I just wanted to share that I WOKE UP HAPPY THIS MORNING.
And I have been waking up feeling happy every morning for a while now.
This feels surreal, given that I felt I was drowning in self doubt earlier this year when I set out to find out who I am as an artist in my 50s.
And I remembered something one of my teachers used to say:
Your clothes don’t look that dirty, but it’s time for a wash.
You put them in the washing machine…
And if you open it up halfway through - it’s disgusting. All the sweat and dirt and whatever that was in the filers has been released into the water it’s a big dirty mess.
But if you just let it go through the whole cycle - everything comes out clean.
He would say this at the start of his healing retreats to say - things are going to get worse before they get better, don’t let that make you give up halfway through the process.
It’s like that with our dreams.
Some steps we take can dig up deep rooted stuff, stuff we didn’t know what there, and working through it all can feel impossible.
But it’s not.
This is just what the process is like.
Let yourself stay in it until the end.
This is why I always say that the INNER WORK is a valid + needed part of the process, every bit as much as Dream Work and Outer Work. (Those are links to the libraries of practices + tools for each of the "works")
Inner Work is where we generate miracles, healing, and the shifts that make the outer work possible.
So, even if you feel like you're really stuck deep in there - please keep showing up. You'll work through it in time.
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.
Every Monday in 2025 there will be a new journal prompt in the Year of Hope classroom in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership.
Get this week's journal prompt here.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.
I'm not doing the Hope Alchemy Meditation as consistently as I was in January.
(There is also the hopelessness meditation)
But I am still doing it once in a while. I really love this sensation of looking, in my body, for hope.
It comes from the assumption that hope is in there somewhere.
Where is hope glowing in my body?
Some days that light is SO tiny. Not a judgement! Just a noticing.
There is something so special about just sitting with that tiny light.
Nothing is happening, but it feels like an important practice.
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 these "Dream Status Report" prompts to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
There are journaling sheets for doing this! these are available for everyone, not just membership members. Download them here.
In a quickly changing world, steady practices are... steadying.
Feeling grateful for the steadiness of this practice this week.
Checking in with my "big dream" and my current new moon intention immediately gave me this sense of direction. Like I have been wandering in the cosmic jungle and then was suddenly given a compass that shows - oh look, I have been going in the right direction.
Since January I've been in this process of "BEING the artist I know I AM" which has a lot of layers of uncovering and discovering.
The last new moon call (since I write these in advance I am writing this on the day of the May new moon call, so looking back to April) was intense for me! Messages came through hot and heavy - I came out of that call with a totally different intention than I had intended on.
And it's just now that I see things kind of coming together, or kind of starting to "make sense".
It's SO GOOD when the messages we receive in creative dream meditations don't make sense. This means we're tapping into "next level stuff". It's not supposed to make sense from our current state of being because it's guiding us into a new one.
I am moving into a new state of being and everything is... new.
I feel like I am, just now at age 51 after prioritizing this for most of my life, finding out who I really am as an artist.
This is an intense feeling! In light of this - it makes sense that this wasn't a hugely productive week. I felt like I made progress on everything that I wanted to make progress on but I mostly... vibed with my dreams.
What I am learning... and this is blowing me away... is that BEING the artist I AM has nothing to do with anything I make.
I think I did know that, when I started following this thread I was really clear that it wasn't about what art I made, it was an internal shift I was looking for... but I think I also thought that once I had that shift, some actual tangible "new way of doing art" would emerge.
Now, I don't know. I think I am learning that BEING the artist I AM is really much more about how I am in the world and how I see the world and how I express that through my life. I care less and less about "producing" and more and more about FEELING fully expressed.
At the same time, an idea about how to put myself out there in my business, which I have been circling for years, is starting to come into focus.
So - this feels like it was such a rich and fruitful week, though what I mostly have to show for it is a shift in how I feel about everything and a several-years-old idea that feels new and ready for implementing.
When I ask my dream what it thinks, it's kind of exploding with joy about where I am with all of this. It LOOOOOVES this "new" idea I have.
In light of all of this: next week I want to focus on implementing the new idea. Or, preparing to implement.
Co-Dreaming/Co-Working call is today!
We'll start with a short meditation for connecting with the soul of your dream (like the Dream Lab) and then have time for whatever you want to do - planning next week, working on your projects, sharing your updates, talking about something that is stuck with your dreams or just hanging out in the magic of the group.
Call details are here. Replay will be there a few hours after we're done today.
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!
My Year of Hope journal collided with my Dream Book journal for this one.
In my Dream Lab and Dream Self and Project Miracle meditations - I feel so much power, clarity and sense of sureness. That's what these meditations are designed to do!
Outside of the meditations - I can't always feel it.
This is the work. WE PRACTICE.
We can practice being powerful and we build it up over time and start to FEEL, ACT and BECOME more powerful in our lives.
And I don't mean developing the ability to overpower other people, I mean developing the ability to fully and meaningfully act on our convictions, inspirations and dreams.
We ARE powerful and we don't always FEEL IT.
And I am just sitting in that space of noticing the difference between how it feels in these meditations and how it feels in my daily life.
Noticing those differences is good.
Sitting with how it feels to notice those differences is good.
It's easy to freak out and judge yourself for not being able to hold that more powerful/confident/creative energy all the time.
But I want to encourage you to be proud of yourself for being able to access it in the meditations.
This is a big step.
You're feeling into your potential.
This is an invitation and a glimpse into what is possible for you if you keep showing up and working on it - it's not a judgement about how far you are from it today.
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 had a busy week last week and was feeling quite overwhelmed. One of the ways this manifested is that I felt emotionally clogged up... I knew I had a lot of feelings but I was mostly just numb to them.
Then last night I woke up in the middle of the night and started crying. I can’t even say what I was crying about, just… everything. And it was real crying - snot flying, loud sobbing, etc. Like a dam breaking.
Then I guess I fell back asleep, because the next thing I know my cat is on me, tapping my face with his paw to let me know it’s 30 minutes until breakfast.
Today I feel emotionally hungover. My eyes are puffy and all of my muscles are achy and I am tired and in a haze.
I’m sharing all of this because I want to help normalize that these are trying times we are living through and there isn’t a right or wrong way to process it all.
But the way dominant culture is encouraging (demanding?) that we just carry on like everything is normal is not serving most of us. I think it helps to acknowledge how we are feeling and what the impacts are.
As artists, healers, visionaries and activists - we can’t really afford to be clogged up. Feeling our feelings is a part of the work, if we want to be good at our work.
I mean we can’t help but get clogged up sometimes, we're likely going to get lost in conspiracy theories and distraction - but it’s a part of our work to process and work through our feelings and try to stay present with that is actually happening.
And I was doing plenty of doomscrolling and noticing that I wasn’t even really processing what I was watching in reel after reel, I was just 100% trying to distract myself from the world.
And each time I noticed that, I reminded myself that I feel better when I stay present.
Even though today I feel like.. this is crappy and hard and none of us asked for this, when we do the work to stay present, we can access our creativity, our power and our inner knowing. And with all of that - we can find our way through.
So what to do on days like this? How do I want to show up?
I don’t know.
I do know I’ve already had too much coffee, but I’d like to make a note to self for the future: matcha would have been a better choice for how it impacts my mind, compared to coffee. And I do have a tin of matcha! So next time I could do that.
(sitting quietly with the question: how do I want to show up today?)
I think I just want to focus on art today.
I had a list of admin things to do, but it would be ok to do them tomorrow instead.
And if do those tasks - that means pushing my vulnerable emotional hangover feelings aside to get focused and that doesn’t feel right.
If I do art - something new could emerge out of these feelings. Or I just give myself the space to really be with this and let it move through me.
Either way - this is what feels right today, so this is what I’ll do. Some days are just a jumbled mess.
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.
Or... I'm planning to do it, but I am also ready to give up and say “No this will never work”
This is a VERY COMMON THING in creative dreaming! We can have parts of us who feel realllllly ready to do this thing... and parts of us who are terrified and will do anything to stop this from happening.
This is a part of the Inner Work and Dream Work of creative dreaming. The Inner Work is where you work with the parts of you who don't feel ready. The Dream Work is where you get more deeply aligned with the parts of you who were born ready.
Let’s look closer at what is happening for me today:
What’s going on with the part of me that IS ready to do this?
This came to me in a Dream Lab meditation. It doesn’t quite feel like part of me, it feels like my dream.. my soul calling from somewhere further on the path than where I am today.
But if I am honest, and there is no point of journaling like this if I am not, even though I am noticing I really don’t want to be honest about this but here goes: it’s an idea I have had many times. I have maybe (probably?) even taken steps towards it. Probably several times. Like, this is an idea that won’t go away, and I keep pushing it away and trying to forget it. And then it came to me in this meditation in a way that it feels like it wasn’t my idea but in the past it was.
WOW what a convoluted relationship I have with the part of me who wants this!
There is a lot to explore there, but I am going to move on to:
What’s going on with the part of me that doesn’t want to do this?
This part of me feels 70% in the driver’s seat right now, steering me away from any fruitful explorations of this idea.
Why?
It’s scared of loosing everything I have. It’s like “don’t upset the apple cart with a new way of doing things!”
And the part of me who wants to do this is like… but Creative Dreaming is ALL ABOUT finding and creating new ways of doing things. And if I want a different result I need to do things in a different way. This whole year has been about BEING the artist I AM, like in terms of how I do things - figuring out what it means to live as the artist I know I am. And that brought me to this place, to this idea. Back to this idea that I’ve explored before, but also I’m seeing it in a new way now so it feels different.
The part of me who doesn’t want this just wants to cry. It’s SO scared everything will fall apart if I make this change.
Oh! Now I see - this part of me is holding the pain and grief of everything that has happened since 2020, even all the ways the world and internet have changed since 2016. It’s not as easy to put yourself out there as it used to be. This part of me wants me to be VERY VERY careful about upsetting anything that is working because we can’t necessarily get it back.
I don’t think we should take un-due risk. We can always take really small steps and experiment first. We can find ways to bring safety in.
AND
There are risks involved which feel terrifying sometimes.
Sometime’s it’s a small risk and a big terror.
It doesn’t really matter - your feelings are always valid and exploring them can help you better understand what you need to do this thing you want to do.
So, if I am VERY VERY careful - will the part of me who doesn’t want to do this, consider doing this and stop throwing wrenches in every idea that comes along?
Yes. I see this part of me putting down her wrenches, though she’s keeping them within reach to pick them back up. Fair enough.
The part of me who wants to do this is HAPPY to go slow and be careful. CAREFUL is not the quality she wants to lead with.
So what qualities does she want to lead with?
EXPANSION, CLARITY, OFFERING, INVITATION
As I show the part of me who doesn’t want to do this these qualities, all parts of me see:
This is the natural next step.
I mean - TRYING THIS IDEA is the natural next step.
Maybe we won’t get all the way there. Maybe we’ll do it and it will be a disaster. Maybe it will exactly what we need. THAT DOESN’T MATTER.
The outcome doesn’t matter.
So when I say that this feels like the natural next step - I don’t mean that it comes with a guaranteed outcome.
The only guarantees in Creative Dreaming are that you can’t get there if you don’t keep showing up.
And while there is still TONS for me to explore about my ambivalence - it also feels clear now that this is the way for me to show up next. This is my next step. It feels scary, so I will tend to that fear (in the Un-Sticking Station) while I also work on taking this step.
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.
Every Monday in 2025 there will be a new journal prompt in the Year of Hope classroom in the Creative Dream Incubator Coaching Membership.
Get this week's journal prompt here.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave them in the comments at the bottom of that page so we can discuss this as a group. Practicing hope in community is MAGIC.
This week I want to share three pages from my Year of Hope journal:
Why are we so afraid to get our hopes up?
Why is it so fucking vulnerable to be hopeful?
What if you do have the capacity un-dash your hopes when they get dashed?
I encourage you to sit with those question and notice what happens in your body.
I feel like a bit of a broken record here, but this stuff has always been hard, dreaming and hoping have always been vulnerable, but with everything happening in the world, it is all EXTRA EXTRA HARD....
At the same time that it's all EXTRA EXTRA IMPORTANT that we hold onto our dreams.
This is a way of holding onto our values, our inner knowing and hope for a better future for everyone.
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 these "Dream Status Report" prompts to help me have more clarity, momentum and groundedness on my path.
There are journaling sheets for doing this! these are available for everyone, not just membership members. Download them here.
This week feels like it just flew by
And I accomplished SO LITTLE of what I had hoped to accomplish.
What happened? Forest fires broke out, two months ahead of our "wildfire season". A wildfire even started in my city though it was contained quickly. Once day it seemed like every time I went online, a new fire had started.
Other parts of the province are flooding. States of emergency everywhere.
I'm wondering... so was I just stressed and distracted? Is that why I couldn't settle in and do the things I wanted to do? And I remembered - well also one night I left my window open and kept waking up coughing. These days one night of bad sleep takes a while to recover from. And the burning eyes and throat every time I leave the house.
Then I had to laugh because one of the things I wanted to work on this week was a journaling kit for existential dread.... But I had too much existential dread to have the creative energy to work on it.
One thing stands out about this week:
This was just a week where I had a lot of stuff happening - all things I either wanted to do or needed to do (like a dental check up). Just a lot of things landed in one week.
One of them was a birthday lunch for my aunt, which we had in a lovely spot and to get there is a really nice bike ride. The actual bike ride I would usually take most evenings in spring. As the weather warms up and I'm excited to be out... so I usually watch the budding of the trees, etc.
This route includes one road that used to be lined in trees that flower pink in spring. I would watch that road like a hawk! Riding down there every day or every other day to not miss the peek pink flower days.
This year it was my first time riding down that street, and the flowers were already falling and it hit me. THE GRIEF.
I haven't been taking my usual spring rides because we had an unusually cold and windy spring. It would have been brutal bike rides. Then it suddenly got too hot to ride. Then the wildfires started.
I was grieving how the world has changed and how we have no control over how it continues to change. And how my simple little springtime routine feels so out of reach.
So what do I need and what does my dream need?
I need more quiet, alone time, rest and self care and LESS of everything else and I can do that.
I need to process my feelings.... my dream is tapping me on the shoulder to say it would like me to work on the existential dread project and that can be a way of me processing my feelings, too. We can work together.
So that's my focus for next week. To BE WITH my existential dread about everything while working on a journaling kit or... I don't really know where the creative process will lead with this one but I am starting with the journaling kit idea.
Co-Dreaming/Co-Working call is today!
We'll start with a short meditation for connecting with the soul of your dream (like the Dream Lab) and then have time for whatever you want to do - planning next week, working on your projects, sharing your updates, talking about something that is stuck with your dreams or just hanging out in the magic of the group.
Call details are here. Replay will be there a few hours after we're done today.
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!
My dreams ARE A PART OF ME. They are how my soul shows me my path.
Daily-ish meditation with the soul of my dreams AKA using the Dream Lab meditation, helps me grasp the bigger picture of who I really am.
This is where our approach is really different from the mainstream "manifest your dreams" world.
We're not trying to force our dreams into existence. We are learning how to listen to our dreams more deeply.
This means our dreams can SURPRISE, HEAL and GROW us.
AND it means that we let go of a certain amount of control... I might think my dream is one thing, but my dream (and my soul) (and the mystery of life) may have something else in store for me....
But in all of my years of doing this work, no one's dream has ever surprised them in a bad way, you know? Our dreams usually have better ideas than we do, because they have not been indoctrinated into the bullshit cultural norms we live every day.
Today in my meditation - the Field of Creative Dream Alchemy WAS MY HOME!
The Field of Creative Dream Alchemy, in these meditations, is the supportive and transformative space where the work happens. It's not necessarily meant to be a real word place, it's a place inside you, where you go to work on stuff.
So to have it appear as my own home (which has never happened in all these years of doing this work) felt like a big healing.
It was like "YOU DID IT!!!" "You created the space you need!"
And it felt like such a relief to settle into my home. To know that I HAVE EVERYTHING I NEED, RIGHT HERE. To physically settle into this knowing.
And then in the dream meeting part I got the message:
I am in the process of freeing myself
This is what all creative dreaming is.
Freeing yourself. Coming back to yourself. Creating a life where you can truly fully be yourself.
And there are so many layers and steps involved to get there, and then to keep getting there as you grow and change.
We never "get there". We are all in the process of freeing ourselves, and each other. This is why I love to share my tiny little daily(ish) steps.
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.
Being creative, sensitive + empathic in this chaotic world is a lot! Give yourself more credit!
This was a note to self that also feels like a note to the world.
And then this one:
It takes some time for the dust inside to settle.
Just noticing how, with so many destructive things happening around me and around the world, everything is just stirred up.
So I need to give myself more time to let it settle.
Like - if we're not recognizing how the state of the world is impacting us, then we're not able to care for ourselves appropriately in all of this. And that leaves us powerless.
What this keeps coming back to for me is: I keep needing to move slower. And to accept where I am.
How are you acknowledging the stress of these times and how it impacts you?
I am working on a journaling kit for existential dread.
I hope by the time I post this it's done but... I am just moving SO SLOW and it feels wrong to push myself. So it will be ready when it's ready.
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.