Encouragement

The Shiny Squirrels of Autumn

I really don’t know where to begin, so I will start writing and see where it leads. Starting is easy; staying on any track long enough to finish the job is a challenge as shiny squirrels are so enticing.

Shiny Squirrels?

Ahh, your local squirrels aren’t shiny? Mine either. In Brevard, North Carolina, there are white squirrels. But I’ve never seen a real shiny squirrel – other than as a Christmas ornament. On the other hand, I have definitely seen beautiful, sparkly objects and activities and possibilities that attract my attention. Yes indeed I have.

I’ll bet you’ve seen a squirrel scurrying around your yard, too. They appear to zoom from one thing to another with no rhyme or reason.

I watch them dig under fallen leaves, then zoom over there for something.

They cross the power lines way above the ground here, scoot down the tree there, and then deftly navigate the narrow top of the fence to another secret cache of nothing at all under the leaves.

Shiny squirrels are distractions.

Shiny squirrels are master magicians tricking you into paying attention over here while something else is happening over there – where you *should* be paying attention.

You’re busy paying attention to:

that damned iPhone,
the latest news about–
rumors,
gossip,
TV shows,
talk radio,
news,
celebrities,
politics,
the entire internet–
scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on that damned phone, and
everybody but you.

We’re scrolling and scrolling as if the next scroll will save our souls or answer the one big question, or fix the issue of the moment, and then everything will be OK.

What Really Matters

These past months I thought I was going in one direction. But then the movie PGS: Intuition failed to sell enough tickets to be shown in Mount Pleasant, and I stopped.

I’d say that was the turning point for me, but that would be a lie. Two trips to the local emergency room on two consecutive days is a more accurate assessment of when that bottom hit this time.

[Total non-sequitur: I’m fine, in a future post I’ll write more about exactly what happened – then break down how I reacted. So no need to call or write or wonder why I have only told a couple people. Stop worrying!! If I’ve had dinner with you recently or talked with you recently, and didn’t mention it, there’s a reason: I’m fine. The details about this are on the way, provided no more shiny squirrels show up…

Oh wait.

What was I writing about?]

Shiny Squirrels Do Not Matter

Shiny squirrels are in cahoots with your ego mind, that part of you that wants to be in control of everything all the time.

The ego mind corrects you, criticizes you, and always has an answer to everything – except when it really counts.

My mind was attuned to negativity, I was overwhelmed with taking in too much information, I was on the computer 15 hours a day, I was reading big books, and was feeling way out of sorts. To top it off, I wasn’t eating well. I wasn’t caring for myself.

That is, I was showering and doing *that* kind of self care to maintain, but not celebrate. I wasn’t doing things that matter to me:

Spending time with friends and family
Loving on my furry friends – Ivan and Nebula
Walking in nature (I barely worked in my garden at all this summer)
Doing things that are fun
Laughing out loud
Listening to music that I love
The list goes on…and on…

So Just Stop Already

Whatever you’re doing right now, just stop it.

Take a deep breath in and look around you. Give thanks.

Pause just a bit longer, and take a darned good look inside yourself.

Have you forgotten to do something that feeds your soul?

Has a shiny squirrel distracted you? Have you wavered in your deep love for yourself, others, and this magical world of ours?

Breathe.

If you can change course right now, do it.

If you can’t, pull out your calendar and make plan an escape plan. My coach talks about finding joy in micro vacations – little escapes through the day.

Can you find five minutes?

Life is not about shiny squirrels. They’re cute little devils, and devils is the optimum word here.

Beware those cuties!

Beware the shiny thing that just caught your attention!

And breathe.

You can do this Monday, this week, this life just fine.

Creativity and Intuition Are Partners Made In Heaven

creativity and intuition are partners made in heaven

Creative intuition is the ability to quickly identify valuable or useful creative ideas without conscious thought. As with all intuition, it is described as instantaneous without any conscious understanding of how the mind created the idea. –Simplicable

Intuition is Creative

Back when I was first truly starting on my spiritual journey, I worked through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way with a small group of women. Cameron encourages you to slowly begin exploring your feelings about creativity.

I’d done fairly well in art classes in middle school. But by high school I was a typically petulant teenager and stopped taking art classes: I had to go to college and get a job, after all. Art was not for people like me.

But by the mid-90s I had started meditating regularly, and used the gentle nudging of Cameron’s writing to explore creativity. Sure, Cameron made suggestions, but it was up to me to decide what to try. A friend suggested craypas, and boy, that was all it took.

I created craypas drawing after craypas drawing – just playing with the texture and colors, not following any specific rules and not hoping for a really good grade or someone’s approval. Remarkably, most drawings explored the images and feelings that came to me during meditation.

It was purely intuitive drawing. Listen to what Picasso said about intuition:

I don’t have a clue. Ideas are simply starting points. I can rarely set them down as they come to my mind. As soon as I start to work, others well up in my pen. To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing… When I find myself facing a blank page, that’s always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas. -Picasso

You may not be Picasso, but you can definitely be creative. Grab some crayons and paper. Sit quietly, and then just color. Ignore the rules, and just do what feels right.

It OK to do what feels right to you. The idea is to figure out what you do all on your own, without an art teacher grading you or friends critiquing you.

Poetry is Heaven Whispering

I’ve always been a poet; heck I even won a poetry award in high school. But in my 30s, fell in with some amazing poets in Athens, Georgia, and created remarkable poetry.

In poetry, words slip and slide like colors on a painting, like craypas or watercolor. I just followed what was my unique way of using words and fellow poets encouraged me to “just do me.”

The ‘Morning Pages” technique of Julia Cameron gets me going. I simply sit down, take a pen in my hand, and start writing whatever shows up. Usually I’m whining about the fact that it’s early and I’m tired and don’t know what to write or why I’m bothering to write.

But then magic happens, and the voice shifts.

There is a marked shift in the writing. It’s whiny and then -poof! It’s clear and beyond competent. Look at these divine words that simply flowed out of me one morning on it’s own.

Creativity Is Intuition

Once you’ve tried your hand at a little creativity (whether it’s craypas or poetry – or your favorite creative endeavor,) it eventually becomes easy to intuit everything and anything. Want to add a garden to your back yard? Sit in the backyard at different times of the day and feel what would make you happy. Just listen to your heart, and you’ll know exactly what to do.

What creative practices do you do? How do you use your intuition when being creative?

Top 5 Reasons To Hire A Life Coach

Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, life coaching is a transformational process. You begin the process and gradually you and your world change – all for the better and more beautiful. Here are five reasons you might want to hire a life coach.

Patterns and Obstacles

This is the reason I hired a life coach.

It became painfully obvious that I was complaining about the same things: I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate the way the sun is shining, and I hate that I have these dreams desires and nothing ever happens with them.

I was tired of the repeating refrain of sadness.

I sent an email to my friend (and now life coach) that said, “I’m sending this email now before I chicken out. I want to hire you as a life coach.”

Listening Skills

I poured out my sad story to my coach in our first meeting. And she listened, and listened, and then kept listening.

There were questions, of course, but mostly she listened.

A life coach listens deeply. Listens with her full self. And, perhaps more importantly, listens without judgement.

And while friends are there to listen, they tend to conspire with you as both judge and jury: you were wronged. Nothing is resolved, other than the fact that you’ll talk again soon.

A life coach, on the other hand, guides you to see your role in the wronging, and to help you figure out ways that it might go different next time.

Encouragement

In addition to listening deeply, a life coach is there to support you every step of the way. She acts as your personal cheerleader, encouraging you with whatever you choose to do.

For some, this may be one of the few times in life where there is encouragement without judgement. If you want to sell your ju-ju beads on Etsy, your coach will be there with you through all the ups and downs.

Accountability

The other thing that a life coach helps with is accountability. I really don’t like the word, but I what it infers. Being accountable means that you are trustworthy – that you will do what you say you will. It means that you are responsible for what happens.

A coach holds you accountable for what you do and say. Together you decide what you want to achieve by the next meeting.

In my case, sometimes it’s very concrete goals: I want to have two blog posts written, or I want to have the outline for the project done. Other times, it’s more fuzzy: I think I want to listen to my intuition and see what it says I need to do.

Your coach keeps track of these goals. And at your next meeting, she will ask you if you accomplished the goals. If you did, great – you can explore how that went.

But what if you failed and just couldn’t finish anything? The answer is still great, and you explore how that went. The point isn’t always to achieve every single goal, but rather to understand your motivation behind the goal and why you were not able to achieve it.

Dreams and Desires

A coach holds your dreams close to her heart. She ‘holds space’ for those things to grow and bloom and flourish in your life.

She helps you explore various possibilities, and then helps you figure out what will work for you to test those possibilities out. And after the testing, she still works with you to hone and further refine your dreams and desires.

And, even better, your coach is there to celebrate all of your achievements – big and small.

Why Hire A Life Coach?

Here are sometimes when a life coach might be right for you:

If you have some things you’ve always wanted to do, but just haven’t gotten around to doing them.
If you’re feeling stuck or frustrated with how things are and are ready for a change.
If you’re going through menopause and feeling like everything is changing.
If you’re newly retired and not quite sure what to do with yourself.

A life coach is here to be by your side through these transformations – and beyond. Contact me today to explore your possibilities or send an email to julie AT julieawallace.com.