The Power of Asking!

Have you found yourself in a similar situation?

I was trying to move something a little heavy and a bit awkward. I could do it. It was a struggle, but I could get it into the other room by myself.

I am noticing people around me, wondering why they aren’t giving me a hand. Can’t they see me sweating over here?!

I think about asking them, but when I look around, they all look busy and I don’t want to interrupt.

Then I hear a voice inside that says, “Just ask! They can say no!”

So, I ask and five people are suddenly at my side happy to help and it gets moved with so little effort and so much more fun!

One of them even says, “I’m so glad you asked! You help me all the time. It’s nice when I can help you.”

We could all use a little help moving things, even when they aren’t physical things.

Today, I was noticing that my excitement for the Creative Community Circle membership was all mixed up with a sense of struggle.

I could get it out there by myself. It might be a bit of a struggle, but I can do it.

As I sat with that awareness in a doodle meditation, a voice said, “Just ask! They can say no!”

So, I have an ask for you, dear supporter.

I am asking you to join me in celebrating the launch of the Creative Community Circle membership on either September 17th or October 13th. The link to register for these free events is here.

I really do think you will have fun with the creative activities I have planned and I really do want to share this thing I have been dreaming about and creating with you!

If you feel so moved, I am also asking you to share my event in your circles. If you have participated in any of my events or worked with me, it is so effective to post the event link with a few words speaking to why you feel compelled to share it with people.

Lastly, I would love to focus my marketing time and energy by interacting with others. If you know of people either in your social or business circles that could use an activity to get their creative juices flowing, I would love to do this in exchange for sharing about the Creative Community Circle.

I thank you for this kind of support. This endeavor is all about doing things together creatively which is way more fun and joyful than struggling alone!

I also don’t want you to struggle alone. So here’s your chance. If there is something I can support you with, just ask! Or maybe there are others in your life that it is time to ask for something! The worst that could happen is you get a no. But what if you get a YES?!

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In addition to joining us for a free CCC Launch Celebration and Tour event, you can also learn more about the Creative Community Circle here!

Are You Qualified?

Who am I to…. (Fill in the blank.)

We have all said it to ourselves so many times for so many different reasons.

Who am I to think I could make anything good? Who am I to think anyone would be interested in what I have to offer? Who am I to try to help someone else when I haven’t figured it all out?

It’s actually a good question. It just needs to be asked with a different inflection.

Who are you? What life have you lived and what have you learned from it?

We get caught up depending on outer validations. We think we need a specific certificate or degree or academic experience. Those things can be helpful. Those things are not bad at all. But those things are not everything. And those things are not always necessary.

Life moves on. Who you were in college might not be who you are now. What your interests once were, might not be what they are now.

The thing to trust is the thing that is pulling at your soul, tugging at your brain, making your hands itch to go do. If the qualifications you believe you need - if that outer validation isn’t there - I invite you to take some time validating yourself.

I’m sure your life experiences have qualified you for many things and most likely especially for the thing you are feeling passionate about in this moment.

Maybe you will need some outer qualifications, but getting clear on the inner qualifications will help you move with clarity and purpose, rather than insecurity and fear.

In the images you can see what some of what my life experiences have qualified me for and there is a blank one for you.

But don’t just stop at one. Make lots! Make your own versions! Display them in frames in your workspace so you can remind yourself over and over again that you are so very qualified to go after the dreams in your heart.

Doodle Reflection: Just Holding on for the Creative Journey!

Creative Journeys are special entities. They love to grow and move. They love to evolve and re-create themselves. As the creator, we are along for the ride!

Sometimes this is a really fun ride. The ideas are flowing, the work is emerging, the people are loving it, and we are on cloud nine.

Sometimes it is a really scary ride. We took a surprise turn, the work is requiring us to take risks, we feel exposed and vulnerable and uncertain of our abilities.

Always it is a very alive ride! It is the ride of being human, of having multi-sensory experiences, of crazy connective conversations, of continuing to know oneself in ever deeper, more meaningful ways.

In order to always be up for this journey, I have a few practices that keep me grounded no matter what gets uprooted.

I have my contemplative practice that helps me to be still and reflect. I have my inspirational practice that constantly feeds my hungry soul and invites the muse. And I have my movement practice that keeps me embodied on the earth and learning from the wisdom in my bones.

What are the practices that allow you to grab onto your creativity and ride it? What new practices might you need?

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The creative journey that is Studio Light Illustration also continues to evolve and create/re-create itself!  Born from creative coaching, the apprenticeship program, doodle-shops, and the desire that so many of us have as creatives to be in community with each other, is the Creative Community Circle. Click here to learn more and find the links to our free Launch and Tour events!

Getting to the Heart of It

As I was guided to check in with the heart of my creative business today, its heart showed up as a child. She asked me to remember the most powerful lesson I learned as a teacher which is that the child needs to lead the way. Children are to be enjoyed and their aliveness is to be protected. My job as the teacher is to nurture this aliveness as I guide them.

Reflecting on this in terms of my creativity and my business, I started seeing how easy it was to be a drill sergeant. “I need this result and I need it done in this way and I need it to happen now!” No wonder some days I just feel tired. Demanding things is exhausting and I miss all the good, juicy stuff that creating things has to offer.

On the days where I approach my work with more curiosity, more openness to what it wants to show me in the moment as I hold the long-term vision, the energy is electric, the ideas are plentiful, things seem to happen all by themselves. Work becomes a playful adventure with fun surprises at every turn.

So, as you engage with your day, take a minute to breathe. Check in with the heart of what it is your are doing - your art, your business, your work - and see what it has to say today. How can you put what you hear into practice?

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Let’s keep growing creatively together! We are excited to announce our new Creative Community Circle membership for busy creatives who don’t want to be alone in the process of finding creative joy and satisfaction. This membership will be open for new members Sept 1 - Oct 31, 2020! But before you enroll, you can learn more at our CCC Launch Celebration and Tour events which are free, fun, and informative.

Doodle Reflection: How Much Are You Being?

How much are you doing?

It’s such a competition out there. It goes a little something like this:

“I have to take the dog for a walk.”

“Well, I have to take my dog for a 5 mile run while answering emails and practicing my breath work!”

Even meditation and mindfulness are added to the to-do list and multi-tasked away! Our value, our worth seems to hinge on all of our doings.

I certainly get caught up riding the doing-ness train right alongside everyone else. And sometimes this leads to major blocks to my creativity and joy.

Just this morning, I found myself scrolling on Instagram wondering why some people have so many more followers than me. I started spinning in what I could do and getting a little upset that what I have done hasn’t really paid off. And a voice said, “Step off the doing-ness train.”

I shot back, “But this is what people DO!”

And the voice said, “But in this moment it is not supporting who you want to BE.”

Sigh. Yes. I’m once again too focused on how much I am doing instead of asking myself, “How much am I BEING?”

Well, today, I want to be creative. I want to be joyful. I want to be kind to myself and others. I want to be inspired. I want to be rooted in my vision.

When I make this tiny shift, when I take a tiny moment to think about my being, I am reminded of what is truly satisfying and enlivening in life.

It feels like a much softer place to land. I feel my stress filter though the clouds, leaving me free and open to explore and intentionally build the creative path I am on, centered by my BEING.

How much are you being today?

If finding and removing blocks along your creative path is important to you, you will be excited to know that in September we will be launching a creative community that you can join! It will provide regular community interaction, creativity jump-starts, and lots of tools to help you on your creative journey. Stay tuned!

Doodle Reflection: Thinking Inside the Box

We all dream of being free of whatever limitations we feel hold us back. We talk a lot about thinking outside the box to free us from these limitations. But when is it time to think inside the box?

One day, when I was a young Teaching Artist, I was out of ideas, out of money for supplies, and completely out of time and energy. I went to my recycling bin and filled grocery bags full of scrap paper, bottles, and other random materials.

When the kids came in, I placed a bag at each table. I told them that this was all they had to make art with today and that each table had to make one art piece together as a team. I wondered aloud which team might come up with the most creative piece of art.

The kids immediately jumped in. Behavior issues were almost non-existent that day. They were completely absorbed and engaged, excited to put something together that would impress their peers! At the end of every class, they proudly showed off their projects and we displayed them around the art room for months. They wanted to do it again.

That grocery bag art project blew my mind. With so little art in schools these days, all I ever wanted to do was give my students the most freeing creative experience ever! I wanted them to have a chance to really engage their imaginations and follow where it led them! But it took me really limiting them with supplies and ways to put the materials together for their creativity to come completely alive.

So, next time you find yourself begrudging a limitation, why not try to think about it a little differently? Why not see it as a creative problem leading you to imagine something you might have never thought about? I wonder what new, amazing things might make you feel limitless because of your limits, not in spite of them.

If stimulating your creativity and making your creative dreams come true is important to you, you will be excited to know that in September we will be launching a creative community that you can join! It will provide regular community interaction, creativity jump-starts, and lots of tools to help you on your creative journey. Stay tuned!

Doodle Reflection: Thoughts of Freedom

Am I being a key or a cage?

This is the question that I continually ask myself in regards to my own personal freedom, in regards to how I interact in my relationships, and in regards to my work in the world.

As I look around, I see a lot of us in cages. Both quite literally - too many people locked behind bars for being poor, for being immigrants, for being mentally ill - and metaphorically - too many people feeling trapped by the outer circumstances of their lives.

If the outer does indeed reflect the inner, then what questions do we need to ask ourselves to be free from the oppression locking us into lives that are not life giving and supportive of who we really are? How can we learn from the outer to free the inner? How can we learn from the inner to free the outer?

I once heard it said that every time someone triggers you emotionally, that trigger reflects a place inside you that is not free. As I hold this idea close, I have been learning so much from the words and actions that trigger me. I see the judgments I hold over myself and work to release them. It leads to a feeling of greater spaciousness within that allows me to open up to humanity, not to condone harmful behaviors, but to connect in a space of deep understanding from which positive action can happen. As I feel more free, I want to help others become more free and I am more acutely aware of those who are not.

It seems to me that true freedom is really freedom from the fear and victimization in our minds. This, in turn, frees the heart to live with the courage it takes to transform one’s world and the world. Being a key instead of a cage means unlocking the creative life force necessary to create a sustainable way of life that includes all people and the earth, transcending all borders and perceived limitations.

So are you being a key or a cage? The truth is we are all a mixture of both. But these times are calling us to take an honest assessment and embrace the unique way we are each equipped to free each other.

Inspiration and Uniqueness: A Doodle Reflection

Sometimes you just see a poem and have to spend some time with it. Or maybe it is a song or an image or a favorite comedy sketch.

These things that inspire us speak to us about who we are as creatives. Many wonder what is unique about them as an artist, poet, musician, actor, writer....

Maybe there are clues in what you are drawn to?

If you considered the combination of things you continuously return to as wells of inspiration, how does that speak your uniqueness?

Why is it that you return to those things? Is it the way they are created? The messages contained within the creations? The emotions that are evoked? The way in which they are shared with the world?

What patterns can you discover and how can you be in a process of exploration in which uniqueness reveals itself to you while you were just playing and being inspired?

Stepping Up: A Doodle Reflection

Questions on my mind today that came out of a beautiful workshop led by Sunitha Narayanan and where humanity is in this moment:

What if everyone took one step up and out of their comfort zone? What would that look like collectively?

What if we could approach this with love and compassion? What if we could start from a place of being enough just as we are where we are? Could that naturally create the curiosity, grounded confidence, and momentum to take those steps?

What if that approach would paradoxically give us comfort as we stretch and rise to the call?

Capacity: A Doodle Reflection

I have been listening to wonderful teachings on Capacity by Mark Silver. This image came to mind along with the following questions:

- Why is it that thinking I have a much larger capacity blocks out the sky and leaves little room for anything else?

-What if looking at myself as unlimited isn't inspirational, but harmful?

-What if thinking of myself as unlimited has really limited me by dispersing and depleting my energy, affecting my ability to be in something for the long haul?

-What happens when I fully accept my limited capacity?

-How does that change where I put my energy, what I say yes to, what I say no to?

-How could this help me to be clear on my role in my personal relationships, business, activism, everything?

-How does this help me rest?

-Could it be that accepting my limited capacity can bring about the clarity of focus that results in doing more than I ever imagined?

- What could accepting our limited capacity as a culture do for us in terms of being able to sustain movements that require our energy for a long period in order to bring about transformation?

What are your thoughts/struggles/questions/celebrations with capacity?

Connective Threads: A Doodle Reflection

When I first did this doodle the other day it felt sooo heavy. The more symptoms I wrote (I'm sure I didn't even get them all) and the more connections I drew between them, the more overwhelmed I seemed to get.

But I as I sat with it, wondering what the heck to do with it, I actually started to feel hopeful. These questions got me there:

- If everything connects to something else, how are we ever going to untangle this knot?

- What can one person do in her/his/their life to start pulling at the threads?

- If I look around and back on my life, how many thousands (millions?) of people have been pulling on threads?

- If it is all connected, are we actually all pulling on the same thread?

- What would happen if more people realized this and acted on this consciously and intentionally?

- How can all these causes come together instead of competing for attention? What kind of movement would THAT look like?

I welcome your thoughts.