We are doing the 30 day journaling + meditation invitation for the month of August. An explanation of this project is here. I'll be posting an update here every day (M-F) for the month of August and I'm also doing short videos on Instagram to share things I am learning along the way.\

And check out the new Creative Dream Incubator RedBubble shop! THE MOST encouraging notebooks, zipper pouches, mugs, magnets, stickers + art prints.

Again today I started with the Dream Self meditation, to meet with the version of me who IS as creative, powerful and magnetic as I AM.

Her clothes are swishier than mine and brighter. She kind of floats, like she’s uplifted by joy.

And, rather ungraciously, I think “‘yeah I bet she doesn’t have (situation) to contend with”

Hmmm. That’s an interesting thought. Why wouldn’t this version of me have this situation to contend with?

It feels like a touch of “‘once I have healed or grow in this way, my life will be perfect and nothing will bother me, ever again”

But I think there’s also something else there, so I’m going down rabbit hole.

OK let’s place this version of me into this situation and see how she reacts - in my imagination.

I see two possibilities for how it plays out:

1. She actually doesn’t have to contend with it, because she did this other thing that stopped this thing from even happening. Interesting, this shows me a new option for how I could handle the situation.

2. She does contend with it, only she doesn’t feel like she’s “‘contending”. She giggles and offers empathy the person as they do the behaviour but it doesn’t impact her like it impacts me. Which shows me ANOTHER option for how I could handle the situation.

And it presents a question: what if I let this version of me make ALL of my decisions?

Which is a Dream Book process actually, where you do alchemy meditation to connect with the version of you who has your dream, and then let that part of you make the decisions about how you’re moving forward for 1 week to see how that brings different insights, ideas and results.

I could do that.

Because I do have a situation, a question I wanted to bring into this practice:

How do I finish the Year of Dreams 2023 project while staying slowed down?

What comes to me is to substitute deep work for hard work, or fast work. (I’ve noticed that working hard and working fast feel same to me)

Deep work has it’s own logistical issues. And a lot of things feel challenging to me this week, and so getting to that place where deep work is possible feels extra challenging.

Or is that just my self doubt talking?

Yeah, probably.

The thing is, I DID finish the Year of Dreams planners and planning kits but then I was inspired to add another kit - the goodbye old year hello new year journaling kit.

I always knew I’d do that kit later on, but now I want to put them all out together. So I am holding back on the Year of Dreams in order to finish the new year kit, which changes every time I work on it.

I am having so much fun with it.

So why pressure myself into finishing it this month?

This feels like “work hard” vibes which is NOT “slow the fuck down” vibes.

Oh! It’s that little “because I live in capitalism” thing. I think they’ll sell better together.

But writing this all out it’s like - wow Andrea this is not a thing to worry about.

The magic of journaling is saying: just keep working on it.

Keep ENJOYING the creative process with it. You have 2 weeks still, to hit your “by the end of August” deadline and actually - who cares if this happens in early September instead? Especially if you are making it BETTER by re-imagining the new year journaling kit?

All good points.

This is the kind of journaling that is SO BORING but also so helpful.

Just space to work through it and get all parts of my brain on board and ready to get to work.

This is the kind of stuff that I get resistance from with people. They want to keep doing something NEW and for it to always feel creative and interesting. But that’s not how it works.

A resistance to showing up for the boring parts of sustaining a practice is a resistance to depth. And the depth is where the magic is.