditation, I am swaying my whole body and it feels like movement is allowing new possibilities in.

Then the guided journal dances in. It's glowing and it wants to be known as the Creative Dream Playbook.

It's thick and colourful.

It's grateful for all of the explorations I have done around the artwork, for the ways it's all coming together.

It puts it's hand on my head and says "I'm fine. You need to take care of you. You feel doubt about if you're doing good enough. I promise you are."

So... into the Un-Sticking Station with the doubt.

It feels like we're connected to the disco from the Field of Creative Dream Alchemy, but we're in some kind of chill room.

Doubt is a dot on the floor. Like, it has arms and legs but it's body is a dot.

I sit down beside it.

"Ooooofff! I worked so hard on this and maybe it's all crap!"

Why do you say that?

"Because of how I feel when I look at it"

OK, I'm going to go get my tablet, let's take a look at it together.

OK yeah, a few things feel "meh" but THIS IS A DRAFT. My plan was to do all of the hand lettering with artwork, AND THEN go through it all. The "meh" stuff is all style choices that can change! But the bulk of the work - this is gorgeous.

The dot is now.. like a ball. Like the dot was deflected and now it's inflated. It's happy. It's leaving the chill room and going to the disco.

And I am getting to work on this artwork!

Update: Turns out the doubt I was feeling was ambivalence around some of the artwork part - and once I simplified my ideas for that, everything flowed again!

Come dream with us
Dream Book 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.

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.

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

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A tidal wave is coming for me

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Last weekend I was in an Un-Sticking Station meditation and couldn’t find the thing to focus on/invite in.

There was too much happening inside me to be able to focus on any one thing.

So I did my best to just stay with all of the sensations in my mind and body and then I felt it:

There is a tidal wave of healing coming at me.

This last month it feels like SO MANY PIECES fell into place. The ways I’ve been healing and recovering from how the early pandemic experience flattened me, and all the ways I have explored all the things that got stirred up in that process…

All of that somehow came together and I’ve been feeling renewed. So excited about my life. Like things are opening up. My creative, work and self care routines feel so solid and nourishing. 

It’s like I stepped up, and this stepping up unleashed a tidal wave.

I don’t understand it.

I’m just trying to be with it.

So today I am meeting the tidal wave in the Un-Sticking Station.

It’s huge. It could absolutely destroy me.

I’m just standing here, looking up at it, undefended. Kind of curious about how “undefended” is how I feel. 

The total wave speaks: “There is no way to defend yourself from me. I’m here. I’m unimaginably huge. There is no where to escape.”

And yet, right here in this moment, I don’t feel in immediate danger from the wave. It’s frozen in front of me.

So I sit down. Spread out a picnic. Offer it a cup of tea. It accepts, and these little arms come out of the wave, to pour little sips of tea into it.

“Oh that’s nice, Earl Grey?”

“Yes, I’ve been putting a bit of my homemade lavender syrup in it.”

“So good”

“So, is this the practice? To practice being undefended in the face of you? To offer you tea?”

“I”m still coming for you. It’s not an attack, it’s just a happening.”

“But as I sit here, you don’t seem as ominous or scary. It seems almost purposeful? And I remember how UNDEFENDED is the term that came to mind about how I feel and that seems like it’s about how there is nowhere to hide, and no way to impact what is coming…”

Which makes me think of the ways I (and all of us!) can avoid inner work even while doing inner work. The places where we won’t go. The parts we don’t see.

A tidal wave implies the loss of the ability to do that. Scary but also - "next level" in a good way.

I offer the wave the rest of my cookies and let it know I’ll be back to visit tomorrow, if it’s still here.

Come dream with us
Dream Book 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.

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.

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

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Where do I even start. Waking up to dark clouds, heavy fog and a brain that won’t turn on.

By / /

I write every day, Monday - Friday, about my own process of navigating the path between where I am and where I want to be.

I share these in the Daily Miracle Mastermind Posts inside the Dream Book community. I believe that showing HOW I walk my talk each day is one of the best ways of teaching.

Lately some of these posts have been asking to be shared out in public - which feels even messy and awkward for me, but here I am, following my inner nudges and seeing where it leads.

Where do I even start?

I have a practice of meeting myself where I am and moving towards where I want to be, but today...

Everything is just heavy and cloudy, with small bits of sharpness.

I want to leap into a story about WHY I feel these things. (get into my head and out of all of these feelings)

Instead I will meet myself where I am.

When I'm so heavy/cloudy/foggy it's like brain is covered in a fog blanket and it's hard for me to figure out HOW to meet myself where I am.

But all I have to do is be here.

I say hello to the heavy clouds and my brain that feels shut down.

The heavy clouds sparkle a little, like they've just been waiting to be acknowledged.

I spread out a picnic blanket and invite them to join me.

Which reminds me - I have a delivery coming today of spherical ice cube molds and Instant Pot accessories including an egg bite maker, and I want to have a lot of iced coffee + egg bite picnics in the park with my journal this summer.

Which reminds me - it's been so cold and rainy, a lot of my usual spring activities are not really happening, and this is depressing.

Oh. Ok. Back to the task at hand. Inviting the dark cloud to sit down and talk.

It hovers above the blanket.

It looks darker than it did, and I can see tiny lightnings in it.

"So, dark cloud, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine. I'm being who I am. It's you who seems to have a problem. You don't want me here."

"Well, it's uncomfortable, I feel pretty weighed down by your presence."

"How can I help you feel more comfortable with me here?"

I am speechless. I don't have a way to be comfortable WITH the dark cloud. I do just want it gone.

"So you invited me to sit down for a picnic as you it's going to be a good time, but you only want to destroy me?"

I am giggling at the idea of a "picnic of destruction".

But also, yeah. I don't know how to engage with this thing. It's like I can either let it control me, or I try to destroy it. I don't see any other way.

But if I remember that all of my feelings are valid, and that one part of the path to any dream is to feel the feelings that come up on that path, then I do believe that there is another way.

BUT I still don't see it.

I offer the cloud an egg bite, it happily receives.

Oh! Those extra-dark spots in the cloud and the tiny lightnings, they go off when the cloud is happy and doing it's thing. I experience them as menacing but that's not how it is for the cloud. That feels helpful to know.

"So, what? Do we just sit here and eat egg bites?"

"That's what a picnic is, right?"

"Well, I guess I was hoping for more. I was hoping we could come to an agreement where we could each have our needs met. I mean I know I just said I don't know how to do this, but still I do think that would be ideal."

The cloud reaches for some iced coffee.

"Is this just all on me? I have to change my relationship to you? I mean, if I was using the Un-Sticking Station, which I do NOT feel prepared to do, I would look for ways to offer you love."

"That's what you've been doing. You made a picnic. I've got egg bites and iced coffee. Maybe you should look for ways to offer yourSELF love as well?"

Haven't I been doing that?

It's so hard to work through anything with the dark clouds here. It's so hard to feel progress and clarity.

So I can accept that this is not a day for progress-that-can-be-seen or clarity-of-any-kind?

This makes my heart kind of jump. Like - how long will I be this way?

What about trusting the process, another one of the Principles of Creative Dream Alchemy.

If I was trusting the process, I would meet with my dream.

OK, I can do that, invite my dream to this picnic with the dark cloud.

(I go lay on the floor, and my car Bear snuggles in beside me, and we invite my dream to join us)

My dream had been appearing as a cartoon blue butterfly, and last week it transformed into realistic butterfly wings for me to wear and BE the dream.

Today it showed up as the wings, floating above me. It's not a day to wear the wings, but they are still here.

The wings showed me that they can be an umbrella, if the cloud starts to rain.

But mostly they are here to be a blanket-that-forms-a-cocoon.

And they wrapped around me.

And it felt like a cocoon.

Like there's a lot going on. I have a lot of layers of uncomfortable feelings and I can't tell any one thing from the others and that's ok, I am in the process.

Today is a day for gentle cocooning and allowing things to work through.

While nothing feels resolved, I don't feel so tangled up now. I feel trusting and ok with slowing down and being where I am.

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Wild Untamed Creativity vs The Part Of Me Who Wants To Control Everything

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I am exploring the question: What helps me make more art, more often, from a deeper place?

I've gotten stuck most days, and in doing the Un-Sticking work I met with inner teenaged/early 20s selves. It's pretty rare for me that they show up, when it's an inner child it's usually much younger.

They're so sarcastic and annoyed at everything and JUDGEMENTAL!

But also, something really deep has shifted for me.

Those little conversations reverberate, things keep happening throughout the day, it's not over after my 10 minutes of sitting with it.

What's been happening now is me seeing my life now from my 17-25 year old perspective.

Hey! Look at what I did! Look at what I have!

I feel so proud of me.

And so excited to be where I am, with all of the SPACE I have to create what I want to create.

What also struck me is: I was not very sensitive at that time.

My teenaged-25 self is so annoyed and horrifying by me having so many FEELINGS and how those feelings can stop me from doing what I want to do.

She never experienced that.

As I've been sitting with that it's clear - she was so disconnected from her feelings that she experienced this all the time but didn't know it! In her experience, she was blocked by other things.

I am so much more powerful now.

Not being all filled up with un-processed feelings means I can face those other things in the way more effectively. AND it means that sometimes I do spend a lot of time processing feelings because that IS the path.

Even though most days I would be very tempted to trade emotional sensitivity for the ability to carry on functioning in the ways I want to while the world falls apart - I wouldn't REALLY make the trade.

Anyway - I woke up this morning feeling SO happy and grateful.

As I though about the question I am exploring - What helps me make more art, more often, from a deeper place? - I see something that was keeping me stuck with this:

I was looking for a way to be really organized and... I don't even know how to describe it... like always know what I am doing, follow very specific steps, like map it all out and then follow the path.

But that's not how art works.

The specific steps I can follow are to do THIS work. To meet my dream and look at what's in the way of connecting with my dream and work with that and out of this work always comes.... something.

So, one answer to my question is.... can I make space for that "something" that comes up?

Can I let go of CONTROLLING the process or wanting it to look a certain way?

A part of me wants it to look like - writing a blog post on Tuesdays and making new things for Dream Book on Wednesdays, etc.

CAN I JUST TRUST MY CREATIVE FLOW?

I know everything works better when I do.

But there is a part of me who wants to control the overall process. Make sure I am consistent with certain things.

I know I want to be consistent about being in the flow.

This part of me wants me to be consistent about newsletter emails, blog posts, social media posts, and promotional campaigns.

Bringing this part of me into the Un-Sticking Station:

(The Un-Sticking Station is only available to Dream Book members)

She shows up as me, in a beige suit, with a leather briefcase. She's quite thin and her hair is dyed light brown.

I have an overwhelming urge to hug her and try to help her be happier and more creatively alive but I am putting that aside to stick with the process and offer her some love.

She puts up a shield.

No thank you. I don't need LOVE. I need you to follow a schedule.

Oh wow. This is going to be harder than I thought.

Look at you! You're a mess!

No, I'm an artist. I'm a human who trusts her heart and intuition. And actually I am very organized - I've been running this business for a long time.

Not very well.

(But I can tell she's not completely convinced. She's starting to lower the shield and some love is coming in. I hold my hands up, palms aimed at her, and shoot rainbows of love her way)

I'm sending you love because I want you to know you are loved. I'd like to help you feel safe.

Excellent. I will feel safe when you are more organized. That thing you wrote - blog on Tuesdays, Dream Book on Wednesdays - that's a good start. Let's make a detailed schedule.

Can we start by just being with the quality/feeling of love and safety?

This is such an incredible waste of time.

Yeah, I see that you feel that way, and that making a schedule and getting to work feel like love and safety to you, but they are not actually love and safety. They are things that help you feel love and safety and I'd like to start by actually FEELING love and safety and then... we may come up with even better ways for you to feel loved and safe.

I don't want better ways. I want predictability and schedules and for you to stop this nonsense.

Yeah, but I am me. This is how I am going to do things.

I don't want to go in circles with you.

I don't want to go in circles with you either.

OK I think we can stop this meeting now.

It feels like something VERY helpful happened in meeting the part of me, but this is as far as it can go right now. I will check in with her again in a few days.

BUT I am going to make a compromise with this part of me. I will make a list of all of the things that she would like to see done each week. These are things I want to do too!!!

I'm also going to make some art around: following my creative flow vs being organized and following a schedule. Just drawing/journaling in my Dream Book and see where it goes.

There IS a balance to be found between the two. I want to be trusting my creative flow and also feel on top of things in terms of marketing my business and moving my projects forward.

I've been balanced between these before, and it feels like the best to balance them is shifting for me right now, so while things are shifting it's like both sides are vying for total control, lol.

(Update)

Once I thought about HOW I would write/draw this in my journal, everything came together.

I saw how flow and structure each have their own place, and how they contribute to me having the experience I want AND moving towards the results I want.

And actually - this is what's in the Creative Planning and Project Management class, in the Dream Plan Kit. I know this, AND how I feel about the balance, and how the balance plays out, is shifting for me right now.

(The Dream Plan Kit is only available to Dream Book members)

AND this brings me back full circle to my question for this week!!!

Re-tooling this part will go a LONG way supporting me in making more art, from a deeper place, and sharing it more often.

It needs BOTH elements.

I feel like this actually answers the question. I can go into next week and implement what I've learned and see how it goes.

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The indignity of being in the process of growth

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I write every day, Monday - Friday, about my own process of navigating the path between where I am and where I want to be.

I share these in the Daily Miracle Mastermind Posts inside the Dream Book community. I believe that showing HOW I walk my talk each day is one of the best ways of teaching.

Today's post, which is really messy and awkward, wanted to be shared out in public - which feels even more messy and awkward for me, but here I am, following my inspiration and seeing where it leads.

My goal this week:

I am exploring the question: What helps me make more art, more often, from a deeper place?

I really want to be making more art, writing more, sharing more.

I want it to all feel easier and more flowy.

There's also something in this that's like - I know I want something more but can't quite put my finger on WHAT it is.

So I am making space to sit with this question this week.

Today I am SO ANNOYED with the question.

I've got a blank page in my daytimer for this.

I filled in all the things I know that help me stay in my flow.

I'm so bored. I know this stuff. I have worked on this for so long. Why I am I here AGAIN?

Do I want to answer that?

I guess so, I don't know what else to do.

Why I am here again:

I'm not being as creative as I'd like to be.

As in, it seems to take more work to get into it.

I have more distractions.

I am more tired.

AND ALSO I feel more desire to be creating more. And that desire conflicts with what is happening and makes everything very uncomfortable.

So, yeah, I am here AGAIN. But... being here AGAIN is not a sign that I have failed, or regressed. It's just a part of the creative path.

Also - what helps changes as I change, as my life changes. Like, right now there are all of these specific things I can do to help with my peri-menopause symptoms that THAT helps very much with THIS.

OK this makes sense, I feel less annoyed that I am here AGAIN but I still feel annoyed in general, so let's bring annoyance into the Un-Sticking Station.

(The Un-Sticking Station is a class inside Dream Book for working through stucks - that link will only work for Dream Book members)

Annoyance shows up as my older teenaged - early 20s self.

OMG you are so lame. Look at all the things I make!! It's EASY to create, and you have all the opportunities I was dreaming of, and you're squandering them.

SQUANDERING?! I CREATED them.

eyeroll

I'm not going to justify myself to you. I am doing my best and I want to keep doing better and I need to know why you are so annoyed.

Because you're 48 and this should be easy by now.

*TEARS ALL AROUND*

Yes, I agree. This should be easy by now. And it's so hard for you to look 20-30 years ahead and see that it's not. Though I mean - often, it is. Sometimes it's not.

Sometimes it's not? Seems like more than sometimes.

Yeah! I mean - look at all the things I do!

I guess that's true.

Everything is just so HEAVY right now.

Annoyance is gone. Some kind of helpful guidance spirit enters the chat.

So what would help bring LIGHTNESS?

All the things I wrote on that list. Recognizing how painful the heaviness feels, recognizing how painful it feels to NOT be doing the creative things I want to be doing. Recognizing all of the conflicting feelings of everything.

This helpful guidance spirit points me to my art journal where I have been writing and drawing and painting my feelings as my Space-Making practice.

(Space-Making is a class inside Dream Book for making space to work on your dreams when working on your dreams feels like too much - that link will only work for Dream Book members)

Oh right.

It's like my creativity is in a bottle and all of these conflicting and totally valid feelings are kind of jammed in together, creating a bottle stop. I need to let them out before I can do the things I want to do.

So I took it to my journal:

Messy painting and angry journaling to let feelings out and what I came to was:

The indignity of being in the process of growth.

I need to open myself up to the process of growth and change and the possibility of healing.

Which means letting go of the places where I want to KNOW what to do next.

Being open. Following inspiration. Being willing to make mistakes, fail, and be surprised.

Today this all feels hard. But I'll do my best with it.

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The magic of being stuck, and how letting your dreams change can help save the world.

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I recorded myself reading this blog to you! I LOVE it. Though - it's SUPER rainy and I thought the rain falling might add a romantic touch, it just sounds staticky. So - next time I'll wait for the rain to clear, but I am loving this idea of reading my blogs to you in this way:

I help people get un-stuck and yet I still get stuck.

I do have an inner critic who is all "Seriously?! How can you keep saying you can help people when YOU are so stuck right now?"

These inner critic voices are SO black + white that they miss what is actually happening. They don't care about truth, they care about saying something that hits in such a way that it STOPS you.

It's true, I've been feeling super stuck with a lot of projects lately.

And the people are work with in Dream Book are more stuck than ever!

Not all of them, but more people than ever are writing to me to say "OMG ARRGHGHSO I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!!!!"

So I've been writing a lot about being stuck, and about navigating transformational times.

I've been creating a new program called Space-Making which is a super gentle and do-able way to start to make space for yourself, and your dream, in your life. A way to ease into Dream Book for those times when you are too overwhelmed to really get into the work of dream-making.

I'm creating this because I still believe in our dreams and want everyone to find their way in to the magic of really deeply working with your dreams.

And I love the ways that people's dreams have changed over the last few years.

But back to the stucks.

Yes, I'm stuck with a few things right now because being stuck is an important part of the process.

Being stuck is where you look at things from different angles.

Being stuck is where you make space to FEEL your feelings... process them, learn more about yourself, and find our more about what you're really made of.

Being stuck is where you get real with yourself about the ways that YOU get in your way.

Being stuck is where you get real with yourself about where people in your life are in your way, and if you're brave you will start to set new boundaries.

Being stuck is a pivotal point.

This idea that you can take one step after another and go all the way from where you are to where you want to be without ever getting stuck - this is a fantasy that is holding you back.

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOTHER STUCKS because it keeps you from starting until you can see that clear path. That clear path doesn't exist so you will never actually start, but you won't feel upset by that because you are believing the lie that you are "waiting for the right time".

If only our stucks came with neon signs that said "Transformational experience here! Stop and look more closely at this!"

Which is, actually, my job. I hold up that sign and offer the tools that help you transform the stuck.

And even still, sometimes we will look at the tools and say "Oh, no, no this isn't an "opportunity for transformation" this is an outer obstacle and I need to just sit here and wait for someone else to clear it for me. Surely life will be less crazy in a few months."

The only way out is through.

We can sit with a stuck for years.

I had one for about 15 years - it was this idea that "I'm just not into business" and "There isn't a way to do the things I want to do and make enough money to live well".

I had these ideas that people with amazing work GET DISCOVERED.

I had hope that one day some kind of manager would find me, and take care of the business parts for me.

So I kept doing my work, on the side while working in an office after the starving artist thing became too stressful.

Until the time came when I decided to look at that stuck more closely.

It's funny for me now to look back at when I was SO SURE I could never do what I do now as my way of earning a living. I've been doing it for 11.5 years, and it feels like the only way I want to be in the world.

We are wrong about SO. MUCH.

So I look back to that, remember how sure I felt and how wrong I was, and ask "What am I wrong about now?"

There actually are an infinite number of paths that lead from where you are now to where you want to be.

You can only see the options that your current perspective will allow you to see.

And your CAPACITY plays a big role in how large your perspective is.

And I think we're all struggling with capacity issues right now.

AT THE SAME TIME

When we can find ways to NOT let this shrink our dreams, this is actually a time of HUGE NEW possibilities.

To dream BEYOND what we've dreamed before.

It's really stressful to have inflation rising out of control and increased civil unrest everywhere and attacks on our democracies and a war that threatens to pull most of the world into it and a pandemic that rages on while watching climate happen right in front of our eyes.

When I say I'm excited about dreaming BEYOND what we've dreamed before...

I am not talking about DREAM BIGGER! Seven figures is the new six figures!

I am talking about DREAM TRUER! We can create a whole new way of doing this life.

I am seeing so many people doing this, like:

  • Creating collaborative ways of working instead of trying to build the biggest business in the least time.
  • Holistic practitioners taking an honest look at the cultural appropriation in their training, and working with Indigenous people to clean it up and create new ways of doing things.
  • Art as a vehicle for activism.
  • Coaching as a vehicle for activism!

Shifts are happening.

It feels like a whole new movement of healing and creativity is springing up. One that is focused on activism, anti-racism, disability rights, honouring everyone's unique gifts. One that is deeply rooted in anti-oppressive ideologies and consciously looking for how to be as intersectional as possible.

It feels, to me, that the new age movement (including holistic wellness, yoga, life coaching) was attempting to do all of this without doing ANY of the deeper work of understanding what white supremacy, colonization and privilege actually are, and so without ANY understanding of how we draw on these oppressive ideologies and systems in how we do EVERYTHING. And so all it was was the colonization of Indigenous spirituality in various forms.

But now, we are starting to wake up.

We are starting to see new possibilities, which were always there, but hidden in our considerable blind spots.

This is the time for dreaming the new world into being.

So, then I come back to where I started: holy shit I feel so stuck with so many projects right now.

But now - all I feel is possibility.

A stuck is an opportunity for healing and transformation. Doing this work frees up new energy for the dream.

As always, you are welcome to do this work with me in Dream Book. This is my comprehensive program for how to create the path that leads from where you are to where you want to be, by engaging more deeply and directly with the Inner Work and Inner Growth (I call the inner GROWTH the Dream Work) that your dream needs from you, and then using the energy freed up in that work as fuel for the outer work.

It's comprehensive. It's complex. It will help you heal and grow beyond what you believe is possible right now.

Find out more here.

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Making Space for your dream in the midst of all of this

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Yesterday I made a new video about Dream Book and how we've been navigating everything since 2020.

The goal has NOT been to make sure everyone "stays on track" with their dreams and goals! Though anyone who has wanted to do that has been supported in that.

For most people though, the goals and dreams have changed, figuring out how to navigate the pandemic, physically and emotionally, suddenly became a priority.

But the tools stayed the same. The work stayed the same: Meeting yourself where you are and moving towards where you want to be.

It's just that there's a lot more overwhelm, exhaustion and heaviness to work through these days.

And I gotta say - NOT working through it feels like a really bad option. These last two years have been traumatizing, and doing nothing to process all of your feelings means they are going to be impacting you for a very long time.

Unprocessed feelings DO dull our dreams and our whole lives.

Lately, with where we are now, it's all gotten heavier, so I am shifting gears a little.

For the people who can engage with it - Dream Book remains a program that will help you build the path to your dream, handle all of the inner work of facing the places where you hold back, even all the stuff that's in your blind spots that you don't know about, and then help you GROW into the version of yourself that can navigate that path that leads to where you want to be.

But not everyone can engage with all of that right now and that is completely understandable.

For the people who can't engage with it because that's just too much - we're focusing on SPACE-MAKING.

I'm creating the new Space-Making program - though "program" is maybe the wrong word as this will be in VERY small doses so it can be done when you have NO capacity, because it can help increase capacity and make space from where you are. I guess "support system" is a better description.

And while I am creating that, I am inviting ALL Dream Book members to email me, let me know where you're at, and I'll help you come up with some tools/practices/support that are immediately helpful for your self care and help you shift towards where you want to be.

This is NOT a time to give up.

I have been working with a few people who had given up and are coming back to it and have all of the impacts of giving up to work through now.

Giving up on your dreams doesn't make everything else easier. It doesn't sooth overwhelm or bring lightness to the heaviness of the world.

What it does is add some new heavy layers of feelings. For some it's shame, grief, sadness, disappointment, that "see I knew you'd fail" kind of thing.

It's ALSO not the time to carry on as you had been.

Obviously.

I don't think anyone has that kind of energy and mental clarity right now.

But those are NOT your only options. This is actually an ideal time for CHANGE.

WHAT IF you were working on your dreams as a healing practice?

WHAT IF you were working on your dreams as a self care practice?

WHAT IF there was no pressure or timelines or perfectionism?

WHAT IF this was a way of bringing JOY into your life, right here right now, while also setting your future self up for MORE joy?

This is what our dreams have always been asking of us.

This is what Dream Book has been encouraging you to do all along. Your dream is here to HEAL you, GROW you, and bring you the JOY of being who you really are.

But you know that "how you do anything is how you do everything" thing? We bring a lot of shitty patterns into how we approach our dreams.

We can stop doing that.

In fact, not like I like to should anyone, but I think we SHOULD stop doing that.

There is a much better way.

So here is that video:

And here is Dream Book. Send me an email when you join and we'll work out your unique way of getting into all of this.

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