Author: Amanda Viviers

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Creative Mentoring

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Over the last five weeks I have sat with fifteen different people and spent the day facilitating a creative retreat.

A very simple idea with profound opportunities.

What is a creative retreat?

A creative retreat is an opportunity to escape your everyday normal and to take time to reflect, rest and recover. We started the day with breakfast or coffee at a cafe on the beach, then the attendee’s went for a walk to explore. After that they took time in a park, the beach or at another cafe to explore some pre-set questions. I gave each person a journal and an opportunity to debrief the spaces in their lives that they feel most disappointed or challenged by. We then did a second session together to set small achievable goals and empowered towards change, accountability and great easy steps forward.

These days have been so inspiring for me personally and I am open for applications if you would like to do a guided retreat down in my beach side location any time this year. Email me: info@amandaviviers.com for more information.

Why take time to reflect?

I have found that creative people often struggle with finding perspective and insight because they are often the busiest people in the room. It is these kind of people I had in mind for these days of reflection, conversation and goal setting.

We all need a time and place to seek fresh inspiration and mentoring is a very different and unique way to find perspective. It is very different to coaching and counselling. Mentoring has a personal approach to help find and maintain accountability in areas of professional and personal goals that are agreed upon between two parties.

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is most often defined as a professional relationship in which an experienced person
(the mentor) assists another (the mentoree) in developing specific skills and knowledge that will
enhance the less-experienced person’s professional and personal growth.

I have been booking in session times with people for this coming year for ongoing accountability and fresh insight. For the month of March I am putting up a limited amount of one on one sessions to purchase.

If you have been looking for something like this book your session today here:

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Listening to peoples hopes, dreams and struggles for the year coming has been the most inspiring way to start my year.

Thank you everyone who participated for your vulnerability, honesty and hope for a greater tomorrow.

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the inbetween

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Most nights this summer, as I have seen a flash of pink hit the sky, we have run out to our little position on the stairs and watched the sun say goodbye to the day. Lately there have been many bush fires, so the sunsets have been somewhat bittersweet. The bush fire smoke throws a pretty amazing filter over what would already be a beautiful sunset over our Shoalwater Beach.

Every night as the sun slinks behind the sea though, there is this moment of nothing that lasts a good minute before the throw of colour hits the sky canvas. As I wait there for the colour to come, it is so easy to turn and walk away. The one minute seems so much longer than it actually is.

Many people take photos of the sun circle half dipping into the ocean and others of the purple and pink paint thrown across the sky, but no one really notices the space of the in-between. No one really notices because they are waiting for the flashes of colour to appear. They have a hope that the aftermath of the sun setting will be as beautiful as the time before. Moments of beauty mixed with moments of waiting.

This week I have had many conversations with people who are tired of the in-between. They so desperately want to move forward into the future and live the life they are dreaming of, but they are stuck in this place of in-between. Waiting for something we desire so deeply is a difficult season in anyones life.

A lot of the conversations I have had this week have been with people wanting to get married and they have been waiting for a long time. The in-between.

How do we carry ourselves in the in-between moments of life?

When we are applying for jobs and they just don’t pull of?

When we so desperately want to change our status from single to married?

When we want to start a family and the second little line just doesn’t want to appear?

The in-between.

It is a terribly vulnerable place to stand and look into the distance waiting for the colours of the picture you had of your life. It is just easier to believe that it is just not going to happen and to turn and walk away. It is easier to stop hoping than to stay stuck in a place when the deferral constantly makes your heart sick.

In my seasons of waiting, I have had some years when I have done it well and other times I just got sad, angry and completely over it.

The one thing I was determined to do though was to never give up in that in-between place. I never walked away. Even when my hope was so low, I still faced the mountain before me and believed that there was some way through.

Finding friends who would stand and pray with me. Chatting with counsellors and using writing as a therapy to process and let go of the disappointment and anger. Staying in that uncomfortable place of expectation no matter the years I waited. Reaffirming myself with promises and dreams that tarried.

Whether it is a job, a husband, a realisation of a career you’ve longed for, a change in circumstance, a family. I acknowledge the pain you are feeling in that in-between place. I am asking you to turn and face the horizon though and look for new and beautiful colours to return again.

Have you stopped believing your dream for better days could come true?

I pray healing over that in-between place and hope you can find rest, not growing weary.

Today if you are in an uncomfortable waiting place, my prayer is that endurance would fill your days and the answer you have been searching for in your in-between would come quickly.

Speak soon,

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Learning to say no.

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I have found in my life it is often easier to just say yes than say no.

As a mother.

As a friend.

As a lover.

As a mentor.

Lately I have been really aware of how often I say yes to something when I know in my season I should have just said no.

Some call it boundaries, some call it protective behaviour, but for me it’s actually so I can say yes to the things I know I am meant to be focussing on this year.

Yes, to exercise.

Yes, to publishing my next book.

Yes, to time focused on my children and the season that is moving so quickly.

Yes, to my friends who engage and want to be part of my life.

Yes.

I cannot say yes to these things, important opportunities, if I don’t say no to that which distracts me.

No to long periods of time on social media.

No to worrying about what people think of me.

No to my toddler, even when a melt down is likely to ensue.

Sometimes we get a little stuck and are unable to see breakthrough in our everyday because we are saying yes to the wrong things.

Then sometimes we say no to the right things and the opportunities pass us by.

What are you saying yes to, that you know in your heart of hearts that you shouldn’t?

Maybe it’s your season like mine to start saying no a little more, so I can say yes to that which should be my priority.

Sincerely,

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Simple things

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I am still feeling a little raw from my post last Sunday and am wondering if you all still love me…

Smile.

Awkward.

Raw is good, but so hard to do.

This morning I sat down to write eight scripts for Radio and first I thought, I need to write how grateful I am for the simple things.

It was so easy for me to want to rush into the tasks of my morning, Baby asleep, coffee poured, water ready, set go.

I took time though to be thankful.

It wasn’t easy to do.

I just wanted to get my tasks done and tick that list off, to feel a little less pressured.

But I didn’t.

I waited.

I reflected.

I thanked.

For the simple things.

For my husband working hard at the moment so we can have a little holiday away overseas.

For my sleeping baby and the years I waited for her to come.

For my family who took in my nearly three year old for a sleep over and to give me some space.

For the promise of a holiday so very soon.

For fresh water.

For time.

For opportunities.

For the simple things.

Gratitude changes our days.

Today it changed mine.

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Things I am ashamed of…

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There are many things that I have done in my life that I am ashamed of.

Little things
Big things
Forgiven things
Broken things.

Living in that place of shame though is one of the ugliest uses of my mind. I have asked forgiveness, let things go and moved forward in freedom.

It is not that easy for some though.

Just this week I was chatting with my husband and out of the blue a memory from highschool popped into my consciousness. (I honestly can’t believe I’m about to share this story here, because it is one of my most shameful moments of my teenage years but I believe deeply in this being a raw, authentic place of confession and lessons learned)

I remembered the day that a group of my friends, were in a stupid mood and we did something that I now know as one of the most terrible things I could do to someone.

Call it a mob mentality.
Call it wanting to be liked.
Call it immaturity.

It is a story I am deeply grieved by.

It was morning recess at high school, I was in year ten and we were a little bored and a lot of stupid.

We started to bully a boy who was in a younger class than us and we pushed him and his wheelchair towards the common outdoor area. Someone picked up the young boy out of his wheelchair and put him in the big green sulo bin. I remember laughing and walking away and then being terribly remorseful. Here I am today 20 something years later and I remember the overwhelming feeling of shame as I walked away.

I was a bully in highschool.
I wanted to be liked by the cool people.
The pack mentality took over my morals and beliefs about dignity for the common man and I did something so impacting to someone who was unable to even stand by himself.

This week I have been thinking about that young man.

Did I cause him deep emotional distress as an adult?

What is he doing now?

Does he remember the bullies at high school and think of my face as one of his enemies?

We all have shameful seasons in our teenage and young adult lives. It is part of the growing and maturing process, when we acknowledge that we have gone astray and reconcile our sins.

In steps mercy.
In moments of grace.
In lessons learned.
In deep rivers of maturity committing to living our days different.

A terrible story from my highschool days that I regret greatly.

What have you done that you regret?

What is in your past that no one knows about?

What fills you with shame?

We all deserve mercy.
We all deserve grace.
We all have made decisions we regret and deeply long for mercy.

The story of these two men standing on death row in Bali, has moved my heart with mercy this week.

“I Stand for Mercy” for The Mercy Campaign for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from TEN ALPHAS on Vimeo.

I stand for mercy because we have all made mistakes.

I was flying out of Bali the morning that these two men were caught in the airport. I was in the airport in the midst of the commotion and I have never forgotten the feeling of what could have been in my life, if I had made different decisions as a teenager. The whole week they were in the hotel next door to me, I could have walked past them without even knowing. In any different circumstances I could have been one of them strapped with drugs, a mule stuck in a pack mentality. A short sighted decision, with the most grave of consequences.

Yes, I hate drugs and the scourge it brings on our community.

Yes, I believe that we should be held accountable for our decisions.

But do I believe that death by firing squad is okay?

No.

Never.

I stand for mercy.

I stand for rehabilitation.

I stand for life.

What do you stand for?

Share this video and lets see whether we can help these two guys do the rest of their days different.

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