This is my Thanksgiving cactus.

The blooms are so precious to me, this orange flower with a hot pink centre. 

But it would just have one bloom each year.  It would grow new branches, but they would always fall off. It never got any bigger. 

Until this last year. It grew new branches. And they stayed. And grew more. And then last week it started really blooming.

And I was like WHOA. I CAN DO THAT TOO.

I can just NOT BLOOM. For as long as I want.

I can rest.

I can let things fall apart.

I can try to grow. And fail. And try again.

And it’s fine. It doesn’t mean anything about my worth or my potential or my ability to bloom again when I choose to.

This didn’t feel defeatist or anything like that. It felt like pure freedom.

Successful Creative Dreaming is NOT about unbridled ambition and non-stop success.

It’s about listening to yourself about how you live your life, and creating a life that feels true to you.

This will always include TENDING. Tending to the fears and self doubts and hurts and just… all the feelings that come with being human.

Creative Dream Alchemy is using your dream as a guiding light, to guide you through all of that. THROUGH. Not around. Not some secret shortcut you find by avoiding your feelings. THROUGH.

In my own Creative Dream practice I’ve been working through layers and layers and layers of resistance. Sometimes we just have to do this before we get to the good stuff.

In Creative Dream Alchemy we always take the same approach. When you connect with your dream, notice what’s there.

Do you feel frustrated about something that is stuck? Are you disappointed that things didn’t work out? Do you just want to think about something else and you’re not sure why it’s so uncomfortable? Do you have an inspiring new idea? Do you want to get to work on making the thing?

It doesn’t matter WHAT is there, all that matters is that you be with that thing. Uncomfortable or not. Wanted or not. That thing is your next step and facing it WILL lead you towards where you want to be.

Every time.

So. Last week it was embarrassing to keep sharing how often I got stuck, but I kept doing it.

And this week I feel a lot less stuck.

I feel like - yeah I’m not exactly blooming right now, but there are some really interesting things happening with my roots so that’s where I am focused.

 

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I shared the post yesterday about exploring the pit of despair - I actually did that inner work in my practice last week, I just ran out of days to share it last week.

After that exploration, I had a bunch of really good days. I felt creative and powerful. I had some really good days, I felt like I made a lot of progress creatively... and now today is a bad day again.

I am so stuck today.

I don’t know why. I’m avoiding everything I want to be doing.

I have theories - that my nervous system is kind of shot and I just need a rest day. That I’m never very creative if I don’t get exercise and get out of the house in the morning and I am in the house today.

But it also feels like there’s something that I am not seeing.

So let’s go to the Un-Sticking Station.

I’m listening to it and I have SO MUCH RESISATNCE.

There is a part of me who just wants to be STUCK. Who wants to REVEL in being stuck.

I don’t want to be in the bubble of creativity, light and knowing in the meditation.

I want to lay on the floor and not move. I want to wail about how I can’t do the things I want to do.

I stay with the meditation but VERY half-heartedly.

The stuck shows up as snake around my shoulders and I notice that my shoulders are very tense.

Hi snake. What do you need?

To lay on the floor. Let’s lay down.

I lay down on the carpet. It’s a sunny day and I’m right in a sunbeam.

Oh yeah, this feels good, doesn’t it?

Well it does, but doing the things I wanted to do would feel good, too.

What if today isn’t a day for that?

I can’t keep not doing these things! I need to pay for our life! I need to do my work. Also I WANT to do the things I want to do!

The snake sees how stressful this is for me.

OK I have to admit I stopped this and went to scroll Facebook. I have SO MUCH RESISTANCE.

I’m back with the snake.

The snake really wants me to feel the feeling of the sun, feel warmed and comfortable in my body…

And then I start crying. 

And the snake slithers away saying - crying is flow. You’re in the flow now.

I have to remind myself sometimes: there were days like this before, too.

Pursing your dreams IS facing your fears and uncertainties and all the thing you would much rather avoid.

Some days are like this. Some day are crying on the floor.

This is a part of the work, too.

I hate it, but I keep sharing these days here because they happen to everyone who is showing up for their dreams. Only the people who avoid their dreams entirely can avoid ever having days where everything feels stuck.

 

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This is continued from last week's post on Why is it PAINFUL to figure out how to have more STRUCTURE?

 

Now I’m back, as The Uncertain Despair Expert to see what I can maybe do with this foundation full of despair, so that we can create safe working conditions to build a safe, sturdy and supportive structure.

I’m wearing a blazer and a hard hat.

The little green being construction worker is here. 

Oh course I’m here, this worksite is my job. I’m here every day.

But until we can clear the despair, your only job is to ward everyone away from this place?

That’s right. Keeping everyone safe.

OK well I’m going in.

I sit at the end of the site, with my feet resting on the foundation that could, at any moment, give away to despair.

I remind myself I can lift my feet at any time and get out of despair. I breathe. I'm safe. It's ok.

Once I feel grounded and ready, I push my feet into the ground, which is soft and malleable, I can see how easy it would be to slip beneath it, right into despair.

I’d like to send a camera down there to check things out but I know what I have to do.

This is where I stopped journaling.

I just stayed with it, imagining going underneath the surface, right into the despair.

I felt all the feelings.

Which triggered lots of other feelings.

And the whole thing felt like a nightmare.

But I knew that if I avoided these feelings, I’d be avoiding the ability to get organized to do the things I want to do in the ways I want to do them.

So I stayed with it and eventually drew a map of how it felt:

That one at the bottom - is this endless? - sparked a lot of fear.

And the rest of the day really sucked, but the next day, and ever since, I've been feeling so much clearer. And, step by step, I have been putting a new structure in place for how I want to do things.

 

Dream Book members:

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Our Structure Habits Routines call last week was so magical and I am so inspired and motivated to create nourishing structure in my life that is ENJOYABLE in the moment and also SUPPORTIVE in the process of moving towards where I want to be.

AND

I am procrastinating like a procrastination CHAMP this morning.

At one point, I had finally gathered all the things I needed to do what I want to do here, and then just walked away from my desk and started walking around.

I've often said that "I need to get organized before I can do the things I want to do" isn't really about organization or disorganization, that there's something else going on there.

Just like procrastination, itself, isn't a problem it's more a sign of something else.

And as I write these things, my chest tightens up. There is something I am afraid of and if I could just avoid getting organized then I could also avoid feeling this fear.

My tight chest says "Let's go lie down and scroll through reels!"

Every other part of me knows that's not the path to where I want to be.

I'll start by naming, clearly, what I want to do:

I want to make this week's "Dream Book/Bullet Journal Hybrid" page. This is a new thing I am experimenting with and new things, where I don't know what I am doing, are hard!

Oh! Naming that problem as a hard thing actually reduces the pressure.

Reminding myself: this is a new thing, OF COURSE I don't know what I am doing, so how about giving myself permission to do it badly?

Pressure reduces again.

How about reminding myself that I WANT to do this by naming the things I hope to receive from it?

I want how I feel so calm and capable when I have a plan for each week. I don't need to follow it to a T or anything but just having it all written down, IN HAND WRITING, is such a calming experience for me.

I want how I feel so inspired when I connect with my dreams, hopes, and wishes while planning my week.

I love how I feel POWERFUL when I create a plan that feels just right.

I love the clarity of knowing what I want to do and how I want to do it.

And I love the satisfaction of flipping through my planner and seeing all these messy pages.

OK I am feeling it.

 

 

 

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It’s almost two months since my marriage fell apart.

It’s almost six weeks that my step-son has been in the hospital with a very sudden and life-threatening illness.

It’s been a lot.

My step-son has been getting more stable the last few weeks. When I saw him on Friday, for the first time since this started he talked about leaving the hospital and catching up with his life. After so many weeks of only talking about how painful and scary this all was, that was such a relief. The end is in sight. Not that there won’t be complications - this is going to change his life in big ways and there is still a long road ahead, but still - after all this time with all these unknowns, we can see the road ahead.

Which means I have some more emotional bandwidth to face the fact that my marriage fell apart.

Saturday morning I baked a pie pumpkin, and the seeds. Then I blended it up with oats, water, brown sugar syrup and pumpkin pie spice to make a creamy pumpkin spice blend to add to coffee or tea.

The house smelled amazing.

While the pumpkin baked I worked on a puzzle.

It was soooo quiet. 

And I’ve been thinking about how this marriage was a dream come true.

The relationship we had was healing and nurturing and playful and all the things I wanted. 

And I’ve been thinking about how dreams don’t always last forever. I mean they can’t all last forever. We can’t have everything, always!

And I’ve been thinking about how our dreams need us to TRUST THEM even when they look and feel nothing like what we thought we wanted. Even when they fall apart completely.

That following our dreams leads us in the right direction. And that the goal is not to never be unhappy or to always have a “perfect life” whatever that means.

The goal is aliveness. And wholeness.

Our dreams always want us to grow into who we really are.

And as much as my marriage did help me do that, for so long, now that it’s gone I can see that there is so much more potential for growth, here where I am, by myself.

I mean I am far from alone, but you know what I mean. After having such a close emotional bond with someone, to lose that relationship feels like loosing a limb, it’s a lot to adjust to.

I had therapy last week. My therapist noted that usually the things I turn to to help me process and heal are more creativity focused, and now they are more sensory focused.

I am really IN my body.

I have been making space in my body to process all of this. I am breathing deeper than I knew was possible. I mean, I have meditated for 30 years, I thought I knew deep breathing! 

I didn’t know deep breathing, not like this.

This weekend, there were times when I felt more peace than I’ve ever felt in my life. The kind of peace that comes from embodiment, not from having a peaceful life.

I think we try so hard to force our lives into the shapes that we think will make us happy and bring us peace but life is always life-ing.

And the world is a brutal place. I have not been ignoring the news, but I have been having big firm boundaries with it because I just can’t right now. But I know the world is far from peaceful.

And still. I feel this sensation of peace in a deeper way than I ever have before. Sometimes. I am also feeling lots of other things.

And beneath it all, a growing sense of trust that I am on the right path.

This is what our dreams are for - to lead us along our healing journey.

And as a part of that - dreams WILL fall apart. Dreams WILL make a huge mess in your life. Dreams WILL HURT sometimes.

It’s all a part of it.

Dream Book members:

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This month we did 2 calls about structure, one for the Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice series and one more general one.

I hadn't planned it that way - themes for the marketing calls come out of what people bring up on the calls. But it also happens that this month I am really working on structure.

This morning my practice was journaling. I went to a coffee shop with my journal to just explore. I know I want to be more structured, I know my routines and habits need an upgrade (hey there is the Habits Upgrade call if you’re looking at this too).

But with so much change and uncertainty in my life right now, this is all really hard for me to figure out.

I’d been avoiding doing this for a while, which is why I specifically took my journal out for coffee this morning.

And I made some good progress! Just getting everything out of my head and onto the paper it started to feel more clear.  

Until I got to the part about structure in my business.

I started by exploring the idea of a organized and structured content schedule, which I have done in the past, but it felt sooooo uncomfortable.

So them I thought about - what if I just had different types of content I create, and then each week pick 3 of them or something like that?

That also got reallllly uncomfortable.

So, I’m taking the discomfort into the Un-Sticking Station.

First, I want to note that I feel the discomfort in the back of my head. It almost feels dangerous, like if I look at this more deeply I could damage my brain.

So I invite the discomfort in and it’s a little green being, standing in front of me.

Yeah, no, we can’t do this. (It has the voice of a stereotype of a male construction worker from New York City)

How come?

Oh super unsafe. We got structural problems here.

Structural problems? But I literally wrote “structure” at the top of this journal page, like I want to create a good structure.

No, you’ve got a bad structure.

Yeah. I mean I know that. I don’t really have ANY structure and I want it to be sturdy, safe, and supportive.

No it’s not safe to look at this.

Not safe to even LOOK? I mean that feels suspicious.

I mean I can’t help but see this interesting contract here. A construction worker would want to build a safe, solid structure. But the stereotypical man would want to avoid feelings at all costs, and may even believe that they are unsafe.

And there isn’t a way to build this structure without understanding why I have so many feelings about this.

I look back at the little green being.

Listen lady what can I tell you? It’s not safe. Work is at a standstill.

I am getting frustrated. I know damn well work is at a standstill.

How do we get back to work?

The little green being looks stumped. He actually looks sad.

This feels like a real conundrum.

We want the safe, sturdy structure but to get there, we have to build the structure without a structure. Is that why it’s so hard to get back to work?

He shows me - if you step on the foundation, you could slip at any time.

What would you slip into?

I lean over and look.

It seems like despair?

Oh lady, it’s a whole mess of feelings. We don’t want to get anywhere near any of it.

So you think we need to just never build here, ever? Like leave a sign for future generations to never build here either?

That seems extreme.

Maybe we need a despair expert?

Not someone’s who can help us avoid falling into despair, but someone who can get in there and clear it out?

Oh I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. The little green being is getting more uncomfortable.

I think they don’t work in the trades.

I think actually it might be me. That might be my job.

(Note: I typed that “might me by job” like my fingers couldn’t even claim this work)

This feels really different than it did when I started. I think I will leave it here, and make a date to look at the despair problem again.

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I have so much resistance today

I want to lay in bed and read books.

But it’s not like - I genuinely don’t want to show up for my practice.

It’s like - there is a lot of discomfort all around.

So I am using the process For When You Are In Resistance.

And I want to say - I am the person who made this library of creative dream alchemy processes. I am the person who said “just do the thing that’s in front of you to do” which means - if you feel resistance then your next step is to work on your resistance, if you feel afraid then your next step is to meet with your fear….

AND

I feel so much resistance to working with my resistance!

I want to do what I want to do, not the thing that’s in front of me to do.

This doesn’t get easier.

I mean of course it does get easier. Years of experience help me know how to navigate this...

But here in the moment, with my feelings feeling so messy, it doesn’t feel any easier than it ever has.

So - knowing how to navigate the hard feelings gets easier. Actually having hard feelings remains hard.

So. I’m listening to the video. Hating it, lol.

My resistance is sharp tension in my shoulders.

A fog of frustration in my brain.

Oh there is so much sadness beneath that.

I stopped the recording 3 minutes in. I didn’t want to listen anymore I just wanted to be with my resistance.

I have a lot of grief about not having the energy to do all the things I want to do. I mean work things and personal things.

And then I my inner critic can come out and criticize me for not making better use of the energy I DO have.

And I feel so vulnerable to that criticism right now.

So many layers to this when I really sit with it.

I sit with all of these feelings for a while and then one idea emerges: make a loose schedule. A DOABLE schedule. Think through - what’s most important right now? What can wait for now? 

WRITE IT DOWN because what I have written down, the project management app I use to run my business, is not do-able. It’s like I keep juggling in the moment which thing to do or not do. I need to step back, think it through.

NOT that a schedule is the answer to resistance. But for me having a schedule or feeling organized makes me so much calmer. And when I am calmer I can take tiny little steps.

I know yesterday I wrote about bullet journaling but the things I planned in that bullet journal page… they are not working. 

Which doesn’t mean I did it wrong! I did it the way I could see to do it, and today I am learning that I need to do it differently, I am feeling all my feelings around it, and will try a different way.

This is what “build the path by taking steps” means. It’s not generally smooth.

Dream Book members:

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I am using the weekly kits again.

I haven’t used them at all in the last few years.

Which is fine!

AND it’s fine (great actually!) to come back to using them.

The way I have been using my planner just doesn’t speak to me now. I use the calendar in my phone to keep track of appointments, events, etc. And at the start of each week I write them into the planner, which does feel good - it helps me get a sense of my week, emotionally.

But I don’t need a lot of space for each day, I am not tracking every to-do in there. Mostly I keep a list of what I want to do that week.

The detailed lists are all in Notion, my project management app for running my business.  There is nothing I write in my planner that is not already somewhere else digitally. (I need everything to be stored digitally with reminders. This is so I don’t lose anything.)

And I LOVE to write out just one week at a time, BY HAND, because this helps me get a feel for my week.

Planning is where dreaming and doing meet.

The digital stuff is “this is what I am going to do”.

The weekly planning pages are “this is how I am going to do this little part of this, this week”

And so I’ve realised - I don’t need a planner with a bunch of space for each week. A journal page for each week is fine.

AND I’ve realised - I want to be doing more journaling journaling. Not Dream Booking (which is very intentional about what you want to get from the journaling you are doing) but the journaling I call “regular journaling” in Dream Book.

Regular journaling is just about sitting with your thoughts and feelings. Getting them out of your head. Looking at them on paper. Maybe digging deeper. 

To me, journaling is quality time with yourself. I want to do more of that.

The journaling kits help with that. To give some structure and support.

So I am experimenting with a kind of hybrid of weekly planning and regular journaling, space to just BE with myself and get things out of my head where I can see them.

I don’t quite have the worlds for it yet, but it felt really good to experiment with it this week.

 

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.