by kimberly wilson

Set aside an hour, pour a cup of tea (or bubbly), kick up your heels, and pull out your journal.

Let’s take a moment to explore what you want your life to look like. Sure it sounds like a big task best saved for another time – when the kids are in school, the laundry is done, and your ideal creative space is set up. However, there is no better time than now!

Here is a step by step approach for digging deeper with a dash of creative flair:

1. Open up your journal to a blank page and create a background of your choice – ex. watercolor, crayon, page from a magazine, colored pencils. This helps to avoid the “blank canvas” fear.

2. Collect a few images or phrases that speak to who you want to be. Play with tearing versus cutting them out for a textured look.

3. Add images or phrases to your page with double stick tape or a glue stick.

4. Answer the following questions in your journal and, for layers of color, write over your images with a sharpie:

- What is bubbling up for me at this time?

- Am I living in a way that resonates with my values?

- Does my current life align with my ideal life?

- If not what changes can I make?

- Is there a word/theme that comes out of this reflection?

5. Add a layer to your journal by inserting a page from a magazine, fancy paper, or an index card. Glue or tape the left side into the center and make a list of 10-50 things you would like to do in your life – ex. dance in Paris, donate 1 million dollars, sail around the world.

Voila! My hope is that this process helps to put a kick into your step, reconnect you to forgotten passions, and allows you to do it in a creative, sparkly manner. Add layers of glitter, stickers, stamps, or any ephemera that makes you feel proud of the life you’re creating!

Bisous,

Kimberly Wilson, author of Tranquilista and Hip Tranquil Chick, designer of TranquiliT eco-luxe lifestyle line, and founder of Tranquil Space

it’s almost time to blossom!  join emily perry in her 4 week ecourse that begins next wednesday, july 7th, From Bija to Bloom.   bija is the sanskrit word for seed… this ecourse is designed to center our hearts and minds energetically so that our creative voices may be heard.  with the mandala mapping technique, you will be encouraged to liberate your authentic and creative self while going on a mindful and nurturing journey to unleash your creative voice.

Week 1: Landing, or the Art of Coming Back to Ourselves

Week 2:  Clearing and Creating Energetic Space

Week 3: Mindfulness and Ripening

Week 4: Re-visioning:: A New Vision of Our Lives and Creativity

for more information and to register, please visit our workshops page.

by shona cole

by kate swooboda

As I type this, I am sitting at the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, California. The local school district has just finished a unit on ancient Egypt, and set up on a nearby table is a display of cardboard pyramids and clay-modeled. All of them are lopsided; all of them are unevenly painted. One pyramid near me has glitter on it, and something tells me that while the Pharaohs might have had gold, they weren’t inclined to dust it all over the pyramids (though maybe some fifth-grader who just finished the unit on ancient Egypt knows more about that than I do).

The thought occurred to me as I was walking by these displays: “Maybe we’re never supposed to stop learning and living that way.” The visual way. The creative way. The lopsided and uneven way. The way where we immerse our hands in something sticky and colorful and where, since we’re not going to replicate real Egyptian pyramids to scale anyway, we might as well have fun. Bring on the glitter!

As a former teacher of English, the thing that broke my heart the most was that I met so many students who “hated English.” They “hated” reading, they said. Ooof! In goes the knife. They “hated” writing. Ooof! The knife has been twisted. I didn’t take it personally, but it was sad to see and I hoped to change it. I wanted them to see that reading and writing were fun, an escape, an opportunity to temporarily live the lives of others, a powerful exercise in putting your life in your own hands, a chance to speak your truth. Somewhere along the line, the classrooms of children who oooh! and aaaahhh! at each twist and turn of a book at story time grow up and become people who don’t want to write an essay in which they demonstrate critical thinking (with perfect grammar. And thesis statements. And topic sentences).

And who can blame them? I hated grading those essays, so my guess is that they hated writing them. And what else was there to assign, with an educational system that seemingly says, somewhere around the age of ten, that we are no longer to bother with moving our bodies, or with creativity, or with matters of the heart and spirit—no, now we need the right answers. We begin to exist from the neck, up.

Many of us don’t shift out of that space after school. For instance, this is fairly common in my coaching practice:  A client reports something fantastic on our call. “That’s great!” I’ll say, because it is. “How did you celebrate yourself?”

The line suddenly grows quiet. “I hadn’t even thought about that,” they might say.

We grow older and, unless we start consciously steering ourselves differently, it can be easy to start existing from the neck, up. Living from the heart? Ridiculous! How “Pollyanna”! Trusting that inner “YES” inside? Be realistic! Celebrate yourself? How arrogant! Reward yourself? What a waste of money! Do you think you’re supposed to get a reward for everything? Life doesn’t work that way!

Then we wonder why it can be hard to make our lives take flight in the way that we want them to. Why would we want to risk dreaming when, along the way, we’re going to deny ourselves periods of rest before going on, or we’re not going to get time to play, or we’re going to tell ourselves that what we feel isn’t as valuable as what we think? Living from the neck up is a recipe for burnout.

Now, if you recognize yourself in any of this, please know that I say none of this to condemn, or to admonish you into putting “Reward myself” on the to-do list. In fact, I actually think that the first step in this whole process of shifting so that we stop living from the neck up is to laugh. Yes, laugh. Consciously. It’s one of the tools that I use daily—taking one minute to do a laugh session where I simply laugh at nothing at all. Usually, when I invite clients into this they admit that they feel foolish. I know I certainly did, the first time I tried it with my own coach. What could be more foolish that laughing out loud, at nothing in particular?

Well, perhaps it is foolish—and few things are more fun. Babies laugh hundreds of times a day, while adults laugh only a few. Try a one-minute laugh session. Literally set a timer for one minute and then force yourself to laugh. Really get into it. Slap your knee. Guffaw. Laugh like Julia Child or Bart Simpson. Just force those puffs of air and then laugh at the silliness of it all.

Congratulations. You just took one step towards living from your whole body, not just from the neck up and all of the great things that logic and clear thinking can give you, but also from that place of inner joy that is in us all, that gets covered up easily by too many admonishments to “Be realistic.” (And in case you do want realistic reasons for laughing, there are studies to be found that say it supports blood flow, the immune system, etc.)

So often, I meet people who believe that to integrate creativity into their lives or to live with passion or to see dreams come true, there is this (often massive) list of  steps. “I just need to sit down and make myself do it,” someone might say of starting a creative practice. This sounds uncannily like my former students, sighing, wishing that they didn’t need to write a paper. The students who wrote the best papers found some passion for the argument, in order to write a good argumentative paper. Otherwise, the sentences marched along like ants in a row, and a few more trees were killed along the way.

Our educational system may still require formal writing almost to the exclusion of creative or expressive writing, but you, reading this, get to choose how you want to experience this day. I would even argue that dreams are not always the thing to go after. Stepping into practices that have some powerful purpose—a purpose like joy—naturally brings about what it is that we want. We don’t “do the stuff” to get to the joy—that’s thinking from the neck up. We step into the joy with where we are right now, and the doing or having of the stuff is a byproduct.

So where do you want to live, right now? Neck up, or whole body? Anyone want to join me for a laugh session?

madelyn, jill, nina, deb, and kat with their mixed media dream boards

last night’s first intu{wish}n creativity circle was a happy success!  the evening was a perfect blend of new and old friends, dreaming and creating, getting messy and sharing life.  i love that about being around other creative women… there is always so much sharing.  and not just about the art we might happen to be making but there is always a gracious abundance of offered resources, stories, laughter, and support.

the process of making things is always something i love to explore – how it connects us to ourselves and how it connects us to others.  i think that is always so fascinating!  there is so much richness to discover both within our own hearts as well as withing the dynamic kindred community of creative women.  these connections and this kind of sharing is what truly inspires me and i was so grateful to have this time with these amazing women last night – thank you!

hope you will come and join us for our next creativity circle on on july 16th!  you never know what might unfold ;)

Or: the path of true awakening
by kim mcmechan

It was a lovely summer day. Mid-August. Ryn, my 3-month old daughter was napping, and I was on the front steps in the sun, a cool breeze gently lifting my hair. I’d been worried for a while wondering when exactly I was supposed to find time to do my art. For starters, Ryn didn’t sleep well. And then there was the fact that when she finally did,
I was usually so beat I didn’t have the energy or presence of mind to write or practice myguitar or pick up a paintbrush.

When would there be time for my creative pursuits? When was my destiny supposed to start unfolding again?

And that’s when it happened. A sort of, I don’t know, flash, an up rush of something I didn’t recognize. A sharper sense of knowing than I’d ever had before. In my journals I would call it, for the next few years, an awakening. It was simply this: a deep, clear understanding that all was right, that everything would find its place in the right time. That I was not separate from the creative life I wanted to be living (doing music and writing). That every point up until this point fit perfectly and that any so-called “lost time” in this season of learning to live with my new daughter could be easily made up in the future in a day, an hour, a split second, if I could stay aligned with this sense of ease and trust.

I sat there spinning, in a good way, the way you feel when you’re a kid right after you’ve been twirling in the yard, and you lay down on your back in the grass surrounded by dandelion puffs and the warm buzz of bees.

This incident was actually the strongest of a series of epiphanies. I kept having around this time, all centering around the theme of feeling supported by life, of time being pliable and able to contract or expand according to my needs. I spent 2 ½ years living in the joy of this new clarity. That’s not to say I didn’t have moments of frustration over sleep-deprivation and toddler tantrums, or make changes when something wasn’t working. But it did mean I stopped fighting my own life so much. When my daughter woke early from a nap, I accepted it was what was needed in the moment, for me and for her. Not uncoincidentally, my creativity flourished. I learned to work fast: as a songwriter, I learned to draft out lyrics in 10 minutes, then put them to music in the next available fifteen. I became a poet because I could scratch poems on the backs of napkins, finish them in little found cracks of time. My life feels magical, I scribbled in my journal sometimes, and it was true. I felt like I had found some secret door into a beautiful new life.

But then we moved out West and I found myself pregnant again, and horribly nauseous, and shortly after the new baby came my marriage suffered some major challenges and then of course there was the whole being really really broke thing. And there’s no other way to say it—I lost it. That clarity. That sense of things being okay. It shriveled up. And for the life of me, I couldn’t get it back.

I searched for it everywhere. But life had gotten busy and panic had taken over and the harder I tried, the more clarity seemed to elude me. Forget magical. Instead, my life felt more like a wasteland.

What I hadn’t yet learned (and what I’ve begun, slowly, thankfully, to learn) is that those moments of clarity are just seeds. To grow, to thrive, they need to be nurtured, cared for, fertilized with our habits and our life practices, our silences and our effort. I made the mistake of thinking that once I had woken up to a truth, it was mine forever. I see now that while it was wonderful that my initial “awakening” made such an impact, it was inevitable that it would eventually wane; I hadn’t yet learned how to practice it consciously. I hadn’t yet learned how to water my own life.

I’ve begun to surround myself with teachers, with books that show me the way ahead, with long walks and times of sitting still.

In Pema Chodron’s wonderful book “When Things Fall Apart”, she says: To stay with the shakiness—to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness—that is the path of true awakening. To find my way again, I’ve had to sit with the shakiness for awhile. And I’ve had to surrender the panic and go back to the beginning—to that first flash of knowing on the steps seven years ago. I’ve had to learn how to tend to it mindfully this time round rather than by default—knowing and trusting every day that even when it doesn’t feel like it, I am in the right place, that I haven’t missed my life, that my path is this next step right in front of me.

Have you experienced a magical season in your life that you seem to have moved away from? I want to tell you not to despair. Now is the time to return to the beginning, to relearn what your heart used to know. What would you like to know deep within you again?

by christine mason miller

Let the day lead you like a deer through the forest

I have spoken and written a great deal about all the moments I’ve experienced when I’ve taken my first steps to make a dream real and then – voila – my dream shows up and lets me know I am on the right path.  These visitations come in all kinds of strange places, are always unexpected, and when they occur mark the moment my dream and I begin a beautiful, exhilarating, sometimes maddening interplay to make the dream real.  I’ve never tried to knit with another person – as in two of us knitting the same thing together – but I imagine it would be similar.  It wouldn’t necessarily come naturally, and sometimes we might both want to call it quits, but in those instances when we got into a perfect symbiotic flow, magic happens.

I learned the value of embracing this particular dance – between my self and my dream – early on in my creative career, and I’ve shared this message time and time again.  I always word it the same way, where I explain that making a dream real is all about managing the balance between creating what I envision and following leads, opportunities and detours that I could have never imagined or expected.  No matter what my dream or project, they have always ended up being equally influenced by both sides of this coin.  If I had to guess which side usually “won out” – my ideas or the unexpected twists – the twists would win hands down.

I was thinking this recently – about how easily that trust comes to me when I am creating and when I am traveling.  In both of those pursuits, my attachments to specific outcomes are few and I am able to handle setbacks, rejections and surprises with a certain level of calm.  It is only in my day-to-day life when these frustrations tend to throw me off kilter.  One day in particular comes to mind as I ponder this, a day many years ago when I was re-arranging rooms in my apartment in order to create a new studio space.  As I was moving a mirror, it got knocked over and shattered into a million pieces.  My reaction?  Barely a shrug as I stared at all the glittering shards of glass around me.  That same day I got a bagel sandwich to go, brought it home, and upon discovering it wasn’t what I ordered, I freaked out.  Yelling!  And cursing!  And bemoaning my horrible life!

So when I say the day-to-day is sometimes a greater challenge than the riskier, more complex journeys, I’m talking about that bagel sandwich.  I’m talking about the mundane.

I’ve followed this train of thought to one simple conclusion:  It is time to bring this dance into all areas of my life, to wake up each day ready for the same kind of collaboration that I’m prepared for with each new journey, creative or otherwise.  I’ve learned how to let my creative work lead me, and I have a great deal of experience letting different countries, cities, planes and trains lead me.  Now I need to learn how to loosen the reins on my daily life – to take whatever to do lists I make for things like laundry, work and dinner and allow more space in between the bullet points.  To let some air in through the cracks, and let that breeze take me where it will.  Those unexpected twists and turns that I love so much in my artwork and travels are also available to me on my way to the post office, at the breakfast table with my husband and beyond the end of this very essay.

Today, I will let the day lead me.

*****

christine’s inspiring 2 hour workshop Today: Begin starts this afternoon.  where could this adventure lead You?  there is still time to join in.

katy’s yummy postcard from suzanne’s inspiring swap i participated in

wishstudio will be hosting a postcard swap this summer!  what is summer vacation without sending and receiving a few postcards?  i’ve participated in a few of these before and they are really so fun.  each participant will create and then be snail mailed 5 unique and inspiring postcards throughout the summer.  it’s love in your mailbox from your creative community!  the gals in my local creativity circle will be participating as well… the more the merrier!

what you will need to do to participate:

1.  email me for the wishstudio mailing address and to let me know you are participating.

2.  create 5 handmade postcards

3.  include a few encouraging words or an inspiring quote

4.  sign the postcard with your name and your website or blog address (leave the address side blank)

5.  mail your 5 postcards along with your snail mail address on a separate index card, and 5 postcard stamps (do not affix them to the postcards!)  if you live outside of the u.s. you can still play along by sending your postage fee via paypal.

6.  the deadline for me to recieve you postcards is july 16th!

7.  HAVE FUN!

Read more >>

A Happy Free-Form Father’s Day
(Ramblings from the husband of a crafty wife and dad of the two best kids in my world)

by alex tsonas (mindy’s husband)

I must say that I am truly amazed that Mindy can do this blogging with such regularity and creativity.  I have been agonizing over this one little entry for the past two weeks – what do I say, how do I say it, what will others think – it has been pretty daunting.  I often take her posts for granted – I read them and am touched by the things she writes – but I never really thought what it takes to do it.  After this blog I have a whole new appreciation for what she is able to do on a daily basis and how many people she inspires.

I live in a crafty and emotive household.  I think the two often go hand in hand.  Things are being made, blogs being posted, projects in the works and gifts being sent to us from other crafty souls.  Mindy whips up these amazing things – mixed medium art, cards, gifts, projects.  My oldest son’s second favorite color (next to pink) is Tiffany blue.  Tiffany blue?  What is that?  Had to ask him that one.  He is a beader, a photographer, a maker of things.  And our littlest boy, who is 11 months old, I am sure is not too far behind his mumma and big brother.  And then there is me without an artistic or creative bone in my body – but I can still appreciate and be amazed at the creativity around me.

Walk a Little Slower Daddy

“Walk a little slower, Daddy”, said a little child so small.
I’m following in your footsteps and don’t want to fall.

Sometimes your steps are very fast, sometime they are hard to see.
So walk a little slower Daddy, for you are leading me.

Someday when I’m all grown up, you’re what I want to be.
Then I will have a little child who’ll want to follow me.

And I want you to lead just right, and know that I was true.
So, walk a little slower, Daddy, for I must follow you.

This poem was the first present I ever received from my first born for Father’s Day.  It most likely was yours too.  It came with a stamp of his hands and feet.  I have it on the wall of my office.  And every single time I read it I start to tear up (not great when you work at an alternative high school).  It gets me every single time and I often walk by it and consciously not read it.  The weight of it overwhelms me.  I have always been immensely self-critical when it comes to raising our oldest – often waking up the next morning saying “I can’t believe I did that or handled that situation like that” – My sons are everything to me and that is the easy part.  The fact that I am everything to them is what is so wonderful and so hard.  Fatherhood has been the greatest and toughest thing I have ever done.  Someone once told me that when you have children your life is over.  They were right  – but the new life that unfolds has been an amazing, inspiring, wonderful, a gift.  I could never imagine a life without my family – beautiful and messy that it is…

Like when we were playing Wii one day – side note, Wii is the root of all evil.  Someone once said that Wii turned kids into angry drunks – they were dead on!  My son and i were playing along, not a care in the world, father and son bonding through digital connection and he drops the f-bomb.  Word of caution here – if for a second you worry about an answer don’t ask the question.   And so dad forged ahead and asked, “where did you hear that from?”  “You dad!”

And then there is the baby – my not so little (he is a big 11 month old) ray of sunshine.  I come home every day and no matter what my day was like and no matter what is going on in the house at that time he greets me with the biggest smile in the world and I feel that basic essence of love – it is the most amazing thing – it makes me well up as I write this – and it makes me so happy to be his dad.

I love being a dad – that is it and that is all there is – I could never, would never want to imagine my life without my two boys – they are everything to me and I have never gone a day without, in some way, feeling or thinking these things.

“Happy father’s day”, dad’s, father’s, papa’s, old man’s , dadda’s – have a great day!

**********

to celebrate father’s day a few husbands share…
read more inspiring openhearted posts by dads on these beautiful blogs:

life set to words (maegan beishline’s husband)

boho girl (denise andrade’s sweet boho man)

the whole self (nina beana’s cat’s meow)

photo by my budding little photog

are you ready?

to dig your toes into the sand

slurp up juicy rainbow colored popcicles

loosen up your schedule

catch fireflies

stay up a little later

sip ice cold riesling garnished with fresh berries

take siestas in the hammock

collect seashells and sea glass

watch your garden come to life

go to pool parties and cookouts

hit the boulevard for arcade games, photo booths and fried dough

pack picnic yummy lunches

go for bike rides

hit the farmers market

don your fab new sunglasses

paint your toe nails neon pink

make gazpacho instead of chili

read something juicy and fun

play your music loudly

lounge more work less?

i am too ;)

* to celebrate the coming summer solstice, teresa bennet is giving away one spot in her brand new inspiring ecourse Room to Breathe: summer soulstice soul care that starts this sunday!  sink into summer and a little more soulful love for your creative mind, body and soul with teresa’s yummy six week workshop.  you’ll be glad you did!

to enter this giveaway, please leave a comment here by monday morning (6/21 you will have the rest of the week to dive into the first post!) sharing what you would like to nourish this summer.  one winner will be announced in the cafe – just click on the giveaway winners thread to see if you are the lucky one!

* also, emily perry is hosting a giveaway on her site for a spot in her beautiful 4 week ecourse From Bija to Bloom, which starts on july 7th.  head on over to her site for all the details and to enter.

good luck everyone… and happy summer!

Read more >>

by michelle ensminger

This may come as a surprise (or maybe not) but most of the time I don’t think writing is fun.  In fact, most of the time, I hate it.  I hate its demands. I hate its fickleness.  I hate how it needs me in the most inopportune moments.  I hate that I find it unreliable.  I hate its rules (grammar, punctuation, etc.—yuck!)  I hate that I can’t control it.

online summer workshops

• there is still time to register for teresa bennett’s Room to Breathe:  summer soulstice soul care workshop – a great way to connect with and nourish your mind, body, and soul through the sultry summer months!  the 6 week ecourse begins this sunday, june 20th.

• also, do not miss out on christine mason miller’s 2 hour workshop Today: Begin available the week of june 22nd – 28th.  it is the perfect way to dive into that idea or project you’ve had simmering on the back burner.  christine’s inspiring art and words will help you take that next step in the direction of your dreams!

• emily perry is also offering an amazing summer ecourse here in the wishstudio starting july 7th, From Bija to Bloom (go watch her inspiring video!).   through mandala mapping and other creative techniques, emily will help you to center your heart and mind energetically so that your creative voice may be heard and you can begin to blossom!

local creative gatherings

• if you live local to the boston and north shore area, join me for my summer intu{wish}n creativity circle.  it’s a wonderful way to blossom into your creativity while connecting with other local creative souls.  i would love to see you!

• join us for a little Create & Mingle at the danvers art association.  along with local designer, heidi wallingford, we’ll be hosting two evenings filled with artsy inspiration, yummy treats, laughter and togetherness.  it’s a wonderful opportunity to spend some time getting crafty and to meet new (and old) creative friends, so don’t be shy ~ we’d love to see you!  july 20th we are making story bracelets, and august 24th we’ll be creating inspiration journals.  find out more details on the workshops page.

summer book group

our summer book group, reading The Necklace, by cheryl jarvis is set to begin this sunday in the wishstudio cafe’.  if you’d like to join, go register in the cafe, grab the book and head to the beach, then meet us in the cafe this sunday!  i will post weekly chapters to read and questions for everyone to follow along with and chat about.  it will be a fun, laid back way to get a great read in together this summer!  hope you’ll join us.

Read more >>

by madalyn ducher

The art of Motherhood is just that, an art. It’s creative living on a daily basis. Things are consistently changing. Time always falls short and there never seems to be enough hands. I’ve definitely experienced times of feeling swept up and lost between it all. I have had to learn new strategies and ways to keep my creative energy flowing. The best and easiest is to incorporate my son with my projects! He has his own desk and art station right along side mine.

We’ve recently moved seaside and life couldn’t be more incredible right now. It is awesome to have the ocean in your backyard and be among nature daily. We are constantly collecting shells for our seashore haberdashery or making alphabet + number charts with what we find. We collect many sea oat sticks for castles + ship building.

It’s wonderful to sit outside for breakfast in the morning. Sketch books in hand + pencils at the ready. I believe the vast openness of the beach allows your mind to have endless exploration inside your imagination. It can run free alongside the waves.

I look at my child and see a crisp white blank canvas that’s waiting to be painted. I’ve never been more inspired in my life than when I notice the ‘click’ of inspiration striking. The light that sparkles in his eyes at the discovery of something new.  I can see those parts of myself in those eyes. Painting his life with wonderful colors, shapes and adventures.

It can be overwhelming at times. Overwhelming with both gratitude and chaos, confusion and affirmations. I relish in the grace of those silent moments when I get to see his face peacefully asleep.

Observation of all that is beautiful.

Beauty in the stillness of having made it through another day.

Beauty in the unknown that will unfold tomorrow.

Unearthed treasures in the seemingly mundane.

As all artists can relate, often times when I set out on a project I have no idea where I will end up. Being unattached to the final outcome of the art makes the little dips and turns of the adventure that much sweeter at the end. All the while holding this tiny little hand next to mine while I create is simply indescribable. Awe inspiring. Bittersweet as they grow to new heights yet already waving + leaving old milestones behind.

Watching his canvas, of his life, taking shape with so many vibrant colors + stories is an honor. I feel so humbled to be connected to this wonderful, delightful little human soul. He is the best version of me in an extension of myself.

Just like in creativity, it’s the same in motherhood. You have to keep skipping around the next bend and have faith in the process of it all.

Everything is artful.

And heart-full.

It’s a heart-full art!

Sometimes you just have to walk in the ocean and let your pants get completely soaked. You have to break out of the mold in order to have more space for the dreams to filter in and your mind to become loose + untethered.

What could creativity be without childhood?

Children have a magic in them that gets you off the ground and back into the clouds where all artists should be.

The tiniest glimpse back into that world of imagination + endless possibilities is the greatest gift of all.

by brandi reynolds

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours. ~Swedish Proverb

On this joy rebel adventure, this is what I’ve found so far to be true for me:

47. laughter is a must

48. stretching can give you a new perspective

49. being outside heals a lot

50. ask for help

51. people tend to be nicer than we give them credit for

52. especially if you are honest with them

53. yoga is amazing

54. there’s beauty in the painful

55. creativity is innate

56. so much more can be done with community

57. acceptance (of yourself and of others) happens in layers

58. life is funny

59. the people don’t get you are not people you want to be around

60. the first step starts the ball rolling

What have you found to be true for you?

by lisa wilson

Oh beautiful WishStudio readers and participants, what do we share?

I am a mommy of two who sometimes feels like an imposter at this mommy thing.

I am a creative soul who is not yet secure enough to call herself an “artist” when someone asks what I do.

I am a yogini – a registered yoga teacher and yoga lover at heart – who forgets to practice more than I’ll admit.

I am a lover of life – passion, whimsy, and imagination, as well as the honest, real parts…those things most people don’t like to discuss.

I am strong and I am weak.  I am on my journey through my days, trying to figure out how to push forward, farther, to challenge myself while simultaneously being gentle, loving, and accepting with the way things are right here, right now.

All this while potty training my 3-year old.

A little story: I just started running about 7 months ago.  Before that, I was one of those who swore up and down I would never run.  (Ok, I’d run from a burning building or towards a free iced chai, but that’s about it.)  As I type this, I’m scheduled to run a mini-marathon (13.1 miles) in a week.  Ain’t life funny?

While training a few months back, I hit one of those legs-burning-breath-not-there-this-isn’t-going-to-happen moments a mile or so into the run.  I was disappointed with myself as I’d run farther and faster just a few days before.

In my conversation in my head (I have those a lot), I screamed “Go, go!  Why are you thinking of stopping?”  I whined back, “Because it hurts and I’m tired”.  I narrowed my eyes and hissed, “This whiner isn’t you!  This quitter isn’t you!”

Suddenly, all of “me” came together and gently demanded to know:  Well, then,

Do I have the strength to be me?

A run was completed and a new way of living was begun.

To have the strength to be me, I first have to have awareness of who “me” is.  I have to face those parts of me that are easier to push aside (am I really happy where I am?).  I also have to come to terms with the larger “Me” – the collective Me that includes the stranger I ignore and the earth calling out for my help.

And then, I strength train.  I prepare myself for those times when there is no time for preparation.  I practice deep breathing late at night so I can find my breath the next time the kids are screaming and I’m about ready to lose it.

My strength training regiment currently includes creative exploration, yoga, and running.  Mixed media, photography, poetry and yoga, running, dancing, swimming…whatever stirs my soul and my limbs.

I encourage us both to continue this training, using whatever tools suit us at that time in our lives, and to continue this training every moment we are alive.  “Know Thyself” and do everything you can to be true to both your divine self – those dreams that send you flying – and your human self – those piles of laundry and bills and clutter.  (Seriously, can we all just agree to keep somewhat messy homes without apology?)

I’d love to know your story –  where you are on your path.

May we share in this journey and find our strength together.

Oh, and wish me luck on the whole potty training thing.  Next to that, the mini-marathon is seeming like a breeze.

My deepest gratitude to Mindy for inviting me to contribute to the rich and creative Wishstudio!

Lisa (Wilson)

LifeUnity.blogspot.com

i am working hard these days to integrate my online life with my “real” life.

i really don’t like using that word “real” when it comes to talking about my life off the computer screen because the things i share here in the virtual relm are as real as can be.  yes, there is a creative filter to what i share online, but i think oftentimes that filter distills my life to represent me in an even truer more honest light than what people get to see of me in my everyday encounters.

i think because of the support of my community here online, it’s easy to share and to put myself out there.  it’s what we do… share, inspire, support.  it’s automatic.  it’s a little more intimidating to connect this way with my neighbors, the moms of my children’s friends, and the local community right outside my doorstep.  there is no built-in creative/supportive filter.

it’s intimidating it think, because like most people, i want to be understood and accepted and out in the “real” world it’s a little trickier to be so open and soul-baring.  but i am learning more and more that i can move beyond this and simply Be.  acceptance is feeling less and less imortant, and just being myself and offering up what i have to share seems to be where my life is taking me.  i think part of it is judging myself less (honestly, thinking that others are sizing me up is really about my own insecurity), and part of it is really being the person that i represent myself to be online – owning who i am 100% with no apologies wherever i am.  this is a work in progress.

i’ve heard those stories about online personalities who we admire and adore are, at times, not really who you expect them to be when you meet them in person.  that is truly unfortunate.  i do not want to be one of those people.  ever.  so i think carefully about what i put out there virtually and make sure that i can back it up with honest and good intention.

most recently i’ve been reaching out, talking to creative women i admire locally, planning collaborations and hoping to integrate more fully my online life and my life here in this beautiful community (there really is so much here to be a part of!).  it’s been a natural progression really, as this space has given me the opportunity to grow my voice and find my center.  i am so grateful to all of you for supporting me and helping me along the way!

do any of you struggle with this?

how do you integrate the two?

stop by my journal today to read part two of this post, as i talk more about this topic and how it relates to my children and being thier mom.

Read more >>

by carmen torbus

For the last few months, I’ve been running a series of interviews on my blog called Inspiring Minds Want to Know (link to: http://www.carmentorbus.com/blog/category/imwtk).  I love learning more about the people that inspire me and what I would really love is to learn a little more about YOU!  Yes, YOU!

Since starting the series, I’ve had a few requests from people wanting to interview me.  I was super excited and immediately gave an enthusiastic, “Yes!!!” Then I started reading the questions and reality (and the inner self-doubt monsters) set in.  The questions are hard to answer, but once out there for all to see, it’s amazingly liberating.

Are you up for a challenge?  Ready to embrace vulnerability and rock my socks off?

I would love it if you would read through these questions, answer them on your blog and leave us a link here in the comments!  Wouldn’t it rock if we all shared what inspires us? How awesome would it be if we all blog hopped around to each others blogs and left encouraging comments, love notes and overall support for each other?  I get giddy just thinking about it!

So here goes!

1.  You’ve got some amazing things happening and I can’t wait to hear more about it! Can you tell us a little about yourself and the inspiration behind what you do?

2.  We’re dying to know, what inspires you more than anything else in the whole world?

3.  What is your big dream?  Yes, the BIG one!  The really, super big, pee your pants when make it happen dream.  The one you feel a wee bit nervous saying out loud.  Yep, that one!

4.  Tell us how you’re going to feel when you make it happen!

5.  What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail and fear didn’t exist?

6.  What’s next for you?

7. What are you working on right now that you could use some support and encouragement on?

8.  What advice, tips, resources, and overall good-to-know information would you offer someone just starting out with regards to finding passion & inspiration and digging in?

9.  Is there anything else you’d like to share?

10. Where can we find you online and what is the best way to connect with you?

Be sure to leave a link to your interview in the comments section so I can put together a master list of Inspired Interviews. I can’t wait to learn more about YOU and what inspires you.

xo & buckets of belief in you,

Carmen

How I learned to ride a bike….
by jennifer quinn

As a kid, I was thrilled to spend the entire day on my bike: creatively transforming the steel frame and the long banana seat into a time machine: riding down dirt hills that warped into Mars, zooming over flat asphalt while vocalizing a larger than life muffler. My bike could transport me to a multitude of magical places without hesitation or limitation.  My bike could transcend me to extraordinary experiences without judgment or ridicule.  My bike was a joyful creative practice.  Exercise was an art form married to my imagination.

As a kid, I was thrilled to spend the entire day making art: painting and drawing flowers, clowns, designing houses minus bathrooms (no time for a bath when you want to be out on your bike).  Making art was a joyful creative practice.

Most children love bikes and most children love art.  As adults we often misplace the practice of riding a bike and/or the practice of making art.  Art is viewed as childish or fun.  Who has time for fun? A bicycle carries the same undertone.  Exercise is viewed as an extra rather than a necessity.

Most adults only see a bike as an object to get you from here to there: a straightforward and healthy mode of transportation.  Can a bike help your emotional and spiritual outlet?  How I learned to ride a bike might have started in childhood but how I learned to ride a bike has taken new root.  (and I am all giddy with the discovery)

Over the past 11 years, I have been given the privilege of making art with adult cancer patients.  My goal is to offer a much needed distraction from the hospital environment and to offer an outlet to safely explore/express emotions.  A patient can create an image of their favorite place or even a symbol of hope.  When subjected to defensive statements such as, “I can’t draw a straight line”, my immediate response or rebuttal, “Great, a croaked or curvy line is far more interesting”.  Making art requires taking a risk.  For a cancer patient making art can give a gift of power and control.

Life happens in the curves of the road, not on the straight and narrow.  Art is made with the intention to stimulate thoughts and emotions (during the process and while viewing the product).  Art can channel worries, anxieties and fears into a positive outlet.  When a patient makes art, they are transcending into sacred time and space where healing can occur: the clock stops, the anxiety lessens, the pain subsides.  Studies have shown that making art can lower your anxiety or depression as well as increase oxygen levels and respiration.

As a working married Momma of two, creativity slips into my day unexpectedly: my job is to recognize and honor creativity’s presence: sweet morning songs for the two year old, allowing creative clothing choices for the five year old.  Art embraces the heartbreaking stories I hold from cancer patients: the dying 32 year old mother who prepares to leave her grade school daughter, the elderly woman who yearns to cradle her unborn grandchild.  I paint the hurt, the anger, the joy and survival.  I know art.  I am art.  Art provides me comfort, release, hope and inspiration.  Making art blends my world, providing that flat asphalt road.

This Spring I took a risk to purchase a bike: put aside my fear of not being good enough, questioning if I had what it takes to venture 50 miles down the road.  Just like the risk a cancer patient takes when I ask, “Would you like to make some art?”  I swallowed butterflies and put trust in those who have ridden miles ahead.  For the cancer patient, art models creative problem solving.  Art welcomes the patient with the opportunity to exhume their very own trust; betrayed by the body and struggling to find solid ground.

From the moment the bike wheels set in motion, I was hooked.  You know that creative itch or cloud nine motivation to keep painting into the wee morning hours?  I found that itch on a bike, the “get out there and ride” whisper.  I regained a mode of communication that I didn’t know was missing: a childhood delight.  Unearthing a playful side shelved during adult goals and hurdles, exercise and creativity have been reunited.

How I learned to ride a bike is a joyful creative practice. A bike can transcend me into sacred time and space where healing can occur: the clock stops, the anxiety lessens (the pain is only temporary: filling those lungs with fresh air, pushing muscles to do new work).  I arrive home refreshed by shifted gears and better able to focus on the terrain: the crying toddler who feels misunderstood, the cancer patient who is metaphorically lost.  How I learned to ride a bike has taught me to be in the moment: seeing what is presented just as it is: the climb to the top of the mountain, the tears of worry in an elder’s face.  Art is in everything I do.

For The Necklace Project, I created a charm using a bicycle chain and glass beads to symbolize the marriage of art and bike.  The chain symbolizes the here and now: pushing ahead pedal by pedal: consistently, confidently.  I hope my patients succeed, find that giddy point within the art process to shout out “I am still here, get out there and ride” finding the point they connect to reconnecting.  I hope to succeed on the road mile after mile paying attention to the scenery, honoring what is and always taking the risk to learn how to ride a bike.  Who knows maybe next year, I will learn how to cook, no maybe knit.

I sat and watched as the shadows in this photo created art…
and I captured it.
And literally, within moments, it was nothing more then a blank canvas of possibility again.

I think motherhood & creativity are a lot like that in my world…
interwoven so you can’t separate the mother from the artist or the creativity from the mothering.
They are constantly being re~invented and forever evolving.

follow kirsten’s blog over at the landofthelovelies.blogspot.com

birdie in my backyard

after giving it much thought, i finally took the leap and am on twitter!  you can follow me at www.twitter.com/inthewishstudio.  i’m not exactly sure what i will want to say here, but i know that’s all a part of playing around with it as well as figuring out my voice.  if you have any tips or tricks for me, i’d love to hear them!  as a newbie tweeter it seems a little intimidating at first, but i’m sure i’ll get the hang of it. i can see how one could lose many hours tweeting and following.

i had the most delicious dinner with some fabulous creative friends last night, and among the many topics of conversation was the whole facebook and twitter thing.  after listening to what all the girls had to say, i was pretty convinced that twitter might be for me, but facebook was not.

i think sometimes we get caught up in “more is better”, and for me i’m finding that i really care more about the quality than the quantity of my interactions here in the virtual world.  it is such a wide, wide world here in the virtual relm, and honestly even without these two added social media forums it’s sometimes difficult for me to connect the way i’d really like to to each and every one of you here in my community.  so i had to really pause and think about why i wanted to add either of those sites to my online profile.

as an entrepreneur i’ve felt a little bit of pressure over not being on facebook or twitter, because it seems almost every successful business is tweeting and asking people to “like” them.  i really wanted to not begin taking part in these sites just because i simply thought it was the thing to do or simply use them as a means to an end.  i want to enjoy my work.  i want to connect to the actions i take for my business in a meaningful and resonant way.  for me, for now, that’s twitter and decidedly not facebook.

why?  i think twitter will compliment what i already do as a blogger.  i’m familiar with the concept of putting things out there and like this idea of being able to inspire in one simple sentence.  it’s like shooting a firework into the sky.  for me, facebook seems a little counter intuitive, less filtered and a little more like a social free for all.  maybe i will use facebook someday to simply keep in touch with family, but i feel like i already put so much of myself on my blog that to facebook too is a little overkill.  the people who want to find me and tune in to what i have to say and who are a part of my life will meet me where i am.

maybe that’s the bottom line for me.  i’m just not really in love with the idea of mass producing my PR and to go on facebook that would really be the only reason i’d take part.  i’m a small operation built on passion and truth not stats and the number of followers.  i want my business and community to grow a little more organically and be a little more home spun.  that’s not to say that i’m not mindful about opportunities to grow my business, it’s just that for me bigger is not always what makes you better.