Ringing in the New

Change is good.  Deep change is a process.  (I was about to write "deep change is hard" but who wants to manifest that experience?!)

We often forget that the first step to creating the change we want begins with a simple shift in our thinking - from that which we don't want, to more of what we want. You dream it in your mind while stuck in traffic - aaaah a nice vacation on the beach, or oooooo a new and inspiring job.

You can always create positive change for yourself.  While I do not understand how fate plays its hand in things, I do know that when I believe I can change things, I can and do.  The trick is in getting more of what I want, and less of the other!

I use tricks to help me - images in particular.  While I have successfully set goals using collage compiled into a visual of what I want to see in the future, I am an artist and visualizer by trade.  One of the things I get paid to do is to draw pictures of people.  I draw what they say, what they think, their words, metaphors, dreams, strategies and new desired realities.

What I have found is that when you or any team take the time to draw out what is inside, you lay claim to that which you desire.  When a team paints a powerful picture of what they want to see happen, they begin to own it and to see it, both inside their heads and outside on the page.  The whole process sends out an internal and external call to life - in some wild and unseen process - and life does what it does best, it responds.  Subsequently things change and often quite dramatically.

We are stepping into a new year - 2010.

What would you like to call out for?  Whatever it is, consider doing it with intention (that's the drawing the picture of it part) and love (that's the loving every aspect of what you imagine); two things that when combined, create combustion and results.

Many of you have done my Snapshot of the Big Picture process.

Now is a great time to do it again.  If you don't remember how it goes, go back to my blog from January of last year and get started ringing in a year full of all the things you want to have.

Add to the visual you create, a bit of night and day dreaming and a little elbow grease.
Then be sure to let me know what happens (I believe that great things will).

Here is wishing you and yours the very best and happiest of new years!

P.S.  Please feel free to visit my art on display at Ella Mon in Ballard starting the second weekend in January and into February.

Home for the Holidays

What's your travel schedule been looking like?  Are you insanely scurrying from city to city, country to country in a wild map dance across the globe?  This year, why not stay home for the holidays?

I've been living my new core value of when you go shopping - why not go shopping loco!  That means this year I'm not going to do my shopping at the mall.  I'm going to Ballard, right in my own hood where I know I can find all the right kinds of unique, local made gifts.

Like at Damsalfly.  Here I found the best prices for groovy boutique items.  I took my friend Scott in there and said "Pick out anything you want."  Of course this is a women's boutique shop and there's only one men's rack, but I knew that anything he found for his birthday present would cost around $50.  So it was.

Or how about Ella Mon?  Now here is a women's boutique shop that carries Farinaz, one of my favorite local designers.  AND they happened to have a sale rack on the day I went inside.  I found a tux jacket for Julie that is to die for.  It was a bargain.  The women that work there are incredibly helpful, kind, patient.  Go there.

If you want to get your hair cut for a great price, there's Rudy's.  If you are hungry there's Bastille or any number of great restaurants.  On Ballard Avenue, you can find/have tea, weird toys, stoves, green materials, new and used clothing...up and down the street.

It's all in that one little, NYC style hood.  But it's not just Ballard, find out what your neighborhood has to offer.  Then offer something back.  For Thanksgiving we volunteered with ElderFriends.  That was amazing to spend a few hours with a lonely elder person on that holiday.  Sure it made me miss my parents, but hey, they're gone.  I better find some new ones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm big on travel and I love holiday vacations. But this year, we're staying home, because just like the song says, there's no place like home for the holidays.  To all of you who helped to make this year great at Up your Creative Genius, thank you and I hope to see you around town!

  (At Swanson's with the REAL REINDEER!)