Having Fun in My Journal

I've been playing around a little here and there in my journal, just trying to stay loose and have fun. It's interesting that now that I am free to create everyday for my new venture, Inner Alignmnent Mandalas I feel like I need to do a little creative play on the side. Isn't that funny?

I guess it's just a way to stay balanced. The work I do with I AM is beautiful, deep, and spiritual and it is so fulfilling for me. I love every part of the process.

So I guess to keep me balanced I go for dripping, taping, gluing and otherwise messing up my journal pages. It's so fun. I actually ended up writing all over this page which I think is cool too.

So what do you do for fun? Does it involve art?

I AM Live!!!

The time has come to introduce you all to my new website, Inner Alignment Mandalas. It was created over the summer in partnership with my amazing friend Jill Chesrow! I am so grateful for meeting her and for being guided to create this new business with her!

Inner Alignment Mandalas is truly a partnership. Each of us have our own talents and together we have created something truly wonderful. I am intuitively creating custom mandalas for our clients and Jill is doing quantum energy sessions to clear, balance and expand their energy fields. These mandalas are really powerful. We've been making them throughout the summer and I've just been amazed at the energy they have.

Right now we are offering Custom Mandalas and Business Mandalas and we plan on adding prints, coaching and online programs in the future. It is so very exciting to be working on something that I  know is a gift and that I feel truly passionate about. I can't tell you how smooth everything has gone. Things have seemed to flow and fall into place. We have both felt very guided in this endeavor.

I would love for all of you to check out our new website. I even created a video! It was so fun. There is also a free download where you will get our I AM Love Mandala pictured above. If you like what you see I would love for you to like us over on Facebook and tell anyone and everyone all about us. It might sound kind of cheesy but I really want to spread the word because I want as many people to be able to benefit from this amazing energy!

Thank you for all of your support over the last few years to help me find myself and connect with my creativity. It has given me to confidence to call myself an intuitive artist and with that confidence I was able to find Jill and create this wonderful partnership. You guys are the best!!!

Thankful Thursday

In my previous blog I used to do a Thankful Thursday post each week and I've decided that today I am going to bring it to life right here.

I am thankful that today is my birthday. I have been overwhelmed with emails and calls from all my friends and family. I went to breakfast with my youngest three and I'm going to the movies later. I also managed to drag my kiddies shopping and since it was my birthday they weren't allowed to complain! Hee hee, I'm very tricky like that.

I have to admit that I've always loved my birthday. When I was young I was able to go to Dispensa's Kiddie Kingdom to pick out whatever I wanted! It was so exciting. I also got to go on the rides at the carnival. It was all very exciting.  I'm thankful for those memories.

I am thankful that my family got to get away for an 18 day trip this summer. We were able to go down to see my oldest son who is stationed near Destin Florida. It was the first time we saw him since he graduated bootcamp. We spent a weekend with him. I loved it all except maybe seeing his new tattoos!

After that we headed down to my dad's place where we took beach bumming to a new level. Pure relaxing! Just what we needed.

We were lucky enough to have another family we are close with travel down with us and the kids had a ball together. I'm thankful they are making such wonderful childhood memories.

I am thankful that I was able to get a little journaling done while on the vacation. There is something so wonderful about painting by the pool. I love it!

I am so thankful for my AMAZING chiropractor, Dr. Mnabhi who was able to work his magic on the most horrible case of whiplash I got riding one of the sketchy rides at Six Flags in Atlanta. I hit a curve on the roller coaster and my head skipped off the head rest and was flapping behind me as I barreled upside down. Picture a goofy cartoon with a long neck sailing a foot behind the body. That's what it felt like.

Thank goodness or "Thanks God" as he said (he's from Morroco) he has spent 4 years studying traditional osteopathy in Canada because otherwise the only thing he would have been able to offer me was muscle relaxers and a neck brace for a month before he could even help me! Luckily however he was able to get me almost back to new in only 4 sessions! Woo Hoo! I am over the moon about this!

I'm thankful that my boys are all going on a camping trip and I am going to be staying home. I have a ton of stuff to catch up on before school starts next week and they will have a ball on their guy's weekend.

I'm thankful that I have such a wonderful family and a fulfilling life. I am thankful that I am in a place these days where I am able to recognize it and to not miss out on the little things. I am thankful that even when things are a little crazy or aren't going "perfect" I'm still happy. Wow! When did that happen?!

I am thankful for my life!!!

Two Year Anniversary!

Two years ago I started this blog and I had no idea what was in store for me. I only knew I had a calling to incorporate more creativity, color and vibrancy into my life.

I dove in with all my heart to learn…techniques, styles, anything…I just wanted to learn. I traveled around the country taking classes and I signed up for many online classes as well. It was a feverish desire to learn the secret illusive thing that would get me to where I wanted to be.

Then there was a bit of a shift. It started at the beginning of the year. I had chosen “responsibility” as my word for the year and I had decided it just wasn’t responsible to be taking all these trips when the money would be useful in other areas of my life. I took an online class and decided that it just wasn’t for me. I didn’t want to “do” anyone else’s style anymore. It just didn’t fit.

Meanwhile I was beginning to spend more time going inward, learning to listen to myself more than the outside world. I was introduced to the Akashic Records and it seemed like a lost part of my soul began to wake. I had this inner calm, a sense of knowing that even though things didn’t seem to be moving forward, they were exactly as they needed to be.

With this new found connection to my higher self, I began to see things unfolding in the most synchronistic way. Things I had secretly desired began to appear in my life. Things I didn’t even know I needed began to emerge and it is from this moment that I can look back and see the perfection in what has unfolded.   

My thinking mind had a plan…it knew exactly where I “needed” to go. It couldn’t seem to make it happen but it could clearly see the end point and longed to figure out how to get there. When I let go of the “plan” and began to trust and live from a place of connection with my higher self, things began to unfold in the most natural way. I suddenly became focused when previously I was scattered. I was able to work in complete flow, loving every minute of it. Things began to take shape and effortlessly bloom.

Is it what my thinking mind thought I wanted or needed?

Absolutely not!

It isn’t anything I ever dreamed of but it is a perfect fit.

I don’t know what the future will hold. I have given up trying to plan. I am letting go into a deep trust that is carrying me to places I never knew existed for me. Will it keep me here at The Creative Healing Studio? I don’t know…only time will tell.

It is with complete gratitude that I celebrate my two year anniversary here on this blog and it is with complete trust that I go out into the third year knowing that whatever happens will be perfect.

I promise, the secret will come out in August. ;o)

Energy shift

Have you ever noticed that you can be tooling along, enjoying your life with everything going great and you wake up one day and you feel totally different? You don’t know why. Nothing has changed, you just feel different. What felt great yesterday, feels annoying today. What brought you joy last week, makes you feel antsy or anxious.

It’s the strangest thing and I don’t know why it happens. I will sometimes sit and think about what could be causing it. Is there some unconscious thing happening? Am I getting sick? Am I having PMS? What the heck happened?

Energy is an amazing thing. It flows and it moves and it gets stuck at times as well. When things are fluid and free moving everything seems great but there are times that energy can get stuck. There can be a myriad of reasons and sometimes it’s helpful to work through it but other times it’s just OK to get the energy moving again and not worry about the why.

Here are a few ways to shift your energy.

Go for a walk- Get the energy moving through your body. Walk with the purpose of being in the moment. Feel how you are feeling as your body moves along the terrain. See the sights around you. How do they make you feel? Does your environment uplift you or does it make you anxious or drain you. Pay attention.

Create a light hearted piece of art- Get out some colors and doodle, smear the paint around and just have fun. Rip out beautiful images from catalogs and magazines and create your own beautiful image. Doodle on it with pens and write uplifting words to yourself. Have fun without any preconceived notions of how it will turn out.

Purge- Take some time alone and write out every thought that is going on in your head The good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Don’t censor yourself. Allow the emotions to flow. Stay in the moment with what is happening and if you notice a judging voice pop up, thank it for its concern and tell it you are perfectly safe and continue to let it all out. When you finish, you can burn the pages and watch them go up in smoke. You will feel lighter.

Practice gratitude- I know this is an old standby but it can’t be forgotten for the way it can shift a mood. Start simple if you can’t find much to be grateful for and see where your energy leads you. Try to feel the emotions that rise up. When you are feeling grateful for your family, spend a moment feeling how that feels in your body, let it grow and expand and fill you up. You will find that each swell in emotion will carry you higher into the next emotion of gratitude and it will grow like a wave that moves through the ocean toward the shore. Ride the wave.

Be present- Sometimes you need to have downtime. You can’t live your whole life in an elated state of mind. There has to be ups and downs. There has to be moments when you are out in the world and then there are times when you pull back within yourself to reflect. It is natural and it is healthy. Stay in the moment and experience it all.

No matter what, be gentle with yourself. Treat yourself as you would a small, sad child. Nurture yourself and be patient. This too will pass.

Friends are My Blessing

One of my greatest desires over the last few years has been to expand my friendships. I have quite a few friends in my area but they are the parents of my childrens' friends and they are wonderful AND they aren't necessarily on the same page with creativity and spirituality...OK, I'll be honest, they aren't even in the book!

I feel so blessed to have my dear friend Carrie that I met while attending the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I can't tell you how much she feels like my long lost sister. She lives in another state but we manage to email every day and talk at least twice a month.

I've also been fortunate enough to gain some great virtual friends that live in other areas of the country. We found each other in the sea of the Internet and I feel like they get me and I get them. It's a gift really.

My newest friend Jill is turning out to be so much more than just a friend. Again, I feel this deep connection with her. We are often on the same page with so many of our thoughts and life situations that it floors me.

We were brought together when we both took Laura Hollick's Soul Art Certification. I find it so funny that we had to go through a woman in Canada to find each other and we only live 45 minutes away! Gotta love synchronicity!

We have been cooking up something that is so special...so sacred, that I can't believe I'm actually a part of it. I feel so honored that we have been able to come together and use our talents to create something that can really change people's lives.

We have been working on a spiritual and quantum level combined with our creativity and playing with soul art to get really clear. We both feel that what we have created was really destined to be and was simply waiting for the right moment. It's actually been gifted to us!

I am so excited about it and have been working hard on bringing it to fruition, as has Jill. We are so close and I just wanted to share my excitement with all of you and let you know that it is coming! I would love it if you would send us your loving energy to help lift us up as we reach the finish line...or more accurately, the new starting line.

Step Into Your Future!

About 10 years ago I was confronted with a critical healing moment in my life. I found myself in my early 30s, a mother of five children, in the hospital wondering if I was going to make it out again. At the time I was completely cut off from my spirituality and creativity and was under a great deal of stress as any mom will understand.

It was in that moment that my life changed forever. Something in me opened up and awakened. Something that I had locked down tight since I was just a little girl was bubbling to the surface.  I knew it was time for healing and that there had to be more to life that I was missing. I had absolutely no idea what that meant or how that could even occur and to be honest, it is only in hindsight that I recognized that awakening. In the moment, it was all still a bit fuzzy.

Serendipitously, I came across an online recording of Brandon Bays talking about the amazing work she does with The Journey and I was immediately hooked. I KNEW this was exactly what I needed so I signed up, purchased my plane ticket to Florida and set off for a weekend of something new.

The whole weekend was amazing. It was tough at times; highly emotional. There were a lot of tears shed and a lot of purging done but there was also so much profound beauty. I was introduced to myself as the soul that lives in this body. I met up with the silence that I never knew was missing but wondered how I lived without. I cleared out emotions I had stuffed and held onto for decades and felt 1,000 pounds lighter. It was completely life changing and only the beginning of a decade of growth and healing.

Now ten years later, I look back at that young mom and I have nothing but gratitude for her. I appreciate who she was and who she was trying to be. My heart opens up to her and thanks her for her strength and her ability to push through and get past the tough times so that I can stand here today.

The thing is, you never know what is in store for you. Just when things are at their worst and you feel like you will never feel better, realize that you may be at the beginning of an incredible journey that will take you places you could have never dreamed of.

It's at those times that trusting can be the hardest thing you could ever do but it's the most powerful. Trusting that you will find your way and that all you need to do is stay open and take the first step and wait to see where it leads. Isn't life beautiful?!