Today’s post is a Dreamtastic Creative Journals? post.? Dreamtastic is an ongoing (free!) e-course about using your journal as a tool for transformation, healing and dream-growing.

By far, the question I am asked the most about Creative Journaling is “How can I make sure it will, you know, look good?” usually followed by “I’m not an artist but I really want to play….”

And I always talk about how it’s not (AT ALL!) about how it looks and it’s ALL about how it feels. It’s about the process.

And people say they get it, but still, you know, they want their journal pages to be cute.

If you need your journal pages to look cute, or funky, or any other way – you’re NOT doing Creative Dream Journaling.

That’s practicing art, keeping a sketchbook. That’s a great thing to do, it’s also totally different from what I am talking about.

Creative Dream Journaling is 100% about the inner process.

If you are focused on how it looks,? you’re missing out on the magic.

This is the thing people really struggle with.

So while I was on my Creative Retreat, I had a chance to take an intuitive painting class with Chris (which is something everyone should do!!!!).

And wouldn’t you know it – I struggled with this very thing, ALL NIGHT.

I was enjoying the process but then I’d step back and look at my painting and wish it looked cuter.

Chris?kept coming around to talk to me about it and I kept feeling flustered. Like “Hello! I’m having fun but I want to also LIKE my painting!”

Which is exactly the opposite of the point.

Then the next morning I was sitting by the lake near the studio, enjoying a latte, smiling at the ducks and geese everywhere and playing in my journal. I grabbed what I thought was a pen, but was a brush-marker, so when I went to draw something I was using pen pressure, instead of brush pressure, and my drawing came out really odd.

I smiled. I was enjoying it. I did not care, not one bit, what any of the marks on my page looked like. I was too deep in enjoying the process.

I was just delighted to make marks on the page. Did not matter one bit what the marks were.

It struck me, how this was the opposite experience of the one I had the night before.

I noticed how freaking good it feels to be in the inner process and how freaking tangly and uncomfortable it is to want your creative expression to be different from how it is.

I want you to know that YOUR creative expression is perfect and inspiring, exactly the way it is. That you don’t have to learn how to do things “right” before your creations will be perfect and inspiring.

And if you find your creative expression to be anything less than beautiful – you might need a new perspective on beauty, more than you need art classes.

Here is the painting I struggled with so much:

Now that I’ve got a little distance between it and me – it’s kind of funny to remember how frustrated this made me!

Now when I look at it I remember the joy and freedom I felt while I played with the paints.

I remember stumbling and then finding my truth and then stumbling again and then finding my center.

I remember the dance of it all and how awkward I felt. I remembering hearing some noise in the kitchen and thinking “I hope?Chris is making us cookies because I have really earned a cookie!”

I remember, when?Chris made me stay present with the part of the painting that I hated the most, when I really looked at it, how much PURE SPARKLING LOVE I actually had for it.

Every single mark you make is precious because it’s YOUR unique creative expression.

That’s a part of you, on paper for you to see and adore and celebrate.

The fact that you are alive and can create is a miracle.

Celebrate it, as it it. Honour it, as it is.

Even if you think it’s ugly, honour it for what it can show you about yourself and your perspective.

And then imagine how this changes your whole LIFE.

What if you could delight in every mark you made, without judgment, in your journal, on your canvas, and in your life??

You know how when you see a baby kicking it’s legs, it’s just soooo adorable?

And how when your cat sits a certain ways it’s just soooo adorable?

What if you are just soooo adorable just because of whatever you’re doing right now?? Because you’re expressing your unique self in some way and it’s the most amazing thing ever.

Obviously, this is not an easy thing to do.

This is advanced, advanced practice.

So if you’re thinking “Oh no, I could never do this!” – that’s great!? Because you don’t just DO it, you PRACTICE it.

And I dare you to practice this kind of radical self-acceptance today.