I started the A Muse’s Daydream podcast during the pandemic for sanity reasons. I’m a rather stoic individual so I try to focus on what I can control and let go of the rest. Writing funny, mindfulness stories, recording, and engineering the episodes was what I could do from my quarantined pillow-fort to keep me from eating entire pizzas. I had no idea I’d be doing it for three and a half years.
As part of the continued celebration of 20 years teaching Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching, I just finished the Creative Thought card deck. I illustrated it, added some quirkiness, but most importantly provided some helpful tips from what I teach to keep our creativity going deeper. I made many cards, but I limited the deck to 50. (Card decks available for purchase soon, subscribe for updates).
Doing the Creative Thought cards freed me from a little prison called Resistance. After I took a break from the podcast, I was a little lost as to what was next perhaps from the trauma of the pandemic. I have three books wanting to be written but I wasn’t excited enough about them to foil the block.
One of the hallmarks of KMCC is low pressure and small steps, which ironically get people further than high pressure that comes from insisting on an amount of time, words, and/or desired productivity. Our creative processes work best and are most enjoyable when they are irresistible, intuitive, and intrinsic, not based on extrinsic motivation or high pressure goals that work for someone who’s been doing it for years.
I keep hearing advice to work EVERY DAY, even if it’s just TWENTY MINUTES, and make sure you do a CERTAIN AMOUNT of work. That’s pressure, that creates resistance. If you miss a day, you have a feeling of failure. Twenty minutes is too long for the resistant. If you do fifteen five days a week, you’ve failed. Margaret Atwood admits that she tells people to work every day… but she doesn’t. Oppression works for a very small part of the population.
I break out of my resistance by asking myself to do 30 seconds of anything creative that energizes me before I resort to social media rabbit holes and dopamine addictions. THIRTY SECONDS… I do it dailyish because I’m human.
But how did I get three books, 70 podcast episodes, fifteen years of articles, a play, six art shows, twenty retreats, and a coaching curriculum completed with 30 seconds at a time? After 30 seconds there is a momentum that is automatic, it’s irresistible, and run by intuition. The child inside me is engaged and can’t be stopped because its having fun not following an oppressive protocol. The “shoulds” are no longer necessary. I keep coming back. I want soul-inspired fun.
It's a better brand of dopamine.
Another Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training is scheduled June 13-October 11, 2024. Now taking applications. More here
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Hi ,
2024 is the twentieth anniversary of Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training and the 21st anniversary of the publishing by Penguin-Putnam of my first book, The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard).
I've since bought the rights and in celebration of 20 years, I updated it, ( for the fourth time), which it badly needed because it was published before things like podcasts and social media . I've also shortened it for our 21st century compromised attention spans.
It has color illustrations. Same humor, mindfulness, prompts, and profound ways to get through creativity.
So Aha-phrodite, Albert, Bea Silly, Audacity, Lull, Spills, Muse Song, Shadow Muse, Marge, (and the Bodyguard) - which are powerful creative principles in the guise of Muses, are back. If you want to catch them in their 2024 form, order here.
Watch for Muse Group Facilitator Course coming up this Spring.
Here's an excerpt:
Every mortal has some way to be a creative beacon. Whether it be to make luscious variations of portobello spaghetti sauce, to write a ditty about falling stars for the girl at the wi-fi cafe, to invent a fugue in D, a duet in E, and a ballad in Biloxi, to dance wild new steps to silly old songs, to smile radiantly from the heart, or to create awe in the studio audience of the mind, of life, of the effervescent magic of the soul—every mortal has a creative light just waiting to shine brighter.
To be creative is, yes, to do art. It has also been identified as one of the top qualities of an effective manager and the edge a successful entrepreneur has on competitors. It is an inner beauty that radiates on the outside no matter what age you are. Creative expression is the beacon your soul mate will detect to find you. It is the key to relationships that flourish, and the means through which parenting becomes joyous. It is the tool that takes a mundane reality and makes it extraordinary. Creative problem solving is the answer to life’s most challenging dilemmas. If you choose to be creative, life is a fulfilling journey where wonder awaits every twist of thought and turn of attitude.
"First edition was life changing. So thanks for that! Brava and cheers!" ~Eber Lambert
Spills: the Muse of Practice, Process, and Imperfection will be making a guest appearance at the Let's Talk Creativity workshop this Saturday 9:30 pacific, 12:30 eastern will be about getting through the feeling of never being and never doing enough... Creativity's Evil Step Sister - Perfectionism. For newsletter subscribers there's a discount: $15 Includes recording
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Check out a little Wild Abandon Art here: Blind Memory art demo of a teapot
I’m sitting in a little outdoor café (not really, but let’s pretend), sipping a cappuccino and painting a swatch of blue that, with a little intentional wildness, becomes the Ligurian sea. It’s an abstract version of the sea because that’s the way my paint brush rolls. Perfectly steamed milk foam hangs out on my lips, and I don’t care.
Once the sea is dry, I paint in a guy with an Italian flag waving on the end of the boat he's rowing and I say, “Voila,” even though I’m on the Italian Riviera and not the French one. I’m under the influence of Wild Abandon so borders, rules, and cannoli don’t limit my autonomy.
As I let the rowboat guy dry, my fellow travelers and I free associate words, and then let them effortlessly form poems, funny prose, or something that surprises us because it borders on the profound. Or maybe it seems that way because the sea air is dizzying us to the enchantment of heightened inspiration.
The bright colors of the hillside homes, coordinate with matching laundry hanging window to window like flags of life being lived simply.
Adding creative explorations to a walking tour in Italy is like topping tiramisu with whipped cream served with an authentic cappuccino. Writing, sketching, and painting heighten an experience which is often treated like fast food when it should be a long lingering delicious banquet of beauty. They slow us down and connect us to a memory as its being made.
The Italian Riviera is more deserving of attention than the click of smartphone camera most travelers give it, eager to impress friends on social media. Impress yourself by making a trip to a beautiful land like a story inside a painting, savored by the eyes, ears and of course, the taste buds of an artist and the mind of a writer. (even if you don’t yet think you are one).
Italian Riviera…Rapallo, Portofino, Cinque Terre, Camogli and Chiavari: High on creativity and the occasional gelato. October 14-20, 2024
Creating some memories in the best possible way.
Wild Abandon Cappuccino,
Jill
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Back when Thor first drew a bison on the wall of his cave with torch soot, he was pretty impressed with himself. He pointed to it so Troshe, his woman, would notice and be proud, or … maybe turned on. He didn’t then go to Instagram to upload a snapshot of the sketch (#bison) and while scrolling, notice that across the savanna, Vilk had already drawn a bison and in fact, had rendered it larger and better than Thor’s, causing him to feel discouraged, envious, and maybe even so despondent he didn’t notice the saber tooth tiger ready to devour him. He just remained encouraged and then maybe happily added a horse. “Good Thor!” say Troshe.
The visibility of what people are creating, accomplishing, and happily experiencing is in our face more than it ever has been in any other time in history. We can see what everyone is doing, and it sets up the perfect conditions for feeling imperfect.
When comparison ensnares me in its grip of toxicity, I have learned to add a bit of mindfulness to get untangled from its claws.
Here are four of the things I do when I catch myself feeling crappy due to comparison but one of the most important parts is catching myself, because comparison is insidious, habitual, and a big part of our culture:
Embrace Being Human: Say to myself, “Aha! I am comparing myself again. We do that as humans.” Comparison comes with being human, I’m not alone. This mindfulness act makes me an observer, a witness rather than a victim. Normalizing our common humanity often calms our concern because when discomfort comes with who we are as a tribe, it doesn’t feel so personal.
Practice one of my favorite mantras:
“So what, I’ll do my thing anyway.” It’s sounds a little bratty and it is, but bratty can actually be an agent of transcendence, resolve, and courage to plow forward. Saying “So what?” when I see someone I perceive as surpassing me, reframes the reaction to, “Yeah, they’ve done something I probably can’t do/aren’t doing (yet), but I’m not getting my knickers in a twist about it. I’m on my own path. Then I might add, “There are many things I’ve done that I CAN celebrate.” We often go into amnesia when we see the work of others, forgetting we have done some remarkable things ourselves.
Go Low:
Max Ehrmann’s in Desiderata says, “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” The ego is the part of us that gets vain and bitter when it sees something it interprets as greater than ourselves. The ego is fear-driven and often subject to irrational, lower consciousness thinking. So sometimes to satisfy its bottom feeding, I secretly experiment with comparing myself to someone who just started out or who seems to be on the wrong track simply to mollify my ego’s arrogance. This works in a slightly off-handed, tongue-in-cheek way, but that can be enough to get me out of the evil vortex of feeling less-than so I can contribute something productive to the world which is a way to rationalize this as a higher intention.
Go High:
Practice what is know in Buddhism as Mudita or sympathetic Joy which means being happy for others: If it’s a new concept, it works best to expect just 5% or asking yourself how it would feel to be happy for someone rather than envious … without need in an answer.
Another way to stay ‘high” is instead of separating myself from others by listening to the ego say, “Look what she did and you didn’t,” I say, “Look what WE did.” The thought, “look what we did as women, creative people, artists, writers, or humans,” unifies us instead of keeps us separate, competitive beings. Funny thing is, the subconscious doesn’t know I’m not talking about me and fills with a satisfaction of accomplishment that motivates me to keep moving in my own process. Add to this the Buddhist concept of “Mundita” or sympathetic joy which is the practice of feeling joy rather than competition for people who are doing well. If it’s a new concept, it works best to be realistic and expect just 5% of feeling more joy or asking yourself, “How it would feel to be happy for someone rather than envious?” … without need in an answer.
Comparison is the alienation of oneself. It taints our desire to continue the expression of who we are in our own way. The next time you feel comparison’s disenchantment, give one or all of these antidotes a try and see if you can return to the adventure of who YOU are. ~Jill
The Taos retreat and KMCC Certification Training are Full but there ARE a few places in my Creativity Walk in Italy with The Blue Walk Tour!
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I’ve spent a career teaching how self-judgment works against us in the creative process.
I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with my own harsh self-judgment, so I have the requisite compassion to understand its costs. I realized a kinder approach actually works better.
Once we’ve made it to a place of near completion, there is time is to be discerning, but the process requires permission to start out crappy, make mistakes, and tolerate not being able to bring into reality the exact thing we envisioned. We need that freedom for the unfettered enjoyment that leads to the best end products. And just for the unfettered enjoyment, period.
The inner critic comes with being human, but it is vital to our success and enjoyment as creative people to persist in spite of it. In this regard, the creative process is an opportunity to create a better, more resilient self as we learn to be there for ourselves with compassion. Let's create happier us's!
“Berating yourself for being stupid does not make you smarter.”
Listening to Amanda Knox in her series called Resilience on Sam Harris’s app, Waking Up, is the first time I heard that logic reached as she contemplated the self-judgment she was feeling while being incarcerated four years for a murder she did not commit. Then I ironically slapped myself on the forehead and said, "Duh!"
“Berating yourself for being stupid does not make you smarter!!!”
[worth repeating]
Along the same lines, berating yourself for not feeling good enough, or, as good as other the artists or writers you see on social media; or for procrastination, resistance, or hesitance is not a smart strategy to improve the quality of your work or to get you to working on your creative pursuits when you’re not. It often does the opposite.
It’s what we naturally do because that’s how evolution wired us, but it’s why we need to be ready to shift our thinking when we notice we are ineffectively judging ourselves again.
Van Gogh had this strategy... that's what the episode Starry Starry Determination is about. And it's 2:24 minutes long.
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
Vincent Van Gogh said that. In less than 10 years, he painted almost 900 paintings – the voice that told him he couldn’t paint… didn’t have a chance.
Now picture yourself fueled by this sentiment.
Think this: There’s something I want to do but I’m not feeling that good at it, or, I feel others are better than I am, or that it’s not something I can ever do, or I’m too old, I don’t know where to start .. but by all means I’m going to do it …. paint, write, dance, speak, build my business, and head toward that creative north star that is calling my name anyway.
I don’t need to be perfect, but I do need to find enjoyment along the way … with patience and curiosity.. because the more I allow for the process to be enjoyable, the more I will, by all means doggedly stay with the process until the doubting voices pull up a chair beside me and start giving me ideas instead of discouragement. Or maybe they could write a critique for tuna casserole.
If you hear a voice within you say you cannot be creative in any way say: Thanks for sharing…I’m doing it anyway.
Let's Talk About Creativity
The Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training was recognized by Life Coaching Magazine as the best creativity coaching available. Now the tools and approaches that won it that honor are shared monthly, starting in January in a Zoom Session called Let's Talk About Creativity. We will talk about ways to get through procrastination and talk about what we love about what we do. Free to members of The Underground.
]]>“Through the ordinary state of being,
we’re already creators in the most profound way,
creating our experience of reality and
composing the world we perceive.” ~Rick Rubin
Living in a creative way benefits everything in our life. Combined with mindfulness, creativity not only gives us a pleasing forms of resilience, strength, and coping, but it also elevates us to one of the most treasured states of being alive.
Unexpected joy, self- amusement, and accidental masterpieces are possible when we engage in just small ways in our creative calls, and in this current world of tragedy, loss, and division… how nice is unexpected joy? There isn’t a limit to creativity, it keeps unfolding our existence with new wonder, skills, and connections.
I’ve been studying, teaching, and immersing myself in the creative process since the 80s. In doing so, I have created a style of art and inspirational humor that entertains me, written three and a half books and performed one woman shows, podcasts, and performances. I’ve brought copious writings and art pieces, creative curriculums, retreats, and thousands of creative prompts into existence. But I’ve also used creativity and mindfulness to get through a life of loss, estrangement, and abuse. It’s a coping skill with side effects I can be proud of and has given me a well of ever-new awe.
What’s clear as I move in my 20th year of teaching a creativity coaching training?
When people have the space held for them in a compassionate, unpressured, light-hearted way, it becomes a scaffolding for brilliance, clarity, and enjoyment that may not be possible on their own. When experiences are dispatched and inspiration distilled in a way the defies today's overwhelming information explosion, we can take bite-sized pieces, apply them to ourselves in a meaningful way, and run with them.
I’ve had the same epiphany, over and over – I think solitude is all I need, justifying my introversion and stubbornness, but when I share my ideas with a trusted person or group, new ideas and insights emerge because different neural pathways are triggered when we speak out loud, than when we think or write. Intuitive questions steer me to new places.
I’m excited about offering such a space for people who want to make more time for creativity but often find procrastination, distractions, time challenges, overwhelm, resistance, the inner critic, doubt, and comparison get in the way.We will talk about our process, be inspired by the current and classic teachings, experience the tools that have helped thousands in the last twenty years get through all the usual suspects, and find a new energy for our creative lives, thus improving its quality.
Let's Talk About Creativity
Make creativity a priority in your life, it really IS the gift that keeps on giving.
First meeting is Sat November 18, 9:30 am pacific/ 12:30 eastern
and is discounted for willing participants. Space is limited
And now a little bit of metaphorical silliness,
with a dash of inspiration.
This is the Script for a Powerpoint about Lightning Bugs as Ideas
Powerpoint not available (in any reality)
This first slide is a cross section of
my mind coming up with an idea for a poem.
Look carefully.
Notice the new idea is not a light bulb
like you see in cartoons
It’s a lightning bug.
In the brain, ideas manifest as lightning bugs.
Sometimes they flash “on” when a description
“shows us rather than tells us,”
(How the spoon on the table caught the light from the moon).
Other times when sentences are too general…
(The moon is out tonight),
The lightning bugs dim.
In this next slide you see lightning bugs
flying chaotically in every direction,
running into each other, crawling every which way.
Those are all the untamed ideas I have…
ideas that are foiled by distractions, indecision, and too many Oreos.
They are not nearing any valid poetic idea at this point.
Some of them are watching Netflix.
One of them died in my oatmeal.
See the one over here on the left?
Let’s look at him magnified on the next slide.
He’s wearing a beret and smoking a cigarette..
See how his butt is brighter than the other Fireflies?
This is what it looks like when a poem is about to show up in my mind.
That was last Thursday.
Alas, he flew to Toledo with Margaret, a butterfly he charmed, on Friday.
On this next slide
There are a couple of bright lit
beginnings flying around.
It was exciting.
Unfortunately, next slide,
Here they were smashed against a windshield.
Look at this lightning bug..
He’s trying to corral other lightning bugs into some stanzas
for the beginning of a poem.
about coffee, the fog in San Francisco on a
September morning, and the slipper left under a chaise lounge.
See how my brain lit up from the anticipation of a new poem?
I am hopeful.
If you close your eyes right now,
(don’t do this if you’re driving, operating heavy machinery, or frying chicken),
on the inside of your eyelids you will see lightning bugs.
Keep them alive. Write a poem.
^ from my one woman show a few decades ago
Sunday, Nov 12 (Tomorrow), for a little fun, catch me being
featured performer at a local poetry reading that is
also televised via Zoom. My husband will be playing trumpet on a few pieces.
3pm pacific time you can join here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9908145215?pwd=QXRWb0IrK05BemEvY1VQbWVtTU9Edz09
Image above left from craftsy.com
Frequently I have clients who can’t decide on an idea/project/step .
“There’s so many!”
This is often the illusion of thinking there’s a “right” one to start with. Or a right way to start. That's stressful.
High pressured expectations are up there in the top five reasons we procrastinate, are overwhelmed, and get paralyzed ... then feel stuck and may I add, cranky?
Lowering expectations is paradoxical brilliance because it’s one of the only ways to produce work we end up loving. The process is relaxing so genius is more willing to have tea with us. Everyone’s got genius, just sometimes it’s hanging out at the bar down the street because there’s too much pressure at home.
What I sometimes say is, "Just decide on anything, particularly if it's in the direction of a little zing of curiosity laced juju, an inebriation with incoming possibility, and an invitation to that altered state of consciousness we love so much, .... creativity. Pick the project that makes your childlike spirit exclaim,
“THAT ONE and also maybe THAT OTHER ONE too.” (Two or three projects is a good number for many, some prefer one.)
Don't Let Your Want for Perfection,
Become Procrastination
Once in the process, #first_name#, your decisions can become instinctual, at least for a little bit, but you have to suspend the need to do it perfectly because that’s like having a boss breathe down your neck and intuition gets steamed up when that happens and steamed up intuition is hard to grasp.
Staying with it, we get information we couldn’t possibly get anywhere but IN the process. Deliberation can be debilitating, ready-fire-aim!.
Smart questions:
How can I make this fun?
How can I simplify this?
How can I lower the pressure?
Just asking these questions make the process more enjoyable, which will beget perseverance, which brings confidence ,which is a conduit for intuition, which makes for easier decision-making… I’d show you a flow-chart but my juju is pointing me toward painting.
. I can hear my watercolors calling, red is the loudest, obviously.
There Ain't No Ballerinas in Hip Hop
I wasn't prepared for what happened in hip hop class, but I'm glad it did.
all rights reserved to be imperfect
(R) 2023 Jill Badonsky
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