For When Your Dream Falls Apart

By Andrea Schroeder / January 23, 2024 / daily practice, healing, journaling

In the fall, when everything in my life felt so hard, I was looking forward to winter.

I love winter anyway, but this year I was really craving the quiet and stillness of it.

The magic of sleeping in a bit and still being able to walk to the coffee shop during the sunrise.

The spaciousness of early sunsets and quiet evenings at home.

And how magic and spaciousness are so healing for me.

Last night I was lying in bed, and my furnace kicked on.

My heart actually exploded in gratitude. I wanted to cry. I was so amazed and grateful that I have my own furnace. It’s only job is to keep me warm.

I felt so loved and safe.

Just from having a furnace. The same furnace I’ve been glad to have, but mostly taken for granted for years.

And I thought about how much I love everything about my home, not just the furnace, how I am not taking it for granted. Something about going through a divorce has me more present with all of the things I love about my life.

There is magic in a breakup because there is healing in a breakup.

And as long as I stay present with my feelings, not denying the hard parts but also not wallowing in them - I get to have all of this magic, too.

My life feels bigger. I feel bigger. Possibility feels bigger.

And it’s so wild to me since I didn’t choose this divorce. But I feel healed and freed by it, too.

And I want to add - in therapy we’ve been looking at all the ways I did contribute to the divorce, not a blaming way, I don’t want to blame or or blame him, just in a way that comes back to this truth: what is best for one is best for both.

AND this is all a part of creative dreaming.

I'm been committed to having my inner truth guide my actions, and so - if I am doing my best with that, then I need to accept the outcomes as they happen.

The path doesn’t look the way we think it will. This is true for most dreams.

I am thinking about how often our creative dreams do fall apart, just like marriages, and how this is all a part of it.

If nothing ever falls apart, there is no space for anything new!

I wrote this a few weeks ago, but now I see how it fits with my work right now of creating a container for my dreams to grow, and how I MAKE SPACE for them.

Dream Book members: there is a mini-class on For When Your Dream Falls Apart.

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.

For When Your Dream Falls Apart Read More »

I make space for miracles

By Andrea Schroeder / January 22, 2024 / daily practice, Journal Prompts, journaling, meditation

(Dream Book members: get your next journaling kit, with alchemy meditations here)

This week’s journaling + alchemy kit gave me this: I make space for miracles.

I actually made mugs, notebooks + zipper pouches with this on them, and I use this mug every day.

This is my mantra.

And yet, it was really hard for me to feel this one, this week.

The start of last week felt like a slog with no miracles in sight. I felt like I didn’t want to MAKE SPACE for miracles, I didn’t want to be the one doing that work, I wanted the miracles to find me.

Which is valid!

AND it’s not usually how miracles work.

By the end of the week I realised two things:

The way I am planning my weeks and setting goals isn’t working for me. AND I have an idea for what would work!!! It’s like, I noticed exactly what is missing for me (which is a tiny miracle!). So I am going to try that for this week and this feels so exciting to me.
I’m not actually MAKING SPACE for what I want. I have this specific dream I am working on, but I have no container for supporting it.

I am still figuring out what that second one means.

But this is something that comes up from time to time in Dream Book - how are you making space for your dream in your life? There are a LOT of ways to do this and what I am feeling right now is that HAVING A CONTAINER for it feels important.

The work of MAKING SPACE is so varied.

Sometimes we are literally too busy for our dream to fit in our lives. Sometimes we have to give other things up in order to have it. Sometimes we just need to notice the ways it’s growing, like a houseplant that is growing, but crowded by other plants, maybe you just need to move it a little.

When I say I need a container for my dream to grow in - I have no idea what this means. Is it a literal container? Like a file box to keep things in? Is it a practice, a way of showing up for it every day and noticing?

It feels like a journaling process. That’s all I know.

So I am making a page for it in Dream Book - the page is a proxy for the container for supporting the growth of my dream. And I’ll just sit with it regularly and see what comes next.

This is a big part of creative dreaming. Being willing to sit with things that you can’t see or understand yet.

This is how we make space to operate from a new level of consciousness.

Which is what making space for miracles is all about.

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.

I make space for miracles Read More »

Super boring self care things make the magic happen! [Weekly Dream Status Report]

By Andrea Schroeder / January 19, 2024 / daily practice, Manifest Your Dream Life

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

On Fridays I do my Dream Status Report which is a series of prompts I use every week to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path. You can do them with me (Dream Book members: come post yours in the forum!)!

Click here for the Dream Status Report journal prompts

I know doing the same prompts every week can be annoying sometimes but this is magically clarifying. The repetition helps you go deeper into the process and makes it easier to LEARN from your process as you go, and the apply those learnings right away. This weekly practices helps me learn so much more, even when I'm just stumbling around trying to find my next steps.

Here are the prompts:

PART ONE: (sometimes these can stay the same for months at time, sometimes they change often)

My dream is:

I want it because:

When I have it I will feel:

PART TWO:

Invite your dream in (using the Dream Lab practice) to help you with the rest of the prompts.

PART THREE:

My goal/wish/intention for this New Moon is:

Last week’s focus was:

What happened in the last week?

What am I learning/How do I feel about this?

What do I need now?

What does my dream need now?

Taking all of this into account, my focus for the next week is:

My Dream Status Report for this week:

PART ONE:

My dream is: This one doesn't want to be shared, but I do have a very specific thing I am working on now.

I want it because: I am excited about it! And it feels supportive of all the other things I want - like having this puts me in a position for all sorts of new dreams.

When I have it I will feel: Free - and I feel free now but it feels like I would feel more free somehow. And more secure/safe and relaxed.

PART TWO:

Invite the soul of your dream in (using the Dream Lab practice) to help you with the rest of the prompts.

OK wow. When I tried to do this I was just bombarded with distractions, everyone I know suddenly had to call or text me, lol.

So, I keep trying. And it's actually hard to connect with my dream today and I realize... oh there are just so many feelings in the way. I'm just tender today AND I had a lot of things I wanted to get done today and this is not a good combination. So I just sit with this. All of the tenderness in my heart and all of the wishes that I felt more... sturdy and focused, I guess.

My dream feels like a faraway soft warm light. Inviting me towards it and understanding that I am where I am today.

PART THREE:

Last week’s focus was:Remember the magic. Keep doing the worthiness + receptivity daily practice.

What happened in the last week?

The worthiness + receptivity daily practice is from what we did in the worthiness and receptivity calls we did last year, I am doing just a quick version of getting into that feeling. This week I made printables from both of those calls and added them so you can download them - underneath the call replay. The printable is a way of tracking your practice with this over time.

The dream I am working with now is starting to feel more and more inevitable. I love this.

Apart from that, this week was a little rough mental health wise. I stopped going out for long walks as much when the cold hit late last week and that has such a HUGE impact. I went for a long walk yesterday and it changed everything so I need to keep it up. I do have all the layers I need to do this, I just need the motivation to put them all on, lol. But remember how much better I feel after I do this (even if I'm not that into it while it's happening!) is good motivation.

I am SO happy and proud of my new ways of organizing my thoughts and ideas into my projects. I have so many "journal ideas" for little printable kits and guided journals, and things to add to Dream Book. I structure this all much better, between keeping lists in my project management app and then also having documents ready in Procreate (the app I use for drawing in my iPad) with all of my notes in them. This way I can pick it up and JUST DRAW without having to "figure out where I am". This feels like a miracle.

Recently we did the Structure, Habits Routines call. Plus there is the Creative Planning + Project Management class in the Dream Plan Kit and the Creative Genius Planning Sessions. There really isn't one way to structure your ideas in a way that will help you implement them. This can be ongoing work - especially as your circumstances change throughout life!

What am I learning/How do I feel about this?

Ever since the pandemic started I've been foggy brained. The overwhelm makes sense, with peri-menopause on top. And perhaps long Covid? My brain is not the same. So it's been SUCH A GIFT to finally start to get my ideas organized in a way that feels right for where I am now.

What do I need now?

A bit more discipline about going for the long walks. It helps to plan in advance. When I am ore disciplined about getting fresh air and exercise, then I am also naturally more disciplined about doing the things I want to do. The exercise fuels my creative projects.

What does my dream need now?

That far-away light glows brighter. It wants me to remember it is closer than I think.

Taking all of this into account, my focus for the next week is:

Keep doing the worthiness + receptivity daily practice. Be more disciplined about fresh air + exercise. These super boring self care things make the magic happen!

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your Dream Status Report or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Super boring self care things make the magic happen! [Weekly Dream Status Report] Read More »

Can you take a smaller step?

By Andrea Schroeder / January 18, 2024 / daily practice, healing, Journal Prompts, Manifest Your Dream Life

This is where I keep stumbling:

I am forgetting the magic of little steps.

I know this is kind of funny given how often I write about it. And how I am ALWAYS coaching others to look for smaller steps. And then smaller still.

But here I am, discounting my own little steps.

I think this is a part of the nature of being creative: we see the big picture. I can see how I want it to be and so each little step really is unsatisfying… if I stay focused on the bigger picture.

So here are so tiny steps I took:

I got my paints out from the bottom of my closet and put them in front of my bookshelf, to I could start working on that mural in my workspace.
I pulled that bookshelf out to make some room to get back there and paint.
I brought a chair upstairs to stand on to paint.

With these three things done, each as separate steps at separate times, at one point I just… started painting!!!!

It’s easy to see “paint one little bit” as a little step, but it took three other steps to get there. And it would have take more steps if all of my paint stuff for this project hadn’t already been together in one box in my closet.

What I want to work on is having an attitude that CELEBRATES and HONOURS the tiniest little steps.

I don’t want to wait until I see new paint on the wall to acknowledge that I am DOING IT.

AND

I wrote this a week ago.

In the week since, I have done VERY LITTLE on the mural. For various and very valid reasons.

But that doesn't discount the success of those steps I took last week.

And it doesn’t change the fact that I am still set up to take more little steps.

This attitude of CELEBRATING and HONOURING the tiniest little steps that I want to have is a part of CHERISHING THE PROCESS.

Our whole culture tells us that the outcome is the only thing that matters. And that a story, like the one I shared above, is only inspirational if it ends up that I completed the mural in record time.

The truth about creativity and human nature and life under colonialist capitalism is that it doesn’t usually work that way, and having a goal of wanting it to work that way for you gets in the way of ACTUAL PROGRESS.

So what’s the tiniest step you can see to take?

And can you make it even smaller?

And then can you celebrate yourself for taking it, even when it doesn’t get you all of the way to where you want to be? Can you celebrate the direction you’re going in instead of focusing on the speed?

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.

Can you take a smaller step? Read More »

I’m powerful and have what I need to make my dreams real

By Andrea Schroeder / January 15, 2024 / daily practice, Journal Prompts, journaling, meditation

(Dream Book members: get your next journaling kit, with alchemy meditations here)

This is the mantra I got in this week’s Dream Book journaling kit and I am NOT feeling it.

I woke up groggy, foggy, heavy and sad. Having a TOTAL MONDAY.

I went back to sleep and my poor cat Bear had to wake me at 7:17 when his breakfast was 17 minutes late.

I fed him and kind of moped around. VERY VERY SLOWLY got dressed, thought about my day, and thought… I think I should just call in sick today. Get into sweatpants. Watch Netflix.

It was a real battle this morning to get anywhere near feeling powerful enough to get close to my dreams.

This is just how it is some days.

I didn’t battle it by forcing myself to do anything I didn’t want to, or pretending to feel differently than I felt.

I sat in my bed and cried. I didn’t understand why today felt so hard, I just offered myself some comfort and feeling your feelings is comforting.

Then I meditated.

And I thought about what I had planned for the day: A sunrise walk to the coffee shop - I had missed sunrise at this point but I could still walk in the sunshine. I had a list of things I wanted to do there, plus coffee! And a treat! And then a 30 minute walk back home, and the way doing 60 minutes of walking in the morning makes the rest of the day feel better.

Then I took out the garbage. Like a trial run. And outside felt GOOD. So I came back in, bundled up, and went to the coffee shop where I am writing this.

I am powerful and have what I need to make my dreams real.

I am at my MOST powerful when I’m accepting myself where I am.

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.

I’m powerful and have what I need to make my dreams real Read More »

I Give Myself What I Need To Grow

By Andrea Schroeder / January 9, 2024 / daily practice, Journal Prompts, journaling, meditation

This year I am re-starting the Dream Book weekly journaling + alchemy kits.

(Dream Book members: check out the weekly kits here. If you're not a member: find out more + join us here or check out the Printable Planning + Journaling Kit which is similar)

I meant to start last week, at the start of the year. So I cut this out last week. I pasted it into my journal, but then I didn't come back to it because I have been using a different journal, lol!

So here I am, once again, meaning to start this week.

This is just where I am! No judgement.

And it doesn't matter how many weeks it takes me to actually get into this!

The magic is in showing up and taking whatever little steps you see to take. The magic is in showing up again and again and again until it sticks.

There have been times when I've been in a good, nourishing routine using these kits every week. And I can get back into that routine.

And I HAVE been thinking about the mantra: I give myself what I need to grow.

I've been feeling into it.

The kits come with meditations + instructions for using them. The meditation for the mantras is for EXPLORING the mantra, how it feels for you, and all the different ways you react to it, to see what it can show you.

The point is NOT to force yourself to believe it, the way a lot of new age affirmations are used.

So I've been EXPLORING this. Noticing where I am, and am not, giving myself what I need to grow.

And that's been really cool!

I am seeing all sorts of ways to nurture my goals. This year I have some business goals I am focusing on, but also LOADS of creative goals that are not work related and self care/adventure goals.

Of course I am also exploring resistance as a year-long project and the big thing I have learned so far that I being organized/ready to do a thing makes me SO MUCH more likely to do the thing, when I have time for it.

Like - I've been wanting to work on the mural in my workspace for a while. I'd be so much more likely to actually do it in little moments if the paints + tools were already out + set up. (They are currently in a box in the bottom of my closet, with other things in the way, so it feels annoying to even get started)

Also - the mood is more likely to strike if I am ALREADY prepared. That's my big learning/remembering from week 1 of the year-long project of exploring my resistance.

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.

I Give Myself What I Need To Grow Read More »

Tomorrow: January New Moon Call

By Andrea Schroeder / January 8, 2024 / daily practice, Journal Prompts, journaling, meditation

I am so looking forward to this!

We start the call with a short meditation, and then some journaling prompts for reflecting on the last month. Looking for lessons to be learned, re-frames to make, things we want to celebrate, things we want to let go of. Then we look at what we WANT now and what we NEED now and set intentions for the coming month.

Then we take those intentions back into the meditation and do an alchemy process for becoming that version of ourselves who has done the thing, and look back at ourselves as we are today, and offer next-level advice to ourselves.

And then we have THE BEST conversations as we share our intentions, our celebrations, our struggles, the things we're learning on the path - all of it.

My goal is that at the end of the call you have a good sense of what you want to focus on for the next month, and what kinds of practices will help you be able to do that - how to best set yourself up for success.

If you can't make it live you can leave your thoughts + questions in the (private!) comments section.

I’m starting with a blank slate.

I did my New Moon journaling in my December planner, and then I got rid of that planner for the new year, lol!

I mean, I can find it still in my piles and piles of old journals and planners, but it’s not where I am right now and I’ve decided to just start fresh.

Which is great and all but…

Every month we talk about the magic of reflecting back on last month’s intention because THIS IS HOW YOU HOLD THE THREADS.

If you’re always focused on setting new intentions, and never look back at how you’re holding the intentions you’ve already set… it’s just really hard to move forward with any consistency.

SETTING the intention is absolutely the easiest part.

HOLDING the intention is harder.

Looking back and being honest with yourself about how you’re doing this work - hardest.

So that’s why we do it TOGETHER. Even the people who use the replays share the it’s just easier to do this hard part with the video.

So I’m going against my own rules this month. And that’s ok too!

This last fall was one of the hardest seasons of my life and I’m really proud of how I’ve handled everything. I wrote on my journal this morning: I love the ways I’m moving on. Centering self care, creativity and healing.

AND ALSO it feels like a good time to just throw away everything I was working with and see where I’m at now.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens on the call tomorrow. No matter where I’m at, this monthly gathering is always magic.

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.

Tomorrow: January New Moon Call Read More »

I am doing the daily posts a little differently this year

By Andrea Schroeder / January 3, 2024 / daily practice, journaling

Or, I WANT TO, but I am not quite there and not quite sure how to get there.

This is what creative dreaming is!

And today I’m leaning into one of the Principles of Creative Dream Alchemy (Dream Book members, read them all here):

You don’t have to feel ready.

Which is fine in theory but, right now, the fact that I DON’T feel ready feels like anxiety.

My chest is tight. I want to run away. My shoulders get tense when I start to look at what I need to do.

So, NOT feeling ready is definitely a problem.

And “You don’t have to feel ready” is just taunting me. Because the fact that I DON’T feel ready is causing so much anxiety I can’t really “just do it”.

Hands on heart.

Five deep breaths. Inviting “You don’t have to feel ready” into my body as a balm. Not to dissolve or cancel out the anxiety of not feeling ready, just to hang out with it.

The anxiety wants to show me how it wanted to do things, and since it can’t do that, all hope is lost. It needs me to give up so it can stop feeling anxious.

You don’t have to feel ready says… Oh that is a beautiful plan! I love it. You’re so smart for coming up with it! I’d love to keep that as what we’re aiming for.

Anxiety is confused…

Anxiety sees it as “all or noting” and since we don’t have everything in place it really believes that all is lost.

You don’t have to feel ready says… So if this is what we are aiming for, and we didn’t get there by January 1, how about we just do what we can each day to get there?

Anxiety doesn’t even know what that would look like.

You don’t have to feel ready says… Well we know how to write a daily post to share our practice each day since we have done this for how many years? And we know what we wanted to get ready for the new daily posts.

It’s just that stepping from one way to the new way, IN ONE STEP, seems like a bit much.

Anxiety’s head explodes.

Oh, of course, this is a multiple step thing and I thought if I couldn’t do it in one step, then all hope was lost.

But it’s so simple. Take as many steps as you need.

When you really sit with you don’t have to feel ready it always ends up that there IS something you ARE ready for, it’s just smaller than the thing you’re looking at.

Big dreams happen with the teeny tiniest 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.

I am doing the daily posts a little differently this year Read More »

I am starting a year-long creative project: exploring my resistance

By Andrea Schroeder / January 2, 2024 / daily practice, journaling

One thing that happens whenever you start to take a dream more seriously is that all of the obstacles are suddenly IN YOUR FACE.

And it’s really alarming! Because it took A LOT of work to gear yourself up to be all “OK I AM DOING THIS!!!” ... and then a few days later you’re flat on the ground, knocked over by all the obstacles.

This isn’t the universe conspiring against you, and it’s not a sign that now isn’t the time.

It FEELS LIKE once you step onto the path the obstacles are suddenly in your face but actually YOU are in THEIR face. You stepped into their territory when you made that commitment.

As a coach, I’ve noticed that this happens with most people most times they commit to something.

But I didn’t consciously decide to turn that pattern on it’s head this year.

I wanted a year-long creative project, something that felt inspiring and interesting. Not necessarily another work project, and not necessarily something I would ever even share anywhere. But something creative that would grow me in the direction I want to be growing in.

Over the holidays, I spent time every day thinking about it, writing about it, making art about it, making lists of potential project ideas. And then this idea came in and it just felt right:

To meet with, explore, write about and make art with my resistance to doing all of the things I want to be doing.

Since I got the idea, the more I think about it the better it feels.

Resistance has always been there but it’s been a much bigger problem for me since the start of the pandemic, and I think there are a lot of other things hiding in the resistance.

I feel excited to explore it.

BUT THEN I thought about this thing where you set an intention to do a thing and then all of the resistance and obstacles come up and I wonder…

Maybe committing to a year of being with my resistance will be a shortcut to creative flow?

But even if it’s not exactly a short-cut, I am sure I will learn a lot about my creative flow and what nurtures it in this process.

Pre-pandemic I knew A LOT about how to nurture my creative flow. I had spent years experimenting and noticing. But I don’t feel like that same person anymore.

Part of that is age. 45 and 50 (I turn 50 this year!) are really different, for me anyway.

But part of it is my changed perspective of the world. My changed relationship with capitalism and productivity.

I feel more like myself than I ever have before and myself doesn’t care about meeting capitalist goals. EVEN THOUGH of course myself wants to keep her condo and have food to eat, and buy nice fabrics and art supplies - even in this economy.

And some of the drive I had before the pandemic wasn’t coming from a place I want to be driven from now.

So - this is the first thing I am learning about resistance and creative flow. I don’t want to “go back” to where I was 5 years ago when I found it so easy to get so much more done.

I want to go somewhere new.

I made the year-long tracker (Dream Book members, you can download this in the calendars + trackers page of the Dream Plan Kit, here.) and I’ll fill in the circle for every day that I work on this. I am not committing to EVERY DAY or anything. Just some kind of consistency over the year.

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.

I am starting a year-long creative project: exploring my resistance Read More »

Making space for change

By Andrea Schroeder / November 30, 2023 / daily practice

I’m in an absurd situation this morning with my step-kids’ mom, the kids, and my ex.

And I’m like - how am I still in this situation? We are still legally married but we are separated so shouldn’t we NOT be here?

And then I realized - I was expecting EVERYONE ELSE to change! I fully expected it! Which is so wild because no one has given any indication at all that they are the slightest bit interested in changing.

And I have to be the one to change, if I want something to change.

Which is so annoying and so liberating at the same time.

Tomorrow the Goodbye2023 Hello 2024 31 days of meditation + journaling starts.

Which means, for the month of December - these will be the daily posts instead of the posts where I share what I’m doing in my practice.

Which feels so weird. I have written these posts for so long!

AND

I know I need to give myself space to change.

There is something I wish was different here and it’s so hard to figure out what that is, while I am still doing this every day.

I need to MAKE SPACE to figure out what a change would even be like.

So I’ll be exploring that over the next month.

Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024 31 days of meditation + journaling:

These posts will be here on my blog, so they will be the daily posts for the month of December as we reflect on this last year and set intentions for the new year.

Dream Book members: Get all the details here including call details for the Goodbye 2023 Releasing Ceremony and Hello 2024 Dream Blessing Ceremony.

Not in Dream Book: Get all the details here for the 31 days of meditation + journaling (this part is free on my blog)

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.

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. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - in these posts I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are only available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.

Making space for change Read More »

The golden pyramid

By Andrea Schroeder / November 29, 2023 / daily practice

So interesting/funny that yesterday I wrote about how this work is important to me because it helps me feel intention and creative and ALIVE and how I can easily wake up in the morning feeling none of those things.

This morning I woke up feeling ALL of those things, plus EXCITED about my life. The thought in my head was “ I LOVE MY LIFE!!!”

But what I was really speaking to is how we need to chose how we want to show up REGARDLESS of how we feel. NOT, EVER, to deny our feelings. But to not let them drive us. To be creative and intentional about our lives so we can CHOOSE.

So, I feel so grateful that this feels easy and natural today.

So I am doing the Dream Lab to meet with my dream.

I am so happy about the new sky visor I got for winter cycling to keep my eyes warm. It’s polarized pink/rainbow and the bubble of Creativity, Light and Knowing looks like like it, which just feels really good.

I feel light and sparkly. I feel so CAPABLE of making this dream real.

The field of Creative Dream Alchemy is so ALIVE with art. Like, I guess, animated art zooming around. I feel inspired and energized and like I want to make more art.

OMG I just love this meditation, lol. I usually I just do this in my head without the audio but it’s so much better with it.

My dream shows up as a pyramid. It’s gold. It fits in my hands.

Oh! It’s the compass of Creative Dream Alchemy - Inner Work, Dream Work, Outer Work, but it’s showing me how putting them together builds something - turns a triangle into a pyramid that is solid gold.

My dream is luxuriating in all of the SPACE in my life. It’s like - it loves Joseph and the kids too but/and I as a person, and it is a dream, we need more SPACE. The effort I put in to being a good wife and step-mom, which were never things I dreamed of but it felt right to follow that path when it was in front of me, is now more available for me and my dream and that makes this dream so much easier.

(It feels bitchy to write this, but this is how the meditation felt. And it didn’t feel bitchy in the meditation, just like an acknowledgment of truth without judging my married life OR my new life. They will all still be in my life but it’s really not the same.)

There is ease, delight and freedom sparkling around us.

Putting the pyramid into my heart at the end feels stabilizing and energizing. I feel so ready to get to work today!

On Friday, Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024 31 days of meditation + journaling starts!

These posts will be here on my blog, so they will be the daily posts for the month of December as we reflect on this last year and set intentions for the new year.

Dream Book members: Get all the details here including call details for the Goodbye 2023 Releasing Ceremony and Hello 2024 Dream Blessing Ceremony.

Not in Dream Book: Get all the details here for the 31 days of meditation + journaling (this part is free on my blog)

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.

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. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

The golden pyramid Read More »

Why this matters

By Andrea Schroeder / November 28, 2023 / daily practice

Over this past weekend I feel I reached a new stage in my healing process. I started really re-arranging the Dream Loft to make it MINE and it felt like - re-decorating after divorce is a whole healing journey.

But I’ve been thinking about how my dreams have shifted and changed so much in the last three months.

And how it does’t matter what the dream IS it matters that we keep showing up for it.

Not so that we manifest everything we’ve ever wanted….

So that we are intentional, creative and alive in our lives.

Without this work. I can be crabby and lethargic. I tend towards depression. It’s easy to feel too small for my dreams - any dreams!

Today I’m stumbling around. I feel lost even though I know what I want to do. When I do the Dream Lab I feel really small and tired, and my dream is so BIG and HIGH ENERGY. It feels like an impossible gap but I know that’s just how it feels today.

I remembered yesterday’s lesson about taking the little step that feels impossible even when it also feels like not enough. And just taking some little 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.

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. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

Why this matters Read More »

Taking the step that you CAN take instead of feeling discouraged by all the steps you CAN’T take

By Andrea Schroeder / November 27, 2023 / daily practice

GOOD NEWS: My stepson is home from the hospital!! That was a rough 10.5 weeks and there is still a long road ahead but it's such a relief that he is finally home.

And maybe that is part of why I felt ready to figure out what I want my condo to look like, now that it's mine again.

When Joseph and I separated it was nice to stretch out but I didn't make big changes in terms of how I was using the space. And with a loft there are SO many options.

I was feeling overwhelmed at the thought of figuring out what I want, and catching up on cleaning. And so I didn't do anything. And it started to feel harder to do anything and I kept not doing anything.

And for so many years we had been using the space in a way that worked for ALL OF US and it's a real perspective shift to think of how I even want it to work for JUST ME.

But the big thing that was stopping me from taking action is a common dream problem:

I was too focused on and overwhelmed by thinking of the big picture that I could not see any steps in front of me to take.

I thought I needed new furniture to make this place feel right, but felt stressed about spending money and didn't even know what I wanted, I just knew what I had didn't feel like it was working. So I didn't do anything.

Remember: we are usually WRONG about what our dreams need!!!

I finally gave myself permission to think about new furniture and started dreaming.

This led me to see a whole new way to arrange the "rooms" (My workspace is in the upstairs loft which was designed as a bedroom, so my home is all one big open room downstairs now)

And then I started moving furniture and I can't believe what a huge difference that made.

Once I started, I saw more and more little changes to make.

Now when I walk in here I feel SO HAPPY.

And I am excited to decorate! I don't know that I need new furniture now, I think I want re-cover some things, re-paint sometimes, and get new lamps and accessories.

It fees like I have a good foundation here and can build on it.

This is what happens with all dreams when we take the little steps that are possible to take EVEN/ESPECIALLY WHEN it feels like those little steps won't make enough of a difference to bother.

We need to bother!

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.

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. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

Taking the step that you CAN take instead of feeling discouraged by all the steps you CAN’T take Read More »

The magic of making space to bitch about things that aren’t working

By Andrea Schroeder / November 23, 2023 / daily practice

I hate to say it again... But I need to work on my routines.

Still. Always.

I am remembering back to when I was really IN my routines. And missing that. How my routines created a container that HELD me, that HELD the sometimes-chaotic process of creative progress, healing and growth.

That I knew that any one day might suck, that everything may be really stuck and hard... but it wouldn’t stay that way. That I just had to keep showing up to move through the process.

But I am really struggling to show up for the process right now.

Like I am doing it, but it takes SO MUCH EFFORT to get into the process that there is less energy left for creativity and focus.

And part of this is - this is just where I am.

My step-son was supposed to be out of the hospital, but there was some concern about him managing outside of the hospital, so they are keeping him in to make sure he’s got it. He just lost 95% of his pancreas and he needs to learn how to live without it, and then he’s going to lose his gallbladder next year. So it’s a lot and I am glad the doctors are being cautious. No one has ever seen this happen to anyone this young.

And that’s weighing on me. The relief I felt when I thought he was going home earlier this week all turned into heaviness.

And then when I think of him in the hospital of course I think of all the people in hospitals in Gaza and my heart just breaks. And then I think about the other wars and ongoing violence of colonial projects all over the world including my own home. And it’s too much.

These are hard times for creative dreams and our creative dreams have never been more vital.

So. What do I want to do with this?

That’s the big question I’ve been asking.

Because I JUST REALISED THIS WHILE WRITING THIS - I am still putting my energy into trying to be how I was instead of figuring out how I am now and how I want to be.

What’s possible here?

That feels so hopeful. Taking that to my journal.

I really don't think I would have found such a hopeful-feeling question to explore if I hadn't written about feeling stuck even though I didn't want to because I feel like such a broken record about being stuck with my routines.

That's the magic of journaling our ACTUAL thoughts and feelings. We don't have to like them! But this way we can process them and move through.

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.

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. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

The magic of making space to bitch about things that aren’t working Read More »

This is healing

By Andrea Schroeder / November 22, 2023 / daily practice

I wrote that post I shared on Monday, about metabolizing joy, at the conservatory. I was really FEELING IT.

And I decided to post it here but also on my social media. Like as a way of being more grounded in this - claiming this as the story I am living now.

And I knew doing that would stir up other feelings!

And that feeling those feelings was part of the process.

Because we are never 100% ONE THING.

I am moving on, doing deep healing, making space for joy. The majority of me is here.

But I am also stuck, sad, shocked and angry. It’s just that I gave those feelings SO MUCH SPACE over the last few months that they don’t take up as much space now.

Last night I wanted a snack and was thinking of what to make. And then I asked myself “Do you really want a snack? Because I feel like maybe I’m actually still full from dinner?”

I sat with that, focused on my body, and sure enough - I wasn’t actually hungry. I wanted to eat to avoid feelings.

So I put on my galaxy lamp (it projects stars and moving nebulas on the walls and ceiling) and got out my yoga mat and stretched. After a few nice stretches, I was lying on the yoga mat crying.

This is healing.

If you are back and forth like that it can feel so disheartening, but please remember: this is healing. Making space for all of it.

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.

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. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

This is healing Read More »