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The seedlings of this idea came to me almost a year ago, and since then it’s been slowly taking shape. It’s morphed, evolved, and become what it is today in a way that has me totally dumbfounded and humbled at the wonders of the creative process. I was actually feeling pretty stuck with it at one point. Not even totally realizing I was stuck, because I was so busy running my other ecourses, putting on YxYY, traveling, and feeling *completely over the moon* in my growing coaching business.

But this one kept knocking at my door.

I’d have new ideas for it all the time. I’d write them down, share them with friends, and get super excited. I’d make some progress here and there. I’d record a video, write some emails, schedule some plans… but somehow it just wasn’t coming together. Then recently – actually just a short 30 days ago! – it all came to me like a lightning bolt. WOW is that a cool feeling.

Couldn’t be more fitting really, because it literally felt like the door blew open, and the crisp fall air brought in leaves of clarity and guidance. It was like finding the last few pieces of the puzzle, and having the whole picture finally come together. Huzzah!

What a gift…  This year I’ve taken to calling myself a Doula for Hatching Big Ideas. Not only is it more interesting than saying I’m a Coach & Creative Business Consultant, but it really holds such a deep resonance for me. I help birth beautiful ideas. Ideas that light up people’s hearts!

I love that I get to work with so many brilliant souls, coaching them through untangling their fears, experiencing major shifts, and supporting them as they make big, bold leaps in their lives, artistic passions and careers. I also love that I get to experience this process in my own life & business, with my own creations, and that the two are so closely married.

Feel all that love and celebration? 
I think that’s why I’m so excited to share Harvest & Thrive with you today.
This is me taking the next step on my path. This is my calling. This incarnation has been calling me for almost a year, and I listened. I listened and let it guide me, and here we are. It’s here!!

It’s also my gift to you. My way of serving the world. My way of sharing and giving all that I have learned in coaching others, and coaching myself through my own creative process. It feels like a gift to me to be able to share it with you! I think that’s what they call a win-win, which is pretty much my favorite way of doing business. 😉

I would love to have you join me for this experience. If not the entire course, then whichever one of the modules feels right for you (yes, they’re available individually)! It’s a grand experiment, and it’s going to be really fun to see what comes of it.

Thank you for reading my shmoopy post. I wish this feeling for everyone! 🙂

Big love & hugs,

The post Celebrating the launch of Harvest & Thrive! appeared first on WilloLovesYou.

I am crazy honored to have my Octohug drawing nestled on a page near awesome illustrations by some of my favorite artists: Gary Baseman, Keith Haring, Kozyndan, Ryan Junell, Ryan McGinness, Saelee Oh, Shepard Fairey, Souther Salazar, and so many more!

~ Buy on Amazon ~
OutsidetheLinesBook.com

For those who are unfamiliar with my history, Octohug was one of my first illustrations I had embroidered on baby onesies, and gocco printed on greeting cards when I launched my WilloToons product line in 2007!

I am so over the moon excited that this sweet illustration lives on in OTL, and will be colored by kiddos all over the land!!

Outside the Lines has been receiving a ton of amazing press, too. Check it out:

• Huffpo Arts & Culture: Coloring Book Geared Towards Art-Loving Adults Might Be The Best Thing We’ve Ever Seen
• Gizmodo: An Artist-Designed Coloring Book For Budding Creative Types
• Cool Hunting: Over 100 works of art by over 100 contemporary artists, for creatives of all ages
• Hello Giggles: Item of the Day
• Boing Boing: Kids’ coloring book of contemporary art
• Daily Candy: A Modern Take on the Coloring Book
• USAToday, Nylon Mag and many more! (Souris’ Pinterest board)

She even had a huge Book Launch party at MOCA that I wish soooo badly I could have been there for!  (I was in Oslo, Norway at the time.) LA Weekly covered it and published some great photos:

Souris Hong-Porretta & Shepard Fairey

The beautiful MOCA, which all artists received a membership to… I’m so excited to go!

View all OTL Book Launch photos by Nanette Gonzales, LA Weekly

I’ve even started receiving shout-outs from friends who are coloring my page!

This coloring book is truly SUCH a super cool creation. A perfect gift for kids AND art-loving adults, too. Gigantic thanks to Souris for including me!  

The post My Octohug illustration has been published in a coloring book! appeared first on WilloLovesYou.

“We were made to accomplish the easy
things and made to live through the things that are
hard.” ~ Charles Bukowski

We were made to accomplish the easy things.

There are a million little easy things that can eat up a day. This app has a number, check it. Clear it. Read it. Respond to it. Like it. Share it. Email it. Save it. Bookmark it. Make a note of it. Cross it off. Make a phonecall. Write it down. Make a mental note. Let it go. Talk it out. Pick it up. Put it away. Move it again. Water the plants. Take it off. Wave it away. Say hello. Kiss goodbye.

We were made to accomplish the easy things.

These things in our lives that challenge us like a game of bop the badger or whatever it’s called. We build blocks, and we knock them down. We build it again. We move it. We change it. We look at it. We like it. We hate it. We stop. We start again.

We were made to accomplish the easy things.

As I sit here, I hear the hum of the people in this cafe. I see the couple who just moved outside. Made a table their own. The petitioner outside saying hello. Wanting to talk. The guy who just threw his jacket on the chair to save it while he gets something to eat. The cars, taking a right. Stopping. Taking a left.

One foot in front of the other, we were made to accomplish the easy things.

I talk about this a lot – and have been holding it very consciously in this new/re-discovered chapter of my business: the importance of decomplexifying.

I feel like I have more control and awareness around this now. There aren’t necessarily a million things to do as there was before. And maybe that was my issue. I took on too much. I tried to do too much. I tried to do it all. I was being driven by ‘not good enough.’ And that not good enough meant I clearly wasn’t working hard enough. As trains move faster, do they need more coal? Or is there a centrifugal energy that actually enables them to require less coal as they propel themselves faster and faster down the tracks?

I have hit many times in my career that I’ve found myself working for hours. Working too hard. For too long. Perfectionism. Not knowing where to stop. Not prioritizing.

Stopping to do the admin work. Stepping back to recognize what’s the most important thing I need to be doing right now. What are my priorities right now, and what do I need to start working on right now in order to get where I want?

I feel like I’ve been doing great at this – but what does that mean to be doing great? What’s the measure for that? Who says so? What was the goal in the first place?

Setting goals and timelines is key.

We were made to accomplish the easy things, but with so many of these easy things in our lives, how often are we just on a hamster wheel, going from one thing to the next to the next, without any recognition of the path we are on, let alone the celebration of what we’ve accomplished thus far. This is important and crucial to our being conscious as we walk through this life.

Conscious choices.
Conscious steps.
Conscious accomplishment.

As an artist, it’s nice to be unconscious. It’s nice to roll through our lives in a flow, letting the current take us where it may. However, sometimes this can take us out to sea before we know it. And we must stay aware of the times when we we’re no longer steering our own ship. The current has us, and before we know it we’re wading in foreign waters. Having to paddle harder, and longer to find our way back to the bays where we live and the waterways we intended to take.

Feeling lost and coming home again is tied to how we are made to accomplish the easy things… and made to live through the things that are hard.

Originally written some time in February, 2013

The post We were made to accomplish the easy things appeared first on WilloLovesYou.

One of my long-standing habits has been to check my iPhone as soon as I wake up. Living alone, the thing is like my stand-in boyfriend. “Good morning, lover!” It’s a shot of endorphins, a form of communication to the outside world, and there’s usually something in there that reminds or tells me what I need to take care of today.

That can all sound great at the offset, but here’s the rub. What usually happens is I wake up, looking at my notifications through crusty eyes. Choose one (did you know that instead of swiping the unlock, you can swipe an individual notification to dive right into that one?) and the cycle would begin. Depending on where I started, it would usually involve checking text messages, then email, then Twitter, then Facebook. Maybe Instagram, then Path, then back to email or Twitter. Sometimes I’d do this for 15 minutes, or sometimes an hour. Quite frankly there’s something to be said for how awesome it is that the iPhone is this mini computer in your hands, and I actually could get a lot of work done right from my cozy bed. Well, “a lot of work” really is just answering emails and maybe some “research” (reading articles) and sending or scheduling social media (marketing).

The thing is, I started getting the same creeping feeling I have reading trashy magazines, where they brainwash you into thinking it’s all about pleasing your man and dropping 20lbs… but worse. As an ambitious artist and creative, that horrible comparison feeling creeps up, where you start feeling like everyone else is doing something awesome with their lives, “They’re so creative! So on top of it! So successful!” What happens here, with this dangerous creeping comparison feeling, is I start to forget MY purpose.

When you think about it, when we’re just waking up we’re in a very vulnerable place mentally and spiritually. We’ve just barely left dreamland, and our subconscious is still swimming and waking up. And here we’re bombarding it with news and status updates and emails and expectations all from the outside world.

I tried to kick this habit last month, and quickly realized how hard it was for me. “But I like looking at my iPhone in bed first thing!,” I whined. It seemed like a luxury that I didn’t want to give up. So my first step was to ask WHY. Why did I like it? What was it helping me do? How was this habit serving me, or rather how did I think it was serving me, given that I had started to identify that most often it wasn’t actually helping me feel great about myself or the day ahead.

For the most part I don’t think I totally got the reasons why I felt like I needed it so much until I actually STOPPED. I had to see what was left in the space between. I’ll get to that in a second.

Leading up to changing this habit, I mentally prepared myself. I first had asked my community, and loved hearing the varied responses on how others behave around this habit.

Do any of you bounce right out of bed after the alarm (or no alarm)? Has anyone sworn off snooze and/or checking your phone in bed? #fb

— Willo Sana (@WilloLovesYou) October 25, 2012

• View the varied responses on Twitter here »
• View the varied responses on Facebook here »

A few of them jumped out at me, one being from my mindful friend, MD, who said her intention with waking was simply to place her feet gently on the floor. I liked that.

@WilloToons I did a tiny habit that said after the alarm rings or I wake up, I sit up and put my feet on the floor gently. Worked great!

— M Dundon (@quietaction) October 25, 2012

Mati & I had been talking about changing this habit, and one day I led us through a clarity session around it:

Identify What’s Not Working
Get clear how your current habit isn’t serving you, and why you want to change it.

What do I want my morning to look like? How do I want to feel? Paint the picture for your ideal morning:

What’s my intention for creating this new habit? How will it serve me?

Write a Purpose Statement

With your vision in mind, create a purpose statement for how you’d like your day to look. Include words that remind you of who you are, that inspire you, and that define how you want to feel.

If it helps, you can use this as a starting point, “Today I choose to show up and…”

Implementing Change
We can talk about changing/creating a new habit until we’re blue in the face, but the real change happens when we make a commitment and take action.

For me, I find that it helps to not make some big arduous plan, but instead make the commitment to show up every day, and take it one day at a time. This helps keep me present and mindful. I also embark upon change with a keen sense of curiosity. As I said before, I want to see what shows up in the spaces in between.

November 1st I started.
For the first day I had my iPhone far away from the bed, so that made it easier. I had also written myself up a morning routine, inspired from the clarity session. Mine looks something like this:

Wake up, and gently be with the dreams I was just having

Feel my body. How was it all night? Cold? Hot? In one spot all night, or tossing and turning? Just a gentle hello to my body… which at that point may want to streeeeetch!

Almost like a meditation, I listen to any sounds that are around me. Either birds outside, or the mild hum of my refrigerator. Maybe there’s a mower or people talking as they walk by outside. Just listening.

To my surprise in the beginning, this process usually led me to naturally feeling like, “well, there’s nothing else to do here, so I guess it’s time to get up!” whereas usually I would have had plenty to “do” checking all of my emails, etc., therein giving me no reason to get out of bed. I also realized how much I was relying on my iPhone to “help” me wake up. Interesting to remind myself what it felt like to wake up without it. It feels amazing!

Also, a quick note on having the phone by the bed. As I said, the first day I had it away from me, but as I write this I’ve been keeping it next to my bed, to serve as an alarm if I need it. In the morning I will allow myself a quick scan of the notifications on the home screen, just to make sure there are no emergency calls or texts, but that’s it. I won’t even unlock it or read one if there’s not. It all can wait.

Placing my feet gently on the floor (thank you, MD), I then start the morning routine *I* want to have:

• Snuggle my kitty
• Put slippers on
• Go pee
• Put the kettle on for tea
• Maybe do any dishes in the sink while the water is boiling. I’ve actually found this surprisingly meditative right in the morning. The warm water. Being present with each dish and fork, and hearing the slow rise of the kettle as it heats up.
• Light a candle & sit down to write*

It can be so easy for us to dive into our days, tackling the tasks at hand, putting out fires, etc. As a small business owner I call this letting your business drive you (or run you over in some cases). As a creative – or anyone who wants to actually PRODUCE something into the world – it’s KEY you make space for creative output, and there is no better time than to do that at the beginning of the day, before all the outside world seeps in.

*You may choose to meditate, stretch, do yoga or go out for a walk. One of my intentions lately has been to write, write, write, so that’s been my choice for this initial time.

Regardless if your intention is to write, I’m a big believer in the Morning Pages (or Wild Writing, as Laurie Wagner calls it) for just getting it out and clearing all the stuff out that’s right on the forefront and potentially blocking the juicy creative bits underneath. As you start this practice, you become more aware of what wants to get down on the page. From the moment we wake we’re having thoughts, and I find there are usually patterns in the morning that I hear speaking to me as I walk to the bathroom, then walk into the kitchen, put on the tea and do a few dishes. I listen, knowing that I will be sitting down to let it all come out and be heard.

Both Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages and Laurie Wagner’s Wild Writing are usually done long hand. However at home, and with the projects I have as my focus lately, I’ve been enjoying doing mine on the computer. Thing is, sitting down to your computer first thing, where your email wants to get read, etc., can be challenging, so I have created a routine to set this as a sacred space for myself:

• I have my tea.
• I light a candle.
• I put my headphones in and I open Ommwriter. This provides an immersive, peaceful screen.

Ommwriter has really lovely music and sweet sounds that happen when you type, hence the headphones. Also, while you can save your Ommwriter files, I actually end up copying all the text I’ve written and pasting it over to Evernote to save them when I’m done. Ommwriter is simply where I write. I can then take that text and save it in my Journal Notebook in Evernote, create a blog post (as I’ll do with this), or add it to a larger book project. Bottom line is don’t do your editing in Ommwriter. Let it be a sacred space where you just write, write, write, unedited.If you have time constraits on your day, simply set the timer for 15 minutes, and give yourself that. This time isn’t about editing, it’s just about getting it out. As Laurie instructs us in Wild Writing, write horribly. Write really bad. Or as Ann Lamott calls it, “shitty first draft.” It’s just about getting it on the page.

At this point – gently waking up, making tea, and sitting down to write – I have given myself the first 30-40 minutes of my day. What a gift!

You may need to start getting ready to go to work, or you may want to get out and take a walk. Give yourself a break here to stretch and transition, even if it’s small. If you are working on a project that needs more creative time, now is a great time to dive in. You’re in the flow, you’ve cleared out the muck on top, and you’re ready to go deeper. If you’re an artist, get yourself to the canvas. If you have a book you’re working on, dive in & start.

Stay present with what comes up as you make these shifts. Where are you resisting? Resistance is a funny thing, because so often we resist the resisting. Like we’re in a battle with ourselves! And that’s exactly what it is. Work on being in relationship with yourself. Gently sit next to this resistance and ask what it’s afraid of? Listen, or better yet, write it out. Then – very important! – remind yourself who you are and what you want by revisiting the purpose statement that you created for yourself. Then, START.

This is Day 5 of 5 in my week of posting about forming new habits as a commitment to Creative Sustainability & self-care. It took me a little while to finally get this last one published… but next I’ll post an update on how they’re all going. Stay ‘Tooned!

The post Kicking the iPhone Habit appeared first on WilloLovesYou.

As a full-time artist and painter, Mati (prounounced like “Arrg, Matey”) has great advice on staying connected to your creativity while running a business. Furthermore, talking to Mati about her creative process is so inspiring. Not only for her brilliant artistic abilities, but for her willingness to consistently be brave. She doesn’t sugarcoat things when times are tough, and she’s very up front with how long and often challenging her path has been. Mati works from the heart! <3

To see what it’s all about, watch the quick trailer:

Loved it? Go check out the episode, and please leave a comment to say hello or let me know what hits home for you! Also, since this is only the second one in my little seedling of a series, I would love it if you would share it around to all the other creative beings in your life.

Put the trailer on your blog!
Grab the embed code by hitting the little share button on the video above, or you can embed it from Vimeo or YouTube.

Thanks for watching… and a big thanks to Mati Rose for sharing your wisdom! <3

The post WilloToons Connect Episode Two: Meet Mati Rose! appeared first on WilloLovesYou.