Journaling

It’s hard to get started

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We are doing the 30 day journaling + meditation invitation for the month of August. An explanation of this project is here. For this challenge, I some mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" written on them - they are here.

I have written and re-written this post so many times I have lost count.

Each post was a actually really good.

AND felt inadequate to express what I actually want to do with this project and I how I feel as I begin.

I don't remember being this challenged by a project in a very long time.

And so I am going to take the projects' advice: SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.

Don't try to share everything today.

Just share A thing.

A thing that's happening: I am feeling A LOT of resistance to doing this.

Sometimes resistance can hide in reasonable-sounding reasons why "this just isn't the right time".

And sometimes it shows up as inner critic self doubt attacks. Or just - getting so stressed and crabby that you throw the whole thing away.

This resistance is a natural part of all dreams, all creative pursuits, and all healing processes.

Right now, the resistance is manifesting as EXTREMELY stiff shoulders (my therapist once told me that is often a sign of struggling with oppressive systems that are pushing us down. And yes that's how it feels, I am pushing up against a lot of very powerful invisible things here) and an EXTREMELY crabby mind.

Trying to calm my mind enough to write clearly is very effort-FULL which is really the opposite of the whole vibe I am going for here.

A lot of feelings are going to come up in this process.

Dream Book members - remember our principles!!! If you feel stuck or like you're doing this wrong, re-read them.

Accepting that your process IS unfolding in the right way for you while honouring all of the feelings that come up are important parts of this work.

Without them, you just skate around your blind spots.

So - today I am honouring my feeling about not wanting to do this.

AND honouring my feelings about how I WANTED to start this, and my feelings about how that just isn't happening.

And, deeper down inside, listening to that part of me that knows this is exactly the perfect way to start.

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30 Day Journaling + Meditation

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30 day meditation and journaling challenge

As we go through these 30 days, I will be sharing my own journaling and process.

But today we're starting by figuring out how YOU are going to do this.

What's actually doable for you?

What makes this feel like an INVITATION and not a CHALLENGE?

How do you WANT to do this?

Step 1: pick your practice

This is a "30 day journaling + meditation invitation" and so I recommend you do BOTH journaling and meditation for this.

There is a reason why I always use them together.

But this is your thing, so do it your way.

Step 2: define your minimum practice.

Some days you may want to do more, but all you are committing to are these minimum practices.

For example, for meditation you could pick:

  • Sit down, close your eyes, and breathe for 30 seconds (change this to however long feels right for you).
  • Sit stare at the wall or out a window for 30 seconds (change this to however long feels right for you).
  • Go for a meditative walk for 5 minutes (change this to however long feels right for you).

Either way, your meditation time is spent contemplating the theme:

Slow the fuck down!

BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE.

And just follow your thoughts wherever they go. Follow all of the rabbit holes.

No, this is not traditional meditation where you empty your mind. This is a meditation as a tool for making space to explore.

Right after the meditation, you journal.

This way you can take notes about what you learned in your meditation, to not lose the threads.

Here is your minimum practice for journaling:

Open your journal, having a pen handy, and sit there with it for 2 minutes (change this to however long feels right for you) (no you don't have to actually write).

The assignment for today: set your intentions

Write out how you're going to do this:

  • What you hope to receive from this practice by the end of the month
  • What time of day will you do this
  • How long will you meditate for
  • How long will you sit with your journal for

Write these all out in your journal, don't just do this in your head.

Dream Book members - if you want a private space to share your comments as you do this with me - use the daily mastermind posts.

See you back here tomorrow.

PS: I made mugs, notebooks + stickers for this challenge. Check them out here!

I'm also working on a whole line of Creative Dream Incubator mugs, notebooks, zipper pouches + stickers.

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30 Day Journaling + Meditation Invitation (we don’t need more challenges right now)

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Two messages that my dream has sent me lately:

Slow the fuck down!

BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE

Meditation and journaling make it easy to receive messages, flashes of insight and new perspectives that can change everything.

What's less easy is knowing what to DO with those messages. How to work with them so they actually CAN change everything.

The secret is: daily practice.

Your daily practice is a container for your process of receiving information from your inner knowing and figuring out how to act on that information.

Without a consistent practice of healing and growth how do you expect to heal and grow?

You know how good it feels to do yoga, but you don't expect to stay feeling calm and stretched out if you only do it once a month, right?

The secret to daily practice is: make it small enough that it fits in your daily life AND enjoyable enough that you actually want to do it.

When I say daily I mean that's the goal. OF COURSE you will miss some days, that's fine.

But what if you had a thing you did each day that you enjoyed doing, that FELT GOOD TO DO and then also helped move your life towards where you want it to be?

This is the magic of having a daily practice with your dreams.

This is what I teach in-depth in Dream Book.

But for August I want to share a really simple daily practice out here, (on my blog and social media) and invite you to join me.

Find out what kind of magic is possible for you right now.

We start on Monday, August 1.

You don't have to have any ideas at all about HOW to do this - that first post I share on Monday will be about setting up your practice to be DO-ABLE and enjoyable for you.

I'll give you a simple practice to start with and you can make whatever changes you like to make it suit you.

And then throughout the month we'll find out what kind of magic is possible, when you show up for it every day.

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Being in the goo

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I had this transformation all planned out.

A summer of slowing down. Burnout recovery. Creating a whole new relationship with my creativity and productivity. Naps, journaling, making art, eating amazing salads while also moving my workspace upstairs and creating space for my new E X P A N D E D art and writing practice.

Nothing is going according to plan. Except naps and salad, I have that part down.

I mean I have taught this long enough to know - if your "transformation" is going according to plan, you are not actually transforming anything.

So I am taking that as a good sign.

There's a lot I want to say.

I think there's a lot we all really should be talking about, in terms of sharing how this time is impacting us, the ways we choose to respond to that, and the healing that we are each being called to do.

But I don't have the capacity for any of that right now.

So I'll say: I am making some amazing summer salads. I am feeling SO nourished.

During the winter I was freezing lemons - I would put 1/2 or 1/3 of a lemon into a smoothie and then freeze the rest. Now I am using those frozen lemons and homemade lavender syrup to make lemonade in the blender and OMG.

I've moved 75% of my work stuff upstairs. I gave away my old bed frame and made arrangements for the mattress to be picked up this week.

I moved into the new bed downstairs. I have slept upstairs in the loft for the last 11 years. The longest I've been in any bedroom. This is a HUGE transition for me. The first morning I woke up and actually wanted to cry I missed my upstairs bed so much.

I know I still want to move ahead with this re-configuring of the space.

AND it's a little like being ripped out a beloved space.

It even feels like not having a home, even though I am still very much in my home.

This is what it's like, being in the goo of transformation.

I'm going with it. Staying nourished and doing what I can each day which is so much less than I wish it was. Following my intuition about what to do next which feels grounded and clear but also disorienting and new.

I am thinking about how a seed changes states to become a plant. How sudden and wild it is.

I am feeling that but in super slow motion.

I trust what I am growing into.

Even though it all looks like a mess right now.

I wrote this last week, but then I was so much "in the mess of being in the process" that I forgot to post it. This week I am in a completely different place - for one, I LOVE my new bed downstairs and have put a whole jungle of plants around it and I don't miss sleeping upstairs at all now and I wake up feeling so grateful for my home, again. When you're in the process of change it's good to remember that things will continue to change.

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Remember Your New Year’s Intentions?

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Every month in the Year of Dreams 2022 planner there’s a reminder to check in with your vision for your year, and space to journal about how that felt and what adjustments you might want to make.

I didn’t want to do that this month. I mean most months I don’t want to but this month it REALLY felt uncomfortable.

But here I am doing that. And sharing my experience as a way of offering a light on your path, in case it's uncomfortable for you too, right now.

As I sit down to answer these questions and I feel like a total failure.

This feels so heavy I want to just stop, and make up a story for why it just makes sense that I not do this reflection work this month.

And I say “Andrea, you don’t HAVE TO do this, but… this is your job. And YOU are the one who gave yourself this job, you worked hard for it, and now you don’t want to do it? What’s up with that?”

Oh. I do want to do it. I know that this is important. I know all of the things I teach are true and that being in the process is messy and that nothing is wrong, I just need to be brave enough to keep showing up. Can I just complain and throw a bit of a tantrum first?

“Sure sweetie you do that”

Permission to tantrum led me to just sit down and flip through my Year of Dreams journal.

I remember how excited I was back then but I realize…

Actually it was a desperate kind of positivity. Like “holy fuck this year has got to be better” vibes.

What I feel now are “Holy wow I am really getting into my own flow. Feeling myself. Feeling my future. I may be moving slow as fuck but this is deep and rich.”

It turns out I love where I am.

It’s just when I am judging myself based on goals I’d set six months ago that I feel shitty.

But I am not six-months-ago me anymore. Me-from-today is totally different. I mean, I have bangs now. I have these new outfits I made myself that FEEL LIKE my future self. I have totally different plans now.

I actually *KNOW MORE* about what it will take to achieve some of those bigger goals, from the last 6 months of experimenting with them.

And that’s why I know that some of them are just not going to happen this year.

And that’s why it feels so right to be focused on different things because these things feel needed right now.

I am re-arranging the Dream Loft, tearing down the workspace my husband had built me when we got married, and using that wood to build something new.

I am creating a new art + writing + creative exploration space in the upstairs loft.

I am E X P A N D I N G my art and writing practice in all ways. New bigger space. More time + attention. New projects + directions.

I am really expanding into my future self in all of these important ways.

Just not in the ways I thought I would, when I made those plans in January.

BUT

That doesn’t mean I was wrong.

You should literally NEVER sit down, make a plan to get your dream, and then follow that plan exactly. That is a recipe for disaster because…

BEING ON THE PATH HEALS AND GROWS YOU.

And as you heal and grow your perspective shifts so you see completely different options.

If you follow that plan that you-before-you-healed-and-grew made - you are actually stagnating.

To grow means to change.

Again, the Year of Dreams 2022 is a tool to help you stay in this process. Which means the goal is NOT to follow exactly what you said you’d do in January. The goal is to stay in the process which means HEALING AND GROWING which means surprising new things emerge.

This is how you tap into your magic to make your dreams real.

So.

Having moved through that initial “why bother doing this I am a complete failure” I now feel really proud of how I am showing up for myself and my dreams.

AND I feel excited it’s about what’s next, which was NOT on the initial Visioning 2022 section, so I am adding it now.

(You can still get the Year of Dreams 2022 and play along for the rest of the year. Six months of HEALING and GROWING into your dream! The Year of Dreams 2023 is going to be quite different - details to come soon-ish)

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What do we do with this?

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(I went to visit my favourite peony patch yesterday, and was so inspired by how it FEELS to be surrounded by peonies I made a peony mediation for blooming + radiance - you can get it on Instagram)

What do we do with this?

Whatever you are feeling is 100% valid.

I’m Canadian, I’m not in the US, but still - I feel it. It was a big step on the march towards authoritarianism that is happening everywhere.

So many people have mentioned to me lately that they’ve been reading up about different forms of collapse and what’s happening in the society - what’s happening to the people - during the collapse.

For the most part - life goes on. It gets more stressful, there are more and more disruptions, but we carry on with everything we can carry on with.

There is no sudden move from one way of living into the next, there is this messy transition where you’re not even sure, for sure, that you are in a transition.

And on top of this - all of the normal life stuff.

And on top of that - all of the creative dreamer stuff. You still have stuff you want to create and do!!

It’s a lot. And so: Whatever you are feeling, however you are coping, is 100% valid.

I still believe that giving yourself space to have your feelings, including your feelings about what you wish was happening AKA your dreams, is key to navigating this time.

Deeply processing your feelings always brings you to new possibilities for how to respond.

I think this will save us.

It’s not the ONLY thing that will save us. But it’s one of the things, and it’s the thing I am equipped to support you in doing, so I am going to keep doing that.

The replay from the Holding Space For What’s Next To Emerge class is available here.

Grab your journal and give yourself an hour to explore.

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Holding Space For “What’s Next” To Emerge

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This replay will be available here until July 1. After July 2 it will only be available inside Dream Book.

What you need:

  • One hour of time (or just do the first 30 minutes if you're really short on time)
  • Your journal

What you'll get:

  • Energy clearing meditation to give you some space away from stress, overwhelm and whatever else you are carrying, to give you space to really BE with yourself.
  • Space to process some of your thoughts and feelings about everything that is happening in an atmosphers of "everything you are thinking and feeling is valid, you are not wrong for feeling how you feel AND you don't have to like how you're feeling"
  • A new perspective on what you can do next to support yourself

 

[replay no longer available here - Dream Book members can access it here]

 

Join me in Dream Book to keep exploring!

Your Dream Book membership gives you access to ALL of my classes, plus live calls every month and the Dream Book journaling system, which helps you navigate the inner and outer work of following your dream - step by step.

Find out more here.

 

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Exploring “what’s next” is actually a jumble of intersecting layers.

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I put on a favourite summer dress and went out to do some favourite summer things this morning and... nothing worked as planned.

Other cyclists on the path were so obnoxious!

I forgot my noise canceling headphones and nearly lost my mind in the din of 20 people all talking over each other on the coffee shop patio.

I did get to my favourite peony patch in the park, but it was so full of mosquitos I couldn't stay.

I am thinking about how complicated it is to hold a vision for your future while navigating reality.

Like I wrote yesterday - I feel like my soul is calling me towards a brighter future than the rest of me can see. How do I move towards a thing I cannot see? Especially when every step that I CAN see on this path feels impossible?

This is what creative dreaming has always been.

AND

It's all more complicated right now because you don't dream in a vacuum, you dream in the world.

Exploring "what's next" is actually a jumble of intersecting layers.

As the world changes - how are you feeling called to change with it?

How have you been forced to change and how are you coping with this?

What's been stirred up in you that needs tending to?

What new dreams are being born, and how can you give them some space (even if pursuing them feels impossible right now)?

It's a lot.

AND

NOT exploring any of this only keeps us stuck in it.

Holding Space For What's Next To Emerge is a 1 hour meditation + journaling class (and it's free!)

Meditation to make some space for your thoughts and feelings about all of this.

Journaling to help get it out of your head and onto the page where it's easier to sort it out.

Conversation about what comes up to feel less alone in it all.

The call details go out to everyone on my email list. Sign up here. (If you're already signed up, the call details are in your inbox now.)

The replay will be available for anyone on my blog for 1 week. After that, it will only be available to Dream Book members.

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Free Class: Holding Space For What’s Next

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New Class: Holding Space For What's Next

This is a 1 hour journaling + meditation class for making some space to explore what's next for you. NOTE: This is free to anyone to attend! The Zoom link will go out to everyone on my email list - sign up here if you're not on it.

Time: Friday, Jun 24, 2022 01:00 PM Winnipeg - North America, Central (find this in YOUR time zone here)

**The replay will be freely available for 1 week after the class. After that, it will only be available inside Dream Book.

There is just so much happening.

The world is changing. And we are changing. And our dreams are changing.

It's a lot (as in a lot to navigate and it's easy to get overwhelmed/exhausted).

AND

It's a lot (as in a LOT of new possibilities being born and a LOT to be excited about!!).

There is so much MAGIC and FREEDOM in this

Together, we'll tap into that magic and freedom and explore what it is you need to be doing, to create + hold space for "what's next" for you.

I'm planning on a 1 hour call, but lately our conversations on live classes have been FIRE and so we may go to 90 minutes.

If you can't be on time, plan to work with the recording. This work is a journey, and if you're not starting at the beginning it's not going to work.

But if you need to leave early that's fine - you can catch the rest on the replay.

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You will be lost. That’s kind of the point.

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It's Sunday morning.

I'm sitting on my chaise lounge with my laptop, my cat Bear, and a latte. It rained last night, and I opened up both big windows upstairs and the most delightful breeze is flowing through the loft with that it-just-rained smell.

My husband is asleep upstairs. We are still living apart, but spending more and more time together, and planning to live together again within the next year.

The time apart was so needed. In March 2021, when he moved out, I was ready to lose my mind if I didn't get some of alone time.

And now, with the magic of HAVING SPACE, and also a great couple's therapist, I'm excited to live with him again.

Dreams are not static.

We don't create a dream come true in our lives, and then curl up in it and live there forever, never feeling sad or lost or unfulfilled ever again.

We're alive and our dreams are alive and we grow and change and they grow and change and it can get very complicated at times.

My loft condo was SUCH a big dream for me. I bought it in 2011 - my first year of self employment with the Creative Dream Incubator.

A big modern open space with HUGE sunny windows. This felt like THE perfect place for ALL of my dreams.

And it was. At that time. But I kept growing and changing and then I had a husband and 4 step-kids and the big loft stopped feeling big, lol!

But it's still more than a home, it's a DREAM.

There have been times when I was very frustrated that I couldn't sell it and move on to the next thing. But a shift in the real estate market for condominiums made that extremely complicated. There have been times when I was glad I kept it. There are times when I want to keep it AND get a new home with my husband. And there are times when I am ready to take the financial loss, sell it and move on to the next thing.

When I last wrote about my loft I got so much advice and almost... well it felt like I was being roasted.

My inbox was overwhelmed with people being upset about the choices I was making. Which is wild, since I 100% trust myself to make the right choices for me. I'm so good at this, I help other people do this for a living!

But, people project online. A lot. We only see bits and pieces of each other's lives, fill in the banks with our own projections, and then it's easy to get upset when someone we like does something we don't.

Anyway, I'm sitting here on this gorgeous morning and I still have no clue what to do with this dream house of mine.

My husband and I have lots of ideas for ways to renovate it to make it work better.

And there are other options too, of course.

We'll figure it out....

But I do this - creative dreaming - for a living. So shouldn't I KNOW?

I have ALL of the tools. Shouldn't I never get stuck trying to figure out my next moves? Shouldn't I never make a mistake or mis-step?

It's easy to go there.

And loads of people in the life coaching/Life Your Best Life Industry really are out there saying that with the right tools and support, your life can be perfect. Always. Forever.

And some of these people become such huge corporations with so much impact that it's easy to feel convinced that if your life is not consistently perfect it's because YOU are doing something wrong, and you need to buy a better solution.

That's really shitty. It's the collision of unethical marketing with life coaching/personal growth and there's a LOT of it out there. And it taps into a lot of unconscious beliefs we have from growing up in this capitalist/colonialist/individualist/supremacist culture.

But we don't have to go there. We can shine a light on what's actually happening there, and then we can choose a different path.

Creative Dreaming is about STAYING ENGAGED with your dreams, and your healing and growth.

It's not about imagining that you can control the universe.

Or that being alive doesn't come with a FUCK TON of uncertainty, vulnerability and pain.

It's not about trying to AVOID the realities of life on earth.

It's about STAYING ENGAGED with your dreams/healing/growth/creativity/joy/values/inner truth which is a much deeper magic than "living a perfect life" could ever offer.

So here I am FEELING that magic.

Knowing what I want in the larger sense but also having no clue about what the details or timing will look like and letting it be what it is AND ALSO accepting that I could be in this place for a while AND ALSO - underneath everything, trusting the process.

(And THAT - trusting the process - is a valuable skill to learn which comes from engaging in the practice of staying engaged)

We can feel this magic WHILE being in the process, without a solution or fairy-tale ending in sight, just a commitment to stay on the path.

I'm going to stay here. Lost. Uncertain. Feeling my way.

I am following my creative flow. Starting BIG new projects. Going all in with self care as replenishment from a difficult few years.

I am going to put the LIVE Creative Genius Planning Sessions on hold for now - the ones I do Monday mornings on Instagram. Instead, I am sharing shorter meditations - like this one, for calling in what you need for the week.

I am planning a new free class to happen soon (if you're signed up for my emails you'll get an invite).

And exploring the idea of offering a few small group coaching programs for other people who are navigating deep change, or starting new projects - so we can do this together.

 

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Some questions

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Make space to focus on self care

I've been having a lot of anxiety this week.

A few days ago I rode my bike to the park, and stopped for a lavender doughnut on the way.

Then I had a beautiful moment of calm in the park, in a haze of lavender sugar, and I came up with a few questions to help me navigate all of this.

Maybe you could use them too?

Where can you say no? Slow down? Lower expectations?

Where can you do things differently, in ways that honour how you are feeling?

What do you need right now?

How can you process some of your feelings to create even a small bit of space for yourself?

Stay there with these questions as long as you need.

A lot of us seem to have an unconscious goal of “getting back to normal” and working on that goal isn’t going to lead to the future we want.

So, instead of trying to get back to normal, what if we stay present where we are and put our efforts into really tending to what is here?

I Take Excellent Care of Myself: 8 Week Undated Self Care Planner is now available through the Creative Dream Incubator Press!

Find out more + get your copy here!

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The Self Care Planner is here!!!

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I Take Excellent Care of Myself: 8 Week Undated Self Care Planner is now available through the Creative Dream Incubator Press!

I've been working on this during the whole pandemic.

With the combination of "a lot of my self care things became inaccessible" and "my life got more stressful on a number of fronts" and "the whole world started freaking out and falling apart" it was both tricky AND essential for me to find new ways to do self care.

There are a TON of ways to define self care. For me, self care is the foundation for everything else. For you, it can be something totally different.

All we know for sure is - we all need it right now.

This self care planner will get you looking at self care from different perspectives and experimenting with new ideas to help you feel how you want to feel, so you can do what you want to do.

Find out more + get your copy here!

**Get 20% off [until Friday] with the discount code:
SELFCAREMAGIC

I am going to promote this "self care style"

It just doesn’t feel very “self care” to push myself to do a bunch of marketing things around this.

So I’m not.

I’m going to show up, as myself, and talk about it. And going to put self care at the center of how I do that this week.

Which means today instead of doing the Monday morning Creative Genius Planning Session on Instagram Live (which I usually do, even on long weekends) I’m taking the long weekend as a long weekend.

So this morning I’ll be eating pancakes in the park with my husband. 🥞 🌳 🧺 ❤️

Picnics are my love language and a huge source of self care for me.

Now - Go check out the planner!

**Get 20% off [until Friday] with the discount code:
SELFCAREMAGIC

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

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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.

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

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

By / /

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

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.

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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