Braveheart, loss and hardships either make us bitter … or better. Better equipped, more clear about what truly matters in life, more open, more determined, more committed to the people we love, more forgiving … more grateful.
I am currently feeling more grateful due to the kind and loving support I have received during my ongoing health challenges. 🙏
This is my “thank you” to you. Because you are special to me. Thank you for being here.
🪅 Almost 20 years ago I started sharing a visual journal online using a WordPress blog. Followed by having the absolute joy of hosting creative communities (online and locally).
All of this a precious gift! 🎁 Thank you so much for your presence ~hugs ❤️
At that time I was also living with chronic pain mingled with some familial challenges. ➡️ And yet, adding hand-written notes among found words, painty marks and swatches, doodles, and magazine images felt like “time away” from those realities.
And I was lucky to have a faithful group of creatives who joined in-community online from all over the world to gather together and share ideas, laughter and kinship. ✂️🎨🖌️📔📖🖋️
Thank you to you if you have ever been in one of these communities. And thank you for your support and presence if you are currently in one of those communities. ~hugs ❤️
“Maybe, at some point, courage stops looking like bravery and starts looking like willingness—the willingness to face what is new without any real assurance that it will be good.” -Kate Bowler
The creatives in the communities I host are willing to face what is new, even when they know joining in a community has its long list of unknowns. 😊🫣🙃
So, another extra special thank you to those of you who faced something new and decided to join in. 💝💝💝
Braveheart, I started this post in remembrance of my beloved Mollee Joy because her presence in my life truly changed me. And when she died suddenly … I started a leg of my personal journey that almost did me in. Literally.
So, what do my canine companions have to do with this note of gratitude? 🤭🤔
We are not meant to live our lives alone. Relationships are essential—despite their many challenges and ups and downs. For me, this includes spirituality (relationship with The Divine), my partner, children and grands, pets, kindred friends, nature, seasons and the 🌙 moon.
When Mollee Joy crossed over 🌈The Rainbow Bridge I was limping along emotionally through the details of my mother having dementia, familial estrangements and a long list of unresolved personal details. And I started having chronic pain and fatigue (again).
My right brain planning practice helped me to realize what I was actually healing from:
A year after Mollee died, I decided on a series of proverbial Hail Mary decisions. It worked.
Until it didn’t.
After that, my next step forward was gratitude. (Even though this included being forced to decipher some of my faulty beliefs about “being grateful” …) 🙃
- But again, my right brain planning practice helped to realize: “You’re healing not from the event, but instead from what it told you about yourself.” -Najwa Zebian
Then I learned of these words by David Whyte:
“Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.” -David Whyte
Braveheart, we are never one thing—we are ongoing, we are a living exchange of ideas, experiments, trial-and-error lessons and discoveries, feelings and stories.
Please pay attention (and take some notes). ❤️
My right brain planning practice helps me to remember that I am not one thing, and my healing is not a one-time event, it is a process—rooted and grounded in my right brain planning practice AND my community. 💞💞💞
- My creative chronicles remind me of who I am—what I have lived and what I desire.
- The pages of my chronicles help me remember that everything cycles like the 🌙 moon.
Healing comes from witnessing ourselves, Braveheart. Healing comes from being seen and accepted.
- Witnessing ourselves includes creative chronicles about ourselves. ✂️🎨🖌️📔📖🖋️
- Witnessing ourselves includes being in-community and allowing ourselves to be seen.
Thank you for your presence and for seeing me. I am ever-grateful. ❤️
It is my hope for everyone reading this (and for myself), that we will practice being with our pain (instead of hiding away, or faking “happy,” or rejecting ourselves for feeling sad, disappointed and/or hopeless).
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. 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:
- Make a one-time contribution in any amount via [this link]. (Thank you!) ❤️