Creative resistance / willingness |

As Gratitude and I have been “dusting and redecorating” here in preparation for reopening our doors I’ve spent a bit of time reading back through the archives.

I was pleasantly surprised there were actually some good nuggets in those early posts. However, when I reread my first put-out-the-welcome-mat post titled Smiles and Cartwheels I found myself with a rather sheepish grin plastered across my face.

For integrity and clarity sake I decided I wanted to write an update to this first post. You can read that original post here. It might help to put this addendum into some context.

So here I am sitting there rereading this post with this silly smile slowly creeping across my face as I realized Miss Artiste and Miss Just-get-r-done still don’t have regular open lines of communication established.

Just one chat isn’t going to cut it! Duh! Even occasional chats won’t do.

The three of us are a work in progress. I still find myself wrestling with these two voices in my head…working to find the balance in there somewhere.

One thing is for sure. Committing to regular chat sessions would likely help.

Yep! I need to recommit to this. And I’ve learned the best way for me to acknowledge my growth and willingness to make a stronger commitment is to “HeART-fully” embrace it. (i.e. Use art and heart to empower myself).

So partly to strengthen and inspire this commitment to myself and partly to have a fun image to include in this post I decided I had to pull together a quick artistic somethin-or-other.

Continue reading Knocking the Dust of the Welcome Mat →

Why am I feeling like doing cartwheels? Because I am excited to finally have the bare bones of my new wordpress site up. Here is the big lesson I relearned in the process of attempting to get my site up and running. Settle for “good enough.”

I often coach people to chunk stuff down when they are tackling a major project and take baby steps. I encourage them to follow their heart. I suggest they get moving on just the next one or two steps without having to have all the answers or know what all the steps will look like.

It’s nice to have a clear plan all mapped out, but sometimes for right-brain-creative type people this is a luxury that will keep us from fulfilling our dreams. Too often, I am slow to heed my own advice. This was one of those times.

My inner Artiste had taken charge of this project and she was holding on with clenched fists. She wanted my site to look just so. She wanted me to put my best foot forward. She wanted it all exactly how she wanted it. She and Miss Just-get-r-done were not talking to each other.

Finally last week, with the support of some friends from SARK’s Dream Boogie Community I broke this impasse and said, “Enough! Something needs to shift. You two need to talk and come to an understanding.”

So I sat Miss Artiste and Miss Just-get-r-done down to have a chat. And were they ever surprised!

They discovered they weren’t really at odds with each other after all. They had a lot in common. They both wanted the same result, a beautiful home on the web where Gratitude could invite her friends over for heart opening conversation, discovery, and adventure.

We are officially putting out the welcome mat. Keep coming back to see how we continue to spruce up the place “just so.”

After rereading this post in August of 2012 I decided I wanted (needed?) to write an update to this “first post.” It had left me with a peculiar sort of half-smile plastered across my face. I decided an addendum to what I shared here was in order. You can read those updated musings here.