This is the mantra I got in this week’s Dream Book journaling + alchemy kit: I welcome more joy + magic into my life
Use the meditation for the weekly mantras to dig in deeper to the mantra, or put your hands on your heart and take five deep slow breaths and repeat to yourself:
I welcome more joy + magic into my life.
Notice where this lands in your body, what thoughts and feelings get sparked.
There is no right or wrong way to react. But your actual thoughts and feelings can tell you something about what you need right now.
How it lands for me: a big YAAAAAASSSSSS.
Like seriously YES. I NEED THIS.
I can feel all the doors inside being flung open to let ALL the joy + magic in.
I feel the things that have been hard just... not mattering as much. And also the parts of me who are holding onto the hard stuff also feel softened by joy and magic.
It's this feeling/energy that's been growing over the last few months. I am ready to be in the BIG SHINY MAGIC. I don't think I've seen much of that since 2020. Like - bits here and there. Magic and healing and possibility are always with us... AND... now it feels like time for MORE.
And under that I think of all the things I can do to INVITE this in.
What are good habits, for welcoming more joy + magic into my life?
A lot of them are the same as good habits for my mental and physical health, good self care... but I think there's more to explore there, too.
If you want to work on this with me:
If I welcome more joy + magic into my life feels good and encouraging, hold it with you today. Look at problems, questions, stucks and obstacles through this lens and see what ideas it brings.
If it brings up some discomfort - that’s your stuff to work on today. To do that work, in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership we’ve got the un-sticking station and the library of inner work practices. If you’re not sure what practice to use, you can email me, or post in our forum, let me know what’s going on and I will make some suggestions for tools you can use.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.
On Fridays I do my Dream Status Report which is a series of prompts I use every week to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
Now I do my reports on the printable journaling sheet instead of on the computer, which I did for YEARS. I LOVE THIS. It just feels different on paper.
It was a hard week.
I wrote yesterday how I've felt mired in self doubt because I've been exploring it more deeply getting ready for next week's Self Doubt healing circle. (Call details are here, registration is here if you're not in the membership)
But that's a PURPOSEFUL hard, I know I am digging into things that are beneath the surface, and clearing things out - which means I will end up feeling more free, powerful and connected to myself. And it was DELIBERATE since I chose to do it.
Then also it was hard because I am adjusting to the hormones my doctor put me on. On that front, I really was thinking "As soon as I ask for help, and get it, I will start feeling better" Well that's not how it works, lol. My doctor did warn me it COULD take 3 months to adjust and my symptoms COULD be even worse during that time but I was like "NO, things have been so hard, they need to get easier"
Well, things are only harder on that front.
The hard was MADE WORSE BY MY ATTITUDE.
Going into it with "I'm sure this will go really well for me" meant I wasn't prepared for it to NOT go well. Optimism does have a place, but it works best combined with realism, I think. Like "I'm intending for this to go well, but just in case - what is my plan if I struggle with it? Because I don't want to leave myself in a position where I'm struggling and not prepared to do the things I could do to make it easier..."
This is what I found in my practice with the Dream Status Report prompts this week: I'm acting like I am 100% at the mercy of these drugs and their side effects and all I can do it wait it out.
In a way yes that's true. But in another way, these symptoms, especially the anxiety and depression, are symptoms that I DO know what to do with. And I'm not doing those things because "I'm just at the mercy of the drugs and their side effects"
I'm not sure if that will make sense to anyone but myself, but this is the magic of doing this reflection practice every week. We learn from OUR OWN experience, we learn the lessons we need to learn.
So I am back in INTENSE self care mode and feeling much better! If I know these drugs make me more prone to depression and anxiety then I will PILE ON with all the things that help mentally, emotionally and physically.
I wish I was a person who just woke up feeling inspired, energized and optimistic but I'm not. And a part of my INTENSE self care is cutting back on "doing things" like being out in the world, so I have more time, and that time is going to DREAM BOOKING and this feels amazing.
So at the end of the journaling sheet, the focus I have for next week is: More Dream Work. BE in the VIBE!
🦄⚡️Creative Dream Incubator Weekly Coaching Call is today!!
Hope to see you there - or catch the replay over the weekend! Call details + replays are here. And after the call I'll start a thread in the forum to share your plans for the week and as a space for accountability and support.
If you can't be there live but have a question or there's something you are struggling with, send me an email this morning and I'll discuss it on the call and offer you some suggestions for things to do.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your Dream Status Report or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
I've been MIRED in self doubt the last few weeks.
This is how it works for me, when I am creating something new I am IN IT. So as I am creating Your Self Doubt Is Not Yours You Deserve To Believe In Yourself I've been MIRED in self doubt because I need to be this intimately up close with how painful and limiting it is.
Self doubt limits possibilities in ways that we DO NOT see. Even though we are self aware and doing the inner work - still, we can't see these limits that self doubt puts on us.
AND we can keep working on it! Each time we do the work we uncover new possibilities.
Self doubt also creates other unconformable feelings. And on the day I wrote this post, it was making me PANIC.
My brain has too many things to focus on.
TOO MUCH KEEPS HAPPENING!!!
I NEED THE MUCH TO STOP!! So that I can do the things I need/want to do.
Also, I do not want to do the things in a state of panic.
So. Sitting with that....
Well, I need to meet panic in the Un-Sticking Station and see what we can do.
Hello panic.
The ball of light in the meditation feels like a diamond and it opens up and invites me right in.
I curl up inside. Feeling creativity, light and knowing swirling around me, like a blanket. I feel so safe.
I don’t feel safe when I am panicking. So I must not be panicking right now, in the diamond of creativity, light and knowing.
I do feel so grounded and stabilized once I get to that part in the meditation... The meditation feels really intense today. I turn it off when I get to the part where I invite the panic in.
Inviting panic into this diamond of creativity, light and knowing feels strange.
Panic doesn’t know how to act. I mean - it’s ungrounded and I feel SO grounded in here.
It’s this tiny thing, jumping around.
I pick it up and cuddle it.
“Listen I am so sorry you are feeling this way! But you cannot make ME panic, too. We need to work together to stop you panicking.”
Panic just looks at me with these big eyes, I can tell it has no clue how to not panic.
And suddenly I start crying.
I feel, really FEEL, how far away I am from the person I want to be. Like my life feels to noisy, too overwhelming.
Now the field of Creative Dream Alchemy is a meadow on a spring day. Gorgeous. Flowery. Welcoming.
I feel so safe and validated, I just lay here and cry.
(At this point, I go lay down to have a little cry)
Then I try to comfort my crying self.
"Oh sweetheart I’m so sorry you are so upset. I’m so sorry you feel this way. What can I do?"
And suddenly I know, all of this sadness is the core of the panic.
I remember seeing my doctor, how she made me realize that my perimenopause symptoms are worse than I thought, like I was minimizing my discomfort. I’ve needed more help for a while, and that is a difficult thing to realize.
AND. I have more help now. So - I am getting the help I need now. AND this makes me so sad for much I’ve needed more help.
This happens!
Once we get the help we need, we sometimes grieve for our past selves who didn’t have it.
I sit with this, and the sadness starts to swirl into panic.
I take slow, deep breaths. I give myself some time….
OK panic. I’m so sorry you are upset, do you want to tell me why you’re panicking?
It’s just that too much is happening and we’re not organized and we want to do all these things but we have no plan! We’re just hoping to feel motivated and clear-headed and we really can’t rely on those things.
What would you like to rely on?
A simple but solid plan. Think it all through ONCE and don’t have to keep thinking it through each day to figure out the next steps.
That makes sense AND I wonder if there’s something more under that. Are you trying to plan everything out to control what happens to feel safe?
Yes of course!!!!
OK, I want you to feel safe. I think making a plan makes sense. AND we can’t try to 100% control everything in order to feel safe, you know?
Are you asking me to trust?
Kind of?
That’s too much right now.
Yeah, that makes sense. We can put a pin in trust and work on a plan for now.
Thank you.
Feeling so much less panicked now. Ready to make a cup of tea and get on with this plan... actually I know things ARE planned out in my project management app, it's just that my inner selves never seem to be able to see it there.
I'm going to write it all out in my journal, that helps me to see it all written out in my handwriting.
Also... did we put a pin in trust or is that what I am REALLY working on as I work on this plan?
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
Believing in myself…
as in believing that I can be the version of myself who can do the thing I want to do next…
YIKES.
Sometimes - YES! I feel it.
Right now it’s just yikes.
And this is the practice.
To keep bringing myself back to the place of believing in it because if I don’t fully believe it, that makes it much harder for me to make it happen.
You act different when you believe in yourself fully. And those are the actions that get you there.
It’s not necessarily that you take huge risks because you believe they’ll pan out. You can act more confidently AND take little steps AND mitigate risk along the way. Often, when you really believe in yourself it doesn’t feel so risky anyway because you trust the little steps.
But, here I am today, not really feeling it.
I’m also not feeling LACK of believing in myself, or whatever the opposite of believing in myself is. I just feel tired and kind of foggy.
So I ask: does my tired and foggy self know how to do this? Like, can I be tired and foggy AND making little bits of progress every day?
What comes to mind is embroidery. That first winter when I decided to try embroidering things into my clothes. It took a while to get into it! But as I started taking steps, as in: firming up the pattern, drawing it out to figure out exactly how I wanted to do it, getting embroidery thread in all the colours, gathering needles and scissors with the thread.... eventually momentum took over.
The act of DOING helped energize me.
I wasn't energized FIRST, and then the doing happened.
This is so connected to the explorations around motivation I am doing in my Dream Book right now.
I mean - it's easier to believe in myself in this way when I see myself taking consistent steps.
It's all a loop.
I'm so excited to explore this in
Your Self Doubt Is Not Yours You Deserve To Believe In Yourself
✨healing circle for releasing self doubt
✨community spell for all of us to believe in ourselves, deeply and fully
✨guided journal for integrating the healing + magic.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members get the call details here.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
Sharing this page from my journal today:
One thing that makes this easier: remember that EVERYONE'S dreams are sacred.
You're not special in that way, we're ALL special in that way.
This is why anti-racism, anti-sexism, ALL forms of anti-oppression work are a part of dream work.
We are all connected, we need everyone, our dreams need everyone's dreams.
Journal prompt: MY DREAMS ARE SCARED. How do I think/feel/act different when I remember this?
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
This is the mantra I got in this week’s Dream Book journaling + alchemy kit: I am determined to succeed
Use the meditation for the weekly mantras to dig in deeper to the mantra, or put your hands on your heart and take five deep slow breaths and repeat to yourself:
I am determined to succeed
Notice where this lands in your body, what thoughts and feelings get sparked.
There is no right or wrong way to react. But your actual thoughts and feelings can tell you something about what you need right now.
How it lands for me: a flickering in my belly.
There's a lot there, determination YES and confidence YES and also... the fears.
This dovetails so nicely with my current explorations about MOTIVATION.
Being told by my doctor that a lack of motivation is a perimenopause symptom, and a common one that goes with my particular cluster of symptoms, noticing all the different things that can and do motivate...
I am starting a page in my Dream Book (that Dream Book lesson comes out around month 9 so you might not have access to it yet) about motivation: where does it come from, where do I want it to come from, what might help with that, what other thoughts come to mind about motivation... just get it all out on one page and see what's needed.
If you want to work on this with me:
If I am determined to succeed feels good and encouraging, hold it with you today. Look at problems, questions, stucks and obstacles through this lens and see what ideas it brings.
If it brings up some discomfort - that’s your stuff to work on today. To do that work, in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership we’ve got the un-sticking station and the library of inner work practices. If you’re not sure what practice to use, you can email me, or post in our forum, let me know what’s going on and I will make some suggestions for tools you can use.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
Note: This is a post about my daily practice with my Creative Dreams - I often link to the tools, courses and processes I use which are available to Dream Book members. If you're not a member, find out more + join us here.
On Fridays I do my Dream Status Report which is a series of prompts I use every week to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
Now I do my reports on the printable journaling sheet (this is accessible to everyone who reads the blog, not just for membership people) instead of on the computer, which I did for YEARS. I LOVE THIS. It just feels different on paper.
Last week I was SO crabby and lost.
I went to a coffee shop to do my journaling and didn't even have the prompts printed out and that felt like a real metaphor for how I was feeling about everything.
This week is so different! I printed out five new copies of the sheets and marvelled at the magic of printing from my phone while still in bed, and then picking up the sheet at my printer downstairs when I was ready to leave.
I really enjoyed this, I even filmed myself filling in the sheet and I'll share it, sped up, as a reel on Instagram today. I am having so much fun with that.
The focus I came to at the end of the sheet is: being my most wildly joyfully engaged self.
I'm still in that tango with resistance. But I have new information about that!!
I saw my doctor about hormone replacement last week, and she was asking about my symptoms and... she told me low motivation is a perimenopause symptom AND it's especially common with the other symptoms that I have.
And I think some of my resistance IS a lack of motivation and if the hormones could help that.... whoa.
So, yes, I am on hormones now! (no advice or feedback about the medical stuff! My doctor really understands this! I do want to share more about this too though - not the hormones themselves, but the process of GETTING HELP when you've been feeling like shit for a long time)
Time will tell if the hormones do help... but regardless I have a new dream work practicing of choosing to hold the intention that the hormones ARE helping and I AM becoming more motivated every day.
I had not ever, in all of my (many!!!) explorations of resistance, noticed that I do have less motivation than I used to have. It's like I've just been blaming myself for being foggy and tired and not wanting to do anything.
I'm excited about where these explorations will go. I'm starting with "I am more motivated every day" and using the meditation for the weekly mantras for exploring my reactions. Maybe get a list going about WHAT motivates me? How I WANT to be motivated?
🦄⚡️Creative Dream Incubator Weekly Coaching Call is today!!
Hope to see you there - or catch the replay over the weekend! Call details + replays are here. And after the call I'll start a thread in the forum to share your plans for the week and as a space for accountability and support.
If you can't be there live but have a question or there's something you are struggling with, send me an email this morning and I'll discuss it on the call and offer you some suggestions for things to do.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your Dream Status Report or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
I had decided not to share this, lol. And then I decided to share this because I see other people breaking up or contemplating it, and I see people with dreams that fall apart and they're in the place where they don't know how to put anything back together and I was remembering how that felt and I wanted to share this story from the other side of all of that.
This year has been intense!
I have maybe learned more about myself this year, than any other year of my life and that is really saying something!
So I wanted to mark this anniversary. That morning I rode my bike downtown for my favourite breakfast treat, the Everything Bagel Doughnut, and ate it in the park with my journals, but didn’t feel like journaling. It was a gorgeous morning and I just sat there, appreciating EVERYTHING.
Then I meal prepped roast veggie salads for the week, cleaned up the loft, got my art supplies organized because my dreams told me to MAKE MORE ART this week, and did laundry including washing my bedding.
That night I was going to a potluck + bonfire at my friend's farm and I wanted to come home to a tidy place, a fridge full of nutrient dense yummies (seeing mason jar salads in the fridge make my heart happy, and the lettuce stays crisp all week that way) and fresh clean sheets on the bed.
I did tell my friends that it was the anniversary.
They were supportive. They listened to what I wanted to say about it.
Lots of "you're better off"s. No shade to my ex, but everyone is better off not being with someone who would just walk out on them like that.
In the car, once we were on our way home, my friend asked "So how was it for you?" and I was like "How was what?" and she said "The anniversary" and I had forgotten all about it.
That's a moment I wish I could have sent to myself-from-a-year-ago.
I love the way I treat myself now.
All the ways I had been pouring into my marriage, I now pour into just me. And it’s awesome.
All the things I wanted my husband to give me, now I give to me, and it’s awesome.
Including the things I didn’t even realize I was wanting from him, until sorting through my feelings in the breakup! Which is part of the miracle of this last year, it feels like so many things that I wanted actually came to me, but in completely different form from what I was expecting.
I’m not saying divorce is easy. But I am truly appreciating where I am now.
In a lot of ways, it is an opportunity to have a whole new life.
And in my situation, my outer life didn't change all that much. I didn't move. I didn't change jobs, or suddenly have to get a job. I do have some financial pressure that wasn't there before. And my goals shifted a little. But I know that I was lucky to have a LOT of stability during my divorce that not everyone has.
AND STILL it feels like a whole new life.
It seems so small to say it this way but it's huge.
Really BEING IN the wreckage of things falling apart is a transformative experience.
I see it all the time with people and their dreams - things fall apart in a HUGE way, and it's so painful and terrifying. Like a dream falling apart really can be an existential crisis.
But when we can BE WITH the immensity and depth of of that moment, we are transformed by it.
So, I woke up the next morning, in my freshly washed bed in my tidy home.
I could smell the fire on my clothes from the night before.
My heart felt so light.
Fuck yeah! I love my life.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
We all know that self doubt is a raging epidemic among us sensitive creative types.
We all have it... AND YET... we also all seem to feel alone in it?
And worse - we BLAME OURSELVES for it.
Self doubt is often experienced as some kind of personal failing. Like if you were worth believing in 100% then you'd be doing it. That's not true.
Self doubt is NOT a personal failing... Self Doubt is CULTURAL
You learned it from the culture you grew up in.
It's not yours.
It was given to you without your consent, and you can give it back.
That's what we're going to work on in Your Self Doubt Is Not Yours You Deserve To Believe In Yourself.
This is a:
✨healing circle for releasing self doubt
✨community spell for all of us to believe in ourselves, deeply and fully
✨guided journal for integrating the healing + magic.
This is included in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership - members can get the details here.
It's also open for registration outside of the membership - here.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.
I actually just had a few days of feeling really good and sure. I’ve got this head cold so I am not moving as fast as I’d like to, but I didn’t feel stuck…
Until today, when I have time and space to take these next steps with the creative work and my mind just goes blank.
It’s a familiar blank. Like a haze that sets in when it’s time to be brave and sure of myself.
Bringing the haze into the Un-Sticking Station.
Hi haze.
Haze is a summer day, hot and muggy and let’s just lay around and read novels.
Yeah I am totally down to lay around and read novels! That’s awesome. AND this project is awesome too. It’s not actually muggy in here, it’s air conditioned and comfortable and I really could get to work for a bit…. what do you think?
Haze doesn’t want to think.
OK, I respect that. Can you tell me why you’re here?
It’s summer.
Yeah, but why are you in my head, right here right now when I want to get to work?
Oh! To stop you.
I see that. Why do you want to stop me?
I have something better for you.
Is it rest?
Yup!
Hmmmm
How can you and I work together on this thing? Like, I am open to this not looking or feeling like work… I notice that I’ve been doing A LOT of creative work in that journal and you aren’t wanting to stop me from that.
No, that’s awesome! I love that project.
OK, so how do we make this project just as fun?
Well for starters, you are trying to TYPE this project, and that project is painting and drawing.
But that’s not even true, a huge part of this project is drawing - just on the tablet, not in a journal.
No, you’re PLANNING OUT the drawing by TYPING on the keyboard. It’s all too… uck. Plan. Type. Boring.
So if I draw and paint the exact same thing in my journal, then it would be ok with you?
That, and - make a cup of iced tea. And sit at the art table to do this.
OK. Iced tea. Art Table. Drawing/painting these ideas into a journal instead of typing them on a laptop. And that would make this project work for you? No haze then?
And put your headphones on with meditation music.
OK let’s go try this…
++++
(Yes, it worked)
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.
Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay.