One Move

Imagine a girl dreaming of happy colors, long walks, more laughter.
Imagine a girl remembering how she used to sew, sketch, and daydream about writing a book.
Imagine a girl trusting that she can live the life she wants even though the twists and turns have brought her to some unexpected places.
Imagine a girl choosing to make one move toward this dream, this life every day.

Come along with the girls of Chickadee Road and reconnect with that girl inside you as you make One Move each day toward the life you imagine for yourself.

In “One Move,” Kelly Barton and I will lead you in a two-week adventure of reconnecting with that inquisitive, wise girl inside you as you name the life you want and discover and begin practicing one move each day toward that life.

In Week 1, we'll dive into naming and claiming the life you've imagined and open up toward living it. 

In Week 2, we'll begin to practice making one small but significant move each day toward that life. We will also look at ways to continue the "One Move" practice after our two-week adventure ends.

Details:

Dates: July 14-25, 2014

What “One Move” includes:

1) Daily emails Monday through Friday that will guide you in connecting with the dreams inside you and the life you imagine. There will be creative prompts to help you discover your "moves," inspiration, and stories from our own experiences.

2) Four Spreecasts: 

• Week 1 will include a 90-minute workshop with Liz and Kelly just like you are with us in the circle at one of our retreats. We will each share stories and guide you through a journaling exercise to help you name the pieces of the life you’ve imagined for yourself.
• Each week will also include an hour long question & answer session, which will also give time for you to share your stories and might even include a guest or two. 
• A follow-up session about a month after the class ends to give you the opportunity to check in, ask questions, share where you are, and so on. (This also gives people who are working through the material a bit more slowly a chance to still participate in a Spreecast and ask questions and share where they are in the process.)

If you are unable to attend the Spreecasts live, they will be recorded and you can watch (and re-watch) them at any time.

3) A private Facebook group where we can connect with one another, share stories, ask questions, check in, and be in community together.

Cost: $75 (Register over on Chickadee Road)

This class is for you:
 

If you’ve felt discouraged as you experience the disconnect between your everyday life and the life you envision for yourself.

You might even have stories like, “When this {big change} happens, I will finally do {insert dream here}.” Or "I thought by the time I was {insert age here}, I would {insert something you always wanted to do but haven't done yet}.

And even though life is good, you feel a longing to make some changes, to come back to center, or to spend some time with the dreams you had when you were younger. You feel a longing to invite in more joy and more light and more space.

The two of us have been there. And this is what we’ve learned: Each day you can make the choice to take one step toward the life you want. And then you can take one more step the next day. Even when you’d rather go back to bed. Even when life takes an unexpected turn. Even when the morning starts with burnt toast. 

Kelly and I would love to have you come along. Head over to Chickadee Road to read more (including an FAQ) and register.

water your mama soul

It is time to nourish yourself, baby girl.

A mama's day is full of so much. Shifting from one role to the next can be beautiful and really hard sometimes. Some days it can leave you feeling exhausted even while you're aware of the joy. In the midst of it all, you can forget about the one person who needs your support most of all: You.

Water Your Mama Soul is a 10-day journey into self-care, healing, and noticing what you need. It's about making the choice to open your heart to you even as you nurture the dear souls underneath your roof.

You'll use your camera and a journal to reconnect with yourself through prompts and self-care practices that will arrive in your inbox each day. And you won't be alone. I'll be alongside you with my own stories from the mama trenches as each email includes a story from my heart to you.

I've created this class because I believe 10 days of focused creative self-care for just 10-20 minutes a day will change your life. 

And I'm delighted to now offer Water Your Mama Soul as an ongoing class for just $19. When you register, your emails begin right away so you can work at your pace and begin today.

Learn more, read the FAQ, and register here. 

21 secrets begins in 21 days

As I put together the lessons and videos for my "I Am" self-portrait + poetry class for 21 Secrets, I simply had so much fun. I'm so grateful that Connie Hozvicka asked me to be part of this experience so that I could gather up my go-to favorite poetry + self-portrait prompts and put them together in an accessible online class for you to experience. Adding these mediums to your art journal adventures is going to change your life. For real.

And there are 20 (TWENTY!!!) other teachers who you will be learning from when you sign up. Look at all the gorgeous artwork represented in the above image. I can't wait to dive into the juicy ways we'll be learning to tell our stories. YES!

Here's a tiny peek inside one of my I Am journals that I am filling with photos + words + prompts. I share more about this simple journal in my class.

21 Secrets Spring 2014 will be a downloadable eBook, which means you receive full access to all the 21 Secrets workshops at once (including videos, written content, and visuals) and are able to keep them forever. This way you can go at your own pace, and if you've ever taken an ecourse with me, you know how important I feel that is. 

But you don't have to go it alone! Students and teachers will be connecting in a private Facebook group and private Flickr group. Love this!

Learn more about 21 Secrets and sign up right here.

{Note that as a teacher, I am also an affiliate for 21 Secrets. This means I receive a commission when sales are made through my links.}

21 Secrets

I am so delighted to share that I'm part of Connie Hozvicka's incredible Spring 21 Secrets workshop!

This workshop is a beautiful journey into art journaling with 21 teachers spilling some of their favorite techniques, ideas, and stories. I am honored to be included among these incredible teachers. There is so much wisdom + creativity + experience within these women. Just look at their beautiful faces!

21 SECRETS Spring 2014 will be a downloadable eBook, which means you receive full access to all the 21 SECRETS workshops at once (including videos, written content, and visuals) and are able to keep them forever. This way you can go at your own pace, and if you've ever taken an ecourse with me, you know how important I feel that is. 

But you don't have to go it alone! Students and teachers will be connecting in a private Facebook group and private Flickr group. Love this!

I'll be sharing more details about my own workshop that is part of the course soon. It is called "I am..." and brings self-portraits, poetry, and journaling all together. I am so excited to share the ways I use these mediums to gather my stories. My workshop will be a lot like going on a creative play date with me and then coming back to my studio to integrate all that we find into a book we can turn to again and again.

And here is something that I love about the way Connie does this: By announcing 21 Secrets months ahead, she gives you the opportunity to be thoughtful about how you want to spend your creative time in 2014. There are so many beautiful ecourses to choose from, but so often we sign up and don't finish them. I love that this gives you an opportunity to look past the holidays and the beginning of the year stuff and say to yourself, "Next Spring, I'm going to give myself the gift of diving into art journaling. For real this time."

There are so many other good things to share about 21 secrets, including information about all the workshops, and you can read all about them over here on Connie's site.

I hope you will come along. I can't wait!!

{Note that as a teacher, I am also an affiliate for 21 Secrets. This means I receive a commission when sales are made through my links.}

SoulSisters in October

I'm delighted to share that I'll be teaching at SoulSisters this fall!

This will be a weekend in one of my favorite cities, Portland, Oregon, and it is all about how we can create lives filled with beauty, kindness, and genuine connection. As the organizer of the event, Rachelle Mee Chapman, says, "When you feed your soul with wisdom and bathe your heart in laughter, you’ll feel less alone, more companioned, and full of energy as your return to your (beautiful) everyday world." A big yes to this. 

If you've been thinking about attending a longer retreat but want to dip your toe in before committing to the cost and time of a five-day experience, consider coming along and connecting with the creative kindreds you've been longing to meet in person.

Other teachers and presenters include:

• Kelly Rae Roberts (Wisdom Jam Session)
• Molly Mahar (Personifying Your Inner Guide - How to Trust Yourself)
• Jenna McGuiggan (Story Carnival)
• Bridget Pilloud (Chakra Love)
• Vivienne McMaster (Invite Yourself into the Visual Story of Your Life)
• Rachel Cole (Becoming a Well-Fed Woman: Finding & Feasting on Your Truest Hungers)
• Kate Swoboda (of Your Courageous Life)
• Rachelle Mee-Chapman (Where Soulcare and Worldcare Meet)

I'll be teaching my Poem It Out workshop, which is a unique approach to self-care through the lens of reading and writing poetry. We will explore the world of poetry from a place of wonder and healing. We will read poems that invite us to nod our heads and say, “Me too…me too.” We will unearth our inner poet, face the blank page, and say, “Bring it” and write the words that are ready to burst out of us. We will stop everything to Poem It Out. This will be a workshop for people from all experiences with writing and poetry, including those who think "I don't really get poetry." I can't wait to share this workshop with you!

The details:

Find out more about SoulSisters here.

If you do decide to join us, I would be grateful if you would use this affiliate link to register or if you register through the main site, it would be awesome if you could tell Rachelle you heard about the event through me. Thank you!

Hope to see you there!

a water your toddler mama soul FAQ

Water Your Toddler Mama Soul begins next Wednesday, and today I want to share a quick FAQ:

What does "deep dive into self-care" mean?

I have to admit that I've been worried this phrase might be overwhelming to some. To me, a deep dive is a commitment to practicing something with your whole heart. So for these 10 days, my hope is that the mamas coming along will bring their hearts open to practicing self-care each day to see what it really feels like. However, the practices won't be intense. Quite the opposite really. They will be accessible and will take about 10-20 minutes each day (longer if you want them to). We will be taking photos and writing and getting outside to just breathe. And we will be supporting each other along the way. Also, I will be available by email and in the Facebook group for questions and support.

Why 10 days?

As a toddler mama, I know what it feels like to not have time for myself. But this is what I know: When I don’t take time for myself I’m not able to be really present for my life, for the everyday, for the beauty and the hard stuff. And I want to be present for all of it. 

And every time I’ve taken an ecourse since my daughter was born, I’ve never ever finished. Not once. And I like ecourses a lot. I like the community and the emails of wisdom in my inbox and the practices shared...all of it. But I seldom work through 4, 5, or 8 weeks of content.

Water Your Toddler Mama Soul gives you immediate accessible practices to reconnect with yourself in the midst of all that a day with a toddler or two or three brings. It gets right to it and gently pushes you to take care of yourself starting right now.

These are the practices I use each day, and when the class ends, you will be able to begin again, use the prompts that most resonated, and turn to the emails as often as you need to as a reminder that you are not alone. 

Do I have to be creative?

This isn't a class about being a creative mama or being creative with your kids. I do use the phrase "creative self-care" because many of the tools I use (photography, writing, and even meditation) fall under that category. There will be daily photography prompts that will be used as a tool to see your world and yourself. I can imagine that we will share ideas for ways to be creative with our toddlers in the Facebook group and look forward to those conversations.

Is this a class about parenting or about advice for parenting a toddler?

Nope. This class is about self-care for mamas. In the Facebook group, there could be threads started about parenting where someone asks for some tips, but that is not a focus of this class or of the Facebook group.

Can you define toddler mama? What if I’m not a toddler mama but this class speaks to my mama soul?

If you think you are a toddler mama, then you probably are! This class will focus on toddler moms and what they experience having a child between 1ish-4ish. I’ve heard someone call the newborn year “the longest shortest time.” This class will explore accessible self-care practices to support toddler mamas getting through that next stage that I think feels like a true continuation of that longest shortest time but with walking + talking + unexpectedness each day and so on. 

If your child is younger than 1 or older than 4 and this class speaks to you, send me an email and we can chat about it.

Tell me more about the Facebook group.

One of the reasons I want to create this class with a Facebook group that carries on after the class ends is because I think toddler mamas need a safe space to go where they can share how intense and gorgeous and crazy and beautiful the day to day is, and they will be held by a group of women who nod and get it and say, “me too, me too” because they are right there in it each day as well.

I deeply appreciate the perspective of moms of older children and turn to them for support. But sometimes these moms say things like, “Hold on to every moment.” and “Don’t wish this time away.” When what we really need to hear are other toddler mamas saying, “I hear this. This part of being a mom is hard for me too. You aren’t alone. I know you love your child, but of course this is intense. You are okay.” and so many other things that I believe only another toddler mama can feel in her body in this moment simply because she is in it too.

This first group of Water Your Toddler Mama Soul participants will help me to shape this Facebook group, and I can’t wait to dive in together.  

If you have any questions, please just send them over. 

Learn more and register here.

water your soul

December, you hold so much in your 31 days. The hustle and bustle of the holidays. The missing of those we love. The gatherings of family and friends and people we can't wait to hug and those we wish we didn't have to see. The loneliness that so often rests in the quiet spaces. The expectations, ours and others, that almost twinkle at the edges of each day. The hopes and the dreams and "the new year is almost here" anticipation all wrapped up around us, within us. 

There is beauty. And there is messy. There is peace. And there is the longest night of the year.

Many feel moved to go inward even though the world around us pushes us to do and be more.

This December, come along on a journey
to water your soul in the midst of it all.

Gather in community with like-minded spirits and give yourself the gift of remembering you, your soul care needs, your stories, you. Be gently reminded you that you are not alone as you experience all that this season brings.

How this program will work:

Emails to ground you :: From December 1 through December 31, you will receive three emails each week that will invite you to nourish yourself. Each email will include a soul care invitation along with encouragement and inspiration. These invitations might include "being present" practices such as meditations and reflection, short photography or writing prompts, or creative self-care recipes.  

Facebook community :: Beginning November 26 through the first week of January, we will also gather in an optional Facebook group to share pieces of ourselves and support one another. Here you will be able to connect about your experiences with the soul care work, share photographs, and have space held for you as you need it.

Learn more and register here.

poem it out (a new ecourse)

The idea for this ecourse grabbed hold of me last week and wouldn't let go. I am so delighted to be sharing it with you today! 

*****

Poetry is a lifeline for me.

I think it could be one for you, too.

And I want to spend four weeks with you showing you why.

In this online course, we will explore the world of poetry from a place of wonder. We will look for poems that invite us to nod our heads and say, “Me too…me too.” We will face the blank page and say, “Bring it” and write the words that are ready to burst out of us. We will stop everything to Poem It Out.

DETAILS

Dates: April 2 – April 27

Where: The course will be hosted on a private blog and private Flickr group. Although the material will be presented over four weeks, participants are encouraged to work at their pace, and the course will stay up on the blog until May 31 to help facilitate this. The Flickr group will be available indefinitely for continued connection after the course ends. 

Lessons: Juicy poetry goodness will be posted four times a week and will include topics like:

• Writing and poetry prompts
• Creating a word toolbox to be a companion when you face the blank page
• Poetry creative adventure assignments
• Stories about my own poetry adventures
• Inspiration posts that will introduce you to poets, poems, and other good things
• Interviews with poets and poetry lovers

Supply list:

• Journal/notebook and favorite pen/pencil
• A camera (any camera is fine, including a camera phone)
• A Flickr membership (only needed if you want to share your photos)

Updated: Registration for this session of Poem It Out is now closed. To learn more about current and upcoming sessions, head over here.

Please note that an FAQ with answers to some of the questions you might have is included on the Poem It Out page. Feel free to send over any additional questions to me via email.