The Exquisite Expansion of Being

January 2019 Collage

Today at work I took the cellophane off of the wall art, and tacked them into place. This felt like an open, wiggly thing to do. One wise comment was "it looks like your committed to staying."

I park my car pointing in the direction back home; I leave parties when it's time--without bothering to find the host. Better to send a "loved the party" email complete with pics.

So I'm not sure what "committed" means. But it has more to do with being present than leaving or staying ever could.
That's what my collage created out of a 2018 calendar is all about: being.
I collage because it's messy, get down fun. I speed through magazines, grabbing images that grab me. Sorting and trimming and gluing, oh my! Any image goes. The process is deeply embodied and soul satisfying. At the end...ta da!!!
This year, I'm blogging about hanging with my hanging. Each month a new collage, and a whole lot of heartfelt deliciousness. 

Join me as I talk about the Creative Self, your heart's desire and the exquisite expansion of being.

Creative Journaling and the Ladder of Affirmations

Before I discovered the Creative Journal method, I was run ragged by my emotions. It was often difficult to distinguish what I really felt from what I should feel and near impossible to deal with conflicting feelings.

            I was also born a right-brainer and latched on to the feel-good practice of affirmations before I understood the principle behind them. I believed that simply repeating an affirmation was the way to move out of sadness. Instead of staying with the emotion of sad, I tried talking myself out of being sad by masking sad with positive slogans.

Esther and Jerry Hicks, authors of Ask and It is Given, say that this is like putting a happy face sticker over your car’s empty gas gauge. The Hicks teach that our feelings are indicators of our emotional guidance system: they are simply there to tell us where we are on the emotional ladder. The reason why we want to know this is because of the Law of Attraction. Remember? Sad begets sad, anger begets anger, joy begets joy. An extremely simplified version of the Law of Attraction states that the primary feelings that we are living in this moment will attract feelings of vibrational equality in our future moments. So yes, we want to feel the sadness as it comes up, but we don’t want to be stuck there! 

It is one thing to feel and honor our emotions, it is quite another to become a victim of our emotions. Picture a ladder where the top rung is joy, and the bottom rung is depression or hopelessness. If I’m starting at depression and want to reach joy, there are several rungs that I need to reach in between. And each time I move up the ladder, I will not only release my feeling of depression, but I’ll also be closer to joy. But each step needs to be felt, honored and released.

Before the Creative Journal process, I didn’t realize there was an emotional ladder of feeling vibrations, much less where I was on that ladder. But now that I understand that being with and accepting my feelings helps release the emotional energy, I am better equipped to enjoy life and all of its thrilling and contrary loveliness. 

Excerpt from My Body, My Car: How to Coach Yourself Through Life's little Accidents by Dorothy Segovia. www.writeinside.com.

Room to Dance

I was dancing in the living room this morning when I realized how little space I claim in my universe. I'd been dancing in a small corner of the living room, worried that my neighbors were going to see me. Silliness! I couldn't even move my arms because I didn't want to hit the lamp.

When I moved into further into the middle of the room, I was benefited with a view of Morro Rock.

This leads me to ask the question: What areas in my life do I keep myself confined to a corner???

Expanding ourselves through physical movement throughout the day keeps our perspective fresh and open.
This leads us to access intuition. When we regularly follow our intuitive voice, we are rewarded with passion and joy.

Ann Cuddy describes this in her powerful Ted Talk.

Beware! Practice equals more power.
What part of your life needs expansion?

Stepping into the Dream Stream

Recently, after receiving guidance to do a specific task, I had to call transformational guide Leyla Atwill, author of Ten Secrets of Living Your Dream, for a phone rescue. See, I've been applying for job interviews in Ventura, but I clearly got the download to go ahead and apply for work in Arroyo Grande. I did try to make myself feel better by stating that “well, Arroyo Grande is on the way to Ventura,” but waaaaahhhhhh!!! I want to be in Ventura already and feel that anything less is failure.

Leyla told me to think about it like this:

“The length of time it takes for me to accept and allow Ventura, is equal to the time it takes to manifest Ventura.”

Now I'm just scared.

According to her book, the top secret is for me to feel love for where I am, right now. This is the most important work that I can do. Developing a self-love practice is at the core of reaching my dream. The reason is vibrational alignment. If I feel as if not being in Ventura right this second is coming up short, then I'm coming from lack, which is a feeling place of not being enough.

However, if I see myself standing on the shore of a big river, with Ventura on one side and me on the other, my intuition to take action towards Arroyo Grande represents a stepping stone in the river. I can't jump the whole river at this point, but I can step across the water, stone by stone.

Now the question becomes, can I love myself while standing on an Arroyo Grande stepping stone on the way to Ventura? If not, why not?

These questions are presented as a guide to recognizing habits that keep me from wading into the river in the first place; habits that I have developed as a coping strategy to avoid uncomfortable feelings.

Once when a friend and I were hiking in the Angeles Crest mountains near Pasadena, we crossed a small but swiftly moving stream. We had to step quickly across four or five stones to continue the hike. As we approached, we saw a couple on our side of the stream. The man was standing next to a woman crouched on the bank staring into the water. She seemed hypnotized. He seemed impatient.

Her analysis paralysis kept her from taking the first step. I know this feeling well. In my quest to unwind the feelings behind procrastination and doubt, it is easy to get caught crouching at the edge of the water. Paralysis is different every week, sometimes every day. Television, DVDs—especially the educational ones, ice cream and even voracious attendance of 12-step meetings, can keep me from following my guidance.

That crouching woman could have easily been me. But I trusted my buddy's sure-footed step. I watched where he placed his feet and quickly followed. This is the same as trusting my guidance. Quite frankly, when I look back across all of the streams that I have crossed, my inner guide has never left me stranded.

Despite my hesitation or my enthusiastic jumping into the stream for an icy swim, as long as I was listening, I have always safely reached the opposite shore.

Right now Ventura is my dream. It symbolizes expansiveness, opportunity, and connection. These qualities do not live in Ventura, they live in me.

“The length of time it takes for me to accept and allow Ventura, is equal to the time it takes to manifest Ventura.”


Leyla Atwill is a transformational coach in Los Osos. She creates a safety net for her clients to recognize, embody and release the habits and choices that keep them from reaching their goals and dreams. She can be reached at (805) 439-0268.