I had a different post ready to go for today, but in light of this week's election results in the US it didn't feel right.
For the last week and a half I have been focused on HOPE.
I have been brainstorming a "hope practice" to add to the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership for 2025. Because hope is the foundation for all dreams.
This felt so relevant and important, even before the election results when I actually thought Harris would win.
Now it feels vital.
Without hope, there is no hope.
Without hope, there is no possibility of change.
Without hope, nothing new can be created.
And hope can be surprising easy to practice.
Meal prepping some mason jar salads is hope.
Buying that journal is hope.
Making space in your life for your dreams is hope.
Asking myself... what can I do to support myself in having a more optimistic mindset is hope.
Looking around in your community to see who needs some help is hope.
And most importantly right now, making sauce to feel your actual feelings is hope.
Creative Dream Q+A time! If you have questions to add to this series, let me know! If you prefer to watch/listen I'll post a video of this on Instagram and Facebook today.
I’m Canadian, I am not in the US but election stress is coming up a lot on my group calls.
And a lot of countries are politically stressful right now. The state of the world is brutal and this stress impacts us and we need recognize that and take care of ourselves accordingly...
AND we have to hold onto our ability to hope for a better future.
If we can’t see a better future, we can’t participate in creating it.
Creative Dreaming is a practice, a skill, a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it. This is the time!!
And I know it’s hard.
But it’s actually our only option.
We have to find whatever little ways we can to hold onto the light, to hold onto a sense that there is a future worth working for.
Adjusting to some new medication, I am in the heaviest depression I have ever experienced. And this morning I had headphones on and I’m listening to A Beautiful Chorus to try to fill my brain with something optimistic and beautiful, and my cat was watching me and he looked like he was ready to play, so I started dancing.
At first it felt ridiculous, like here I am just feeling so heavy and depressed, dancing in this really exaggerated way to entertain my cat, but a few minutes in, I started to actually feel good. My cat is running around the room, just loving this and I’m dancing wildly and at the end of the song I stop, out of breath, and I could feel my blood pumping, I could feel ALIVE.
That’s why I go for bike rides too. I’m not feeling all that alive unless I intentionally create that sensation for myself.
Creative Dreaming is a practice. Being optimistic about the future is a practice.
It’s really hard right now and it’s more important than ever that we keep practicing.
And when it comes to politics, we need to practice TOGETHER. Democracy needs the participation of the people in order to survive. Voting is not participating, voting is bare minimum.
Using some of your time, energy, money towards creating the future you want to see can help with the stress. Doing what you can to change things always feels better than just sitting there waiting for disaster to strike.
Creative Dream Q+A time! If you have questions to add to this series, let me know!
This came up on a group coaching call recently. And I said that this is something I had been meaning to write about on my blog because it happens SO often.
So imagine that you are here, where you are. And your dream is there, where it is. Between you..... are some outer and inner obstacles.
If you’re not facing your dream directly and committed to taking steps towards it, then you’re not really aware of those obstacles. I know you’re aware of some of them, and you’re like “Yikes! I don’t want to deal with that!” and so you’re not taking any action. But you’re actually NOT all that aware of what these obstacles are actually all about, you’re seeing them from a distance.
When you face your dream directly and begin to take steps towards it - you are actually moving yourself right into the obstacles. You don’t take one step and land in your dream, you take a step and land in the obstacle because that’s what’s between you and your dream.
Sometimes you land in the obstacle you knew about, sometimes you land in an obstacle you didn’t realise was there. Either scenario can be jarring. And it feels like the obstacle came to you but actually you went to it. You’re the one who made a move.
Being up close with this obstacle is progress towards your dream.
Creative Dream Q+A time! If you have questions to add to this series, let me know!
If you want to succeed at ______ then you have to ______.
The question I got was… Do I have to do video to succeed? I am better at connecting in person.
And the short answer is always no.
You don’t have to do what other people say. When it comes to your dreams, you are the only one who can build the path. Your ways of doing things are always best.
When it comes to unsolicited advice, always feel free to just reject it and never think about it again.
You didn’t ask for it, you don’t need to spend any time thinking about it. Especially if it’s advice that you don’t like, you can end up wasting a lot of energy being kind of upset about someone telling you to do this thing that you don’t want to do.
Don’t waste your energy on that, save your energy for building your path to your dream. Show them they’re wrong, that you didn’t need that unsolicited advice, you did it your way.
But if you did ask for advice, before you reject it, it’s good to understand WHY that was the advice that was given.
So, for example, if a business coach sees that people who do video have a better job at connecting with people to grow their businesses, then they may encourage you to do video.
So, if the video is meant to help you connect with people - what are you doing to connect with people instead?
It’s not enough to say - I don’t want to do video. You have to identify what you will do instead.
The person who asked me this question said that they connect better in person - so they need to look at how they are doing that, how to do more of it, and how to get better at it.
If you want a different result you generally have to take a different action. And often that different action is going to be uncomfortable at first. And sometimes, we reject advice because it makes us uncomfortable.
When you do that, you are letting your fear of your feelings control your life.
To make your dream happen, you need to be in control of your life - you as in your creative, intuitive and brave self, not your fearful self.
So for this person who asked about video and said that she connects better in person - if she’s not doing anything to seek out opportunities for in person speaking engagements and networking, then something is stuck there and her next steps are to look deeper.
I put out a call for creative dream questions and this one came in. If you have questions, let me know! I want this to be a series, maybe weekly, maybe random, we'll see. I recorded this so you can watch it or read it:
It’s so sad and hard to be in this place. For many reasons, just the simple facts of aging or illness or changing life situations, it’s not uncommon to find ourselves in a place where we don’t have the energy we used to have and it can be really terrifying because… our creative dreams still matter. So it can feel like we are losing a part of us.
And when it comes to our creative dreams, because they come from such a deep and vulnerable place in us, the fears around them can feel amplified.
So here is what I suggest when you’re in this situation:
First: Validate your feelings, even if you may feel like your fears are exaggerated, validate how this actually feels. Give yourself some time with these feelings, make space to be present with these feelings as sensations in your body. What do these hurting parts of you need?
This is probably connected with other feelings about what has happened that has caused you to have less energy than you used to. There is probably some grieving that needs to happen, and not giving ourselves space to grieve keeps things bottled up and pressure-y. Grieving relieves the pressure. Grieving really is a part of creative dreaming, in a lot of ways.
You need to give yourself whatever time and space you need to do that processing and grieving. It will probably need more time and space than you think it should.
While you are processing and grieving, keep asking yourself what you need.
Learn to get really good at taking care of yourself.
If you are doing all of that, you will naturally come to a place where the question shifts from “how do I go back to have the energy I used to have” to “how do I move forward, with what I have now?”
When we are young, when have never experienced serious illness, when we have never had shit really go wrong in our lives - we do have this fountain of energy to devote to our dreams.
When I was in my 30s I put so much effort into tending to that fountain, trying to make it flow as fast and furious as possible.
Now in my 50s, going through a divorce, really struggling physically and mentally with perimenopause, I do grieve the loss of that energy. And I did start treatments with my doctor with the hope that I could go back to who I used to be.
But the more I have allowed myself to grieve the losses and process the feelings, the more there is this new path opening up for me. New ways to approach dreams that honour where I am.
Work smarter not harder can be applied in so many ways. Work smarter not faster is a good one.
What qualities have you gained in this situation that has left you with less energy, and how can these qualities help you with your dreams?
Without negating the difficulties of what you have faced, and so this question is better asked after you’ve had space to grieve and process - What are the strengths and opportunities of being where you are?
Creative dreaming never happens in a vacuum and always happens in the world as it is, in our lives as they are. Creative dreaming is a way of responding to the world and to our lives. It comes from a deep, powerful and wise place in you. If these dreams are alive in you, now in your life as it now, then there is a way. Always remember that the way is just about the inner healing and growth as it is about the outer work.
It’s complicated!
Creative Dreaming is literally bringing new realities to life.
