(I do my weekly planning with the printable version of the Year of Dreams 2022, all the details of how I printed + bound it are here. The journaling printables I cut + paste onto it are from Dream Book)
Get the free full Creative Genius Planning Sessions video (15 minute meditation + journaling class for planning your week from your most wise, brave + creative self, here)
The soul of the Creative Dream Incubator sent me this message:
You got to stay in the vibe where big new possibilities happen.
Look at where you can smooth out the little irritants and make things simpler. Look at what you can let go of. Look at where you can use the big irritants as a source of healing and transformation.
This felt like a message for all of us, but it also came with A LOT of specific examples of where I need to do this.
(This has been happening a lot lately, like the Creative Dream Incubator sends me huge data dumps and I to sort through and get my instructions from them. It's been AMAZING.)
One of those examples is these weekly Creative Genius Planning Sessions. I've been uploading them to You Tube, turning that video into a blog post, sending an email with a link to the blog post, and also putting it on Instagram.
I did it this way because I didn't know where to put them, so I put them everywhere. That was the simplest way for me to get going - otherwise I could have spent a lot of energy trying to figure out where to put the videos.
And being in the process of doing this every week has shown me a better way to do this.
This is how it works with most dreams - you do what you can from where you are, learn as you go, apply what you learn, and keep growing from there.
So, the soul of my Creative Dream Incubator showed me if I did less of this backend stuff and just upload the video to Instagram because that is by far THE simplest way - that frees up energy that makes it easier for me to stay in a state of possibility, which opens up new possibilities.
So that's what I will be doing.
This is the last week I'll share the Creative Genius Planning Session video on my blog.
You'll be able to find them on Instagram.
PS: Know that I don't make ANY decision in my business lightly, and I DO know that not everyone is on Instagram. Please don't email me to let me know that you are not on Instagram.
It's natural to pick up "bad habits" in times of stress
I put "bad habits" in "quotes" because.... are they bad?
Probably not. They probably were the best form of self care and soothing that you could reach for in the moment.
But... are they really helping you be the person you want to be?
Are they helping you create your most expansive future?
Do they support you in being your most wise, brave, and creative self?
Probably not.
So, without judging any of the habits you've got going on right now how can we shift towards more helpful habits?
Or even - TRANSFORMATIVE habits?
Healing habits?
Up-leveling habits?
Habits that make your heart sing.
Habits that are a DELIGHT to actually do.
Habits that make everything better right now AND move you along the path to a better future.
This is what we'll do in the Habits Upgrade Alchemy Coaching Circle.
This is happening on Zoom on March 11 at 1:00 pm Central (North America). It will be recorded, so if you can't be there live you can work with the recording, and get support from me in the comments.
We'll start with an alchemy circle for exploring what a HABITS UPGRADE means to you, including:
- which habits that aren't serving you are ready to be upgraded
- which habit that aren't really serving you are actually NOT ready to be upgraded
- which new habits will best support your growing dreams
- what habits do you WISH you had?
- how to make helpful habits more fun, engaging, and do-able for you
Then we'll do coaching around what comes up for you as we make our HABIT UPGRADE plans.
It will be 60-90 minutes, depending on how much we talk.
The thing with habits is that you have to DO THEM enough for them to BECOME habits - AKA daily practice.
So our work will continue in the daily mastermind posts - which IS already an ongoing container for the daily practice of believing in a better future and showing up for the process of making it happen.
The comments section in the daily mastermind posts are a space to play with how you're following through, experiment with new habits, get support when things go wrong, and be cheered on when they go right.
Habits Upgrade is included in your Dream Book membership for March. Join us here.
From Wikipedia:
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to provide equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination, and/or working to change personal racial biases.
Getting defensive when people bring up race is not anti-racist. Saying "I don't think that's racist" is not being anti-racist.
Working through those knee-jerk reactions is anti-racist.
This is what helps you be able to make conscious efforts and deliberate actions. Anti-racism is about ACTIVELY DOING THINGS to confront and combat racism and the ways it oppressing the majority of people in the world.
It's hard for me to write about this because the "alternative media" has taken such a strong stance against anti-racism and has done it in ways that it really has impacted the way a lot of the new age sees this.
It's made the new age community as a whole more reactive when racism is brought up.
Which serves to stop the conversations.
Which keeps systemic racism in place.
It shouldn't be so controversial to say "let's stop giving carte blanche to our white fragility responses" because we can do better.
If you've done any healing work at all you should have the capacity for anti-racism work.
If you have any empathy at all in you, you can see that racism is killing people every day.
Here in Canada, there are suicide epidemics about Indigenous youth which are caused by colonization which is an extreme form of racism where white people go to a new country, sign treaties with the people there, totally disregard the treaties, go on a genocidal campaign to kill 90% of the native people, forcibly remove the survivors from their lands to give that land to white settlers, lock up Indigenous people on reservations and, generation after generation, take their children away at gunpoint to residential schools where the best case scenario for those kids is a childhood of being taught to feel shame for who they are and spend their lives pretending/wishing to be white.
And then, in the white schools children are taught that colonization is this great thing where we signed treaties with native people and now we get to have this land all for ourselves. Native people who are fighting for the country to honour the treaties are seen as "radicals".
And then we wonder what Indigenous parents are doing wrong, why the suicide epidemics among their youth? Or we think "that's so sad" and feel like it's got nothing to do with us.
This is the world we are dreaming in. But in truth, we are all one.
That's what I wrote at the end of my blog post about how we move towards unity when we're all so divided.
And it's true.
We're all connected. We're all related. The human race is one race.
And our dreams are definitely connected.
It's not that there is PRESSURE on your dream that it is SUPPOSED TO save the world or anything.
But our dreams come from the truest parts of us.
The parts of us least impacted by all the fuckery in the world.
The parts of us that ARE connected.
Our dreams draw on each other's dreams, our dreams support each other's dreams, our dreams hold space for each other's dreams. Everyone dreams are connected through a complex web.
I see it ALL the time.
Look at the video I shared last week with Michael Redhead Champagne. Notice at how IT FELT to hear about his dream - you can feel his dream nourishing your dream. And you can see how it will impact the dreams of all of the young people who will read the book.
Our dreams are not racist.
Our society is extremely segregated.
Personally, I made an effort to follow MORE Indigenous news, leaders, teachers, writers, artists and activists than white people because otherwise.... I am only getting white news/ideas/perspectives.
My whole young life I equated white with "normal".
White people on tv - normal.
Black people on tv - Black.
Note how it's ok to call Asian people Asian etc etc etc but when we call a white person white.... whoa.
That reaction that white people have to being called white - that's white fragility.
Yes, maybe we need a better world for it that doesn't minimize your feelings.
Because your feelings are valid. Always.
AND the ways that the world has always told you that "You're just a person. You are normal. You don't need a label" IS racist when everyone who isn't white is always labeled.
We need to be able to question that. It should not be controversial to call you white, if you can call Black people Black.
And if you read this and think "I'd rather just not see race" do know that not seeing race erases the injustice. It allows you to go on wondering WHY there are suicide epidemics among Indigenous youth in Canada, instead of doing anything at all to help stop them. Is that who you want to be?
Our WORLD is segregated. Our DREAMS are not.
Our Dreams need other dreams - as fuel and support systems and space holders and inspiration and friends.
Some Dreams need VERY SPECIFIC things from VERY SPECIFIC dreams in order to be activated.
Again - back to the video I shared last week - when I asked Michael where he started with his dream, he pointed to a book he read: Building A Movement To End The New Jim Crow. That book was a dream, which was a midwife for so many other dreams.
We just don't know whose dreams are going to help nourish and midwife OUR dreams
Like the title of Michael's book - We Need Everyone.
We need everyone's dreams, too.
Being anti-racist doesn't take anything from you.
It gives you ways to take some action towards making the world better and helps you live more in alignment with your values. If you're not racist then it feels good to ACTIVELY work against racism.
Suggested actions:
Read: My Grandmother's Hands | So You Want To Talk About Race | Or any anti-racism book that looks good to you.
If you are listening to media that is encouraging you to NOT do this work, ask yourself why. Really sit with the discomfort of the question.
Look at all of the media you consume - news, books, podcasts, whatever. What percentage of them are white? How can you diversify? What if only 50% of your media sources were white?
You can google white fragility if you feel brave, and look at the documented forms that it takes. White fragility is just about the way that white people react when confronted with racism. It speaks to how protected we are from racism, that we get this uncomfortable when it's brought up.
(I am deliberately NOT recommending the book by that title, I think it's best to learn anti-racism from people who are not white and I am guessing that over 90% of the books you read are by white authors anyway and you can make some space in your bookshelf for other perspectives)
(I do my weekly planning with the printable version of the Year of Dreams 2022, all the details of how I printed + bound it are here. The journaling printables I cut + paste onto it are from Dream Book)
Get the free full Creative Genius Planning Sessions video (15 minute meditation + journaling class for planning your week from your most wise, brave + creative self, here)
Sharing yesterday's talk with Michael Redhead Champagne about his new book, We Need Everybody, and the process of writing books (or pursuing any kind of dream) that help to change the world.
This is AMAZING, so rich and inspiring.
Watch it on Instagram to leave your comments.
View this post on Instagram
We Need Everyone is currently available as a pre-order. Get the info here.
(I do my weekly planning with the printable version of the Year of Dreams 2022, all the details of how I printed + bound it are here. The journaling printables I cut + paste onto it are from Dream Book)
Get the free full Creative Genius Planning Sessions video (15 minute meditation + journaling class for planning your week from your most wise, brave + creative self, here)
PS: I hope you're coming to my Instagram live today to celebrate Micheal Redhead Champagne's new book!! Such a great chance to soak up the energy and magic of a big dream coming true and SUCH a great time to talk about WRITING BOOKS THAT HELP CHANGE THE WORLD!
PPS: The Obstacle Is The Way Through is happening This Thursday!!
(February 10, on Zoom at 1:pm Central - and it will be recorded and the recording WILL be effective and we can chat in the comments section if you have questions).
We're going to work with the thing that is MOST in your way RIGHT NOW. It can be an internal or external thing.
The call will be about 60-90 minutes, depending on what kinds of conversations come up in the process.
We'll go deep....
And you'll leave knowing EXACTLY what to do next✨✨
This call is included in your Dream Book membership for February.
Join us here.
Your future self will thank you.
Photo by James Lee on Unsplash
Things are intense in Canada right now.
And one of the things that has felt distressing to me personally, is how we can no longer agree on what is a fact and what is not and that makes it really hard to even begin to have a conversation about how to find common ground.
There are no more gatekeepers in the media, and so everyone can choose the media that reflect their own biases. We can all feel like the media we choose is telling the truth and everyone else is biased. That's always been true but never to the same extent as now.
So, right now, for some people it feels like this amazing freedom rally went across the country and is fighting the communist Canadian government and standing up for freedom for all.
And some people, me included, feel like white nationalist groups, many of which are funded and organized from outside of our country, are occupying the capital, displaying white supremacist symbols, allowing thugs to run wild, assaulting people for wearing masks, committing so many hate crimes the police have no way of keeping up with the reports coming in and appropriating First Nations sacred items and practices in disgraceful ways.
And everyone has a cell phone. There is plenty video evidence to show what is happening on both sides.
Both of these things are happening.
I looked at some photos that the people who support this protest were sharing and I saw the love and unity that they saw. I saw how badly they want that, they are have been willing to "overlook a few bad apples" and keep supporting this movement, despite all of the controversy and reports of hate crimes.
We actually ALL want that. Unity and freedom and every opportunity to feel good.
But if we want our movements to be supported by everyone, we have to include everyone.
There was a ridiculously hostile happening on the social media accounts of my favourite doughnut shop this weekend. And supporters of the freedom rally were getting angry and saying "but we're fighting for YOUR freedom too" and that's when I saw it so clearly.
You can't angrily tell someone you are fighting for their freedom too.
If you truly are fighting for their freedom, you have to find out where they are not free. You can't project your own experience onto them and expect it to fit.
So the people in favour of the freedom rally feel oppressed in a specific way, and want to create freedom in a specific way.
And the people not in favour of it don't feel oppressed in that particular way, and the solution being presented by the freedom rally actually feels oppressive to many, even dangerous to some, or at the very least not helpful.
It's not the flavour of freedom I want. I agree with you that freedom is great! But this particular flavour of it actually doesn't taste like freedom at all, to me.
I wrote last week about how much I am loving couples therapy.
One of the things I've received from it that I love most is the life-changing magic of accepting things as they are.
For a person who has makes her living by helping people make their dreams happen - accepting things as they are is NOT a place where I thought I would find a lot of magic and healing.
However, the magic of accepting things as they are can be a vital tool for relationships because when applied right (I'm not talking about resigning yourself to having less than what you really want) it helps you make space to find common ground.
So I though about my experiences with that, and laid it over my thoughts about the freedom rally and.... oh.
We really all do want unity and freedom.
So the only effective way to go about it is to take an intersectional approach and find out what that means for everyone.
Hold space for what every single person wants here. *There is a HUGE caveat to this of course and I'll come back to that.
Even though many people will want the exact opposite of what others want, and the wants will conflict in ways that make it seem impossible that we can ever come together.
That's where we apply the life-changing magic of accepting things as they are. In accepting what other people want, too.
You don't have to agree, to accept.
How can we make space for being aware of and accepting of what other people want?
How can we assume that other people have valid reasons for wanting what they want?
It really shifts the way the you look at it, and creates space where new possibilities can emerge.
Conflicting wants and desires actually CAN all be held together.
When you can sit with WHAT IS.
Even when it's uncomfortable.
Even when there are no solutions in sight:
You want an end to the mandates now.
I want the mandates to stay in place, and get better (with more forms of support for everyone) until the pandemic has subsided to the point where our most vulnerable people are as safe as they were pre-pandemic.
(Ideally I'd love for the pandemic to have taught us about what vulnerable people go through in our society, recognize that they're not vulnerable by nature but MADE vulnerable by the way organize our culture, and make some changes, but that's a bigger topic)
Clearly, these two wants conflict directly and it appears that we can't both have what we want.
And we can both point to information and ways of seeing the world that completely invalidate the other person's point of view.
But what if we don't?
What if we see the pain everyone is in right now?
What if we recognize that we're all acting out of our trauma responses because living through a global pandemic is traumatizing?
What if we just stay there for a minute, without any solutions at all?
I don't see another way of coming to any kind of unity.
Not that I see solutions right now, but I see this as a way to move towards them.
Back to: We need to hold space for what every single person wants here.
***Except for the white nationalists and nazis who have been given carte blanch to run around committing hate crimes for over a week in Ottawa.
If your values include the oppression of other groups of people, there is no room for you in unity.
Unity can't be ALL peace and love and rising above and saying "we're all welcome here" while turning a blind eye to the hate crimes. It's an EXTREMELY privileged stance to allow these people in your movement and give them the opportunity to do harm.
While I recognize that all people are, at their core, good - if people are so disconnected from who they really are that they're waving nazi flags, threatening rape and murder to people who chose to wear masks, throwing rocks into windows in apartment buildings that have pride flags on them (all documented events that are happening at the rally in Ottawa) - then good people can't unify with them.
You can hold space for them to get better - if they want to.
But hate can't be a part of unity.
Unity needs judicious boundaries.
And if you're feeling like "oh no I can't dis-include people from the movement" please think about how well you are including people who have been the victims of all of these hate crimes.
The presence of hate groups means everyone can't be safely included.
So you do have to choose: groups of people who actively want to destroy other people or everybody else?
But once you've done that, some form of unity has got to be possible.
In truth we are all one.
Micheal will leave you motivated, inspired, and ready for action.
Michael Redhead Champagne, born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, is an award-winning community organizer, public speaker, and a proud member of Shamattawa First Nation. Michael believes we all have a gift and shows youth the path to discover their own. He is solution oriented and passionate about building system literacy, encouraging volunteerism, and engaging communities to be involved in the design, delivery, and evaluation of any initiative that affects them.
He's also been a HUGE source of inspiration to me for the last 12 years.
I am so excited to go on Instagram Live with him and talk about the making of this book:
We Need Everyone. (<--- follow that link to get your copy!)
This is a children's book and it is a celebration of our many gifts!
We'll go live on Instagram at 2pm (Central, North America) on February 7.
If you go to my Instagram account on your phone (doesn't work from a computer) you can sign up there to get a notification when we go live.
Joseph moved out of the Dream Loft in March 2021.
And at that time, one of the things I shared is that we are NOT separating, we ARE still married, and we need some time apart, to work separately and together, on what we want to create next.
I'm leaving out a lot of details. I just want to highlight that because every time I write about my personal life, I DO leave out the details that I want to keep private. But people reading tend to not be consciously aware of that. So they think they know the whole story, and want to offer me advice based on what they THINK they know. I don't need or want advice and am not going to accept any. Not only do I know the whole story, I 100% trust myself and Joseph to navigate this process.
Dreaming and creating together in a partnership is NOT something I have any experience with.
I don't even have a lot of great role models in terms of seeing people do this in a way that looks good to me.
In my life I've seen a lot of one person giving up more than they want to and then getting resentful about it. And it's a pattern I find VERY easy to fall into myself.
Or both people compromising in ways that don't seem that bad but also don't light their souls on fire.
True co-creating and taking everyone's multifaceted and ever-changing needs into account is a LOT!
And once you add kids to the mix, and kids from previous partnerships which also brings those previous partners into the mix - it's beyond a lot.
We can acknowledge how hard some of these things feel WHILE ALSO acknowledging that we are creative and smart and resourceful enough to navigate it. And that love helps us grow and be strong!
A lot of people have asked me to start a blog about being a step-mom which - well given my policy of honouring my step-children's sovereignty and privacy while also not sharing about anything I don't 100% trust myself to handle - well I just don't know what there'd be left to say.
Anyway, I want to live in a way where my decisions DO help light my soul on fire.
And I want that for my partner.
And I want to help his children, as they move into adulthood, to create this space for themselves in their lives as well.
So when I say that Joseph and I are going to therapy together - to me this is a really good thing and I am excited about the new possibilities it's opening up.
I know people hear it as something that indicates THERE IS A PROBLEM but I think therapy is supportive and helpful for living your best life. The way Joseph and I speak differently to each other with the therapist in the room is really next-level helpful.
Way before the pandemic, I had decided to start therapy, and I was looking for an art therapist that I felt like I could resonate with. A monthly check-in with an art therapist felt like a great thing to add to my self care toolkit.
And then the pandemic hit and my overwhelm got so bad last winter, I decided to find a therapist on Zoom and stopped looking specifically for art therapists and found someone I immediately resonated with. And during our first session, she said "I'm not an art therapist, but once we're doing in-person therapy I'd love to do some expressive arts therapy with you!"
Then Joseph started therapy on his own, and we started couple's therapy.
Yeah it's a lot of therapy but it's also a lot of insights and healing and noticing new ways to do things that work better for everyone.
It takes deep work to really pursue a dream.
Pursuing a dream triggers a process of growth and healing that is necessary for the fulfilment of the dream. Th.is tends to push us right into the stuff that we most want to avoid.
To pursue a dream with a partner it goes deeper because there's also a lot of old childhood stuff that comes up in any intimate relationship anyway plus multiple layers of boundaries issues and just how complicated it to to meet multiple people's multiple needs.
Often a good relationship will create a container for healing and growth, but then the places where we're not conscious aware of our own stuff just feel MAGNIFIED because of the container is there as an opportunity for healing.
Opportunities for healing can often look like a crisis or a setback or just like a steaming pile of shit that you want nothing to do with.
So, it feels like what is happening is that Joseph and I both wanted nothing to do with a few of our steaming piles of shit so we just tried to work around them.
The pandemic made it harder to do that.
And our living situation (in a loft with no privacy and not enough storage and where it really does feel like MY home and not OURS) also made it harder to do that.
Pandemic + living situation = these steaming piles of shit are suddenly in our faces.
The dream is the solution, the new life we are creating together....
But the dream, in order to be fulfilled, needs us to look at ALL of the steaming piles of shit, not just the ones already in our faces.
And it all feels like too many layers of too much shit.
It's not though.
I mean - it was all always there.
And now we're ready to stop tiptoeing around it and start cleaning it up.
This process is messy and smelly and all, but how much happier will we be once it's sorted!?!
So that's how couples therapy feels right now. I'm holding the new possibilities that are being created close to my heart and making new plans for our future while plugging my nose and getting to work.
So I just found this post in my blog post drafts. I had written it months ago and not shared.
(This is not unusual right now, I have been writing a lot, and then losing those writings instead of sharing them. It's just one of the ways my pandemic overwhelm has manifested)
Anyway, I saw it and re-read it, a note from my months-ago self.
Where are are now is different.
We don't really have steaming piles of shit, and I am laughing at myself for using that description.
What we are now are continually noticing where we are getting better and better at honouring ourselves and each other.
Like "Oh wow, if (thing) had happened a year ago I would have (unconscious reactive pattern) and then you would have (unconscious reactive pattern) and FUCK I am glad we're not doing THAT anymore"
Therapy and Dream Work are a miracle combo.
Joseph and I now have a journal where we are dreaming our future together.
There is so much we can't figure out right now, so many moves we can't make right now.
And that's all fine.
There's also so much to enjoy about right now.
And there are so many ways to play with our dreams for the life we want in 5 years, and 10 years, and 15 years.
(I do my weekly planning with the printable version of the Year of Dreams 2022, all the details of how I printed + bound it are here. The journaling printables I cut + paste onto it are from Dream Book)
Get the free full Creative Genius Planning Sessions video (15 minute meditation + journaling class for planning your week from your most wise, brave + creative self, here)