Meeting with the soul of my business

By Andrea Schroeder / September 7, 2023 / creative entrepreneur, daily practice

Today in my practice I am meeting with the soul of my business.

It’s fall! I’ve had so much going on in my life the last few weeks. Today I want to get back in there and get organized and…

I am not sure what to focus on.

So I want a meeting with the soul of my business to check in with everything and see what comes from that - hopefully a clear sense of where I should focus for the fall.

I wasn’t going to use the recording I was just going to wing it. I am so glad I DID use the recording!

I laid down on the floor and got into it and it felt really powerful.

The soul of my business is.. box like. Lots of boxes. Stacked. Unfolding. Opening. But glowing. Alive.

I want to say, a robot made of boxes?

I sit with it, stop trying to understand it and just be with it, and it’s like “I am unpacking and unfolding and stretching out to be my actual size”

The qualities of it are: power, magic, trust, divine creativity, growth, right-sizing

I feel comforted in it’s presence, like I can trust it. I feel honoured that it works with me, I also feel totally competent to partner with it. And like it understand my humanness and how business is not always my focus and of course that’s how it is. It’s the soul of my business’ job to be always focused on the business.

So, I guess I was feeling guilty, like I have been working IN the business but not connecting with it in this way, not looking at bigger picture stuff. But that feels ok now.

Onto the meeting:

As you know, I want to get focused! I have some ideas of how to do this, I think you know what they are? Can you read my mind?

Yes, you want to finish the Creative Dream Playbook and then look at the visioning kit and maybe new year kit, get those done before December.

Yeah, hearing it back from you it feels boring somehow. But I wanted to make some real progress on this guided journal thing, there are so many journals I want to make!

It’s not boring, these journals are good for the purpose of the business too - loads of people will never take a class with you but would use journals, we can help them in this way. But I get how it feels boring coming from me because this is not my work, it’s your work. Your work is sometimes kind of mundane, doing the physical stuff. My work is all energy.

Ummmm are we working together well? I just realized, maybe we’re not? I mean all the planets are in retrograde this is time to review relationships, right?

We could be working better together. You have had a lot of other things on your mind and also you’ve slipped a bit into that “I have to do this all by myself” thing and when you’re in that thing, I can only do what I can do. The way you felt in the meditation, that’s partnering with me. More of that would be good.

So if I was partnering with you, what would that look like?

A daily meeting to acclimate our energies - mostly to acclimate you to me, so that your actions (you are the only one who can do the physical work!) are coming more from my energy.

OK whoa.

I mean yes that’s what I teach with Dream Book and the Dream Lab but WHOA I just heard it in a new way.

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.

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.

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This is my mom, at one of my creativity workshops, SIXTEEN YEARS AGO

By Andrea Schroeder / September 6, 2023 / daily practice

This is my mom, at one of my creativity workshops, SIXTEEN YEARS AGO(!)

I remember this workshop, I put it on as a fundraiser. There were maybe 25 people there who paid $20 each so we raised $500.

I had been doing my workshops for a little while, and what I mostly remember about this one is that I felt more free and sure of myself by putting this on a fundraiser.

Like - if I'm not making money from it, then it's ok for me to do this work that lights me up. And it did light me up! I loved this workshop - and look at the smile on my mom's face!

That was 16 years ago.

I have been making my living from the work that lights me up for the last 12.5 years.

It took a lot of little baby steps to get here. But also it took really being with that part of me who felt I didn't deserve to make money in this way and figuring out how to believe in more.

For a long time, I felt like this was on me. My own self doubt. My own limiting beliefs. My own failure to heal.

As I worked my way through it I was excited to help others do the same and that’s where I focused… But after all these years of doing this work I see it more clearly now.

It was never on me.

And your “limiting beliefs” and self doubt are not on you.

It’s dominant culture.

We literally have to be so afraid of dying of poverty that we will take any job we can get, in order for our current economic system to work.

We have to be willing to work at jobs we don’t like in order to support our families and pay for our lives.

We doubt our inner truth because the world is telling us things we know aren't true, and inviting they are.

We feel wrong inside because the world is telling us to live in a way that doesn't feel right inside.

And it’s from within that system that we dream of something better.

So of course the system impacts HOW we dream.

Another facet of this system is the meritocracy. The idea that we all have what we deserve.

When one person amasses enough money to actually care for and feed the whole planet but chooses to hoard it for themselves, the system says this person is a success and deserves to just suck that much money out of the economy so it’s not available for anyone else, it’s no longer in circulation. And when another person dies of exposure on the streets, the system says that person made poor choices and deserved what they got.

And individualism. The focus on YOU as the source of your success but also as the source of your problems.

The system holds so many values that are at odds with reality and are largely unquestioned because they live in the subconscious of our culture, and in each of our minds.

When I feel doubt about my ability to make money doing what lights me up - IE when I feel that I do not DESERVE to be my actual self and live my life in a way that feels true for me - I am drawing on all of this.

This is how the system wants me to feel, because otherwise I wouldn’t participate in it and it needs our participation.

The system is white supremacist colonialist capitalism.

I’m looking back on this photo and remembering this creativity workshop I did 16 years ago and how it felt to offer my work in a way that felt fulfilling to me and how it felt like I had no way to do that as my way of living, that it could only ever be this side thing….

I’m thinking of how far I’ve come, how much freedom and space I have been able to create for myself to live my life in a way that feels true for me.

But it feels like I have just carved out this little bubble somewhere within the system, I'm still participating in it enough to support my life.

I am not actually outside the system.

So now I am thinking: what does it look like to dream from outside of the system?

To deeply understand ALL of the values of dominant culture* that have been engrained in me, to clear space to think and dream and create not at all connected to any of that.

This is very much inspired by the conversations we’ve been having in Co-Dreaming (these are the free classes I do on Mondays), and last week’s call speaking of transcendence - not just ignoring and pretending away the problems with spiritual bypass but seeing them clearly while seeing through them to the REAL truth of what human life is…

And then dreaming up new ways of living, from that place.

*This is not just about racism and capitalism. It includes the patriarchy, ableism (in terms of physical and mental health and neurodivergance and fat phobia), heteronormativity, anti-trans, and classist anti-poor values. It’s a way of not seeing all humans as human in order to justify greed and land and power grabs.

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.

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Holding space for conflicting feelings

By Andrea Schroeder / September 5, 2023 / daily practice

First of all, Working With Conflicting Feelings is a class we are doing on Sept 20! (Dream Book members, details are here)

When I plan calls, I am working with the soul of the Creative Dream Incubator and the feedback I'm getting from people about where they're at and what would be helpful.

This call just seemed helpful in these wild times, but now things have changed in my life in a way that I am consistently holding space for conflicting feelings for myself, and am so happy to be doing this in a group later on this month.

So today in my practice I am naming all of the feelings I am feeling:

Noticing their shape and texture and where they are in my body. Being curious about where and how they intersect.

One of the shitty things about holding space for our feelings is having to actually feel them.

This is not actually that bad in reality, but our minds make up so many stories about how awful it is to feel a feeling, that it becomes so hard to stay with it.

What if a feeling is just a feeling? What if we let it express how it wants to?

It's the HOLDING IN, especially with conflicting feelings that keep hitting up against each other inside us like a pinball, that is harmful.

Human emotion is so rich. Letting it be what it is creates space inside us for new possibilities, which helps with the work outside of us.

As I drew out my feelings in my journal and explored what they were doing in my body, everything started to feel more calm. This is emotional alchemy.

Today I am feeling:

Hopeful: a light in my heart shining out (which can sometimes dim a lot depending on what other feelings are floating around it, but it's always there)
Rage: sharp edges, burning hot
A tiny spark of optimism
A pool of sadness it feels like it might be infinitely deep
More rage, but this rage is melting into sadness
Excitement for the future: a star that bounces around offering healing to everything it touches
My trust in perfect timing: just kind of floating out there
Inspiration and creative magic: sparkling around, it's actually permeating everything when I look close enough
My trust in emotional alchemy is a foundation to rest on
My faith in myself and the process of life: a field of wildflowers in bloom
Swirls of confusion: mostly swirling in my brain but flow throughout my body too
Bits of hurt feelings: small but with sharp edges, floating around and sometimes bumping into things and causing everyone pain

Apart from the obvious external obstacles, it's not being able to be with our feelings that holds us back the most.

AND of course, it's BECAUSE of the external stuff that being with our feelings can be so hard!!!! The more childhood trauma you had, the crueler the world has been to you, the more sensitive you are, the harder it is to make space for your feelings.

I say that to say - it's not your personal failing that this work is hard. You haven't done anything wrong.

You live in a culture that makes it harder than it needs to be, to feel your feelings.

So even just thinking about this is really brave work.

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.

Holding space for conflicting feelings Read More »

Co-Dreaming Meditation + Journaling Class: Creative Dreaming Is Fucking Vulnerable!

By Andrea Schroeder / September 4, 2023 / daily practice

I'm offering these live Co-Dreaming (Meditation + Journaling) calls every Monday.

I started doing these calls to help us all keep showing up no matter how messy things get because have you noticed how messy the world is right now?

And together we've turned it into this really beautiful community dreaming together. I'm so grateful for everyone who is showing up and Co-Dreaming with me. This is so special.

This week's theme: Creative Dreaming is fucking vulnerable!

In so many different ways, Creative Dreaming puts us outside of "the path" that the world puts in front of us, forces us to create our own paths and sometimes we're doing that not really knowing what direction we're in, or where our dreams might be. It's vulnerable and complicated and all we can do is keep showing up.

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.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Co-Dreaming Meditation + Journaling Class: Creative Dreaming Is Fucking Vulnerable! Read More »

Outer Work + Feeling Hopeful For Our Future

By Andrea Schroeder / August 31, 2023 / daily practice

I didn't do much in my practice today, a quick check-in with my Dream Book (which I am still LOVING having it together with my planner, so I checked in with both to see how I'm doing with my plans for the week) and then I felt ready to GET TO WORK on the guided journal project.

I see the end in sight and really want to get there ASAP.

But I did keep thinking about our Co-Dreaming call on Monday and how hopeful I felt at the end, and what we can do to feel optimistic about our future - like the future of humanity.

It takes a lot of work to feel optimistic about ourselves and our own lives, but that work is necessary for any dream work to happen. So how do we translate that to the world? I did a bunch of writing about it, which is not ready to share, but it's coming 🙂

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.

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Radiating the qualities: Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice

By Andrea Schroeder / August 30, 2023 / daily practice

I wanted to draw the Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice practice. The ball of light and all the things it radiates out into the world.

And I wanted to leave space to keep adding things, keep sitting with this idea/question: what is it that I am offering?

I am in LOVE with all the ways this practices has changed how I do things in my business. That I now share my daily posts openly on my blog. That I now do a free call on Mondays. I feel like I am inviting people in to the world of the Creative Dream Incubator and giving them enough so they can know if they want to come in further, I don't have to promote things.

Not that promoting, or selling, are wrong! This just feels more aligned and sustainable for me right now. And that's what approaching marketing as a creative and spiritual practice will lead you to - what is aligned and right and doable for YOU as well as what delights your people.

Can't wait for next week's Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice call to keep exploring!

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.

Radiating the qualities: Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice Read More »

Checking in with my guided journal project

By Andrea Schroeder / August 29, 2023 / daily practice

I've been working on the artwork for the guided journal project and it's such a BIG project.

I'm at a point of feeling disconnected from it, like I am focused on small details, and I lost sight of the big picture.

So I am using the Dream Lab practice to invite in the soul of my guided journal.

The field of Creative Dream Alchemy is BUZZING with energy. It feels like being in a disco ball. Healing, transformation and creativity are all turned all the way up.

I can't quite relax into it, it does feel like a disco, so I dance with it. Sitting in my meditation, I am swaying my whole body and it feels like movement is allowing new possibilities in.

Then the guided journal dances in. It's glowing and it wants to be known as the Creative Dream Playbook.

It's thick and colourful.

It's grateful for all of the explorations I have done around the artwork, for the ways it's all coming together.

It puts it's hand on my head and says "I'm fine. You need to take care of you. You feel doubt about if you're doing good enough. I promise you are."

So... into the Un-Sticking Station with the doubt.

It feels like we're connected to the disco from the Field of Creative Dream Alchemy, but we're in some kind of chill room.

Doubt is a dot on the floor. Like, it has arms and legs but it's body is a dot.

I sit down beside it.

"Ooooofff! I worked so hard on this and maybe it's all crap!"

Why do you say that?

"Because of how I feel when I look at it"

OK, I'm going to go get my tablet, let's take a look at it together.

OK yeah, a few things feel "meh" but THIS IS A DRAFT. My plan was to do all of the hand lettering with artwork, AND THEN go through it all. The "meh" stuff is all style choices that can change! But the bulk of the work - this is gorgeous.

The dot is now.. like a ball. Like the dot was deflected and now it's inflated. It's happy. It's leaving the chill room and going to the disco.

And I am getting to work on this artwork!

Update: Turns out the doubt I was feeling was ambivalence around some of the artwork part - and once I simplified my ideas for that, everything flowed again!

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.

Checking in with my guided journal project Read More »

Co-Dreaming: Meditation + Journaling Class HOPE + TRANSCENDENCE

By Andrea Schroeder / August 28, 2023 / daily practice

I'm offering these live Co-Dreaming (Meditation + Journaling) calls every Monday.

I started doing these calls to help us all keep showing up no matter how messy things get because have you noticed how messy the world is right now?

I'm so grateful for everyone who is showing up and Co-Dreaming with me. This is so special.

This week's theme: Hope and Transcendence

Soooo interesting how so many of us had HUGE flower themes this week, and how overall our stories lead to hope and the possibility of transcendence. It didn't feel like the "spiritual by-passy" kind of transcendence, it felt more like digging deeper into the real and deep magic that we all have inside us.

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.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Co-Dreaming: Meditation + Journaling Class HOPE + TRANSCENDENCE Read More »

A tidal wave is coming for me

By Andrea Schroeder / August 24, 2023 / daily practice

Last weekend I was in an Un-Sticking Station meditation and couldn’t find the thing to focus on/invite in.

There was too much happening inside me to be able to focus on any one thing.

So I did my best to just stay with all of the sensations in my mind and body and then I felt it:

There is a tidal wave of healing coming at me.

This last month it feels like SO MANY PIECES fell into place. The ways I’ve been healing and recovering from how the early pandemic experience flattened me, and all the ways I have explored all the things that got stirred up in that process…

All of that somehow came together and I’ve been feeling renewed. So excited about my life. Like things are opening up. My creative, work and self care routines feel so solid and nourishing.

It’s like I stepped up, and this stepping up unleashed a tidal wave.

I don’t understand it.

I’m just trying to be with it.

So today I am meeting the tidal wave in the Un-Sticking Station.

It’s huge. It could absolutely destroy me.

I’m just standing here, looking up at it, undefended. Kind of curious about how “undefended” is how I feel.

The total wave speaks: “There is no way to defend yourself from me. I’m here. I’m unimaginably huge. There is no where to escape.”

And yet, right here in this moment, I don’t feel in immediate danger from the wave. It’s frozen in front of me.

So I sit down. Spread out a picnic. Offer it a cup of tea. It accepts, and these little arms come out of the wave, to pour little sips of tea into it.

“Oh that’s nice, Earl Grey?”

“Yes, I’ve been putting a bit of my homemade lavender syrup in it.”

“So good”

“So, is this the practice? To practice being undefended in the face of you? To offer you tea?”

“I”m still coming for you. It’s not an attack, it’s just a happening.”

“But as I sit here, you don’t seem as ominous or scary. It seems almost purposeful? And I remember how UNDEFENDED is the term that came to mind about how I feel and that seems like it’s about how there is nowhere to hide, and no way to impact what is coming…”

Which makes me think of the ways I (and all of us!) can avoid inner work even while doing inner work. The places where we won’t go. The parts we don’t see.

A tidal wave implies the loss of the ability to do that. Scary but also - "next level" in a good way.

I offer the wave the rest of my cookies and let it know I’ll be back to visit tomorrow, if it’s still here.

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.

A tidal wave is coming for me Read More »

Everything is messy right now. Let me tell you about my new Art Therapy setup.

By Andrea Schroeder / August 23, 2023 / daily practice

I am trying to show up and practice creative dreaming but today is just MESSY.

I am doing the Being Filled with Possibility, Magic and Power practice. And the Dream Lab. And the Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice.

Nothing feels like anything I want to share about - like it's just messy and off. And that's ok! Some days are messy and off. These are important and valid days too.

So instead I want to tell you about my new Art Therapy Box.

I got a wooden "toolbox" from Ikea. I already had a little wooden box that fit my oil and water soluble pastels, watercolour paints and paint pens, which is smaller and sits on top of the toolbox.

The toolbox opens up with 4 compartments that I filled with tools (scissors, glue, brushes, etc) and then the big box section is full of acrylic paints.

I keep it all on my floor with my big Un-Sticking StationJournal (a big purple hardcover sketchbook).

All the feelings I don't know what to do with go in there. I do the Un-Sticking Station practice as best I can with them AND have permission to not do it, to just use this journal as a place to express whatever I am feeling.

It's a big mess of contradictions.

This is a practice I started last summer (having the separate journal just for Un-Sticking because there is Just So Much right now) and I just realized today maybe I have never shared about that here. I've been so happy since setting up the little art supply station for it, and using it much more.

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.

Everything is messy right now. Let me tell you about my new Art Therapy setup. Read More »

Feeling full of possibility, magic and power as a practice

By Andrea Schroeder / August 22, 2023 / daily practice

I’m practicing feeling full of possibility, magic and power this week.

I was practicing over the weekend and have had some AMAZING experiences with it.

I shared it in the Co-Dreaming Call this week - check it out on the replay!

But I’m not feeling it today. I had a frustrating conversation with my husband and I'm a bit crabby.

What do I do from here?

I could blame my husband for “making me” feel the way I feel right now and spiral into resentment and then get really mad that I don’t feel the way I feel.

And I do take this option sometimes, but that's not what I want to do today.

How do I get back to where I want to be?

There are so many techniques for forcing yourself into a specific thought. I’m not into any of that - though at one time I found that work helpful.

What I want today is to have the space and grace to be where I am.

I WAS feeling full of possibility, magic and power. I’m dreaming of feeling that way again. What I AM feeling now is:

Cold

Tired

Fuzzy

Hmmmm. I mean I knew I was cold, but now, really being with my feelings, I realize I am too cold.

It was cool overnight and it’s heating up so I am dressed for warmer weather than I am in. Then the tables at the park all got power washed and are still wet so I came inside for a bit and I think they have air conditioning on?

I'm actually really uncomfortable. I should go outside and sit in the sun.

Then I just have: tired and fuzzy. How do I take care of these?

I think both would be best taken care of with some journaling… I have a bunch of paint pens with me I can write this new practice in my weekly planner and see if that helps me get into the creative flow, which is not far away from possibility, magic and power.

Update: YES this all worked. I didn't feel SUPER CHARGED EXTRA FULL of possibility, magic and power but I took a baby step towards it and that's enough.

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.

Feeling full of possibility, magic and power as a practice Read More »

Co-Dreaming: Meditation + Journaling Class

By Andrea Schroeder / August 21, 2023 / daily practice

Our theme this week is: feeling full of possibility, magic + power.

I'm offering these live Co-Dreaming (Meditation + Journaling) calls every Monday.

I started doing these calls to help us all keep showing up no matter how messy things get because have you noticed how messy the world is right now?

I'm so grateful for everyone who is showing up and Co-Dreaming with me. This is so special.

I will keep posting the replays here on my blog. If you want to attend live, register here to get the Zoom details emailed to you.

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.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Co-Dreaming: Meditation + Journaling Class Read More »

Following the rabbit hole…

By Andrea Schroeder / August 17, 2023 / daily practice

Continued from yesterday's post, I followed my dreams instructions and did a journaling page about me and my dreams being in the toxic and collapsing dominant culture.

I drew a bubble to represent me in my dream bubble.

Chimneys putting out smoke and trees on fire to represent the world.

Wrote out things that are in my dream bubble: healing + creative practices, feeling creative + inspired, trusting myself + appreciating life, growth + expansion. Respect + space for all feelings. Worthiness.

As I was doing this I was listing what is in the world and quickly saw the opposites.

Climate collapse. Driven by consumerism, greed + unhappiness. Lack of regard for most vulnerable. Refusal to see + destroy systems of oppression. Competing for worthiness.

Then this new bubble appears, a much larger bubble that I can move into through my dream bubble. This is a doorway to a new world/culture. (Feels like A doorway, not THE ONLY doorway)

It’s like - as we heal and change we create new culture.

And then I felt despair.

But we don’t have time to do this.

But this is my life, like how do I want to live it? I can do this in my own small way in my own life.

What are my other options?

(Meant sarcastically, but then I listed them)

Pretend this (climate change, racism and all forms of systemic injustice, etc) isn’t happening.

Spiritual bypass

And then:

Guess what??? You can’t save the world that’s individualism which is another aspect of dominant culture.

That’s where I stopped.

But now that I have typed that our and reflected on it…

This puts me back into the big bubble. Community. Remembering I am not the only one doing this and this is not the only way through. There are other different bubbles. They can link up at some point.

I mean, we work for change or we accept what is and to me, the state of the world is unacceptable.

Where do my dreams fit?

My dreams right now, as I am re-defining them, aren’t about any kind of external things.

It’s about how I want to feel in my life. It’s about really showing up for creative and healing practices, being in the process of always becoming more ME and living in that space and dreaming in community.

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 which is what I am using for my dream meeting drawings.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Following the rabbit hole… Read More »

Meeting my dreams while the world falls apart

By Andrea Schroeder / August 16, 2023 / daily practice

I’m doing the Dream lab meditation and, sitting there in the field of creative dream alchemy, I just want to cry.

In real life (not the meditation) I’m in my favourite spot in the park and there is so much smoke in the air (from the fires in northern Canada) and so many wasps flying all around I’m probably going to go inside, as much as I want to be outside. It’s hard to not be acutely aware that we’re IN climate collapse.

I ride my bike on paths along the river so I don’t see the city that much but when I go into downtown there are more signs of collapse - more unhoused people than I’ve ever seen here, like by a huge percentage, businesses shut down, most office buildings have big “for lease” signs on them. Violent crime is the highest it’s ever been.

This is the world I am dreaming in.

This is the world my dreams need to be rooted in.

I’m just sitting with this, while a wasp tries to land on my hand.

So, this is interesting it’s never happened this way for me before, in my meditation in the field of creative dream alchemy I am crying. But here in the park, I am not.

Tears are flowing and becoming a river that sparkles with iridescent light.

I wish I could be one of those new age people who can just meditate and be in the light and believe that they are healing the world and they don’t have to be in the mess of anything, they get to stay safe in their total lack of awareness of how hard they’re leaning into white privilege to sit there and feel good while the world falls apart.

I mean I don’t. But I do. You know?

My tears are becoming a river. There’s a boat made out of old tree branches woven together and I get in.

Slowly the landscape starts to change. Cities are burning. Toxic fumes. Over consumption. People living out of tune.

I’m just sailing by knowing that this is all falling apart because it was never sustainable, and we’ll build something better in its place. It won’t be perfect but we can learn from some of our mistakes to do better, and keep building on that.

I get to a place where I’m supposed to leave my boat.

There are art supplies, though the art supplies we use are mostly unsustainable so these look like different art supplies, like Beam paints.

I sit down, panic rising in my chest, wishing for a solution, which I mis-spelled as soulution.

There is nothing I, myself, can do - but together we can do everything.

For every problem the world is facing right now there are people who have been working for the solution for some time. People with good research and information and skills. We can support them.

But back to my dream meeting.

My dream is here now, just like a voice in the clouds.

It says: Andrea! You are dreaming in this broken world. Your dreams are not of this world though. You need to understand the boundaries and differences… do some journaling about this and see where it takes you.

To be continued...

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 which is what I am using for my dream meeting drawings.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Meeting my dreams while the world falls apart Read More »

Starting Fresh Again.

By Andrea Schroeder / August 15, 2023 / daily practice

Last week I kept getting stuck because I was FEELING like my journals/planner were all wrong.

I made this Instagram video about how this might seem ridiculous but it's SO valid. The search for the perfect journal isn't about the journal, it's about how the journal is a container for so much and so all of our resistance ambivalence, etc, can get tied up in choosing the journal itself.

This weekend my new paper arrived and I did a ton of collaging. I had some dividers from when I tried to use a Happy Planner (there are things I like about Happy Planner planners but it's way too "good vibes only" and the prompts they use in the planners feel completely irrelevant to my life) and I cut them down a little to the size I want, and then collaged over them.

The collaged dividers FEELS PERFECT. They feel like containers and doorways. And I can keep collaging/writing/painting/whatever on them!

(I also want to sew a carrying bag for it, to keep it safe in my bag)

I also just CUT DOWN my 2023 planner!! Like, it was done on printer paper and I wanted 6"x9" so I just cut Sunday out of the planner pages (I can plan Saturday and Sunday in the same space), and then also made the page narrower... kind of a messy solution but it gives me a quick way to have a planner in the new size I want. For next year, I can do something nicer.

And I can put my Creative Genius Cards in it!!

I haven't been using the Creative Genius Cards as much lately, but I want to get back into that. And I want to make a card that shows the things I want to check in with each week when I do my planning, so I could just keep moving that card to each new week I plan.

I feel like I really have space to begin.

I have been doing Dream Book as my way of journaling since about 2018. I feel like I just got to "my next level" with it. It's not just about how the book looks, it feels like this is the right container for me to take it deeper? I don't know what that looks like right now and am so happy to be exploring it.

The first words I wrote in here were in the planner section, my focus from last week's Dream Status Report:

I treat myself and my life as precious.

That felt like the perfect "christening" for the new journal/planner/DreamBook.

This week I want to re-do (again! Yes, I did just do this a few weeks ago) the Dream Page and Dream Self Page. I feel I've been circling around some new layer of knowing what I REALLY want, and each time I do this I learn more.

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 which is what I am using for my dream meeting drawings.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.

Starting Fresh Again. Read More »