On Fridays I do my Dream Status Report which is a series of prompts I use every week to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path. I do my reports on the printable journaling sheet.
OMG I am glad the holidays are OVER.
Yes there are TONS of good things about the holidays and some parts were hard this year and lots of parts were fantastic
AND
I am just so happy to be back in my little life with my little routines.
One thing that happened over the holidays is I accepted something: I don't want to travel.
Or, maybe still with the camper that is all comfy and I can bring my cat with me. That remains a dream - for the future.
For right now though - I just want to enjoy my life HERE.
In the past I have loved traveling so much.
And I had saved credit card rewards for a trip to Paris I was planning with my husband, and then when he left I realized with these points I could go ANYWHERE since it's just me and I'd been trying to figure out what I want to do.
And I figured it out! I want to stay home.
So I started using those points to get things for the house and I am LOVING IT.
I got a scrub + steam electric mop. This has made me ridiculously happy. I didn't know such a thing existed!!! But I bring my bike into the loft so it's messy. And I like to work on the floor, lay on the floor to watch Netflix, and do yoga on the floor so a steam cleaned floor with little effort is really nice.
I got a new mattress pad with a 3" gel pad inside and HOLY WHOA! So comfy. And some cookware that makes me smile every time I see it.
I was even able to get a gift certificate to my favourite art supply store (DeSerres in Montreal - the store near me just doesn't have the selection they used to, so I order from DeSerres more lately) to stock up on stuff for my Year of Dreams daily creative journaling.
So I feel like I am GROUNDING into my life.
And this feels really good.
And this is connected to the dream I found during the holidays... I want to de-clutter and re-organize every inch of my home. This is a dream!
Anyway, the Dream Status Report prompts feel a little weird today since the holidays are not "usual time" but I did find a focus for next week:
Grounding in my life + routines.
We don't have a Zoom this week, we are back with weekly Zooms next week.
Get the calendar of upcoming calls, and links to replays of past calls, here.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your Dream Status Report or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.
If you're not a member - find out more + join us here!
OK yes this is the second post today - I won't send one tomorrow 🙂
But - Today is my 14th anniversary of being full time with the Creative Dream Incubator!
It’s such an awkward way to say it, but feels like the most honest. I started doing the work that grew into this in 2007, while working a day job, which I left at the end of December 2010.
But I started exploring creativity, spirituality and how on earth do we actually, logistically pursue our creative dreams and live as our actual selves in high school, and then much more seriously at 22 (which was…. yikes!…. 1996) when I had a degree in fashion design, a passion for textile art, and no clue how to support myself with either without taking the kinds of jobs that felt like they destroyed my soul.
So, it’s more accurate to say that today, Jan 1 2025, is the 14 year anniversary of me figuring out how to financially support myself with my creative dreams.
Which I am wildly grateful for!
AND I have an extremely complicated relationship with business and money within the colonialist capitalist system/culture I live in.
And I want to be really clear - I am not getting rich with this work! And especially this last year, between the divorce, my mortgage coming up for renewal right when interest rates were the highest, and the general state of the economy… it’s been hard.
BUT/AND I feel so much fulfillment, freedom and creative magic in my work life.
And I feel SO optimistic for the future.
In the big picture… THIS IS WHO I WANT TO BE and being able to BE that person is so valuable to me.
This is what pursuing our dreams really brings us - OURSELVES.
There is so much healing and magic in that and I have no words to describe how grateful I am to hold space for others in this journey.
And I cannot wait to see what we’ll create together in the Year of Hope.
The Year of Hope is a simple practice for PRACTICING hope…. and it is a sturdy container for transforming the places within us where hope is nowhere to be found…. and it is a support system for taking what you learn in that work and putting it out into your life and/or the world.
AND… having a more hopeful mindset will support your wellbeing and ALL of your dreams.
If you're a member - go to the Year of Hope classroom now and share your thoughts on our first prompt.
If you're not a member -find out more + join us here!
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.
The Year of Hope is ON.
I sent out the email with the link to the classroom yesterday - you can find it here.
Since I'm doing my Year of Hope as a daily practice, in my giant daily planner, and the planner started on Monday, Dec 30 - I started early. I don't have photos yet but I did share a quick video of my first day on Instagram.
It's been soooo good. The first day was awkward and vulnerable in the ways first steps can be. But it also felt a little.... glowing is the only word.
Which is very appropriate since the hope alchemy meditation is about practicing glowing hope in your body and mind.
The second day was soooo good. It felt EXACTLY like I had hoped it would feel, to show up and practice hope. To have this solid container to support me to keep doing this.
I know that giving myself this time every morning to be with hope (or to be with my hopelessness when that's what's there) is going to be deeply alchemical. I can feel that already.
Hope is so foundational to our ability to dream, heal and grow.
If we have hope, we can easily take it for granted and only notice it later on, in times when hope isn't as strong.
But having that foundation of hope beneath your feet changes how you see the world, your self, and your possibilities.
So PRACTICING hope shifts the ground beneath you and opens up new possibilities in front of you....
AND, to do this, practicing hope may move us to explore new territory. It might get scary or painful or....
We might have to summon more courage than we are used to. We might have to find new ways of handling our doubts and hopelessness. There may be a TON of inner work involved here.
The Year of Hope is Dream Work (in the Dream Work, Inner Work, Outer Work system we use in Creative Dream Alchemy).
So it's good to remember: going deeper with the Dream Work can push us into deeper places with the Inner Work and can create new options in the Outer Work.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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 have a friend coming over tomorrow and today I am tidying up. And I went beyond the "normal" cleaning and started re-organizing parts of my kitchen.
And then I felt this STRONG DESIRE.... A DREAM EVEN.... to declutter and organize EVERYTHING. Go through every single drawer and nook and cranny. I want to think about WHERE everything should BE to best support me in living the life I want to live.
If I am honest with myself, this is a dream that has been coming to me over the last month or so...
But my response is
OMG boring and embarrassing and annoying.
This is not a dream! It's a chore!
And I just realized - that is an inner critic voice. It's not my truth.
The truth is, this DOES feel like a dream to me.
It doesn't feel impossible or difficult (well, kind of difficult).
Having a clutter free organized home and work space feels sooooo dreamy.
AND it's a part of the divorce process - some stuff is still stored in the way that made sense for my life then, some stuff just got messed up in the process of going through things to pack his stuff. It is time to get all of my stuff arranged in the way that makes sense for my life as it is now.
I realized too - I think of myself as a person who DID do a massive de-clutter and get organized...
But that was when I sold my home and moved to the condo...
Which was in 2011.
I mean!
I didn't de-clutter THAT well, that I am STILL de-cluttered 14 years later.
So, this has been percolating for a while I think. The way I see myself as a person who already did de-clutter and the way de-cluttering now IS a dream and the part of me who just sees this as a boring chore and doesn't want to do it.
It's always interesting to me how we can judge, deny and invalidate our dreams.
This is too big! Too small! Too boring! Too risky!
We have this idea of what a dream should be and our actual dreams don't always measure up.
AND there's this whole layer around how our dreams are showing us who we really are and we have a lot of conditioning to break through to even begin to see that.
And I think other new dreams are percolating too...
I have a lot of questions about the next phase of my life and what I REALLY want next.
And it dawned on me that de-valuing and not pursing the one thing I DO know about what I want next is NOT making it easier to figure out the other things!!!
I mean the advice I would always give is that we have to MAKE SPACE for whatever we want. Doesn't matter if it feels impossible. Doesn't matter if "the work" of it feels boring. If it want it, make space for it.
And when you do - new things open up.
So - I am going to start going through everything, de-cluttering and re-organizing.
And I will NOT think of it as a boring annoying chore, I will think of it as serving my new dreams...
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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 wanted to share something that I did post on social media this weekend but it felt important enough to share here too.
This was my post:
I’ve been enjoying the holidays AND feeling a growing anxiety about getting the content ready for the Year of Hope which starts on Jan 1. It is mostly ready - just a few things to do. So I knew that I had enough time AND I felt anxious about not already having it done.
But then today I started actually…. working on the content. Editing the videos, to be specific.
And then all of the anxiety was gone.
I’m like “holy fuck this is so good!” “I’m so good at this!” “I love my work!” I feel so grateful for the people who are going to do the Year of Hope with me. I feel so grateful I get to do this work. I feel EXCITED about what a renewed relationship with hope can do for us in 2025…
And I feel 100% sure I can get this all done and ready on time.
I see now that all of that anxiety was from NOT DOING.
This happens a lot with our creative dreams. It’s easier to doubt them when we’re not working on them. Once we’re working on them, there isn’t as much space for doubt.
And then I made a video on Instagram talking about it a bit more.
Once we are IN THE PROCESS there is less space for self doubt.
This doesn't mean we should be working on our dreams 24-7!!!
Or that we will never have self doubt if we are working on them.
Just good to remember that showing up, doing what you can and taking the steps that are possible to take right now DOES go a long way to helping us believe in ourselves, and our dreams.
Some practices for self doubt from the Creative Dream Alchemy Library of Inner Work Practices in membership:
Alchemy process for self doubt
20 minute alchemy meditation video with a journaling sheet
Self Doubt Relief
ALSO a 20 minute alchemy meditation video with a journaling sheet but a different process. It's good to work with this in different ways!
Your Self Doubt Is Not Yours You Deserve To Believe In Yourself
Recording of a 1 hour class with a guided journal
Year of Hope will start on Jan 1!
But check your email on the 31th, I'll send out a link to the classroom.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.
On Fridays I do my Dream Status Report which is a series of prompts I use every week to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path. I do my reports on the printable journaling sheet.
This holiday has been hard for me, for a bunch of reasons.
And it feels extra hard because I had been feeling SO GOOD this month! A
nd as much as I want to stay in that super positive hopeful vibe I’ve been in for most of this month while dreaming up the Year of Hope for 2025….the truth is, I’m sad.
And FEELING sad when I AM sad is the only way to be with myself.
And if I have to abandon myself in order to be hopeful (which is what a LOT of new age and alternative healing practices are teaching with the “good vibes only” bullshit) THAT IS NOT ACTUALLY HOPE.
Real hope happens in real life which also has other real feelings, even the ones that feel the opposite of hopeful.
Because really, being willing to feel what you’re actually feeling is one of the most hopeful things we can do.
As an introvert, I was looking forward to a quieter-than-I’ve-ever-had holiday but the reality of it, and all of the things it triggers, are not what I had hoped for.
And that’s ok.
I sat with my Year of Hope journal and did some journaling about what I hope the Year of Hope will bring me. I baked and then ate some gingerbread. I took baths and naps. I walked to the big box stores on Boxing Day to get half price Christmas lights and hung them up over my bed and that is pretty dreamy.
I also cashed in some credit card points I had been saving for a trip to Paris with my ex, and used them to get some stuff for around the house - to make things cozier and to upgrade some of my baking/cooking supplies.
Taking care of myself when I feel sad.. feels hopeful.
Accepting that this is what it is... feels hopeful.
I am really looking forward to the Year of Hope! The classroom is almost ready to go, I plan (hope?) to open it up on Dec 31st. I'll send an email to everyone in the membership with a link as soon as it's ready.
Today is the December New Moon call.
This feels like such a perfect way to end the year! I hope to see you there, but if you can't make it live, the replay will be on that page a few hours after we're done.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your Dream Status Report or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.
If you're not a member - find out more + join us here!
Some tools from the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership:
Creative Dream HOLYday: The Creative Dream HOLYday is a great way to start a new year or a new project, or get back on track when you've fallen off or to GO DEEPER into whatever it is you are doing.
Get ready for 2025 with the Create a year-long project that fits your life and gets you the results you want. This is also available for free here.
Or with the Goodbye 2024 Hello 2025 journal, Goodbye 2024 Releasing Ceremony and (in January) Hello 2025 Blessing Ceremony. Outside of the membership you can also get the journal on it's own.
Dream Plan Kit if you have some time to get your projects organized over the holidays.
The Love Your Life Creative Journal Class is just a sweet one for this time of year.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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 am going to be posting here less over the holidays, but I am working on a post with suggestions for things to do if you have some time over the holidays for your dreams. Hopefully I will have that ready for tomorrow!
I am so excited about my Year of Hope project for 2025.
I took this photo with the pen to show you the SCALE of how thick this planner is! It still makes me laugh every time I look at it. This is the dual planner (plus an extra page for each week) that I am going to fill with HOPE as my daily creative practice in 2025.
There is the Year of Hope - where we practice hope together in the membership, with a journal prompt every week and an alchemy meditation for hope.
And then there is MY Year of Hope, my own creative practice where I am filling this huge 2025 daily planner with hope. (Get the Create A Year-Long Project That Fits Your Life And Gets You The Results you Want here - this is a free journal to help you set up your own project)
I am putting a LOT of energy into preparing for this. Making wishes and claiming my dreams for what I want from this.
I feel like I have a renewed relationship with hope ALREADY just from setting this intention.
What I really want to get from this is the magic of being deeper in a creative practice, with a sturdy container to hold me. The intention to fill this really heavy book, the physicality of how it’s actually heavy. The blank pages ready to be filled. The satisfaction of seeing them get filled.
But mostly the way I change when I am deeper in a transformative creative healing practice.
Dream Book is already that.
This is another layer.
I am so ready for a new layer, with less structure. Dream Book’s structure helps make sure you are moving towards your dream. Having less structure in this daily journal makes more space for the unknown. I'm feeling like I want more of both in the new year.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.
On Fridays I do my Dream Status Report which is a series of prompts I use every week to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path. I do my reports on the printable journaling sheet.
I was struck with a realization this week...
My "default setting" (I don't know why it just feels better to describe it this way, than to say "the pattern I am in") is to work REALLY REALLY hard. Doesn't matter what the situation, I have this belief that hard work will solve anything.
Driving the hard work is the belief that I can work hard enough to EARN validation.
This isn't a new realization.
But this week I saw it in a new way, like I got to the next layer of it.
And I experienced it a 100% futile, which felt like a miracle.
Like - there is no reason to work harder that just isn't the solution.
This is a miracle because as I said "default setting" is the best way to describe this pattern. So it's how I learned to see the world - it's my LENSE.
The lenses through which we see the world tend to be invisible to us because it's just how we see things. Even when we are super self aware. Even when we work on this stuff all the time. It's still really hard to see the things that are invisible to us!
So this IS a miracle, to see it in a new light.
And to choose to take a different approach.
So I am just really grateful to see this in a new light this week, and to see that I have space to make a different choice.
And for those who have been following for a long time - it was in 2021 that my dream was sending me all of those "slow the fuck down!" messages.... and I keep receiving them in new ways. (Membership members: Get the Slow The Fuck Down BE as Powerful, Creative + Magnetic as you ARE classes here.
No call this week as we wind down a little for the holidays. If you missed it - get the replay of the Goodbye 2024 Releasing Ceremony here.
Next Friday we've got the December New Moon call.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership members:
Come to the forum to share your Dream Status Report or start a conversation about whatever you're working with.
Get your next Dream Book lesson or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.
Continued from yesterday's post about making a decision in my business...
I did decide to give the journal away.
And I was feeling a bit like... why am I doing this? Like, I have other things I am doing, why am I adding this? It feels so random! The timing felt wrong.
But then I was like... hey what if I trust my creative process?
What if it's fine that I didn't plan it? This journal just kind of happened while I was working on my ideas for the Year of Hope and I am really happy to be able to share it, why feel frustrated about figuring out HOW?
Which is something I could look at much more deeply - where patterns around "doing things right" can make my work less fun... or can interfere with my relationship with my business.
Because it feels messy!
To say - I aimed to create this (Year of Hope) and in the process created this (Create A Year-Long Project That Fits Your Life And Gets You The Results You Want).
In my mind, they are connected since they came out of the same creative process and they can be used together BUT they are two completely separate things.
But like - this is my creative process. Unexpected things happen. I am not aiming to be in control of it! I am not aiming for a straight line... I just have all of this cultural conditioning that judges my lines when they are not straight.
Back to the robe I sewed.
When I joined the pattern club and was looking through my new patterns I was a little surprised that there were 2 robe patterns. Like who would need 2 different robe patterns?
I only downloaded one of them, because it also had nightgowns that I want to make included. So that's the one I sewed.
But now that I've made it, I see why the other pattern would be good to have too. I actually WANT another robe in the other pattern.
I thought having 2 different robe patterns was extreme -> I made 1 robe -> I now really want to have 2 robes from 2 different patterns.
The creative process changed me.
I am circling something here.
Something about enjoying and appreciating the ways my creative process changes me. And valuing my creative process for what it is and not judging it based on outcomes.
One thought that's been rolling around in my mind is: I would like to be less of an entrepreneur and more of an artist.
I know this is not the first time I have explored that! But it wants to be explored again. This feels really important for how I want to do things in 2025.
Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership 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 or get a weekly journaling + alchemy kit.
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.