The last two years have been hard and we've all picked up habits that DID help us cope when we started them, and no longer serve us.
Whatever habits you picked up during the pandemic are completely understandable.
AND
Do you deserve better habits?
Habits that light you up? That make you stronger? Habits that feel like JOY? Things you do every day that make you feel POWERFUL and ALIVE and help you trust yourself more deeply?
Habits Upgrade Alchemy Circle + Coaching Call is tomorrow.
This isn't the usual life coach thing where I want you to upgrade to all of the "best" habits so you can slay your goals ASAP.
This is you calling in what you need right now through exquisitely feels-good-in-the-moment habits that soothe your soul, re-connect you to your inner power and magic, and make it easier for you to navigate these chaotic times.
For me this looks like:
- replacing 50% of my doomscrolling with embroidery (I'm making such a cute embroidered shirt dress for spring!)
- starting each day with essential oils that make me feel happy, and binaural beats music to sooth anxiety and spark creative thinking
- jogging around the loft while I wait for the water to boil to make coffee or tea which helps me feel more energized all day long
What will it look like for you? What can you do that will bring you joy and magic and healing RIGHT NOW?
This is not about forcing "good" habits, or judging anything about the habits you've got going on right now. This is NOT the time for any of that.
It's about looking at what new JOYFUL habits you can create that bring more beauty, joy, self care and magic into your life.
We all need to be as grounded and resourced as possible right now.
Habits Upgrade is happening live tomorrow (Friday, March 11) at 1:00 pm Central (North America), and the replay will be available a few hours after. There is a private comments section, so if you work with the replay you can still ask questions, share your ideas, and get support as you do this.
Habits Upgrade is included in your Dream Book membership for March.
And yes - you also get Creative With Money which is happening March 15!
This is one of my most beloved classes, and is definitely needed right now.
There will be ah-hahs and shifts and the glowing sense of feeling more free inside your life.
This is for creative entrepreneurs AND people with no interest in having their own business. It's about your relationship to money, which is also about your relationship to: abundance in general, trusting yourself, what what kind of life you deserve to have.
The vibe is: YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS IS BIGGER THAN ALL OF THE OBSTACLES - EVEN CAPITALISM.
Both of these classes are included in your Dream Book membership for March.
A self portrait of my volatile feelings, from this morning in my journal.
I started by saying, OUT LOUD AND EVERYTHING because I am really ready to do this:
"Once and for all I want to work through why I am scared to do this thing." Like really. Why do I keep SAYING I am doing the thing, but not doing the thing? Why do I keep making plans, and then not following through on them?
I mean I know - pandemic and world events have all been a lot and things take the time they take and PATIENCE is an essential ingredient for any dream...
BUT ALSO I know I am not doing my best to show up.
And this fact keeps colliding with my excitement to do this thing and that collision sets off a lot of uncomfortable stuff.
And, here I am now, ready to really, REALLY, deal with this stuff in me that keeps me from showing up the way I want to.
So. Hello Fear. Let's talk.
Fear immediately shows up as a monster. At least 30 feet tall. Lots of brown fur and sharp teeth.
We're in a clearing in the woods, near the entrance to a rock cave. I put a picnic blanket down and invite the monster to join me.
There is tension in my shoulders which turned into actual sharp pain in my left shoulder.
The monster just makes a face. I sit down on the blanket and stretch out my legs. Monster aside, it is a gorgeous day.
I say "I really want to understand what it is you are so afraid of here."
Then I realise - ok it's TWO things, not the ONE thing I was first thinking of. There are two projects I am working on that have the monster riled up.
THEN I realize that these two projects may have been stuck partially BECAUSE I am trying to get both started at once when I DO NOT have the energy for two big scary things right now.
But back to the monster.
"I really want to understand what it is you are so afraid of here."
Me? Afraid? No. I am here to scare YOU! Why would a monster be afraid?
That feels like deflection. But ok. Why do you want to scare me?
Monster appears confused.
"You don't want to scare me just to scare me, do you?"
I want... I mean. I want...
"You don't seem scary right now"
I know! But I am! I AM SCARY! YOU SHOULD BE SCARED!
"Oh, I am. Scared. Frustrated. Angry. Anxious. Terrified. My feelings are very volatile right now. And I am asking you - WHY do you want me to be scared?"
Because you stop working on those things when you're afraid.
"Right. So why don't you want me to do those things?"
Because they're scary. Scarier than me. Real-World Scary.
I lay back on the picnic blanket and look up at the clouds and wonder...
Is it true that it's just scarier right now to pursue our dreams and goals, to put new projects out into the world? That feels likely.
Should I pick one project or the other to fully focus on? That feels very stressful. Lots of fear of picking the wrong thing and sabotaging everything.
"Ok monster, I am thinking of just focusing on one of these projects for now. What do you think of that?"
Monster goes silent.
Oh right. Monster doesn't need to scare me about that, because I already feel so scared of choosing the wrong one and sabotaging everything. Which doesn't mean this is the wrong move to make.
What if I did give everything to one project? What would that look like?
Oh wow. I CAN'T DO THAT BECAUSE I DON'T FULLY TRUST EITHER PROJECT.
I am doing both, or rather trying to do both, in the hopes that it doubles my chance of success.
But what it does is split my energy.
I mean I used to be able to do two projects like this at once but the world was different then and I was different then and...
WHAT IF I TRUSTED MYSELF TO SUCEED? WHICH PROJECT WOULD I CHOOSE THEN?
That's obvious.
"Ok Monster. Did you hear that? I am going to work on trusting myself to succeed."
Monster bursts into tears and sits down beside me on the blanket.
I put my arm around the monster as it shrinks down to my size.
"What's going on, buddy?"
It's so terrible. To realize that you didn't trust yourself. I didn't mean to make you not trust yourself! I just wanted to try to keep your dreams smaller so you'd be safe. I mean, even I know how misguided that idea is, but it's all I've got. Your dreams are so scary to me.
But you can see, that I need to be able to trust myself, right? That THIS is how we create safety.
Yes, of course. Trusting yourself is crucial.
So, what now?
The monster is now a comic character of a nerd - and he's got charts and computers and books and all sorts of things.
I'm going to help you DO THIS. We ARE going to pick that one project to focus on.
And we are going to NOT get all "but I've tried so many ways and it hasn't worked" because guess what?! That's another monster hiding in there. That's not true or relevant to anything.
We are going to be more methodological. We are going through ALL of the plans and notes you have written about the ways you've tried this and pick up ALL of the threads you abandoned because I made it hard for you to continue.
We are going to do all of the things that help you be optimistic and connected.
And yes you can work on that other project as a side thing. ONLY when this project doesn't need your creativity and focus.
I stretch out and check in with my body.
Still a little tense, but I don't feel all of those volatile feelings anymore.
I feel less like everything is impossible and more ready to pick myself up and keep going.
Then I have a nice calming meditation, releasing stress in my body, giving my feelings some space and it comes to me:
I can give the first 2 hours of each day to this project. Those 2 hours are my BEST 2 hours, give them to this project. Then do my other stuff after.
Now I feel possibility and trust in my body.
PS: The last two years have made things really hard for dreamers.
It's really easy right now to zoom over into spiritual bypass, or to fall into despair.
Neither of these approaches are going to help you create what you want in your life.
Because this is all such a challenge right now, I am offering extra classes in Dream Book.
On March 11 we're doing HABITS UPGRADE:
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?
We'll create 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.
Then Creative With Money is happening March 15:
We’ll do a deep dive into your relationship with money and re-wire it to make more space for whatever it is you need right now.
There will be ah-hahs and shifts and the glowing sense of feeling more free inside your life.
The vibe is: YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS IS BIGGER THAN ALL OF THE OBSTACLES - EVEN CAPITALISM.
These are both a part of your Dream Book membership for March.
My morning meditation led me to draw this diagram.
I wanted to be able to just SEE these things I was holding, sitting in front of me.
These aren't ALL the things I am holding, but these are the three things that feel most "up" for me today.
Drawing it out like this, which is how I was guided to do by my dream in meditation this morning, helped me feel more grounded about:
- I don't need to JUGGLE these things they can all intersect and kind of form one thing
- They intersect in ways I do and do not see
- It's fine to feel/think all the things I feel/think - even where they conflict with each other
- No one thing is more important than the others, I can make space for all of it
Before I did this, I honestly felt like I couldn't make progress with anything today because these thoughts/feelings were all jumbled up and leaving me with no options.
This is pretty common for me.
BEFORE I make space for everything - what I want feel impossible.
AFTER I make space for everything - I feel clear about AND ready to take my next steps.
This is one of the places where most people get it wrong with their dreams... waiting to see the path clear ahead of you instead of just taking the steps you can take from where you are right now.
Showing up every day and doing the teeny tiny little things that you CAN do is what builds the path.
The more chaotic the world becomes, the more heavily I lean on this practice.
If you are NOT making space for all the things you're feeling - WHICH INCLUDES YOUR WISHES FOR THE THINGS THAT YOU WANT AND FIGURING OUT HOW TO MOVE TOWARDS THEM - you are going to get all tangled up in everything and it's NOT going to be possible to create positive change in your life.
That doesn't mean your dreams are not possible.
It means this is the work you need to do, to get there. It's up to you do decide to do this work consistently, or not.
And I really want to encourage you to DO THAT WORK because YOU DESERVE ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE DREAMING OF.
And, collectively, it's our creative dreams that will help guide us to create a better world for everyone.
I am dreaming of a settled nervous system and a calm heart.
I know two things about how I DON’T want to approach this dream:
1. By ignoring the state of the world
2. By giving up on all of my creative dreams
Creative Genius Planning is happening live on Instagram on Monday March 7 at 10 am Central <-- tomorrow
We’re going to do more of a self care meditation this week because it’s much harder to make anything good happen when we are unsettled.
There’s a new love alchemy meditation I have been experimenting with and I am excited to share it. It’s helping me soothe the places in me that are being traumatized/triggered/all freaked out about what’s happening in the world right now. Which gives me better ideas for how I want to respond.
Without this work, it’s easy for me to go into a freeze response and feel there is nothing I can do.
But that’s not true.
I hope you’ll join me for this on Monday - either live or with the replay.
If you go to my Instagram profile on your phone, you can tap the notification to set a reminder to join me.
The last two years have made things really hard for dreamers.
It's really easy right now to zoom over into spiritual bypass, or to fall into despair.
Neither of these approaches are going to help you create what you want in your life.
Because this is all such a challenge right now, I am offering extra classes in Dream Book.
On March 11 we're doing HABITS UPGRADE:
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?
We'll create 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.
Then Creative With Money is happening March 15:
We’ll do a deep dive into your relationship with money and re-wire it to make more space for whatever it is you need right now.
There will be ah-hahs and shifts and the glowing sense of feeling more free inside your life.
The vibe is: YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS IS BIGGER THAN ALL OF THE OBSTACLES - EVEN CAPITALISM.
These are both a part of your Dream Book membership for March.
Late-stage capitalism is especially hard for artists, healers, and helper-people.
Of course your creative genius IS more powerful that capitalism.
Your purpose IS bigger than capitalism.
But that doesn’t mean the places where you struggle aren’t real. You’re not imagining it. This is hard.
AND
You have the power. You have the magic. You can do this.
There is a sweet spot in staying present with your challenges while also staying present with your magic.
The last two years have made staying in that sweet spot harder than ever. It's really easy right now to zoom over into spiritual bypass, or to fall into despair.
Neither of these approaches are going to help you create what you want in your life.
Because this is all such a challenge right now, I am offering extra live classes in Dream Book.
On March 11 we're doing HABITS UPGRADE:
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?
We'll create 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.
Then Creative With Money is happening March 15:
We’ll do a deep dive into your relationship with money and re-wire it to make more space for whatever it is you need right now.
There will be ah-hahs and shifts and the glowing sense of feeling more free inside your life.
The vibe is: YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS IS BIGGER THAN ALL OF THE OBSTACLES - EVEN CAPITALISM.
These are both a part of your Dream Book membership for March.
Here I am, on the cover of the Arts Life section of the Winnipeg Free Press:
I'm so happy with this!
The article is here - you do need a Winnipeg Free Press account to read it.
I also shared more photos of the article close-up, on Facebook.
Photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash
First, I want to recommend the book My Grandmother's Hands, by Resmaa Menakem.
Also - follow Resmaa, he is an incredible teacher.
It's about intergenerational racial trauma and it's very specifically geared towards the United States, but still had a lot of helpful insight for me in Canada. I actually did recommend this book in my blog post about how your dreams need anti-racism but today it's on my mind for a different reason.
I recommend it especially for white people who may not be aware of your intergenerational racial trauma and all the ways it manifests due to still living in the white supremacist systems that our ancestors created.
Europe was a very brutal place for a very, very long time.
It traumatized our ancestors, generation after generation, to the extent they were able to come to North America and commit mass genocide in order to "settle the land". And we in North America STILL think of ourselves as either settlers or immigrants but that's not even close to what we are here. We STILL fail to take part in any meaningful reconciliation.
That's not something a human can do if they are well.
I know humans have always had conflict but to kill an entire continent of other human civilizations, and to enslave other humans on another continent and bring them over to the "new" world in order to build a new country and create more wealth for yourself - that's not something any human is actually capable of if they are well.
Even if you know that no one in your family enslaved other humans - white people saw other white people enslaving Black people and just went on with their own lives. A human can't do that if they are well. These are all signs of deeply traumatized people. This is one thing I learned in this book.
What's really beautiful about this book is Resmaa's in-depth understanding of how trauma functions in the body, and continual support throughout the book to process some of that trauma.
I've been thinking for the last few days WHY we are all reacting as though the war in Ukraine is the only war that's happening, why we've been mostly ignoring the other wars.
It's complicated. And there's no question about the unconscious racial bias that decides who deserves to live in a peaceful country.
But I think one part is that war in Europe can trigger some of this intergenerational trauma that lives in our bodies.
I've been feeling it.
I'm a sensitive person. All war impacts me, but this one is impacting me more deeply, for multiple reasons.
A lot of my ancestors were killed by Russians. I can feel the terror and fear in my body.
I can see how, over the last 2 years, a huge part of our population had been indoctrinated into belief systems that will have them supporting this war, and supporting the escalation of this war.
So a huge thing that is stressing me out:
The new age influencers are starting to talk about how this war is a good thing.
Please. If you see any of this - don't support it.
This isn't a spiritual war. These are real people being invaded. There is no higher cause here.
We can't turn away.
Yes we can't stay glued to the news either.
We need to take good care of ourselves.
We need to recognize our own trauma responses to this traumatic situation and take care of them - not act out of them, or act out of a desire to avoid them.
Here's what I am doing, if you need some ideas:
- lots of pets with Bear, and pressing my face into his belly while he purrs
- breathing in to a count of 4 and breathing out to a count of 8
- going outside for walks
- getting extra sleep
- drinking a lot of water
- extra meditation
- soothing binaural beats music in my headphones
- extra journaling and art-making to process my feelings
Join me Monday LIVE on Instagram for Creative Genius Planning at noon Central (go to my Instagram account from your phone and you can tap the event notice to set a reminder in your own time zone) and we'll work on a plan for this week that includes the self care you need.
(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)