I’m in an absurd situation this morning with my step-kids’ mom, the kids, and my ex.

And I’m like - how am I still in this situation? We are still legally married but we are separated so shouldn’t we NOT be here?

And then I realized - I was expecting EVERYONE ELSE to change! I fully expected it! Which is so wild because no one has given any indication at all that they are the slightest bit interested in changing.

And I have to be the one to change, if I want something to change.

Which is so annoying and so liberating at the same time.

Tomorrow the Goodbye2023 Hello 2024 31 days of meditation + journaling starts.

Which means, for the month of December - these will be the daily posts instead of the posts where I share what I’m doing in my practice.

Which feels so weird. I have written these posts for so long!

AND

I know I need to give myself space to change.

There is something I wish was different here and it’s so hard to figure out what that is, while I am still doing this every day. 

I need to MAKE SPACE to figure out what a change would even be like.

So I’ll be exploring that over the next month.

Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024 31 days of meditation + journaling:

These posts will be here on my blog, so they will be the daily posts for the month of December as we reflect on this last year and set intentions for the new year.

Dream Book members: Get all the details here including call details for the Goodbye 2023 Releasing Ceremony and Hello 2024 Dream Blessing Ceremony.

Not in Dream Book: Get all the details here for the 31 days of meditation + journaling (this part is free on my blog)

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

So interesting/funny that yesterday I wrote about how this work is important to me because it helps me feel intention and creative and ALIVE and how I can easily wake up in the morning feeling none of those things.

This morning I woke up feeling ALL of those things, plus EXCITED about my life. The thought in my head was “ I LOVE MY LIFE!!!”

But what I was really speaking to is how we need to chose how we want to show up REGARDLESS of how we feel. NOT, EVER, to deny our feelings. But to not let them drive us. To be creative and intentional about our lives so we can CHOOSE.

So, I feel so grateful that this feels easy and natural today.

So I am doing the Dream Lab to meet with my dream.

I am so happy about the new sky visor I got for winter cycling to keep my eyes warm. It’s polarized pink/rainbow and the bubble of Creativity, Light and Knowing looks like like it, which just feels really good.

I feel light and sparkly. I feel so CAPABLE of making this dream real.

The field of Creative Dream Alchemy is so ALIVE with art. Like, I guess, animated art zooming around. I feel inspired and energized and like I want to make more art.

OMG I just love this meditation, lol. I usually I just do this in my head without the audio but it’s so much better with it.

My dream shows up as a pyramid. It’s gold. It fits in my hands.

Oh! It’s the compass of Creative Dream Alchemy - Inner Work, Dream Work, Outer Work, but it’s showing me how putting them together builds something - turns a triangle into a pyramid that is solid gold.

My dream is luxuriating in all of the SPACE in my life. It’s like - it loves Joseph and the kids too but/and I as a person, and it is a dream, we need more SPACE. The effort I put in to being a good wife and step-mom, which were never things I dreamed of but it felt right to follow that path when it was in front of me, is now more available for me and my dream and that makes this dream so much easier.

(It feels bitchy to write this, but this is how the meditation felt. And it didn’t feel bitchy in the meditation, just like an acknowledgment of truth without judging my married life OR my new life. They will all still be in my life but it’s really not the same.)

There is ease, delight and freedom sparkling around us.

Putting the pyramid  into my heart at the end feels stabilizing and energizing. I feel so ready to get to work today!

On Friday, Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024 31 days of meditation + journaling starts!

These posts will be here on my blog, so they will be the daily posts for the month of December as we reflect on this last year and set intentions for the new year.

Dream Book members: Get all the details here including call details for the Goodbye 2023 Releasing Ceremony and Hello 2024 Dream Blessing Ceremony.

Not in Dream Book: Get all the details here for the 31 days of meditation + journaling (this part is free on my blog)

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

Over this past weekend I feel I reached a new stage in my healing process. I started really re-arranging the Dream Loft to make it MINE and it felt like - re-decorating after divorce is a whole healing journey.

But I’ve been thinking about how my dreams have shifted and changed so much in the last three months.

And how it does’t matter what the dream IS it matters that we keep showing up for it.

Not so that we manifest everything we’ve ever wanted….

So that we are intentional, creative and alive in our lives.

Without this work. I can be crabby and lethargic. I tend towards depression. It’s easy to feel too small for my dreams - any dreams!

Today I’m stumbling around. I feel lost even though I know what I want to do.  When I do the Dream Lab I feel really small and tired, and my dream is so BIG and HIGH ENERGY. It feels like an impossible gap but I know that’s just how it feels today.

I remembered yesterday’s lesson about taking the little step that feels impossible even when it also feels like not enough. And just taking some little steps.

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

GOOD NEWS: My stepson is home from the hospital!!  That was a rough 10.5 weeks and there is still a long road ahead but it's such a relief that he is finally home.

And maybe that is part of why I felt ready to figure out what I want my condo to look like, now that it's mine again.

When Joseph and I separated it was nice to stretch out but I didn't make big changes in terms of how I was using the space. And with a loft there are SO many options.

I was feeling overwhelmed at the thought of figuring out what I want, and catching up on cleaning. And so I didn't do anything. And it started to feel harder to do anything and I kept not doing anything.

And for so many years we had been using the space in a way that worked for ALL OF US and it's a real perspective shift to think of how I even want it to work for JUST ME.

But the big thing that was stopping me from taking action is a common dream problem:

I was too focused on and overwhelmed by thinking of the big picture that I could not see any steps in front of me to take.

I thought I needed new furniture to make this place feel right, but felt stressed about spending money and didn't even know what I wanted, I just knew what I had didn't feel like it was working. So I didn't do anything.

Remember: we are usually WRONG about what our dreams need!!!

I finally gave myself permission to think about new furniture and started dreaming.

This led me to see a whole new way to arrange the "rooms" (My workspace is in the upstairs loft which was designed as a bedroom, so my home is all one big open room downstairs now)

And then I started moving furniture and I can't believe what a huge difference that made.

Once I started, I saw more and more little changes to make.

Now when I walk in here I feel SO HAPPY.

And I am excited to decorate! I don't know that I need new furniture now, I think I want re-cover some things, re-paint sometimes, and get new lamps and accessories.

It fees like I have a good foundation here and can build on it.

This is what happens with all dreams when we take the little steps that are possible to take EVEN/ESPECIALLY WHEN it feels like those little steps won't make enough of a difference to bother.

We need to bother!

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

I hate to say it again... But I need to work on my routines.

Still. Always.

I am remembering back to when I was really IN my routines. And missing that. How my routines created a container that HELD me, that HELD the sometimes-chaotic process of creative progress, healing and growth.

That I knew that any one day might suck, that everything may be really stuck and hard... but it wouldn’t stay that way. That I just had to keep showing up to move through the process.

But I am really struggling to show up for the process right now.

Like I am doing it, but it takes SO MUCH EFFORT to get into the process that there is less energy left for creativity and focus.

And part of this is - this is just where I am.

My step-son was supposed to be out of the hospital, but there was some concern about him managing outside of the hospital, so they are keeping him in to make sure he’s got it. He just lost 95% of his pancreas and he needs to learn how to live without it, and then he’s going to lose his gallbladder next year. So it’s a lot and I am glad the doctors are being cautious. No one has ever seen this happen to anyone this young.

And that’s weighing on me. The relief I felt when I thought he was going home earlier this week all turned into heaviness.

And then when I think of him in the hospital of course I think of all the people in hospitals in Gaza and my heart just breaks. And then I think about the other wars and ongoing violence of colonial projects all over the world including my own home. And it’s too much.

These are hard times for creative dreams and our creative dreams have never been more vital.

So. What do I want to do with this?

That’s the big question I’ve been asking.

Because I JUST REALISED THIS WHILE WRITING THIS - I am still putting my energy into trying to be how I was instead of figuring out how I am now and how I want to be.

What’s possible here?

That feels so hopeful. Taking that to my journal.

I really don't think I would have found such a hopeful-feeling question to explore if I hadn't written about feeling stuck even though I didn't want to because I feel like such a broken record about being stuck with my routines.

That's the magic of journaling our ACTUAL thoughts and feelings. We don't have to like them! But this way we can process them and move through.

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

I wrote that post I shared on Monday, about metabolizing joy, at the conservatory. I was really FEELING IT.

And I decided to post it here but also on my social media. Like as a way of being more grounded in this - claiming this as the story I am living now.

And I knew doing that would stir up other feelings!

And that feeling those feelings was part of the process.

Because we are never 100% ONE THING.

I am moving on, doing deep healing, making space for joy. The majority of me is here.

But I am also stuck, sad, shocked and angry. It’s just that I gave those feelings SO MUCH SPACE over the last few months that they don’t take up as much space now.

Last night I wanted a snack and was thinking of what to make. And then I asked myself “Do you really want a snack? Because I feel like maybe I’m actually still full from dinner?”

I sat with that, focused on my body, and sure enough - I wasn’t actually hungry. I wanted to eat to avoid feelings. 

So I put on my galaxy lamp (it projects stars and moving nebulas on the walls and ceiling) and got out my yoga mat and stretched. After a few nice stretches, I was lying on the yoga mat crying.

This is healing.

If you are back and forth like that it can feel so disheartening, but please remember: this is healing. Making  space for all of it.

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024

I mentioned over a week ago that I started the Dream Self Challenge. (If you're brand new you won't have access to this yet, you get new pages each month. But you do have the Dream Self Page)

I was so happy to see people sharing in the forum that they are doing it too!

And I haven't mentioned it here since, but I didn't plan to do the 5 days within 5 days, you know?

So I did it again today and again it was soooo soothing.

I noticed that my Dream Self is more grounded in her routines and structures/systems.

Can I say how TIRED I am of getting this same message?????

I mean this is what this work is like a lot of the time. The message comes over and over.

Sometimes because we're resistant to it so we don't really listen. Sometimes because it just takes time to fully act on it.

I mean - we can only take one step at a time!

And I have taken so many steps with this and there are still more steps ahead of me.

It's boring and annoying AND it's the only way to get to where I want to be.

So I'm listening and taking my next little steps.

Dream Book members:

Come to the forum to share your thoughts or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.

Get your next Dream Book lesson.

Go the Library of Creative Dream Alchemy to find a practice that fits for where you are or use the Dream Lab if you're not sure where to start.

Check out the calendar of upcoming calls. Make a plan to join us live or catch a replay. Upcoming calls: Centered Grounded Present. Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024