As the recent new moon energy fades, I’m thinking about the seeds I’ve planted. I’m in the middle of launching a new website and re-organizing my art and healing businesses under one roof. It’s engaging work and there are tons of details to attend to. I could feel overwhelmed and, in the past, I might have. Instead, I feel light-hearted and energized. Everything I need is more or less appearing at just the right moment.Bringing my worlds together is a creative process. As I thought about this, seven key ideas surfaced that feel important;
- Intention – Pulling together my businesses is about making a life that I love that will take us through the next few decades with ease and grace. I intend for this life to be a creative one of sharing and continuous expansion. This is my “flight plan” or guiding light – that big hairy audacious dream that is drawing in everything we need.
- Focus – As long as I stay focused, there seems to be enough space to get things done without crowding out relationships or losing my perspective. Focus fuels the journey set by my intention. My life has always been full – full to the brim which is beautiful, rich and fulfilling in so many ways. It can also be very distracting. Lots of shiny things to catch my attention so focus is a good thing.
- Surrender – My best work comes out of allowing for free fall creative brainstorming. I need to let ideas and insights come through unfiltered at first – a kind of letting it all hang out. This is true for business planning as well as making art. One of my first painting teachers, M.Douglas Walton, stressed the importance of abandonment in good art and warned his students against “judging a painting in its teenage years”. He also cautioned that abandonment without control is chaos. Chaos can actually be interesting in a painting, at least to me, but in life chaos gets old fast. Then again, so does too much control.
- Control – The playful stage of right brain surrender is inevitably followed by methodical sorting and putting things in order. Some ideas are better than others and some are so big they need their own space. This can be a weak spot for me – I have a tendency to try to express too many ideas at one time. I am learning discipline and discernment, taking time to edit and hone the original thinking and avoid chaos.
- Notice – I often tell my clients to, “notice what you notice”, after they’ve had a transformational energy session. This is about paying attention to what is showing up and is just as important when you’re creating anything new. The universe is always responding to our actions and intentions. Every move I make invites life to join me in the dance of co-creation. Random phone calls, chance remarks by someone in the bead store, “accidental” clicks that take me to websites with the perfect solution to the problem I’m pondering, all add sparkle to the mix if I to take the time notice.
- Show Up – Sooner or later you have to take a step forward. My husband calls this showing up at the starting line, meaning you can’t win the race if you don’t show up. Dare to make that first mark on the blank canvas. And then make another mark in response to the first and so on, until the images or next steps are revealed. In spite of my clear intention, I don’t have a complete map of my evolving business. It’s a fluid process for me that gets clearer as I show up every day.
- Trust – Intentionally leave space for things to have a life of their own. I usually have an agenda or idea in mind of course and in the case of my new website, a pretty firm target date. I think it’s important to let the universe know what I’m aiming for. I also trust that I am being guided and that there is a bigger picture I may not have access to yet. Again there’s a balancing act of striving to dream big while working with the resources I have at my fingertips now – a “feet on the ground, head in the stars” kind of attitude.
So, as the popular saying goes, I’m aiming for the moon and trusting I’ll land among the stars. Stay tuned for a brand new wwww.janetstanley.ca which will launch in the next few weeks.
