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.

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.

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Some days I do my Creative Dream Practice, I meet my dream and journal and meditate and feel in alignment…

and then I just go my stuff.

I don’t write a post to share about it because there's not much to say.

It’s the days when I feel lost that I write more, because writing helps me find my way through AND I feel we need to normalize that we feel stuck OFTEN on the way to a dream. And that FEELING stuck is fine - just keep showing up and working with it.

So, don’t worry about me!

I’m sharing a lot of the harder stuff because I think this is more valuable to share. I'm actually having lots of good, creative days 🙂

With that said, here’s today’s post:

I just feel heavy and foggy today. I had a bike ride and coffee and journaling and I can’t shake this feeling.

So, taking heavy foggy into the Un-Sticking Station:

It shows up right away and says: I’m not heavy or foggy I am sad.

Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Here, let’s get you a cushy blanket and some tea and cookies. A big pillow to lean on. There’s so much to be sad about, this is so valid.

My sad self bursts into tears. I offer her Kleenex.

What can I do?

I kind of want to pull you under here, you know? Let’s just BE SAD ALL DAY.

OK, that feels like resistance speaking, not sadness.

I know, right? Interesting.

Can I talk to JUST sadness, with no resistance hiding behind it?

Hmmmm, sadness WITHOUT resistance. That’s interesting.

Are you able to separate yourself from resistance?

Resistance seems to LOVE to glom on to sadness and use it, like a curtain to hide behind.

That is interesting. AND annoying because right now I can’t separate them.

Sadness, do you want me to do these things I wanted to do today?

Oh yeah, I do. I think that doing these things help us not be sad.

And then there is this little whisper of “But it’s too hard, let’s not do it today”

Which invites the question: Are things harder for me to sort through because of the divorce OR are my life-long companions, resistance and self-doubt, using the divorce as a diversion, so they can take over?

Probably both.

Also, does it matter?

 

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.

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.

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’m having a lot of WAVES lately.

Times when I feel so sure. Like, SO SURE. Completely confident that everything is going to work out like I am hoping it will. Super brave and clear-headed and focused and getting things done.

And then times when I feel so unsure. Like, SO FUCKING PAINFULLY SURE that it’s all going to fall apart and my life is over.

Sometimes I get caught in that undercurrent that it’s all bound to fail.

And sometimes I say “Oh honey, I’m so sorry you are feeling this way, even though yes of course you feel this way. Creative dreaming is such a brave way to live your life and it gets scary sometimes! So what can we do to help you feel better?”

THIS. IS. THE. PROCESS.

When we feel like SOMETHING IS WRONG when we feel this way - we shut down the process.

Everyone has these feelings.

Allowing them to come to the surface allows us to understand these parts of us better. It brings shadows out into the open.

In the open, we can heal and change and grow.

In the shadows, very little change is possible.

So, these intense waves I’ve been feeling are because I’m in such an intense time of growth.

They are a part of it.

So I am really trying to EMBRACE them.

Yes, sometimes I end up take over by them and that’s really uncomfortable.

AND if I can stay in the process - I can learn, shift perspectives, heal and grow.

This is the work.

I’m doing it.

(Reminder to self 😉

 

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.

This is the mantra I got in this week’s Dream Book journaling + alchemy kit: I am already perfect, whole and complete.

Oh yes. Breathing this one in.

Creative visionaries can always see WHAT'S NEXT. We're always growing and looking at MORE growth.

This is so beautiful. AND. We need to stop looking towards the future and looking towards more, turn around, and notice just how beautiful and perfect we already are, right here where we are.

Creating dreaming IS NOT SELF IMPROVEMENT.

It is self actualization.

There is nothing to fix. There is always more to explore and create.

 

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.

At therapy last week I asked my therapist for help with something - something that is just feeling stuck and I am not sure what to do with it.

And she tossed it right back at me, lol.

She said “I think you have a lot of practices with your work, that work for this kind of thing. And usually when you feel stuck you make a commitment to show up and be with it every day until you work through it.”

She’s right. The times when I’ve been the most stuck, or wanted to make a big change that felt out of reach - I do a daily coaching session with myself. And I commit to keep doing the daily coaching until I reach a certain goal.

I am starting a new journal, and starting fresh with Dream Book, which is what I’ll do as the “self coaching”.

I feel so excited about keeping this up over the summer, when the early mornings are warm enough to bring a smoothie and an iced coffee to the park for journaling.

It’s so interesting to me that I was struggling SO HARD about getting into my Dream Book earlier this week, and now I am dreaming of making more space for it in my morning routines.

Like - I can't really explain how this LIGHTS ME UP to think of a summer of "Dream Book picnics" to start my day. I'm thinking of the different parks I'll go to. Wondering if I need to get new art supplies, lol.

I'm really looking forward to this, and having things to look forward to is SO IMPORTANT.

 

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.

Yesterday I was writing about how “interesting” it is that it’s been SO HARD for me to work with my Dream Book.

And then… I did it.

I opened my Dream Book, set to make a new Dream Page.

And I re-read the 1 Dream Pages I had in there.

And… oh wow yes I see why it was so hard for me to open this journal.

When my husband left me in September, and then my step-son suddenly developed a life-threatening illness and was in the hospital for almost 4 months… I created a new Dream Page.

It was my fall/winter “liminal space dreams”.

I was dreaming of finding my way through all of this. I did the Dream Lab and saw myself crying a lot all winter… and then in the spring my tears would melt, and there would be a river there which I could float away on, to my new life.

And re-visiting this page is like WHOA. I found my way through SO MUCH.

And I am SO PROUD of how I did it. I updated this page with how I feel now, where I am now, and all the things I am so proud of myself for. I journaled about things I have learned, the ways that a divorce kind of throws all of your stuff at you and leaves you with no choice but to work through it on your own.

And I journaled about all the ways that I feel like a different person now, even though I am not “through” this and I am sure things will keep changing. (The best advice I got about divorce is to remember that your perspective will change, radically and often. So don’t assume that anything you think is REALLY what you think.)

Anyway, WHOA.

Dreams do touch on all of our most vulnerable places.

And so sometimes we need that space to resist and avoid, because deep down that’s how we are preparing.

Because when I finally did open this up and start to work with it, it felt like the right time. I don’t think I was ready any sooner.

*** And as long as we keep SHOWING UP and doing what we CAN do (like how I was doing “creative dream practice things” but was also avoiding opening my Dream Book) we will find our way through.

People tell me sometimes that they come to live calls, or watch replays, but don’t look at the Dream Book lessons, and they feel kind of sheepish about it. But there isn’t a “right way” to do any of this.

There are a lot of “ways in” because there is no “one way in”.

Just keep showing up!

 

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.

I want a more ALIVE creative dream practice.

I want to feel more deeply connected to my dreams, and to the version of myself I want to become next.

I want to be deeper in my creative flow.

I have space for this. I can’t think of anything I need…

Except a WAY IN.

Because I am sitting here.

I pulled a tarot card.

I lit incense and a candle.

I’ve got a new sketchbook plus my journals and art supplies aplenty and…

I don’t know the way in.

I mean - this is what the Dream Book program is, lol. Ways in, prompts, starting points.

So what is the problem?

It’s hard to start.

It’s vulnerable and awkward.

This “new dream”… it’s kind of nebulous. I have named some parts of it but a lot of it feels unclear.

And I keep opening up my Dream Book to work on it and…

Well, is it resistance? Procrastination? Fear? Waiting for the “right time”?

I have coached SO MANY PEOPLE through this.

And yet I keep falling into it myself.

But of course I do!

THIS IS THE PROCESS.

This is how we get “ready” (in quotes because we’re always ready and rarely feel ready)

I AM IN THE PROCESS.

I made Dream Book the way I did, with all the short videos and step-by-step so that you can just DO ONE THING and those things will build on each other and at some point you’ll be in your flow with it…

I trust that.

AND

Somehow I am not doing it.

This is just such an interesting dynamic.

And here I am - I have a few hours set aside to do this and instead of doing it I am journaling about how interesting it it that I am NOT doing it.

This IS how we work through it.

By STAYING WITH it. Staying with the thoughts and feelings that come up when we’re NOT doing the thing we want to be doing.

THIS IS THE WORK.

Remember the compass of Creative Dream Alchemy. So often we want Outer Work to be the direction we are focused on, but that’s just not where we are.

BEING where we ARE and doing the work that is there, is the way to get to where we want to be.

Which means my options right now are:

• Do the video for resistance
• Or the Un-Sticking Station
• Or the video for when you are avoiding the Un-Sticking Station
• Or…. do the Dream Book. Go to the main checklist and click the link on the next thing you haven’t checked off. Or pick a think that looks interesting. Or start again from the beginning (I re-start OFTEN and highly recommend that approach!)

I am going to actually DO Dream Book. I’m on the website. I’m going to re-watch the video for The Dream Page and start a NEW Dream Page. the last few months I feel like I have refined my dreams and opened up to new ones, and I’m learning about what I want my life to look and feel like - and I want to capture all of this on a new Dream Page.

And whichever one you do remember: All you need is THE WAY IN.

You don't need to see the whole path.

All of these WAYS IN help you get into your Creative Dream Practice.

One you're IN IT - you'll see new options and possibilities.

 

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.

This is the mantra I got in this week’s Dream Book journaling + alchemy kit: I am ready for bigger things.

First: Holy crap I am at WEEK TWENTY?! It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for 20 weeks. I love it.

I still feel like I “just started” re-doing all of these.

I AM READY FOR BIGGER THINGS.

It keeps amazing me how the right mantra finds me at the right time.

I am breathing this one in and it fills my body like helium… I feel light.

Like I can float up into bigger things, and not “work my ass off to get there” which is the vibe I can tend towards, if I am not intentional about HOW I am holding my intentions.

How does it feel to you?

This one can easily feel uncomfortable, and sitting with that discomfort can show you things that your dream wants you to know.

When it comes to “dreaming bigger” and “thinking bigger” our toxic culture impacts us in what the ways we define what is BIGGER and MORE VALUABLE.

Our creative dreams always want to bring us back to what is true for us.

So listen to YOU. Listen to YOUR dreams. No one else has to understand what “bigger things” is for you.

Leaving a high paying job and fancy life to life a more creative and fulfilling life can be “bigger”, you know?

 

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.

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Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.

(I wrote this post a few weeks ago)

Seven years ago today, I got married. Today, I am not speaking to my husband. We are separated and plan to divorce, at the stage where getting the paperwork figured out feels like too much so just leaving it for now.

I honestly thought I was getting married for life, but here we are.

Things often don’t go as planned. I feel like we can’t say enough: it doesn’t matter what happens in your life YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE.

There is so much in our culture about this. So much judgement and shame and this unconscious push to try to make our lives look as perfect as possible. This is traumatizing.

Life is a mystery. The world is a mess. We’re all doing our best.

I’m finding such surprising gifts in the divorce process. My life is opening up in new ways. I’m turning 50 next week and feel so optimistic about this new chapter in my life.

AND it’s not what I’d planned or aimed for but… what if it’s better?

Re-reading this a week later:

That “It’s not what I’d planned or aimed for but… what if it’s better?” feels like SUCH A FUCKING CLICHE.

Like a pollyanna take on the pain of how disappointing it is sometimes, to go after a dream wholeheartedly and not have it work out.

Re-reading this a few days after that last update:

Last weekend I shared my birthday cake.

I am IN LOVE with how it turned out...

But it wasn’t what I had planned, lol!

My sister baked it - 5 layers of chocolate lavender cake and FIVE (!) batches of icing, so I’d have plenty to play with. She helped me dye the icing 6 different colours.

I piped different shapes all over the cake, in every colour of the rainbow except purple. I saved purple for last.

The purple was in a larger bag with a larger tip, and I piped this thick purple ribbon over the thick, multi-textured piped rainbow of icing…. and then this purple ribbon was too heavy, and pulled the rainbows of icing off the cake as it slide down the sides.

Yikes!

I had a flash inspiration of a “rainbow galaxy” smear of all of this thick icing. It felt like when I am doing intuitive painting and I tend to smear colours together a lot, like I am letting them play with each other.

So I grabbed a knife and did it.

There were big hunks of icing falling down which I piled on top of the cake as I spread out the sides to create this rainbow gradient kind of thing.

Then I had quite a bit of yellow in a bag with a nice thin piping tip so I added the yellow lines and….

It FELT like I wanted this cake to feel.

The original piped shapes, which were sooooo cuuuuuute, didn’t quite have the ZING of it feeling the way I wanted it to feel.

So, my cake was a disaster for a second there and then it did end up turning out better than I’d hoped.

My sister said: “It’s like your life! It fell apart but with the magic of creativity you turned it into something better!”

And now I am remembering that this is actually NOT Pollyanna at all.

This means FACING and BEING WITH the disappointment. Working with it and growing through it, to find your next step.

Accepting that disappointment is a companion on the path, and learning how to find the lessons and opportunities in it.

(Creative Dream Incubator members: there is an alchemy process for working with disappointment, right here. It's three videos with two different journaling sheets, for different ways of working with disappointment)

 

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.

Some of the steps towards a dream are boring and some are scary. Sometimes you need to be your BRAVEST and MOST ALIGNED SELF to take a step, and sometimes, that step comes along on a way when you are not that version of you. Not even close. That’s where I am today.

So. What am I going to do?

I feel upset that I can’t do the thing I want to do but when I look at it, my head hurts. I am so far away from the version of me who can do it.

Can I accept that I feel upset about not being able to do it AND accept that I feel really really off today? Like the opposite of brave and aligned?

Those two feelings are conflicting a bit. The uncomfortable feeling and then the resistance to the uncomfortable feeling.

In this moment, all I know is that pushing myself is not the answer.

If I can’t seem to access any other answers, can I try to access another question?

It comes to mind immediately: What do I need?

I wrote this a few weeks ago.

Coming back to it today I am thinking of how the step that’s in front of us is not always the step we want to take.

I had an Outer Work step I had WANTED to take on that day, but the actual step that was in front of me to take was Inner Work.

My taking THAT step, and doing the Inner Work that was in front of me to do, I brought myself closer to being able to take the Outer Work step that I wanted to take.

We do tend to want to focus on certain steps, and totally ignore/avoid others but the path only works if we take ALL the steps.

 

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.

On our Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual practice call last week, we talked about how awkward and embarrassing this work can be.

A few times over the years I have talked about feeling cringy about promoting myself and would get messages back from people telling me not to feel that way.

I know they all meant well, but that is just not helpful.

We feel how we feel! Pretending we don’t is a waste of energy.

Plus avoiding your feelings gives them a lot of power over you. Feeling your feelings, and processing your feelings GIVES YOU CLUES about how to get what you want.

So, we made space to feel awkward and embarrassed and found ways through it.

Then, last week, I got this idea to do a promotion for my 50th birthday.

Because this feels like a Big Deal kind of birthday, I wanted to ask for what I wanted: help spreading the word about the Creative Dream Incubator.

Which felt SO awkward and embarrassing.

So this is how I handled it: I gave myself loads of time to feel how I felt AND take little steps.

On Tuesday morning, I went out for coffee with the goal of writing a rough copy of what I wanted to say. And brainstorm ideas for an image to share with it.

I do not usually spend this much time on a single post/email. Because I felt embarrassed, I gave myself more time to work through the feelings and in so doing - I also gave myself more time to write the best post possible. It was a win/win.

So Tuesday morning after a few VERY AWKWARD writings, I ended up with good rough draft! And I got the idea to take a photo of myself in front of the flower garlands I was making to decorate for my birthday party, which felt exactly like what I was going for - celebratory.

Then I sat with it, and came back on Wednesday to update it, and read through it and notice how it landed in my body.

Did I feel ready to ask for help in such a public way? What would help me feel ready?

I was already feeling so much more ready to do it... and I still have three more days to get ready, emotionally, to post this thing.

This is how we do things we don’t feel ready for. We break it down into teeny steps and then PRACTICE THEM.

 

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.

This is the mantra I got in this week’s Dream Book journaling + alchemy kit: I trust my power.

I breathe deep and just sit with it. It's like, the deeper I go inside me, the more I can find my power.

When I feel connected to it - yes I trust my power.

But am I "feeling powerful" and "trusting my power" as my usual state of being?

No, I don't think so.

That's interesting to notice.

I do feel competent, but POWERFUL has a different quality and then TRUSTING MY POWER has another different quality still.

Trusting my power feels like: I am not rushing or pushing or forcing. I am not betraying my values. I know I can do this MY way in MY time. I won't deplete myself in the process...

It puts a new spin in how much I have slowed down in the last few years.

Partially the overwhelm of the pandemic and partially peri-menopause. And I was doing a lot of exploration around how much capitalism determined how fast I moved, and how much "this is genuinely and sustainably how much I can work" determined how fast I moved.

But, when I sit with this... I trust my power... I don't feel any need to move faster.

 

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.