Almost every time I do a vision board, I think “ooooh… this one is my favourite so far!” That’s how I felt last night when I completed this one. I love it. It’s the biggest one I’ve done so far (I wanted to think BIG for 2011), and it’s colourful and beautiful and MINE.
There is something so gratifying about seeing your vision appear in this way. I think it works for me for a number of reasons:
I’m a visual thinker. Give me images and vibrant colour and I’m a happy girl. I can get lost in an image without necessarily needing an explanation.
BUT I also love words. (I’m a writer, after all.) I like to flip through magazines to see which words jump out at me and offer me some frame for my life at the time.
I love to combine images and words and then watch what the combination evokes. AND I love surprises, and there are always a few of those when I put words and images together in new ways.
I am comfortable with ambiguity. I don’t need to know what every image or combination of words means when I glue it on the board. Sometimes it just speaks to me and the meaning appears later.
I like evolving, fluid structures. I don’t enjoy being hampered by boxy things like “strategic plans” or “business plans”. I prefer to watch the way my vision boards evolve, with changing colour themes, imagery, words, etc.
Some of the things I see so far in 2011’s vision board are:
running – this is the first time I’m whispering it aloud, but I really want to run a half marathon!
joy – my word for the year
growth – exceeding my limits and expanding my horizons
travel, adventure, journey (those things always seem to appear on my boards)
leadership, sacred space, wisdom
variety, options
This type of visioning speaks volumes to my Sophia heart. It’s the wisdom that flows from me when I am true to myself.
For years I tried to fit in a world where strategic planning and corporate vision statements and agendas and action items and objectives and goals felt like stiff wooden boxes that didn’t fit the soft curve of my heart. Though I became adept at adapting to that world, it never felt like my full truth.
Not that those things aren’t necessary – it’s just that they weren’t fully balanced with the wisdom of the feminine.
Now I’m looking at the world differently. I’m looking for the curves and circles, the organic ways of growing, the spaces in between the cold hard facts, the colour behind the black and white, the softness in the structure, and the joy factor.
This year, as I look ahead to my first full year of self-employment, I’m focusing on the joy factor. Instead of a business plan, I’m working on a “joy roadmap”. Instead of a vision statement, I’m creating a “joy image”. Instead of goals and objectives, I’m asking “what things will make my heart feel alive?”
Do it with me! Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. List five moments from the past year when you felt deeply joyful.
2. What was it from those moments that contributed to your joy and how can you replicate that in 2011?
3. Who were the people who surrounded you in those moments and contributed to your joy? How can you continue to surround yourself with these joy people?
4. Create a vision board, adding images and words that make you feel joyful.
5. Answer these questions:
I am joyful when…
I can bring joy to other people by…
Now go back and read your answers to the questions in #5. Are there intersections? Is it possible that the things you do that bring you joy are also the things that contribute to other people’s joy? I suspect so!
Joy is contagious. Go out there and find some. And then pass it on.
I’ve been having lots of fun making some very cool Christmas gifts in my little studio, plus I’m working on launching a creativity workshop in the new year, and so my thoughts have been on creativity. In that spirit, I made this little video to share some of my fun tips for being more creative.
PLUS if you watch the video, you’ll find how who won the “name my elephant teapot” contest.
Sometimes it feels like we have gotten stuck in too many broken systems, failing institutions, and flawed structures that are not serving the purpose for which they were designed. We know things are broken – we can see it plain as day – and yet we feel like those villagers who were too fearful or complacent to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
I am teaching a public relations course in a brand new building that was completed the month before my class started. It was touted to be an innovative, interesting building. “How exciting to teach in a space that’s been created with innovative learning in mind!” I thought, naively.
I can only say this – it is a remarkable disappointment. The first thing you notice is the institutional look of it. Bare concrete floors, stark white classroom walls, and nothing that looks warm and inviting – anywhere. The next thing you notice is the noise level. I’m not sure what the walls are made of, but when a siren goes by (which it does, often, as we’re on one of the busiest corners in the city), I have to wait for it to pass before I can speak again. Don’t even get me started about the jack-hammering on my first day.
As you look a little deeper, you notice the more subtle things. The lack of coat racks or lockers, for example – students (and teachers) have to lug heavy backpacks and winter clothes with them everywhere they go. And then there’s the lack of common spaces, lobbies, or even a cafeteria. Neither students nor faculty can gather in common spaces in comfortable chairs. It feels remarkably like they don’t want people to be communicating with each other. (After all, isn’t that how revolts form?)
As a teacher, my greatest issue is with the lack of flexibility in the classroom. I am a creative person teaching a writing class – I need a creative space. And yet there are essentially no options for innovative use of space whatsoever. I can’t even fall back on the oldest method in the books – gathering in a circle – because the desks are too rigid to permit it. And forget trying to put anything colourful on the walls to try to foster creativity – it’s against the rules.
I could go on and on (and sometimes I do), and you might think I’m just a complainer looking for a sympathetic ear. (After all, haven’t teachers been teaching in much worse conditions than these for years?) But I believe this goes deeper than simple complaints – I believe this is a symptom of an illness that we’ve allowed to run too rampant in our culture. I believe that we are failing our students by letting them know that this is the best they can expect in life. I believe we are stifling their imagination, and the work force that they will soon be part of will suffer for it.
“Look at these stark white boxes, students,” we’re telling them. “This is your future. Fit into the boxes as best you can and don’t dare leave your mark on the wall.”
Here’s the thing – institutions should not mold US to serve THEM. WE should create institutions that serve US. And when an institution ceases to serve us, we should abolish it, or at least do some serious reconfiguring.
This building is only one of the flawed institutions I’ve witnessed lately. One of my daughters is gifted academically, and yet she is completely bored at school, falling through the cracks in an education system that is teaching to mediocrity. And when it comes to health care, I could write a volume on the many ways that our health care system has failed various members of my family, mostly because there are lots of disillusioned people “just doing their jobs” in a broken system.
The question is, who tells the emperor he has no clothes? As a contract teacher, do I risk being seen as the “complainer”, or even worse, the “trouble-maker” because I believe we are doing a disservice to the students by not offering them more? As a parent, do I work my way up the school division hierarchy to find someone who will pay attention to the fact that the education system is doing our gifted students a disservice by boring them to tears? As a caregiver and family member of people suffering at the hands of the health care system, do I march into the halls of power and say “This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”
It’s easier just to pretend the emperor has on a beautiful handwoven coat.
And yet there’s a tiny voice inside me saying “SPEAK UP! Somebody HAS to!”
And so, this week, I’m letting that voice speak. It’s time to write some letters, speak some truths, and run the risk of offending the emperor.
In yesterday’s post, I shared how I need to stop being so serious all the time and bring back the silly. Well, it clearly resonated with people, because lots of you rallied around and shared your silly with me. On Facebook, Twitter, and in the comments, I got silly movie and book recommendations, links to silly Youtube clips (remember Elaine’s dance on Seinfeld?) and articles in The Onion, an invitation to meet a horse guaranteed to make me smile, an invitation to go on a road trip, and a host of other ideas.
Thanks! You all made my day! I think I was grinning until the minute my head hit the pillow.
Today I have to get some work done so that I can take some time off next week to hang out with a visiting friend (who is guaranteed to make me laugh repeatedly), so I don’t have as much time to waste on social media. But none-the-less, I wanted to keep the invitation open to SHARE YOUR SILLY! (Thanks to Barbara Winter for the idea for a new name for this month of silly.)
This morning, as I brewed tea in my new elephant teapot, I decided that the elephant needs a name. And so, for today’s Share your Silly, your task is to help me NAME MY ELEPHANT!
Leave a name in the comments of this post, and if I pick yours, I’ll send you something silly in the mail. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’ll find something!
By the way, if you’re new here, and you’re wondering what all this silly stuff is doing on a site that’s dedicated to something serious like leadership, well, haven’t you heard? In the new world of Sophia leadership, silly has EVERYTHING to do with being an effective leader!
After a week and a half of vacation, I’m trying to give my brain the “get back to work” pep talk today. So far, I’ve had only limited success. Sigh.
I quite intentionally spent little time online while on vacation. It was family time, and so I did fun family things, like hangin’ out at the Folk Festival, going on a road trip, chillin’ by the hotel pool, shopping in big America shopping malls (mostly for the teenagers in the family), watching soccer games, riding a few rollercoasters, floating down a lazy river on an inner tube, eating too much junk food, and watching silly movies. I also managed to squeeze in a few fun things just for me, like sipping chai latte at a couple of bookstore coffee shops (on both sides of the border – yup, books & chai – my two addictions), reading a couple of books, and going to an art fair.
Yesterday was one of my favourite days of the vacation. I spent most of the afternoon reading a book in a lawnchair in a shady spot on my front lawn. About the only activity I did all day was get up now and then to refill my glass with iced tea. And make a ridiculously unhealthy lunch of hashbrowns and bacon. Awww… the luxury!
One of the books I finished reading while on vacation was Artful Leadership by Michael Jones. Yes, I actually read a book on leadership while on VACATION! Go figure. It was just that good! I had the pleasure of hanging out with Michael at ALIA last month and I find his thoughts and ideas to be really, really inspiring. His book hit the spot for me in so many ways at just the right time.
There are lots of thoughts bubbling in my mind after reading this book. One of the things that stuck with me was Michael’s suggestion that, given the amount of clutter and external influence we allow into our brains and hearts, it is extremely difficult to have an original thought that does not become shadowed and distorted by what others say and think. It is even more difficult to trust that original thought and give it life.
Think about it… how often have you had a thought or idea that came to you from whatever original source you believe in (God, muse, self) that you entertained for even just a few moments without quickly negating it because “so and so would think it’s a bad idea” or “it doesn’t fit with conventional wisdom” or “it’s just silly” or “market research would certainly tell me it would never fly”?
I’ve had some of those ideas lately, and there’s a part of me that JUST KNOWS they are the right ideas to follow. BUT… well, you know the “buts”. Every day a few more of them pile on top of me when I let myself be influenced by the “experts” or “well-meaning people” or “my own ego”.
That’s part of the reason I spent this vacation mostly away from some of the influencers – social media, etc. Sometimes it’s best just to sit with an idea and let it evolve in its own good time before we hold it up to any litmus tests other than our own gut feelings. To be honest, I let myself be influenced more by a chance encounter with a horse (more on that later), and an exhilarating ride on a rollercoaster than any other person’s ideas or suggestions.
What about you? How do you guard and nurture those original thoughts so that they have a chance to grow before resistance cuts them off at their tender little shoots?
Much too late last night, I finished reading Floor Sample, Julia Cameron’s autobiography. Many of you will know Julia Cameron as the author of The Artist’s Way and many other well-loved books on creativity and spirituality.
What struck me, as I closed the book and headed toward dreamland, was how very flawed and human Julia Cameron is. Despite the fact that she is an international guru on creativity and has written umpteen books, plays, film scripts, songs – you name it – she paints a painfully honest picture of herself as a fragile and flawed woman, often on the edge of sanity. She struggled through crippling addiction to alcohol and cocaine, she hopped around the country like a lost gypsy searching for some place that would give her peace, she survived two failed marriages and numerous other ill-fated romances, and in later life she has been dealing with serious mental health issues that have landed her in more than one psych ward.
The remarkable part of her story, though, is that despite the serious roadblocks that could have sidelined her career (or worse – killed her) long ago, she never ceases to believe that she is a writer who has been called to write and share that writing with the world. After hitting rock bottom from alcohol and cocaine addiction, she is mentored toward recovery by people who teach her that she has to admit her weakness and learn to trust God instead of herself. She begins to do so, and discovers that when she puts her life in God’s hands, not only can she stop drinking, but her creativity begins to blossom in a way she never expected it to.
Since then, she has been committed to serving as a conduit for the creativity that flows through her from God. No matter what comes her way – mental illness, relationship failures, etc. – she continues to write and write and write. She never questions that it is her calling and never lets self-doubt get in the way – she simply trusts that this is what she is being called to share with the world.
There are times when surprising art flows through her. Though not musically trained, and convinced that she is “not the musical one in the family”, she begins to hear songs flow through her and she composes them with the help of a small child’s keyboard on which she’s marked Middle C and a numbering system that helps her figure out the notes. (She later – around 50 years of age, I believe – takes piano lessons for the first time.)
I can’t help but wonder how much more creativity would be shared if we all had the same commitment to following our muses no matter what obstacles showed up.
What if we could all put our egos aside and just trust that what is flowing through us has little to do with us and is meant to be shared? What if we no longer trusted those negative voices that tell us we’re not good enough or not wise enough and just created whatever God put on our hearts? What if we believed that our flaws and our failures were merely opportunities for growth and fresh perspectives? What would we be capable of?
