Category Archives: Business

January 18, 2014

Embracing the Slow, the Rooted

Lately, things have been shifting, especially with my work with Be Your Own Beloved!

Don’t worry…the class isn’t disappearing…quite the opposite. I’m getting more and more rooted in the clarity that this is the class that feels like soul work to me and that I get the complete honour of witnessing people coming out of their shells & seeing themselves with compassion.

But it has become much more than just one E-Course.

Lately it seems as though it is time to embrace a slower pace of this path, after years of launching one E-Course after another, always feeling like I need to come up with a new course, or new idea.

I’m craving to slow down and root deeper into this work and that is just what is happening. To let go of immediacy for the sake of longevity, to let go of scarcity for the sake of legacy. To not feel like this is all going to disappear at any moment and to trust the feeling of clarity of purpose I (finally) found in 2013. When we’ve spent so much of our lives searching far and wide to find that thing that lights us up…it can be a bit strange to stop searching and instead step deeper into it. Do you know what I mean?

I’ve been working hard on the book (nope, no publisher yet…but I’m just enjoying working on it these days) and so many times lately I’ve had BIG self-love realizations….and normally I’d open up a blog post as soon as I get home and share it with you here on the blog.

But I find myself having to put the breaks on that these days instead head on over to the manuscript and spill the realizations in there.

As a long time blogger, I’m so used to the immediacy of storytelling that we can do through this medium and it feels SO weird to be making myself write it in the manuscript instead…where, realistically, you might not get to read it for a couple years!

Its not just the book though.

I’m spilling new ideas into the big binder I’m creating packed with prompts for my Mentoring Clients.

I’m handwriting prompts into my journal as I plan out the In-Person Workshops for this year (which will soon be listed)!

I’m pouring new Be Your Own Beloved activities & concepts into a program I have yet to share with you but will be coming this spring and I promise you’ll love it! It is specifically designed for alumni of the original class to dig deeper into their path exploring self-love through self-portraiture (more on this soon)!

I’m also working on something that won’t be launched until at least 2015 but is a way for amazing folks who are working in the healing fields (art therapists, coaches, nutritionists with a HAES approach, and more) to provide their clients with the Be Your Own Beloved approach.

So you see, there is so much going on that feels much slower, much more long term.

And it really feels like a shift.

Perhaps there is even an energy to blogging and even being a creative entrepreneur…that we sometimes feel like if we get quiet, or take some time away, or not offer anything for a while, that people will move on or forget about us.

I’m hoping to let go of that feeling and instead settle into the energy of feeling grounded in this work, in this message, in this path.

I know when I first started teaching online 3 years ago, I’d often think that this culture of online classes might not be around forever (and it definitely has evolved and changed even in that time) and I thought I’d give this online teaching thing a try and enjoy it while it lasts.

I think what I’m realizing is that its okay to let go of the feeling that this work is fleeting.

That its okay to have a totally online job and at the same time, let yourself feel rooted in the work.

That its okay to let your work evolve and grow and maybe shift away from the rapid pace that you started it with.

That its okay to let go of immediacy in order to connect with the legacy of our work.

It has been a truly interesting process of just having to slow down the immediacy of this path, saving a lot of the things that are really exciting me right now for you to experience more one-on-one (be that in a mentoring session or sometime down the road when I finally make this book happen and you pick it up and get to explore the activities in it)!

While I don’t plan to stop blogging or take time off from it, nor will I be stopping teaching E-Courses…but I’m ready to learn a new way of being a creative entrepreneur, outside of the scarcity mentality.

Have you gone through this with your creative life? Where perhaps it feels like you are drawn to let go of the pressure of the immediacy and instead step into the long-term energy of your creative work? If you have some thoughts on this I’d LOVE to hear!

January 21, 2013

Engaged

Oh don’t get too excited…I don’t mean engaged in that way (I’m barely dating)!

But that is the word that is on the tip of my tongue for the last few days. You’d think it was even my word of the year.

Or YES. Yes is what this year feels like so far. Open. Hopeful.

I feel like I’m falling deeper in love with my work right now. You know that stage where you’ve been together for a while and you know you love each other but then you get to a place where you shift to a deeper, less fearful kind of love? Thats what right now feels like.

Neither YES nor ENGAGED are my words of the year (I’m writing a post coming this week that will share what it is) but this years word of the year came to me totally from intuition and I feel like it was the right choice.

One of the things that is helping me feel so beautifully engaged with my work right now is the wonderful Jennifer Lee‘s workshop this past weekend on CreativeLIVE. It was a 3 day Right Brain Business Plan workshop and though I’ve done lots of RBBP activities with Jenn before, revisiting them always brings things out big new revelations and lets me dive even deeper.

An incredible thing that happened too which was I was invited to join in for a skype call live with Jennifer during the workshop. I shared some of what I had done in the activities and then what unfolded was a beautiful conversation with Jenn and the online audience. They asked some wonderful questions and I felt comfortable just being me and sharing a bit about my business and the vulnerabilities and adventures that happened along the way. I felt so seen, heard and that what I had to say was helpful to other creative entrepreneurs. Thank you so much to Jennifer and CreativeLIVE for having me.

I’m actually kind of head over heels for CreativeLIVE now. Their format for workshops is that it is free as you watch it live (and then you can purchase a download of the course which you very much might want to to)! What I found extra special was the way they have moderators who help bring forward the online audience’s questions so you really feel like you are a part of the workshop, even if you are sitting at home in your p.j’s!

I’m crossing my fingers this deeply engaged feeling sticks around as it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the self-doubt gremlins to get ahold of me and I think last year contained a bit too much of that for my liking. I’m mighty happy for the respite from it and this newfound space to just create, write, photograph and dream in a deeply engaged, YES provoking, heart-filled kind of way.

I always try to make my days productive, but the last few days have had me taking leaps and bounds into projects I had a lot of fear around getting started (the resisting a big dream kind of fear) and I’m excited to keep this momentum going.

I so truly wish the same for you on your creative journey too…

June 1, 2012

The ‘Be Yourself’ Business/Life Plan

So, in this second year of running a business, things are changing.

I’m asking for help. I’m getting advice. I’m patting myself on the back for flying by the seat of my pants and showing up for myself in this first year of business and getting myself this far. But now its time to learn more about how to run a business. So I’ve been going in search of business advice.

Here’s what is coming up though. I thought I could use advice about how to make better newsletters, to get more students or how to spread out and get more people to hear about my classes. That indeed would be good, but what I want more than that is to have it all more infused with who I am.

You see, I’m an introvert and am pretty private in a lot of ways. It may not seem like it, but that is indeed the case. When I shared that list from the last post a friend said “If you’re inside a box, where must I be?!”. We all have these boxes we find ourselves in. Some of them we can deal with, others…not so much.

My ‘professional’ me is still totally me, but muted. I’ve guilted myself about it but really, in person I’m like that too…I don’t spill it all out as soon as we meet but once we get to know each other the gregarious, emotional, silly and sometimes even wise me comes out.

We all live in boxes of some sort, don’t we. Have these spaces we try to fit ourselves into.

I’ve been trying to fit myself into a box of what it means to run a business. What I think I should be doing. I mean, I am doing my best of course! I’m proud of the way I’m showing up in this creative life.

The thing that happens for me is that when I put myself in a box, I resist it at the same time. Holding it in until every so often I just need to burst out of it in a really dramatic way. That rocks, but what I want more than that is to poke holes all through the box from the inside so the light pours in. Keep poking those holes until the darkness within the box has turned to light and there is no need for it anymore.

I made a list of ways I want my business (and life) to fit more with that ‘be yourself’ business/life plan and its funny what came up. Its not the dramatic big things that I want to pull out to let you know me more. Its the little things.

Like how I have a really big laugh and am totally silly…which most people don’t get to see until they know me really well.

The quirky me. I feel like that comes out in my photos, but oh…there is still much more quirkiness to appear.

I also started thinking about how there are so many ways that we can ‘be ourselves’. That it can speak through words, graphics, photos, videos and that for each way of ‘being myself’ I want to let out, there is a way that it can best speak….one of those things. So I’m going to see what comes up and how it can best be given a voice.

So be prepared for more silly viv. More quirky viv. More playfulness. More feistiness. More truth telling.

More poking of holes in some box that I needed to be in in order to rise into this part of my life, but that it is time to step out of.

I know we all have boxes we’re in and we don’t necessarily need to break it down in one fell swoop. Is there a way you could poke one hole in a box you’re in in your life and let some light in? Maybe that is smiling at a stranger or wearing that outfit you love even if it is a bit outside of the box. Or take a silly picture too and share it here? Lets let the light into these spaces where we let ourselves be boxed in!

May 30, 2012

Be Yourself

April 10, 2012

A Change of Scene!

So, you may be noticing that things look very different around here!

Yes, its true. I changed up the site big time.

And yes, a mere month ago I just made the jump to redesign the site and the big move from Squarespace to WordPress.

So why a change so soon? Why a change at all?

Creating a new website is a big deal. Do I hire someone? Do I use a template? What is my visual branding? What should it look like? What energy will it give off? How will it be organized?

My priority in making this move to wordpress was to create a site that was more user friendly and easy to navigate. When I started doing e-courses and then more e-courses I just added pages onto my site and it felt so disorganized in terms of navigating it. Then Icreated another separate site. Then realized I really should only be attempting to manage one site at all!

I didn’t at all feel like I had enough of those above questions answered that I was ready to hire someone to create a site that I would feel at home in for years. I didn’t feel ready to invest thousands of dollars into a custom made site (though there are some incredible designers I have in mind if I want to make that move someday) so I went with a template from the company Prophoto.

ProPhoto and their incredible templates are based on WordPress. I can’t sing their praises enough. Their templates are breathtaking and they make it very user friendly to work with wordpress.

I jumped in, bought a template with them, then realized that that template simply didn’t work for me so I tried out one of their free templates which is what I ended up using. Even at this point I had learned so much about what I’m looking for in a site. I highly recommend playing around with the free template options of whatever company you work with as it can teach you so much about what you are looking for!

So the flowery site met many of my needs, felt like the whimsical part of me and my work, so I went for it.

I do indeed love that site, but for a few reasons have realized that it doesn’t let other parts of me have room. As my dear friend Liz has been saying to me lately “Yes, you are twirly skirts and pretty shoes, but you’re also skinny jeans and leather jackets”. As in, yes, I do want to let the whimsy have a place in my website but there is also so much of me who doesn’t really fit in with a flowery site like my last 2, the part that is urban and quirky.

As well, as a part of the Hello Soul Hello Business class I was one of four lucky participants to be able to have a mentor session with the teachers of the class Kelly Rae Roberts and Beth Nichols. Kelly Rae and Beth truly made me feel supported, encouraged and believed in during this session as well as giving me some wildly useful constructive criticism, mainly focused on how I can improve my website.

The great thing about constructive criticism is that you can either go for it or if it really feels like what you had to begin with was in alignment with your heart, you can stick with it.

After getting their feedback on the site, I really pondered it and much of it rang true.

So, once I got that feedback from Kelly Rae and Beth I was ready to just jump on it and change the entire site up. Yet I wanted to let it soak in. I wondered if it was too soon to make a change. And then, like the move from squarespace to wordpress, I kept on returning to the idea “Why Wait”?

What I’ve realized is that this lovely first site design is like a fabulous piece of clothing I found in a store. It fit, it worked and it made me smile.

But then I found another one, that not only worked, but felt like home, felt even more me.

So I’m switching it up!

I promise I won’t be switching it up every month but I’m glad I made the change (and you’ll see even more changes appear here in the coming month). I learned so much by creating that last site, so much so that I needed to move to a different one. Sometimes we have to make something that feels almost right in order to discover what feels totally right.

So take a peek around because things are a bit different here!