In these last few days of the year, I'm having a hard time really connecting with my practice.

I had a wonderful holiday, but it was still a lot, and now I need down time. So I am tidying, and journaling, and doing creative projects while dreaming of how I want to start my new year.

Today I am thinking back and I wrote... I almost a biography. It just felt really helpful to write my story in this way, so here it is:

I have always been highly creative and intuitive. When I was five years old, I was dreaming of re-decorating the bathroom in our basement, spending hours delighting in planning out colour schemes. I have been able to spirits since I was a young child and I have always felt guided by wise and helpful non-physical beings.

My connection to my creative/intuitive/spiritual self has always been really really powerful.

AND

My self doubt and fear that I am not good enough have also always been really really powerful.

I graduated from Ryerson University in 1998 with a degree in fashion design and a passion for surface design. I knew even then that the thing I wanted to do most was help other people get in touch with the big magic I felt from intuitive/spiritual approaches to creativity.

And, of course, I had no clue how to DO that.

I was a textile artist, a writer, a costume designer, and I worked crappy jobs in between to make ends meet while I never gave up believing that the work that felt the most meaningful to me, the work that felt like it was my career and my purpose, would one day sustain me financially.

It wasn't until 2007 - which is not even 10 years later, but it felt like an absolute eternity at the time - when I was 3 years into my training as a spiritual teacher, that I started putting on my own creativity workshops, blending meditation and healing with the magic of creative play.

And then it was 2010 when I decided to make this work my full time job.

And here we are at the end of 2022, and my business, the Creative Dream Incubator, has been steadily supporting me for these last twelve years. And in all honesty, I have been frustrated by a lack of business growth for the last three years, but I've also been amazed by how my business has stayed solid and steady even in the face of all that has happened since 2020.

I believe in the magic and value of creative dreams. I believe in the EPIC POWER of creative dreams.

AND I do still experience moments when my self doubt, fear and uncertainty feel just as powerful.

Now, at 48 years old, I understand so much more about how our world shapes us. About how our culture fails us. That we are born with magic in us, and our culture teaches us to dim that magic and shape ourselves into little cogs so we can better fit into the capitalist machine.

Now, at 48 years old, I know I have major sensory processing issues and am likely autistic but I was born at a time when girls were shaped by our culture to bury our own needs so deep we didn't know what they were and so autistic girls were rarely diagnosed. So by the time I was an adult I knew how to put my needs aside in order to fit in with what the world wanted me to be.

It was my creative dreams that showed me that compromising my own needs dims my light, deflates my power, and steals my joy.

It was my creative dreams that taught me how to set up my life in a way that works for me.

It was my creative dreams that showed me where I needed to do deeper healing work.

A creative dream is whatever it is that you are dreaming of.

It's "creative" in the sense that it's yours to create in your life. It's easy to think that a creative dream needs to be some big impressive thing like writing a book that saves the world, but that's actually one of the lies this world tells us to try to keep us from our dreams. Whatever inspires and intrigues you IS your creative dream - there really isn't a way to pick the "wrong" dream. The work is listening to your dreams and bringing them into fruition in your life help you align more deeply with your own inner truth which leads the way to deeper dreams. We are all FULL of dreams.

In the last twelve years with the Creative Dream Incubator, I have learned that our creative dreams absolutely hold the key to everything we need.

This means they will make you look at the things you'd rather avoid. They will ask you to take responsibility for your behaviours. They will push you to be braver than you think you are.

They will remind you that you are more than you think you are. They will show you that you are the magic.

All of the ways that we WAIT are manifestations of our fear and doubt. These are the places in you that need healing.

There is ALWAYS something you can do with your dreams.

There is ALWAYS a next step you can take.

I can show you a way to ALWAYS be able to see that next steps.

I can show you ways to work with your dreams even when you're stuck, afraid and convinced they are impossible.

I can show you how to heal and grow your way into who you really are.

This work been my mission for as long as I can remember and at 48 years old and I am so grateful that I have created an approach to creative dreaming that works, consistently, no matter how afraid you are or how many obstacles you have. My Creative Dream Alchemy framework works WITH the fears, stucks and obstacles while also working WITH your inspiration, creativity and inner wisdom.

I think it's BECAUSE I have so much self doubt and creative resistance that I have become exceptional at this work. I will never ask anyone to "fake it till they make it" or "just work harder". I understand the deeper issues at play, and I know the magic of working on those deeper issues to give your natural creativity, inspiration and momentum more space to bloom.

I am wildly grateful to be right where I am, and thrilled about what I want to do next.

In these last few days of the year, I am pausing, making space to sit with the question:

What do I really want next?

 

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