WHAT YOU ARE FEELING IS NORMAL.
I’m feeling like this needs to be said more often. Like too many of us are feeling all alone in our feelings by feeling WRONG for feeling all the things we’re feeling.
You’re not wrong.
What you’re feeling is normal. All of it. Even the parts that conflict with each other.
Here’s what I’m feeling this morning:
- A sense that I call “cognitive shut down” where my brain just CAN NOT
- A wish to feel hopeful for the future
- But then also a feeling that feeling hopeful is dangerous, too vulnerable, and that those hopes will soon be dashed so why bother
- A deeper desire/need to FEEL GOOD AGAIN as my baseline feeling
- Sadness about not feeling good
- Grief about everything I’ve lost
- Panic about everything I could lose next
- Relief that my husband’s health emergency from last week is still serious but not an emergency this week
But I’ve also had these moments of feeling more creative, peaceful and powerful than I have in a long time.
It can be so confusing to have so many conflicting feelings going on.
But this is what it means to be human.
We live in a culture that teaches us to NOT feel.
But denying our human feelings doesn’t dissolve them, they just go underground where they control most of our behaviour, limit our possibilities and just generally do a lot of harm.
And now we’re in this time when we can’t keep stuffing it all down. There’s just too much.
Every breaking point is also a doorway into a new possibility.
That’s not just some bullshit thing people say to try to gloss over how hard the breaking point is.
It’s the truth.
The degree to which we can be present with the hard parts determines the amount of new possibilities we can receive from the experience.
I mean – it takes work and support and courage. But the opportunity is there.
That’s what I am holding onto right now.
I’m grateful for those moments of creativity and clear thinking and feeling peaceful and powerful and like I can do anything. I am using those moments to take care of my business and move important projects forward.
And in the rest of my time, I am resting and making art just for me and reading a lot and also reminding myself that there is an opportunity here.
That “my stuff is up” and I can see it more clearly than ever which means this is an opportunity for healing.
That I can emerge from this difficult time with less of my stuff weighing me down.
Things are hard anyway, why not go on a full on journey through my own underworld and see what I can clean up?
In 2019, my friend Tamara Laports (from Willowing Arts) was feeling overwhelmed about climate change. She always looks for ways to BE the change she wanted to see in the world… so she decided to try to DO something about.
Since she teaches art online, she put togeher an online art course sale, with 25% of profits benefiting TreeSisters, an organization that plants trees to fight climate change.
That sale resulted in 81,000 trees being planted! 🌳🌳🌳🌳
I was really inspired by that act of stepping up to be the change.
It’s easy to feel like we need to change our whole lives or be braver than we are or just…. like really BEING the change we want to see is out of our reach. We’re too small and the world’s problems are too big.
Tamara’s story shows how we can use the resources we already have in new ways to help make a difference.
So I asked Tamara to talk to me more about her story, and we recorded this video!The Art for Earth e-course bundle sale is happening again for 2021 and it’s ending in just 3 days!
This is a bundle of art e-courses valued at over £2900+ GBP, but – for one week only – is sold for only £75 GBP! (In USD that’s a value of roughly $4,000 for $104) Two of my courses – the Creative Dream Incubator ($147 USD value) and the Creative Business Incubator ($199 USD value) are a part of the Art For Earth 2021 bundle sale. Check it out here
My husband moved out and I am in the process of “re-claiming” the Dream Loft as my art + dream studio.
Also, I’m re-discovering the me-I-am-when-I-live-alone-and-have-space-for-all-the-things-I-need and all the things she dreams of.
And also – my husband and I are starting this deep process of exploring… how do we have more of what we do want and less of what we don’t want in this relationship? How do we honour each other’s conflicting dreams and needs? How do we put up some guard rails so we don’t fall into the rut we fell into during the pandemic?
Which, of course, triggers a lot of deeper feelings and patterns and wounds that are asking for healing.
And also also – kind of thawing out/unwinding after a really hard winter in the pandemic.
It’s been a lot.
And then everything got thrown for a loop last week with a new, sudden and scary health diagnosis that I’m not going to talk about online.
The thing that set this all in motion was a ceremony my husband and I did.
Bear and Snake came to my husband in dreams and he told me we had to do a ceremony for them. So we went to my friend’s farm to do it, and on the drive back into the city he said to me “This is going to be crazy, hey?“
And I said “What do you mean?“
And he said “Well, Bear and Snake. There are going to be big teachings coming our way“
But I don’t think either of us had any idea.
We have to trust the process.
I mean – not that we ARE trusting the process, all the time, of course.
I’m focusing on staying present with my feelings, which are wildly different from day to day.
And then doing my best to show up for myself and show up for what’s happening in my life. Sometimes that includes a lot of NOT trusting the process and getting all tangled up in my feelings.
I feel very behind in everything but I also feel alive in new ways like there is this way that I can be more deeply present with everything when everything is a bit of a mess.
The Art for Earth e-course bundle is on sale starting today until April 4.
This is a bundle of art e-courses (roughly $4000 US worth of courses!) – for only £75!! (That’s roughly $103 USD).
It includes my Creative DREAM Incubator e-course ($147 US value) and my Creative BUSINESS Incubator e-course ($199 US value)
>>> Get it here.
Awkward segwey…
One thing I’ve been deeply grateful for in all of this change and uncertainty is the Creative Dream Incubator.
Sharing my gifts to help others HELPS ME.
It’s a deeply healing balm – this is the part of growing my business that always surprises me. How I keep finding the things I need for my own healing, growth, and self care right there in the daily work of showing up for my business.
It’s helped me be more ME.
It’s helped me feel more grounded in who I really am which has helped me be more BRAVE in the decisions I make for my life.
And it’s also a way of creating financial independence. Which also helps me be more ME and brave and grounded and capable of making good decisions for myself.
There is a HUGE sale starting today, for 1 week only, that includes my Creative BUSINESS Incubator e-course.
This is the course I made at the end of my first year doing the Creative Dream Incubator as my full time job (in 2011). It’s got everything I learned about how to build a stable business by sharing your unique creative gifts.
And to celebrate 10 years in business, I am adding 3 new live classes to it in April and May! They are:
- Partnering with the Soul of your Business (basically the secret of how to get the RIGHT answer to ALL of your business questions)
- Business + Boundaries: Creating space for your creative dreams to flourish
- Growth, Chaos + Change: Following your own flow in your business
Grab it right here as a part of the Art for Earth e-course bundle sale – it’s only available until April 4.
I actually don’t feel like I have the capacity to promote anything right now.
But this has been planned for a long time so – so this is where I just stay present and show up for my life.
The Art for Earth e-course bundle is on sale starting today until April 4.
This is a bundle of art e-courses (roughly $4000 US worth of courses!) – for only £75!! (That’s roughly $103 USD).
It includes my Creative DREAM Incubator e-course ($147 US value) and my Creative BUSINESS Incubator e-course ($199 US value)
>>> Get it here.
My husband moved out of the Dream Loft on Friday.
Saturday he came over to pick up some food from the fridge and then I went over to his place to have dinner with him and the kids.
Sunday I went through closets and drawers and packed up a whole bunch more stuff for him. (He’s a packrat and I’m a minimalist – I wanted my closets and drawers to be neat and tidy again.)
He came to pick it up and we had a good long talk about where we are going and how we want to get there.
We both want to get to the same place, but we are not in agreement on how to get there.
But that feels ok. Like we can keep talking, tell the truth about what we need and do our best to make space for each other’s needs, and we will find our way.
Sunday night, with all of his stuff really gone, with all this new space in the closets and drawers, I tidied and arranged and vacuumed.
And Monday it felt like I woke up in my new life.
So far it’s quiet and sunny.
There is so much less stuff in here that more sun can find it’s way in. (I probably do need to get some more furniture at some point, but right now all this empty space feels soothing to my soul)
I can leave papers on the kitchen table and no one will set a dirty coffee cup down on them.
I can use all the hot water any time I want without the slightest thought of saving some for someone else.
There are so many tiny gifts to living alone.
But mostly I am noticing: we should have done this sooner.
This last winter, with both of us living and working in a 1,000 sq ft open loft (it’s 2 storeys, but the upstairs looks over the downstairs so no privacy unless you’re in the bathroom), when it was too cold to go anywhere outside and everything was closed because we were in code red all winter long, plus with 2 teenagers here every weekend and sometimes during the week to do school from here – it was really hard.
But it’s not just about the pandemic.
Us trying to live here together was always insane.
Everyone around us was telling us so.
We were just so in love and also thought it was temporary and we’d move to a different place and also maybe we were naive?
Not that I’m not glad we tried. I am.
There was *so much good* in living with Joseph. I don’t believe I could have lived in this space with anyone else. He brings so many gifts into my life.
But the way I feel now, with this space TO BE ALL MINE, with quiet and sunshine and space to set up stations for all of my various alchemy rituals and have everything exactly how I want it – this is what I need right now.
It felt selfish to say ” I just want my home to be exactly how I want it”.
Like having a wonderful partner should be a good trade-off for making some compromises on decor choices.
Which maybe makes sense, but it’s true that we BOTH wanted our home just the way we want it, and that our ideas of what that means are polar opposites from each other.
And – this is one of the hardest parts of ANY dream. Claiming what you REALLY want, even when it feels weird or selfish or uncomfortable or vulnerable or unlikely. Just wanting what you want.
And now I’m seeing it – making my home be exactly what I need means my home holds space for me, in a creative, emotional and spiritual way.
It becomes easier to stay in alignment with my growing dreams. It’s easier to face the hard parts with courage. It’s easier to be more creative and to have better ideas and… just… everything feels easier.
It’s not just about how it looks. It’s the emotional connection. How I FEEL in my space.
As an artist and highly sensitive empathic intuitive introvert – holy shit I need MY space. And it’s not like I didn’t know that! I totally knew that before.
And it’s not that I don’t miss him. I do.
But I missed ME. The me I am when I have enough alone time.
Also now that I have a little space, I’m seeing all the ways that living with someone and also taking on WIFE and MOM roles changed me in ways I don’t want to changed.
I also see how they changed me in ways I DID want to be changed. And ways they changed me in surprising but also-needed ways.
I might want to write more about living in the patriarchy and the ways women in heterosexual relationships take on those stupid WIFE and MOM roles. Or about a relationship between an Indigenous person and a settler during the ongoing violent occupation that is Canada. Because writing here on my blog has always been a way of helping me find clarity and see new ways through.
For today I just want to say: WHOA.
That moment when you dream of a thing and plan for a thing and work at a thing and then all of a sudden it happens.
It’s disorienting. Even when it was planned and worked for. It’s still a change.
And I wanted to send out a reminder to everyone: you get to want what you want.
And, if you want, you get to do the (inner + outer) work to actually get the thing.
And, if you want to do that work with me – join me in Dream Book, my creative mastermind + dream class for playing/creating/growing/healing your way into your dream.
So this is happening today.
My husband is moving out of the Dream Loft.
We’re not getting a divorce or even technically separating. We’re Living Apart Together – which actually is a thing with a wikipedia page and everything.
He got an apartment that’s a 20 minute walk from my place, and a 15 minute walk from the kids’ mom’s place.
There is a lot I can say about how we got here and I don’t know which parts of this story I want to share yet.
I do know this: when you know what is right for you, you have to DO IT.
Even when your kids say “this is really weird”
Even when your friends and family don’t understand.
For the last few years I’ve been stuck.
I don’t have the right space for my work.
And we don’t have the right space for our home.
In 2011, I bought my dream home – an all-open 2 storey loft condo with 2 floors of floor to ceiling south facing windows (so sunny!). Upstairs looks over downstairs, so while the upstairs bedroom feels separate from everything it’s not actually private.
This was perfect for my single self. It was less than ideal when I got married and my husband moved in, but we thought it was temporary and we were in the honeymoon phase so it seemed fine….
Until it wasn’t.
And in the last few years we’ve explored a lot of options for what to do about this, and none of them felt right.
Until this.
This gives us space for the healing and growth we each need to do, to create the life we want next.
AND AND – when we spend time together, we will be more engaged and present with each other. Which we have NOT been doing this all winter. All the stress of everything had each of us withdrawing into our own coping mechanisms.
As one of my friends said “Going to each other’s places for sleepovers might really spice things up!“
But, of course, sometimes this feels like a breakup.
Packing, dividing up our stuff, and all the feelings coming up and the arguments they spark.
The fears we both have, and we, or the other one, will feel happier apart and not want to continue the relationship.
There are moments when following your heart does lead to scary places and this is definitely one of them!
But this feels like we’re doing this big change to create a way better relationship and future for both of us.
I love where this is headed.
By giving each other space, it feels like we create better conditions for connection.
We both feel it. A lot of change and growth is coming.
And I can’t wait to set up my new creative work/play space this weekend.
I do New Moon Goal Setting every month.
Of course – you can set any goal you want, any time you want. But the new moon is a great time for this work and having a regular ongoing routine/practice of goal setting gives you the best chance of creating real MOMENTUM for moving towards your dreams.
How are dreams and goals different? Dreams tend to be bigger and more expansive and not always easy to describe in a single sentence. Goals are tangible and measurable. Goals help you move towards dreams.
As I prepare to set new goals for the March new moon, I’m looking back at the goal I set at the February new moon and noticing that I didn’t even come close to meeting it.
Not meeting your goals does NOT mean you failed.
Part of the process of goal setting is looking back and noticing what happened after you set the goal and then learning from that. Then you take what you learned, and apply it to the next goal you set.
This process of trial and error and learn-as-you-go is how most big dreams happen.
It’s not fancy, but it works.
And it’s something ANYONE can do at ANY TIME.
And it turns goal-setting into this magical thing that shows you exactly where you need to learn, grow, and heal, in order to have more of the things you want.
I still remember, about 13 years ago before I was even considering leaving my day job, I made my first online creativity workshop kit and wanted to sell it.
I set a goal to sell 10 kits in one week.
And then…. nothing happened. Didn’t sell a single kit.
At the end of the week, upon reflecting on this goal, I had to face all the feelings that came up as I accepted that I had no clue how to sell the kits.
Which lead me to see more clearly that I was waiting for this to happen to me, instead of going out there and creating it.
Which also shone a light on all sorts of other places with my dreams where I wait for it to happen instead of create it for myself.
Which got uncomfortable but also led to a decision: to read a business book.
I hated that business book and I didn’t feel that I could do any of those things it talked about, so I went back to my “if I just make stuff that’s good enough, people will want it” approach (which does NOT work).
I had to go around and around like this, each time making a decision to take the next step to learn how to create this thing I wanted, instead of waiting for it to happen for me.
Eventually, I started finding business books I could love and taking business classes and working with coaches and figured out MY WAY to sell my work.
I even made my own business class, to share what I’d learned about how I had brought creativity + playfulness + integrity + introspection into the process of sales and marketing and building an online business around sharing your creative gifts. It’s called The Creative Business Incubator.
You can start out not even knowing how much you don’t know about how to get to your goal… and still get to your goal. As long as you don’t give up.
Which is why I do a monthly New Moon Alchemy + Coaching circle, as a part of Dream Book, my creative mastermind. NOT to make sure everyone meets their goals every month, but to support everyone in staying in this process where you explore what you need to learn, grow, and heal, in order to have more of the things you want.
As I think back to that first sales goal I set 13 years ago – if I had just magically manifested it back then, would I be where I am today?
Because I LOVE that I trust myself to support myself financially. I LOVE that I KNOW HOW to do this in ways that feel good to me. I wouldn’t want to trade what I have now for the experience of the sales just coming to me without me going out there and learning how to create it for myself.
So I always think of that on months when I didn’t even get close to meeting my goals, like this month.
Last month, I felt *SO SURE* that I could finish my new project and be getting ready to put it out there.
But, here I am, still calling it “my new project” instead of feeling ready to show you exactly what it is.
At this time of the month, right before the New Moon, I look back to what I wrote on the last New Moon and reflect on what happened.
Did I do my best to show up for this goal?
Did I have the right kinds of support?
What was in the way? Is it what I thought would be in the way or was there an unexpected obstacle?
Is there a lesson for me here?
Is there something for me to let go of?
What does all this tell me about what to do next?
What do I WANT to do next? What feels inspiring now?
Again, this is NEVER about forcing myself to reach the goal on time.
It’s ALWAYS about engaging with the process, which teaches me about the inner and outer healing and growth and change that need to happen for me to do this thing.
This month, it feels PERFECT that I didn’t meet my goal.
I did do my best with it for the first 2 weeks, and then something unexpected happened.
On the February Full Moon, I lead the BREAKTHROUGH Alchemy Coaching Circle, which of course sparked a breakthrough. I was expecting some kind of breakthrough, I was not expecting the way it happened.
And then on the next day, my husband and I did a ceremony to feed a snake and a bear who had come to him in his dreams. If you know anything about Native American teachings you know that’s some serious stuff, and that ceremony sparked some big lessons for us both.
And then this big unexpected thing happened and now we are making some equally big and unexpected changes.
So goal which was SO IMPORTANT to me at the February New Moon needs to take a backseat to the new things that are happening. And even though I didn’t reach my goal, I am moving towards my dream.
This kind of reflection is VITAL for your dream.
Without it, this month of not meeting my goal becomes this shameful embarrassing thing.
I mean – I’m a life coach but I can’t even meet my own goals? What’s wrong with me? is the story that gets fed and then shoved underground where it will make it harder to make progress on my goals because it’s nurturing the seeds of I’m a failure and I won’t follow through so why bother.
And all of that stuff just festers.
WITH this reflection, I feel good about how this month went. I accept where I am. I feel proud of myself. I feel inspired and ready to set another goal and move forward again, understanding that I may not get to where I WANT to get next month, but I know I’ll get to the right place as long as I keep showing up for myself.
Do this Magical New Moon Goal Setting with me.
The March New Moon Alchemy + Coaching Circle is happening on March 12 – tomorrow. The replay is available a few hours after the live call is done so you have a few days to do this call in the New Moon energy.
This is where we dig into ALL of this magic together.
This call is for everyone who is Dream Book – join us here.
I am having SO MUCH FUN with the rainbow eyeshadow future self selfies, which I’ve been doing for a few weeks.
I play around with colour, doing a different kind of rainbow each time.
Then I play around with lighting and taking selfies in different locations. Different poses. Feeling into my next level future self who is dreaming next level future dreams.
Holding that energy.
Capturing it on film.
Building visual passageways between me and her.
And then I wash my face. I can’t actually wear all that eyeshadow!
I went to a Zoom birthday party last weekend and my friend said she was disappointed to not see rainbows on my face.
PLAYING with BEING your future self and putting it out there is powerful work. I know this is helping me build the next part of my path.
But I don’t think I’ll ever become a person who wears this much makeup…. I mean I used to, but that was when I worked in an office full time and putting on eyeshadow was a chance to be creative. Now I live my creative life so my face can just be what it is.
It’s not about the eyeshadow. It’s about following my creative flow and stretching into my brightest future.
Your bigger-brighter-future self has so many gifts and insights to offer you.
And there so many ways you can open deeper to more fully receive them.
Come to the BREAKTHROUGH Alchemy Coaching Circle tomorrow and let’s play with them together.
The BREAKTHROUGH Alchemy Coaching Circle is happening on the full moon: Saturday, February 27 🌕💥
Here’s what you’ll get:
✨ A radical new way of seeing yourself, or your situation
✨New options for how to move forward
✨A deeper connection to your own truth.
Some people will receive these things during the live call on Saturday. For some people, these things will come to you over the next month.
Let’s do this! Grab your spot here.
I hit (another!) pandemic wall on the weekend and I did the things that help best when I am in Full On Overwhelm. I finished my day with a hot lavender bath, I did yoga and meditated, and I went to bed early.
Normally, this helps me wake up the next day ready to take on the world. Yesterday, I woke up still crabby. And as my day went on I stayed crabby – even though I was doing all the things that usually help.
My husband (who is STILL working from home) noticed, of course, and towards the end of the day came upstairs to tell me a silly story in the hopes of cheering me up. That’s when I started crying.
“Sweetie, what’s wrong? I’m trying to cheer you up.”
I realised later, that it was because I was touched by him trying to cheer me up, that I finally felt some of what I was actually feeling. That all that crabbiness and overwhelm was really more about having-so-many-feelings-I-can’t-feel-anything and being all bottled up, emotionally.
And expecting my usual self care routines to take care all of this right now is unrealistic. I need more.
That’s the breakthrough. To look for ways to double my self care.
The best breakthroughs seem boring and obvious once you’ve had them. But nevertheless, they change everything.
So I doubled up on my self care practices and gave myself more space to be where I am and I woke up this morning feeling more clear and grounded and I am remembering – we just had 3 weeks of brutal winter weather, and everything is still closed.
Normally, I can go for walks in brutal winter weather. In -40s, I can bundle up and go for a 30 minute walk – I’ll just be cold by the end of it. So I walk to a coffee shop/bakery with a wood fire oven. It’s toasty warm in there, and in the coffee shop section they’ve got huge sunny windows and dozens of plants. The warmth, the sun, the plants, the coffee, the treats, the whole place smelling like whatever’s baking – it’s a pretty epic spot to do some journaling and writing. Plus I warm up enough to walk 30 minutes back home, no matter what the weather.
Bundling up to walk 15 minutes from home, then turn around and walk back, just doesn’t have the same feel to it, you know? So I haven’t been bothering to do it, and now I’m feeling the effects of not getting out at all.
Last weekend we went to my friend’s farm.
Normally, my friend and I would have lunch or coffee together at least every other week, since she works in the city.
My husband is a traditional Cree medicine person. He received messages from some spirits who needed to be fed, so he needed space to have a sacred fire. So I spoke to my friend at the farm and she offered her space – provided we didn’t go inside her home.
We were only there for about 2 hours, but it was AMAZING to see my friend again and just sit around and hang out (it was a warmer day and we had the fire going).
It was after that, that it hit me how much I’ve lost. And how very much I miss my people.
This turned up the volume on the I-Have-Too-Many-Feelings-I’m-All-Bottled-Up thing that was happening. It pushed it all over the edge.
And now I feel ACCEPTING of my feelings. Like they’re not all bottled up and I am not on the verge of exploding. I can just slow down and be more patient with myself.
It’s a subtle shift in focus.
A shift from: “just keep going, you are one of the lucky ones, you have everything you need to get through this ok” which was only creating a backlog of un-felt feelings in me, which was making everything harder than it already was.
To: “Sweetie this is HARD, make space for all of these feelings” which helps me be more deeply present with ALL parts of me which plugs me back into my superpowers which is the thing that will actually help me move through this best.
And let’s me clear: I knew this. I KNEW BETTER than to do what I was doing.
The breakthrough didn’t teach me something I didn’t already know.
It put me back in touch with that inner knowing in a way that it really LANDED.
And then I was able to make that change.
And now everything feels different for me. I have all these new options for how to move forward.
The BREAKTHROUGH Alchemy Coaching Circle is this Saturday – on Feb 27.
A Breakthrough is a sudden shift in perspective, a radical new way of seeing yourself, or your situation.
A Breakthrough gives you new options that you didn’t know you had, before the breakthrough.
A Breakthrough brings you back to your own truth.
I am not promising everyone who attends will have an instant breakthrough. I am hoping for that though!
What I AM promising is that attending the Circle, and then showing up for the next 30 days to keep working with it, will give you these things:
A radical new way of seeing yourself, or your situationNew options
A deeper connection to your own truth
Last summer, I found out the owner of the online business company I was using (they supplied my website, membership site, email services and shopping cart) is a far-right anti-feminist “racism isn’t real stop believing in it” kind of person, and was sharing their views in public, while presenting themselves as a thought leader for spiritual entrepreneurs.
I brought it up in the Facebook group for their customers. Now – this was software marketed at spiritual entrepreneurs. So these people are all about love and light and living your purpose.
I had just been on a really inspiring call about anti-racism in the online small business community and was all full of “OH YES WE CAN CHANGE THIS” energy (which you can watch on this page) and so I totally forgot how spiritual white people get when you bring up racism…
When the racist, ignorant comments I received in response to my post were not deleted or responded to in any way (other than one staff member putting HEARTS on them!) that really told me everything I needed to know about the company culture. I started working on a plan to move my business.
The fact that so many people in the New Age community are lost in their white fragility is NOT just about racism.
It’s also about the New Age’s inability to look at itself with any kind of clarity.
Byron Katie’s The Work was helpful to me at one point, and I know it’s helped millions of people.
AND it’s just one tool amount MANY approaches in the New Age that have that kind of “I am 100% responsible for my life and there is nothing that happens outside of me” bullshit.
“I’m just going to change the way I think about this problem and them *POUF* PROBLEM! SOLVED!”
This is where context matters.
OMG yes we need to take responsibility for ourselves.
But, because the tools of the New Age are colonized practices, taken without any understanding of the context from which they came from, we lost the whole community aspect.
Change your thinking, change your life is a helpful approach when you are 100% the thing that is in your way.
The problem is:
- it doesn’t work for people who face systemic oppression because it does nothing to change things
- it keeps you focused on changing yourself, instead of changing the things outside of you that hold everyone’s dreams hostage
- when you look more deeply, this approach is often about making your actual feelings wrong which is extremely problematic for everyone, but again, is going to work best for the people who have the most privilege and have experienced the least trauma.
Everything I wrote about in “We want a better world for everyone. How do we start?” shows how we’re leaving most of the people in the world out when we take these kinds of approaches. Change your thinking change your life just leaves a lot of people all alone with their trauma and oppression.
When you’re so focused on your own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs being the cause of what’s happening in your life – how does that impact how you see a homeless person?
Do you think they should change their thoughts to change their life?
Do you think about the larger systemic issues that cause homelessness or do you think the individual just needs to change their thinking to change their life?
Because the focus on the individual as the cause/source of problems means we’re not focused on community or understanding the systems we live within.
In “The New Age has a lot of shadow work to do. Let’s do it together” I wrote about how the tools we are using are colonized and removed from their context.
That context IS community care. In the New Age we use those tools for individual gain.
When I was very new to that “Change your thinking change your life” church, a friend I had just met there was moving. She was on the board of directors, super active as a volunteer, and had tons of friends in the church. I assumed there would be a ton of people helped her move and this would be a cinch.
I was the only one who showed up.
That’s when I first started to wonder about the lack of community care in the New Age community.
But what I wanted to write about is the New Age’s inability to look at itself with any kind of clarity.
Which IS connected to that lack of community and focus on the individual and perspective that says “whenever I have a problem that means there is something IN ME that needs to change. I am the source of everything.”
And again – to be honest that attitude helped me change all sorts of things, in me, that did need to change.
But at this point in my life, after ten years of making my living in this industry and after five years of making an honest effort to learn how to be anti-racist and to get educated about the realities of current day colonization – my perspective has REALLY changed.
We need a new way of approaching our personal/spiritual growth/healing work – with an anti-racist lens, which is by definition anti-colonial and anti-capitalist lens.
Because the whole “look within for the change you seek” thing IS helpful in SOME ways – but what we lack is the CLARITY to apply it with DISCRETION.
We’ve been acting like we have the best hammer in the universe and absolutely everything we see becomes a nail.
We need to be able to see ourselves and our lives from a wider perspective, to see ourselves WITHIN the world we live in.
This is the stuff we miss using colonized tools from around the world – these tools all come from a community-minded context. Meanwhile we’re using them in a colonized culture with a colonizer mindset.
And getting that CLARITY and WIDER PERSPECTIVE won’t just help us be better citizens and won’t just help us create a better world, it will help our own healing process as well.
Because the places where you’ve been stuck and stayed stuck are probably places where your own personal stuff INTERSECTS with systemic injustice.
So the tools that just heal and change YOU aren’t going to change the problem.
Changing your thoughts is PART OF the solution but not the whole thing.
We need to dismantle systemic oppression.
Personal development and spiritual growth were never meant to happen isolated from community care and political involvement in the world you live in.
PS: The BREAKTHROUGH Alchemy Coaching Circle is next Saturday! I hope to see you there.
My dream sent me this amazing vision.
It was me, sitting in the coffee shop I used to go to, in my favourite spot – at the bar along the window, in the corner. My journaling stuff was all spread out. I had a delicious cup of coffee in my hands and noise canceling headphones in my ears. Outside the window the sun was rising the the sky was soft pinks and blues and lavenders.
I was SO FREAKING HAPPY to be back there. To feel the magic of my familiar old pattern. It felt like a healing.
But then my dream arrived, in the form of sparkling golden stars. It landed in my heart and I grew 4 stories tall.
The coffee shop did not grow and I didn’t fit inside it anymore.
There is no going back.
My dream asked “Why on earth would you want to go BACK??!? The way foreword is FORWARD.”
And suddenly I saw it. I’ve been waiting to GO BACK to my old beloved routines. I’ve been waiting to GO BACK to my old life.
I wanted to go back to my old ME.
But there is no going back.
That’s what all those FEELINGS were about in the spring and summer… it’s grief. The world changed and there is no going back and we don’t know what what’s next. Also it’s hard for those kinds of thoughts to not trigger fears about how the world will change again with climate change, which won’t be as gentle with us as Covid has been.
But my dream put a much more positive spin on it.
This time is an incubator.
I am growing in ways I don’t see yet.
And I get to choose who I’ll be next.
I can’t go back to who I was, because you can’t un-grow.
But I can choose who I’ll be next and I can choose HOW I’ll grow.
I mean of course I’ll go back to my beloved coffee shop morning routines, but I’ll be a new me.
It’s breakthrough time.
There are so many ways we can fuel our growth at this time.
And we do this NOT by forcing a positive spin on what’s happening or hiding in conspiracy theories.
We do it by facing what’s actually happening. And tending to our reactions to what’s happening, and bringing love and gentleness to all of the places in us that get triggered and re-traumatized.
Because facing the hard stuff is a part of being with the truth.
And the truth is: You are more powerful that your obstacles. That your creative genius always knows a way.
And this is how you create your breakthrough.
Come do this with me at the BREAKTHROUGH Alchemy Coaching Circle on the February Full Moon. This will help you see your way into a new story of what is actually possible for you RIGHT NOW.
February 27, at 11:00 am (Central, North America).
What’s included: The live circle, plus access to the replay, complete with a private comments section for anything you want to discuss after.
Special bonus to help you move into that new story and make yourself at home: After the Breakthrough Alchemy Circle, you also get access to my Dream Book program for one month! This includes the miraculous Dream Book journaling system, daily online masterminds, weekly printable journaling kits, a monthly new moon coaching call and access to my entire library of e-courses. It’s like having a Creative Dream Coach on call 24-7.
Can’t make it live? The recording will be available within hours of the end of the event – so you can do your circle whenever you like. And there IS a private comments section for the replay – so you can still add your ideas or questions or get extra support in there – you don’t have to attend live to be a part of the group.
Join me Monday mornings and we'll map out our weeks together in this LIVE FREE journaling + meditation class, working with creativity, intuition and magic.
It happens Mondays at 10am (Central, North American time) on Instagram. Follow me, and be on Instagram at the time and and you'll get a notification when I go live. Or participate in your own time using the replay on my video page