No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

May 13, 2011 by 4 Comments

One of the things I absolutely LOVE about doing life purpose work is that no matter where you go, there you are.

You simply cannot escape yourself, no matter how much you might want to. This is both hard news and good news, in my opinion.

Here’s why:

You cannot escape your lessons.

You cannot escape the challenges, struggles, and growth you signed up for. There will always be more opportunities to learn, to grow, to do better. To be a better human.

Similarly, you cannot escape your destiny.

You cannot escape the truth, beauty, wisdom, and power of who you really are. It will always find you.

You have the choice.

You have the opportunity to choose to meet your lessons and your destiny consciously and head on. You can make the most of them, or not. But there will always be chances to choose. When one door closes, another one opens.

 

I’m opening a door today if you’d like to walk through it with me and meet your destiny with your eyes wide open. There are still 2 spaces available in my Intuition & Inner Wisdom Group and in my Creativity Group for my Life Purpose Breakthrough Sessions. Registration CLOSES tonight, May 12th at Midnight Eastern Time. Register here to reserve your spot to find your Life Lesson and Life Purpose and find your way to where you belong in the world.

 

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Ending the Struggle and Facing the Fear

May 11, 2011 by 5 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about “ending the struggle against yourself” and “not being so hard on yourself” because that ranked so highly in my recent poll.

And as I was reviewing my morning pages today as part of an Artist’s Way exercise, it struck me that the struggle against ourselves is really all about avoiding our fears.

And from there I saw the massively, insanely clear connection between the ways I struggle with myself and my own life lesson, which is “Trusting my Creativity.”

The same thing is true with ALL the ways I struggle with myself. I struggle with myself around behaviors I wish I wouldn’t do — but they are all just creative blocks in disguise.

Here’s what I mean:

In my own case, a lot of my struggles with myself are around falling into feeling apathetic — a classic creative block. I feel like, “I don’t care,” or “It doesn’t matter,” or “I don’t really want to do it anyway,” so… I get stuck on taking action on my creative dreams.

But what’s really going on when I feel apathetic is that I am actually feeling the raw, naked fear — which to my body feels like a core survival fear — of going into my creativity and seeing what happens.

My fear has a lot of stories about what that might look like. (They aren’t pretty.)

But my heart and spirit have an entirely different story.

(I’m reminded here of my teacher Sonia saying, “Get a new story.”)

The story of my heart and spirit is this:

You are a writer.

You are an artist.

You are here to express yourself creatively and to be received for your creative expression.

You were born to do this.

If you are a creative soul struggling with creative blocks, perhaps you’ll take heart from my Artist’s Way and True Spirit Work inspired affirmation, “I courageously pursue my artistic passions, no matter what, pain, doubt, or terror I might face in the process.”

How Does This Play Out For You?

I’d love to hear from you about:

  • How do you struggle against yourself?
  • What fear are you avoiding facing?
  • What’s the new story you want to be telling yourself?

If you think you might just be in the eensy teensy tiniest bit of struggle against yourself, come and find out what your life lesson is (and your purpose!), once and for all. It’s like having the secret code that will help you unlock and unleash yourself from the inside out. Amen to that, sistah! Join one of my Life Purpose Breakthrough Groups (only one spot left in the Big Vision Group) and get your head on straight with what’s really going on so you can bust yourself on your blocks and get a move on with your Big Dreams. Finally. What a relief! Registration ends May 12th (that’s this Thursday, people).

 

Coming Attractions

~> May 10th, 2011. My Artist’s Way Accountability & Support Group continues. Details.

~>May 26th to May 28th, 2011. Attending Andrea J. Lee’s Wealthy Thought Leader event via simulcast.

~>May 28th, 2011. Next broadcast of my Dreamification Radio show on Radio Lightworker. Details. Listen from anywhere in the world to this Internet radio show.

~>June 9th, 16th, and 23rd, 2011. My brand new Life Purpose Breakthrough Group event series for getting you back on track with what you were put here to do will be happening on June 9th, 16th, and 23rd — but you have to register now (by May 12th). Three groups are available: Intuition & Inner Wisdom, Creativity and Big Vision. Only 4 spots available in each group. Is one of them yours? Find out more here.

 

Filed Under: Creativity, Life Purpose Tagged With: , , ,

I Can See Clearly Now, The Rain Is Gone

April 14, 2011 by 3 Comments

One of my Life Lessons is confusion. I can easily fall into confusion and uncertainty about what I want to Do or how I want to do It or if I even want to do It at all.

I can end up spinning in circles pretty easily. So I thought I’d remind us all about what confusion looks like and how to get out of it.

Confusion shows up when:

  • You aren’t listening to your deeper self.
  • You aren’t speaking the highest truth you know.
  • You’ve lost touch with your Big Dream or Big Idea.
  • You aren’t taking Right Action on making your Big Dreams real.
  • You aren’t in connection with your Big Dream Believers — the people that believe in you even when you can’t believe in yourself.
  • You’ve bumped into an unexpected obstacle and you aren’t sure what to do next.
  • You have lots of ideas and you don’t know where to start.
  • Your creative fears are masquerading as confusion or apathy (jackpot!).

Here’s what you can do to find your way out of the fog to the rainbow of clarity you’re looking for:

  • Tap into your deeper self — visualizations, coaching with a spiritual coach, or automatic writing are all powerful tools to help you get there.
  • Speak your truth until you can’t think of a single other thing to say. 
  • Write like your life depends on it. Write morning pages, write words, write articles.
  • Remind yourself of your Big Idea and what it is that you were put here to do. I have my clients craft Vision Intention statements so they can go back to their ideas when they lose their way. Get your hands analyzed if you haven’t already so you know your life purpose.
  • Take action. “Sometimes you have to make the right decision and sometimes you have to make the decision right,” as Dr. Phil likes to say. If you find out you’ve taken the wrong action, try something else.
  • Put yourself in a safe situation where like minded folks (other Big Dream Believers) can truly support you to find your clarity (come to my Voice Your Vision retreat in 2 weeks if you’re wanting this kind of support).
  • Take an objective look at your obstacles. Is there a way around them you haven’t already considered? Some radical or risky step you’ve not allowed yourself to consider but might actually be the exact solution you need? (Sell the house. Move to another area. Quit the crappy job. Ask for a loan. Tell off your grouchy cousin. Find a way to forgive yourself.)
  • Pick a place to start. You can always change your mind. If you had to pick one idea to start with right now, what would it be?
  • Core dump your fears onto paper until they lose their power.

One of the funny things I’ve noticed is that deeper down inside the quiet that is my higher, Essential Self, the truth is consistently there, reminding me of what I really want despite all my head spinning to the contrary. My deeper self ALWAYS knows what the Real Plan is, even when I’m thinking I’m I have no idea what to do. And if I just give her a chance to show up, she does.

Then I find out that I’m a lot less confused than I thought I was.

What about you?

 

~~~~~

What’s Jenna Up To?

~> April 19th, 2011. My Artist’s Way Accountability & Support Group continues. Details.

~> April 20, 2011. Speaking at the Thriving Practice Workshop Series in Berkeley, California on creating a web presence and using social media to reach clients.

~>April 23, 2011. Next broadcast of my Radio Lightworker radio show “Dreamification” on “Visioning and Moving Ahead With Your Dreams Even in the Face of Fear.” Details. Listen from anywhere in the world to this Internet radio show.

~> April 29th & 30th, 2011. My next Voice Your Vision retreat in Berkeley, California. Registration CLOSES APRIL 18th . Special savings if you’ve already had your hands analyzed. Check out this video to get a sense of what it’s like to work with me in this way.

~> May 26th, 2011. My first Life Purpose Breakthrough Group. The special focus is: Intuition & Inner Wisdom — discover how your intuition shows up in the gifts markings in your hands. Registration CLOSES APRIL 28th .

Filed Under: Creativity, Life Purpose Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

If You Love What You Do, Will You Love It ALL the Time?

March 8, 2011 by 12 Comments

Yesterday I went to an art store on my Artist’s Way Artist Date.

I found myself in tears over a 28″ x something stretched canvas that made me remember how much I’ve always wanted to try oil painting. I walked away from it quickly and then turned to go back to see what else there was to “see.”

I remembered my old boyfriend who was a “real” artist (Julia Cameron says shadow artists like to hang out with real artists and project their creativity onto their partners. Um. Here!).

I remembered how he had painted a picture of the girl he was cheating on me with and tried to pretend that it was just a gift for a friend.

On a similar piece of canvas.

I remembered how he had made me a painting a long time before I and I hadn’t liked it and didn’t know what to do about it. He never did give it to me, and I never did know how to handle it.

Double ouch.

And then the tears spiked again over a beautiful “artist’s marker pad” that was a perfect vehicle for the diagrams I’ve been wanting to do. (I brought it home.)

As I walked through the aisles of the art store, I was reminded of all the delicious art tools I already own, but that have been untouched for so long.

I wondered why I stopped doing the watercolors that delighted me so much once upon a time. Did I stop simply because I stopped traveling overseas so often? Had I lost the connection because I’d given up urban design work? Did it just start to feel too much like work?

All around the store I found reminders of my past creative endeavors (fabric dyeing, rug making, drafting and tracing, portfolios, yummy art supply containers) and so many possible future adventures. I thought about how I couldn’t afford to buy all the supplies so there was no point in learning a new craft.

But I also considered how much I love learning the tools of my craft — whatever it is — designing, drafting, drawing, coaching, website making — I am such the perpetual student. A true renaissance soul (or “scanner“). And how I wished I could just simply be a perpetual student (oh, wait a minute, I kind of already am) with a patron who wanted to sponsor all my wild ideas and wonderful projects (well, not so much that part, at least not yet).

Whilst all this transpired, I continued a conversation I’ve been having with myself for the past few days.

If I love what I do, will I love it ALL the time?

Will it ALWAYS feel easy and like I can’t wait to leap out of bed in the morning?

My screenwriting teacher often spoke of the pain of writing, the loneliness of it. That it would feel like swimming in a vast sea, just trying to get to the next “tent pole” in a script as if it were a buoy you could grab hold of to save you from drowning.

There are days when writing feels like a wretched chore. When it feels like I’ll never (ever) succeed at it, that my work will never be any good, and my ideas are not clever or brilliant enough.

But if they are my ideas, are they not enough? Isn’t it enough to write what I’ve been given, unleash my creativity as far as I can and hope for the best?

Plus, as a hand analyst, I’ve come to embrace the truth that our “hard stuff” — our Life Lesson — is the secret to breaking through in our lives. I look for where my fear comes up biggest and loudest, and go there. Is that always going to feel easy and flowing and delightful? I doubt it.

At the same time, there are days when writing feels like the most precious gift I’ve ever experienced.

A freedom to put words on the page and become one with them in the most amazing discovery of story and flow and ideas and energy that I’ve ever seen.

I figure there are good days and there are hard days.

What do you think?

~~~~~

In the spirit of Havi Brooks’ “Comment Zen,” I have this request:

Since I am exploring how to be more transparent, raw, vulnerable, and in my full, messy delicious creative energy in my posts, here’s what I would love to hear:

  • Your thoughts about this same subject in your OWN life. <— This is my favorite!
  • If my writing sparks something for you.
  • About your own stories, ideas, musings, and wonderings.

And I would love to skip:

  • You feeling like you need to take care of me, give me useful suggestions, or other well-meaning but unsolicited advice.

Thank you!

~~~~~

What’s Jenna Up To?

~> March 8th, 2011. My Artist’s Way Accountability & Support Group continues. We’ve just gotten started if you’re wishing you had jumped in. Details.

~> March 26th, 2011. First broadcast of my brand new Radio Lightworker radio show on Big Dreams. Stay tuned for details!

~> April 29th & 30th, 2011. My next Voice Your Vision retreat will be held in Berkeley, California. Specific registration details to be announced. A special savings will be available if you’ve already had your hands analyzed.

~~~~~

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