It works this way because your dreams, your inner desires, are your soul calling you towards your true self, your most authentic way of living.
You are born with the capacity to be your true self. It’s who you’re here to be. But then as life marches on, things get muddled. You retain that capacity, but it goes kind of underground, into your inner world, while other parts of you take over as your external self.
Your dreams, the external things you want, are all pointing you towards that version of you.
OF COURSE some dreams can get corrupted by the external world. A simple desire to offer your ideas and inspiration in a way that helps others can be transformed into a dream of being the hottest new age guru when insecurities take over. Because our dreams are leading us towards our true selves, they are rarely actually about being “the best” or “the most” because they are not about competing with everyone else! Our true selves understand that we are all connected and our dreams work best PLAYING together not competing with each other.
Fear can also corrupt our dreams to be smaller than they are. There are a million unconscious ways our culture teaches fear and self doubt in the name of conformity.
But none of the many ways our dreams get corrupted really matter. Our souls continue to hold the uncorrupted blueprint for us and we can always come back to it.
The Dream Self is the version of you who helps you do this.
This morning I had a meeting with my Dream Self and she showed me how she trusts her dreams and her self more than I do and then it feels like she send trust my way and now I have that trust too.
It can feel nonsensical and imaginary to play with your inner world in this way.
But it absolutely changes things.
Dream Book members:
Check out the Dream Self practice here.
Come to the forum to share your thoughts about this or start a conversation about whatever is on your mind.
Get your next Dream Book lesson.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.
First, a little housekeeping: I am making some changes! I added a forum to the Dream Book website where members can start their own conversations. The forum replaces the old private blog where we could only have conversations in the comments of my blog posts.
Which means: I am going to use my public blog much more, to share what's happening in my Creative Dream Practice. Though some days I may opt to only post in the forum instead, if I want to keep some things more private.
In these posts, I will link to the practices I use - these links will only work for Dream Book members.
I feel happy about this change AND ALSO like it's a change and so there is an adjustment period where I will still be figuring out how this will all work.
But here is today's post...
Today I added to yesterday’s page
Yesterday I had done the treasure map leading to where I want to be (from fuzzy and distracted to present, creative and focused) and today I added: a drawing of my Dream Self.
This is something that can be fun to do after you’ve done the Dream Self meditation a few times (or more!) and have a good sense of connecting with this part of you. I like to just… draw without thinking and see what comes out.
These are not like the more careful kinds of drawings I do on the Dream Book printables or things like that. This is just expressing in the moment, and it feels so much more satisfying.
She wanted a butterfly behind her neck and her arms up and then I wrote out the things I noticed about how she is different from me:
She trusts her mission (I woke up with a lot of self doubt)
Believes in herself and her ideas
Loooooooves being in the process
Does not judge her dreams or her creative output (I keep having self doubt wonder if the new journals I am making are really any good)
Writing this out I think…. Maybe I need to make a journal about self doubt! Which is one of the things on my list of “journal ideas” but maybe start making notes with my ideas for it.
I think one of the projects - figuring out how my post-pandemic self wants to do marketing consistently in a way that is energizing and not depleting and also is actually effective at making my work visible for the people that it’s for - is taking a lot of mental space, and once this is figured out I will have more space for the journals.
It feels like I have been working at this for so long, I mean it’s really an extension of everything I have been trying to figure out since 2020. A lot of ways I used to do things either don’t work or don’t feel like a fit for me anymore. And then all of my own stuff with peri-menopause has made it harder for me to be consistent about working through it, so it’s like I work through a bunch of things, then drop the thread, then work through different things, then drop that thread, etc.
This is fine!!! I am not judging myself because I was always doing my best to keep showing up. I mean some days eating chips, laying in bed watching Netflix IS our best. That’s fine.
I am just noticing how this resulted in a feeling that I have just moved in circles when really I think I figured out a whole bunch of things and just need to pick up all those threads and weave them together.
And I am noticing that I am ready for a new way of doing things.
And maybe this is just another thread I am picking up that I will eventually drop… but even still, this is progress. As long as I keep showing up it will all come together.
I have that trust. My Dream Self is sending me trust. That feels like enough for today.
Dream Book members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts about this or start a conversation about whatever is on your mind.
Get your next Dream Book lesson.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls.
Our next Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice call will be June 8 and the theme will be vulnerability. (These calls happen every month inside Dream Book)
When I first announced this theme, one person asked something like “But can’t we just show up and say hi? Do we really have to get vulnerable in our marketing?” And I realised I needed more of an explanation.
NO you absolutely do not have to “get vulnerable” in your marketing!
But for a lot of us, ANY kind of marketing, ANY kind of visibility FEELS vulnerable. And that discomfort with feeling that vulnerable can keep us from wanting our work to be more visible in the world.
So how do we handle it?
There are actually a lot of things you can do - from the practical to the esoteric, which we will explore on the call on June 8.
Approaching marketing as a creative and spiritual practices gives you space to really explore this, understand your own feelings and needs and get creative about what to do with it all.
I’ve been doing Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual Practice call every month since November. This has helped me shift my inner relationship with marketing.
I’m 2010 when I decided to turn this work, which I had been doing evenings and weekends while working a “real job” lol, into my livelihood, I did take a lot of business classes to help me figure out how to do this.
Most of these were through a spiritual and/or creative lens. So - learning conventional marketing and sales tactics but through a lens of “how do we do this in a way that in in alignment with our values and feels creatively alive?”
But still - starting with a conventional approach to marketing and sales and then making adjustments to make it fit better.
And I won’t pretend like that didn’t help me, of course it did. And I still have my class available - the Creative Business Incubator - where I share how I set up my business in the first year.
But now I’m wondering - what if don’t need to start with that conventional approach to marketing and sales?
What if we start from a place of trusting our gifts? And trusting ourselves with our gifts? And trusting our own creative instincts about how to share those gifts?
That stirs up a lot of stuff. It definitely feels VULNERABLE AF.
Starting from conventional sales and marketing tactics can feel like a bit of a safety net. “Well this works for people so it should work for me”
Except we all know things that used to work don’t work as more anymore.
The market has changed. The economy has changed. The world has changed.
And I don’t believe we should be taking huge risks with our livelihoods. But I also believe that we need to make space to explore this. While things are changing so much - what else could change?
I believe you are a trustworthy steward of your gifts and that a part of HAVING those gifts is HAVING the ability to offer them in a way that they can be received.
AND I believe that this is a skill that takes time to develop. You took time to develop other aspects of your gifts, this one needs time too.
Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual practice asks you to sit with all of this. To listen to your own values about how you put your work out there. To get creative about how to share all of magic that you have to offer.
I’m having such a great time on these calls. I hope to see you at the next one.
(If you join now, you can still get the replays from past calls! I suggest watching at least the first one before attending this class)
I woke up feeling so grateful for my life.
The older I get, the trippier life gets and I am so here for this.
I've been reflecting on this last year but also this last decade, since this is my last year in my 40s. And then looking ahead to this new year but also this new decade I'll be starting. My 40s were so different from my 30s and I look forward to my 50s being completely different again.
I sincerely hope that this is my mid-point and I have 50 more years here. The older I get, the more attached I am to this life, and this world. I don't believe that death is THE end, but it is the end of this particular experience and I am just really attached to this one. This whole world is such a miracle.
I can't even explain how grateful I am to past-me for all of the hard work and risks she took to build the life I get to enjoy today.
I don't think of myself as a business owner or creative entrepreneur anymore.
Since I was 20 my art was about encouraging all of us to believe in our ourselves and our dreams because I desperately wanted to find a way to believe in myself and my dreams. I felt called, strongly, to be my most authentic self but I had no map showing me how to do this. Following this calling lead me to become a spiritual teacher, and develop my skills as a facilitator and healer. Bringing this all together into a business that could support me meant I could further deeper and expand my gifts because it was my full time thing.
And at this point, after over 12 years of doing this as my full time thing, it feels like the Creative Dream Incubator is less a business I run and more a sturdy supportive foundation for me to live my life as my true self, which is what's at the core of all creative dreams.
So going forward, I think of myself as an artist, writer and mentor.
This changes how I see myself, how I create routines, set goals, and move projects forward.
All in, I spent four years developing my Dream Book program and the Creative Dream Alchemy processes that it draws from to navigate the inner and outer work of following our inner callings. I created that map I needed when I was younger.
Online business people talk about building programs like this in order to scale up, but for me it's not about that. It's about having a study container, and not having to re-build it each time with each group. The people who have been with me in Dream Book for years keep going deeper and deeper. It's such a beautiful space - not so much for me to "scale up my business" but for people to go deeper and be braver with their dreams and to navigate all of the healing and growth this entails.
I don't have the words to explain how grateful I am to have this container to help me with what I want to do in my 50s.
(If you're not in Dream Book yet, join us here! You deserve this magic and support too)
The last few years have been hard. But here, today, turning 49, I feel like I have come back to myself, and I have come back to my strengths, and I just want to live the fuck out of whatever years I have ahead of me.
(These updates will slow down now, my husband and I are going away for a few days next week to celebrate our anniversary, and I find there's always a burst of creative energy at the start of doing something new, and then I settle into a routine with it and everything settles down, which is what I feel happening here. I assume I'll be updating a few times a week.)
That love for my project (from the last update) starts to drip into my heart. Warm sticky light.
And then I know:
I know what I want it to be ABOUT.
But I need to get more clear on what I want it to DO.
Later in the day I am thinking about how TRANSFORMATIVE and HEALING the creative process is.
And how we push back against transformation and healing when we push through to get the outer results/timing that we want.
And how I want to be here for the transformation and healing, not only for myself, but to pour those qualities into the book so they can be received by anyone who works with it.
I’m not writing a book/journal, I am creating a container. It’s what I’ve been doing with my courses for over a dozen years and I know I can do it in book/journal format, too.
So all this means that I need to not try to control the outcome.
I need to LISTEN. To the soul of the project but also to all of my own thoughts and feelings.
And here’s a thought I’d rather ignore:
I think all the pages I’ve shared so far from this book (including the pages ready to go in my Instagram drafts) aren’t actually pages for the book. I think this might just be the writing + artwork that gets me to a place of being ready to begin.
I hope not, but I am willing for it to be true because I want to follow this process where it leads and not try to control it.
So I go back to letting the love I have for the project drop into my heart.
And the knowing that this brings that I need to focus on what I want this book/journal to DO...
This immediately feels uncomfortable because I think I am trying to DO too many things.
And I think this means what I really need to do is break this down into a series of books. Which is always what I was doing, this was the first in a series, but what feels like it is changing is that I need to break it down much more than I was thinking. Like each book is maybe three books.
The idea that is asserting itself the most strongly is: a guidebook for engaging with impossible dreams.
If I make it more specific like this, then it’s easier to create the container.
My next steps: revisit all of the writing, look at it through this lens, see what happens.
This is a common theme for me, because the process of Creative Dreaming is entirely non-linear.
And even when we say we know it’s non-linear, we all tend to approach it looking for a linear path.
I mean the metaphor most people use is the spiral path.
But the spiral path is both linear AND directional. The line goes in a smooth, calm spiral.
Creative Dreaming is more an explosion than a spiral.
And that explosion creates new possibilities and destroys others and it’s disorienting but also life-giving. It’s like the creation of our galaxy.
Really beautiful things can come out of the messiest places. And also - sometimes things die, sometimes things are hard. It’s messy.
It feels like there is this whole industry out there trying to convince us that we don’t need to be messy. We can just manifest everything we want without ever knowing how we actually feel about anything. Which I think is a manifestation of our deep collective fears of being in the mess of life.
But I can’t make a book that is in the shape of an explosion.
I need to have pages, and the pages need to be in some kind of order.
I can encourage you to just open it up to a random page and work through it that way.
But I still have to put them into an order. Unless I print them out and pile them up and pick pages, like picking oracle cards, and put them into order that way?
That’s interesting.
I could also make little maps that guide you through in different ways.
The thing about a Creative Dream Practice is that it’s ALIVE. Once you’re in it, you can follow it and it won’t steer you wrong.
BUT
Getting into and then staying in it when things are hard, that’s the challenge.
That’s what I help people do in Dream Book. I know this book can’t do everything I do in Dream Book, but I want it to offer a way in, a new way of connecting with your dreams and navigating possibilities.
Because I have been doing this work for so long, and I’ve gone so deep into it, it can be hard for me to just keep things simple. I mean, Dream Book is a two year program and that’s if you’re going as fast as possible for two whole years. Most people take much longer, but by the time they get there, they’ve grown so much and so much has changed that it makes sense to start again at the beginning with their new dreams.
But this can’t be that!
- I need this book to stay simple. A beginning book/journal about Creative Dreaming as a Practice.
- How do I put this book into order, and give it some shape, and keep it simple?
- Or am I not at that part yet? Should I just keep making pages and exploring my ideas?
Sometimes I end my practice with a few new questions and no new answers.
I started blogging and sharing my work online around 2008. I turned that into a full time business in 2010.
It was easier then. There is no question about that.
There were enough people blogging and being on social media that there were opportunities for online business… but not so many people that it was hard to be seen in the crowd.
And the algorithms were just babies then. Not the full grown monsters they are today. I could go on and on about that so I’ll just say that I feel pretty UGH about social media a lot of the time…
But this is a place where people connect. This is a place where ideas are shared and your ideas deserve to be a part of the conversation.
Your voice deserves to be heard. Your ideas matter. Your work is important.
If you just stop sharing them in these places… that’s no good. It means these places become even more filled with even more of the inane nonsense that the algorithm likes to uplift.
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I am offering Marketing as a Creative + Spiritual practice as a monthly call for this for all of 2023. Together, we are practicing listening to our deepest inspiration about how to put ourselves out there in a way that serves the soul of our work.
This is available to all members of Dream Book. Join us here.
Last week I said I was going to start sharing the book I am writing, as I go. I said I would post it on my social media and blog.
I did that last week, I did two posts and both times I wasn’t happy with the process of putting it on my blog.
Posting on Instagram felt great. I have a bunch of drafts ready to go in there, and the process of getting those drafts ready felt flowy and fun. Posting the drafts felt great.
But then going over to my blog, to share the same thing there, didn’t feel great. My body felt heavy. The work felt annoying. Even though it was the same work! Which is fascinating to me.
So I sat with that feeling and asked “Is this a sign I shouldn’t do this? Not share these things on my blog?”
And in the grand scheme of things, who even cares?
But, I care. I wanted to share it on my blog to have it on MY website and not just out in the social media ethers. And I always like to do what I said I would do, and I said I would do this.
But when I check in with how this feels in my body, my body does not care about either of these things. It cares about how uncomfortable it has been to get these blogs together, and how much it would rather be doing other things. It’s just giving a big NO.
That was the first post. I decided to try again for the second post, and see how that went. It went the same, and now here I am.
My head says: OMG this takes like two minutes, just do it. In all the work you’ve done to build your business this is hardly the most annoying thing! And you always ENJOYED doing even the annoying admin tasks because you’re doing it in service to your work! Where’s that attitude now?
I say: I don’t appreciate the attitude or you trying to boss me into doing it, but that is a good question. Why don’t I want to do this in service to this project?
The thing about approaching Creative Dreaming as a PRACTICE is that there is space to explore all of this, there is space for ALL thoughts and feelings.
You don’t just push through and focus on the outer work and getting things done, making visible progress. You make space to find YOUR way of creating YOUR path.
You try your ideas to find out how they fit and work for you!
This idea is not working for me.
If I stop doing it, that’s not a “I tried to do it, got uncomfortable, and gave up, and I am sure I will never get my dream now” kind of thing.
If I stop doing it, it’s a “I tried my idea, I processed my thoughts and feelings about it, I listened to my intuition and the soul of my dream, together we learned from these steps I took and used that learning to map out different steps to try next” kind of thing.
And THAT is how you make the magic happen.
THAT is how you practice your way there.
So, when I do all of this, here is the next idea that emerges:
I’m going to stop posting the little-book-blurbs-in process on my blog. I will keep posting them on Instagram. On my blog, I will write about the process of writing the book.
Write about the writing!
This feels curious and inspiring. My body feels open, light and sparkly. No part of me is against this idea. The soul of my dream is cheering for it.
So this is what I’ll do next.
And maybe I’ll do this two times and be all “oh wow this sucks” again or maybe this will be a really great thing for me. The outcome of any particular step doesn’t matter because I know I will stay in the process long enough to get to where I want to go.
It’s so much easier to stay in the process when you embrace and make space for all feelings and reactions. And it’s kind of ironic that pushing yourself to get to the finish line often pushes the finish line to far away it gets impossible to get there.
PS: I just posted the next blurb.
Having a practice means to do something regularly or repeatedly.
In the most practical sense practicing improves skills.
So once you are practicing, anything is possible because you keep improving.
You show up, do a thing, make mistakes, get inspired to try new things, learn and grow.
A Creative Dream Practice is all this and more.
It is a container for:
✨Healing
✨Creativity
✨Transformation
✨Magic
It holds space for new possibilities to emerge.
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I am writing a book/journal about how we need to PRACTICE our creative dreams. Which includes practicing the healing and growth and creativity that gets us there. And then how once we have a practice, that practice becomes a CONTAINER for healing, growth, creativity and magic. Once we have a practice, that practices helps us access everything we need.
When I say I've been writing a book - I mean by hand, drawing each page. It's a slow process but I am having so much fun. As I do this, I'll be sharing posts on Instagram and here on my blog.
When you look to where you want to be, there is no path.
Just an impossible chasm and no way to cross it.
This is how dreams begin.
When you're not engaging with your dreams it easy for them to feel impossible.
Once you are engaged, the magic happens and possibilities begin to emerge.
How do you engage with a thing that feels impossible?
Practice.
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I am writing a book/journal about how we need to PRACTICE our creative dreams. Which includes practicing the healing and growth and creativity that gets us there. And then how once we have a practice, that practice becomes a CONTAINER for healing, growth, creativity and magic. Once we have a practice, that practices helps us access everything we need.
When I say I've been writing a book - I mean by hand, drawing each page. It's a slow process but I am having so much fun. As I do this, I'll be sharing posts on Instagram and here on my blog. This is the first one.