A New Year has begun! Where will we focus our attention this year? I read a lovely quote this morning and I am looking forward to making a painting to illustrate it:
"Dwell on the beauty of the life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them."
Marcus Aurelius
Mmmmmm!
Lately, I have been enjoying a book by Christine Valters Paintner called Illuminating the Way. It is a study of 12 of the archetypes illustrated by monks or mystics who embodied them. I was stopped in my tracks by the archetype of Sovereign. Christine says that in olden days when women did not live long, women lived three archetypes: the Maiden, the Mother and then the Crone. Nowadays we are invited to step into another archetype between the Mother and the Crone. She is the Queen. Oh my goodness!! I decided I needed to take a day off just to concentrate on this archetype, mining it for what it can offer me for this time of my life, as I am about to turn 62. It has been a beautiful morning reading the information about the Sovereign type, doing the suggested meditation and colouring a mandala to deepen it all for me.
When we step into our Queen we come into contact with the parts of us which are calm, strong, centered, stable, powerful, joyful, and full of grace. We can contact the deepest thing we feel called toward and we can know deep within ourselves that we will find a way to live it out it the world.
I want to say that the deepest thing I feel called toward this day is to be a bearer of glad tidings of comfort and joy. Through my books, through my dance classes, through the workshops and coaching I offer, I know I am to be a source of comfort and joy. Now that I know this deeply, may it be so in 2017 and beyond!
I recently finished reading Liz Gilbert's book "Big Magic". She made so many powerful points about creativity that seemed so very accurate. On pg 171-172 she says, " Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something ( myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind.)"
WOW! She speaks the truth, at least from my perspective. I have been ill at ease, and pacing inside my own head for a couple of months now. I knew something was off, but couldn't put my finger on it. When I read Liz's words, suddenly I knew: I am a writer who hasn't been writing for 9 months or so, and it is now time to give myself to my next writing project. The first step is writing about it here, and now I must go and begin to work with the beginnings of the book manuscript I already have. I looked it over yesterday, and Yes! It is a book! I have the title, the dedication and a beginning made on the Table of Contents. It is time to let the book have its way with me. It is as if it has been quietly sitting there these past 9 months, waiting for me to come back to it. I know that it is a book that only I can write as I am the only one as far as I know who has the unique mixture of experience that a family physician/ life coach/expressive arts practitioner could bring to writing about this topic. So here goes! "Clarity Therapy" is about to enter her own period of gestation, whether that be 9 months or 18 months. I am going to aim for a launch date of October 2017. It is good for me to have a goal like this to work towards. Let the games begin! Woo hoo!!
Don't you love the lazy, hazy days of summer when you can swim, eat fresh fruit and barbequed food, and go late at night for ice cream cones? Yum, yum, yum!
For me, it is also a time to look on Amazon.ca for what the new releases of fall are going to be. Today I pre-ordered the new Jeffrey Archer, Felix Francis, James Runcie, Charles Finch, Charles Todd, Jacqueline Winspear, Jack Higgins books. From October to December I will receiving some wonderful packages from UPS!
Although I love summer, I must admit that I am also looking forward with excitement to a fall season of reading. Yahoo!
Hasn't it been a glorious week? It has been such a relief not to have to contend with winter weather! With the return of warmer, longer days, I can feel the urge to hibernate lifting and in its place,creative urges returning. Since transitioning to family practice in Kinmount, Ontario, I have been mulling over my work of the past 13 years, which was mostly life coaching + expressive arts + supportive psychotherapy. I have been thinking about what I learned from this work about what it takes to heal people. I asked an esteemed art therapy teacher, "How do the expressive arts heal?" Without a moment's hesitation he said, "The expressive arts heal by allowing the patient to externalise, transform, and then re-integrate their inner experiences." This really rang true for me as|I have seen this process occur over and over again in people I have served. I am beginning to feel the stirrings of a new book wanting to be conceived within me! I do have an idea for the title already. It would be Clarity Therapy: The Magic Toolkit, or something like that. I love the very beginnings of writing a new book. It feels like spring within my soul. I pray that something is happening deep within you that feels like spring also!
One year ago,esteemed colleague and friend, art therapist Julie McIntyre, introduced me to the book Writing the Mind Alive, written by Linda Trichter Metcalf and Tobin Simon. In the book, the technique called Proprioceptive Writing is described. Dr Christiane Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, wrote the foreword for the book. She tells us her life was transformed by doing the proprioceptive writing practice daily for many years. She says in that foreword, "The essence of health is trusting yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings. Self-trust is the ability to know the truth about what you think and feel in your very bones-- and then to use this information to guide your life." She asserts that learning and practising the proprioceptive writing technique helped her reconnect with her deepest self, and gain self-trust. This resulted in being able to write her best selling book.
I have done the proprioceptive writing practice often during this past year, enough to experience its benefits. Soon I hope to offer a workshop designed to share with others this remarkable, beneficial practice.
Meni and I have finalized the dates for our Bigger Game Alumni event! We will meet in the studio on April 30,2016 from 1-4 pm. Meni and I have facilitated 10 Bigger Game weekends in Peterborough and London, Ontario between June 2010 and November 2015. Over 100 people have participated with us in these weekends. It is time to celebrate and time to call you back to the studio to remember and recommit to your compelling purpose, to be guided through the Bigger Game Advisor exercise, to reconnect with old friends and meet new Bigger Game allies. If you have participated with Meni and me, you will receive an invitation by email shortly. If you would love to experience a Bigger Game weekend, please join Meni and me in the studio November 5-6. 2016!
Oh boy, again it has been a very long time since i have written a post. A lot has happened! We did have a book launch in the studio on Dec 2 for I Didn't Really Want to Be There : Why We Pretend, Remain Silent and Stay So Long. It was a beautiful evening of reconnection, love and laughter. We also celebrated my editor Joan's 60th birthday!
I am looking forward to a year of contentment and increased inner peace. I pray the same for you. In our often turbulent world, contentment and inner peace can be hard to come by. But I am praying we will find it and experience it anyway.
Much love to all as we begin our year together, with hope and anticipation.
Again it has been long a time since I have posted an entry on this blog page. I have been making progress on the book in fits and starts. Interestingly, I have found myself writing the last chapters first, so I have written, and Joan has edited Eldership is the Reward, Mercy is the Key, and The Fallout. Courage to Change and Handling Freedom are in process.
Today I realized I wanted to write an Interlude, a little chapter which comes in between the Why we stay stuck and How we find the courage to make needed changes sections. This chapter examines assumptions we make, which keep us in less than powerful perspectives. I think my favourite self help book is The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. Ruiz makes conscious for us that we do make assumptions all the time, and these assumptions limit our options big time.
Anyway, wanted to let you all know that I am still writing! It is hard to fit it in amidst life's responsibilities, which are many and often enjoyable. However, I would love more often to have those hours of sitting down and engaging deeply with my manuscript, the pursuit which is for me, the most life-giving, soul nourishing one.
May you all have time to do what you are and what you love often this summer.
Love, Sue
Wow, i haven't looked at my website for months! It has been a long, cold winter and I am just emerging from it. Last week, I had the gift of both the time and the energy to look through all the files I have written since November 2013 for my new book, and organize them into file folders for each chapter. I can share the chapter headings with you now!
Introduction
Why we get stuck
How we get the courage to move ahead
Moving ahead
The Fall Out
Mercy is the Key
Eldership is the Reward
Sounds interesting, eh? I am looking forward now to taking the raw writing for each chapter and refining it. I spoke with my editor and put her on notice that some serious editing work will be coming her way soon.
Yahoo!
