Category: Creativity

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the now

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Today marks the end of the second week of the Green Couture ‘in the flesh’ store being open. I also have a Green Couture on-line store – this went ‘live’ in January this year.

The on-line store was another of those steps that happen along the way to the dream being realised.

Who knows that starting your own venture requires investment?

Lots of your time, your effort, your money…

On the subject of finance, ‘The Wait’, catch up here (if you missed last week’s post), also resulted in finance being available to launch the Green Couture website, the on-line store & now the physical store… it’s all about the right timing! Don’t try to make things happen at the wrong time!

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It’s so easy to get distracted. I was having coffee with the lovely and wise Amanda Viviers earlier this year and she said something along the lines of ‘don’t compare what you’re doing with what other people are doing’.

Inspiration is great but not when you lose track of your own idea & start trying to recreate someone else’s dream, becoming a rip off of someone else, not the true version of you & what you’re meant to achieve.

If you’re building something stick to your vision; check regularly that you’re on track…

Don’t get sidelined by someone else’s dream…

Don’t be afraid to make adjustments, do something different or entirely can an idea, you can always go back to the drawing board if it doesn’t feel like the right fit.

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Being able to adjusting things as we go is very freeing. We don’t have to be slaves to what we’ve put in place, what we thought it might look like.

When something doesn’t work out how we might have envisaged we can

re-set…

re-think…

re-adjust…

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One of the things I enjoy about Green Couture is people. Relationships you’re your suppliers, clients & neighbouring businesses.

The myriad of different people you come into contact with who were all there doing their thing before you started your business but now your worlds have collided.

Opportunities!
to relate…
to be-friend…
to influence…
to be kind…

Life is rich!

Hope your Friday is going magnificently,

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Images – Krysta Guille Photography, Best in Park, Empirical Style & Ziporah
Dog accessories, wooden pendant lights & towels available at the Green Couture Store Online

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broken crayons

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The wheels have started to fall off our baby bubble and the hard parts have begun to set in.

Our two year old, who goes to sleep normally within a reasonable amount of time and sleeps a solid night, has decided whatever is happening everywhere else in the house but his bedroom is the party he has missed the invite to.

Our newborn who was sleeping 18 hrs a day and smiling softly as she slept has begun to wake up.

Sore bodies

Tired minds

More caffeine

Which equals more upset tummy’s.

Our week has rolled out with highs and lows, but we are determined to soak up the moments whilst my body builder is home from work and enjoy even the sleeplessness of a newborn.

Whoever said ‘Sleep like a baby?’ obviously never tried to fit a toddler, a newborn, a body builder and a creative into a 1970’s beachside shack.

I saw this quote this week and it made me smile. (In fact I giggled a little bit, it felt like a prophetic statement of my now.)

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As a child, whenever a crayon broke, I would throw it away with disgust, needing the perfection of the moment to create my latest design.

As an adult I have learnt that even broken crayons colour. In fact there are no perfect crayons sitting at any of my coffee tables or dinner tables, every adult I meet has a story that has defined them.

Is there a part of your life right now, that you are missing moments of beauty and creativity because your crayons are a little cracked?

Are you waiting for that perfect moment to start enjoying a season, without realising the colour and beauty is accessible if you just celebrate your now?

Our week has been a little broken.

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Moments of cross words, sore knees, broken bodies, tired eye lids, long sips of coffee but honestly it has been filled with moments of beauty and divine inspiration.

Our two week old went for her first walk on the beach.

Our toddler discovered his shadow for the first time and said goodbye to it and then realised with absolute surprise that his shadow was following him.

The series here on Capture life has been really moving me, with inspiration from my friends all over Australia.

My body builder fixed a pair of curtains in our shack, that have been annoying us for over two years.

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CRAYONS

As we start to acknowledge the colour and beauty, we start to forget that the utensils we are writing with are a little bent.

If you feel like all your colours are fading and your crayons are bending, just take some time to acknowledge the beauty and colour and suddenly it won’t matter anymore.

A scripture has been floating around my head this week;

Psalm 18: 19

He brought me out to a wide-open place.

He rescued me because he was pleased with me.

I realised this week, that the last few months of my pregnancy, I hadn’t gone outside very often and I had spent a lot of time inside. It was winter, I was exhausted with a two year old and my everyday tasks.

We walked the beach this week in the midst of very tired eyes and sore bodies, the winter sun beamed strongly on our shoulders, our toddler ran along the beach immersing himself in the moment, we held hands and our newborn swung softly in the carrier on my husbands chest.

It felt like a very wide open space.

The brokenness of the season felt as far away in that moment as the distant ocean we were soaking our senses in.

Somedays we need to simply walk ourselves into a wide open space and feel the release from the heaviness of the season, allowing the colour to rise in our hearts.

Broken crayons still colour my friend.

Speak next sunday

(Enjoy my friends each day between now and then.)

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No one likes a Bossy Pants

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no one likes a bossy pants!

She wrote it in my high school yearbook:

“You’re a great person, but a bit bossy sometimes.”

Bossy.

Not, great leader, good visionary, team player?

None, of that, but bossy.

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Being Latin American, I come from a long line of strong, determined, and sassy women. They are bold, passionate, feisty and all the while just a little bit cheeky. It’s not uncommon for the women in my family to loudly take charge without any fear whatsoever of people’s opinions about them.

It’s just what you do – get the job done, lead strongly, serve others, and laugh along the way – without considering your gender as some sort of restriction.

Why do women get called bossy when they’re leading the pack?

I’m not here to cry “sexism” at the top of my lungs hoping that my high operatic scream will smash some sort of glass ceiling. Hardly. Because to be honest with you I am a bossy pants sometimes – selfishly opinionated, demanding… all those things that we make us imperfect leaders and imperfect people.

While I don’t often hear this term being used for male leaders, that’s not really the point I’m trying to make – being called bossy isn’t cool and it’s not something I rejoice over. And yes, it sucks that women get this label where men get labels such as strong etc. But the label did make me stop, look at my leadership style, and refine it.

Ok, that’s not entirely true.

Before I maturely reflected upon it I shrunk away, avoided people, became a people pleaser and was constantly worried that if anyone got any whiff of leadership from me they would brand me bossy…

… But back to the part where I’m being sassy and strong (because that makes a far better story than the sad mess that was me crying over being called the B-word).

Here’s what I learnt:

There’s a very fine line between being bossy and being a leader. Leaders are in many ways, the boss. They lead the team, they provide the direction, they make the tough calls and they take responsibility. Nothing wrong with that.

“’Bossy’ is someone who bosses people around without reason.”

Stephanie Powers.

“Bossiness” has this connotation that implies one is more like that annoying six year old who demands that you pour the imaginary tea a certain way for the teddy bears and loses their cool when you spill air everywhere… it’s expecting things one way only and being foot-stomping angry when your team or even yourself doesn’t deliver.

It’s inflexible, domineering, patronising, selfish.

But, I meet far too many young women who are afraid to take on a leadership role for fear of the “bossy-pants” label. If you’re a leader, you’re a boss, and you as well as those that you lead may see your actions as “bossy”… but just refine your style. Don’t stop leading for fear of the label.

Perhaps the line between being bossy and being a leader is made up of the team of people that you lead, all standing in a straight line behind you, looking beyond you to the direction that you’re taking them.

Be passionate, be engaged, be ambitious, be strong, be the boss…

Keep your eye on that line and lead them well.

Speak next Wednesday
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Brisita was born in Santiago, Chile, before moving half way across the world to sunny Perth, Australia.

She loves hanging at the beach, collecting tea cups, and singing Whitney Houston songs in her car at the top of her lungs.

Brisita is a Youth Pastor at Riverview Church where she leads a team of youth leaders and volunteers as they create fresh and exciting programs for the next generation.

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Brain Pictures

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This last week has been breath taking. Moments of sheer bliss, moments of over-tired determination, moments of pain, moments of overwhelmed-ness, moments of vulnerability and moments of sheer beauty.

On the 22nd of July at 1.36pm, after waiting for Miss V to come for weeks she arrived in true Viviers fashion.

Liberty Elizabeth Viviers

7 pound 2

49cms long

brown hair

dark blue/ black eyes.

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The first week in a newborns life brings with it a roller coaster of emotions but before our little girl came to town, my husband and I had a big conversation about how we wanted to handle this transition in our lives.

We found a scripture from Matthew that really spoke to us;

28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

We knew there would be moments of burden, extreme tiredness and emotions, so we wanted a mantra to help us through those times.

Our mantra is this;

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I find myself asking saying internally, ‘find the grace, find the grace. It is here somewhere.‘

I found this video this week and it really impacted me.

There is one line that stuck and I remembered it as I walked out of the hospital with our precious little lady.

Take Brain Pictures.

I stood at the exit of the hospital doors, waiting with Miss Liberty in our capsule as my husband ran in the rain to our car and I felt like it was a little message just for me.

Take more brain pictures.

I stood there rain pelting down, the smell of winter, fresh and surreal and I took a brain picture.

I took a deep breath, I slowed myself intentionally and made a memory.

I took a brain picture.

We spend, all day everyday, thinking about taking photos to share with the world on our social media platforms but what about making memories for no one but your own catalogue of memories?

I have found this need to take photos to share magnified with a newborn. You want to record and remember everything through technology.

As much as this is a brilliant blessing of our age, it is also a terrible distraction.

We sit on our phones editing, tinting, publishing and producing our images but often miss the memories that the moments are actually producing.

I am determined with my second child to take brain pictures.

A moment of acknowledgment that I am present, I am remembering and I am accessing the beauty of that very moment.

Not to publish

Not to reproduce

Not to show anyone

But to encourage my beautiful family with the greatest gift, the gift of my attention.

Speak next Sunday.

Remember this week as I am reminding myself to;

Take more brain pictures.

From our baby bubble

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I Learned Love Always Leaves a Scar

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I went into “missions” with the sole philosophy that I would not let it be about me.

“I am only here to serve them” was my personal mantra, and it sounds like a good one, doesn’t it?

But my attempt to wage war on my own narcissism was one of the most narcissistic moves I could have made.

I thought I could take my suburban middle class self into situations I had only ever seen in documentaries and come out unchanged.

I thought I was the only one with something to offer to the people I was serving. I thought it would be wrong to expect them to have anything to offer me.

But that’s not how human encounters work. Human encounters, the kind that change lives, they leave both parties affected.

And that is how you know you have crossed the line from charity to love.

Love always leaves a scar.

There was a homeless man who used to sit across the road from my work. Each day I would give him money when I passed and he would smile at me.

I thought I was doing a good thing, and maybe I was, but it was only charity.

I never sat down and got to know him.

I never heard his story.

I never learned from his hard lived life, because I assumed he had nothing to offer me.

I deemed him only worthy of my charity, not worthy of my love, not worthy of a real human interaction, not worthy of a scar.

I don’t know if altruism is possible, I don’t know if we are ever capable of being truly selfless, I don’t know if we will ever know because God designed giving releases endorphins.

But here is what I learned on the mission field:

Charity always feels good, love always leaves a scar.

I learned it piggybacking my shoeless friend after she gave her shoes to a prostitute in a brothel.

I learned it sitting across from a refugee as she swore she would return to her war torn country one day and change the government.

I learned it when a teacher from Pakistan on the Taliban’s most wanted list had to help me when teaching English class.

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I learned it when we said no to buying a bracelet from Nigerian hawkers but came back later with lunch, invited them to an art exhibition and watched their whole demeanor change.

I learned it when I could not leave a country because a girl younger than me needed help for her and her three children.

I learned that the mission field is not about charity, it is about love.

And when you choose to love people, when you choose to be affected by their stories, when you choose to let their worlds permeate within your own, you realise how silly it is to think that you could leave unaffected.

Because love always leaves a scar.

Speak again next Saturday,

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