About a week ago I had an upsetting nightmare.
I woke up with my heart aching, feeling as though this dream had been a direct download from Upstairs, if you know what I mean.
I believe that dreams can contain important messages from our subconscious coded as symbols, and this one was very clear indeed. Something had to change.
If you’re waiting for a sign, this is it.
I’ve been thinking about how we use language to shape our experience. This can be as simple as how you talk about ten minutes of unpicking – is that a disaster that spirals into a terrible day, or is that re-done seam a temporary inconvenience that makes the dress better anyway?
But I’m going to take it a little further. When Jessie commented on one of my videos recently she used the phrase “…with my anxiety…”, and I suggested that one very small change to that phrase could change her relationship with her mental and emotional health.
I tackle this subject with some trepidation – I’m not a mental health professional, and I’m perhaps veering out of my lane here – but I know this one little shift has been helpful for me, and so I share it in the hope that it can help make your days easier too. Is it “my anxiety” or “the anxiety”?
An article entitled “The Modern Trap of Turning Hobbies into Hustles” has soothed many creative people this week. Writer Molly Conway gives you permission NOT to make your creative passion into your career, and I support that sentiment wholeheartedly. Yes, you may create stuff solely for the sake of creating. Of course you do not have to “monetise your joy”. If you’re among the relieved majority, and the article gave you peace, then I support that. Go forth and enjoy your hobby with my enthusiastic blessings.
But if she sounded like a concerned parent advising you to manage your expectations and get a real job, then come with me, down the rabbit hole… because this post is for you.
58 brave souls. 58 extraordinary corsets and costumes. I’m blown away all over again.
This year’s Foundations Revealed Competition is going to be our biggest ever. Makers at all skill levels, from beginners right up to highly advanced craftspeople, have submitted their work. From March 1st they will be JUDGED ON THE INTERNET FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE by both our voting members and the general public (who will be able to comment.)
What does it take to find that kind of bravery?
I think we (myself included) often give up on the old year too easily. In our haste to get done with the imperfect past, we tell this year not to let the door smack it in the behind on the way out, and launch into the hope of a fresh start… maybe too quickly. I wonder whether we’d be more effective if we took time to rest and reflect more consciously, celebrating what went well AND learning from what didn’t go so well this year? I tried this on for size in the nearest journal today…
That time of the year is coming… when a more prolific soul than you or I will post a list of the sixty-five fabulous projects she completed this year. And lo, most people will look at her edited highlights, and compare them to their backstage mess, and feel inadequate.
Ugh. Doesn’t sound like fun.
So let’s release some of our stuck creative energy right now, and release ourselves from 2018 like an arrow departs from the bow.
To begin, let’s release procrastination.