Alysse Aallyn

Category: #BestRevenge

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Mourning – Detachment

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are depressed or facing depression. In your dreams you hurt. You feel such shuddering emptiness and loss it’s a physical relief to wake up and find your dream wasn’t real. Lots of people fear such sadness is some kind of prophecy. It’s enough to make a person fear going to sleep.

    The Detachment Archetype – warns you are too “involved.” Check out life’s professional creatives – such as cops, firemen, paramedics – all will tell you to “forget’ the personal just to get the job done. Focus on the “healable” crisis– even though all that suffering reminds you of your Special People and the dangers they face unwittingly, every day.

    People Die. Worse – People Can Lose Their Personalities BEFORE They Die – Think your worldview through BEFORE the crisis happens. If death ends everything, surely you will fear it. But remember, what a caterpillar calls “the end”, Nature calls ”a butterfly.”

    We All Need to Mourn – Creatives mourn, too. Creatives’ powerful forward drive sometimes fools them into thinking that moving backward in the dance is a sign of weakness, when ebb and flow are laws of life.

    Sadness is Stigmatized in a society where perfect strangers feel comfortable demanding that you “smile.” Look at all these Instagram feeds with everybody grinning away because they’re having so much FUN and their lives are so PERFECT they never wake up shuddering with sadness. Except they are human too, so we know that they risk their very humanity by trying to pretend ”everything’s fine” when all red lights are flashing.

    They’re Just Better at Covering It Up than we seem to be. And some people, admittedly are just plain shallower. They’ve worked hard to feel less deeply! And narcissists convince themselves that they can transfer their pain to others and “free” themselves by enjoying the suffering they’ve created. This inevitably means we all have lots of work to do.

    First, We Sort Out “Real” from “Transferred” Suffering. Whose misery has been foisted upon you? If you’re in that position you are literally a “scapegoat” and will need all your creative skills to get out of it.

    DO NOT ACCEPT TRANSFERRED SUFFERING! – Pain is inevitable but suffering is voluntary. We feel compassion for some, we pity others their willful darkness but we do not accept their world scheme of punishment and torment.

    We’ve All Got Plenty of Legitimate, Necessary Mourning to catch up on. If you skate over “bargaining” and “acceptance” all that’s left to you is denial and depression. Sometimes, the “causes” of your lost mourning seem inconsequential to our “adult” selves. “So your pet died when you were five,” everybody says. “Your parents got a divorce. You moved five times. Get over it, already!” But we say, Now is always the perfect time to accept the power and significance of your own feelings.

    Creatives Feel Compassion for Everyone – Themselves Included. Begin with yourself. Why feel these things now, right before you set off on your next great, consequential adventure? Sometimes it is joy that brings to the surface those past unhealed hurts. That’s necessary, part of the ebb and flow. Because we are strong enough to feel it now.

    Creatives Are the Heroes of the Collective Unconscious – Creatives do battle for and honor centuries of collective suffering. (Inter-generational trauma.) It’s OK to think about that sadness, especially if it makes us feel closer to other people. Everyone has these lost, wrecked treasures submerged in their lives.

    Creatives Feel Deeply – Your power frees the greatness of your emotion even as it protects your feelings and other people’s. Celebrate the fact that you are able to feel so deeply in a world where others feel forced to abuse themselves, taking risks and drugs in order to “feel something.”

    The Art of Detachment allows creatives to rise above the fray, strategize, plan. Even on the eve of battle they enjoy their lives. Let go – finally – of the toxic elements in your life. Time to go “no-contact” on the toxic vampires who waste and suck your energy. Read up on sadism, the better to understand the people out there who are revel in your suffering. Buddhists recommend surveying your thoughts and feelings from a distance, as in hypnotherapy, then setting them free.

    Detachment is Not Dissociation – Dissociation is more like floating through life with all our systems repressed, feeling numb. Dissociation is not good. You can use that quivering pool of tears to respond more intensely to life, to art, to music, and to each other.

    Resilience is the Creative’s Most Powerful Survival Trait. This means that even after blight, we can flourish more strongly, just the way pruned plants will. It’s not necessary to explore all the caverns of your being, but it will make you stronger. Once again, choose a buddy and a guide. Think about the “hero’s journey” story you respond to most deeply. How would you explain your hero’s journey to someone else? Feel free to use metaphors, after all, when we were children we did feel our world to be populated by monsters and the supernatural.

    Models & Mentors – “Detachment is power. Release all things that no longer work for you” – Shane Steele

    “To be detached means to dive so fully into the experience you dropout the other side… with full understanding you can say, “Now that I know, I can let go”
    – Teal Swan

    “In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty…freedom from our prison of past conditioning…willingness to step into the unknown surrenders us to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe…” – Deepak Chopra

    “I release the subjective thoughts, energy and emotions I am holding about people, places and things that kept me trapped in dis-ease…I can step back and allow the feelings & thoughts & energy to dissipate…I am then free to act with compassion, love & acceptance” – Angela James

    “Attachment is the fabricator of illusions – reality can be attained only by one who is detached” – Simone Weil

    “Detachment is having your life be about you, not about other people”
    – Karen Casey

    #Haiku: Detachment

    last phase of grief
    blesses wrestling angel –
    flourishes scar tissue wings

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Empaths & Sensitives with Alysse Aallyn

    Breakthrough – Epiphany

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Let the Knowledge Pour In! – You didn’t even know there was a wall there! And suddenly, you’re through it and the world looks completely different on the other side.

    Are You Battering Against Barriers in your dreams? Are you breasting tape, cresting mountaintops, shedding light on darkness? You are seeking, or experiencing an epiphany. Let’s consider those pieces of your psyche/life that don’t add up.

    Eureka! – Creatives Learn From Epiphanies – It’s possible to have a sudden enlightenment and NOT FULLY REALIZE it. Could it be that it is too threatening? Could be that you lack the language to explain the new connection you have made. Could be that your “discovery” started down so deep in your consciousness that it’s taking its time to percolate through to the surface. YOU ARE “MOLTING”! Shed what no longer serves you. In the meantime, pay attention to your dreams and track them in your Training Journal. Dreams have the power to heal the jagged edges of our fear, our incomprehension and our daring.

    Creative Danger – We almost always quit too early. Status quo is SO attractive. Let somebody else be the adventurer, let somebody else put into words what nobody else can say, let some other poor sucker stick their neck out and mention that the emperor has no clothes. Study your fears rationally. It’s OK to protect yourself – in fact, it’s mandatory – remember making sure that oxygen mask works on YOU, first? But that doesn’t stop us from evaluating the full “reality”, which also, I remind you, contains suspicions, insights, ideas and yes, dreams. Whispers of the multiverse.

    Grow New Skin – Creatives are highly accomplished, well-trained professionals who sometimes find themselves at the bottom of a pecking order. Are you in a group whose leader is making decreasing sense and ever more self-serving decisions? If you’ve been struggling with a knotty historical, mathematic or scientific problem nobody else can solve, why not try seeking the edges of light?

    Transform Your Thinking – how often have you had that experience of waking up from a dream whose conclusions were so real they were right in front of you, only to see them melt in the sand like the escaping tide until no longer perceptible. That’s OK. They’re still on the tip of your psychic tongue, just waiting for a little more encouragement.

    Learn New Things -We are all familiar with the “sleep on it” suggestion, but anything that takes your mind off the problem can be helpful. Sports, prayer, meditation, reading, a massage, a night out, but please – not too much liquor. Hold it at two if you can, if you can’t, don’t start. Liquor affects the brain, killing brain cells. That might keep overlords seeking compliance happy but it’s not good for creatives’ growth and development. Develop a gratitude practice. Keep dreaming. Keep seeking those epiphanies. Keep using your fears as stepping stones to climb higher. Never give up. Remember; clever – like the fox, wily as the snake, gentle as the dove.

    Models & Mentors – “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” – John Milton

    “Record these epiphanies with care as the most delicate and evanescent of moments” – James Joyce

    “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising”
    – Isaiah 60: 1-3

    “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing” – Henry Miller

    #Haiku: Epiphany

    Dominos crash:
    Picture resolves:
    Insight –
    Upside down is
    Right side up

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Planets & Stars – Eternity

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Eternity has need of your perfecting self. Do you dream of astronomy? Vast deserts, steep, empty mountains, person-less vistas? These are eternity dreams, where change has slowed or stopped. You are struggling not with questions of death or afterlife, but the “ongoing everythingness” of reality itself. What is “time”? How long can “time” continue when nothing is “alive”?

    Creatives Train to be Immortal – Immortality is never guaranteed. When you imagine “life forever” – where is the “you” in that context? Matter is already transmutably immortal – Your body is currently composed from the atoms of exploded stars. We all tremble at transitions; but do we really want certain phases of our existence to continue “indefinitely’? Seems not only impossible but repugnant.

    Change is Life – Changelessness is Stagnation. We are “perfecting”, never perfected. Without any human life, planets and stars continue to evolve. Eternity, like God, must exist outside of time. Fiercely we insist on the continuation of consciousness. But do we really want to know the terrible things God knows, or is what you really desire a return to an infancy safe inside the arms of a most loving mother?

    Creative Challenge – Some people feel so threatened, angry and violated by life that they want to harm the future itself. They don’t want anyone to be happy or gratified, ever. While admitting that life on earth can be very unfair and terrible, you don’t ever want to become one of those people. They have “eternalized” their own misery. That is the very definition of hell; and they themselves have sent their own selves there. Creatives can eternalize our finest moments, when we brimmed with love, ecstasy poured over us and generosity and joy poured out.

    Creative Danger – Ultimate judgment is not up to us. We don’t know everything, our empathy and compassion are not boundless, we cannot “see” in all directions and dimensions. Creatives are forced to make snap judgments on the ground, battlefield decisions and quick-time changes; but we must leave finality to God. Arrogance and solipsism are serious blinders that harm our spirit as they harm others and even the planet itself.

    Creative Opportunity – We are offered repeated opportunities for growth, for humility, for insight. We need to take advantage of these, all the while admitting that since life is a see-saw process, it is usually two steps forward and one step back. Creatives recognize and enhance growth; ideal growth conditions lead to health, while harm plunges everyone into darkness. Mentally we can wish others to avoid suffering and the roots of suffering even when we don’t understand what those are even for ourselves. When creatives connect meaningfully with others all spirits lighten.

    Models & Mentors – “Trust in dreams – they are the hidden gate to eternity” – Khalil Gibran

    “Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment”
    – Henry David Thoreau

    “What we do in life echoes in eternity” – Marcus Aurelius

    ‘Love is the emblem of eternity, effacing memory of its beginning and all fear of its end” – Mme. De Stael

    #Haiku: Beginners’ Mind

    I never
    Graduate;
    Freshened by
    Eternally
    Discovering.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Loss – Suffering

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are hurting. If you can no longer feel pain, you are numb. Every religion and philosophical system must account for the misery we see around us – storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration and animal predation.

    Creatives Get Used to Loss – Do your dream explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear there is no possible paradise where everyone can be happy all at once. How do we educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma?

    Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding our breath on the edge of discovery.

    Creatives Dare to Feel it All. Bravely we take on the feelings of the entire planet to show that we can’t be destroyed by them. Creatives explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion”;“ Practice taming the wild mind”; or religious – “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet.

    Don’t Surrender to Learned Helplessness – Too much suffering breeds inertia. We stop even trying to better our human situation while attracting predators to such easy prey. Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.

    Creative Daring Frees the Universe – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. Further epiphanies await.

    Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered”
    – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

    “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”
    – A.A. Milne

    “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them”
    – Leo Tolstoy

    “What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

    “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live” – Norman Cousins

    #Haiku: Profit/Loss Analysis

    Does autumn lose summer
    Warmth or
    Gain snow-blanket?
    Peonies decide.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Transformation – Metamorphosis

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are about to undergo a major transition. Are you a SciFi fan? Do you dream of bionic humans? Robots? Cryogenics? How about caterpillars becoming moths and butterflies? Acorns don’t look like oak trees, pollywogs don’t resemble frogs. It is quite common in nature to evolve into some unexpected form. What a metaphor for us, as Ovid’s Metamorphoses postulated centuries ago. We speculate about humans becoming invisible, disguising themselves as bats or wolves; Greek gods “became” swans and bulls to further their purposes. Our imagination is rich with all these possibilities, as is our literature, theatre and film. At a funeral, we look at a bird invading the church is a whole new light. Is it a message? An incarnation?

    Your Possibilities are Infinite – Every time you buy a bottle with an animal on the label you are calling on the powers of that creature just as your ancestors did. We suspect consuming even the “idea” of a creature might confer their powers. We also heard the legend that when a human husk breathes its last, the soul escapes and may reincarnate in heaven or even in another life as something entirely different, perhaps without blemish, wholly beautiful for once and for all.

    Creative Power – Who’s your power animal? What supernatural gifts do you desire? Give yourself the freedom to think about the talents you yearn for and the purposes you’d put them to. You can define yourself this way, experiment and play. You might not wish to be a dragon every day of the week, but once in a while it could be fun. How can you cultivate these gifts, desires and yearnings in your present-day life? Don’t these dreams make you a bigger, more important creative, even if nobody knows? What if they did know? How might you tell them and who would you tell?

    Creative Danger – We don’t want to jump off buildings pretending we can fly. We’re expanding our psychic repertoire, not trying to escape into fantasy. The most commonly yearned for gift is omnipotence. But think how terrible life would be – not just for others but for YOU if your whims and fantasies were never checked? Often our wish is that we be spared the pain of growing up. But who wants to remain a toddler forever? As we get older we are REALLY coming into our own and knowing and sharing our true self. A joy not to be missed. Pity the toddler who prays to fly through the air so he doesn’t have to learn to walk and risk falling down.

    Models & Mentors – “Nothing gets transformed in your life until your mind is transformed” – Ifeanyl Enoch Onuoha

    “Every success story is a tale or adaptation, constant revision, and change”
    – Richard Branson

    “Perfection is constant transformation” – Nia Peeples

    “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not fighting the old but building the new” – Socrates

    #Haiku: Being Is Relationship

    Electric seeks
    Charge;
    Transformer –
    You’re my lock on
    Immortality

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Mystery – Faith

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You long to uncover the solution. Do you have faith that there IS a solution? What is your tolerance for the mysterious? Given how the universe works, you may need to crank that tolerance up a notch. Do you dream of apocalypses? Religious iconography? Are you a mystery fan but irritated and underwhelmed by most “reveals”? How much uncertainty can you tolerate? Are you afraid of the dark? Chronically underslept? Fearful of being alone? The Mystery archetype warns, you have a profound need for faith in your life.

    The Faithful Are Rewarded – Untrusting people are untrusted. George Bernard Shaw said it best: liars can’t believe anybody. Everyone knows this, but even so we often rush to trust where it isn’t warranted, then enter a cycle of disappointment, yearning and ill-placed hope that drives our mood still lower. We need somebody and something to rely on. How can we find them?

    “People Don’t Remember What You Said, They Remember How You Made Them Feel.” Recall your childhood – the people you loved and trusted and the people you were scared by and nervous about. You were developing a “gut instinct.” Who were the friends that stayed with you in the face of adversity and who were the ones who dropped away?

    Love Always Makes the Difference. It is the magic salve that soothes and heals life’s inevitable bumps and scrapes. People who offer real love you can have faith in, people who offer something else – status, belonging, self-serving rationales – disappoint us. Faith gets stronger the more it is proved. We may hope for a good day, but we have faith that the sun will come up.

    Faith Is Trust in the Worthy -– Sometimes the mysteries of life are deliberate confusions to keep us confused. Why can’t our politicians ever inaugurate the policies that are the reason we elected them in the first place? They try to convince us that “secret cabals” and “unknown enemies” are at fault. They want us angry and befuddled so we won’t place the blame where it belongs and demand accountability. Secrecy serves the purposes of darkness. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

    Creatives Demand Transparency & Accountability. Outline your beliefs and begin to act on them. Some mystery is endemic to existence but when people sharply change direction we can still track their path. Less smoke and mirrors and more step by step upgrades are something we can all agree on.

    Creatives Grow in the Level of Mystery We Can Absorb. Algebra has logical answers, quantum theory does not. We solve the puzzles that mystified us as children and keep solving until we come to the puzzles no one can solve. But we keep trying! The limits and un-limits of physics and space are constantly being mapped. We are not content with the label “here be dragons” placed across the unknown. We no longer believe God resents and punishes exploration, science and development. A vaccine was developed against a mystery illness in just one year.

    No Hope Without Faith – Insoluble mysteries often concern motivation – the spring-work of the soul. Why do we make ourselves miserable? Artists teach us that these questions can be “solved” by posing them differently. Depth psychologists tell us that the shallow reasoning of our surface mind is far less important than deep memories and drives we can uncover through emotional and analytic spelunking. Creatives love mysteries. Develop faith. Never give up.

    Models & Mentors – “Faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase” – Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong.” – 1 Corinthians 16:13

    “Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there till some light returns” – Anne LaMott

    “If we fight with faith, we are twice armed” – Plato

    #Haiku: Mystery

    Can’t
    “Get to the bottom of”
    World, thought, faith, time or Love; it’s
    Bottom-
    Less

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Spring – Hope

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You Have Reason to Hope. You Cannot Be Too Hopeful! Is Spring your favorite season? Do you dream of unfolding buds and exploding flowers? Is “the mustard seed” your favorite parable?

    Spring Always Follows Winter – after dormancy, now arrives the season best calculated to provide ideal conditions for growth. Spring is all beginnings, freshness, newness. It starts small – barely recognizable – the tiniest frond of green among the blackness, calling forth an answering shiver from somewhere deep inside us. We are told that very cell in our body replaces itself in seven years, so springtime is a constant within us. Hope courses through your body with every flush of oxygen and blood empowering our systems.

    Hope is Creatives’ Fuel. Hope is eternal. Do you dream of uncovering buried truths? What is your quest? Will it ever be over? Hope is not about “resolution” but about envisioning a future you have a hand in promoting. You feel a sense of awe, but also ownership and some pride. This is YOUR discovery. Now you want to share it with the whole world.

    Creative Challenge – Don’t waste your imagination on games. Games can be a training ground but all too often our society seeks to harness and entrap your energies onto a treadmill that benefits only the few. Your dreams, your aspirations, your thirst for knowledge, is wider than this. You know the complexities of the universe are even more amazing than anyone has guessed and you want to call attention to them. You need to learn how.

    Hope Is a Sacred Obligation – Life persists in spite of entropy, In spite of darkness, in spite of destruction. Life is a perpetual motion machine fueled by hope, and creatives are the priests of life.

    Creatives Nurture Hope and Pass It On – Hope is the condition of believing better things are possible. It is mandated by the fact that all growing things need nurturing if they are to flourish. Creatives are the mothers of the universe.

    Creative Dangers – include tunnel vision, paranoia and megalomania. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Obsession becomes obvious when harms become visible. Don’t “give up” because you can’t seem to impose your vision on the world. Are you eating and sleeping? Maintaining your relationships? You can’t achieve bigtime without a team and you need to keep your team happy & nourished. Conflating the majesty of discovery with your own personal majesty – needing that majesty – separates you from human kind and that can’t go well. It blinds you.

    Paranoia Seeds Fears that others are stealing from you, riding on your coattails, tarnishing your legacy. But each patch of fresh ground you conquer leads to more discoveries. The astonishment – and the astonishers – never stop! Practice humility and gratitude. Aren’t you lucky to be a part of all this? Isn’t it wonderful?

    Creative Opportunity – Assembling a “team” is critical. TEAM isn’t a formal concept and it doesn’t mean maintaining a payroll. It requires finding the energy to keep your hope alive while keeping it realistic in the community. This implies explaining yourself over and over, developing your idea. Allow others to offer the energy of their perspectives. Even when you see them as wrong-headed, they can operate as whetstones, sharpening our vision. Most important are supporters who catch a “contact high” from the joy of your insights. This happiness creates a nourishing environment that powers us forward. Move confidently in the direction of growth and away from diminishment.

    Models & Mentors – “Hope is being able to see there is light in spite of the darkness” – Desmond Tutu

    “What I try to cultivate is not blind optimism but radical hope” – Junot Diaz

    Be astonished. Tell about it. – Mary Oliver

    “Everything that is done in this world is done by hope” – Martin Luther

    “Only in darkness can you see the stars” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

    #Haiku: Altruism

    Crows call “Come Eat!”
    Across trees in hope
    Someday strangers
    Feed baby
    Crows.

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Persistence – Commitment

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Don’t Be A Flibbertigibbet. Do you dream of rings? Tokens? Trophies? Collecting and collectibles? Antiques, graduations, pawn shops, art museums? Ceremonies? Awards? Rewards? You are longing for the symbols that consolidate desire. But desire is nothing without will. What is your conscious will? Subconscious? Unconscious? Collective conscious will? What ignites you? You are a creature of Now, a chip on the whirlwind, but you will soon manifest power over yourself and the future.

    Creatives Are Athletes – Our skills aren’t very good at first. We know there’s nothing “magical’ about becoming a pro! Who said it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be good at something? Isn’t that, like 27 years? In other words, when you really want something, you’re going to have to make a major life commitment to make this possibility a part of yourself.

    Creatives Hang In There – Being committed means you already know it will be difficult and you will have to push through. Creatives do their best to inform themselves of the challenges ahead and to brush up all their skills, but nothing substitutes for dogged day to day stick-to-it-iveness.

    Creative Challenge – Are you up for sacrifice? Not many people are! You’re going to have to skip the easy, tempting treats – physical, spiritual, emotional – to satisfy the demands of your training. There’s really only one way to do this. You’re going to have to change into a person who LIKES and PREFERS the goal-driven lifestyle. It’s easier if the lifestyle’s not TOO restrictive. By that logic, you can see that it makes sense to start off slow and build – just like you would in the gym. No sense overwhelming tender muscles with weight they can’t handle!

    Creatives Never Surrender – Retreat is only a re-framing. You wait to see a better way to reach your goal. And sometimes new information makes for a goal change. No shame, there! This is the sign of lifelong learning. Creatives are life-long learners.

    Creative Danger – There’s the risk that our self-control will be sabotaged. Addiction. Getting obsessed by something that may have started off healthy, even noble. Suddenly you’re in a downward spiral.

    Admit When You Need Help. Is your obsession interfering with work? Relationships? Health? Are friends and family intervening, starting to talk? When a commitment turns deadly – and we know even romantic relationships can do so – reach out to someone with a balanced perspective. Likely there’s a plan already developed to get you back on track without losing the gains you’ve already made.

    Creative Opportunity – Persistence in a healthy commitment is the best path to transformation there is. You truly can become a different person, the person you always wanted to be, over time and in tiny steps. When I wanted to give up sugar, I consumed a lot of fake sugar at first, then less and less over time, until now I can’t believe I ever liked or was satisfied by that stuff – real or fake. My palate has changed, so has my health and so have I. That doesn’t mean I don’t eat the occasional wedding cake! I enjoy my new-made self, and so can you.

    Find a Buddy on the Journey – a tried and true pathway. Use mindfulness to examine cravings, release them and calmly set yourself free. Track everything in your Training Journal.

    Creatives Honor Their Contracts – Creatives make alliances and promises. Some promises conflict with each other. Some contracts we end up not wanting to fulfill but there is just no way out but through. Creatives know how to concentrate on the future and keep trying to negotiate win-win modifications to ease everybody’s ride.

    Models & Mentors – “Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent”
    – Steve Martin

    “Failure is a requisite for success. If you want to succeed, double your rate of failure” – Brian Tracey

    “Success is the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes on something others would give up on after thirty seconds” – Malcolm Gladwell

    “Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism” – Albert Einstein

    #Haiku: Commitment

    Means you don’t give up
    Just because you want to
    Grit teeth
    Point jaw
    Plunge
    On

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Bootcamp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Passion – Courage

    If This Archetype Chooses You – It’s Time to Release Your Power. Do you dream of fantastic feats? Sports? Circuses? Meritocratic competitions? Or are you held back from “fear standing up in front of the class?” Your psyche yearns to muster passion, the fuel for courage. Passion is what propels us forward when it would be safer to hang back. Why?

    Passion Makes You a Creative – From your youngest years, you recall that boiling collision inside of you, caused by shaming, praising, and an endless re-directing. It is in maturity that we begin to make sense of our passions and to see clearly that not everyone is born with the same ones.

    Define Your Passions – Passions evolve while you grow in character as a person. We are constantly re-defining “The Problem”, as well as the Self with which we see the problem. You will “graduate” from one passion to another until you find Compassion, its highest form. This life trajectory is cause enough for Celebration.

    Passion’s Worth Defending – Intense caring means you’re staking out ground in the universe. The desirable – justice, truth, art – whatever it is – is so important it needs advocates. You become aware that it’s under attack from people who, for personal reasons of their own, find its existence inconvenient. “Those who fail to stand up for something will fall for anything.”

    Passion Gives You Courage – Defending anything is extremely scary. You can expect to experience every sort of pushback. Studying all these possibilities is the beginning of your education as a creative.

    Have You The Courage of Your Passions? Sometimes we want something concrete, but most of the time it is the adventure itself that we really seek. We long to be transformed into an athlete of endurance who can far further faster, learn more better and imagine deeper and more vibrantly.

    Fear is a Reaction, Courage is a Decision – Even if you don’t like to fight with your fists you must fight with your mind, with your longing, with your desire. So much is impossible, yet humanity attempts the impossible every day, and a surprising extent of the time, we succeed. Our well-being, our future, depend upon this passion and this courage. Be as wily as a serpent and as gentle as a dove so that your power morphs to encompass the difficulties that you face.

    Broken Creatives – Will your heart and your courage be broken? Many times, says the fable. But light comes in through the broken places. You will flex and bend. You will evolve and grow. Your passions will change. You will rise above your passions. Your courage will strengthen and evolve. YOU WILL FLOURISH and the beauty of your effort, of your dream, joins together with all the other glorious human resolutions and accomplishments to power the planet.

    Creative Danger – Derailment is common. It is endemic. It is not the end. We live in a capitalistic society where some deliberately harness the passion, the courage, the imaginations of others to benefit only themselves. It is heartbreaking to put all your keenest insight into discoveries and achievements that only buy baubles for billionaires. Soldiers can find themselves giving everything for Very Bad Ideas. Artists watch their best installments torched and trashed. All of us face the shock of old age – if we are lucky. You need a shock absorber to upgrade your courage.

    Creative Opportunity – The hum of the universe provides the refreshment we need. There is still much peace and beauty in the green places, and the eyes of children provide all the light we need. To be strong requires exercise – Push-relax, push-relax. Nutrition has the same requirement. There’s a time to eat and a time to fast and each of those spaces is holy. The less we take, the less we require, the finer tuned becomes our mechanism. The more there is to share. Share with holy people who recognize and honor the gifts of God, not those who try to inspire hate, divisiveness and violence. Naturally we have sore places – we are creatives! We all need to give and receive the magical healing of a loving touch. Let that courage be your passion.

    You Are Not Alone – Someone has your back. Find out who: among the people who love you, among historical figures, famous thinkers and contemporary philosophers. If you can’t find a group, start a group. True friends give each other courage.

    Models & Mentors – “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” – Brene Brown

    “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage” – Anais Nin

    “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute for experience.” – Paulo Coelho

    “It takes courage to become who you really are.”
    – e.e. cummings

    “Courage is contagious” – Billy Graham

    #Haiku: Devourer of Hearts

    Scaling hearts
    For final judgment:
    Soured hearts
    Desiccate;
    Passion hearts
    Burgeon

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Paradise – Bliss

    If This Archetype Chooses You – Suffering isn’t eternal. Your ultimate ecstasy is guaranteed. But what is your definition of paradise?  Some people want to see their enemies suffer.  That’s what the view looks like – in hell. But if you wanted to find your own bliss, where would you look? Dreaming of a tropical getaway? Is your definition of heaven raised consciousness or lack of consciousness? Would you want to know what is happening in the world or would you want to be removed from the world? Can you really be happy if you know there is suffering anywhere?

    If There Is a Hell, Multiverse Declares Its Opposite Must Exist - As we mature, we can choose to either elevate or denigrate our consciousness. We are creating “heaven”, or “hell” – our choice. Which direction are you tending? Which direction do you want to go?

    Are Creatives Heaven Material? When we are young, we obsess about whether we are really liked or loved, whether we are really “popular.” As we get older we slowly realize that people like/love to the extent of their own spiritual and emotional ability/depth. Shallow people offer very shallow love – nothing can take root there. It can flip in an instant. They “forget” because there’s nothing there. If the whole purpose of life on this planet – a struggle by any standard -  is for humans to become more closer to God then we are being challenged to create the kind of emotional and psychic depth that sees ”inside’ - understands and accepts everyone’s struggle, everyone’s challenge.

    Creative Challenge – Bliss is a scientifically provable psychic state of timeless ecstasy mapped by “alpha waves” which can be seen in the brain. This state is called “flow”. We drift outside ourselves and belong to the universe. It is the condition called “mastery.” This is such a happy state we long to cultivate and re-experience it, which we can do from immersing ourselves in art, meditation, love, sexual/emotional union, or deep thought.

    Creative Soul – Non-Creatives bounce between a fussing self-obsession and living entirely in and through other people. The poor things. Neither condition is optimal, although there are times in our lives when these states are necessary or unavoidable. Why should we ever leave our paradise and re-enter their wretched world? Because transforming suffering into knowledge is the creatives’ superpower. Balance – sometimes called moderation – becomes the creatives’ operative methodology. Creatives learn to be IN the group, but we are not of “the group”. We do not subjugate our brain to the “group mind” but contribute our educated, enlightened brain-power to it. Creatives elevate the group with the our Soul power even when others try to drag it down through thoughtless replication of idiotic non-ideas.

    Self-Lessness is A Terrible Fate - Some people choose to never develop an individuated self. They pass from group to group, trying to “fit in” and quell their inner voice that warns. “this isn’t right.”  Creatives call attention to violations of our basic human mandate: developing a soul that is worthy of God.

    Creatives are Individuals Who Become More and More Unique - You are on a hero’s quest: you are the hero and the quest is for your Soul. This is both an inner and an outer quest. We have responsibilities from birth onwards; when we come to consciousness we can clearly see we are our brother’s/sister’s keeper. We are our own keeper, too. Mistakes – sometimes devastating ones – are expected. It’s a dangerous world and we will meet more than one predator looking to make a meal of us.

    Creatives Know Where They are Going – Elevate, denigrate or disintegrate. Your choice: every minute of every day. consciousness. “Heaven”, or “hell” – your choice. Which direction are you tending? Which direction do you want to go?

    Creatives Know Bliss – Bliss is the haze that comes after successful efforts. Bliss is the creatives’ prize. It comes not only from doing well, but from intending to do well and shaping your soul and purpose and ideation toward Wellness.

    Creatives Choose Heaven We must be wily as the snake and tender as the dove. Because in the end, it’s all about Love. The more you give, the more you feel. The more you give, the larger your capacity for ecstasy.

    Models & Mentors – “Follow your bliss and walls turn into doors”
    – Joseph Campbell

    “In a state of bliss – everything is love” – Deepak Chopra

    “Joy is a connection to what matters – a sustained sense of well-being and inner peace” – Oprah Winfrey

    “I need not sell my soul to buy bliss” – Charlotte Bronte

    #Haiku: Bliss

    You and
    I
    Merge;
    Evanesce;
    Solids
    Deliquesce:
    Fire,
    Air
    Acquiesce.