What’s your story?

Growing up on the farm, a brand was a mark that was put on a cow to let outsiders know whose farm the animal came from.

In high school, a brand was what the richer kids wore to prove that they were important, while I wore hand-me-downs or whatever my mom could get with her cheap-clothing-store-that-shall-remain-nameless employee discount.

When I worked in public relations, a brand was what we talked a lot about when we needed to make our product or service stand out in crowded spaces or the evening news.

Now that I’m self-employed, people who tout themselves as self-employment experts are trying to tell me I have to brand MYSELF.

Really? Like a cow who runs the risk of wandering away from the herd? Like a teenager who’s afraid she won’t fit in? Like a product that gets lost on a crowded supermarket shelf?

I’ll be honest… I don’t want to be a brand. I don’t want to be a cow, I don’t want to be a product, and I certainly don’t want to be something an insecure teenager wraps around her shoulders to try to impress her peers.

I’m tired of consumer and industrial language that compares us to products and our brains to well-oiled machines. Let’s move on, shall we? We’ve already established that our consumer-driven mentality is getting the world into a whole lot of trouble with over-consumption and the destruction of our natural resources. That language is not serving us anymore. Let’s stop diminishing our capacity and our imagination by using it.

We are much too complex to be machines or brands or products. Let’s shift the paradigm by shifting the language.

Let’s not be consumers. Let’s be citizens and community members instead.

Let’s not brand ourselves. Let’s tell stories instead.

The next time you’re considering what it is you and/or your business is offering the world, ask yourself “What’s my story?” instead of “What’s my brand?”

Your story has complex nuances that can’t fit into a simple brand.

Your story is shifting and changing as you grow.

Your story has potential for much greater impact than any product could ever have.

Your story is a tapestry made up of all of the beautiful threads you’ve picked up along the journey of your life. It’s the grade 3 teacher who gave you a special prize when you won the spelling bee. It’s your best friend who picked you up off the ground when you fell off a horse. It’s your brother who sacrificed the income from his first job so that you could go on a school trip. It’s the times your dad smiled that special “I’m proud of you” smile. It’s the university instructor who told you one of your plays was good enough to be on the radio. It’s the boss who promoted you to your first leadership position. It’s the first time you spoke in public. It’s those times when you know you are doing your best work.

Those things don’t fit into a brand. They’re not products you can box and put on a shelf. They are your threads and they make you more beautiful than any product on a supermarket shelf.

Don’t diminish yourself to a brand. You’re worth so much more.

You might make more money if you brand yourself (and this is why I’m not a self-employment guru), but you’ll have a greater impact if you share your story.

What’s your story? 

Stop trying to box it or brand it and just get busy sharing it.

To bring about a paradigm shift in the culture that will change assumptions and attitudes, a critical number of us have to tell the stories of our personal revelations and transformations.” – Jean Shinoda Bolen

Ten (not so) simple ways to live a full life

1. Take a deep dive into your own heart. Dare to feel the depths of your emotions. Let joy wash over you like a tsunami wave. Let grief ooze out of every pore of your body. Be passionate and don’t apologize for your passion. Don’t be satisfied with life at the surface. Feel it, live it, be it.

2. Forgive more and forget more. You made a blunder and embarrassed yourself at a family dinner party? Forgive yourself. Forget it. Your partner overlooked your last anniversary? Forgive and then forget. Let go of the baggage that’s weighing you down.

3. Find someone you can trust and then lean in and trust them. Share the things that hurt you, whisper the deep and secret wishes of your heart, and let them see glimpses of your shadow and your brightest light. Trust that in their presence, you will not be judged.

4. Dare to be trustworthy. Be honourable for everyone you meet, but for a few select people (just enough not to burn you out with the giving), offer a place of great safety. Serve as a shelter for them, where vulnerability is welcome and weakness is handled tenderly. Be their lighthouse on a stormy ocean.

5. Tell more stories. Sit with your neighbours. Curl up on the couch with your best friend. Hang out in coffee shops. Talk to your taxi driver. Ask people to tell you the stories of their childhood, and then tell them yours. Create openings for storytelling in the most unlikely of places. Listen deeply and let the stories blossom under your care.

6. Live in community. Serve people and let them serve you. Dare to need people and let them know what you need. Be interdependent. Sit in circle and create spaces of trust and sharing.

7. Buy fewer things and give more away. Don’t listen to the advertisers who tell you that you can’t be happy without this year’s model. Make a choice to continue to take great delight in last year’s model. Give away the things you don’t need anymore. Live with less clutter and less attachment to material possessions.

8. Ask more questions. Be curious about the world. Stare in wonder. Let the questions take you down paths you didn’t expect to take. Don’t rush to find the answers. Let the questions lead to more questions and more opportunities to exercise your curiosity.

9. Go for more walks. Experience your neighbourhood. Get lost in the woods. Stare at intricate leaf patterns. Stretch your muscles. Feel your body move down the path. Notice the sun on your face. Be present, be mindful.

10. Find practices that bring you delight and then do them regularly. Paint. Dance. Take photo walks. Run. Swim. Pray. Meditate. Knit. Visit bookstores. Go to the theatre. Travel. Do it, delight in it, and savour every minute.

 

Question mandala: A creative process for getting unstuck

I finished the first draft of my memoir in the Spring. The writing flowed freely and quickly, mostly because it was a story that had been simmering and growing for more than ten years since my son Matthew died and then was born.

Once I had about 60,000 words and it felt like I’d reached the end, I set it aside for a couple of months so that I could return with fresh perspective.

But then… every time I tried to return to it, I felt stuck. “Re-writer’s block” you might call it. I knew it needed work, but I didn’t know where to start. I knew I was losing the thread in parts, but I didn’t have a clear enough sense of what the thread was to fix the places where it was broken. Every time I’d come to the page, I’d do a little tweaking here and there, knowing full well that it needed more of an overhaul than a tweak.

Finally, in mid-October, I felt ready to put some serious work into it.

My return to it started in a roundabout way. First I cleaned my studio. Call it a metaphor… “clearing space, clearing mind”. Once there was space for my creativity to blossom again, suddenly I found myself eager to return to the page.

I got back into it and started doing some deeper editing than I’d done before, re-arranging ideas and playing with threads. But something told me I still wasn’t going deeply enough. The primary thread still looked blurry.

That’s when I knew it was time to step away from words and let colour and play do their magic.

I picked up my coloured markers, made space on the floor for a large piece of posterboard, and got busy. Before long, I had the beginnings of a question mandala on the page. Over the next few days, whenever I could find a few minutes of spare time, I’d disappear into my studio, grab my markers, and add a few new elements to the design. I think it’s complete now.

And guess what? I’m unstuck! I found the thread for my book and I know how to weave it more strongly through the weak places! I’ve already begun to rewrite it, and my new goal is to have the next draft completed by the end of 2011.

In case you’re stuck in some project, here’s a bit more information about my process:

What’s a question mandala?  A mandala is a circular art form that is common in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. It is considered sacred art and is used as a form of meditation and spiritual discipline and awakening. In Jungian psychology, mandalas are seen as representations of the unconscious self and as a way to work toward wholeness in personality.

To create a mandala, you start at the centre and move out to the edges. Different traditions have different meanings and rituals involved in mandala design. In Tibetan mandalas, for example, there is generally a square in the centre (the palace or temple) with four doors (symbolizing the bringing together of the four boundless thoughts namely – loving kindness, compassion, sympathy, and equanimity), surrounded by three concentric circles (representing the spiritual birth, the awakening and the knowledge).

Some mandalas are very symmetrical and follow “sacred geometry”, while others simply look like free-flowing art in the form of a circle.

For me, mandalas are free-flowing (yet generally fairly symmetrical) and I don’t attach meaning to any particular shape. I simply allow things to evolve as the mandala grows. In recent mandalas, I’ve begun to incorporate questions and words as they come to me, as in my Occupy Love mandala and this most recent mandala (at the top of the page).

How does a mandala “work”? First of all, it’s important to remember that a mandala is not a means to an end. Yes, I used it to help me get unstuck, but I didn’t sit down with a specific problem in mind and expect the mandala to resolve it for me. A mandala, like any form of meditation, is meant to help us step away from our thoughts, logic and problems into a deeper level of the unconscious. Like prayer, it’s a way to clear space for an encounter with the Divine.

How did it help me get unstuck? Words emerge from the left side of the brain, so the writing and re-writing I was doing, though creative, was largely left-brained work. When I get stuck in my left brain processes (logic, analysis, naming, critiquing, defining, judging, fixing), the best solution is to step away from the problem and engage my right brain. That can be done with colour, movement, play, images, and free-flowing creativity – all of which are incorporated into my process. Before long, my left brain is jolted out of the old patterns that got it stuck and begins finding new pathways to unexpected solutions.

How can you make your own question mandala? Your mandala will be as unique as you are. It emerges out of your own brain, so it shouldn’t look like mine. If you’re new to this process, though, and want some guidelines, here are the steps I took for this particular mandala.

1. Start with a large white piece of paper. Something heavier like poster board or watercolour paper works well, especially if you’re using Sharpie markers, as I do. (You could also use paints or pencil crayons. Or if you’re doing this at work – at a board meeting perhaps – use a pen or pencil or whatever you have handy.) I find it best to get down on the floor with the paper and markers and let my body movement around the circle become part of the process.

2. Think about a simple image that is connected with whatever you’re wrestling with, or one that helps you define yourself. In my case, a butterfly is closely connected to the story that emerges in my memoir. For you it might be a candle, a walking stick, a pencil, a book – anything.

3. Draw that image in the centre of the paper. Don’t worry about what it looks like – this process is for you alone and you’ll have to let go of perfection for now. (Note: many mandalas don’t start with an image in the centre, but for this particular process, when I’m wrestling with something specific, it’s where I like to start.)

4. Draw a circle around the image. If you want it to be symmetrical, use a protractor, stencil, or bowl. If you’re not worried about symmetry, simple draw it freestyle.

5. Outside of the circle, begin with whatever shape comes to mind. Don’t over-think this. This is meant to get you out of logic and self-critique, so don’t let yourself get stuck in what will look best. Just draw! If triangles feel right, draw them. If circles feel better, then just go with it. Spirals, boxes, ovals, hexagons, squiggles – whatever. Just choose a shape and repeat it all the way around the edge of the circle.

6. Keep adding new shapes around the edge, always repeating whichever shape you choose around the entire circle.

7. Once you have a fairly substantial circle, begin a spiral of questions. Again, it’s important not to over-think this. Ask whatever pops into your head without sensoring it. (As you can see, I chose to blur out the questions in the image above, because some of them are fairly personal.) Keep writing until no more questions show up.

8. Add a few more rings of shapes outside of the questions.

9. When you feel like it’s almost complete, incorporate a circle of words that represent the themes that began emerging in your mind once you wrote your questions. Again, don’t over-think it. Even if a word seems puzzling or challenging when it shows up, write it down. It might surprise you with some new insight.

10. At the edge, decide intuitively whether you feel it needs closed energy or open energy. If you feel the need to enclose it, draw a complete circle around it and decorate the circle if you wish. If you’d rather have more open energy, finish it with shapes or squiggles or spirals reaching out beyond the page.

In the Tibetan tradition, where monks make elaborate mandalas with coloured sand, they destroy them soon after they’re complete as a meditation on impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism). The sand is brushed together and placed in a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala. Though I haven’t managed to destroy the mandalas I create on paper (I suppose I’m not as evolved as Tibetan monks), I occasionally do body mandalas on my skin (like the one below) that disappear after a few baths.

I love my paper mandalas and find places to hang them on the walls around my studio or in the hallway leading to my studio. They remind me to bring colour and meditation back into my life, and sometimes they surprise me with new insight when I look back over them.

Try it next time you’re stuck. Even if you don’t have a huge epiphany, you might be surprised just how much fun it is to play with markers again.

 

These things I know about myself

*  I would rather teach people to think beautiful thoughts than to create grammatically correct sentences.
*  I believe that beauty and justice are inextricably intertwined and I want to bring more of both into the world.
*  I believe that the greatest inventions, discoveries, and solutions emerge when people start asking the right questions.
*  I believe that you have to ask a lot of questions in order to get to the right ones.
*  I am happy when I can help bold creativity blossom in those around me.
*  A little part of me shrivels up inside when I find myself stifling creativity with too many rules and judgements.
*  I am easily distracted by colourful markers and clean white paper.
*  I believe that personal leadership is more important than positional leadership.
*  I choose community over team, circle over hierarchy, and family over corporation.
*  I believe that shared stories open doorways to transformation.
*  I am less productive when I haven’t had time for deep contemplation and equally deep play. The two go hand in hand.
*  I believe that our differences are important but that they should not divide us.
*  I delight in making new connections with people whose ways of looking at the world intrigue me. I am open to letting them change me, if it’s for the best.
*  I am committed to hosting and being part of more conversations and inquiries that follow spiral patterns (moving inward to deeper wisdom) rather than linear pathways.
*  Deep and soulful listening is often the best gift I can give anyone, and so I strive to keep my mouth shut and my ears open more often.
*  I believe in walking lightly on this earth, and hope to some day use fewer resources for my own personal gain.
*  I want to be open-minded and open-hearted and to live with delight as my constant companion.
*  I believe that vulnerability and truth-telling can serve as catalysts for deep relationships and profound change.
*  I believe that in order to create one great work of art you have to be prepared to create at least 100 mediocre ones first.
*  I believe that time spent in meditation, prayer, and body movement is never time wasted, and I hope to some day live like I believe it.
*  I believe that God created each of us to do good work and that we cheat our Creator and our world when we let our self-doubt and fear keep us from doing it.
*  I want to bring more colour and light into otherwise dreary spaces.
*  I strive to be more courageous tomorrow than I was today.
*  I believe in daily transformation, continuous learning, and growth that doesn’t end until the day I exhale my last breath.
*  I am committed to doing my best work, which is at the intersection of creativity, leadership, community, and story-telling.

Shifting the stories and returning to gratitude

Sometimes I let myself get stuck in the wrong stories.

Stories like:

– I would accomplish more if I had a nice office with big windows letting in the natural light. And a nice art easel. And more space for bookshelves.

– It’s okay to want what I want… in fact, I’m probably ENTITLED to a bigger space with natural light. I can’t create without it. Why do I bother trying?

– If I had a beautiful healing room like my friend Diane, I could host story circles in my own space and wouldn’t have to be satisfied with a rather ugly room in the back of a church. In fact, I shouldn’t bother hosting any more circles until I have the right space.

– If this house weren’t falling apart, with peeling linoleum in the kitchen, broken chairs in the dining room, and ugly carpet in the living room, I’d feel more comfortable hosting people here and I could do more of my work in-person.

– If only… (and the list could stretch to 101 more items)

It’s not that it’s wrong to want those things. It’s just that it’s wrong to let myself get stuck in the limitations of wanting them too much. When I get stuck in them, I forget to be grateful for what I have. I forget that I too can be resourceful and make new things out of old, like the people I’ve seen in the poorest parts of the world, making shoes out of rubber tires, or spoons out of seashells. I forget to treat the gifts I’ve already received with reverence and respect.

I let my house get messier “because it’s not good enough to host people in, so why should I bother keeping it clean?”

I let my tiny storage-space-turned-studio become a dumping ground for clutter “because it’s too small, cramped, and windowless for me to create in, so why bother?”

Last week, I knew that it was time to loosen the grip those limiting stories were having on me. I spent Friday morning clearing the clutter out of my tiny windowless space that used to be a storage room in a dark corner of our basement. It’s a space I poured my creative resourcefulness into last year before I quit my job, putting cheap fabric and old paneling on the wall and free hand-me-down carpet on the floor.

And now I am grateful for it again.

I finally did some creative work in this space again (see the mandala in my last post), and now my head is buzzing with new ideas.

Here’s my tiny space, with my creativity board in front of me and my art supplies and favourite books within easy reach.

On the ceiling by the light hang the butterflies that told me to write a book.

Here’s a corner of my creativity board, with elephants from Tanzania (oh how I loved seeing them in the wild!), a dried leaf from the centre of the labyrinth at Tranquil Spirit (my friend Diane’s healing space), and some of my creative meanderings.

One of my favourite trinkets, a gift from my sister that reminds me to continue to stare with wonder at the many possibilities that this big, wide world has to offer.

 

Another corner of my creativity board, with a photo of my sister and I backpacking around Europe many years ago. My favourite view – lying on the floor looking up at the iridescent fabric hanging from the ceiling. This space – though it may not seem like much – is sacred space.

Here’s Maddy, who is delighted when I let her into my creative space so that we can do some co-creating (which we did lots of this weekend). She made a special magic wand for me. On its handle it says “be magical”. I’m going to wave it around the room whenever I need to make old stories disappear, or I need to make new things out of old things that no longer serve me.

One more view… the entrance to my tiny space, where I painted a tree of dreams (follow the link to see a video of me painting it) and Maddy painted a magical character out of her favourite book, Harry Potter.

 

 

 

 

 

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