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.

For this challenge, I designed mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" on them - they are here.

Today my practice is really dull.

I am enjoying this delicious sensation of “having the time to remember what an all-round magical + creative being I am”.

When I meditate on the theme I just feel more YESSSSS.

And I have nothing to journal about other than - this feels so much easier than it did last week. Yay!

It’s boring. And that’s ok.

I just spent my minimum amount of time with this, and now I am going to go on to do what I feel instead and exited about - the Year of Dreams 2023. (As pictured)

The weekly and monthly planners and the planning cutouts (so people who have a planner they like can still use Creative Dream Incubator planning + journaling prompts in their planner) are done! Now I am working on the New Year journaling kit.

So I’m going to share something I wrote last month when I had first started exploring our theme:

You don't need to change yourself.

Spending time journaling and reflecting, especially on the same topic for 30 days (or longer) in a row, may lead you to see things in a new light which leads to changes in your behaviour or new ideas for things to try with your dreams. It does have the potential to change EVERYTHING.

But that "outer change" part is not the goal.

The only goal is to show up for your practice and BE WITH whatever is there for you that day - if that's new ideas or lots of fears and resistance or boredom or... literally whatever is there, that's what you be with.

I believe that at the end of the 30 days you'll know what, if anything, you want to DO with all of this.

Try not to even think about it before then.

Just keep going. Even if it's hard to do because it brings up a lot of uncomfortable questions (like it was for me last week). Even if it's boring (like it is for me right now). Even if it's ______ <-- fill in this blank with whatever reason your mind is giving you for why this is not worth doing.

Just keep going. And each day, journal about how it's going for you.

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.

For this challenge, I designed mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" on them - they are here.

(This is the Year of Dreams 2022 printable planner - the Year of Dreams 2023 will be out this month! It's much more flexible with planner cutouts you can use with my hand-drawn monthly or weekly planner - or with your own favourite planner or bullet journal.)

Why are we so resistant to slowing down and resting?

After all, rest is the most simple and obvious solution to burnout, overwhelm, exhaustion - a lot of the things we're all feeling right now.

And yet I keep seeing people (including myself) looking for a magic pill to not feel these things without taking the time to rest and slow down. Maybe if I eat better, or switch from coffee to mushroom drinks or find the right supplement or herbalist...

Is it not worth questioning the stories we tell about why we absolutely cannot slow down? Or exploring the guilt, shame or fear that come up when we try?

Is it not worth exploring the bigger picture of WHY so many of us are burned out? Like what is it, about the culture we live in, that is creating an epidemic of burnout? And how could we potentially CHANGE the culture to be healthier all around?

Because focusing on nutrition and exercise is the individualist approach, and I think it’s the individualist approach that got us into this mess.

We’re simply trying to do more than we can do because we have unreasonable expectations and insufficient support systems.

And this impacts us all in so many different ways.

So. Let’s keep showing up. Each day, each tiny thing we do to get more rest and/or explore how all of this is playing out in your life, counts.

On Mondays I do Creative Genius Planning, so I am going to keep doing that this month, while bringing our theme for the month into my weekly planning.

I have not been using the Creative Genius Planning videos lately - and that has felt right as I've been wanting to slow down and re-fill the well.

But last week I noticed I really do need more direction with my projects, and goals for how I want to move them forward each week.

So the plan this week is to plan, and to keep lots of space for rest + creativity, too.

Inside Dream Book there are seven different Creative Genius Planning videos for different situations. But I have shared the basic practice video on my blog, and that's the one I decided to use this week.

So you can do that with me here. (If you're in Dream Book get all 7 videos to chose the one that fits best for your week here)

Will stop writing here, go do that, and come back....

ARGH!!

Every time I listen to this video I ask myself: why do I ever skip it?

So often, I feel like it's not wroth the time, I can just ask myself "what do I need this week?" and especially lately as I have been deliberately living more space in my calendar for the summer - it's like why even bother with this?

Why bother because: I feel SO GOOD following this video. It shifts my energy. It helps me connect to myself and my dreams.

AND after I have more of a clear container for my week - any time I feel lost or stuck I have these notes to help me find my way.

Just writing out what I want to do while in that space of feeling connected to my creative genius and believing myself makes SUCH a difference.

And this is HUGE for BEING my most creative, powerful and magnetic self.

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.

For this challenge, I designed mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" on them - they are here.

On Fridays I do a series of reflective journaling prompts.

I've been doing this for about 8 years - with the same prompts - and sharing it inside the Creative Dream Circle.

This weekly practice helps me figure out what I am learning and what I need anyhow to move forward for the next week.

Some of these prompts don't really make sense being shared outside of that container, so I decided to post a shortened version of it this month. While you are doing the 30 days of journaling and meditation, it's really helpful to look back each week and what you learned and what that might tell you about what to do next.

Last week’s focus was: 

Get the 30 days of journaling + meditation started and let it be DELICIOUS.

 

What happened in the last week?

A lot of it was delicious, but a lot of it was really hard, too. Resistance, self doubt, frustration, boredom - all the usual suspects came out to play.

I started the daily posts, and found it wasn't as complicated as it seemed to do this in a public way. I am adding extra update videos on Instagram some days, and then not doing it on the days I don't have anything else to say. Before I thought I needed a plan for things like that, and I am finding just being in my creative flow with it feels good.

For me, having solid/clear/thoughtful plans can feel like safety. So when doing something that is stretching my comfort zone, I want to bring that safety in.

AND

Having it all planned out in advance can keep me from really being present in the process.

I like where I am balancing those things right now.

 

What am I learning/How do I feel about this?

I still feel I am in a steep learning curve around creating this new "expanded art + writing practice" that I am dreaming of. I've been getting the outer stuff in place - working on my new studio space. But there is SO MUCH inner stuff to work through.

 

What do I need now?

Sitting with this question and feeling uncomfortable with it then something came to me - a fun creative project. I feel overwhelmed by most of my project ideas. What if there was something really simple and fun?

I have been meaning to macramé around this hanging lap cord I have - I bought macrame cord to match the lamp (an orange star) over a year ago! I could just sit down and start that. I could get that done in a few days, and the doing would give me space to think about what project I want to do next. I FEEL BEST WHEN I HAVE CREATIVE PROJECTS ON THE GO, in all caps to really remind myself of how important this is.

 

Taking all of this into account, my focus for the next week is:

Keep going with the daily meditation and journaling on: Slow the fuck down! BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE.

I've done so much to explore the slow down part already, I really want to focus on exploring the qualities of creativity, power and magnetism and what they mean to me now.

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.

For this challenge, I designed mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" on them - they are here.

After yesterday’s meditation I had a realization:

Last month I had decided to put away my business goals for this year. Working on them felt too daunting but also I felt like I didn’t actually want them anymore, and I wanted to figure out what I DO want.

The realization was: I very much DO want those goals. But I also very much DO NOT want to go about them in the ways I have been.

And thinking back over the last 12 years - I have been so happy about HOW I have created and grown this business - all of the ways I have figured out how to stay true to myself and my values AND make money.

But as happy and free as I have felt about HOW I do things these last 12 years, it no longer feels happy and free.

I am now super aware of all of the places where I feel….. I don’t quite have the right words yet. Oppressed and impacted by capitalism and this toxic culture is the closest I can come, though I am aware that is not a feeling. I mean, are we ever truly free of it, when we live in it? This idea that you can make enough money to be free of capitalism is complete nonsense. Capitalism isn’t just about money.

But back to my realization:

I do still want what I want, and I know I want to go about it in a whole new way and I know some of the QUALITIES of this new way (creative, free, playful, expansive, healing, aligned)...

but I have no clue what this actually looks like.

ARGH. So many times I have had clients some to me with this exact same problem. And I always say “Excellent. You have a vague sense of how you want it to be, that’s more than enough to start with.”

But being on the other side, just having a vague sense of it, actually feels painful.

To know what I want only vaguely, and not know how to get there! It’s a space that invites in self doubt very easily.

Yesterday I felt optimistic about being able to figure out a whole new way to do things, and I saw what my next steps are: to create a new set of Alchemy Wheels for my goals.

Alchemy Wheels are one of the best tools we use in Dream Book that help you map out the inner and outer paths to do what you want to do, by focusing on the practices that support you in doing the work AND staying completely non-linear and following your own feelings/inspiration/energy in any given moment.

This morning I was riding my bike to the park for coffee + journaling and thinking about the new alchemy wheels I would create and then….. it happened.

As I said, this space of wanting to do something new and not seeing the way yet, is very vulnerable to inner critic attacks.

My inner critic attacked.

All of the “Why bother? What is the point? You’ll never pull this off” voices started to go off. I started to feel defeated.

And then I started to feel angry. How do I STILL have this much self doubt and anxiety about my dreams?

So that’s where I am focusing today.

I am using the Un-Sticking Station (another favourite Dream Book tool) to meet with my feelings that I won’t be able to figure this out.

While using the meditation, I had something surprising happen - instead of my working with my “stuck self” I had three different selves show up:

1. Anxiety, self doubt + fear (one self, all tangled up in this stuff)
2. Anger + frustration about being stuck
3. I just want to give up on all of this

These are a lot of feelings to hold at once. I mean - no wonder I can’t figure out my next steps with all of this happening.

Drawing them out helped me see that these are all valid responses. Of course I feel self doubt and fear and anxiety and then of course I feel frustrated and angry about that and then of course I just want to give up.

So, starting with the me who wants to give up:

Can you tell me what, exactly, you want to give up on here?

All of it actually. Isn’t there a simpler way to live? Everything feels so complicated.

We are living on a planet in a culture that is actively killing the planet. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! This IS complicated.

But it’s not! It shouldn’t be! Your life is a miracle. YOU are a miracle. Can’t you just feel that way all the time?

I sure would like to. So when you say you want to give up on everything - you mean all of the complicated parts of life? You still want to enjoy life?

I want to sew and make art and write and make guided journals. I want to wake up and appreciate the sun shine and the opportunity for a new day. I want to feel energized and enthusiastic about my life and what I am doing.

Yeah, I want all of that too.

Let me guess, you’re going say “but we live in reality”

Well we actually do live in reality.

[We just sit with this a minute]

I have to think about the hard things. You cannot do ANY of those things you mentioned if I am not paying the bills!

Oh shit. That’s right.

But I hear you, and I love you, and I don’t think your needs should be steamrolled by practicalities. What if we make this need to enthusiastically enjoy life be equal to the need to pay bills and take care of all of the practical stuff that we’d rather ignore?

[Then I realise - this has been a week of a LOT of dumb errands. I do feel like my energy gets sucked into these things I’d rather not do. This part of me being all sulky is such a valid response to this AND there just are times when I have a lot of dumb errands to do.]

OK back to my drawing. Seems like anger + frustration is the next one to talk to.

Hello, anger + frustration.

ARRRGGGRRROOOWWWWLLLL

Yeah, I feel that.

It is SO unfair that I/you/we STILL have all of this self doubt about doing new things! This is complete bullshit!

Yeah, not just that but we also have all new levels of anxiety thanks to peri-menopause.

[Anger + frustration is kind of bowled over by me just noticing and stating how this has been hard]

Hey, I am not here to admonish you or tell you to feel differently. That’s not the point of the Un-Sticking process. It’s just that you, and the others, are all feeling so much, so intensely, it leaves me no clear way forward. I want to work with you, not obliterate you.

I always forget that part. When I am SO angry I just end up being angry at everything.

That makes sense. So do you want to tell me more about what you’re really angry and frustrated about?

I’ve just been doing this for so long. So why do I STILL doubt myself? Why is it STILL scary to start something new?

I would also ask - where does the assumption come from, that it should get easier?

Oh! Shit.

Yeah.

[This reminds me, I have been wanting to write a thing about white supremacy, the holistic wellness movement and eugenics - about where our notion that “things should be easy” and also "things are easy for GOOD people and if you struggle that means you're doing something wrong" actually comes from]

But it’s totally valid to feel angry and frustrated that this feels hard. AND it’s totally valid that this IS hard. Both are true. How does this feel for you?

I think my anger wants to protect you/me/us from how hard it is sometimes. But - it actually can’t.

Well, what it does is get in the way of me FEELING all of that self doubt. So it is protective in that way. But that means I can’t process or work through it, so I just get stuck in it.

So I am not actually helping.

But isn’t that life though? We do our best, we try to help, but we can still unintentionally cause harm.

That is life. And of course I’ll get angry about it sometimes.

How does this feel now?

I feel settled. I’m proud that I tried to protect you, and I get that how I was doing it wasn’t helping.

OK then, on to self doubt, anxiety + fear.

How are you feeling?

I’ve been listening to these other conversations. I appreciate how much these other parts of me/you/us want what is best for me. I think I was in a very reactive and immature place - I go there VERY easily. But this space to validate and process feelings, this listening to you talk with the others, helped me come back to myself.

Self doubt is a reactionary pattern, it’s not the truth of who I am. The anxiety and fear get triggered by the self doubt. (And parts of the anxiety are triggered by other things and then it all gets confused)

Do you need anything from me?

I need you to not give up. One of the easiest ways to soothe self doubt is to look at the life I/you/we have created. How could I doubt that I can do this next thing, when I look at all we’ve already done?

Yeah, I feel that.

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.

For this challenge, I designed mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" on them - they are here.

Today I woke up super early, and did the meditation.

This time the “BE as creative, powerful, and magnetic as you ARE” came up as the thing to explore.

I filled my body with that energy and then fell back asleep. I woke up feeling amazing.

There is so much I want to share about the magic of slowing down but it’s the other part of this that I am really feeling today.

I am creative, powerful, and magnetic.

AND I can lose sight of that when I am caught up in my to-do lists.

I can start to feel like it’s the DOING that gets me to where I want to be.

Though I know it’s not 100% the BEING that gets me there either.

How do I want to balance the BEing with the DOing?

This is one of the big questions for me right now.

It’s ALWAYS been a part of my work - both my own personal process and what I support my clients and groups with.

Sometimes we talk about this as a spectrum between BEing and DOing.

But it’s more dimensional than that.

I mean - doing or not doing is not actually related to being or not being.

So, what I REALLY want to explore is:

HOW do I want to BE? Which aspects of myself do I want to live most in alignment with? What’s changing about how I want to be in my personal and professional lives?

HOW do I want to DO? What drives the doing? Which part of me is in charge of how the doing gets done? There is a LOT of auto-pilot stuff here - some helpful and some not. How do I shift through that? What are the overarching QUALITIES I want to bring to my approach to doing?

This starts to feel all vague and ethereal and like I am just going to come up with more questions than I could ever answer.

This is good!

This is a good way to explore. Questions are expansive. Most answers are not.

Try to stay open to ALL of the questions that come up for you.

And as more questions come up - sit with those questions too, and journal about that. Be with the feelings that come up. Follow the rabbit holes of new ideas that are sparked.

Don't rush to find the fastest answer, give yourself space to really be with the questions and all the things they bring up for you. That's what a reflective meditation and journaling practice is all about.

We are doing the 30 day journaling + meditation invitation for the month of August. An explanation of this project is here. For this challenge, I some mugs, notebooks, magnets and stickers with the "Slow the fuck down. BE as creative, powerful and magnetic as you ARE" written on them - they are here.

I have written and re-written this post so many times I have lost count.

Each post was a actually really good.

AND felt inadequate to express what I actually want to do with this project and I how I feel as I begin.

I don't remember being this challenged by a project in a very long time.

And so I am going to take the projects' advice: SLOW THE FUCK DOWN.

Don't try to share everything today.

Just share A thing.

A thing that's happening: I am feeling A LOT of resistance to doing this.

Sometimes resistance can hide in reasonable-sounding reasons why "this just isn't the right time".

And sometimes it shows up as inner critic self doubt attacks. Or just - getting so stressed and crabby that you throw the whole thing away.

This resistance is a natural part of all dreams, all creative pursuits, and all healing processes.

Right now, the resistance is manifesting as EXTREMELY stiff shoulders (my therapist once told me that is often a sign of struggling with oppressive systems that are pushing us down. And yes that's how it feels, I am pushing up against a lot of very powerful invisible things here) and an EXTREMELY crabby mind.

Trying to calm my mind enough to write clearly is very effort-FULL which is really the opposite of the whole vibe I am going for here.

A lot of feelings are going to come up in this process.

Dream Book members - remember our principles!!! If you feel stuck or like you're doing this wrong, re-read them.

Accepting that your process IS unfolding in the right way for you while honouring all of the feelings that come up are important parts of this work.

Without them, you just skate around your blind spots.

So - today I am honouring my feeling about not wanting to do this.

AND honouring my feelings about how I WANTED to start this, and my feelings about how that just isn't happening.

And, deeper down inside, listening to that part of me that knows this is exactly the perfect way to start.