{naming the connection}

I think in terms of the day’s
resolutions, not the years’.
~Henry Moore

It is important to note that naming the connection between what I wished and what I wanted to do took a while. (And it has taken me most of five hours to compile and write and edit this post!) 

While wishes and wants may sound like the same thing, they aren’t. But since you are reading this blog, you probably already know that!

• Wishes are sparkly and boundless and invigorating.
• Wants are what we have come to expect we can do.

Since I labeled my abilities pertaining to what I wished for as hobby-skills, I was stuck working with what I wanted {what I was formally educated and trained for}. A mildly altered version of what I had always done: collaborate for work; art for fun. There were selected and random moments of criss-crossing, but for the most part, my wee bit of income is strictly from my consulting {collaborating} client work. (Annual reminder: meeting with my CPA.)

Until last week’s meeting …

When my CPA invited me to allow the currency to change from $$ to ♥ dividends … He knows both my joint-return numbers as well as my passions, interests and talents! And with that prompt — the man more than earned his annual fee! Needless to say, my view of $$ and ♥ flow is a’changing! It is currently blurred and criss-crossing! With plans for a swirly mix of both types of “dividends” to flow in the very near future!

But resuming from yesterday:

Just as meeting with my CPA gave me a piece to the puzzle I have been working on, it has been a seven-year journey of collecting tangible pieces of what was already formed in my spirit {my heart’s desire — a wish}. And that journey was much more about healing than achieving, and certainly more about healing than it was about knowing or understanding or figuring out what I was living in the midst of. It was a slow and steady pace about:

• learning how to heal, in order to achieve.
• healing in order to live my wishes.
• learning how to die in order to live.

I mentioned it yesterday: the despair I was in after joining Cancer Club. It was like living in a stark prison of solitude. Devastating life events do that. And these events issue a sentence of time to serve in said prison. And that sentence takes as long as it takes, Braveheart …

There were friends who were near before, during and after this pivotal time of my life. But the people I was closest to … They were with me … In that prison we were each sentenced to.

These friends, they retreated with me … via nature walks and art therapy. And together, we sat in the proverbial dark {chemo infusions; medical appointments; hospitalizations … funerals}; we held hands and shared life {communed}.

These friends, they trusted me to be their scribe as they dictated their stories before they passed away …

And it felt like all my words were buried with them.

Until one day I was at a book store; and I spotted this journal …

No object is mysterious.
The mystery is your eye.
~Elizabeth Bowen

And in my spirit, I heard, “You are going to write your way through this.”

I bought the journal and immediately began to cover a page with my zentangle-like doodles and “camouflaged” words. I could feel the warmth from the dim light of recovery. Even so, that journal still only has one page completed in it.

But from that day on … There was light. I began to design beaded jewelry and to journal again. Words filled entire notebooks; I began my first collage art. And learning about the therapy of artistic expression.

New friendships were formed to pad the emptiness of all the friends who had died because of ovarian cancer, and the friends who faded into the past because our friendship had simply run its course.

I still felt lost. Numb.

A longtime friend suggested mind mapping. She recommended a book by Tony Buzan. The book did not make sense to me at first; I filtered it through grief and pain, and what I knew on a left brain level. And I never did read all the way through it.

But it prompted new thoughts.

And plans — and wishes — via doodles and scraps of paper and the backside of junk mail envelopes, and maps imagined in my mind. ♥

I began to connect the dots.

And while that feels like a long time ago {seven years} … It was precisely enough time for my children to become adults, and for me to process {emotionally and spiritually} the traumatic personal events and various losses during those years. And to wholeheartedly explore my options professionally. There were a lot of layers to peel away, but …

I rediscovered wishing.

Although I have been fortunate to be paid for some wished-for job positions, and to enjoy the opportunities of work I wished for {if I volunteered} I am still chipping away at the faulty belief that being paid means having more value and having a higher purpose. {And thus, the lack of income diminishes value and purpose.}

Work is not about being paid.

• it is accomplishing what is necessary to live a life you love.
• it is the joy of completing a project or event with purpose.
• it is the fruition of a beginning, middle — and a conclusion.
  

Back to those ♥ dividends …

Living a life I love has always included volunteer work. Serving, offering my time and talent, without remuneration has always been my practice. Starting when I was in junior high school: driving myself to a nearby grade school to help a student with cerebral palsy accomplish his lunch routine. My last official gig {office; ID badge; scheduled hours} was with a non-profit counseling center in 2008. I do periodically volunteer as a project manager for SpeakArtLoud — and there has been such purpose and inspiration in that during the past 1.5 years!} ♥

I also continue to cash-in high-yield ♥ dividends while working with the extremely authentic, eclectic and gifted artist, Mandy Steward.

Our initial weekly collaborations were over coffee and usually began late in the afternoon, continuing into the very late hours of our Sunday nights. Those months were training sessions for my “jumping muscles” — oh! how the rapid beats of my heart — during those inspired hours of kindredness and abiding {and blurted-syllables} — reminded me of what the practice of one’s passion feels like. ♥

I was her midwife as she birthed her first book. (Debuting, Spring of 2013!)

She would send drafts of chapters to me as she wrote them … She mentions our conversations and our moments-shared in that book.

No words. Just tears & pure joy. That is how I responded.

It is an extraordinarily-phenomenal experience to read your own words, as expressed by another person.

To dare to reread each syllable and to find yourself grinning like a little girl. You know … when your eyes are like sparkly slits, your lips raised and stretched from ear-to-ear, and all your teeth are revealed and lined up on stage!

Your entire being is aglow.

Because in that moment … you know all that you need to know. You have all that you need to have …

to long jump into your Next!

And from there … from there you learn the difference between value and cash earnings. Because you can call it whatever you want — you are being paid! You are receiving what you need and what you rightly earned and deserve.

From there, you precariously — but undauntingly — practice sparkly dares with kindreds as you make wishes and declare your value. There you observe and learn what you do with ease. What makes you sparkle and stretch beyond your arbitrarily-drawn limits of “that is what I have always done” … And you announce who you are and you name your connection.

My name is Teresa Robinson.

I am an Artist and a Right Brain Planner.

I am a Creative Planning Consultant and Professional Collaborator.

A Midwife for Artists.

My professional focus {my personal sparkly-dare, wish-work} is serving as a collaborator and midwife to female artists birthing their dreams via creAtive personal and business journaling, planning and development}. And sparkly-new online offerings to inspire you are in the works, Braveheart! ♥