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.
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.
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.
(If you're reading this in email and can't see the video - click 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.
For many of us, the old ways aren't working anymore.
Working hard, hustling, ignoring our body's needs and signals that we're pushing too hard. Following the rules of capitalism.
It's time for a new way. It's time to BE as powerful, creative and magnetic as you ARE.
You ARE powerful, creative and magnetic. You ARE capable, intuitive and ready.
But you're also a sensitive living being! With feelings, moods, limits, needs and preferences and when you honour ALL OF THIS - that's when you'll see your NEW WAY of doing things.
It can feel like there is this choice to be made between being happy and well-cared-for in the moment and accomplishing big things.
But it's not true.
Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE community spell + zoom call is happening Feb 28.
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.
We have to free ourselves of all the ways the world dims our light, and BE who we really ARE.
I mean, life is a mystery I'm not saying I know exactly who any of us is supposed to BE.
But I do feel sure that we are not here, experiencing the miracle of life, totally filled with creative magic and ideas for things to create.... only to spend our lives being cogs in the capitalist machine while we leave the next generations with no chance for a livable future.
We are more than this. Our creative dreams are showing us who we are and what we are here to do.
Last August I did 30 days of meditation and journaling on the theme: Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE.
I did that for myself, and shared it for anyone who wanted to explore with me.
Since then, that theme has stayed present in my own practice and keeps coming up on Dream Book calls.
So I am bringing it back. This time I'll be sharing prompts and ideas for you to explore the theme over the month of February, and then on Feb 28 we'll do:
Slow the fuck down! BE as powerful, creative + magnetic as you ARE Zoom call/community spell.
It's time to free ourselves of all the things that dim our light.
Let's make magic together! Get the details here.
I'll have lots to say about this all month long on my blog, email list and Instagram. I'll post about three times per week.
I started painting a mural in my new creative work/play/dream space. Painting this mural feels like I am calling in the energy of my next-level self into my space. I love it.
In December we did the Releasing Ceremony for releasing the things we didn't want to bring into 2023. (The replay is available to all Dream Book members) On Monday we're doing the next part of it: a blessing ceremony for our dreams for 2023.
I still feel this releasing process happening in me. Habits, routines, ways of doing things that felt good are starting to feel constrictive and worn out.
Without judging myself for doing things the way I was doing them when that worked for me - I am starting to want to do things in new ways which are surprising and delighting me.
I am giving myself LOTS of space with this, but I am starting to fill journals with all of of my new ideas and plans as I dream up HOW I want to be next.
This feels like an important threshold. And I am giving myself all the space I need to navigate it.
Everything really can change. The things you are dreaming of are not only possible - they are your sacred calling.
You can absolutely do this AND you need to give yourself space to DO THIS.
PS: Remember the Year of Dreams 2023 planner has a whole year of dreaming/planning printables!
You get a new activity each week for playing your way into your dream - plus a few extras. 54 different journaling prompts, visualizations, qualities to bring into your week, alchemy processes, different ways of looking at your dreams, your obstacles - all the stuff we love to do.
It's 4 am. I was wide awake, writing in my head, so I decided to make myself a latte and come upstairs to my studio and write for real.
My daily blogging challenge is over and I have blogged every day for six weeks!
I've been thinking back to when it started and some of the ways it felt awkward and uncomfortable, which is so interesting because now it feels so easy because I have a routine with it.
I may stop sharing the daily posts (I mean for my public blog - I'll keep doing them in here). I don't know know yet and I don't feel any pressure to figure out my next steps right this minute.
But I do feel like this experiment was 100% a success. It doesn't have to become a "forever thing" to be worth doing.
Over the last two years my big dream has been becoming the artist and writer I want to be.
This is a much more expansive dream than I can really put into words but that kind of sums it up.
And it's not really about what I am doing or how it is reaching people, it's about how I feel and how I am using my creative energy.
I don't take for granted that my business has stayed stable throughout all of the instability of the last two years. I don't take for granted that I've had a lot of new opportunities this last year especially, to share my work in new places, in new ways. And I don't take for granted that, thanks to my business, I actually DO have the time to become the artist and writer I want to be.
I have talked about how I've failed in some of the business goals I had for this year. But at the same time - really good things have happened that I wasn't planning for, and I had opportunities I wasn't going after, and so my business also grew in ways I wasn't expecting or planning for.
That's how it is with dreams. There are no guarantees, but more often than not your dreams will surprise you if you stay devoted to them.
Another way I grew this last year was in my own relationship with myself. So many aspects of my inner world have shifted in ways that astound me.
When I compare the business goals I didn't reach with the ways I grew and changed I feel like I got the better gift, if that makes sense. The ways I've changed on the INSIDE feel so much more significant than the ways I wanted some things to change on the outside.
And I feel more than capable of achieving my goals.
AND I have more clarity about where I've been ambivalent about those goals.
AND I think in 2023, as I keep working with the same goal, I am going to find all new ways to approach it. I think something in me needed to change before I could see a different way.
Creative Dreaming is a practice and a process. Not a destination.
I share a lot more about the places where I stumble and flail than I share about the things that go well.
This is because I want to normalize the idea that some parts are hard, and that the hard parts actually heal, teach and grow us in important ways. Because I want to encourage you to never give up on yourself.
Our culture shoves perfectionism on us as though anyone who stumbles, doubts or fails along the way is not worthy of having their dreams and should give up immediately.
We all deserve everything. But I don't meant that in a capitalist hoarding kind of way. I mean we are all equally deserving of the things that are necessary for a good life.
Your Creative Dream is a map from your soul that shows you who you really are.
Using this map to navigate your path will bring you the healing and magic that you need most, right now, while it also grow you into the version of you who is doing your next-level dreams.
To me - the healing and magic I receive from engaging with my dreams in this way is as important, if not more so, than the external outcomes. This is the thing I want most in my life, and I get to choose to have it, every day.
So, for 2023, I will keep enjoying the process.