Braveheart, here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are in a new season of Autumn. And a new season always feels like an invite to cycle along with nature and make our own changes. 🤸🏻♀️🍂
I am definitely in a new season (personally and in my creative work). Having cancer for a third time kicked-started something within me. I went to a new level of understanding regarding endings truly being beginnings. 🥳
- I included [prompts for review and pondering] in the October downloads available to my Ko-fi patrons. I jotted down my answers as a Mabon ritual, and currently checking in with these prompts daily:
- Pen in hand, I read a prompt and “listen” for my answers.
- Some days words come, other days not. 🦄 It is a process.
The point is to practice [listening] and devote [attention] to a review + pondering.
😊 Braveheart, our journal-planners are a chronicle of how well we are paying attention to our living. From this practice we gain clarity and consolation, wisdom and inspiration.
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” -Joan Didion
What I share with you here and on Ko-fi is from the overflow of my personal journey. The past ten years have been transformative. Full of changes I didn’t ever expect and choices that led to healing (and realizing my strength).
Together we are stronger, and that part of my motivation to share and host communities. I share from my creative practice as an example for you to experiment with what feels useful + doable within your story-unfolding. 💗
It has been a while since I knew who I was (clear roles, interests and desires). Over a decade to be exact. 🤷🏻😊🪄 There have been months at a time when I believed 💯 I knew; times when I felt at-home in my body and at ease with the details of my life.
But mostly … life has felt like a free-fall whenever I tried to envision getting from Then to Next.
🤸🏻♀️🦄🪄 A free-fall that also included much joy and meaning, precious 💗 memories with my children and grandchildren, along with [pinnacle moments] of my creative work and healing.
- But also 🪦 death (literal and figuratively), exhaustion and debilitating sorrow. 😪
- And most recently, clamoring and contractions.
Right brain planning (self-compassion + expression) paired with (attention + review) guided and sustained me through all of that.
🔁 Right brain planning is truth-telling, and truth healed me. I lived decades in denial because of my trauma + faulty beliefs about love.
Love and forgiveness do not erase what happened, and cannot ensure reconciliation.
But, love and forgiveness can mark the beginning of a creatively therapeutic (and eventually, dazzling) season of healing + freedom. ✨
Right brain planning is a way of exploring + discovering who we are as we hold space and jot notes (and sometimes collage or paint over those notes).
I am living my life in layers and color on the page, empowered to define who I am.
I have been reviewing who I have been via sorting and archiving images and content from the past 20+ years. 🪄 Just one more reason keeping a visual journal is useful! 😊
“You don’t have to overhaul your life—you just have to explore it.” -Anne-Laure Le Cunff
self-compassion & right brain planning | dear me in six months | telling our stories + 100-day projects | The Artist’s Way: compassion | expressive writing for mental health & well-being
I am spending more and more time with friends and in-community (locally and online). Feeling so lucky 🍀 to have such amazing people in my life! 🥰
Creativity + community may not change whatever challenge or suffering we may be experiencing—BUT the combination of creativity + community definitely makes life easier 😉 (and “funner”). 🤹♀️🤸🧙♀️🛝🎢
☑️ I am currently switching up how I host my online support offerings. This will include expanding + reframing support for my Ko-fi patrons.
And I would love for {you} to join in, Braveheart! 💕
🫂member comments and testimonials:
“I was surprised to feel so relaxed and seen…” | open and authentic | “I have learned to simply resume (without shame)…” | stronger together | motivation to create | warm & welcoming | “I was surprised to feel so relaxed and seen…” | open and authentic
Thank you kindly for your presence here.
I appreciate your interest and support.
~love & good wishes~
