I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.
This is recurring theme in my Year of Hope journal.
Hope is on the other side of grief.
Hope is on the other side of anxiety.
Hope is on the other side of rage.
Etc, etc, etc.
This regular reminder that the kind of hope I am looking for can't be found in ignoring, avoiding or numbing the hard stuff.
On Fridays I do these "Dream Status Report" prompts to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
There are journaling sheets for doing this! These are available for everyone, not just membership members. Download them here.
Answering these same prompts every week is magic.
This week I added a new one to how it will FEEL to have my dream: MORE ALIVE.
Which just feels so affirming of all the things I am working on - I do feel alive now, and appreciate feeling alive, and can see how this project will help me feel even more alive.
This week we had cooler temperatures (for summer) which was such a relief - I had so much more energy. I saw a friend and said "I am really living my life!!!"
This week I volunteered for an organization I used to volunteer for, and haven't had the energy to do so in a long time, so getting back to it felt great. And hanging out with other people who care about the things I care about felt so good too.
Looking back on what I did, I feel a lack of pressure.
So much of my work with my dreams this year has been re-establishing my routines and structures and figuring out... how do I take care of myself properly while showing up for my dreams? This feels so complicated in mid-life with all of the physical and mental health challenges of fluctuating hormone levels.
But this week I feel like... I am doing such a good job of supporting myself to keep showing that I really deeply trust I will keep showing up and so... no pressure. Some weeks it may feel like nothing happens and som weeks it may feel like a lot happens and it doesn't really matter how the outer outcomes and coming in, as long as I have this steadiness in how I am showing up.
My dream needs more structure.
The Dream Lab meetings this week have been pointing to it and I've been slowly learning what this means.
Again with the no pressure and newfound levels of patience. A few new moon calls ago the message I got was to remember that there are MANY STEPS on a path and to focus on the ones right in front of me because I keep looking too far ahead and tripping myself up.
It's taking a while but I feel like I am really doing that. Enjoying the tiny steps, understanding that they don't get me exactly where I want to be immediately - but I am moving towards it and I am trusting the process.
Trusting the process has felt really hard for a long time.
There was a time where my perimenopause symptoms felt debilitating and then the divorce I didn't see coming on top of that made the ground beneath me feel really uncertain.
But it's almost 2 years since my husband left and 1 year since I went on hormonal birth control (not for everyone but it makes a huge difference for me at this point) and this year I've been focusing on BEING the artist I know I AM now.
Which, when I started this in January, I knew nothing about. And now, half a year into making more space for art and just giving myself time to sink into... what do I want now... things are shifting and nothing concrete yet but I have this delicious ability to trust the process right now.
And as I've been appreciating this I've also been thinking about how we don't need to trust the process we just need to stay in it. And that we cannot always be in a place where trusting the process is even possible. But being in one of the places where that trust is accessible - I am just appreciating the heck out of it.
Co-Dreaming/Co-Working call is today!
We'll start with a short meditation for connecting with the soul of your dream (like the Dream Lab) and then have time for whatever you want to do - planning next week, working on your projects, sharing your updates, talking about something that is stuck with your dreams or just hanging out in the magic of the group.
When you feel panicked and like you need to figure this out right away, you need to TAKE ACTION right away - that’s a sign to take a breath. That is a sign to NOT figure anything or or take any action at all.
We look around at this broken world and it’s like… well yeah a better world HAS TO be possible but how the fuck do we get there?
And it’s so easy to get stuck in that, and all of the feelings that it brings up.
And it’s so hard to contemplate working through all of those feelings to get to the other side of them, that place where you have some sense of how you want to show up for the future you want to create… and like you have some solid ground beneath you for taking those steps.
IT’S SO HARD.
It might be impossible to fully contemplate and process all of that on our own, while also living in this increasingly-stressful world.
But it’s not impossible to do together.
I’ve been doing it with the people in the Creative Dream Incubator membership on our weekly Zooms. I’ve been doing it with my therapist. I’ve been doing it with my friends and family.
In small and big ways, we keep figuring out how to show up.
I can’t wait for our call today, to do this together in a BIG way.
A Better World is Possible: Showing Up For The Future You Want To Create
June 30 1pm Central * Live on Zoom, replay provided
Space to sit with everything that is happening and tend to your feelings about it all and move towards knowing how you want to show up for the future you want to create - either in your own life or in the world at large or both.
This is the work right now and I am so grateful to get to do this work in such an incredible community.
This feels like such a big part of the work right now.
I spent a lot of time thinking of what word to use... am I pulling myself out of distractions? Pushing?
DRAWING felt right because it felt creative.
I'm not trying to punish myself for getting distracted. Of course I am getting distracted!
I am trying to entice myself into something better.
While acknowledging that the feelings driving the desire to distract are valid.
It's a delicate balance and feels like it might be a big part of this work for some time.
Tomorrow: A Better World is Possible: Showing Up For The Future You Want To Create
Healing Circle + Community Spell * June 30 1pm Central * Live on Zoom, replay provided
From Existential Dread to Hope and everything in between.
This is: Space to sit with everything that is happening and tend to your feelings about it all and move towards knowing how you want to show up for the future you want to create - either in your own life or in the world at large or both.
This is the work right now and I am so grateful to get to do this work in such an incredible community.
Call details are here. This is for all membership members. If you're not a member, this call is worth joining for! Join us here.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.
At some point hope has to become action.
We all see it in the US with the Republican politicians who offer thoughts and prayers after school shootings and refuse to take action on sensible gun legislation.
Here in Canada our politicians keep saying they want to respond to climate change and protect us from climate collapse… but we need to keep building MORE pipelines (and passed a bill to override Indigenous consultation to put new pipelines through Indigenous territory quickly) and extracting all we can… to fund the green economy of the future.
At some point real hope requires real action.
If you cannot or will not back up your hope with action - it’s worthless.
It’s very easy for us to see this in our politicians and other scenarios…
… it’s harder to see it when it comes to our own dreams.
But that’s where my Year of Hope daily journal practice has landed me now.
Hope isn’t just…. like a nice feeling or idea. It needs legs. It needs to have the power to act or else it becomes something else.
Holding onto hope for something but not taking any action to support it turns toxic.
When it comes to issues like climate change and the fascist takeover of your government and watching democracy crumble before your eyes… of course these things feel “too big”. Of course any steps you might be able to take feel like too little.
But taking them matters.
Same thing with our dreams.
I’ve been in this weird intersection of getting a divorce I didn’t see coming, while turning 50 and suddenly not being so sure about who I really am or what I really want, while my closest neighbours are becoming fascists and launched a trade war that threatens to become a war war as in they want to take us over, while being self employed during a chaotic economy, while checking the air quality monitors to see if it’s ok to go for a bike ride because wildfire season is completely out of control in my province (in a place where floods are usually the bigger problem!), while worrying about all of the wildfire evacuees, while being terrified about the ongoing genocides, while trying to re-discover myself as an artist in all of this.
And most days it’s easier to just say… this is too much. I don’t know what steps to take but if I did I’m sure they would be too much. So what if I just don’t.
But the NOT DOING adds up over time just like taking little steps add up over time.
This is just really hitting me.
THE
NOT
DOING
ADDS
UP
OVER
TIME.
And the doing… well it doesn’t even matter how big the steps you take are, it doesn’t matter how relevant they feel or what the immediate results are.
Doing creates movement. Doing creates possibility. Doing builds the path that leads to the better future.
(Not to be confused with over-working, pushing, striving, etc. There is a balance.)
Let's work together to figure out what little steps we can take!
A Better World is Possible: Showing Up For The Future You Want To Create is happening this Wednesday!!
Healing Circle + Community Spell * June 30 1pm Central * Live on Zoom, replay provided
From Existential Dread to Hope and everything in between.
This is: Space to sit with everything that is happening and tend to your feelings about it all and move towards knowing how you want to show up for the future you want to create - either in your own life or in the world at large or both.
This is the work right now and I am so grateful to get to do this work in such an incredible community.
Call details are here. <-- this is for all membership members. If you're not a member - this call is worth joining for! Join here.
On Fridays I do these "Dream Status Report" prompts to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
There are journaling sheets for doing this! These are available for everyone, not just membership members. Download them here.
I spent a lot of this week stuck in a very sticky pool of resistance.
Like - quicksand only sticky instead of quick?
It feels gross.
My dream and my current new moon intention felt SO FAR AWAY. I felt like I need to take action IMMEDIATELY and also I didn't know what action to take.
This is such a common creative dream dynamic. We want to move forward but we can get in a panic about moving forward, and making decisions from the panic is not helpful. What we need in those moments is to stop moving.
It's the Compass of Creative Dream Alchemy.
We are trying to do Outer Work when either Dream Work or Inner Work is what's called for. If we can do the correct "work" then we can get moving. If we keep trying to force the Outer Work we're going to get ourselves more stuck.
Which describes my week, lol.
Luckily I took a day off in there to go to the beach and that really helped re-set my mind and be like "Hey if I really want to take action, how about I step back, look at where I am where I want to be and brainstorm more ways to create the path and really look at finding/creating the BEST way instead of taking steps as quickly as possible?"
This morning I journaled out PAGES of brainstorms of all the ways I COULD do what I want to do.
And I noticed there is this part of me who is mad that I haven't already done this, and so judges every idea I have, and if a part of me is trying to quiet that part... well it's just a lot of my energy going to nonsense instead of being available to work on this thing that I want to do.
My dream shows up as a fluffy baby bird.
And it just feels like... you got this. My whole body softens. I feel so supported.
The bird wants me to remember the brainstorming I did in my journal this morning - there are good ideas there! You got this!
And then all of the resistance I've been feeling this week just feels... ok. Like "This is ok. This is just a part of the process. I'm working through it."
I need to keep coming back to this place of trust.
Tools in the membership that help with this:
Dream Lab as a regular practice! It really changes things.
This happens regularly in the membership with the meditations and journaling prompts. You suddenly see your situation in a different light.
Often it’s that you have a moment of CLARITY about an internal obstacle… a way that you’ve been approaching your dream that just isn’t working for you…
... which is SO GOOD and yet you feel like shit about it.
Oh - I am fucking up. I am in my way. I am self sabotaging. I am doing this wrong.
Then your inner critic can have a hay day with it and you spiral into a dark place.
But... if you keep showing up...
(Use the Un-Sticking Station meditations. Remembering that there’s one for “when I am too upset to do this” which will help bring you back from a dark place.)
... You work through that initial reaction.
And you integrate the new awareness.
Your perspective shifts from “I fucked up, I am doing this wrong, I am a fuck up, I will never succeed” to “Oh I could just change the way I’ve been approaching this one thing and that would give me a lot of new options!”
Then you change the way you’ve been approaching that one thing.
And suddenly you have new options. AND new energy, clarity, inspiration and motivation.
This is how it works a lot of the time! Having sudden clarity about what needs to change can trigger shame, instead of helping you take your next steps.
It sucks!!!!
But we have the tools in the membership to work through it and not get stuck in it. (Dream Book gives you structure + support, the library of Inner Work helps get out of the really hard spots)
And I am always trying to create a culture where we don’t judge ourselves for it.
We accept that - this is just a thing that happens. It doesn’t mean anything about our value or worth or potential.
Here are the journal prompts to use when you feel stuck:
What is it that I think needs to change?
What do I think I need to do differently?
Why have I not done that?
Use these prompts WITH NO JUDGEMENT.
Ask these questions with NO belief that there is an "ideal way" to be.
Sometimes we judge and shame ourselves into doing the things that we think we get us the external results we want and that's NOT the way.
Sometimes we try to pressures ourselves to take action and make it happen no matter how uncomfortable it gets and that's NOT the way.
Sometimes we think that if we are stuck then we are WRONG and that is not true.
The places where we are stuck are RICH places for exploration, discovery, healing, growth and manifesting new possibilities that we can't even see from where we are now.
The stuck is a portal and an opportunity for a miracle.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership Members remember The Un-Sticking Station! This is a miracle generator and it works better the more you use it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.
I am over half a year in to exploring hope. I love this.
I went through a period where I struggled to fill this journal. I am now filling pages several days ahead!
It's all a part of it.
Right now what's coming to me is how much COURAGE it takes to be hopeful
And then how much COURAGE and HOPE it takes to dream.
We can't just... wake up and do this work.
There is all of this foundational work we do to even begin to feel ready to show up.
Next week: A Better World is Possible: Showing Up For The Future You Want To Create
Healing Circle + Community Spell * June 30 1pm Central * Live on Zoom, replay provided
From Existential Dread to Hope and everything in between.
This is: Space to sit with everything that is happening and tend to your feelings about it all and move towards knowing how you want to show up for the future you want to create - either in your own life or in the world at large or both.
This is the work right now and I am so grateful to get to do this work in such an incredible community.
On Fridays I do these "Dream Status Report" prompts to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
There are journaling sheets for doing this! These are available for everyone, not just membership members. Download them here.
I am coming to you fresh from over an hour laying on the floor with my Dream Book and my cat Bear.
I always feel MY BEST when I give myself more space for that first thing, before getting into anything else.
It felt GOOD to fill in the sheet this week. I feel attuned to my dreams and my self.
This last week was chaotic, again.
But I love the way I handled it. I love the way I showed up for myself and my dreams in spite of not having everything be calm and easy around me.
I am learning to really trust myself as an artist...
But this includes REALLY being with the places where I DON'T trust myself as an artist. Which aren't about creativity or anything, they are about... do I deserve it? Am I good enough?
It sucks to have to keep doing this work to claim that I do deserve it and I am good enough...
But it would suck more to stop doing this work and shrink my life so that I never have these fears again.
What I need is gentleness with myself. What my dreams needs is for me to keep moving... no matter how slow.
Looking at these together, it feels like SLOW IS MAGIC because it makes space for gentleness and self care AND progress so I am going to go with that for next week's focus.
Co-Dreaming/Co-Working call is today!
We'll start with a short meditation for connecting with the soul of your dream (like the Dream Lab) and then have time for whatever you want to do - planning next week, working on your projects, sharing your updates, talking about something that is stuck with your dreams or just hanging out in the magic of the group.
Recently I shared this A HA moment about accepting that “What if I am just not great at the parts I’m not great at?” And how freeing it was to let go of trying to be better at them.
Well this A HA moment feels just as important even though it's kind of the opposite:
There is a part of me who has already mastered the thing I am trying to do.
This came to me in a meditation with the soul of my dream as I was trying to figure some stuff out and it landed like a lightning bolt.
I knew it was true.
AND
I knew very little about this part of me who has mastered this thing.
This did bring up despair and frustration.
But I kept sitting with it.
Wrestling with it.
And now I am starting to see some things in a new light.
It’s taking time but I feel like I am moving on the right path with this.
Connecting with the part of you who knows how to do the thing you want to do next is a HUGE part of our work in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership.
It took me a while to settle in, but I lay down and my cat curled up on my chest, and we got into the Dream Lab (20 minute version).
This is one of the gifts of showing up somewhat consistently: Because I do this particular meditation regularly, the music really helps shift my nervous system. I went from over-stimulated to feeling settled in my body and my mind softened within the first few minutes. I felt present.
It won’t happen this way every time! But I am so grateful when it does.
And then, while I was in the field of Creative Dream Alchemy part of the meditation, before I even brought in the soul of my dream, I started getting GENIUS IDEAS.
Three times I had to stop the meditation to take notes.
And then when I got to the part where I was meeting with my dream: WHOA.
I did this meditation yesterday, too, and it was very much connected to today's meditation.
Yesterday my dream was a water sprinkler and it was sprinkling VERY VERY VERY small, like there was hardly any water running through it. It took me a while to even understand what it was. Then in time I started to see the field/garden around it.
I felt very worried that the water wasn’t flowing fast enough and the sprinkler couldn’t get to all the parts of the garden. I was thinking of all the plants that could be thriving if the water could get to them.
My dream asked me to notice was WAS working:
The garden well planted and tended to.
The sprinkler is set up!
The water is flowing!!! Stop judging the AMOUNT of flow and notice that FLOW EXISTS!!!!
EVERYTHING. IS. WORKING.
Still, I wanted to look at all the ways this garden could thrive if I could only figure out how to turn the water on full blast.
This is how we are with our dreams, a lot of the time. And this is a natural way to see things as a creative person because we are VISIONARIES so we see what’s possible.
We need to practice seeing and appreciating the work that’s already been done and the steps we’ve already taken. This was all once just a vision, too!
This is also how we are with our dreams because our culture encourages it. FASTER. BIGGER. MORE. We don’t always notice the ways the buzz around us impacts our perspective on the world.
OK but back to what's happening in the meditation today.
Today my the soul of dream shows up as a garden that feels like the same garden from yesterday… but everything is GROWING. FAST.
And I remember how (in real life, not the meditation) the herbs I have growing outside on my patio have been growing so fast lately that when I was watering them this morning I wondered if I should look up how to best store them. Because I put them on my meals every day and I've been so grateful that they've been growing fast enough that I can do this... but now they are growing faster than I can eat them so do I need new recipes that use more herbs or should I freeze or dry them?
This is how my dream garden is growing.
My dream is like: you’re doing the work! You’re tending and watering and things are GROWING. It’s summer. They are REALLY growing. You are doing it.
And in the meditation I just felt so peaceful and trusting and happy watching these plants grow.
So I went from overstimulated and anxious and really headed for a bad day to feeling peaceful, trusting and happy... AND with three new ideas to explore.
This is the power of this work.
This is the power of showing up and practicing no matter what.
There's an email form on the top of the home page of the membership - send me an email, let me know what you're working on and I'll help you find some ways to make it easier to show up.
Having a plan and some support makes a HUGE difference.
Look through the table of contents in your Dream Book - or if you don't have a Dream Book start one! Your Dream Book will help you navigate the inner and outer aspects of your dream.
