Meet my colorfully expressive creative self

… dancing joyfully with uncharacteristic flamboyant abandon! I hardly recognize myself. How about you? Kasha Mama shared this amazing ‘resonant’ image at Facebook this morning, and I fell in love with it!

‎”To be nobody but yourself
in a world which is doing its best, night and day,
to make you everybody else means to fight
the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.”
e e cummings

So when Athena Burke – Singing Love shared a poster from ‘Singing in the Rain’ as representative of her day and invited others to share images illustrating our day, I couldn’t resist using it as my response! Once the floodgates opened, I shared it on BOTH of my pages (with quotes from e e cummings and Robert Frost shared above and below here), and at The Hurricane of Gratitude together with the following message:

I’m grateful for the freedom to CHOOSE how I respond to whatever comes, and to be myself … just as I am … no modifications needed. Thanks to @KashaMama for this beautiful image illustrating how I feel today.

I hope I’ve not stepped on anyone’s toes using this magical image repeatedly. If you know who created the graphic, I’ll be happy to add credit everywhere. Just let me know, please.

I relieved to report that it didn’t take me long to get myself moving forward productively after giving in to a little ‘whining’ briefly last Thursday evening in response to Sam Bennett’s feedback the Get Your Work Out There private Facebook support group lamenting:

I’m pretty sure (the technical things) would be fairly easy for me to do … if I could just get a ‘c’ rather than giving in to my inner editor who is very fierce and hard to ignore when I’m at the keyboard. I took Christina Hills’ Website Creation …course this past Spring so I wouldn’t need to hire a web person, and I’m enrolled in her ‘extended support’ group so I have access to the ‘how to’ directions, explained clearly and directly. In the past, I taught myself to do lots of technical things (including some HTML coding) when it was all new and I didn’t have other fish to fry, but the ‘technical stuph’ isn’t something I enjoy any more so it tends to get shoved to the bottom of the list. I guess that’s why I asked about hiring someone … just to get it done and move on to other things. That said, as far as the communication sequence for Aweber follow up goes, if I wrote those out ahead of time on paper rather than trying to compose at the computer as I’ve thought about doing … that might flow quickly.

At the moment, it feels like I’m spinning my wheels … having trouble making any decisions at all. Maybe I’ll listen to the last coaching call with Isabel to get myself FOCUSED again. I have the sense that using a teacher’s lesson plan book (a tool I used for decades) might help me get a handle on things because the different aspects of getting published, starting a web business, and marketing stuph would be like the different subject areas I covered in the classroom. I could see everything all at once and have an overview of how everything fits. Thanks for the support, suggestions, and the space to let this all spill out of almost as if I was writing the labyrinth by hand. Guess my inner editor was bored because this took me no time at all. Now if I could just figure out how that happened, maybe I could get the technical stuph done?

Friday I regained a sense of clarity and focus, decided I’d use the GYWOT support as originally intended to actually ‘Get My Work Out There’ rather than to write the TAE ‘book proposal’ because I’ll get enough support from Christine Kloser on that project. I dug out a ‘plan book’ I’d purchased a while back and started blocking tasks into the two month-long time frame, decided against signing up for yet another tantalizing offer in the form of Molly Gordon’s Wise Women’s Mastermind group. I’m fully aware that one way I procrastinate is by jumping into such exciting opportunities because I love to learn!

Instead I sat down, scanned, recorded, and published five labyrinth pieces at my Labyrinth Journal website that I created (and intended to share) last Sunday … then added links at Facebook to let people know what I’d accomplished, inviting visitors. This morning I spent some time networking and letting myself be seen at Facebook which generated some traffic to my public pages and earned me some additional followers. After taking a break to walk Molly then do some gardening (my citrus trees were covered with sticky ‘gunk’ from flies and needed to be washed with soap), I took a shower, washed my hair, then created an account at Vervante which was easier than I anticipated. When I tried to do this last November, I didn’t realize it wasn’t necessary to fill in ALL the information.  Live and learn!

It seems I’ve acquired useful experience over the past several months which hopefully will continue to serve me well. Either this afternoon or tomorrow morning I’ll send an email to Cyndy Tyler with some questions, and perhaps send her a print-ready PDF of my first Labyrinth Journal for publication. Soon I’ll be able to hold a copy in my hands, after which I plan to send copies to a number of people who have helped me get this far and begin to offer the journals for sale!

I’m feeling pleased with my vibrant expressive energy today.  After I leave a link to this post at the GYWOT group, I’m ready to relax and savor this moment with all I’ve accomplished!

Thought for Today
‎”Freedom lies in being bold.” Robert Frost

 

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4 Responses to Meet my colorfully expressive creative self

  1. Jzrart says:

    I’m looking forward to seeing and reading your book. I can’t seem to grasp it on a computer screen.

    • Virginia says:

      Joan,
      Not to worry … sometimes I have trouble grasping it myself.
      The ‘book’ I’ve always intended to write is one of a series of ‘reflections’ … a collection of ‘vignettes’ in which I reveal situations when I believed I was ‘teaching one thing’ then realized (after the fact) the lesson was mine … to learn or not. The one I’ll be self-publishing very soon with Vervante is actually a journal in which I share labyrinth pieces on the theme of ‘choice’ and invite readers to experiment with the process themselves. Either or both may end up being a ‘series of books’ depending on how they’re received … once I put the work out there. Thanks for dropping by. ‘Tis always a pleasure to connect.
      Hugs and blessings,
      Virginia

  2. Bill Larsen says:

    Your lesson plan analogy is really good. Learning to write lesson plans is how I survived as a professional land use and environmental planner. I should also say that reading your blog and Paul Reinertson’s blog and Sonny Carter’s blog has empowered me to try my own blog. Keep up the great work.

    • Virginia says:

      Bill,
      ‘Tis always fun to find comments from you unexpectedly every now and then. I’m delighted to know you’re feeling ’empowered’ to try your own blog by reading mine and two others. I hope you’ll send me the link when you begin so I can visit. I’d also like to check out Paul Reinertson’s and Sonny Carter’s blogs since you find them of interest, so perhaps you’ll share those links too?

      As for ‘lesson plans’ … methinks the reasons they ‘work’ for (outside of the familiarity of the form itself) is that they help me keep a clear vision of where I’m headed, so that even when I don’t know how to get there … I keep moving in the general direction doing what I can with what I have where I am (as Teddy Roosevelt suggested so long ago) … making ‘course corrections’ along the way … seeking help as needed. An important aspect for ME is to enjoy the journey wherever it leads, travel with companions I genuinely like being around, see EVERY encounter as an opportunity (or invitation) to heal whatever hurts (especially when I’d rather not), release whatever gets in the way, and surrender to surprise … because that’s how, when, and where synchronicity shows up!
      Hugs and blessings,

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