Category: Crazy fairy random moments

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learning to be flexible enough to dream again

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Muse nine scents candle: French Pear.

I have always been a dreamer, a big believer and a people collector. From the earliest age I can remember, I was the producer, the director, the dance teacher and the event coodinator. We would arrange lavish productions for our family and friends, with oranges down leotards and lipstick for days.

I dreamed of creative productions, I coordinated people in my dreams and woke with bossy words dripping from my lips.

My mum always encouraged me and I am sure my Dad constantly had a roll in his eyes, but dreaming for greater days has always been natural for me. The hard part has been navigating seasons of wait and not allowing the dream to die in the midst of the valley.

Dreams die hard and fast when the reality of daily life sets in. People criticise, morgtages drain funds, memories of failure linger and hearts quiver at the thought of trying again.

Lately I have been learning that one of the greatest inhibitors to my voice finding freedom, is holding on to tight to the journey towards the actualisation, rather than the dream birthing. I am a hustler by day and a dreamer by night. I have no problem working loyally and sacrificially to make something happen.

In the realm of our life’s signiture, when we push too hard and fret about the end result, the process of realisation often becomes stuck.

The more we grip, the longer it takes.

The tighter we hold, the more stressful the outcome.

I have been learning that flexibility is the key to dreaming again and hope is the answer in allowing a new sound to arise.

There is something so unique about your voice, whether it is through writing, speaking, designing, creating, taking photos, expressing yourself, cooking, hospitality and how you arrange your home.

You have a voice.

You are unique.

You have purpose.

You are delightful.

I have found in my own dream walk however, that when I cling onto things, when I try too hard, I am like a teenage boy trying to speak in the shift of their voice changing and all that comes out is a loud squeak.

I am learning to be kinder in my self talk and swifter in letting something go if it is just not working but determined in beginning again. Everytime something fails, I am learning to not spend so much time going over what went wrong but stepping forward into the grace that is available for the new and trying again.

Are you stuck?

Does your voice sound hoarse?

Are you struggling to dream again?

My question is this for you…

What are you clinging on to?

What are you trying to control?

Where is there a place of tension, that you are unable to gain peace?

This may be the answer to dream again. Flexibility is not loosing all control, in fact it takes a lot more skill and strength to be a yoga ninja who can bend, hold and extend themselves to find their place of balance.

Be flexible.

Don’t hold on so tight.

But have a go.

Step forward into your new my friend and find your voice, by beginning to dream again.

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when making fills my enough tank.

Books
Books, Boards and our little shack.

There are many days in my creative journey that suck the life out of our inspiration tank.

At the moment I am calling it my “enough tank”

“I don’t have enough”

“enough is enough”

“That’s enough”

Tank.

You know the little void in our souls that I am talking about. It is the place that depletes sometimes so slowly and then randomly it can evaporate before we have even finished our coffee. Then out of the blue it explodes and we are inspired, overcome and intentional. Then as quickly as it filled, a leak is found and we deflate all over again.

The weather can impact my enough-ness, A full lists of tasks can sap my enough of its energy, sometimes people, too many stories, too much stuff, too much toddler-ing. Some days as I wade through facebook looking for my tank to fill, I realise that humanity has just vomited over me and I need to put a cleaner in my tank and start again.

There are some things, no matter how full or empty my enough is, that steadily clarify the inspiration I am looking for.

For each of us, these things are different.

For each of us our enough lines are varied and unique.

For each of us the inspiration elixirs can be stunningly opposing.

I like to pull down my blind, light a candle, read, put on music and think.

My enough tank is filled with big patches of water, that ripple and make me feel small.

When I fly into a country or city I have never been before, it is like my enough tank takes a deep breath of sensory overload and I feel inspiration dripping from my finger tips. My mind yells “get me a keyboard, get me a keyboard” my fingers are tingling with words.

When I eat ice cream on a hot day cooling my internal combustion operators.

When I feel sand crunching through my toes or the ocean envelope my whole body.

When I study scripture or listen to someone who has insight about a passage that I have never once considered.

When I sing with a large group of people, a shiver of inspiration pours into my tank that is begging for refreshing.

My inspiration tank empties and then it requires refuelling. Every single time I make something. I crochet, I knit, I paint, I express, I solve a problem…My tank she overflows.

What fills your enough tank?

What can you make today that will inspire your soul?

How can you bring your enough back from the brink of burnout?

I don’t think balance or time management is the answer, I believe it may be a little creative kindness to your soul.

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Going back to university on a curious quest

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When Cousin Chloe steps through the doors of Ballet…

My posts of late have been quite emotion packed. It was never our intention to unpack our deep and raw from this book, in front of our online audience, but one of the greatest privileges’ of this season has been to read your stories. The emails, the facebook messages, the comments.

Your stories encourage my story.

Your courage provokes my courage.

Your Rising Strong after a season that tried to take you out, makes me want to endure.

My writing and speaking this year has had a really strong theme about the in between seasons of our life. The bit between our beginning and the end, has so much more worth than our society gives it. Lately I have been sensing though my season is not in between any longer and next year is really the launch of something breathtaking.

I believe that God is the author and finisher of our stories, I know we need to be a big part of the story, we are the ones who make the decisions, we are the ones who say yes or no, but I believe He is at work always to bring all things together for good.

For some this won’t make sense, but others you will know what I’m talking about, because you have lived it. The dance of faith. The opportunities that come about that you would never have been able to pull off. The ideas that are not your ideas, but they are divine.

One thing I have been playing around with for a couple of years is going back to finish my masters. The thought of adding something else back into my diary, completely does me in, but I have been finding a divine curiosity that is leading me down paths to find the very things I was created for. A curious dance with the divine and the timely sense that new is awakening.

This year I have enjoyed exploring people’s stories through the creative retreats that I have been running. I have run over 40 solo, private retreats and also I ran a big one, with my dear friend Cate Williams. Both of these journey’s have lead me to explore starting a Masters in Counselling, majoring in Art Therapy.

I don’t want to become a Counsellor. I want to help people creatively find their voice through creativity, I want to form my speaking and writing with study that will compliment my big idea, that creativity changes everything.

I believe so deeply in the power of connecting everyone of us with the Creator and finding a grace that was designed in you before the earth was even formed. Women need to give voice to the deep utterances of their souls, they need to give voice to those parts of their story that tried to hold them captive and to express the beauty that we see and create.

When we make we find healing.

When we are curious and we look behind the veil of something, we find refuge.

When we seek out new possibilities, we leave our past pain behind.

I’m on a curious quest to find more skills, to find more information, to keep going on the journey of what I feel compelled towards.

A divine path set before me, that takes courage to step out into.

What about you?

What are you curious about, that you keep shutting down?

It could be a significant key that unlocks your next?

What is inside of you that needs to find its voice?

Maybe you want to come and spend a day with me exploring those thoughts…

If so click here.

Speak again soon,

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Makers who find healing

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Every day my son Maximus and I have a silent ritual.

We take our baby Liberty to bed, we put her sleep bag on, we sneak out of her room, count one, two, three and take a deep breath and run to our making stations.

Maximus calls himself a master builder. The lego movie came out in perfect timing for my three year old to begin an obsession with building. At three he can sit at a table for three solid hours or more and build. When Libby is around the lego becomes a weapon, when she is asleep the maker in him comes out to play.

I see the glint in his eye as the fire truck is built, the stories that he makes up with his police men and the baddies who get caught and dragged off to jail. His lego world is full of activity, life and freedom. As he makes these little worlds, he finds his true personality and confidence.

Just like my three year old I am obsessed with making.

When my babes are falling asleep, I start to creep slowly, then I end up running towards my latest project.

It doesn’t matter if it is my laptop and a new book is in the wings, or my basket of wool as I create presents for someone, or my colouring in book as I reflect on what is going on in my mind, or my herb garden, my vision board or even what is on the stove cooking for my family for dinner.

Every time I make something, every time I produce something, every time it brings healing.

It heals my inner critic.

It heals the voice that says I am tired.

It brings a smile to a heart that is weary.

It expresses something I have been trying to say for weeks.

It unlocks my frustration and anger.

It calms my impatient attitude.

There is something so precious about making.

If you are feeling isolated, lonely, misunderstood, heart broken, not enough…

Then

Make,

Maker,

Make.

You were created to.

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If you are looking for some homemade christmas ideas click here to check out my downloadable book with 30 maker ideas.

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embrace the good, the bad and the wonderful about you.

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The last few days have been a sniffle fest at my abode, so I have locked my family away, with the heater on and chicken soup on the stove. My knitting needles have been clacking and pyjamas have become my home.

I have been playing around with Lisa Messengers Daring and Disruptive Playbook and a quote in the beginning of the book has captured my thoughts and attention.

Embrace the good, the bad and the wonderful that makes you, you.”

The reason why this quote arrested me, is that over on Kinwomen, our theme this month has been ‘Identity’ and after a very honest post over there, I have been in a vulnerability coma over here.

The truth is I know a lot about myself and I feel very sure about living a life of contribution and living beyond myself. The things I struggle with though, are those parts of me that just don’t make sense. The opposites that I wrestle with. Moments when I feel so sure and then a few days by myself and suddenly I’m not so sure anymore.

How about you?

Do you struggle to embrace those parts of yourself that don’t make sense?

Unfortunately when we ignore them and don’t make peace, they shout louder and louder, taking over our days anyway.

Every time we try to ignore the elephant in the room, it sneaks up and taps us on the shoulder and calls our bluff.

Making peace with our weird, is one of the hardest parts of being a creative.

Being okay with our normal is a huge part of being a woman and finding strength in who you really are.

As a writer, I spend a lot of time in my head, I think and think, I process and I process, then I come out the other side ready to try and explain what has been plaguing me.

Some days I am deep

Other days I am ridiculously shallow.

I am doing my best in this season to embrace the good, the bad and the wonderful in my inner being.

How about you?

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