I got out of my way!

By Andrea Schroeder / February 7, 2024 / daily practice, healing, journaling

For the last few years (??!?!) the soul of my business has been sending me this one message consistently.

And I thought I understood it. And I thought I was acting on it.

And I WAS acting on it - in the best way I could.

But my actions were not really getting the results I wanted. Things were not clicking into place like the soul of my business insisted they would.

Which is so frustrating. But I kept trying.

One of the principles of Creative Dream Alchemy is “It takes the time it takes” and we all get frustrated with this, we can all feel like things aren’t happening as fast as we want them to…

But often, when we do finally have the breakthrough we needed, we realise that WE were the ones in the way, the whole time.

But THEN we realize that even though it was on US to change - that we couldn't make the change until we could make the change.

That showing up and trying and not having it go well, over and over and over, is what brought us to this place where it all comes together.

So that’s where I am today.

But it does’t feel shaming, like I should have done better two years ago.

It feels like an amazing journey, like who cares how long it took I FIGURED IT OUT.

If you can't control the universe and don't know how long it will take for things to work out for you, but you CAN control whether or not you keep showing up - how can you find ways to do the work that are generative and interesting so it's easier to not give up?

Dream Book members: I have this 10 minute video on how to make it easier to stay on a looooong path to a dream.

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 got out of my way! Read More »

New Moon Call Tomorrow! And the New Moon Intention Setting Ritual Kit is here!

By Andrea Schroeder / February 6, 2024 / daily practice, healing, journaling

I don't have a regular post for you today - I've been completely focused on finishing the New Moon Intention Setting Ritual Kit.

I started out wanting to make some printables of prompts we use on the New Moon Calls.

And then I decided to make it a whole thing to use on it's own, for people who are not in Dream Book - a journal that leads you through a simplified version of the mediations we use on the live calls every month.

I love this so much!

We've been doing the New Moon calls for years, and I've been refining the meditations over time and it's become such a beloved practiced, I am thrilled to be able to share it in this way!

Read all about it here.

Dream Book members: you can download it 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 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.

New Moon Call Tomorrow! And the New Moon Intention Setting Ritual Kit is here! Read More »

My creative genius is bigger than the obstacles

By Andrea Schroeder / February 5, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work, journaling

This is the mantra I got in this week’s journaling + alchemy kit: My creative genius is bigger than the obstacles.

This is one of the few mantras that I believe is true for everyone.

We don't have to pretend we don't have obstacles or ignore our actual feelings about them. Obstacles are scary! And frustrating! They can make us ANGRY.

AND we can be brave enough to FACE and CHANGE to obstacles, and our creative genius (our inner creativity, wisdom, power, courage and authentic way of being) can absolutely help us do this.

But the point of the weekly mantras isn't to learn a specific thing, it's to explore your own reactions.

Each time I do these kits, I get a different reaction.

This week it's ANGER.

And a bit of surprise about how angry I am.

I feel angry about how much of the new age/holistic healing/life your best life industry is (still!) DISempowering people when it comes to this.

I feel angry that people are STILL preaching this idea that we should just "rise above", good vibes only, change your thoughts to change your life... instead of cultivating the courage to just fucking FACE the hard parts.

Because we are SO powerful when we stop avoiding and start BEING WITH.

Because I 100% believe that each one of us is bigger than the obstacles. So there is no need to spiritual by-pass or learn hard, heavy and unconsciously into privilege as a manifesting technique.

So, I feel angry about this because I see so many people being led down paths that won't bring them what they want.

But the biggest anger is about much this approach to Living Your Best Life focused on individual gain while leaving the oppressive systems we live inside unchecked and as powerful as ever. The ways the colonization of Indigenous spirituality continues to do harm.

And, as I have started to reflect more on my life because I'm in this big season of change AND facing the start of my 50s and feeling surprisingly unprepared for a whole new decade, I actually feel a lot of regret for the times I spent in these communities.

Regret is a hard one for me.

And it can easily make me angry and then reactionary and I'm trying to not go that way with it.

I'm trying to sit with it and find out more about what this is calling me to do.

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.

My creative genius is bigger than the obstacles Read More »

It’s the things we least want to face that we most need to face

By Andrea Schroeder / February 1, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work

As a coach, this is easy. It’s easy to notice where someone is speaking vaguely about something, and ask them for details. And most times the “details” they provide are still pretty vague, so as I ask again for details - that’s when it becomes clear that there is something in the way, something the are avoiding that is keeping them from doing the thing they say they want to do.

It’s easy to spot in other people and it’s easy to keep pressing, to keep asking for details - when it’s someone else.

When it’s yourself? Not so easy.

So it’s good to notice where things feel vague.

Where you’re not sure why something isn’t working.

Or you’re not sure why you’re not doing the things you said you’d do.

Or when you have a really good reason for not doing the thing… but you still somehow feel all tangled up about it.

The place where it gets uncomfortable… see if you can find the gentlest way possible to find out more about that.

And then keep asking, don’t let yourself stay vague. Don’t pack away any of the discomfort.

This is the way through.

I've been doing this for the last month, exploring the way I organize my work. It's been EXCRUCIATING.

When the pandemic hit, all of my routines, systems and habits just flew out the window. The last month I made the commitment to not re-build them, but build new ones that fit where I am now.

EXCRUTIATING.

It feels like I had mountains of layers of discomfort to work through.

Getting organized, like really truly organized so not just keep up with my work as it is, but actually DO the things I say I want to do, can be so fraught because this is where the rubber meets the road. No excuses. ALL the vulnerability. ALL the fears and doubts are right there. Nowhere to go but right through every fucking one of them.

So, as I said, I've worked through what feels like mountains of layers. One little thing at a time.

And each layer taught me one little thing about the new systems I want/need now.

And I applied each little thing as I learned it.

And then suddenly - I feel SUPPORTED by how ORGANIZED I am.

It's excruciating until it suddenly isn't.

It's like a big ball of healing and order lands right in your lap.

This is the magic of working through the shit, and continuing to work through the shit, until you've worked through it.

So if you're in the shit - keep going. Keep asking yourself more about what's going on, don’t let yourself stay vague. Don’t pack away any of the discomfort.

And if you're in Dream Book - make the Un-Sticking Station your best friend.

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.

It’s the things we least want to face that we most need to face Read More »

Journal Prompts for when you’re so stuck you can’t do anything but you also can’t just give up

By Andrea Schroeder / January 31, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work, Journal Prompts

(Since my year-long project on exploring my resistance has me getting more organized as a way of supporting my creative flow, I am going through things I have written. I wrote this one a few years ago and then never shared it!)

Journal Prompts for when you're so stuck you can't do anything but you also can't just give it up

I went to see a friend I hadn't seen in a long time.

In the time I hadn't seen her, she sold her business, retired, moved, and dealt with several family illnesses and deaths.

She was telling me about her new creative dream - to write a book. It's a very specific book, and as she was telling me about it I realised.... she had told me about this before. Before all these big changes, before the pandemic.

She kind of winced. "Yeah, I have been wanting to do this a long time. I mean... I did write one chapter."

But the way she said "I did write one chapter" discounted what she was saying. Like, because she didn't make the progress she wanted to make, the progress she DID make is not valid.

We were quiet for a minute and then she said "It's just so hard"

I've heard that so many times from so many people and each and every one of them felt ALONE in it.

Like everyone else is happily writing and creating and getting things done and they are just all alone in finding this all kind of hard.

But it's hard for everyone.

It's hard for everyone and that hard is magnified by feelings of shame and failure and being all alone in it.

This is why I do my work in an ongoing community - so you can see that others are on the path with you and help normalize that it's just hard. (Join us here, it's amazing!)

When you accept that it's just hard then you don't have to get all emotionally tangled up about it being hard.

You don't have to be STUCK in the hard.

You can just face the hard parts and move through them. You take your power back. (I know it's not quite that simple, but I have a lot of tools to help you do this in Dream Book. It's absolutely do-able, with some time and work.)

It's hard because it's vulnerable.

Listening to your dreams is some of the most vulnerable work you can do. It touches on your deepest inner stuff because it pushes you to be more authentic in how you're showing up in your life.

That's vulnerable because of the reasons WHY you're not already being more authentic, creative, powerful and brave in how you're showing up in your life.

This is all very deep down hard wired and mostly lives in the shadows where you can't see it.

Working with your dreams makes it more visible because your dreams push up against this and asks you to bring healing and new possibilities to these places inside you.

So: Journal Prompts for when you're so stuck you can't do anything but you also can't just give it up:

Where are things really hard for you right now with your dream?

How does this feel? Where is this feeling in your body?

Stay with this. DO NOT move ahead to the next prompts, don’t try to get to the solution. Stay with the feelings until you feel you have fully described them. For bonus points: can you actually FEEL the feelings? Notice where they are in your body and focus on those sensations.

What are the other thoughts, feelings and questions that come up when you sit with how hard things are with your dream?

How can you validate all of these ways that you react to it being hard?

I can tell you: your thoughts, feelings and reactions ARE VALID. This is hard stuff! You’re doing great! But how can you validate this for yourself?

How can you think of yourself as a success for staying with this?

If you’re feeling like you’ve failed because this feels stuck, can you instead see yourself as being IN PROCESS? Instead of seeing yourself as stuck, can you see yourself as being incredibly brave because you’re still showing up?

Can you remember that creative dreaming is about answering your soul’s calling which includes a lot of inner healing and growth, and that your dreams often push you to face all the hardest things you have to face, all of the things you would much rather avoid, and so: it’s not that you are struggling with this, it’s that this is inherently experiment difficult work and no one moves through it in a linear way?

No one moves through it as quickly as they would like to. No one “feels successful” while they are in the middle of it. AND YET YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL HERE.

How can you offer love to the places in you that are hurting with all of this?

How can you offer love to the places in you where you feel stuck and small?

Really sit with this. Be with the sensations in your body, ask yourself what you need and give yourself some time to find an answer that feels right for you.

Can you trust that your inner genius is guiding you?

And that this means: if you have some really hard stuff going on and you feel stuck, that maybe being with this stuck is the right thing for you do right now? Can you see this as a part of your path?

Somewhere inside you, you do know how to work with this obstacle. What would help you get in touch with this part of you?

HINT: It’s RELALY hard to do this work when you are avoiding anything that you’re feeling. So you may need to repeat this process a few times before you start to get in touch with the answers… but I promise they are inside you.

Want more help with this?

If you're in Dream Book, you have a whole library of inner work practices here.

If you're not in Dream Book, check out my free courses, which include a healing circle for working through the hard stuff.

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.

Journal Prompts for when you’re so stuck you can’t do anything but you also can’t just give up Read More »

I am a living growing ball of chaos, magic and contradictions. I am not a robot.

By Andrea Schroeder / January 30, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work, journaling

This is an old photo of my old workspace, but the creative mess really matched how I am feeling.

It’s a sleepy morning. I open my journal and feel wildly grateful for the Dream Book journaling kit because I have some structure and a helpful question to start with, instead of a blank page.

This is so good!

Two minutes later I am on my phone, googling tinted moisturizers.

It’s partly resistance.

But another part is that I am trying to have a specific kind of day, doing a specific kind of work, and that’s just not where my energy is at. I’m trying to get myself to where I want to be, rather than be where I am.

Monday mornings I want to (?) (should?) do planning and strategizing and I am really not feeling it. Especially after a weekend of relaxing, a slower start would make more sense. Like - unfocused creative work. Journaling, writing, or working on artwork that is already planned.

If you are a regular reader then you know - this is not a new dynamic for me!

And I SOLVED this dynamic by moving my weekly planning to Friday.

And it took a few weeks for me to really get into it, but once I got to a place where I was consistently planning on Fridays everything was working better.

And now here we are, back at stage one. Arriving at Monday morning with no plan and no head for planning. So of course I’d rather just google tinted moisturizers than figure out how I am going to do the things I want to do.

I don’t share these things for sympathy.

I honestly don’t want sympathy or empathy or anything.

This is just my process. I’m fine with it.

I share these things to say: THIS IS WHAT THE PROCESS LOOKS LIKE.

I am a person who has successfully supported herself with her creative dreams for the last 13 years.

And this is what that looks like some days.

This is completely natural and ok and I am still going to get to where I want to be. Maybe I won’t get there today, but that’s fine.

We have this sense that if we can’t get our shit together and keep it together when we’ll never succeed with anything.

But this is just not true.

I can know better and NOT do better. And I can just keep showing up and working on it.

The process is messy.

And I am well aware that I could be more organized about how I run my business.

I could run it like an actual business, lol.

But I’m a mentor, writer and artist. I’m really good at these things and I also - these are the things I want to do.

I don’t want to be a CEO. I don’t want to set up a whole business that has so much structure that I always know what to do on any given day because it’s been planned out months in advance.

My definition of success includes space to flounder.

A lot of growth and new ideas come from the floundering.

And it feels so important to me lately that we ACCEPT and CHERISH and HONOUR our process as it is.

That little voice that is always criticizing my way of doing things (”You aren’t organized enough!” “You’re too slow!”) has been getting quieter. The internalized rules about “how things should be done” feel less relevant than they ever have.

I love this.

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 a living growing ball of chaos, magic and contradictions. I am not a robot. Read More »

It’s easy for me to have what I want

By Andrea Schroeder / January 29, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work, journaling

This is the mantra I got in this week’s journaling + alchemy kit: It’s easy for me to have what I want.

This is a hard one!

In the message I send out with this one I talk about how much this one has PUSHED me.

Remembering that with these mantras we are never trying to force ourselves to feel a certain way or pretend to have a belief we don’t genuinely have. We are exploring, learning more about ourselves and how to bring ourselves more of what we want and need.

It’s easy for me to have what I want. I mean it would be amazing to feel this way all the time.

And we have to recognize that, in the culture we live in with intersecting systems of privilege and oppression, the more intersections of privilege you have the easier this one is to believe because invisible systems really are making it easier for you to get what you want.

So if this one feels really hard for you, that’s not necessarily on you.

Recognizing where dominant culture makes it harder for you to receive what you want is not “playing the victim” or “being negative” - it’s having clear sight.

And with clear sight you can see the path much better.

AND of course we might have places in us that believe that it's "just too hard" to go after the things we really want, and it's our work to detangle those beliefs.

So this is a tricky one.

One question it brings up is - how do we open up more space for receptivity?

I did a receptivity call last year - the replay is very helpful! I do a mini version of that practice most mornings before I get out of bed. We can practice and learn to BECOME more receptive, we’re not just stuck where we are with it.

What do you think?

When do you feel like it’s easy for you to receive what you want?

And when DON’T you?

And what could you do about that?

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.

It’s easy for me to have what I want Read More »

Holding space for something new to be born in your life is fucking brutal

By Andrea Schroeder / January 25, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work, journaling

Being optimistic enough to have a dream and go after it is brutal some days.

Your dream will break your heart.

It will ask you to be braver than you think you can be.

It will push you to face all the things you’d rather avoid.

It will ask you to keep going when you want to give up.

The days where it all feels impossible are not the days when you’re failing.

Those are times of healing, reckoning and growth.

This is the work.

As we get this new year started, there can be pressure to already know your goals and plans for the year. To already be on the way to SUCCESS!

But maybe that’s not the season you’re in.

Dominant culture expects us to always be on, always be productive.

Most healing and personal development are expecting you to be a constant upward trajectory, manifesting everything your heart’s desires, 24/7.

THIS IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT.

I just want you (and me!) to recognize how brave you are for having a dream.

For seeing a way of creating a better future, and believing in it.

For showing up, and taking the little steps.

This is magic.

And a part of making any dream happen is being with all of the stuff that comes up when your dream does break your heart.

Sitting with it. Feeling your feelings. Tending to the tender places.

This work is ongoing.

It’s so easy to feel like “Oh I’ve dealt with that” or “I should be further along at this point” but the work is ongoing.

The other day my therapist asked me “Do you think you’ll be DONE some day? Like, no more feelings? No more learning or growing? Are you trying to figure EVERYTHING out RIGHT NOW?”

Yikes.

It’s so easy to forget that this work is ongoing.

Most of the people I work with in Dream Book have been doing this work for decades. Lots of them are healers, coaches, therapists and mentors. They are so smart! They have great tools! They help other people overcome huge stuff every day and… their own work is ongoing.

Just like my work is ongoing.

This will be discouraging at times but please don’t give up.

The work is ongoing.

Your dream is how your soul calls you toward your true self and this is a life-long journey.

Dream Book members: if this work feels fucking brutal for you right now - remember the Creative Dream Alchemy Library of Inner Work Practices!

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.

Holding space for something new to be born in your life is fucking brutal Read More »

A convoluted conversation with resistance where resistance makes me take my own medicine

By Andrea Schroeder / January 24, 2024 / daily practice, healing, inner work, journaling, resistance project

Hi resistance. I feel so lost today.

Resistance is a little sleepy and confused (like me, actually). You’re reaching out to me about this?

Well I’m not sure who else to reach out to?

I mean - your wisest self, bravest self, most energized self, most creative self… there are lots of yous who are equipped to help with this. I’m an interesting choice.

Yeah. But you’re who came to mind, so - I feel lost today. What do you think?

Is LOST really the best description? If BEING WITH helps us MOVE THROUGH and staying vague and not present is a way to make everything harder… which are you doing when you say you’re lost?

The second one. More specifically I feel anxious, and tired, and spacey, and like why bother doing anything anyway when everything is so hard?

What’s hard?

Silence.

Because I saw you getting ready for the day. Picking out clothes, packing your stuff for the coffee shop, excited about your projects. I see your life, and how things are actually going really well for you. So what’s hard?

I just feel like I’m in quicksand this morning.

Which is what resistance feels like.

Yup. This feels so convoluted because I feel like I am me, and you are my resistance - only I’m the one in resistance? But this is what I mean about how I feel today. Everything is all screwed up. I can’t even talk to my own self without it being all convoluted.

Oh honey. She gives me a hug and I start to cry. Your feelings are valid, you know. Everything I said about things going well, that’s all true, and it doesn’t mean you won’t have a lot of uncomfortable feelings anyway.

Yeah. Ugh. Now my back is hurting, I hate this chair.

Resistance rubs my back.

OK obviously I miss having a really affectionate partner. I don’t get hugs and backrubs and this sucks.

Yes, sweetie, that sucks.

Ok acknowledging that feels better. It feels so tangly because I also don’t want a partner right now.

Yeah for sure! So where are you at now?

I guess the work I want to do feels HEAVY and BIG and I feel weak and small in comparison. Oh I guess heavy is the wrong word. It feels out of reach.

And isn't this exactly what you help people do? Do the things that feel out of reach?

Yeah.

So what are the tools you would suggest for this situation?

Oh wow, resistance is going to make me take my own medicine.

OK here are the tools I would suggest:

Making your trust in your dream bigger than your fears.

Dream Self process

Dream Lab to ask the dream what you should do today.

Alchemy Process for working with overwhelm

Alchemy process for getting answers from your dream

Alchemy process for acclimating to your dream

I mean there are more actually but any of these would work. Though of course we should mention the video for when you’re in resistance.

"So what are you going to do?" Resistance asks.

Alchemy process for getting answers from your dream

My question is: I want to feel energized and creative and I want to be doing things! You know a huge part of my dream right now is simply acting on all of this inspiration but my progress is soooo sloooooow. How do I get there?

All of my anxiety and tangled feelings are here with me in the meditation. Feels good to include them and not try pretend to be somewhere I’m not.

The field of creative dream alchemy feels like spring. A meadow full of flowers, soft light. My mood shifts so much through the grounding and connecting parts.

My dream shows up as a blue bird. Like a cartoon super bright blue birds. Oh there are a whole bunch of them! Maybe I’m Snow White? They fly around me. But as they do, they are guiding me out of the meadow, onto a path in the woods.

The birds are flying and moving. In circles often, but also they are getting somewhere. In the part of the meditation where I talk about how the dream shows up in the meditation I get it - my dream is showing me to JUST GET MOVING.

Laying in the field of flowers is great and important and we should do it every day AND ALSO let’s get on the path and get moving, let’s do that every day too.

I have to pause the meditation often, to be with my own experience without my voice in my ears.

I give my question to the birds and they can’t quite hold it. It’s too heavy. There is this struggle and it’s like - I can’t be fully connected to my dream AND be in this question.

The question starts to lighten up and I look more closely and see some bees are there, pouring honey on it.

It’s getting sweeter and lighter.

Now the birds can carry it. And they put it at the top of a very tall tree.

And I get this whole new idea: A notebook of SELF CARE PROTOCOLS.

Like: if I wake up feeling lost: this is what I do.

When I feel anxious: this is what I do.

Etc.

I mean, I have had SO MANY versions of this so many times in my life.

I need a new one for where I am now.

I sit with this and realize - I am still operating on some pre-pandemic protocols. The thing where getting up and GETTING MOVING helps me get into the mindset I want/need to be in for my work. My pre-pandemic self almost always had the ability to get myself moving no matter how lost or heavy I felt on any given morning.

What if I be sweet to myself, and recognize that who I am today today doesn’t have that ability?

Like sure, do that when I can because it works for me!

But on the days when I can’t - what’s the protocol then? I need clear plans or else my mood takes over planning my day and that will never go well.

I’ve been sitting with this question and only one idea is coming to me: make art. Make myself a latte, and a smoothie or whatever food I feel like, put on comfy clothes, get my art box and big sketchbook journal, put on soothing music, lay on the floor and make art. Express my feelings.

OK this feels embarrassing.

I mean - this is nothing I don’t already know about myself.

BUT/AND

Some days we can’t access the things we know.

Some days we can’t be our “best selves”.

And since I am in the process of planning calls for 2024 - I am going to do one on creating self care protocols for those times when you are not at your best.

Update: I added that call to the library!

I added 4 new calls this week:

Feb 15: Exploring Resistance and Creative Flow

March 12: Taking Inner Work Deeper

April 9: Letting Your Dream Come To You Instead of Chasing After It

May 15: Creating Self Care Protocols That Help You Be The Version Of You Who Can Do Your Dream

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.

A convoluted conversation with resistance where resistance makes me take my own medicine Read More »

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 »

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 »

Which parts are you avoiding?

By Andrea Schroeder / January 17, 2024 / feel your feelings, healing, Journal Prompts, Manifest Your Dream Life

I’m still thinking about how I show up here and how I want to show up here.

I love how I show up on classes and calls, but the ways I share my work outside of those circles often feels fraught.

Working with dreams is intensely vulnerable. Most dreams never even get named because most people find it too vulnerable to even get close. This is one of the ways dominant culture fails us, by not holding space for vulnerability.

This is why I’ve always shared my thoughts, stories and feelings online the way I do.

This is why I share my stumblings as much as my successes. I probably share them more because I want all of us to see them as no big deal.

Failure IS a tool for building your dreams. If you can’t use it, you can’t build anything.

And personally we all get upset when we fail - for good reason.

But then culturally we’ve created this space where it’s not at all safe to fail. Which ricochets back to our own personal relationships with failure, heightening all of the already difficult feelings.

So I share my little stories as a way of chipping away at that. This feels important to me but it’s not always comfortable!!!

I’m living proof that you can be vulnerable and survive.

Not that I am saying you need to be vulnerable in public like I do!

But you do need to be able to tell yourself the truth about what you want, and what’s in the way, and all of the feelings that get sparked in all of that.

And I know it can feel safer to avoid all of that… but thoughts and feeling that we avoid don’t actually go away.

So - what parts are you avoiding today?

And what teeny tiny little baby step can you take with that?

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.

Which parts are you avoiding? Read More »

How do I love myself and love my future enough to stay on track with my goals?

By Andrea Schroeder / January 11, 2024 / healing, journaling

I started using the weekly journaling kits for STRUCTURE but it’s also giving me some vibes (each week has a different quality and mantra) and some different ways to consider how I am working with my dreams (each week has a journaling prompt about that).

I forgot how MAGIC these kits are when you spend time with them every week because they are a way of making space for insights to emerge.

So this is the insight I had this week:

I have struggled with staying on track with certain goals because I am coming at them from a place of DETERMINATION.

What if I came at it from LOVE?

When I am fueled by determination, I can show up for a while but it gets so tiring. And then it gets boring. And then I wonder… do I REALLY even want this? And I definitely do want it, but I don’t like the process and eventually I stop showing up.

And “‘determination” really is plugged into self-improvement 🤮 and all the says dominant culture encourages us to accomplish external things in order to be proven worthy, instead of validating that fact that each of us is inherently worthy.

This is a part of a bigger shift I am in.

Brought on by so many things.. my age, peri-menopause, the way the world is changing as late-stage capitalism starts to fail, things I am learning about my self after 30 years of working on self discovery… I am in-plugging from so many “learned” ways of being to embrace my most authentic ways of being.

This is what I’ve been doing for 30 years already!!! So I’ve made loads of progress and it can feel so frustrating to see the places where I have work to do.

AND some of the places where I am still plugged in are starting to feel SO FUCKING UNCOMFORTABLE and it feels URGENT that I do something about it.

So. This clue - being fueled by love instead of determination - feels so important.

And it’s funny because people in Dream Book are always telling me how much they appreciate my approach which is SO MUCH driven by love and soul, especially compared to other approaches out there.

But there is a next level and it’s time to look for it.

How do I LOVE MYSELF and LOVE MY FUTURE enough to stay on track with these goals?

Which is not a question to answer right away. It‘s a question to sit with over time. To be with all of my different responses and reactions to 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 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.

How do I love myself and love my future enough to stay on track with my goals? Read More »

The Resistance Project: my resistance turns into a witch + wise woman

By Andrea Schroeder / January 10, 2024 / healing, journaling, resistance project

OK Hi Resistance.

This feels weird. Usually you are like, SUPER SUPER VERY PRESENT and I try to pretend you’re not for a while, and we go in circles, and then finally I throw up my hands and say “Ok fine let’s meet! Hello resistance!”

But here I am. Willingly coming to you even though you’re not really coming to me today.

Resistance shows up as a witch. A wise older woman.

“Oh this is nice. I’ll put the kettle on for tea.”

She rummages around in the freezer to pull some cookies out then turns around and looks at me, pointedly.

And I know what she’s thinking.

I became that kind of person - the kind who can rummage around for home made cookies in her freezer. The kind of person who cooks and bakes from scratch, healthy and yummy things, and knows how to take care of… herself. Suddenly I see, all the ways I tried to take care of my husband and step-children, these are ways I ultimately learned to take care of ME.

OK but I am not here to talk about my divorce.

She raises an eyebrow and again I can read her mind.

It’s all connected.

I started the resistance project because I wanted more creative flow. Not to go BACK to were I was before the pandemic and peri-menopause. But to move FORWARD in my most powerful and aligned way. There is so much I want to do and create and I felt called to get a better handle on my resistance.

But, sitting here in this witch’s kitchen having a cup of tea and a cookie, I see that it’s all connected.

“This divorce is the most powerful thing you have right now” she says.

And I get it. I have been wanting to move THROUGH it rather than find out how deep I can go INTO it.

And, what the resistance witch is saying is - if I try to compartmentalize different parts of my life I can never be in my power. And creative flow is, partly, about power.

And resistance is, partly, about resisting my power.

And a divorce, like other unwelcome and difficult events, blows things up and gives you this magical opportunity to put them together in a whole new way. A way that makes more space for your power.

And, I wish it could go without saying but I think it always needs to be said, this isn’t about bypassing the hard. It’s more about being SO present with ALL of the hard parts that get triggered that healing, growth and miracles become inevitable.

I ask for another cookie.

We’re still right at the start of this resistance project, and resistance has already transformed from a vague annoying heavy cloud of darkness into a wise witch teacher and healer.

This is so good.

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.

The Resistance Project: my resistance turns into a witch + wise woman Read More »

You are worthy

By Andrea Schroeder / January 4, 2024 / healing

YOU ARE WORTHY OF YOUR BIGGEST DREAMS.

We all have a ceiling on what we think is actually possible for us and that ceiling isn't about reality, it's about our own self concept, which is completely malleable.

Though I don't believe we should be constantly pushing on that ceiling in the name of "dreaming bigger".

It's that we have a mental concept of "right size" "too small" and "too big" and sometimes our dreams push up against that, and so we try to shrink our dreams into what feels do-able.

But your dream is your soul speaking to you.

So, instead of trying to shove it into a smaller container that fits with your current sense of what is possible for you, how about you listen to what it's actually saying?

You are worthy of your BIGGEST dreams.

How about giving yourself space to consider... what do you REALLY want?

Yes, you live in a world that is hostile to dreams. Yes, compromises may need to be made. Yes, the world will judge and belittle your dreams and ask you who are you to think you can do this?

AND your dream is your soul calling you towards your true self. There is magic and power in this.

And there is a big difference between going after your dream and landing on a compromise, and making compromises about what you will ever allow yourself to dream about 👈👈👈

Your dream is here to heal and grow you. But it can only work it's magic if you accept it.

YOU ARE WORTHY OF YOUR WEIRDEST DREAMS

The call to conform is so powerful and invisible. We don't even notice all the ways we censor and distort ourselves in order to fit in.

All the ways your heart's desires stray from the mainstream point to your unique power and magic.

You're not a cookie cutter you're a living breathing mystery.

Everywhere you try to fit in you cut yourself off from your own magic

YOU ARE WORTHY OF YOUR WILDEST DREAMS

FEELING WORTHY of your dreams is magic. It's healing.

CLAIMING YOUR DREAMS is saying: This is the world I want to help create. This is what I believe in. This is what is important to me. THIS is who I am.

Though it's SO EASY to feel not good enough because dreams are so VULNERABLE.

FEELING WORTHY of your dreams isn't something you naturally have, or don't have.

It's a thing to cultivate. 👈👈👈

In all my years of doing this work, I have never worked with anyone who ALWAYS felt worthy of their dreams.

Of course it's possible that those people exist but just don't hire people like me. But it's more likely that we ALL struggle with this...

But I don't think it's human nature to doubt our dreams, I think it's a consequence of the colonialist capitalist culture we live in.

And guess what? ARTISTS AND DREAMERS HAVE THE ABILITY TO IMPACT AND CHANGE CULTURE.

But to do this we have to keep doing the work of freeing ourselves of the ways our culture negatively impacts us.

We have to DO THE WORK to cultivate a sense of worthiness.

Your dreams chose you.

You are already worthy.

It's up to you if you're going to cultivate worthiness as a FEELING and STATE OF BEING.

This was a message I received from my dream last year.

In response, I create two alchemy classes for Dream Book members:

FEELING WORTHY of your dreams

BEING OPEN + RECEPTIVE to your dreams

And I know a lot of you did this work with me then, I want to encourage you to keep doing it. (And if you didn't - join Dream Book now and do it!!!!)

FEELING WORTHY OF MY DREAMS is a daily practice.

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.

You are worthy Read More »