Last week's Dream Status Report brought me the following focus: BE where you ARE while appreciating the new possibilities that are opening up"

Two things about that:

1. This is what ALL creative dreaming is! Staying present in your current life WHILE building the path to what's next. Sometimes this is easier, sometimes this is harder.
2. When doing meditation + journaling, especially in a dedicated Creative Dream Practice, it becomes easier to find the answers you need. Knowing the answer and ACTING ON IT are two really different things.

So here I am figuring out how to do this thing.

On top of the things I have shared about what's happening in my life, another big thing happened which I do not want to share. I'll just say it adds a layer of stress and complication to a stressful and complicated situation.

OF COURSE the more turbulent your life is, the harder it is to stay present in it, especially at the depth of emotional presence needed to do creative dreaming. And OF COURSE this means that this stuff is wayyyy easier for some people that others. The more intersections of privilege you have, the easier it is.

I am where I am. How do I want to do this this week?

Starting with meditation: Sitting With Uncomfortable Feelings (using that technique from the 1 hour class we did)

And then whoa...

I don't need to figure out how to focus on what I want, because those feelings are there too. Underneath the feelings I don't don't want to feel - which means I can't access them if I am avoiding my feelings - are my dreams and desires.

The big dreams are still there but there is a new more immediate dream:

Healing Fall and Healing Winter.

Two seasons of focusing inward, creativity, healing, space, rest, quiet. Acclimating to my new life.

Collecting ideas for things I want to do when spring comes.

Every book I have read about divorce says it's at least 1-2 years to "feel normal" again (NOT that "feeling normal" is a goal for me, lol) and I accept that this will be a long process. So I don't mean I'll be HEALED by spring, and of course when spring comes I may decide I want healing spring and healing summer too as far as that goes.

Just that right now I want to focus on these next two seasons as healing time, which just makes me thing/feel different about this time.

And it leads to one important thing:

MORE CREATIVE PROJECTS. Art journaling but also embroidery, painting, just... MAKE STUFF. Would be good to brainstorm some projects, and get materials. Like I know I want to do embroidery but, what? Get patterns and colours picked, get all the threads I need, so I am ready to go.

I am really inspired by this sweatshirt pattern which includes instructions for appliquéing whatever you want on the sweatshirt - like instead of sports teams that are usually there. How fun would it be to put affirmations or qualities you are working on on a sweatshirt? Slow the fuck down! Powerful, Creative, Magnetic.

I want that ALIVENESS and HEALING of really being in my creative flow. I have so many work projects I want to do, and I want SO MANY personal projects also ready to go.

OK so now I how HOW to "be where I am and appreciate the new possibilities that are opening up". Make more space for creative projects including having plans + materials ready to go.

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.

I woke up thinking about Creative Dreaming While Your World Is Falling Apart. This is the title of a guided journal I am imagining writing, and maybe I will one day.

Because I've been sharing my daily posts and maybe it seems like I am going on like nothing has happened, but I'm definitely not doing that.

Separation is emotionally volatile and I want to FEEL my feelings and process them and move THROUGH all of this, and not be stuck in it. AND I don't want my whole life to be this.

So - I focus on what I want to focus on when I am at my best. Mornings are my best time, I am SUCH a morning person. So I wake up, meditate, journal, get exercise, do my Dream Work, do my work work, work on creative projects.

Some days all of that inspires and energizes me and I stay pretty upbeat all day. BUT I am more tired than usual, my body is achy, I get overwhelmed more easily - there are all the signs of grief.

Some days I wear out my energy for the day early on.

So - after focusing on what I want to focus on first thing, then I focus on self care. What do I need? More water, nutrient dense foods, time with friends, time alone, journaling, feeling my feelings, hot epsom salt baths, lots of reading of things that feel helpful, stretching, re-arranging the Dream Loft - it does feel good to spread out.

It feels like a way of creating bubbles in my life that hold space for things. Holding space for my dreams and needs and creative projects while also holding space for grief and the process of separation. Of course the bubbles collide sometimes, but most of the time, this feels good - there is space for everything and over time, my new life will grow out of the separation process. This is easier to trust when I am showing up consistently for the dream work.

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.

Today in my practice I am meeting with the soul of my business. I'm doing this as my daily practice right now as I get into "fall vibes" and am getting more focused on finishing the guided journal project, which also leads to a ton of other projects. And yes I need more money because of the divorce but I feel really calm and trusting about that part.

I am doing this as a daily practice to get more aligned with the soul of the Creative Dream Incubator to help me make the right decision because there are So Many Decisions to make about this project.

In my last post, the soul of my business asked me to make pro and con lists about a big decision, and those lists ended up being SO easy and SO helpful.

I decided: DO THE EASY THING RIGHT NOW.

I remembered: no one step is written in stone! I can do it the easy (I mean not easy but easiest) thing now and switch up to the other thing at any time.

So today what I want is: good vibes, for lack of a better term. I am doing creative work on the project (editing, which means editing artwork mostly, and sometimes re-drawing the journaling prompts if I can see a way to do it better). I want to be in the flow, loving what I am doing, and getting things done.

In the meeting with the soul of my business:

OMG so good!

The soul of my business appears with the boxes as it has been, but now it's a female figure and has wings and she steps out of the boxes and is just huge. She says "We are going to have some fun!"

My body starts to sway, I am really feeling this energy of being in the flow. I ask my questions about how to approach this project today and see the soul of the project: a campfire, but magic. It offers WARMTH for your creative dream process and WARMTH can be sometime different each time.

I stayed in the meditation a while, it all just felt so good.

And now I know what to do today.

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.

Today in my practice I am meeting with the soul of my business.

Last week this was so good and it felt like a thing I need to do more regularly. I LOVE this recording, the first part of the meditation is soooo healing. I remember doing it that way because of all the stuff that gets sparked in working with our businesses, and it feels soooo good to use it.

It's similar to last week, a bunch of boxes piled together that are alive - like a box robot.

But it's bigger. The boxes are less chaotic.

It doesn't take a genius to see the boxes are representing the actual boxes in my home with my husband's things packed in them. And he's been picking up a car load every day after work and the pile is becoming less chaotic and I have more and more space. (By the time I post this the boxes will be gone and his furniture moved and I'll be in the process of making it "feel like mine" again)

The soul of my business - I am focusing on the head at the top of the boxes - is warm and loving and welcoming. It's happy to see me.

You are giving me space to grow, with regular visits like this.

Good! This is what I want. Not growth for growth's sake, but right-sizing.

I'm actually deeper and more expansive than you think. The growth I am speaking of is not just in one direction. Like it's not just about more followers or more money.

OK that's reassuring. It felt a little off to think you are focused on growing, because that is so toxic to have growth as the only goal. It's why the air has been smoky here for weeks and my lungs and throat hurt.

Right, so it's more "I am becoming more alive". Your visits nurture me in good ways.

These visits nurture me in good ways too. I have been experimenting creatively and exploring SO MUCH these last few years. My struggles with peri-menopause, looking at ancestral trauma and the ways capitalist culture impacts my "work ethic" and distorts my relationship with my own needs and really - who do I want to be while the world falls apart? This has been such important work for me. I appreciate the space you gave me to do all of this - actually I feel NURTURED by my business not just financially but in all ways. The ways I show up for Dream Book HELPS ME FIRST. I am so grateful to have this.

I've been growing in that time too. My potential has been expanding and deepening. And everything is getting more creative and free.

Creative and free. I love it. So my questions, about this journal, you know what I am thinking, right? Should "creative and free" be the qualities we follow to answer the questions? Because one option feels this way and one does not. BUT the one that does not - is it easier? Would it make more money? Do these things matter?

Now the robot has hands too, not just a head on a stack of boxes. It, though it feels like a she now, she raises her hands to shrug like "I don't know"

Is this a case where it's like - it doesn't matter which way I go?

It's not that it doesn't matter. It's just that it impacts YOU more than ME.

OK that's weird, isn't it though? Because I thought it would impact you - like I am building a path to a new future here, aren't I?

Yup, that happens either way. None of these decisions are FOREVER babe!!!!

So I can do what is easiest right now. OR I can do what feels most creative and free right now.

Yup! This is one for YOU to journal about. Make a pro and con list of each of them. In your imagination, really put yourself into each situation and see which way feels best. This is still a very early step in this new path, there's LOADS of time to re-configure as we go. It's more important that we DO SOMETHING than that we DO THE RIGHT THING. (Which you know, you tell this to people all the time)

OK will do!

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.