I’ve burned a lot of bridges in the last few years and I don’t regret a single one of them.

In the summer of 2020, I wrote a blog post about how hopeful I was feeling after attending the Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg rally, and I how proud I was of my step-daughter, who had been one of the organizers.

I received an angry response from an American woman telling me that BLM was a terrorist organization and she couldn’t believe I would support “that kind of thing”. I didn’t just delete her email from my database, I made sure she would not be able to sign up for my emails or offerings ever again.

As I have written about the complexities of doing business as a settler Canadian on stolen land, working in an industry that has deep deep roots in the white supremacist movement, and wanting, through my work, to offer something hopeful and good and useful - not just to white settlers but to everyone - I have received so many responses asking me to please “stay in my lane” and just write about dreams and creativity and inspiration (as though we dream in a vacuum and not in the world!) (as though our creative dreams are not political!).

I regret none of it.

You can never BE as powerful, creative and magnetic as you ARE if you are not doing what you can to live your values. Every time you shrink and bend to fit in and not rock the boat you weaken yourself.

I mean, you don’t need to be rude or aggressive about it. But if you have been socialized as female in this culture, politely but clearly speaking your truth and holding your boundaries can FEEL rude, or aggressive, and people will definitely accuse you of these things.

Everywhere where you don’t do what you can to live your values weakens you. If you feel guilt about not recycling or driving a gas guzzler when you have values around taking good care of our planet, if you freeze up when people talk about racism - our bodies know when we’re not in integrity with ourselves and will keep sending signals.

***Note I keep saying “doing what you can to live your values” in recognition of the fact that we live in a world that makes this hard! You don’t have to “be perfect” and we all have to make compromises to survive in this world. I’m saying - don’t ignore your internal nudges, look at where you can be in integrity with your values.

You just VIBE DIFFERENT when you’re doing what you can to live in tune with your own values.

And you cannot BE as powerful, creative and magnetic as you ARE if you are living out of tune with your self.

So, even though plenty of people have been upset with me, I regret none of this because of how good it feels to do what I can to live in alignment with my own values and because of how this draws like-minded people to my work.

Since I’ve started speaking out, I have drawn like-minded people into Dream Book and we have THE BEST conversations about all of this on our group calls. We help each other figure out how to live our values in a world that is always pushing us to conform to patriarchal, white supremacist, colonial capitalist values.

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE community spell + zoom call is happening Feb 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.

Continued from last week's journal prompt on slowing down...

Where is it SCARY for you to slow down?

I talk a lot about the the oppressive systems we live in, like capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy (which includes ableism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia).

I talk about them because these are external forces that make it harder for all of us to BE our authentic selves and pursue our dreams. NOT talking about them leaves them as these invisible forces which means we are powerless against them.

Talking about them makes them visible. Once you can see them you can stop them from stopping you, you are no longer powerless.

A lot of approached to healing focus on “Don’t be negative!” and “Don’t blame anyone or anything, take responsibility for your life!!”

But by not being able to “blame” whatever was responsible for terrible things that happened to you, it's easy for YOU to take the blame yourself for the way those things impacted you. THIS CREATES SHAME, THIS DOES NOT CREATE HEALING. It means the impacts of those things will continue to impact you.

The word “blame” feels so loaded, but there is nothing wrong with assigning responsibility to the responsible parties.

I don’t blame the government or my parents for the state of my life.

But my eyes are open on my healing journey.

Which means: I don't blame MYSELF for all the times I failed. By acknowledging that certain things made certain things hard for me, I acknowledge the truth, I make space to process my feelings, and I free myself of the ways that these things impacted me and I empower myself to make a different choice.

This is healing. And you’ve got to SLOW WAY THE FUCK DOWN before you can access it.

So - let's not avoid the places where slowing down is scary. If the thought of slowing down feels appealing but scary, if you have a lot of stories about why you CAN'T slow down - let's acknowledge all of that so that it doesn't turn into an invisible internal obstacle.

Let’s make magic together

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE is a community spell/Zoom class happening February 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.

It’s OK if it gets awkward is a mantra I have used in my work for years.

I started using it because I saw that almost all growth includes an awkward stage, and I wanted my people to be ready for it. It’s ok! Don’t make the awkwardness mean something about you or your dreams. Don’t let it stop you.

It’s ok if it gets awkward. It’s ok if it gets awkward. It’s ok if it gets awkward. It’s ok if it gets awkward.

I say it over and over again but people still freak out when it gets awkward. Even when we agree, in theory, that it’s ok if it gets awkward, we don’t quite extend that to ourselves.

And the thing is, when we don’t allow ourselves that awkward phase, we end up shutting down the whole process.

We kill our dreams rather than be awkward out in public, or even in the privacy of our own journals!

I used to think that it was the discomfort of the awkwardness that drove this. But now I see it’s a function of living in a supremacist culture that indoctrinates all of us into it’s values.

Looking good means something in this culture. Looking like you have your shit together means something in this culture. Even when you are literally choosing between LOOKING LIKE everything is fine and actually feeling thrilled and free and excited about your life.

This is so messed up! So I’ll keep saying it: it’s ok if it gets awkward.

In fact, it’s great!

Awkward means you’re not following the status quo. You’re trying something new. You’re following inspiration. You had an idea that might be genius and you won’t know unless you try.

You literally cannot get to your dream without taking some awkward steps. You are literally choosing between getting awkward or killing your dream.

Please, make the right choice. Take care of the part of you who freaks out about being awkward. Do the inner work to soothe your fears and bring healing to the places in you that would choose conformity over doing what is true for you.

You cannot BE as powerful, creative and magnetic as you ARE if you are afraid of being awkward.

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE community spell + zoom call is happening Feb 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.

Self doubt seems to go hand in hand with creative life - but actually that’s not natural.

Pre-colonial societies didn’t cause people to doubt their ability to express themselves. It’s our fucked up culture that makes you doubt yourself.

When you feel into your absolute most creative version of yourself, the part of you who is untouched by our toxic culture - what do you feel called to create?

Give yourself space to really explore this.

It's not about thinking BIGGER. It's about freeing yourself of the ways the world has told you who to be and what to want, and listening for your most authentic dreams because bringing these things into your life will heal you in ways you can't see right now.

My biggest dream was always to be creatively self-employed in a way that felt spiritually meaningful to me. Because our world wants us to focus on external success, it felt easier to focus on this as a dream.

But lately, my biggest dream is to create a wardrobe of really weird embroidered clothing. I have this indigo linen dress I made, loose and flowy with with big puffy sleeves, and I have been embroidering eyes inside a rainbow prism pyramid all over the yoke of the dress. It's so weird and I LOVE IT.

Working on this energizes me and feels healing in ways I don't yet understand. I have a pile of linen fabrics, a rainbow of embroidery flosses, and a ton of ideas for what to make next and this is making me SO happy.

And of course, when I feel SO happy and energized, I have more to put into my work, and that grows as well. We don't need to ALWAYS focus on the "practical dreams".

The best dream to focus on is the one that feels the most enticing to you.

Let's make magic together!

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE community spell + zoom call is happening Feb 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.

You are a creative dynamo and 100% capable of doing the things you dream of.

There are a lot of reasons why it’s hard to SHOW UP and BE as powerful as you really are every day - and BEING that version of you EVERY SINGLE DAY is probably not a goal you want to have.

But right here right now, feel into this version of you, your *most* powerful self. What does this version of you feel capable of doing?

Let’s make magic together

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE is a community spell/Zoom class happening February 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.

Where did you learn your current pace?

This can be a little trippy because we tend to think that the pace we live at is the pace of life, but it’s not.

You have a lot of choice about the pace.

Imagine it slowed down. Imagine it speeded up.

I guarantee you, you didn’t learn how to pace your life from people who had a healthy relationship with the pace of their own lives. That’s just not how the world works right now.

But you are a creative genius and you can create a pace of life that meets your needs and give you what you need to bloom.

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE is a community spell/Zoom class happening February 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.

You are a creative supernova.

You’re also a sensitive living creature and you need your needs met in order to unfurl the full magnificence of who you are.

The world is very loud about telling you to live at it’s pace. You have got to slow WAY the fuck down first, then find your own pace, then find your deeper magic.

What would slowing down look like for you?

Slow down can meant a lot of different things. What comes to mind for you? What part of your life do you want to slow down in?

We recognize that slowing down is not always possible! There are external factors that can make this impossible. And then there are internal voices that can tell us it’s impossible when it’s actually not. Notice all of your external obstacles and internal reactions as you explore these questions.

Journal about this for 30 minutes, follow your thoughts wherever they go and feel the feelings that come up in the process.

let’s make magic together

Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE is a community spell/Zoom class happening February 28.

Together we can free ourselves of all the ways this world dims our light.

Join us here.