“I’m not doing my creative work. I guess don’t take myself seriously enough. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes.”

THE TRUTH:

You’re fine, and you can change the story you tell yourself NOW.

Do your creative work today, do it tomorrow, and then tell yourself, “I am writing regularly now.” (I say writing here, but this is true for any creative work that comes from the soul.)

And you commit to yourself to keep up the streak. You make that as important as anything.

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to spend hours a day. Begin with minutes.

(I really do mean minutes. I’ve gone as low as 6 minutes. And anyone can find 6 or 10 or 15 minutes in their day.) (And yes, after you build your muscles, you can increase the time.)

You have the idea that you need two or three hours to “get into the right headspace.” And it’s true that there’s a spacious, free-flowing creativity that comes from having long stretches of time to devote to your work. I’ve gone to artist’s colonies, and I love that full creative immersion so much.

But minutes every day will get you further than one long stretch once every month or even every couple weeks.

Why? You’ve been there–you know. You look forward to that time, and then by the time you get there, the anxiety has started to build.

There’s a lot of pressure on this time. Your body feels antsy. You have the desire to eat, to clear your desk, to check your email. You do one of those things and you get pulled away. When you come back, there’s guilt–twenty minutes or half an hour lost. Maybe you succumb to more procrastination.

If you get to your work, it feels strange, foreign, like a dried tree branch not at all related to the living idea that first pulsed inside you. You have to reacquaint yourself with it. Who are these people again? What were you thinking last time??

Touching your work every day keeps it alive, keeps it connected to your beating heart and creative vision.

Make that time. You are worth it. You can do it.

Want to make 2018 the best it can be?

Here’s what I recommend: find a theme for the year.

Your theme connects all your goals, resolutions, and actions by identifying one fundamental quality that will help you reach your goals. Possible themes include courage, gratitude, creativity, abundance, love, spirit, power, healing, persistence, clarity, laughter, ease, curiosity, respect, fun… and more.

Your theme reflects how you want to BE and FEEL as you move through your year. Once you have your theme, you approach each day and action from that theme. Achieving your goals follows naturally.

I first used a new year’s theme in 2012. I was recently married and had just found out I was pregnant. I knew there were big things coming that year: buying and renovating a house; moving; leading a team of copywriters in a launch; leaving my intense advertising job to start a coaching business; and of course, growing a baby, going through labor and birth, and becoming a mother. I knew it could be incredibly stressful, and I knew I didn’t want to push through it, straining myself and my health. I wanted it to flow easily. So “FLOW” became my theme for the year.

In everything I did, I tried to flow. And, even I was surprised at the results. I didn’t feel overwhelmed. I moved through all the transitions—and led a copy team in an advertising launch, finished a draft of a story collection, and launched a new website for my coaching business.

There was a lot to do, and there were hard times (including a complicated labor and tough postpartum period ), but through it all, I kept flowing through my life, connected with my heart and supported by the universe and the people around me. I hadn’t expected it to be so effective, but it was. My theme connected me back to the flow I wanted, and everything else flowed from that.

How to create your theme for the year

1. What’s missing?

Look at the different areas of your life (career/life purpose, money, health, romantic relationship, friends and family, personal growth/spirituality, play and fun, physical environment). What is unsatisfying or missing?

2. What do you want?

Now write down what you want in your life this year. What are your goals? Big or small—put it all down.

3. How do you want to feel and be?

Ask yourself: What quality do you need to have to reach those goals? How would you like to feel as you move towards those goals? List all the words that describe how you want to feel and be in the coming year.

4. Choose a theme for the year

Now, look over your list (from #3). Choose one word that calls to you and sums up how you want to be this year. Say your word aloud. See how it feels. Close your eyes and imagine yourself moving through 2018 with that quality. How does it feel? If it feels right, that’s your theme!

(Send me a message telling your theme for 2018. I’d love to know! :-))

5. Live your theme!

Put your theme up where you can see it. Feel it in your body. If you want, you can dance it or create a vision board with images evoking your theme. Most importantly, focus on your theme as you move through each day—embody this quality and live your life from this theme.

Good luck, and may 2018 bring you all the blessings of your theme!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving is usually a time when we think about what we’re grateful for—blessings, successes, people we love, and more.

There’s magic in doing this: what we focus on expands, so when we focus on what we love about our lives, we bring more of those blessings into our lives.

And you can take the magic further: you can use gratitude to create what you want in life.

Creative Witchery magical tip

Here’s how: Give gratitude for what you truly desire (but which hasn’t yet appeared in your life). This may seem counterintuitive (how can you be grateful for what you don’t have yet?), but here’s why it works.

• When you’re grateful for what you want to create, that focuses your mind on it. You begin to feel that it’s possible. You visualize it.
• When you focus on what you want to create, you open to all the ways it can come into being. You start to experience serendipity: Opportunities, support, and ideas appear. People mention things or offer to help (especially if you share what you want!). Focusing on what you want brings more of it into your life.
• Gratitude amplifies this. When you feel gratitude, you’re in a positive state that magnetizes even more positive things (and people and opportunities) to you.

Let’s do it!

1. Think of what you want to create in your life.
2. Imagine it’s already here. Imagine it arrived in an easy, flowing, fun way. See what that’s like. Feel what it’s like to have it. See and feel all the ways that your life is richer for having what you want to create.
3. Give thanks for it. Give thanks to the Universe for all the support that allowed you to receive what you want in a way that was easy, flowing, and fun. Give thanks to yourself for all the ways you worked (and played) to bring it into being.
4. Now, as you go about your day, continue to give thanks. Stay in a state of gratitude and joy.
5. In this state, notice the openings and opportunities that appear. Act on them. Keep giving thanks, stay in this state, and stay in action.

Joy, love, and magic to you—

Emmeline

P.S. I’m grateful for you, my community, my clients, my colleagues and friends. I’m grateful for your commitment to yourselves, your strength and vulnerability, and the magic you work in your lives.

P.P.S. Here’s what I’m grateful for in advance: Creating a circle of community where members can get ongoing weekly advice to do their creative work. Launching new programs to help people find and free their real selves—and unleash their creativity. Bringing together a sisterhood of powerful women to learn the magic of creating what they want in life. Finishing another draft of my collection of stories about tea.

Why you need to be a WITCH

You have a dream, and you want do something big in the world. But maybe you don’t know what to do and you worry about making a mistake, so you don’t do much. Or maybe you keep your big dream hidden (you’re afraid people will think you’re ridiculous), so it never seems quite real.

This is why you need to be a witch.

A witch? What do you mean, you ask. An old, bent woman with a wart on her nose and green skin, plotting to eat young children? An evil, vindictive woman running amok in the community, cursing her neighbors and destroying the crops? An old crone who casts spells to get what she wants?

Think about those witches, I answer. Ugly. Selfish. Undesirable. Old. Mean. Crazy. Uncontrolled. Devious. Evil. Alone. And, in the end, punished and burned at the stake.

Deep down, is that what scares you? Do the voices in your head say, “You’re selfish. The children will suffer!,” “You should have started this years ago,” “You can’t do that and have a normal life. You’ll have to give up too much,” “No one will want to be with you,” or “You’re crazy to think people want your writing/art/coaching/healing process! Maybe you have some talent, but get real—you can’t really make it!”

Here’s the thing: As long as you’re hostage to those fears… you will be a fraction of the Real You. Less joyful, less magnetic, less fulfilled. Less alive. And, as long as you’re keep your dream hidden inside because you worry what other people will think, your dream will stay just that—a hazy vision in your head.

The Creative Witch burns through those fears with her passion and determination. Cuts through them with the insight of her mind. Flows through them with the sweetness of her love. Grounds them deep in her body, knowing that She is so much more than her fears.

Yes, there are those who will call her a witch—and everything negative that goes with that word. The Creative Witch knows that on the other side of every insult is her power. She knows: When the fears and projections don’t stop you, the Real You can emerge… and lead you to the life you want.

She’ll look the name-callers and the naysayers in the face and then stride past them to dive into her deep, raw, messy work… and come out on the other side with shattering art that moves people to tears. She can be wild or fierce or surrender all control… because that’s the message from her soul. She’ll bend down to call softly to child, then hold it close. She’s quiet enough to let the insight bubble up, and confident enough to let love guide her. She will dance, thrum, drum, move to the ecstatic beat of her heart. She changes herself, and she changes the world.

She’s wild. Insightful. Transformational. Creative. Holy. Ecstatic. Real.

And she is YOU… if you will let yourself be Her.

Play with this: What do you really want?

Get real. What do you really want? And what’s stopping you?

Free write for five minutes without stopping, controlling, or editing what comes out.

Now look at what you’ve written. What do you need to do? What change do you need to make? What action will you take?

Election night, I felt shock and disbelief.

The day after the election, I felt real personal vulnerability—but also a strength and resolve I hadn’t felt in a long time. I know so many of us are afraid for our safety, for people we love, for our democracy and for the planet, and feel regret at not having done enough to prevent Trump’s election.

For me, a sense of safety and support was smashed when we lost. I am a person of color, Asian American, daughter of immigrants, bisexual, religiously nontraditional (Wiccan), and have a mother with a disability. Trump has explicitly scapegoated, threatened, or mocked people like me and those I love.

For myself, I wondered, if Trump starts a trade war with China that becomes real war, would I be seen as the enemy? Beaten up in the streets for looking Chinese—even though I’m actually Taiwanese American? Rounded up and put in an internment camp like the Japanese Americans during World War II? A part of me was looking at every Trump voter, wondering, “Is this what you support? You voted for this man after hearing his hate, racism, and venom.” And a part of me was looking at every white person, wondering, “If this happened, would you have my back?”

But here’s what I also know: I am strong, and I will not give up this country. (more)

originally published in The Huffington Post