“Curing is so often whitewashing, redacting, pretending, repressing, perfecting, purity, delusion. It requires you to pretend to know exactly what should happen, to remove, to run away, to erase.” -Courtney Martin
Humans tend to want a cure. We want the pain to stop and when it doesn’t, we embody the urge to avoid and escape our suffering.
Wanting a cure is why the world watched as a wild and majestic 🦅 creature endured medical treatments. 💔 We want painful realities to have the endings we choose; for everything to be “better” by our own definition.
“Healing is wabi sabi, reflective, representative of reality. It is about groping towards what is truly possible, and not always knowing what is truly possible.” -Courtney Martin
But when the ache remains—when we cycle through our emotions and grief—it is vital that we come to terms with the difference between curing and healing.
It is vital that we experiment with ways to develop what Pema Chödrön calls “discomfort resilience.” Because our emotions are messengers, Braveheart. ❤️
“You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.” -Pema Chödrön
This month started with energy and great promise. 🥳 It is my intention to live my fullness via my relationships, color and creativity, and being in nature (in spite of the 100-degree temperatures). 😅💦
While these are details I routinely devote time and energy to, I am giving special attention to these aspects of my living due to the additional strain of my recovery from cancer and coping with osteoporosis.
- During the past 13 days, I have meditated, pulled an oracle card and read 📘 daily, along with savoring moments and conversations with my family and dear friends. ❤️
- I have also compiled weekly dietary menus, along with a schedule for my physical therapy and strength 💪 training to manage (and hopefully improve) my osteoporosis.
- The physical fatigue of recovery from cancer surgery, physical therapy and strength training keeps circling back in, along with what-if’s and grief as I do my best to prepare (accept? plan for?) 🤷🏻♀️ for my radiation treatments next week.
“Whether or not we learn to face it, grief will always circle back, demanding to be felt and tended to.” -Lisa Olivera
“We need to keep our minds prioritized on rooting out the messages of our old stories and focusing instead on the new, rewritten ones.” -Dr. Gail Saltz
My containers for August include: my Ko-fi booklet + templates from Beginnings; my wellness journal and conscious-living journal + a deck of playing cards for art-card making. 😊
- Each container (used consistently but not every day) is helping me to root out the messages of old stories and losses, and to focus on new, rewritten stories. 📝❤️
Today the moon is 🌒 waxing, it is Day 82/100 of my second 100-Day Project for this year, and it has been 24 years since I had major abdominal surgery to remove two cancerous tumors, collect over 20 biopsies (and other details) due to ovarian cancer.
“[Using] our creativity is therapeutic, but that is not because we need to be fixed. What we need is to be expressive.” -Julia Cameron
Creativity became part of my recovery from ovarian cancer. It led to discovering Julia Cameron’s books + finding language and affirmation for my right brain planning practice.
Creativity facilitated meaning and solace that enabled me to move through my treatment along with the eight years of physical therapy required afterward to ensure I was mobile.
- The August Ko-fi theme is [meaning & personal values]; co-creating with Spirit to determine meaning within honoring one’s personal values. 🩵
- August Lunar 🌙 prompts focus on narratives, values and the stories we tell ourselves as we make our dreams real … 🙌
Creativity is a way to foster meaning and determine one’s values. It has become a way to develop what Pema Chödrön refers to as “discomfort resilience” (the capacity to stay present when Life gets hard).
📚🖌️✂️📝 Right brain planning as a practice provides us with a starting point. It is a way to chronicle vital notes that helps us to map our way through 🗺️ the hard things.
- I hope you will 🔬 experiment with right brain planning using some of the free 🗃️ downloads available on my site.
Braveheart, 📊 everything our 🧠 brains and nervous 🏂 systems do is designed as [protective]. Designed to redirect and guide us by getting our 🔊 attention.
To live with our vulnerability, Pema Chödrön encourages us to:
- Embrace difficult emotions rather than avoiding them
- Develop “discomfort resilience” (the capacity to stay present when things get hard)
- Practice reframing challenges to see as sources of insight and growth
- Hold space our weaknesses with compassion rather than judgment
- Foster quality relationships with greater openness and reciprocity
Thank you kindly for your presence here, Braveheart. 💗
I appreciate your interest and support.
~love & good wishes~
⭐️ I am an artist and curator; I am one who communicates with color, found words and collage, inky marks and doodles as I cycle like the moon (as my calendar), chronicling oracles and abiding with the sky as a meditation.
⭐️ I host creative communities, safe spaces for gathering and sharing. I choose love and creativity for coping with the ongoing challenges of this world and I go to work—not because everything is fine but because I believe art heals.
❤️ Braveheart, as the Creator/Artist of Right Brain Planner I am ever-grateful to have the opportunity to share my creative work online + support other creators! 🎉 For almost 20 years I have had the privilege of sharing my art and writing about right brain planning while also hosting kindred 👭🏽💞👭 communities. ✨ I consider it an absolute 🤸 delight to continue this portion of my creative 📝🖌️✂️🫧 work (even as I retire from full-time work).
- This is possible, in part, by {you} and your presence here. (Thank you!) 💗 But also because of the support of my Ko-fi patrons and the other member/subscriber communities I host (via their presence, input and paid subscriptions). 🫶
- 💁🏻♀️ Other ways to support my work: ❤️ continue to read this blog + follow me on Instagram. 📲
If you already have your own system of creative journal-planning, but are interested in financially supporting my creative work, you may do so by making a donation:
- Artist’s Statement 😊🔮🔎📝🖌️🎨❤️📊
- Make a one-time contribution in any amount via [this link]. (Thank you!) ❤️