Boundaries support your wellbeing and healing and self care and DREAMS.
In your business, boundaries support you in doing your best work, shining your light and receiving the things you need.
So the big question is:
What kind of support do you need, to do the things you want to do?
There are SO MANY WAYS to get creative about creating this support for yourself.
Systems and guidelines and routines and limits and agreements. These are all boundaries.
Of course - today is the Business + Boundaries: Creating Space for your Creative Dreams to flourish class!
This class is an experiential deep-dive into exploring where you need more/different SUPPORT, to be able to do the things you want to do in your business.
When I was preparing the class, I was getting my period and was a little crampy. It wasn't that bad, and I don't like to take drugs, so normally I would just try to ignore the cramps and carry on.
BUT I'm finding it hard to focus these days for a lot of reasons. So I decided to just take an Advil, to numb the cramps so I had one less thing distracting me.
That's a boundary. Not today, cramps!
Of course, the decision to usually NOT take drugs is ALSO a boundary.
Good boundaries are fluid because we are living things and our needs change all the time.
But it's so much more complicated when it comes to business, because it's not just YOUR needs that matter. Your customer's needs matter and your business' needs matter and your employees, suppliers.... it's big web.
Also, most boundary decisions happen in our unconscious, driven by people-pleasing and fear of failure and other such nonsense.
Like - "Oh, we did 6 coaching sessions together last year and you were thrilled with my work at the time, but now you've decided to go to Disneyland and want a refund to help pay for it? Well, I REALLY want you to like me, so sure!"
I mean, that's an extreme example but we violate our own needs to get external approval in a lot of ways.
And it's uncomfortable to hold our boundaries for a lot of reasons.
So the Business + Boundaries class is, of course, a healing circle.
A chance to look deeper at what's happening for you in your business, to figure out where to plug leaky boundaries to make things smoother for you and to explore how to give yourself the support you need to do what you want to do next.
AND a healing space for being with the things that come up from that, for processing the feelings and holding the insights and figuring out what to do next with all of this.
I LOVE this work.
I LOVE the way our businesses push us deeper into our growth.
I can't wait!
And YES the class will be recorded so you want do it in your own time. This is one I think we'll come back to over and over, because each time you do it you would get something different from it.
This class is a part of Dream Book, my ongoing creative dream course + mastermind. Join us here.
Monday Morning live meditation + journaling session is on soon!
It’s happening on Instagram live this morning at 10 am (Central, North America). Join me here, or catch the replay at that same link after we’re done.
We’ll do energy clearing + alchemy meditation to connect with your intuition, and get more clear on what YOU need this week to help move you towards where you want to be. Then I’ll pick journal prompt cards for some questions to help guide you through this week. It's MAGIC.
This morning in my Dream Work practice, my dream was a glowing red jewel that wanted to beam me the instructions for how to make it happen.
Yes please, I said.
The dream jewel began beaming instructions and Bear snuggled in beside me.
At one I point I said: You know, I already know this. You're showing me my plan.
And the dream jewel said: Yes. I was hoping you would notice that sweetie. You already know what to do.
Then the dream jewel had arms and hands, and reached over to touch my heart.
It grabbed something that was around my heart. Like a frozen block of something...
My dream said: I am melting your hesitation to ACT on your genius plan.
You need to just DO IT.
You don't need to see all the steps and how they fit together.
You just need to stake the step that's in front of you to take.
Sweetheart, I am literally reading to you from the Dream Book course material that you wrote. You know this.
And then I could feel that block of frozen hesitation melt.
Right. Just start doing it.
Before this meditation, I was looking at my goals for this week and it felt like I was juggling impossible burning knives.
It was 8:30 am, but I wanted to just go take a nap in the hopes that I would feel more clear after.
And now I just feel excited to play around with my projects.
I love all of the things I'm doing so it feels like YAY! AN ABUNDANCE OF GOOD AND INTERESTING THINGS! instead of the previous OMG*DOOM*TOO*MANY*THINGS feeling before.
This is the magic of Dream Work.
Dream Work is NOT just about making a vision board and repeating affirmations to convince yourself to believe in yourself.
It's about the deep and focused work of partnering with your dream so it can GROW YOU into the version of yourself who easily does the thing.
What I teach in Dream Book is Dream Work AND Inner Work AND how to use this work to POWER your Outer Work.
But "teach" is too small a word for what really happens in Dream Book.
I hold space for you to go deeper into your own ways of partnering with your dreams, your magic, your creativity, your power, your process of healing and growth.
What is means is:
✨ more HEALING and GROWTH along the way
✨ less time wasted in STRESS and OVERWHELM
✨ you have what you need to forge your own path
Join us today! Your future self will thank you.
I Take Brave Steps journaling printable from Dream Book - I send out a new journaling + alchemy kit every week as a part of my creative mastermind for doing the inner and outer work of moving towards your dreams, month after month. Join us here.
This morning I:
- painted for 20 minutes
- meditated for 20 minutes
- journaled for 20 minutes
- did my regular Dream Work practice in Dream Book
... just to feel somewhat awake and present and ready to begin my day.
It's hard right now.
When my husband moved out and I re-claimed the whole Dream Loft as my creative/dream/magical self care space, I felt this... well, it was a huge breath of fresh air. After so long NOT having the alone time or creative space I needed, suddenly I had all I could want of each.
It was freeing. Catching up on alone time after starving for it for so long was healing and rejuvenating and at first it felt like everything is possible....
But.
Here I am now. All caught up. Grounded in this new phase of my life where my husband lives a 6 minute bike ride away.
Learning how to balance my need for alone time and creative time and peace and quiet with my wish to have a rich and nourishing marriage with this person I love - without my highly sensitive needs getting squashed. And without his very-different-from-mine needs getting squashed either.
Sitting with all of the questions that this brings up.
Not rushing to find the answers.
But REALLY EXCITED about the couples therapist I did find who I trust to be a good guide for this journey.
But the way I'm feeling right now isn't about that. I think.
It feels like the weight of the pandemic.
With the end (maybe?) in sight it's actually natural for it to NOT feel like a relief, it's actually natural for the pandemic overwhelm to get heavier. Sometimes the end being in sight just reminds us of all we've lost.
I read yesterday that overdoses are up EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT in 2020, compared to 2019. And I think of my friend who died and how devastating that was and imagining that devastation happening to EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT more people than usual.
I mean, not that there should ever be a usual amount. We could have a society that actually takes care of everyone. (By the way, if you are Canadian - please use this form to email your MP about universal basic income for all Canadians. My amazing MP, Leah Gazan, is making some headway with this and needs support.)
I got my first shot of the vaccine.
It feels surreal but I'm wondering - will this be any good against the new variants? Will this actually change things? Or will this summer be WORSE than last summer, if we can't socialize outside safely because of how contagious the new variants are? (I am NOT looking for answer here)
A few weeks ago a friend invited me for brunch.
We rode our bikes to Starbucks for coffee and sandwiches, then rode to a park nearby that I always forget about - garbage hill. Literally just an old dump turned into a hill. He brought fruit and yogurt and we sat on separate benches at the top of the hill and had a long talk.
I was smiling about it for days.
Telling everyone about this magical bunch we had. Because it just FELT SO GOOD to be out with a friend again.
This week I am meeting another friend for coffee. A coffee shop opened up almost right next door to me - which has been a dream come true for some time! So my friend and I are going to check it out, and bring out coffee + treats back to my place (I've got some chairs on my patio for outdoor visiting).
These little things are everything right now. And they're not enough.
That's just where we are.
It's HARD to feel hopeful that this thing is about to end.
The other thing that's helping me through is my creative dreams.
Even though, as my list above shows, it takes A LOT to get into the zone so I can connect with my dreams - once I get there it's like the weight of the pandemic is GONE.
I feel creative and free and I'm making things I love and I'm excited about sharing and everything feels so easy.
This moments don't last like they used to.
But they are worth the work it takes to get there.
We have to keep showing up for our dreams, it's the only way to create a better future.
I have a lot I want to say about this, about how our dreams are needed now more than ever as the world is in such transition. And how your dream isn't just about you and how many others it will help heal and inspire.
But I don't quite have the words yet.
I did a podcast interview earlier this week. I will share a link once it's out because it was a really great conversation with a really inspiring woman I am sure you will want to meet.
But one of the things we spoke about is how the professional (artist, writer, dreamer, anything) is different from the amateur.
The amateur waits for inspiration.
The professional shows up and gets to work.
Sometimes it's easy to get to work and sometimes it's hard.
And it's always worth it.
This is really the core of what I do in Dream Book - I give people new ways to show up and get to work on their dreams.
With support + encouragement to build a right-fit practice of showing up and getting to work.
A right-fit practice means you find PLEASURABLE and DOABLE ways to get into it and get the GENERATIVE effects of it.
It builds you up. It grows you. And it puts you in an entirely different position with your dreams.
Your dream wants to help heal you. That's what it's here for. Let it in.
The Business + Boundaries: Creating Space for your Creative Dreams to Flourish class is happening live on Zoom on April 28.
ALL DREAMS NEED BOUNDARIES.
Creating and managing boundaries is how you create space for a dream to come into your life. Done well, boundaries exist to HOLD SPACE.
With a business, boundaries become even more important - and even more complicated!
Boundaries in your business can help you be more creative and effective in your work. They can help you achieve bigger goals that you have before. They can help you and your business grow.
And they help you be FUELLED and NURTURED by your business - instead of stressed and overwhelmed.
The pandemic has made this harder for a lot of us.
So we're going to work on our boundaries together!
This will be an EXTREMELY experiential class where we'll dig in together to look at where your boundaries need to be shored up.
Again - it's happening April 28 on Zoom.
It's a part of Dream Book, my ongoing creative dream mastermind. Join us here.
Monday Morning live meditation + journaling session is on! It’s happening on Instagram live this morning at 10 am (Central, North America). Join me here, or catch the replay at that same link after we’re done.
We’ll do energy clearing + alchemy meditation to connect with your intuition, and get more clear on what YOU need this week to help move you towards where you want to be. Then I’ll pick journal prompt cards for some questions to help guide you through this week.
It's been a month since my husband moved out and I feel more deeply settled in my nervous system than I have in at least a year.
There is this deep calm that I feel in my bones almost all the time. I wake up in the morning feeling happy and light. I have more clarity and focus - I've almost finished a project that's been stuck for the last year!
It's not that I needed to be away from my husband.
It's that I needed alone time.
After a year of pandemic, I was starved for alone time.
And a lot of people don't understand this, or take it to mean something it doesn't mean while thinking that they DO understand.
But the thing is, I need the things that I need. Just like you need the things that you need.
And judging each other for finding ways to GET the things we need, is really the last thing anyone needs.
It's so hard sometimes to allow ourselves to have the things when need when they are different from what everyone else is doing.
I mean social media is full of beautiful quotes about following your heart and being yourself - and then it's also full of people judging you whenever you do something "different". And often it's the same people posting both.
But this is the work that grows dreams. Uncovering and living your truth.
I mean, you can't turn your life into fertile soil for dreams to grow while also conforming to what society expects you to do. You do have to choose.
We live in a garbage culture. White supremacy, ableism, sexism, the growing gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else. The way we're encouraged to conform and fit in and not even know how we REALLY feel about things, deep down. It's garbage.
And yet, we want approval from this garbage culture!
So much so that we're willing to give up our dreams to get it.
Talking about DREAMS is actually talking about something much bigger.
Your dream isn't just to write a book or grow your business or retire in a beautiful place. Your dream is about who you are and how you feel in your life when you have those things.
It's about your growth and healing and living your magic. Being who you know you really ARE.
It's worth so much more than the gifts of conformity BUT these patterns of wanting acceptance from the people around us run deep. Unhooking from them in a safe and grounded way is big work.
It's all worth it for those times when you go deep into the magic of when you getting what you need to FEEL MORE LIKE YOU. And I am just revelling in it these days.
Real freedom is NOT as far away as it seems.
It's about establishing routines that fuel and nourish you in the moment while paving the way for increasingly better tomorrows.
It's about taking the teeny tiny baby steps consistently enough that they turn into momentum.
This is what I call "showing up for your dreams" and I think this is the thing that heals ourselves - and also changes the world.
I do this work - every day - in Dream Book. It's a creative mastermind and shows you a way to journal that helps you be more effective about nurturing your gifts WHILE ALSO healing and transforming the stuff that gets in the way.
I've been getting A LOT of messages about my current situation of living apart from my husband from people who are admiring my courage for making this brave move.
It didn't feel brave.
It felt necessary and also kind of scary.
That's what a lot of "brave moves" feel like from the inside.
We get to a point where doing nothing starts to cost more than taking the risk.
But we have to remember that courage is a PRACTICE.
I didn't roll out of bed one morning and just make this brave choice.
This is why I write EVERY DAY in my creative mastermind group, to share what I am working with in my practice.
The people in my group know I've been sitting with this stuck place around my living situation and working with it for the last year and a half. I was dreaming of a studio space just for me, but also not feeling right about renting a space nearby and actually not feeling right about ANY of the ideas that were coming to me about how to do this.
I wrestled with it a long time, until I worked through it and then I knew what to do.
Everyone is brave. There is no such thing as one person being braver than another.
It's just - how much have you worked through your internal resistance and self doubt? And how much have you learned about how to set your life up to bolster your courage? How much are you really showing up for yourself and your dreams? How much are you PRACTICING?
And yes of course - how much support do you have for the external obstacles you face? How well resourced are you? There ARE external factors that make brave moves easier for some people. (But that is not a measure of how much courage a person has, that's a measure of how much privilege a person has and what they choose to do with it.)
But we can all work on our courage. To show up as bravely as we can to face the things that we have to face.
And of course we have to recognize that "showing up bravely" is a thing we define for ourselves.
Like - for a person with chronic illness taking a nap is a lot braver than pretending to be ok and "powering through" because the people around you don't understand what your actual needs are.
We don't want to buy into the hustle culture or the patriarchy or capitalism and how they define courage and "brave moves'.
True courage is about honouring ourselves in how we show up for our lives.
When you feel that tug in your heart to be braver about something, that's an invitation to show up more deeply in your practice.
I don't mean to practice COURAGE itself necessarily.
What I did that precipitated this brave move of mine was to practice showing up for my DREAMS.
I believes it's our dreams where everything intersects - our potential and healing and wounds and fears and stuck places and creativity and magic and power and all the things we need to work through in order to be where we want to be. It's all right there.
So working with dreams is a way of working with all of this - your own growth and healing.
As I said - I've had a dream for the last year and a half to find a new living situation. But, when I just listened to my logical mind try to work it out - nothing made sense. Financially and practically and feelings-wise - this dream was just STUCK.
It was embarrassing to keep showing up in my mastermind, sharing how stuck I felt for so long.
But I know that this is the way through.
And my work is to live what I teach.
And one of our principles is that "it takes the time it takes"
In hindsight I can see that this particular solution really wasn't accessible any earlier. But I needed to keep showing up, keep making space for that desire, in order to be so aligned with my dream that I could see it when the opportunity came.
It didn't feel brave.
I don't think it looked brave, to the people in the mastermind who saw me continue to show up no matter how stuck I was. But I did get a lot of feedback that it felt HELPFUL to witness me wrestle with this dream because it helped them feel less alone with the dreams that they are wrestling with.
My point is: Courage is a thing we can grow.
We all have tremendous courage.
And we have all practiced our ways into NOT acting/being as brave as we ARE. This is just a side effect of growing up in this culture.
And we all face different obstacles to making our brave moves and comparing our outer expressions of courage to other people's is not helpful.
But. We can become braver. It's a natural side effect of practicing your way into a deeper connecting with your self. It's a natural side effect of working with your dreams. It's a natural side effect of healing and growing.
And each brave move you take opens up new possibilities for what your next brave move can be.
PS: Join me in Dream Book, my creative mastermind and EPIC support system for practicing your way into your next brave move.
*** If you join THIS WEEK you'll get an invitation to the Partnering With Your Soul of your Business live class, happening next Tuesday (April 13)
The Partnering with the Soul of your Business class is happening on April 13.
Learning to PARTNER with the soul of your dream is the thing I teach that allows everything else to happen: growing braver than your fears and stronger than your obstacles and making the impossible dreams come true.
I learned this during my 4 years training + interning to become a spiritual teacher. At the time it felt like this esoteric spiritual thing with no real practical application.
But as I worked with it I realised that this is the MOST practical thing we could ever do. This is the foundation that makes everything else possible.
It works the same way with your business.
This kind of stuff is hard to put into words.
Learning to partner with the soul of my business has helped me to feel more confident as a creative entrepreneur, and less alone. Which is kind of everything. It has given me:
✨ Hands down the BEST advice for how to get to where I want to be (usually NOT how I think it should happen - the soul of the Creative Dream Incubator usually has the opposite perspective from mine, which has been immensely helpful)
✨ Energetic support for working through the hard parts (Again, that piece where it's got the opposite perspective to mine is SO helpful for moving through the hard parts with as little emotional drama as possible)
✨ Magical interventions where the right things happen at the right time
The Partnering with the Soul of your Business class is happening on April 13, as a part of Dream Book, my creative mastermind.
You can attend live or catch the replay. Either way, this is a thing to work with over and over and develop into a PRACTICE, which we will do together in the ongoing online creative mastermind inside Dream Book.
I'm trying to work on a thing that I really want to work on.
But I am just noticing the minutes tick by and I'm just.... not doing it.
I'm distracted and stuck and.... I don't even know.
So. Why is this so hard?
Hmmmm.
I think I'm listening to the wrong music.
OK that's an easy one to solve. I'm now listening to Creativity Boost - Binaural Beats Meditation. Perfect.
What else?
My heart feels tight and breaky, not broken but like it could break very easily.
Well yeah - look at the world! How could your heart NOT be breaking? What do you want to do with this?
I don't want to try to fix it. Just make space for it. I don't want to insulate myself from the realities of the world with positive thinking and spiritual healing. I want to be here.
So, how can you do the things you want to do, WITH a tight and breaky heart?
Wow. This is a surprise but the first thing that comes to me is: less coffee, more tea.
What else?
Look for the simplest ways to do things.
Have LOTS of self care things going outside of work time (I already have this).
Take a break? That feels weird, but, it also feels true.
What if you do take a break from this? What would you do?
I would do that other thing.
Would you do that to AVOID something hard in this or because that's where your flow is calling?
Mostly to avoid.
Shit.
Yeah, I actually do want to understand WHY this is so hard. What it is that I want to avoid?
I might do it wrong.
Yes, that's always there with every project. But is that all?
I really want to do it right. I want it to RESONATE. I'm scared it won't.
(Oh! This is the first answer that feels really true and open.)
If you want it to resonate, how come you're not doing the things that help it to resonate?
Well, shit.
There it is.
I know where to start now: by doing the things that help build resonance.
Do this with me!
In Dream Book, my ongoing creative dream mastermind, you get 24/7 access to 15 different meditation/journaling processes to help you work through different kinds of stucks: like procrastination, overwhelm, fear, inner critics, self doubt, etc.
We ALL have inner fears and doubts and the culture we live in sets us to fail every day - but your creative genius is bigger than the obstacles. There is always a way through.
Before I jump in - The Art for Earth e-course bundle sale is ending TODAY.
This is a bundle of art e-courses valued at over £2900+ GBP, but - for one more day only - is sold for only £75 GBP! (In USD that's a value of roughly $4,000 for $104)
Two of my courses - the Creative Dream Incubator ($147 USD value) and the Creative Business Incubator ($199 USD value) are a part of the Art For Earth 2021 bundle sale.
WHAT YOU ARE FEELING IS NORMAL.
I'm feeling like this needs to be said more often. Like too many of us are feeling all alone in our feelings by feeling WRONG for feeling all the things we're feeling.
You're not wrong.
What you're feeling is normal. All of it. Even the parts that conflict with each other.
Here's what I'm feeling this morning:
- A sense that I call "cognitive shut down" where my brain just CAN NOT
- A wish to feel hopeful for the future
- But then also a feeling that feeling hopeful is dangerous, too vulnerable, and that those hopes will soon be dashed so why bother
- A deeper desire/need to FEEL GOOD AGAIN as my baseline feeling
- Sadness about not feeling good
- Grief about everything I've lost
- Panic about everything I could lose next
- Relief that my husband's health emergency from last week is still serious but not an emergency this week
But I've also had these moments of feeling more creative, peaceful and powerful than I have in a long time.
It can be so confusing to have so many conflicting feelings going on.
But this is what it means to be human.
We live in a culture that teaches us to NOT feel.
But denying our human feelings doesn't dissolve them, they just go underground where they control most of our behaviour, limit our possibilities and just generally do a lot of harm.
And now we're in this time when we can't keep stuffing it all down. There's just too much.
Every breaking point is also a doorway into a new possibility.
That's not just some bullshit thing people say to try to gloss over how hard the breaking point is.
It's the truth.
The degree to which we can be present with the hard parts determines the amount of new possibilities we can receive from the experience.
I mean - it takes work and support and courage. But the opportunity is there.
That's what I am holding onto right now.
I'm grateful for those moments of creativity and clear thinking and feeling peaceful and powerful and like I can do anything. I am using those moments to take care of my business and move important projects forward.
And in the rest of my time, I am resting and making art just for me and reading a lot and also reminding myself that there is an opportunity here.
That "my stuff is up" and I can see it more clearly than ever which means this is an opportunity for healing.
That I can emerge from this difficult time with less of my stuff weighing me down.
Things are hard anyway, why not go on a full on journey through my own underworld and see what I can clean up?
In 2019, my friend Tamara Laports (from Willowing Arts) was feeling overwhelmed about climate change. She always looks for ways to BE the change she wanted to see in the world... so she decided to try to DO something about.
Since she teaches art online, she put togeher an online art course sale, with 25% of profits benefiting TreeSisters, an organization that plants trees to fight climate change.
That sale resulted in 81,000 trees being planted! 🌳🌳🌳🌳
I was really inspired by that act of stepping up to be the change.
It's easy to feel like we need to change our whole lives or be braver than we are or just.... like really BEING the change we want to see is out of our reach. We're too small and the world's problems are too big.
Tamara's story shows how we can use the resources we already have in new ways to help make a difference.
So I asked Tamara to talk to me more about her story, and we recorded this video!