Here is a special offer to get you going towards creating a space you love to live in.
Couldn’t make it to the 4-week course? Join the Day-Long course on February 2nd from 9am-5pm. Early Bird registration ends on 1/21. Find out more here.
This weekend only! 50% off registration with code NEWYEAR.
Start 2019 off with the gift of empathic connection. In this four week series we will polish our skills for connecting to ourselves and others through empathic communication. We will learn skills for:
-self empathy
-giving and receiving empathy
-deep listening
-communicating across difference
This is a wonderful group to bring your friends, partner or family as we will be practicing together in pairs and small groups. Start transforming your communication into a more life-serving and connection-fostering practice!
We will meet on four consecutive Wednesdays in January: 1/2, 1/9, 1/16, and 1/23 from 6:30-9pm at the Bliss Center.
Registration and group container:
-We will build a container for this work together by closing the group after the 2nd session. You may miss the Jan. 2nd meeting, but are asked to attend the following 3.
-The regular registration fee of $110 covers the cost of attendance and materials.
-You are encouraged to register in advance but may come (and bring friends/family) on the day of. All payments must be made in advance at the link below, even if its just moments before the start of class so that we can keep business out of the container we are building together.
-Contact in advance for cash or check payments.
Healers, mental health professionals and emotional caretakers get 50% off registration! All registrants can invite friends for 25% off. Send a message for registration codes.
Register at https://awakeningcreatives.as.me/Empathic-Communication-for-Connection
Liberty has been teaching communication skills in groups for the last 7 years and is currently studying Depth psychology with an emphasis on community, liberation, eco and indigenous psychologies. A practicing life coach for creative change agents, Liberty strives to cultivate an atmosphere for group trust and intimacy. As an RYT-200, Liberty also integrates breathing techniques and stretches for empathic success. Liberty is new to St. Louis and looking forward to connecting with a new community!
Early in December I will be presenting on the importance of being connected to your creative cycle as a part of the Self-Care Alliance’s Celebration of Self Care on December 8th, 2018 from 2pm-7pm at
The Empowerment Center @ Center for Divine Love
3617 Wyoming St, St. Louis 63116
Tickets are $8 and can be purchased through the facebook event page below. The event will feature practitioners from all over St. Louis who provide holistic services including but not limited to counseling, coaching, massage, and more. I will be presenting about Awakening Creative’s services and philosophy of self-care and growth. I look forward to seeing you! Come chat with me!
https://www.facebook.com/events/288539788403862/
I'm excited to announce an offering starting this Fall, 2018:
Community Vision Coaching Cohort!
A season of group work: Grow your vision of the community you've been dreaming of!
Together we will...
-Identify, honor & move past limits
-Explore your Dream of Community
-Practice group connection skills
-Craft your Vision Statement
-Take inspired action
8 Group Coaching sessions
8 optional support calls
1 individual Coaching session
There are 2 cohort being offered:
-Portland-based (starts September 6th, Registration Deadline August 31st )
-All-online (Starts September 19th, Registration Deadline September 14th)
Both cohorts are wonderful opportunities for folks who are in the early stages of community creation (whatever community may look and feel like to you). We will explore your dreams and desires as well as move beyond blocks that have kept you in old patterns of relation. You will get clear about your core values, what you really want in a community and take tangible actions to creating the experience of it in your life. You will leave the cohort with a working vision statement that you can take into your community building process and beyond!
For more information and to register, please visit the home page
I look forward to growing with you!
At last there is a space where you can be deeply heard and hear others about our dreams of community. In recent years, I have heard many people speaking about their dreams and desires to live in community.but what even IS the meaning of community? In a world where the culture of the village has been ravaged by globalism, individualism and other isolating factors, we have to remember our way back to weaving close knit social fabrics... This series of open dialogue groups in Portland, Oregon, will explore just this. This will also be a networking space to get connected to resources, people and services that may help you in your process.
Open dialogues will be held on June 29th, July 13th, August 3rd and August 10th from 6:30-8:30pm at Laurelhurst Park, details below.
***NEW DATES ADDED: August 8th and 29th at People's Coop, not Laurelhurst
This group is open to anyone at any stage in the process. Please bring your stories, questions, curiosities and openness to hearing others.
Email Liberty at liberty@awakeningcreatives.com to connect more.
4-week online course
Embark on a Cycle of Creation journeying privately in your home and online with a group of other creative change agents.
You will be guided through:
-One moon cycle of personal transformation work
-Recorded lessons to deepen your relationship with your creative process and develop a creation that is meaningful to you
-Fieldwork challenges to integrate your learning
-Optional engagement in an online community
BONUS: Free private coaching session!
Click here to learn more and register!
Join us in this free event!
Hopelessness is an old friend. You know that feeling when everything you've been working so hard for get interrupted, put on hold, or it seems like you're taking a step backwards. THIS IS A VITAL MOMENT to slow down and give yourself compassion. It's so easy to fall into the trap of believing that this moment is an omen for things to come. IT IS NOT. This is a normal step in the creative process. Creativity and productivity ebb and flow. It is a natural flow of all life. We must all grow, rest and repeat.
Sometimes when I get anxious about getting things done I push too hard and burn myself out. This is common, but not necessary. I need regular reminders to take rests, get up from long sitting hours and stretch, take a still moment from running around and appreciate the present moment. That is all there is, really. And when hopelessness sets in, I greet it like the old friend it is, let it be what it is but I don't let it integrate into my identity, my ideas about myself.
When I invest in this process, I am chipping away at the entrenched neural pathways in my brain, transforming old core beliefs into new life-affirming (and therefore dream-affirming) processes. This is inherently a gift to the world because as we positively transform ourselves, more and more of our creative and empathic power is available to the world. The world needs us to be in our niches and our power as a collective to positively transform it for everyone.
Liberty, Holistic Creative Life Coach works with creative change agents who are overwhelmed or having trouble prioritizing to connect with your natural rhythms which lead to powerful, balanced action.
Dakota, LMT #22331, multi-talented practitioner, weaves myofascial release, chinese reflexology, acupressure, deep tissue, reiki and more into transformational bodywork.
Book your session here
I suffer from SAD, seasonal affective disorder. This means that each winter I experience lethargy, negative thinking patterns, an increase in unhealthy behaviors and a general sense that things are "not okay." Over the years I have learned to recognize it for what it is and not make it a part of my identity but instead adopt it as a seasonal guest who I have the pleasure of getting to know and hosting with increasing curiosity and compassion. This of course is always easier said than done.
This year, with the encouragement of my counselor and my partner, I listened to the message of the lethargy and allowed myself space to rest. I listened to the negative thinking patterns and allowed them to be heard and acknowledged (without letting them run the show). I noticed when unhealthy behaviors arose and gave myself compassion for them when I could. I let myself truly experience the SAD instead of denying, fighting it or wishing it away. I consistently reminded myself that it was temporary and my creative spirit needed this time of regeneration.
This seemed counter-intuitive to the "blast-everything-with-blinding-light" approach I've attempted in previous years which suggests that if I simply "immerse myself in an all-loving pool of infinite love and light" that all will heal and be merry. That never worked for me. Why? Because nature doesn't work that way. At least not the planet that I live on where there is a significant percentage less light reaching the ground daily in the winter. It was important for me to allow certain realities to be present while also doing what I can and know how to do to improve my quality of life with my resources.
This winter practicing acceptance and compassion worked for me better than ever. After several weeks of allowing space for this process and forgiving myself for not accomplishing the tasks I wanted to accomplish, there was a shift in my mood and overall outlook. It became especially clear while I was walking in the Arboretum and I noticed this flower:
This is a Camelia Japonica, cousin of the Camelia Sinensis, the tea plant. This is a plant family that I work with closely every day and in my primary meditation practice of tea pouring. When I spotted the flower I walked over to it and I clearly got the message, "Even in the dead of winter can the fertile heart blossom." I was taken aback, looking around seeing all of the other naked plants looking lifeless, yet this plant flowered as if to say "it doesn't matter what time of year it is, if the creation is ready it will come. I was reminded that I am not always in control of what happens in my life and while that can be terrifying and frustrating, it can also be pleasantly surprising and joyous.
I left the flowing plant, acknowledging its beauty and also recognizing that it, too, is temporary. When it is done blossoming the flower will wither and move on to another stage of its own creativity. This is its nature and my creative nature will follow suit it the unique rhythm of its own. Rest assured my heart will blossom again.
And it did, which is why I am writing this journal entry after several months of wintering over. There are still months to go before the first signs of spring on the surface, but just like any good compost pile, the warmth starts in the center. I can feel the creative seeds stirring within and my trust in the process is renewed. Perhaps my SAD friend can feel it, too.
Each year we all experience some form of autumn. Here in the beautiful NW where I live, the fall is a burst of color and a flurry of activity before the cold sets in. Each year I take a moment in the fall to consider what I have learned, what I can harvest (gain from this learning) and what I can release like the trees do with their leaves.
I encourage you to set some time aside for yourself this fall to ask yourself these questions and take the time to honor all the hard work you've put into becoming who you are. Even the challenges or "negative" experiences can provide valuable learning. Some negative experiences need special care and attention, so be gentle with yourself and offer lots of compassion to the painful learning experiences. Acknowledge your accomplishments no matter how small. Even acknowledge things you think any adult "should" be able to do and release self-defeat about your failures. Harvest what you need to get through the coming darkness and release all that is weighing you down.
Here is an activity you can practice at any time of year, but challenge yourself to make it a fall-time ritual so that you can remember to do it regularly:
- 1. Without thinking, allow your stream of consciousness to write a list of all the things you have manifested with your life energy this year. Examples could be: "I got a job," "I passed my classes," "I initiated a hard conversation with so-and-so," or "I avoided doing my finances," "I didn't get the position I wanted," "I stopped exercising regularly." The goal is to acknowledge a spectrum of things that you have created in your life this year.
- 2. Consider how each of these things make you feel. Write down the feelings next to the item. Perhaps there is something on the list that brings up mixed or uncomfortable feelings. Perhaps there is something about that accomplishment that can be harvested and a part that must be released. For example "I didn't get the position I wanted," could bring up feelings like "sadness" and "disappointment" as well as "curiosity" and "freedom to explore."
- 3. Look at your list. Check that there is a wide spectrum of emotions present. If there are more "lows" than "highs," challenge yourself to consider more highs.
- 4. Get some sort of colored medium, colored pencils, crayons, paints, etc. Choose a color for things that you want to harvest (i.e. orange, yellow, green), a color for things that you want to release (i.e. red, brown, grey) and a color for the things that you want to explore or consider more (i.e. purple, blue, silver). Go through each item and color it accordingly.
- 5. You may wish to complete this exercise by doing something physically expressing like saying out loud "I release the shame of not exercising more," and making a motion with your hands as if you're taking that shame right out of your body. Perhaps you want to sing, shout, dance. Or perhaps you want to cut out the items you want to harvest and make them into a collage while burning the ones you wish to release. Get creative and do whatever feels natural for you to harvest (embody) or release (let go of) any of these items. It's up to you.
Whatever process you choose in creating special autumn time for yourself, be sure that you include an element of self-love and gratitude so that you continue to cultivate that skill and turn it into a habit. It will become the Harvest time gift that keeps on giving!
Often the talk about creativity is as if it were something reserved for fine artists and innovators, an exclusive talent available only to the privileged few. I'd like to propose that each and every sentient being has access to and is ALREADY utilizing creativity... that creativity is at the core of all biological life and inorganic phenomena alike.
Jaclyn, Etsy: JaclynsStudio
What do I mean? I mean that for all the theories that exist for what creativity is and is not, I argue that creativity, or the phenomenon of something novel and of value coming into being, is the primary function of the universe. It is simply the cultural lens that we are looking through which determines the "value" of said novel thing.
It is also up for debate as to whether something is "novel" or not. What makes something novel? How different must the thing be from the last thing. Even units produced in a factory to seemingly identical specifications vary and produce mutations at an atomic level. Every particle of matter is unique in its position and behavior at any given moment. So in essence, anything that comes into being is a product of creativity. This is my theoretical proposition.
Bryce Canyon, geological phenomena. Photo credit Liberty, 2016
Science and religion both have their theories on how and why this is. I am less interested in why or how something comes into being and more how to work with these mysteries within each of us to produce results that we can celebrate, even if that result is simply a feeling or an experience. That, I believe, is incredible creative accomplishment.
So then, how come some products of creativity are valued higher than others? A simple answer would be "diversity of perception," but that is an incomplete answer. To be more specific, if the novel creative output serves to meet a need, then it is valued higher than something that is not. It doesn't necessarily mean that the product of lesser perceived value is not creative. It also doesn't mean that it isn't valuable.
I believe that the value of a creative output is very relative to the context in which it comes into being. For example, if you were an artist born to a family of lawyers or doctors who found art to be useless, your creativity may have been undervalued, whereas if you were born to a family of mediocre artists and had any ounce of success in your practice, you might be celebrated and revered.
And your life itself is a Master Artwork. Every breath you take, every move you make is a creative decision, conscious or unconscious. Even if it seems that some major subjects and settings have been placed on the canvas of your life, you get to choose the the medium, the color palate and the the time frame in which you will approach your next brush stroke, the next decision, the next change.
It is my quest and duty as a Holistic Creative Life Coach to celebrate and recognize the creativity that emerges from each of my clients, from each moment that we are alive. Life is an ultimate expression of creative mysteries at work and within each of us in a whole universe of creative potential to explore.
So how do we move from making unconscious to conscious creative decisions for our lives? That is the question at the root of every service and program I administer. Not only how do we make more conscious decisions, but how do we do it with ease, joy, magic and freedom that children do in their imaginative play.
Please join me in further exploration of this topic in an intimate and exclusive Facebook Group for the Awakening Creatives Community. This is a special group where we support each other in our creative processes, give feedback and share inspiration. Your presence in the group would be celebrated.
Also please consider scheduling a complimentary 30-minute Discovery Call with me to explore how to maximize the creative potential of your life.
May you all be well and present with your creative process.
~May all beings live expressively~
Liberty
When we are children most of us has access to a level of creative play that keeps us in a state of wonder, joy, and non-judgement. It is our responsibility as we age to discover ways to maintain our access to this creative abundance.
Make it a practice to re-create this state, to recreate. Make it a practice to reconnect with that state of wonder, joy and non-judgement with each step of the creative process.
Love every part of your creative process, especially the failures.