by Katherine on January 15, 2010
One of the books that I’m reading for a course right now is the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Written during the 1800’s, the language is – well, lets just say it’s not what I’m used to reading in current language.
I find myself saying, “Wait a minute, what did he just say?” and re-reading the same paragraph or sentence. A lot.
But ah, there are the gems. Words that leap from the page and sink into my being. Phrases that have become part of our language today, which is just one indication of why his wisdom has endured for over 100 years. This particular quote was one of them.
I’m not a sailor but my cousin is and he explained to me what tacking is several years ago. When the wind is not in the right direction for a journey of a straight line, a sailor tacks – using the wind to zigzag back and forth to maintain the overall direction of the journey. Which is pretty much what life. We do zigzag, we do course correct constantly. I chose the quote as the basis for this week’s intention, which is more of an affirmation, because I want to celebrate the richness and diversity that ‘tacking’ brings to life.
I appreciate each course correction and zigzag in my life as part of my growth, and I celebrate my life journey of a hundred tacks.
by Katherine on January 12, 2010
Thanks to Alison Maslan for writing this post. I appreciate you, Alison.
Is striving for perfection choking you? Are you living your life to the fullest at this moment in time? Do you have the life that you have always dreamed of? If so, congratulations! Meditate a few moments each day on the goodness that you have experienced from your great fortune. If your answer is no, it is never too late to start. So many of my coaching clients tell me they don’t reach their goals because they want everything perfect before they move forward.
They are striving for perfection and it is killing them. They want a perfectly clean house, to say the perfect words and to do perfect work at all times. What is the point of “perfect” anyway? Pressure filled expectations are a sure way to turn any goal into a ball and chain. Many people resist attempting new challenges or setting new goals because they are afraid they will not perform to their ridiculous level of expectation.
As a result, they give up before they ever begin. Then the feelings of disappointment and failure set in. I started taking modern dance in my 30s. The room was full of young women and men that had been dancing since childhood. My mind was aghast as the dance instructor got in front of the class and proceeded to dance several eloquent steps that we were supposed to immediately mirror. I knew I was in trouble as the class was spinning one way and I was tripping the other way (Picture I Love Lucy and the Rockettes).
Through this experience, I learned to laugh at myself and let go of the notion of doing it perfectly. It was not possible for me to keep up with these experts; and attempting to do so was way too much pressure. Once the light bulb came on that I could do something for the fun of it, I relaxed about the outcome. And wouldn’t you know it, I was able to perform in several dance presentations and I had a blast.
If you are not putting yourself out there, reaching toward what you really want because you are afraid of not being perfect, you are missing out on the juiciness of your life. It is the non-perfect part that will be most memorable and uniquely you.
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Allison Maslan, HHP, CCH is a homeopathic physician and the author of Blast Off! The Surefire Success Plan To Launch Your Dreams Into Reality. As a life and business coach, she helps people create a new business and the best chapter of their lives.
The exciting launch of her book, Blast Off! The Surefire Success Plan To Launch Your Dreams Into Reality is coming Tuesday, January 19. To find out how you can buy the book and receive more than 20 beautiful mind-body-spirit gifts during the launch, go to My Blast Off.
by Katherine on January 6, 2010
Usually at the beginning of each year, I do a vision board for the coming year. It takes in every aspect of my life: spiritual and personal growth, health and well-being, financial abundance, business and career, social life and friends, primary relationship, and creativity. (Yes, I give creativity a whole section by itself.)
This year I decided to try something different. So I pulled Tony Buzan’s Mind Mapping book off my bookshelf. I discovered the book several years ago and have done many mind maps since then, some on large bristol board and some small enough for a postage stamp. Well, maybe not quite that small, but pretty small.
It’s very pleasing to me to observe the idea of mindmapping showing up over and over in mainstream business. I’m seeing it everywhere. I even got an email the other day where a mindmap was one of the bonuses for buying a particular business program.
This is a perfect illustration of how we are moving away from focusing on business and life with only goal-oriented left-brain thinking and moving towards a more co-creative, non-linear, whole brain approach.
I cheer and applaud and sometimes even chuckle each time I see evidence of that shift.
When I first brought the book off the shelf, I was going to do a mind map instead of a vision board. However as I worked on it, lo and behold, it started to morph into something that was not a mind map or a vision board but something that merged the two forms.
Is it a vision map? A mind board?
Whatever the name it seemed to bring about a flow of ideas and my hand could hardly keep up with my thoughts.
I started by drawing this form on my piece of white bristol board.
The seven sections became the categories of spiritual and personal growth, health and well-being, financial abundance, business and career, social life and friend, primary relationship, and creativity.
Starting from the centre of the board I worked out toward the edge writing words and ideas, and adding a few pictures and other items I cut from magazines and newspapers. Yesterday I completed two of the seven sections.
What is so wonderful about this kind of activity is that it has multiple layers. Here are just a few that I thought of.
- It will give me a direction for the upcoming year.
- It sparked a lot of ideas.
- It helped me see where a lot of things intersect and connect.
- It will be a piece of art worthy of hanging on a wall in my office.
- It’s FUN! I look forward to completing it.
- It brought about a new form.
And you know what? I bet I will start seeing vision maps in other places now. Synthesizing two or more ideas into a new form is one of the most powerful ways we create and bring about innovation. The best part of all is that many individuals could combine mindmapping and vision boards, and each would be unique according to each individual’s perspective and purpose.
That’s worth cheering about too!
by Katherine on December 19, 2009
Today I received a book that I had ordered from Amazon. The book is The Gift, Poems by Hafiz and it is a book that has been on my radar screen for some time now. Randomly opening the book, my eyes fell on this verse from a poem called Today, and it inspired me to create this week’s intention (not for Friday but still in time for next week!).
My understanding of my purpose, passion and existence increases daily through the gift of awareness, and by viewing the world with the wonder of a child.
by Katherine on March 4, 2009
Meet Laura Faeth, author, audacious creator and rock and roll lover music lover.
1. Laura, thank you for being a guest on Creativity Shifts. Tell us about yourself. Let’s start with the name of your business and/or website.
My company is called Sound of Your Soul and my website is www.soundofyoursoul.com. The site features information about my book, I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock ‘n’ Roll, which chronicles my spiritual awakening with a famous rock band. The website also offers an extensive glossary of spiritual and metaphysical terms used in my book, as well as links to the intuitive featured in I Found All the Parts.
2. What are your deepest desires for personal growth and how do they impact your professional life?
My deepest desires for personal growth include awakening to my true spiritual self and being able to live in that higher state of consciousness indefinitely. Since my book focuses on my awakening with a rock band, the desire to awakening others, especially music fans, has become my life’s mission. All of my work revolves around helping others, as I say in my book, WAKE THE BLEEP UP!
3. Choose one word that represents the ‘theme’ of your life.
Discovery.
4. What are the values that are important to you in your business?
It’s important that I remain in integrity and reach out to others with sincerity. It’s hard not to get caught up in the mentality of “I’ve got to sell my book” at times, because I’ve spent so much time, energy and moolah creating it. Instead, I want to trust that the law of attraction will draw people to my work so that I can drop into an authentic place and just be real.
5. What is the essence of who you are and how is that essence expressed through your unique gifts?
I think the essence of who I am is enthusiasm. I’m usually enthusiastic about not only my work, but it’s fun being a cheerleader for others as well. I want everyone to win. I express that through a non-judgmental attitude and by offering emotional support when I can or when it’s appropriate. No matter how bleak one’s life seems, I hold a vision that they are whole and complete, and their life can change when their perspective shifts.
6. What are you willing to devote your life to?
I am willing to devote my life to the awakening of humanity (especially rock fans) to their divine nature. Sometimes I feel like no one in the rock community will ever see value in what I say or write, but it doesn’t matter. My life’s mission is to maintain a space of openness for all people to remember their spiritual essence.
7. What are the different ways you connect to those who would be attracted to your unique offering?
I author and run several blogs, one about music and spirituality www.rocknreincarnation.com, the other on the creative process, called www.culturalcreativesblog.com, as well as my own website mentioned above. I’m also getting into video taping creative people I know and putting their story up on YouTube.
I’d like to start doing seminars and workshops on music and spirituality, but I haven’t quite figured out yet how to share my information. I hope to attract a group of professionals from different disciplines (sound healing, counseling, body workers etc.) to create these workshops so that our different areas of expertise can hopefully impact attendees on a deep level.
8. If you could create one change in the world, what would it be?
I’d discover a way alter people’s brainwaves so that they could easily access transcendent states and recall their past lives. Maybe that would help eliminate religious warfare and prejudice if everyone knew that they were connected to everything else, and that they are truly an eternal consciousness, not just a physical body.
9. What metaphor can you think of that generates the feelings, images, and sounds of your own life story?
I’d say going on the Hero’s Journey reflects the story of my life. Despite a rock concert appearing very hedonistic to some, for me it became a place to access my spiritual side. Music is often synonymous with God since God (or All That Is) is vibration (at least that’s what I discovered on my journey). So my life-long pursuit of finding God (which is a primary task of the Hero) was actually uncovered at rock concerts because that’s where I discovered aspects of my psyche which had been hidden from me. A rock band reflected back to me the parts of myself I couldn’t see, and their music helped me face my shadow’s fears and heal from my childhood wounding.
The Hero’s Journey doesn’t have to focus on mythical characters going to a far away land in order to bring back a boon to society. Our modern environment provides plenty of opportunities to go on a journey of self-discovery.
10. Is there any other important information you’d like to add?
The night of my spiritual awakening, my life changed forever. I’d like to start a project interviewing people who have had a powerful, life altering spiritual experience with (or without) modern music so that we can share our insights with the world. Please email me at laura@soundofyoursoul.com if you’d like to connect.
Thank you, Laura.
by Katherine on February 19, 2009
Do you think your success and joy in life depends upon how creative you are and how willing you are to act boldly on your creative ideas?
Many people do, and in Audacious Creativity: 30 Ways to Liberate Your Soulful Creative Energy—and How It Can Transform Your Life, compiled and edited by my friend Stephanie Gunning, you will meet 30 notable professionals who share their creative stories on how to make better decisions, design a vision for a fulfilling future, overcome the fear of self-expression, access your inner genius, get into the flow of universal energy, manifest wealth, raise good kids, enjoy optimal health, and lead an energized lifestyle.
My personal contribution, “The Creative Voice—A Bridge Between the Tangible and the Intangible,” appears on p. 29 in the book.
The search to understand what it means to be a human being in a complex world is constant. The phrase “audacious creativity” comes from the recognition that it takes a good deal of heart and guts to live as a bold and unfettered creator. It is audacious to dream out loud or speak your truth. It is audacious to be original, colorful, and sincere.
It’s easy to find yourself having the same conversations, handling the same types of projects, facing the usual challenges and coming up with the accustomed solutions in everyday life. But predictability is the death of creativity. It dulls our perception and problem-solving ability. The only problem is that we often have no conception of how to begin to stimulate our senses or liberate ourselves from a predictable routine.
Audacious Creativity will inspire you to be a “working creator”—to learn to study your character and develop specific processes for being the person that is uniquely you. You don’t get fooled as easily as you once would have by your mind’s puzzles. Your spiritual and humanitarian toolkit expands. You get more resourceful, and, in time, you understand how to move yourself through states of being. You realize how to support yourself to handle change and how to be successful at simply being you.
The transformative creative journeys of these 30 highly creative people from many different fields will provide the inspiration for you to take your own journey. Learn techniques, rituals, visualizations, and proven courses of action that can help you to prepare your body, mind, spirit, and home for audacious creation.
Isn’t it time that you allowed your own bright light to shine in the world—audaciously?
You have the right to be bold!
(Thanks to Stephanie Gunning for providing much of the content of this article.)
One of the books that I’m reading for a course right now is the Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Written during the 1800’s, the language is – well, lets just say it’s not what I’m used to reading in current language. 
