Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Healing

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

    Solitude – Self-Sufficiency

      If This Archetype Chooses You – You’ve been mothering yourself, now make friends with yourself. Are you good company? Have you been fearing time alone? It is vital that we carve out time to reflect on all that is happening to us and the part we play and want to play. Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – plus we have to cultivate, curate and care for our daytime creative. Sometimes we have other people to care for and relationships to manage. We need to learn how to be our own best friend.

      Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Sun Tzu reminds us that all battles are won and lost in the brain. Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to some algorithm. Advertisers, influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to turn that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.

      After the Party Comes Cleanup – We have been taking control of our routine, our trajectory, our dreams and our thoughts. Now we need to develop self-confidence. Frustrated Creatives devour themselves. We need to trust, not fear, our responsive reactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself? “Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any other human (or animal.) That must change today.

      Creative Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were your own best friend, you would protect, not exalt yourself. You would strategize towards health and having something worthwhile to share, not secrecy and isolation.

      Do You Hate Your Thoughts? – A recent poll discovered that most people would rather experience electric shocks than spend time alone with their thoughts, doing nothing but thinking. Just as mapping your future is a Creative’s job, so is mapping your brain. Make yourself a person it’s a pleasure to spend time with. You are not lonely when you enjoy your own company.

      Your Training Journal Is Your Mirror – It anchors you with its reflection. It is not necessary to write long pieces – lists or single words are adequate. Visual thinkers may want to sketch out or paste in pictures. Your Training Journal answers the following questions: Where Have I Been? Where Am I Going? Who Am I? Meditate 20 minutes a day on these issues.

      Creative Opportunity – find a voice you respect and admire on which to model your new internal voice. Can you check with this person that you are on the right path? We all need a life coach or a cheerleader in our corner. Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishing hobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day to day peaceful retreat inside your own head.

      Ask Yourself What You Take For Granted – This is the part of the picture that’s hardest to see. Because we take it for granted! Here is where your study of models can be helpful because you will be surprised by other people’s automatic assumptions. For example, some people assume being a creative means putting yourself at the mercy of fickle public taste, whipsawing between hedonism and rejection in an atmosphere of deprivation and hardship, but to me, Creativity is the peace of totally owning oneself, exploring one’s ideas and being responsible for oneself. It is serfdom to the malignant or shallow minds of others that spells suffering and hardship.

      Gratitude Practice – Gratitude must be part of your everyday practice. Give thanks for this wonderful body, with its aches and cuts and bruises, as it eagerly shapes itself according to your efforts. Give thanks for the freedom of your mind. Give daily thanks for the honor of being a Creative.

      Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.” – May Sarton

      “The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude” – Voltaire

      “Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso

      “The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison

      #Haiku: Selfish Armor

      Imagination untrammeled –
      My alone time’s
      For your protection

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

      The Bridge – Discipline

        If This Archetype Chooses You – Confusing discipline with punishment, you tried living without any and now feel too debilitated to escape the mess you’re in. Uh oh!

        From our Subconscious We Must Summon a Rescuer. That rescuer is OUR ESSENTIAL SELF. In dreams sometimes it presents as a hero, a fictional or historic figure or a spirit animal. Try reading folk or fairy tales right before bed. Fall asleep imagining strengthening muscles – physical, spiritual, emotional – growing inside you.

        You Must Reject the Substitute Self – To please others (and save yourself from harm) you have created a Social Self, a substitute self others will accept. But now it’s time to find out who you REALLY are.

        The Substitute Self Will Fight You for Survival – A battle you must win. Be firm banishing this monster who pretends to be you. Make a list of all the attributes that attract you, excite you, that you want to have, and turn them into a list of affirmations; “I am brave, I am creative, I am kind. I treat myself well and structure my time to maximize my flourishing.” Even the laziest, cruelest corner of your false, social self will ultimately collapse to reveal a Tiny Child yearning for effective mothering. Time to mother yourself.

        You are Jack AND the Beanstalk! No giant can stand against you. What kind of mother did you have? Was she supportive or carping? Kind or critical? Is she a happy person? Did HER life let her down? Make a list of IDEAL Mother Attributes, and turn them into affirmations. “I am generous, thoughtful and imaginative. I give endlessly from my fountain of blessings.”

        Discipline is the Only Path to Achieving What We Want. Nothing is achieved (or appreciated!) without discipline, which only means conforming your behavior to a previously conceived pattern. What ideas spring up when you think about this? Do you see “discipline” as always cruel? Painful? Is it one of your fears? Or the map to the orderly life you long for?

        You Are Your Best Friend and Best Parent – Nothing works in your life until you learn delayed gratification and stick-to-itiveness. But first you must experiment with other patterns – some of which –depending on your upbringing – can be hellish. So you have THAT to get past. You will definitely need to harness all your dream power to get yourself over the finish line.

        Adapt Discipline to Enhance Thriving. But who’s doing the adapting – the Cruel Taskmaster, the Disgusted Lover, the Generous Parent or the Permissive Saint? You contain all these (and they live in your dreams) so which will you listen to? Who will you empower? Which do you feed?

        The Choice You Make Controls your Future. Consult appealing patterns that have worked for others and blend to taste. Realize it’s a process; a series of moments. Develop a sophisticated discernment you can trust to guide you.

        Creatives Set Marks and Hit Them – Forming habits is easier than breaking them apart, so creatives know that preventing bad habits is the core of discipline. But bad habits sneak up on us, they will form anyway, so part of your discipline will always be turning away from something that was formerly pleasurable. Enjoy the peace that comes with each small step.

        Creatives Know How to Keep Going – Discipline is the bridge that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. Always use a “spotter” – a professional who’s “been there” and who can keep you from going over the edge.

        Creatives Celebrate Their Discipline – Self-acceptance comes from experiencing our humanity to the fullest. We are “parenting” our much-loved and respected self, the one who starts out as a toddler with no self-control whom we’re trying to keep out of the fire. Forgive yourself. And keep going.

        Make Discipline Visual – Charts, maps, graphs and lists that hearten & cheer are key to purposeful pathways. Figure out a way to picture your values. Checking off boxes and cherishing the “proof” of a successful day becomes your joy.

        Models & Mentors – “Through self-discipline comes freedom” – Aristotle

        “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you going” – John C. Maxwell

        “All success begins with self-discipline. It starts with you.” – Dwayne Johnson

        ‘Day by day – what you choose, what you think, what you do, is who you become” – Heraclitus

        #Haiku: Discipline

        Discipline is
        Choosing
        Between what you want now
        And what you want
        Most

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

        Torpor – Addiction

          If This Archetype Chooses You – Uh oh. Something’s preventing you from launching on your quest. Time to wake your Sleeping Orchid, but…It’s hard to even formulate goals with this monkey on your back, chattering in your ear. What is it?

          You’ve Become Too Attached. To … what? Investigate. Something’s controlling your mind, controlling your actions. Take it slow as you consider. Is this attachment harming your principles? Values? Relationships?

          The Creative’s Fiercest Battle – Do you dream of imprisonment? Blank walls? Chains? Our neurocircuitry mandates habit-making behavior, but our intelligence recognizes entrapment, and our dreams send out distress signals. If you’re human, there is no way to avoid addiction. Welcome to the unpleasant Club!

          We Are Wired for Addiction – If there’s no escaping it – that means you will have to fight this battle. But the good news is, this is exactly how you become Free. Anyone who hasn’t done it is still a slave to their hormones, instincts, patterning – just as animals are. Here’s the very thing you become a Creative for – your best chance to develop a free will and a free soul.

          Study Your Opponent – Turns out we have tremendous choice over what we become addicted to. Some addictions are less corrupting than others. Visit an AA meeting and the consumption of sugar and tobacco is outright alarming. Are you addicted to gambling? Do you work in sales? Were you raised in a ritualistic faith? We easily become dependent on praise, on safety, on gratification, and our brains (and our general health) show our dependency. They threaten and panic when the “treat” is withdrawn.

          Creative Challenge – This parasite doesn’t care if it kills its host. If you fear you are approaching a cliff-edge, you probably are. One test is to go on a “retreat” where your customary gratifications are not available, and attempt to form new gratifications. See what happens! Does your personality threaten to disintegrate? Great time to ask yourself: who am I really? This is such a good idea, we should build it into our lives, periodically. Just to keep us recognizing that cliff-edge where Soul and Self become separated and Free Will is lost.

          Creative Danger – We always live with the possibility that we will lose our autonomy. We want to evolve, we know we SHOULD change, but we CAN’T. There’s no shame in needing outside help. This is the purpose of interventions, to demonstrate to our eyes and ears that we are harming ourselves and our relationships. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, especially when we think we’ve finally found a substance/process that “magically” allows us to live on our particular cliff-edge – a dangerous job, risky sexual behaviors, risky recreational behaviors.

          Worst-Case Scenario – is that our addiction becomes our identity. We always have the choice of refusing to listen to our interveners – giving up on our relationships just to keep up our self-abuse. Some hardened wretches tell anyone who listen that life itself isn’t worth it without their life-threatening self-abuse. They choose to die as slaves.

          Creative Opportunity – You not only CAN free yourself, you MUST to deserve and preserve your Creative Power. It is your spiritual obligation to live this territorial existence as an enlightenment opportunity. Familiar with the saying, “Live simply so that others may simply live” ? That mandates sharing. That means ALWAYS studying your consumption, NEVER allowing yourself to turn into a greedy pig and scheduling time to be alone with the universe and with God. To check on the hardiness of your Soul.

          Models & Mentors – “You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside you” – Seth Adam Smith

          “All addictions are ways to not feel our feelings”
          – Ellen Burstyn

          “Sometimes you can only find heaven by backing slowly away from hell”
          – Carrie Fisher

          “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”. – Robert Collier

          “The most common way people give up their power is thinking they don’t have any” – Alice Walker

          #Haiku: – Addiction

          Brain cells beggared;
          Lovelorn
          Oxytocin receptors misfire:
          “Feed me!”

        1. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

          Duality – Ambivalence

            If This Archetype Chooses You – How many people are you? It’s a subject for deep study as you try to decide. Twinning is Entwining. Sometimes we dream disturbingly about things we don’t want and people we aren’t. Feminists dream of rape, vegetarians dream of meat, pacifists dream of fighting. It’s unsettling. What gives?

            Language Isn’t Subtle Enough to Explain You – Your personality manifests all feelings, all thoughts, all ideas, rippling through you in a vast subconscious river. Your unconscious connects with the “collective unconscious” of other peoples – dead, alive, even fictional. Why isn’t “hate-love” a word? You experience that regularly. How about “fear-attraction”? Common! What I’m suggesting is that we need to accept the fact that a “personality” is a dynamism, not a label.

            Creative Challenge – Facing this ambivalence might seem the toughest part, but it isn’t for artists, who routinely “play” along their edge, peeking over it and imagining life on the other side. Art is the best way to express this, an enormous relief, since it’s essentially non-committal. We are “playing”. Of course, you’ll have to face the surprise of your relatives when your work becomes public: “Where did THAT come from?” But if truth be told, we’ve always been surprised to be related to those people who claim they are our family.

            Creative Danger – Society seeks to label, limit and stigmatize. Everyone is afraid of becoming our fear but Creatives need to explore every fear we have. A simple safe word can’t work when people – bankers, politicians, therapists, employers – are so fundamentally untrustworthy. That is why our identification of ourselves as Brave Creatives is so vital. The vastness of our potential cannot be controlled by language. We will never be butterflies pinned down in a museum box for the instruction/curiosity of others.

            Creative Opportunity – Appreciate your Self. Don’t slam the door on your potentialities too soon. Sometimes the worst labeler, the most determined jailor, is Us. We are deeply afraid of wandering in the forest and losing the way to get home safe. But Creatives carry Home within them. As Nelson Mandela used to quote from his prison cell, if we are the captains of our souls we can be the masters of our fates. (Henley.) We can learn to tolerate a little ambiguity/uncertainty/ambivalence.

            Creatives Tolerate Uncertainty – Being a creative is all about balance. The experience of balance-seeking is indescribable linguistically – it must be felt experientially. Creatives learn to live in a world beyond language where we can savor uncertainty and foretaste eternity.

            Creatives Relish Paradox – Two contraries not only exist together but empower each other – that creative tension is the lifeblood of emotion, imagination and personality.

            Creatives Coast on the Knife-Edge of Ambivalence – The desired is undesirable, the only possibility is impossible and the act of wanting forbids getting. Creatives become comfortable with the pleasures of this dance: “My future dissolves in beads of sweat, my present is my mirror, my past’s a shape-shifting whirligig.” (Aallyn)

            Leaders Must Surrender – Physics is magic and dreams embody history. This quantum world of “spooky entanglements” is one in which we creatives become expert. We accept not only that the cave we fear holds the treasure we desire, but that we are both cave and treasure, indeed, fear itself.

            Models & Mentors – “It seems we are capable of immense love and loyalty and as capable of deceit and atrocity. It is this shocking ambivalence that makes us unique.” – John Scott

            “Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.”
            – Erica Jong

            “The Simpsons is about alienation and the ambivalence of living with a family who you love but drives you crazy”
            – Matt Groening

            “Poetry is the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.” – Billy Collins

            #Haiku: Yin/yang

            Inclined to spring forward
            Fade back; yin;
            Urge to return?
            Float forward;
            Yang.

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

            Rainbow – Serendipity

              If This Archetype Chooses You – You Were Born Lucky! What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?

              How Lucky Do You Need to Be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps it’s really just our ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered it. These memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Let’s learn to develop “gratitude thinking”.

              Creative Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.

              Creative Danger – Now that you’re committed to the creative path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but giving control of it over to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?

              Creative Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we recognize it. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?

              How Did We Get Here? Turns out your map was only a suggestion.


              We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more interesting, it turns out, than our imaginations.

              After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?

              List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Training Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?

              The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!

              Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult”
              – Erin McKean

              “Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn

              “Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh

              “Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh

              “There are no coincidences” – Sigmund Freud

              #Haiku: Rainbow – Serendipity

              Happenstance –
              Fortuitous
              Chance; we’re
              Born lucky
              We just don’t know it.

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

              Synchronicity – Education

                If This Archetype Chooses You – Time to Educate Yourself so that you can manage risk intelligently and get what you want out of life!

                Never Quit Learning. Synchronicity makes the magic of daily life, but you can’t see it without Education. Do you dream of longed-for events and fulfillment? Glorious parties of blissful happiness where life finally seems to be unfolding exactly the way it should? Synchronous events are harmonious, as if the universe is a vast perfectly working clockwork machine.

                Understanding machines, systems, attribution and calibration are the subject of the educational process. This is the reason we spend the first twenty plus years of our lives in instructive settings.

                Creatives Learn for a Lifetime – You are a fierce absorber of knowledge. Advertisers know this, as do the designers of games and entertainment generally. We adore self-educating mazes. The complex dance between our skills, our bodily manifestation and the physics of reality is never-ending. Creatives determinedly master the synchrony of Right Thought, Right Instruction & Right Action.

                Creatives Have Young Brains but Old Souls – We have seen, known, learned and struggled so much. We have much knowledge to pass on to the brash beginners. But we ourselves confront each day with Gratitude Practice – re-experiencing the thrill of being alive and relishing the challenge of bending the universe toward light.

                As We Fill Our Souls with Light We Confront the Darkness – Remember – always get the oxygen mask over your own face before you try to help others. We need to design a life-long learning plan that benefits US, not one that puts our hard-earned money in someone else’s pocket.

                Beware the Quicksand – The culture seeks to bog us down in titles, degrees, honors, acquisitions and pro forma protocols. Don’t succumb. Our motion is always upward, our benchmark always health. Are we becoming stronger, smarter and more peaceful? Can we pass this flexible, constructive protocol along? Danger: we are seducible. We get tired, we long for reinforcements and approval. We just want to put our feet up.

                You Chose the Synchronicity Archetype – You have something to learn today to calibrate your balance in this uncertain world. Write it out in your training journal before you go to sleep – what new thing have I learned today? Where will it fit along my map? But we are smart! Our self-designed goal system must contain refreshment and renewal breaks. Most importantly, we will be needing a buddy as we go through the system, and a spiritual guru who provably has our best interests at heart. You can recognize them by the fact that they don’t trap you into a dominance/submission matrix.

                Models & Mentors – “Education is the key to unlocking the world. It is the passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey

                “Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci

                “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

                “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X

                #Haiku: Superstition

                Treasure Learning
                Compassion &
                Trust
                Bastion against
                These Dark Ages

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

                Danger – Risk

                  If This Archetype Chooses You – Look out. Are you a worrier? Anxiety driven? Haunted by nightmares and worst-case scenarios? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

                  You are Alert – Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

                  The Number One Complaint About the Freedom of Becoming a Creative? – Fear management. The only way to manage fear? Become a Creative.

                  Study Risk Intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

                  Managing Fear:

                  1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
                  2. Dangers must be proven Real
                  3. Dangers Need to be Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
                  4. Assemble likely risk-avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
                  5. What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
                  6. Know who your friends are
                  7. Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

                  Creatives Train – Creatives accept, identify and study the challenges. They learn to make sophisticated risk assessments and pick their battles cleverly. To do that, creatives need a Purpose. You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

                  Creatives Test – their and mental physical abilities constantly against life’s games & mazes

                  Creatives Transform – The physical pleasure of meeting the moment cannot be overstated. Soon the training itself becomes a rush of joy. You are making love to the universe and the universe loves you back

                  What About Defeat? – There are no defeats, there are only lessons. Everything is practice for The Greater Contest.

                  Won’t You Ultimately Lose? Truly, we all die, some sooner, some less dignified. This is where your purpose upholds you. Study your models. What allowed Nelson Mandela to be “captain of his soul” after more than 20 years in brutal captivity? Are we just bodies? Or are we also souls? Are our souls so easily defeated? Can we also train, test and transform our souls?

                  Remember – a caterpillar’s “defeat” is a butterfly.

                  Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.”
                  – William Shakespeare

                  “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear” – Mark Twain

                  “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

                  “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

                  #haiku: Everything

                  Everything you’ve
                  Ever wanted
                  Is on the other side
                  Of fear

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

                  MEMORY – THE PAST

                  If This Archetype Chooses You – Check your conscious/subconscious/
                  unconscious/collective consciousness levels. How comfortable are you with the very existence, not to mention the depth, of all these levels?

                  You Are Multiple People Blending Their Lives With Yours – Do you ruminate about past events? Are you haunted by what was done & left undone? Do you feel nostalgia for a past that never was? Do you have a favorite period in history or a fantasy universe that you wish you lived in, instead of this one?

                  You are the Hero of Your Creative Saga – Accept your centrality in your own myth. It doesn’t matter what other people think – they are the bit players. Think of your past as a Quest Saga. What did you want? How did it change? What blocked you? What tools have you got at your command? Where do you go from here?

                  Rewrite the Past – You absolutely CAN, but first you first must face its full horror and that effect on you. Generally, because we were immature, we didn’t understand what was going on, were co-opted by our persecutors and prevented from fighting back. Things are different now! The hardest thing to accept is that beloved caregivers didn’t want the best for us – they only wanted us to be just like them.

                  “I Don’t Believe in Ghosts but I Never Met a Person who Wasn’t Haunted” is a very wise saying. What haunts you exactly? Or who? Ghosts are malignant – if they weren’t they would be power spirits, fairy godmothers or guardian angels. What malignancies from your past are out to get you and how do they make themselves known? One of Freud’s contributions was to point out that people prefer their neurosis – ie imprisonment – to liberation. Why? What’s in it for you?

                  You Define YOU. Yes, you have scars – these are bragging rights! You have been through the wars! ‘Rewriting” the past means understanding what really happened, the limitations of those who surrounded you, and exploring your chances and choices today. Just because parents, teachers or “society” sentenced you to play a role, you can step out of it at any time. Buddhist thought is very helpful here.

                  Buddha teaches that life itself is an illusion – a dream. It changes depending on how we think about it. In the present, inside your mind, you hold all the keys to your own liberation. Re-visit Pema Chodron’s Noble Heart and Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now to explore how you can assume immediate control of your life and your mind and turn your past into fuel to power your growth.

                  Creatives Know Who They Are – Remember, you’ve got a purpose. You’ve got a future. You’ve thought about your past and worked out conflicts with a mentor and in your Training Journal.

                  Creatives Develop A Sense of History – You understand that history is a spiral, not a circle – the same things do keep coming around but in a different form. You see all around you the operation of karma.

                  Choosing Evil is Choosing Chaos – and condemning yourself to death. It can’t work out for anyone except temporarily. You understand the battle between darkness and light and you have committed yourself firmly to The Light.

                  Creatives Are Storytellers – You pass the message on with your life, with your words, with your body, with your very presence. You have become one link in the unbreakable chain of Eternal Perfection and you will have your reward.

                  Models & Mentors – “You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory” – Dr Seuss

                  “Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things” – Cicero

                  “In the end, we’ll all become stories.” – Margaret Atwood

                  “Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining a task or actually doing it”- Yo Yo Ma

                  #Haiku: No-Fault Apology

                  Atone?
                  Conspire:
                  Delete:
                  Rewire
                  My memory and
                  Yours; potent
                  Fire.

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

                  The Path – Goals

                  If This Archetype Chooses You – There Will Be Paperwork! – Do you dream of paths diverging in a yellow wood? Checklists? Maps? Are you talking to yourself as you follow your routine? What IS your routine? How has your routine evolved? What efforts have you made to change it to newly perceived needs and discoveries? Or is your routine formed outside your will, strictly for the benefit of others?

                  Creatives Dream of Maps. If you talking to yourself throughout your routine that self-talk needs to be positive. Become an encouraging coach. Don’t hold yourself hostage or you can’t complete your steps.

                  If You Have No Goal, Any Path Will Take You There – But you won’t like where you end up. Creatives are Goal-oriented. As you become more adept at change, you realize that dividing effort into “steps” to achieve a goal is critical. It won’t happen fast. Your conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious (not to mention your pre-conscious!) are going to kick up a helluva fuss. But that’s the interesting part! Change is guaranteed.

                  Creatives Are Sore-Muscled Athletes – Day 2 is typically spent thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS. Guess what? EVERYBODY THINKS THAT! Even the non-sensitive thinks it. Expect it! You treat yourself with loving compassion and cold compresses, hot baths and massage. In other words, there is an established map, a way to GET THROUGH THIS. The challenge is to CUSTOMIZE your map to suit you, exactly.

                  Being is Movement. As we shape the Path, it shapes us. Even the most anti-social creatures are constantly making paths for others to follow. Such delight when we uncover a ready-made Path because path-making is exhausting! A ready-made path is a mysterious invitation. All paths lead Somewhere. Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the existence of The Other.

                  Paths Speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. Paths are our Robinson Crusoe footprint. They represent Hope: this Path worked not just once, but many times. We are proud of being Path-makers, Ice-piercers in our turn, Long-distance voyagers. We lead the weary, frightened traveler of the future toward confidence and reliability.

                  Creatives Use Models. We need a constantly evolving & revolving pit crew of helpers. A side effect of routine remodeling is “crazy thinking.” We all need somebody to talk us off the ledge, somebody who is familiar with not just our goals but what we are going through. Your id is holding the rest of you hostage, and you need an experienced hostage negotiator.

                  Waves of “Fear” Surfacing from your Collective Unconscious require symbolic release and expression in art, dance, love-making, sport or theatre.

                  Disowned Longings from Your Subconscious threaten your secure sense of self and may require therapeutic intervention.

                  Unconscious Drives from Depths no one’s ever plumbed can’t be faced without the courage of a Friend or Soulmate. So, don’t try making it through this crisis without a buddy AND a coach.

                  Halt! AA has a useful acronym – HALT – representing:

                  Hungry
                  Angry
                  Lonely
                  Tired

                  These are the Emotion States of Bad Decision-Making. So, when you see these conditions developing – Halt. Call your hostage negotiator immediately.

                  Models & Mentors – “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins

                  “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things”
                  – Albert Einstein

                  “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine St. Exupery

                  “Always remember your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas

                  #Haiku: Facing the Boogeyman

                  Mimics dread
                  Mocks goals
                  Derails
                  Ambition;
                  Seize him and
                  Laugh
                  In his face

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

                  Winter – Dormancy

                  If This Archetype Chooses You – You are torpid. What’s happening when nothing’s happening? Your dreams remain lively. Do you thirst for endless sleep? Deep snows? Hibernation? Do you identify with the drowsy bear and the sleepy sloth?

                  Now’s the Time – This is the sacred moment before a burst of Creativity. You are gathering your forces. Compare it to a pregnancy. Things are happening, but so slowly and deeply you are not aware of them, with the result that you may feel confused and frustrated. Instead, revel in this burgeoning becoming in the midst of sleepy peace.

                  Creatives Need To Hibernate
                  Sometimes a plan isn’t ready. Sometimes you’re not ready. Timing is everything.

                  It’s a Long Wait Sometimes, as anyone who’s ever been through eighteen years of schooling or a seemingly endless winter can tell you. But it comes faster if you turn your attention to other things.

                  Waiting for Peak –– We cultivate our dreams without pushing or extracting them. We curate our sensations without monitoring and forcing them. Spin through pictures of animals – what jumps out? Who is speaking to you? What are they saying? What are you afraid of and why? Make notes and collect images. A collage creates a deeper, more resonant picture. Sometimes it’s all in the eyes.

                  Creative Danger – In sleep we are entirely vulnerable and we have cultural and historic reason to fear that state. Guard yourself with supportive beings, with sleep music, with healing rituals. The triple-locked doors, the blackout-curtained windows, the silenced devices protect us in our chosen nest. Don a bracelet of “worry beads”, summon your happiest memories and tell them by touch, eyes closed, one by one. Send every ounce of your remembered love and joy out into the universe with a command to come back to you a hundred times. A thousand times so that your love can spill over and be shared with all you touch, near and far.

                  Creative Opportunity – You are creating yourself. The fetus of this pregnancy is YOU. In every dreamy hibernation second you are rebuilding yourself, adding visions, promoting fresh understandings and positive interpretations. Life offers us the chances of joy and misery – use your conscious awareness to accept these tools and allow dream-time and prep-time to penetrate ever deeper into your subconscious, (sometimes called the “preconscious”) to the unconscious, and down down down, deepest of all, to the collective unconscious where we recall in our bones and teeth and cells everything that has ever happened to every living thing as if it happened to us. This is the source of all imagination and creativity, accessible to you in the dream state.

                  Be Patient. A Watched Pot Never Boils. The mouse is a whole lot likelier to come out of the mouse-hole if the cat isn’t waiting on the other side. Free your mind to imagine what it feels like to be everyone, anyone, in your constructed scenarios.

                  Over-thinking is Bad for your Brain – Ever heard the expression “Sleep on it!” The only time you shouldn’t sleep on it is in the heat of battle, and the clever creative AVOIDS battles to protect their birthing self-hood. ALWAYS sleep on it! Ask your dreams to send insight, bubbling up from the pre-conscious. Participate in artistic pursuits, allowing metaphor and symbol to work it’s magic in your subconscious. Do something completely different. Refresh yourself.

                  Models & Mentors – “To lose patience is to lose the battle.”
                  – Mahatma Gandhi

                  “Grow in patience when you meet great wrongs and they will be powerless to vex your mind” – Leonardo da Vinci

                  “Patience is not simply the ability to wait but how we behave when we are waiting” – Joyce Meyer

                  “Patience and Time do more than strength and passion”
                  – Jean de la Fontaine

                  Haiku: Ghosts

                  Ghosts
                  Enable, unmask
                  All our
                  Dormant selves
                  We could not
                  Would not
                  Be.