Inner Work 101 is a series of in-depth blog posts I?m working on to de-mystify the inner workings of inner work. ?I?m tired of seeing brilliant creative people stumble around and settle for less than they really want because they don?t know how to navigate the path of their own potential and this is what I’m doing to help change that. ?Find all the Inner Work 101 posts right here.

I know you’ve got?big obstacles in your way (like a lack of time, money or support) as well as places that trip you up (like self-doubt, procrastination and fear).

But you’re a creative genius so?those things are all figure-out-able.

In fact – facing and transforming the obstacles is how you create the path. ?(I explain how that works in Inner Work 101: How Change Works.)

So if facing and transforming the obstacles is how you create the path then having obstacles is good because it gives you something to work with – raw material for building bricks for your yellow brick road.

So the obstacles are not what’s holding you back.

The thing that holds you back is your resistance to facing the obstacles.

Resistance is a sticky/tricky thing to work with. ?It can show up in a LOT of different ways, for example:

• being too busy for the things that matter to you
• boredom
• procrastination
• deciding that your?dream is impossible
• waiting for “the right time”
• a popular way for women is to be too busy taking care of everyone else to have any time or energy left for your own dreams and then feeling like you HAD to do all of that
• going along with?what other people want you to do instead of making time for your dreams
• avoidance patterns, for example:?over-spending and then getting so stressed out about money you have no energy to?focus on your dreams

Resistance is so hard to see for what it is because it’s an energy pattern that you live inside. So it’s not true but it feels true.

This is resistance’s superpower, it gets you to stay in it because it convinces you that it’s true.

Like the Wizard of Oz trying to look like something he’s not, your resistance tells you that that’s an immovable brick wall ahead of you, you can’t go there, don’t even bother. ?And as long as you listen – you don’t go there.

But that brick wall is mostly smoke and mirrors. ?At its worse, it’s still climbable.

When you’re in resistance you’re caught in a lie (like I talk about in the How Change Works post) which means you’re totally disconnected from your power.

And you can’t come back into your power until you tell yourself the truth: you’re not waiting for the right time, you’re in resistance.

I’d rather pretend that I’m too busy than face my fear of failure.?

So when?you can remember that?facing and transforming the obstacles is how you create the path then you are free to?choose:?get to work building bricks?or to keep telling yourself a lie about why you can’t move forward right now.

My rule of thumb is that if I’m not doing what I want to be doing I assume I’m in resistance.

And I do find myself in resistance?often. ?I decided to write about it?today because I am in it pretty hard.

What I do with resistance is meet with it and then work with it to transform it?(Creative Dream Circle members: I do this using the process from the Un-Sticking Station).

This is how it works:

Hello, resistance.

My resistance shows up as a small, smooth grey rock, nestled in my hand.

I feel optimistic about this, as some days my resistance shows up as a monster or a mountain – things that feel big and strong and like they are going to crush me.

I beam love at the rock and ask it what it wants.

After a few minutes, the rock cracks in 2 and a small worm crawls out. ?The worm feels familiar.

It crawls up my arm to whisper in my ear:?I want to feel loved.

I gently pick it up and put it back in my hands. ?”I do love you. ?You are so sweet and smooshy and green and lovely. ?What’s not to love?”

But as I do this I can see the problem.

This small, shy part of me who wants to feel loved doesn’t belong in the land of this project I want to be working on (aka: The Thing I Am Resisting Working On This Morning).

Because then I’d be doing my work in order to feel loved, instead of doing my work in order to serve.

You see the difference? ?When you do your work to get your personal needs met the energy between you and your project gets very messy very fast. ?This approach doesn’t give your creative potential solid ground to grow from so you’re not going to do your best work. ?Being tied to external approval in that way freezes and shrinks your creative genius.

This little worm does not belong in the rock.

It belongs in the jungles of my heart where there are branches to play?on and leaves to eat and sunshine and soft warm earth to burrow in. ?This little worm can find healing there.

When I look?back in the land of my project, I can see that the rock was jamming up the gears of inspiration and magic and bringing all productivity and momentum to a halt.

It’s important not to fight any of the beings that live?in your inner world. ?In the spirit of wholeness, everything belongs.

It’s just that some things can wind up in the wrong place, and it’s your job to keep everything in the right place.

(This is why fighting your inner critic?doesn’t work – that actually only makes it fight harder against you and your dreams.)

So I put the worm into the jungles of my heart, the rock disintegrated because it was never real (it was just a hiding place for the frightened worm) and?the gears of inspiration and magic started turning again.

And now here I am, in the land of happy productivity.

This is how it works. ?When you face your resistance you transform it.

The story that unfolds when I meet my resistance is different every time. ?The characters are different every time.

But the thing that is the same every time is that there is always?a way to move forward. ?Always.

(Whenever you feel certain that you can’t move forward right now, this is a sign that you are in resistance.)

Working with resistance is the main thing I do. ?It’s like how I have to cut out the fabric before I can sew my clothes. ?It’s the foundation?that makes the dream work possible.

I created?the Un-Sticking Station?in the?Creative Dream Circle?to meet and transform resistance and obstacles as quickly as possible. ??I use it almost every day because the faster I face the resistance and do this work, the faster I can get to work building my dreams.

As far as I can tell, you don’t have a choice about whether or not to have resistance – we all have it. ?But you can choose whether or not you’re going to allow it to control you and dim your dreams. You can practice and get better at transforming resistance?and that will make all the difference.

Inner Work 101 is a series of in-depth blog posts I?m working on to de-mystify the inner workings of inner work. ?I?m tired of seeing brilliant creative people stumble around and settle for less than they really want because they don?t know how to navigate the path of their own potential and this is what I’m doing to help change that. ?Find all the Inner Work 101 posts right here.

Most people focus on trying to change what’s happening outside of them… they focus less on changing and more on getting their dream house or dream job or dream spouse or whatever.

That’s not that the kind of change I’m talking about here.

What I want to talk about is change that starts, and happens, inside of you. ?And then it ripples out to effect your outer life.

So instead of grasping at the things you want and never quite feeling like you deserve them even when you get them, or having to work your ass off to keep them, you evolve into a?person who can easily create and hold what you?want in your?world.

This is how to?change your life in ways that bring you more joy and help you live in a way that feels true.

I talk about dreams a lot but it’s never about the outer thing! ?It’s always about this sense of creating a life that feels true to you.

Growing into who you really are.

 

So we’ll start there. ?With who you really are: Creative Genius.

This is you as infinite?love, infinite wisdom, infinite delight, infinite creativity, and infinite power.

This is your inner self and your infinite gifts?and your infinite inner resources.

The key word here is infinite. ?This is where everything?is possible?for you.

This is your inner self.

This is who you are but you probably don’t live here…

If you’re a human, this is where you live:?Your Conscious Self.

Your personality, your body, your behaviours, your thoughts, feelings and beliefs.

These are the?stories you live.

These are not necessarily all true, but they feel true and you live as though they are true, and this limits the infinite possibilities that live at the core of who you are.

This is your outer self.

So why are your inner self and outer self separate?

If you have infinite power and all that other stuff… where is it?

Well, it’s hidden under a layer of crap, like this:

This layer of crap is your fears, doubts, inner critics, limiting beliefs, sad stories you picked up along the way.

While your inner core is infinite and powerful and radiant… when it shines through this layer of crap it becomes distorted. ??This is how you get cut off from your gifts.

And then you buy into a much smaller story about who you really are and what life really is what?is actually possible for you.

I drew it like this to simplify it so you can see the relationships between these different aspects of you.

The truth is much more complex as you are a multi-dimensional being.

This is why sometimes you can feel so full of possibilities and so sure of yourself, and then other times you feel defeated and scared.

You, your actual being, is infinite. ?But you, your conscious self, can only be focused in one place at a time. ?And wherever you are focused is activated and magnified so it becomes what feels most true to you in that moment.

What feels true isn’t necessarily true.

When you’re stuck in that layer of crap your feelings are real and valid and deserve being tended to. ?But that doesn’t mean that the stories your feelings are telling you are true. ?Like – this will never work, no one cares, it’s impossible.

The beings that live in your layer of crap are wise, in a way. ?I mean they’re good at spinning stories that feel both compelling and true. ?Their aim is to keep you there, believing the story.

Until you question those stories, nothing can ever really change.

I mean you can have more money but still feel stressed out about money. ?You can get married but still feel alone inside. ?You can be selling your art all around the world and feel not good enough.

Often getting what you want on the outside without questioning your stories only makes life more uncomfortable.

But it’s so hard to question your stories?because they feel like your truth. ?You live inside them.

It’s really very Matrix-like.

So much so that only people who already understand what I’m talking about are going to understand what I’m saying here.

You have to have the experience of noticing that you’re living in an un-true story before you really see any of this. ?But once you’ve had it happen once you can extrapolate and start to look at where this is happening in other parts of your life. ?That’s when you activate your inner?power to change anything you want to change.

This is so complex and hard to navigate.

Dreams make it easier.

Your dreams are true. ?They come from your core.

(Of course some dreams are pure ego but if you start to work on them in the ways I teach you’ll wind up more deeply connected to your core self and your dreams will shift accordingly. ?So there is never a “wrong dream” to follow.)

Your dreams come from your core and are a part of your genius. ?Your dreams are how you express your genius.

Traveling around the world in a sailboat, opening up a knitting cafe, showing your art, building your own home… these are ways of showing up in the world as your actual, true, core self.

So the way out of living in a story that is not true is to trust that your dream is true.

This is why I say that your dream is a lighthouse calling you home. ?It’s how your soul guides you along your path.

So, bringing a dream to life – aka creating change – is about this journey of wholeness. ?Of moving closer to the core of who you really are, and clearing up the distortions of the un-true stories that your inner critics have been spinning.

Of course?there will also be work to be done in the outer world… you do not meditate your way to a dream come true.

But when the inner work is effectively done, the outer work becomes very clear and possible. ?You just take one step at a time towards your dream. ?When the outer work starts to feel exhausting and frustrating and confusing that means it’s time to focus on inner work.

This applies to ALL dreams, and to ALL types of change you can create in your life.

So how do you?actually do this?

So all you have to do is?dig into the layer of crap that has accumulated between you (where you live) and you (who you really are).

Then you find you magic..

Then you can access your infinite resources to do whatever you want…

Are you starting to see the problem?

Digging into the layer of crap means facing the layer of crap. ?This is exactly what no one wants to do. ?We prefer to face away from the crap.

But facing away from the crap means facing away from your power and creativity and wisdom and ALL OF YOUR GIFTS.

So your first step is to face towards the crap, grab a shovel, and start digging.

This little nested drawing I’m using is actually multi-dimensional because you are multi-dimensional.

So in some parts of your life you are?more in touch with your true amazing self.

And in other parts of your life the layer of muck is just too big and your inner light gets all distorted.

Like maybe you are gorgeously and powerfully expressing your creative genius through your art but you cower and hide when it comes to doing the work of making a living from it.

Or maybe you’re a fantastic leader when it comes to coaching your son’s soccer team?but at work you’re kind of a doormat and don’t know how to speak up to your bully of a?boss.

You are multi-dimensional. ?There is so much to discover about how your inner genius and your limiting patterns interact.

Really! ?Take this into your journal and explore it.

In the first example I mentioned above about the artist who can’t sell their art (since I get a LOT of questions about this!) it’s not that it’s harder to sell art than it is to make art.

It’s just that you are living in a story that?makes it harder for you.

Your beliefs have you all tangled on the inside so even though you’re doing everything you can to sell your art in the outer world – you mostly wind up going in circles and not really getting anywhere. ?Your light is distorted.

So you have to change those inner beliefs before you’re going to be able to act in effective?ways in the outer world.

You have to dig into that layer of crap and create some new, clear pathways for your genius to shine through.

You have to write a new story for your life.

It’s not your fault that you have those limiting beliefs (accumulating the layer of crap just happens naturally and in ways that are mostly out of our control) but it is your responsibility to change them.

This is how inner work creates outer change.

As you uncover and transform your limiting beliefs you’ll start to see things differently in the outer world. ?You’ll have access to more of your infinite sources of courage and energy and creativity and genius.

So then you’ll start to act differently.

And those actions will lead you towards what you want.

Every time you do even a little bit of this work you?open up a new pathway that allows your inner core to shine out into your outer world, well you let more of your inner genius radiate out.

Inner genius has power to it. ?As it lights up the pathway it actually will melt some of the crap at the edges of the path, so over time your pathways will grow larger and more and more of your inner genius will shine out.

The distortions will shrink and your light will shine more brightly and your life will start to be more true to who you really are.

It’s not easy work but it’s the worthwhile work.

And over time small changes can add up together to create miracles because your inner genius is capable of, literally, anything.

So it all comes down to what direction you choose to face in.

Facing outward keeps you rooted in your current state – inside whatever sad stories and limiting?beliefs you happen to be carrying.

Facing inward is much more uncomfortable at first (because it’s easy to not know just how awful that layer of crap is when you’re busy ignoring it) but if you stay with it, it leads to everything you want.

This is why hard times are always an opportunity for change.

When you’re upset about something it’s actually an opportunity to get more clarity on the un-true stories you’re living in because the story is magnified for you in that moment.

So if you follow the thought that has you upset it will lead you to a story you’re telling yourself. ?Once you see the story you can change it.

What also helps: calling in a miracle!

Project Miracle is for people who believe in the magic of their dreams and are ready for something to change.

It’s a 30 day?Choose-Your-Own-Adventure creative support groups for making change happen.

Find out more + grab your spot today.

Inner Work 101 is a series of in-depth blog posts I?m working on to de-mystify the inner workings of inner work. ?I?m tired of seeing brilliant creative people stumble around and settle for less than they really want because they don?t know how to navigate the path of their own potential and this is what I’m doing to help change that. ?Find all the Inner Work 101 posts right here.

 

Inner work is about working with energy… feelings and qualities and patterns and stories. ?It’s all very fluid and constantly changing which is why containers are so useful because they, well, they contain?energy.

And so energy containers help you hold onto useful things like wisdom, courage and creativity while keeping un-helpful?things like fear, self-doubt and anxiety away from you.

Think of how containers work in the outer world. ?For example, my art supplies are contained in this set of drawers:

Each drawer contains one group of art supplies. ?Each drawer also has containers which further divide up the art supplies. ?Containers within containers.

This way when I want a wax pastel I know where to find it. ?It’s in the pastel drawer, in the little white?box of wax pastels which sits beside?the pink box of oil pastels.

Of course, I could have just one big box of pastels and then when I want a pastel I can root through it to find the one I want. ?Or I can allow serendipity to choose for me.

Or all of my art supplies could be in one big box and so if I wanted a wax pastel I’d have to root through paints and pencils and markers and all those random weird things I buy and then never use…

Containers totally?change the experience.

Imagine if your kitchen had no containers.

No drawers or cupboards or boxes or tins, just all of your stuff spilled out on the counters.

How do?you eat macaroni and cheese without a plate or bowl?

Containers are often?essential for being able to find and use the stuff we have.

Sometimes a lack of containers can render a thing totally useless or even dangerous – like water.

Containers are just as important to inner work as they are in your outer world.

If your whole inner world?is just… there….?with no containers at all, everything all jumbled together… how do you find the stuff you need?

Wisdom, inspiration, creativity, trust, courage, power, healing. ?You have all of this within you.

But if it’s all jumbled up with fear and self-doubt and inner critics and limiting beliefs then… well, how do you find what you need when you need it?

And what if you’re looking for wisdom and you find it but it’s all coated in self-doubt which tends to be quite sticky and hard to remove?

Containers. They work like magic.

For example: let’s create a simple container for writing.

Start with energy clearing (Creative Dream Circle members: there’s a mini-class on this right here) because?you want to be creating from a clear energy state. ?Like you don’t want to create a clay container?with dirty hands, or else all that dirt will get into the clay.

You decide how big the container is. ?Twenty minutes? Two hours?

You decide where the container is. ?Your office? Your living room? A coffee shop?

You give it clear boundaries. ?Is your phone off? ?Door closed?? Headphones on? ?Facebook off?

You fill it with the qualities that you need. ?Inspiration? Clarity? Wisdom? Creativity? What qualities best support your writing?

So, your intention builds?containers. ?It shapes energy and creates atmospheres that support you in doing what you want to do.

You can see how building a container?is a lot more supportive of your writing than just sitting down with a blank page and expecting magic to spill out of your fingers.

But building the container isn’t the whole thing.

Your participation (or, intention-in-action) holds the containers.

IE: If you build the writing container, and then when you open your computer you keep checking Facebook and then you get up and make lunch… then your container is going to dissolve.

Energy containers help you?access more of the infinite possibilities?that live inside?you.

Imagine what would happen in your life if everything?that mattered to you was in the right container!

In the physical world, this means having things be organised and safe.

Butter is?stored in the fridge or in a butter keeper – not on a plate right on top of the heat vent where it will melt and drip all over the floor.

Orange juice is in a pitcher, not in dozens of small shot glasses spread out around the house.

Toothpaste is in a tube, right beside your toothbrush – not just lying in a sticky clump on the floor of your garage.

In your inner world, it means you build containers for your dreams that give them what they need to thrive and shield the from anything that would diminish them.

Out in the physical world, other people have mostly already figured out appropriate containers for you. ?You were born into a world where toothpaste already comes in its ideal container. ?And no one stores orange juice in tiny shot glasses all over the house, that would be ridiculous.

But we DO do ridiculous things when it comes to how we contain our dreams.

And then, we look at our dreams all poured out into tiny shot glasses strewn throughout the house and we think “oh this is impossible”. ?We trip over them, we spill them, we let the juice go all mouldy over time, we attract all sorts of bugs into our homes from all the sugar in the juice and we decide that our dreams are impossible (and messy!)

Your dreams need appropriate and nourishing containers.

Figuring out how to build and maintain these containers can be tricky business, because every dream is unique and because good sturdy containers tend to be multi-dimensional.

And then?it gets really interesting when you work with living energies instead of only with your own intentions to build and hold the containers.

Your dream, for example, is a living energy (for Creative Dream Circle members: I explain this in?Module 2 of the Creative Dream Incubator e-course?here.)

A living energy has its own wisdom and power and, well, energy. ?So it can hold things for you. ?Or it can hold things with you, depending on what you’re doing.

So working with living energy plus working with intentions helps you build sturdier, more helpful containers.

I mean obviously – if you don’t have to create and hold the whole container yourself, if you have help, then there is more that you can do with it. ?Like I can build a bookshelf by myself. ?But if I get some skilled people to help me I can build a whole house. ?Just think about that.

When it comes to dreams, the heart and soul of your dream is a living energy that can help you grow your dream in the physical world.

Qualities (like trust, compassion, creativity, love, etc,) also have essences which are living energies that can help you (for Circle members: we work with these energies in the Love Your Life Creative?Journal Class, The Magic Journal Creative Journal Class and the Superpower Creative?Journal Class).

There are a lot of living energies out there and they are happy to partner with you to bring your dreams to life. ?Living energies want to serve the evolution of?life and your dream is one aspect of that evolution.

I know this sounds very abstract.

Working with?energy containers is a huge topic. ?Right now I just want to show you how they work and give you?some ideas for things to explore.

Another?example:

Your journal is a container. ?It holds the process of whatever it is you do in your journal.

Your journaling practice is another container (containers can be nested in other containers).

By being steady and consistent in your practice you strengthen your container which means your journaling practice becomes possible of more – you’ll find more insights or magic or healing or whatever it is you are journaling for. ?It gets easier and better and more helpful over time as your container becomes better over time.

You could also strengthen the container of your journaling practice by exploring and discovering which qualities support your practice and then?finding ways to bring those qualities into your container.

You can get super creative and playful with this.

Say the qualities that support your practice are:

• trust
• creativity
• alignment
• magic

You play with each of these qualities and learn more about them. ?Say you discover that trust is blue and creativity is orange and alignment is brown and magic is violet. ?Then you get a blue, orange, brown and violet pens for journaling, and every time you choose a certain colour you are invoking that quality.

Or maybe there is a certain kind of tea?that makes you feel these qualities so you have this tea every time you journal, imagining that you’re drinking in the qualities and invoking them in that way. ?Or an essential oil or candle or song…

And because you do your journaling practice to support your inner work to help you grow into the version of yourself who can bring your dreams to life, you also invite the heart and soul of your dream to help you hold the container of your practice, to nurture your practice?so that it can help you bring the dream to life.

Then you’ve got another living energy building and holding the container with you.

Then the things that distract you from your dream – your limiting beliefs and inner critics – don’t feel at home in the container of your practice. ?So they become easier for you to spot and transform because they don’t jive with the vibe of your practice.

In other words: energy containers are?a shortcut to success and magic.

While energy containers are, well, energy, you can also work with physical stuff to help create and hold them.

This is something I love about living in my Dream Loft – having lots of open space to create different kinds of spaces in.

Some days I pile up pillows and a giant bean bag and blankets into a big cushy nest so I have a nurturing, soft space when I need it. When something about my work feels hard, it helps to be doing the work in a soft space, you know?

Some days I work at my desk. ?Some days I work in a coffee shop.

It all depends on what kind of container I need that day in order to do my best work. ?Different kinds of spaces have different qualities.

When you’re thinking about how to set up the energy container?of your space and not just how to physically arrange your space – then you end up with a space that nurtures and feeds the essence of your dreams.

Working with containers and building altars to your dreams?collide here – your altar is a container.

The possibilities are literally?endless.

Working with energy containers is a way of nurturing and?harnessing your own?infinite potential. ?Infinite potential and possibilities already live inside of you, but you’re not always able to access them because of how your inner world is structured.

Again, just think of how different your kitchen would be with NO containers. ?There is so much more you can do when you have the right containers and your ice cream isn’t melting all over the counter.

You can use containers to do things like:

• be more productive in less time
• find answers to questions
• access your true?creative potential
• heal and transform inner issues
• develop new nourishing habits

Working with containers is how you manage and direct energy in your inner world which changes everything that happens in your outer world.

For Creative Dream Circle members: I’ve got a video on with more on creating containers that nourish and grow your dreams, right here.

Also, the Circle itself is another one of those living energies. ?I partner with it to create the Circle as a container that supports and nourishes your dreams. ?You can call on the energy of the Circle to support you in creating and holding your containers any time.

Once you start exploring and experimenting with this, all sorts of ideas are going to come to you about how to build and hold your own containers.