The January 2018 Art Journal Challenge is here!

Join me on Monday, January 1st 2018 for my second January Art Journal Challenge!

The basic level of this challenge is free. This year's challenge is going to focus only on art journaling (as opposed to last year which was a combo of both blogging and art journaling). If you are a blogger, you can still adapt the prompts for your purposes.  This year's challenge is also different because I've added an additional coaching element for those who feel they want or need additional support, guidance and feedback. The basic level is free for everyone. The coaching package is $100 and includes a 60 minute phone session at the beginning of the month and email coaching through out the entire month. One additional new aspect of the 2018 challenge is that there is a theme! The month-long theme is: SELF LOVE. I am very excited about this theme, and self love is something I've been promoting and developing as an integral part of my own healing journey and in my work as a therapist, coach & teacher.

How does the 31 Day Art Journal Challenge work?

1) Sign up in the form at the bottom of this post with your email. Basic participation in this challenge is free.

2) If you aren't in it already, join my Art Journal Lab Facebook Group. The Facebook Group is where you will receive your art journaling prompt every day. I will post each prompt the night before. The challenge starts on January 1st and goes every day through January 31st.

3) Optional: Add the $100 coaching package by clicking the image to the right or at the bottom of this post. The coaching package includes one 60 minute phone session with me at the beginning of the month as well as email coaching with me for the whole month of January. The coaching offers an opportunity for you to identify your challenges, intentions & callings and to receive personalized attention, support and feedback on your writing, arting and self love practices. Note: Once you have paid for your coaching session, you will receive an email from me with a link to schedule your session and some questions to get you started.

4) Do the prompts every day in your journal. Use whatever supplies appeal to you. I recommend an 8.5 x 11 blank journal. If you are in Todos Santos, I have those journals for sale. Send me an email if you'd like to purchase one. Otherwise, you can order a journal like the one you see on the right, here.

Another exciting option is to participate in the Sketchbook Project at the Brooklyn Art Library in conjunction with this challenge. Sign up for the Sketchbook Project by January 5th, by buying a sketch book from them, which you can complete as part of this challenge. After you are done, mail your filled sketchbook for them to keep in their library, which features the largest collection of sketchbooks in the world!

5) Feel free to post your art journal pages, questions, process, or anything that relates to the self love or the topic of art journaling in the Facebook group. That is your space to connect with others as well as with me.

6) If you enjoy posting your pages on social media, please use the hashtag: #31dayjournalchallengejan18

I imagine everyone's reasons for joining this challenge will be varied. It may be because you want to get back into your writing and/or your art again in a daily way. You may just be to learn about art journaling. For some, it may be an opportunity to have a quiet moment to connect with yourself. And for others, it might a wild time to experiment, with no goal other than to unleash your creativity. And for all of us, hopefully, it is simply a way to practice and increase self love! You may discover some new reasons along the way.

For me, this year's challenge is about three things:

1) To promote the inspiring, creative & healthy practice of art journaling

2) To build online community through creativity and authentic connection

3) To promote the practice of self love

What is art journaling?

Art Journaling is a process that combines visual art (drawing, painting, collage, or photography) and words. Art Journaling can consist of intimate journal entries, poetry, doodling, hand lettering, free associative writing, list-making, goal-setting and planning. Putting those two aspects of our experience together on the same page: visual and verbal is the common ground for all art journaling.

My version of art journaling is unique in that it combines techniques, theories, and assignments from my work as an expressive arts therapist and creativity coach. For the past five years, I have been teaching Art Journal Lab, a class that combines these techniques, in Todos Santos, Mexico, near where I live. I teach people the tools, philosophy and basic skills they need to interact with the different parts of self, which I refer to as the inner family of self. I create a structure that makes it possible to connect to the invisible parts that we feel, but don’t always acknowledge or express.

I have a Masters’s in Counseling Psychology, with a focus on Expressive Arts Therapy, meaning I use drama, dance, music, writing and visual art as a form of therapeutic intervention with the goal of integrating the personality, healing trauma and practicing new ways of being. I also teach creativity, not only for all types of artists, but for anyone who wants to practice a more empowered, creative and compassionate way of being in the world. I believe the most important relationship we have is with ourselves, but this is often the relationship that gets shoved by the wayside as we tend to prioritize everything else: our spouse or partner, our children, our work, our home, our family of origin. I believe if we cannot engage in a creative, conscious, curious and compassionate way with ourselves, we are not living up to our full potential and cannot offer the full version of ourselves to anything we do. The more we know ourselves, and ultimately, accept and love ourselves, the more good we can do for our families, friends, communities and our world. It’s an inside out approach—which is the reverse of what we have been trained to do in our culture.

You do not have to be a trained artist or writer to do art journaling. Anyone who can pick up a pen or pencil and has a blank book can do art journaling. There are no special supplies that are necessary, though I will be sharing some of my favorite tools on the blog. One of my life's missions is to show how everyone is creative, and that the arts were meant to be used by all of humanity as a tool to discover the soul, and to engage in life in a more balanced, compassionate way. Through our engagement with the arts, we are able to make space for expressing the darkness, the unconscious parts of the Self, instead of acting those parts out on others. It is particularly this, this engagement with the shadow (the parts of us we do not see or do now want to see, or feel) that is the creative gold of this work. When we have the courage to bring our light of consciousness to our own shadow, we are able to unearth our previously buried psychic energy so we can make use of even our darkest pain.

I know this not only from the work I have done with my students and clients, but also from my own personal journey, which I have shared at two different presentations at Women Awakening, a women’s summit in Todos Santos, of which I am a co-creator. In my talk, I shared my philosophy, artwork, music and personal story, about what it means to be yourself, which is about being, and ultimately loving, all your selves. Sharing this talk was a personal revelation for me, as I discovered what it felt like to open myself up and share authentically, weaving my professional, personal, intellectual and artistic life in one space. My goal, more recently, has been to integrate these disparate parts of myself. I have intuitively felt that this way we separate our different selves is not just a problem for me, but for many others, and especially for women, who struggle so much with disappearing into our roles. The goal is not to disappear into any one role, but to bring your whole self to every role you do, so you have access to all your selves whenever you need them. I believe this is the goal of human development. And through our working with what we are, in an honest way, we also access our spiritual power. It has been my experience that when we contact our soul, we open up to spirit, which helps us expand into more love.

The reasons I host creative challenges it to help connect people to their creativity, passion and personal truth. Doing something every day creates a new habit that is affirming and helps you grow--expanding your sense of authentic self that you bring into the world. It is most certainly a challenge to do something everyday with out fail. But it is also very rewarding, and the sense of accomplishment from completing a whole month with a daily creative practice is a real thrill.

I can't wait to see what it might do for you!

If you want to join me in this challenge, subscribe below with your email.

If you would like to add the $100 coaching package for personalized guidance and feedback, click the button below the form as well.

Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down

ZOELAB DAY 334

Original Date of Post: August 3 2013

A poem written to my inner child.

Don’t let the bastards get you down, my little one.

Be strong, and bring forth the parts you know to be true.

For if you do not, you will have not lived the life you were blessed with.

Little women are lucky to have a strong and principled mother.

I have been with shaky principles, shaky sense of self.

I have been a prisoner in a tomb of outside aggrandizement.

I have been asleep and dreaming of darkness.

I have been so so asleep, so very small, in the worst way.

So very blind to the ways of darkness.

I have suddenly become greatful for the gift of words and clay.

I am alive with my own mistakes.

My mistakes are my past prisons, but are now my truths that set me free.

I am no longer waiting to die.

I am reliving my birth.

I am relieving my forgetfulness by accepting my disconnected heart.

I have refound my heart.
I have refound what is lost daily, but remembered 

through looking away for a moment.

My eyes are focused only by slowing down. Only by seeing my own disappointment and frustration.

There is no difference between truth and art.

The difference is discipline and honor. To honor truth with discipline is art.

There is no truth except that which is.

Come to me, little one,
Hold my hand. 

You have reason not to trust me because I have ignored you for so long. 

But you can see and feel that I am here right now. 

I have come back to you with my midnight mirror and my telescope.

I have come back just to hold your hand, 

and to listen to your most intimate secrets. 

To be the friend you dream of.

To be yours.

Only yours.

All yours.

I cannot promise anything because only this moment counts.

All there is is now.

All I can be is here.

You and I. 

I love you with deep truthful compassionate unconditional love.

My gift to you is to accept you exactly as you are with no judgment.

I see your great heart’s desires. I see your frustrations with your limitations.

To imagine is to be limitless.

It is the word of god.

Befriend your imagination.

And trust yourself. 
Accept yourself.

No matter how bad you think you may be.

What ever it is. It is,

And it must be.

When The Going Gets Tough

When the going gets tough,

remember to paint a picture

of your heart

where the tiny voice speaks

to you

in its sorrow, and in its rage and its wanting.

It says:

“It is never too late to hear me.

But if it has been a long time,

Then you might need to approach

Gently,

With a compassion that is

Just beyond your reach,

And requires you to jump into an empty, dark space.

But if you take that courageous leap,

you will win me back,

and your will

becomes aligned

with mine.”

Working with the voices inside

Let's face it. It’s hard being an artist. There’s no one out there encouraging you. Telling you the importance of your work. There’s no one there to validate your soul urge that just won’t go away no matter how hard you to try to talk yourself out of it. The Self Police (one of my trio of inner critics) says things like: “You don’t need to put yourself out there.” “Your poetry is far too personal or abstract to mean anything to anyone else.” “It is so narcissistic to write about yourself.”

But lately, when I work on my songs, there’s a newer voice inside, my inner champion, that says: “I love this song! It’s powerful and raw and catchy. I like the way you play guitar. You’ve got rhythm.” And then the natural instinct of the ego is to respond to that encouragement with: “Oh my god! Maybe I really can be a rock star. Maybe people will love my music. Oh, no! How am I going to deal with that?”

Lately, I have been developing a new method of dealing with that ego inflation. There is yet another, wiser voice that knows how to do reality testing, which comes from somewhere in the middle. The middle place is much more vulnerable than the inflated or deflated ego. This new voice of wisdom says: “You have no idea how people will respond to your songs. Yes, it is fucking terrifying to not know. [Yes, my higher self curses.] To put yourself out there not knowing if people will judge you or not, or how they will judge you." It is the most vulnerable thing I can feel. Not knowing. It feels like having no skin. It feels like ripping out your ribcage and exposing your heart. It feels like burning. But, you know what? You don’t have a choice any more, because no matter how hard you try to run away from your messy, inconveniently emotional, unconventional self, you will always need to express who you are, you will continue to need to express all the thoughts and feelings and dreams inside. And without sharing it with others, the artworks become staid. It’s like becoming pregnant but then not giving birth after the 9 months. What happens to the baby that doesn’t see the light of day? It would become the stuff of nightmares. Artworks are gifts, and gifts are meant to be given (with no strings attached). If the gifts don’t circulate, then their value is lost. Giving the gifts increases their value.

This is what has helped to hear most from this more balanced voice of higher self, or middle self:

“If you can’t put your work out there for yourself, then do it for others. Do it for the other people who are even more afraid than you are to make art, and to share it with others. Do it for the voiceless, disenfranchised people who need to witness others' courageous acts of artistic heroism in order to be drawn out of their shells and spells of disempowerment.”

And so, if you are at the precipice of giving artistic birth, and you are trembling with fear, and you think “I cannot do this.” Remember, this is not just about you, this is about all of us. We all need the arts for the survival of the soul. For the evolution of human imagination.

Please share your comments below. I would love to have a conversation about what sharing your artwork feels like to you. Stories? Dreams? Feelings? Thoughts?

Art is there for us to make beauty out of the human experience.

The thing that I have always wanted more than anything, is to be an artist. To make work that is of value to our culture—so that it can show culture what it misses about nature.  I see it as my duty to share the shadow of my particular experience, instinctively knowing that it reflects the experience of others. Maybe not everyone. But at least a few thousand or maybe even millions of others. That is still a very small percentage of people who live on this planet. I can’t move forward through life with out needing to make something out of it—on some mornings I feel anger, and then underneath that, a deep wounding. A feeling of being misunderstood, small, as if I am turning into dust. And then a need to turn that feeling into something beautiful, something that suggests the mystery of its wholeness—its beauty and struggle. A poem, perhaps. A song. On some days I want to propel myself into the spotlight—letting a certain rowdy energy flow through me in the form of song, rock-n-roll abandon. A voice that carries with it the repressed rebellion of my teenage years mixed with rage for growing up female, and almost never feeling seen for all that I really am. Sometimes the scientist shows up, and wants to explain away this feeling—to understand it and put it in its proper context, to measure it. To find a solution. Sometimes I want to track something until it becomes just another aspect of nature’s design.

Sometimes, I want to sit in a deep and fulfilled silence. Opening up to the sensual information that permeates my entire body. I want to let this happen, while images-- me lying face up in the a sea that is filled with the disintegrated words and thoughts in my head. This too, is art. I am coming to see that all experience of humanity is art when we open our eyes just a little bit wider, and we let wonder back in. When we let the child’s eyes, and the woman's instincts, and the man’s power, when we let all of our experience back into our awareness, we are moving into life as art. When we make choices about our awareness—what we want to put our attention on in any given moment, we are living life as art. When we soften into, even just for a moment, the inexpressible longing that emanates from our heart. This too, is art. For when we engage in the soul, as Thomas Moore writes, we are creating ourselves. The transient & elusive material of the soul is unreachable, except by through art. Jung saw this process as alchemy, though he did not think of it as art. I do.

There is anger in me about something. It is the split between art and life. It is the split between artists and non-artists. That art is somehow reserved for the special people in life, and the rest of us, well we just drone through life, asleep. I refuse to accept this piece of culture that we have inherited. I am ready to change culture by magnifying, elevating the beauty of the everyday experience into art. Everything can be art. Who believed this? Andy Warhol. I believe he was very misunderstood.  Many people forgot what a humanist he really was. His message of art was that we are all artists—and that is what he attracted to him—underdog dreamers who wanted their first chance to be elevated. The mistake he made, and they made, was that his ego got in the way, and he didn’t empower his followers. He didn’t tell them that it wasn't his duty to make them a star. It was up to each of them to find the star within themselves. This mistake cost lives, even his own. In religion, it has been the same way, but to a much higher degree of destruction. The greatest artists, just as the greatest spiritual teachers of humanity, knew the secret was in all of us. And yet, our culture cuts us off from seeing that only that special person over there is gifted, and we must worship him in order to be free. That is absolutely incorrect, and I know this with all certainty. The true message of those heroes that we adore, that we feel inclined to worship, was that god is everyone of us. The art that flows out, that is god. The love, that is god. Our essential nature is all the same. The way it looks, and the way we access it, the way we express it—there are a billion ways, a trillion ways. But we are all artists, or can be if we choose, all we have to do is realize that this is so.