I’ve been really snippy lately – just?quick?to get frustrated when things don’t go right.

The holidays are a stressful time.

Most years I take great effort to avoid this and to create a really peaceful and happy end of the year – but?this year I just walked right into the madness of the holidays.

(Last year I even did a whole class on having a happy, calm and peaceful holiday season, which is now in the Creative Dream Circle?- at the beginning of the month I reminded the Circle members that it’s there if they need it but I didn’t think I needed it. ?Ha.)

I just walked downtown in the snow before sunrise – one of my treasured winter rituals which usually makes me feel so peaceful and happy.

But this morning I spent the whole walk following my negative thoughts around in sad, angry circles.

And then when I got to the coffee shop to work of course I couldn’t. ?I mean I can’t do the work I do from?that kind of headspace.

So I am asking my cranky feeling to meet with me and see if we can work this out.

Cranky feeling appears as a blue haired fairy. ?Her fairy wand is bent… actually when I look closer, she looks like she’s been on a bender.

Hey fairy, how are you doing?

How am I doing? How can anyone be expected to think with that horrible banging? ?What is that?

That’s the music in the coffee shop.

It’s terrible.

Well, yeah, but I’m sure the next song with be less bangy.

Let’s never come here again the sound system is wrong for my ears.

OK, I agree. ?But since we’re here now I’d like to be able to just get to work.

Hmrph.

What else is bothering you?

Well everything is changing and I’m so scared. ?

The fairy bursts into tears.

Oh, I’m so sorry you’re feeling scared. ?How can I help?

[Fairy asks for something that I don’t want to share online]

Well, my intuition says yes.

But I say no!

Hmmm, can you remember some other times when my intuition said yes and you said no? ?Like when I bought the loft? ?You were terrified, remember?

Yeah….

And that worked out really well, right?

Well…

And then this bright light eclipses everything.

My heart softens.

I remember that I can trust my inner truth.

I look around for the fairy, she’s teeny tiny now, sitting?on the armrest of the chair. ?I pick her up and put her in the palm of my hand.

I want you to feel safe – more safe, more of the time. ?How can I do that?

I want you to be more aware of how much things are changing! You’re just?carrying on like you’re fine! ?

Well I guess I thought I was fine.

I want you to be more present with the change, so I can be fine too.

Oh, ok I see that. ?I’m sorry I haven’t been doing that for you. ?I love you, you know. ?I want to take care of you. I don’t want you to feel afraid.

Fairy sparkles for a few minutes, then flies into my heart.

Here’s what I got?from this:

Well, first – a healing. ?My heart is soft and sparkly and I’m not all cranky anymore.

But more importantly?I got a reminder that that small, scared parts of me are small and scared.

Small as in easy for me to not notice.

Scared as in really afraid of things that I think are “not a big deal”.

This is one of the ways that stuff like PMS is actually a gift – it makes those small things bigger and sharper and unavoidable.

We think we’re being crazy, getting so upset about something so insignificant.

But we’re not crazy.

The world we live in is crazy.

We do our best to cope and carry on like everything is fine, but?these?tender, vulnerable parts of us always remember that what’s happening out there in the world?is completely crazy.

And we need to tend to these tender, vulnerable parts of us so that they don’t get hard, so that we don’t get hard.

Because when we’re hard we disconnect from our inner gifts.

And when we’re disconnected from our gifts the whole world changes.

It gets harder and meaner. ?And we get harder and meaner in response. ?Or we get sad. ?Or we just shut down and get really quiet and small.

And suffice it to say, that path that doesn’t lead to your dream.

So as uncomfortable as it it so make space for the discomfort – what else are you going to do?

And for?Creative Dream Circle members: remember you can take your holiday crankies into the Un-Sticking Station so you can transform them into helpful gifts.

PS: Come back next?week – I’ll have free journaling + coloring pages for you to download.

In my journaling practice, I keep encountering this part of me who has been working very hard for a very long time to create safety for me.

It sees every potential pitfall in life and tries to guard against them.

So while I’m skipping towards the things I want, this part of me is trying to pull me back because it believes that avoiding pitfalls is more important than chasing dreams.

Meanwhile my wisest and most heart-connected self believes that I do need to be moving towards what feels true for me – pitfalls or not.? In a universe that is always expanding I can’t contract myself and my life for fear of getting hurt along the way.

Plus – getting hurt along the way is often a part of the process, and a place where I learn a lot.? So it’s really not something to be avoided.

This creates a tug-of-war in my inner world.

When I left my day job to be a full time dreamer, this part of me started working double overtime.

So I had to spend more time working with it, bringing in healing and love and calm to transform this part of me.? I didn’t want to obliterate it or pretend I didn’t have this huge knot in my stomach and slap a big “fake it till you make it” smile over it.

My aim was to love it and give it what it needed to settle down and be happy – to heal and transform it.? To take all the energy and power that the fear had and re-write it to do something more useful for me.

For me, dealing with this part of me was the hardest part of the change from employee to my own boss.? It mean facing my own worst fears and learning how to access more inner strength than I knew I had.

And now here I am again.

It’s definitely not as dramatic or intense right now, but as I have set new intentions for what I want to create in my life as I work through Grow Your Depth, Nurture Your Brilliance, this part of me has been re-activated.

So when this part of me popped up in my journaling recently I was not very happy.

I felt exhausted and overwhelmed at the thought of working with this part of me again.? I wrote in my journal:

Oh shit. This is going to be a Big Job.

But you know what?? It’s not.

In the journal classes I teach, I show how to work with symbols and essence and how doing this opens up new possibilities.? It’s a way of dropping the story and getting to the heart of what’s actually happening and then changing it – which then changes the story in the outer world.

I created symbols for the thing I want and for safety and then looked at how they play together.? This is where it got really interesting.

They didn’t play nice.

The thing I want actually CLOBBERED the symbol for safety.? It didn’t trust safety, which startled me.

And safety wasn’t too thrilled about having to hang out with the thing I wanted either.

And then the symbols showed me the truth: There’s nothing wrong with the quality of safety but trying to CREATE safety is what fucks me up.

Because I am inherently safe.

(And so are you)

Trying to create safety means giving weight to the belief that I am small and separate from life, that the universe doesn’t care about me and that there are pitfalls to be avoided.

Obviously, in the physical world there are pitfalls to be avoided – that’s not what this is about.

This is about living from a sense of internal trust.

Trusting my dreams.

Trusting my self.

Trusting the process.

Trusting in meaning and purpose.

Trusting that there are no pitfalls to avoid because I can handle whatever comes my way.

Trusting that as long as I am allowing my intuition to lead me I’m always in the right place.

Trusting the mystery.

Remembering that I am already safe.

Trusting that I am safe allows me to relax into the process.

Trying to create safety holds me out of the process because I’m too busy trying to control the universe, which strengthens the belief that I am small and alone and powerless.? Not a recipe for creative dream success.

Back when I first left my job and was just getting settled in my new life as a dreamer I did need to coddle and soothe these fears – they were too big and agitated for me to just say “Hey, dude, chill out and trust the process”and working with them brought me the insights I needed to do the healing work that needed to be done at that time.

And that brought me to where I am now.

And now that I am on more stable ground a different approach is needed.

By meeting with the heart/soul/essence of how you’re feeling and bringing in love and healing it’s so much easier to see what, exactly, you need to move towards what you want.? (For Creative Dream Circle members – the video in the Un-Sticking Station leads you through this process)

My main project for this year is Grow Your Depth, Nurture Your Brilliance – to do this work and see where it takes me.

The only way that depth work is predictable is that you can be sure it’s going to lead you right into the thing you want to explore the least.? This weekend, it led me to DESPAIR.

Despair often comes up in response to setting a clear intention to move forward.? Not because it’s an asshole and wants you to be miserable, but because your clear intention is asking you to deal with the despair that lives within you.

For me, this weekend, I noticed that one of the things that really bothers me about despair is how familiar the energy of it feels.? Like yes it’s always there, beneath everything else, waiting for it’s change to spring up and devour me.

And because I find the energy of it so uncomfortable, I avoid actually working with it.? Instead I focus on finding ways to feel better – which doesn’t change it or move it at all.? It keeps it right where it is in my inner world – it feels like kind of an underground river, only made of something much heavier than water.

So, I did what I am always telling my Circle members to do – I took it into the Un-Sticking Station.? This is what happened:

Oh, hello despair.? Wow, you ARE an underground river.? A very sad underground river.? That’s interesting – I didn’t realise you would be sad, I thought you were just mean and wanted me to be sad, but you’re the one who is sad.

(the river just kind of sighs and frowns)

Well, I’m sorry I have avoided you so much, you scare me.? But I didn’t mean to leave you here, all sad and alone.

I spread out my pink blanket on the grass and sit down beside the river.

“So, what do you want?” I ask.

At first, the river just looks sad.? I can’t tell if it knows what it wants but is shy about saying it, or if it doesn’t even know what it wants.? Then it shows me:

Light.

This was meant to be a river of light.? Flowing, underground, through the depths of my inner world.

Possibility and hope and love and light and all things sparkling and magical.

But every time I hoped for something and didn’t get it and my heart was crushed, some of that crush fell down and the river got a little muddy.? And I’ve been here for forty years so I have been crushed a few times and here it all is, clogging up the river with despair.

I just sit with that for a while.

The river starts to lighten up.

And I start to see how it was never really a river of despair.? It remains a river of light and the despair is just silt.? Really, anyone with a despair-magnet could just pull the despair out of the river and clean it right out.

And tiny little chunks of despair start to lift up out of the river and as the dust lands on the river banks and I notice something really interesting… the despair/silt can actually be used to build the river banks.? To hold and shape the river.? To direct the light.

I can use the crushing experiences to direct the river of possibility that flows through my inner world.

Will keep working with this in my Grow Your Depth journal…

(For Circle members: I’m going to post this in the Un-Sticking Station and update it there to hare how I work with it and what else I learn about it.)

Tiny Fairy Tales are stories from my journal where I work with the Un-Sticking Station (inside the Creative Dream Circle) to help me sort out and smooth out what’s going on in my inner world.

As I said at the end of my Who do you think you are? post from last week, Debbie Doubter and I have more work to do.

But she’s not showing up as Debbie Downer anymore, the voice of self-doubt became more subtle and insidious over the weekend.

And I’ve just been trying to swim away from it, but it just follows me everywhere I go.? It hasn’t been fun.

I’ve been avoiding my practice and resisting my work with Grow Your Depth because it feels like facing this self-doubt this is the next thing I have to do on that path and I don’t feel ready.? I don’t feel strong enough or sure enough.

I don’t feel ready and I’ve been letting that stop me even though I know that we never feel ready.

And waiting until you’re “ready” is just a way of avoiding the journey.

I don’t want to avoid this journey.? I trust my intention for Grow Your Depth, I trust that this process is bringing me exactly what I need.

It’s just that so much has changed already.? It’s working, and that’s scary sometimes.

Hmmm.? Until I sat down to start journaling with self doubt, I didn’t realise that I’ve been letting self-doubt slow me down because I am afraid because things have been going so well.

Like, my problem is not even about self-doubt, I just need a little space to adjust.

My intentions for Grow Your Depth were about wanting to have more fun, make new friends, feel more grounded in my daily practices and in how I run my business, be more creatively inspired and engaged and a secret “impossible dream”.

Clearly, I was ready to have these things because they’re coming in much faster than I thought they could.? Even the impossible stuff.? I was more ready than I thought I was.

Isn’t that interesting, now the self doubt feels like just a smokescreen.

Just a tiny voice who wanted to say “Hey, can we slow down a bit and give me a chance to integrate to where we are now?” but didn’t know how to say that.? Or I didn’t know how to hear it.

But now that I do hear it: Yes, we can slow down a bit.

Yes, I can give myself space to accept the gifts that are coming in now.? And focus on appreciating where I am now.? And look at my next steps without pushing myself to take them as fast as I can.

Tiny Fairy Tales are stories from my journal where I work with the Un-Sticking Station (inside the Creative Dream Circle) to help me sort out and smooth out what’s going on in my inner world.

Vulnerability is a tiny flower, so tiny it’s hard to notice that it’s actually a ballerina – what you think are flower petals are actually her tutu.

But if you get in close enough to see that she’s a ballerina and not a flower – you’re too close.

It’s harder for her to dance when someone can see that it’s a dance and not just petals bouncing in the breeze.? So hard that sometimes she just freezes up and cries and hopes you’ll go away.

Not that she doesn’t like you, of course.? It’s just that what if you don’t like her dance?

No one really judges the way a flower bounces in the wind.? People do judge the way ballerinas dance.? And this ballerina cares so much about the world that she wants to delight it.

Vulnerability wants to hide.? But she can’t delight the world if she stays in hiding.? So she camouflages instead.

When I feel vulnerable I don’t feel like a delicate tiny ballerina at all.? When I feel vulnerable I feel raw.? I feel like a giant and like everyone can see me and everyone can tell that I am just barely keeping it together.

The tiniest things get magnified when I feel vulnerable.

So what can the ballerina teach me about navigating being in an uncomfortable state of vulnerability?

(Because sometimes I feel vulnerable and it’s not uncomfortable)

Camouflage.? It’s a way of creating safety.

But camouflage is a way of fitting into a world that I don’t want to fit in with.

Oh.? Well that reminds me that vulnerability is actually a part of living my truth which is actually really important to me so damn.

Being vulnerable means my heart is exposed.

And that’s actually exactly how I want to live.

Tiny Fairy Tales are stories from my journal where I work with the Un-Sticking Station (inside the Creative Dream Circle) to help me sort out and smooth out what’s going on in my inner world.

The pink haired fairy princess has not moved in days.

Why? Why is it so hard to move?

She can’t see anything.? With great effort, she starts to move her hands in front of her only to discover that she is flat up against a cool stone wall.

She looks down.? Oh.? She’s standing on a tiny ledge.? High up on the wall.

How did I get here?

Well, maybe it would be better to focus on the more pressing question… how are you going to get out of here?

The fairy princess isn’t sure who’s talking but is grateful for the advice.

Right, ok. I can’t go forward, I can’t go down…. hmm.? Maybe I can go up??

She reaches her hands up and sure enough, there is a ledge.? She grabs it, hoists herself up and finds herself staring into the kingdom of that-thing-she-wanted.

Oh right.? Now she remembers how she got up on this ledge.? Procrastination.? She had been poking around on facebook when she made one wrong click and found herself here.

She sits down and cries.

I want that thing that I want so badly.? But I can’t go down there.? They’ll all laugh at me, I won’t fit in, it’s not going to work, I don’t have time, I need to focus on something more productive.

Suddenly she wishes for the comfort of being flat up against the cool stone wall.? At least from there there was nothing she had to do and no one asking her to be brave.

Maybe I can just hop down there, quickly sneak out and go for lunch.

Lunch? You think lunch is going to help?

It’s that voice again.

I’m hungry, I don’t know how long I was pushing against that wall, but, yeah I think lunch will help.

What will it help you do?

Gather myself!

Gather… what?? You’re right here, aren’t you?? What needs gathering?

The fairy princess closes her eyes.

I need to gather my thoughts.? Figure out what to do.

Figure out what to do? You’re looking straight at the thing you want, and you want sulk away and figure out what to do about it? How about going over there and grabbing it?

Grabbing?!? It?

The fairy princess realises her invisible life coach is making some sense.? This is exactly what had been wanting to do, before she started procrastinating, before she started poking around on facebook…

So now that she found it, why did she want to escape?

These “why” questions you ask yourself are not helping.? Trying to figure out why keeps you stuck in the situation.? Honey, you only have 2 choices: go grab the thing you want or go have lunch.? You can’t stay here.

The princess feels a kick on her back, turns around and sees a big chicken.

A chicken.? My life coach is a chicken.

Actually, it looks like YOU’RE the chicken.

I know I want it, I know it’s right there, but I’m scared… yeah, I’m chicken.

So why don’t you just go have lunch then?? If you’re a chicken then go be a chicken.

Happily eating her sandwich, sitting under a tree, the fairy princess felt much better.

Being a chicken is better than staying pressed up against the wall pretending not to be a chicken.

Baby steps.

I’m trying to do the thing that I want to be doing today.? But there is this fairy buzzing around.

I mean, she’s not buzzing, she’s standing.? And she’s not a fairy, deep down what she really is is a fairy, but what she’s being right now is more of an oaf.

Fairy cries.

I’m sorry, I’m not meaning that as an insult, I’m just trying to explain the situation.? You do seem like an oaf.

Don’t you see?!? It’s these boulders!? I’ve got BOULDERS on my SHOULDERS!

Sure enough, she’s got bounders on her shoulders and that is enough to make anyone appear oak-like.

Can I help take them off?

No! I need them.? The boulders are my wings.? My wings turned into boulders.? We need to turn them back into wings, not cut them off!?

I look at her.? I look at my notebook.? See, I’m trying to do the thing that I wanted to do today.? And the fairy has been distracting me and now she wants to me get involved in this boulder-transformation process but really I need to do the thing that I want to do today.

Fairy moves to stand between me and my notebook.

Look, I don’t know how to turn boulders into wings.

But you’ve got the magic.

I know.? But it’s, like, I don’t know, everything is off today and I just want to do the thing that I wanted to do today.

Well, you’d be doing it if you wanted to be doing it.? I’m here because you’re not doing it.? I came here to help you do it.

How?

A little help with the boulders?

I’m sorry fairy, I don’t know how to transform boulders into wings.? I don’t even know how to do the thing I want to do today.

Oh that.? You can do that.? You can do THAT in your sleep.? You’re not doing it not because you don’t know how.? You’re not doing it because of the boulders.? You need the boulders transformed as much as I do.

Hmm.

(long silence)

Yeah, ok.? Let’s explore.? I reach around the fairy to grab my notebook and open it up to a fresh new page:

BOULDERS: heavy, earth-bound

WINGS: light, fly-sky

So bounders and wings are kind of the opposite of each other.? What made the wings become their opposite?

Fairy holds up a mirror and sure enough, I am the opposite of myself.

(long silence)

Shit.

(long silence)

I turn to a fresh page in my journal: I need a re-me-i-fier.

A clear glass chamber appears and I step in.? There are all these buttons I can press.? Stillness seems like the best one to try, so I hit Stillness and I am transported to the park, in the early early morning.? Birds are singing, ducks are swimming and I am still.? I breathe it in.

Next I try Creative.? I am transported over to the other side of the Dream Loft, surrounded by driftwood and papier mache and paints.? I’m inspired and excited and alive.? I breath it in.

I am me again.

And the fairy flies away.

I keep sitting down to do The Thing and then not doing The Thing.

I also keep not sitting down.? I’m doing dishes and sweeping the floor and puttering around.

What’s up with this? I want to do The Thing.? But every time I go to do it I don’t do it.

The part of me that doesn’t want to do The Thing is a pouty little girl.

What’s up?

We don’t HAVE TO do this so why do you keep making me sit down at this typewriter? It makes no sense. I want to play.

What do you mean we don’t HAVE TO do this? I want to do this, don’t you?

Well, the point of it is to make money, right? And we don’t need money right now.

Well the point of it isn’t to make money, the point is to [purpose of The Thing].

The pouty girl lights up.

I like that!? I love it actually. I want this!

Yes! Me too!? So how about we sit down and work on this, now fueled by how much we love the purpose of The Thing?

Yeah. She says, less enthusiastically…

Oh. There really isn’t any resistance.? But the timing feels off.

So I go visit my inner time-keeper, the wizard who lives inside the big grandfather clock.

He gives me a great big hug.

Oh sweetie, why do you do this to yourself? Why do you push against time?? The project is still baking!

The wizard points to the oven and sure enough there’s the project, baking.

My impatience just kind of melts away.? The pattern of pushing myself to get to work while also resisting getting to work melts away.

I love this project and want it to be baked to perfection.

And so I went off to play.