Go gently into the year. There's a lot about the place of figuring out 2024, what our goals are, what our word of the year is, what we want, how we want to feel, who we want to be, the things we want to change or accept or call in or let go of.

It's kind of exhausting and it's only January 2.

So if you're not already familiar with the idea of marinating in your daydreams instead of rushing to set goals, here's an invitation to do just that.

We often walk through doors and across thresholds in time without really stopping to notice the transition between here and there. The moment when we're not here any more, but neither are we there yet. A change is happening, and we long for 'changing' to become 'changed' because the messy middle part is… messy.

What if we did take the time to notice? To pause there a moment. To take our time with 'changing'. What might we feel? What might we find?

Today, on the longest day of the year, I'm thinking about grace.

The world is a lot right now (perhaps it always is, in some regard).

The holidays are coming and they can be a complicated time. And then there's that weird limbo between Christmas and the new year. Another year starting - reflecting on the year that was, holding so much hope for the year to come.

And so here I am, thinking about grace.

You know the kind of scrolling where you're so checked out you're outside time and you aren't even really seeing what you're looking at? Who knows how long I'd been doing that for when I came across a sponsored post that snapped me back into time again.

And then something magic happened…

A complaint is a fight against something. Fighting against things can get really tiring. Endlessly pushing away the things we don’t want, the things that aren’t right, the things that don’t feel good.

So what to do? One thing we can do is look inside the complaint for the desire it holds. If we don’t want strawberry ice cream, what DO we want? If this feels wrong, what feels right?

Sometimes, the answer is obvious (chocolate ice cream, of course).

But sometimes it’s harder to figure out…

Inner child work is relatively well known. Spending time with our inner child helps us go back and give ourselves anything that we didn’t receive (or didn’t receive in a way that worked for us) when we were children - filling in the gaps.

But what about our inner teenagers? They tend to get less airtime than inner children, but getting to know them and finding ways to give them what they needed but didn’t receive has a whole host of other benefits…

It’s an easy trap to fall into, given the culture we live in, to believe that parts of ourselves aren’t right. To find ourselves thinking that it’s not okay to be needy, to think that we need to kill off our people pleasers, exorcise our anxiety, stop being a victim and claim our empowerment. To beat ourselves up for finding it hard to take off the suit of armour and be more open, more soft, more vulnerable.

It’s like we’re trying to chop ourselves into pieces and only keep the good bits.

But that’s not how healing works. That’s not how growth works. That’s not how we get what we want.

Do you remember your dreams?

Musings on what dreamwork means to me, and an invitation to be part of a new dreaming group, starting soon.

Dreaming isn’t like being awake - different rules apply.

What’s something that’s feeling a bit challenging in life right now?

What if you had a fantastical creature or being who could help you with that?

What if these imaginings weren’t “just” your imagination? What if they weren’t childish, what if they weren’t a frivolous waste of time? What if they could be powerful allies to help you navigate life with more creativity, more lightness, more playfulness?

Want to give it a shot?

Imagination is sometimes dismissed as childish or frivolous (it’s ‘just’ your imagination), but it’s one of the most powerful tools we have. Before we can create anything, we have to imagine it, from something as simple as a sandwich to something as complex as a skyscraper.

Everything we create is born from our imagination. Imagination is what shapes our world - the stories we tell about ourselves and our place in the world, the meaning we make from the things we experience - imagination is the glue that holds us together.

How much mental real estate is taken up by things you feel you should do, but haven’t? The endless to do list that gets bumped from day to day and week to week (and in some cases, month to month or year to year…).

What if that weight wasn’t there any more?

What if you were a tree?

Humans are creatures made of stories - it’s how we make sense of the world and of ourselves. We use all kinds of metaphors to communicate our experiences. I slept like a log. I’m feeling kind of batty. They’re keeping on the straight and narrow. It’s raining cats and dogs.

Art therapy is a great way to explore, understand and change our metaphors and stories. Read on for more…

Reflecting on your past self, present self, and future self is a powerful practice that has many benefits, including insight into your personal growth over time, making more informed choices in your life, and ultimately, it can lead to a more satisfying and fulfilling life.

Read on for more!

Want to know a (not very) secret about our bodies? They’re only ever in the present moment. So when we engage in a creative activity with our hands, the act of drawing or gardening or cooking or knitting draws us into the present. This is part of why creative activities are so good for our wellbeing.

[the mandala drawing above was created by my friend and art therapist colleague who is running the online therapeutic art group with me - mandalas don’t have to be symmetrical!]

How does it feel to have the power to make something that wasn’t there before? To create something from nothing? A blank page now covered in colours.

We do it all day long. The meals we cook, the photos we take with our phones, the way we dress and do our makeup, the gardens we grow, the art we make. Creating things that weren’t there before.

Mostly, we take it for granted (I know I do).

But sometimes, every now and then, I realise that the drawing I’ve just done, or the meal I’ve just cooked - that’s an act of magic making…

Having a regular creative practice can help you live better.

How?

It’s related to the idea that how we do one thing is how we do everything - we tend to have ways of thinking and feeling and moving through the world that are similar, no matter the circumstances we’re finding ourselves in.

Read on for more, and some examples.

Making stuff makes you feel better.

There’s something a bit magic about starting with nothing and ending up with something that wasn’t there before. Aside from the end result, there’s also something a bit magic about what happens when we’re engaged in the process of creating. The ‘doing’ bit.

If you see yourself as a creative person, you might know this already.

But if you don’t see yourself as creative, or you feel intimidated by the thought of starting to draw or crochet or restore furniture or whatever idea is trying to get your attention, making stuff can feel like a hard mountain to climb.

Have you ever tried drawing a mandala? Mandalas have become known as beautiful symmetrical circular patterns, but that’s just one expression of them. Mandala means ‘circle’ in sanskrit - so really any drawing in a circle could be a mandala.

The medicine wheel is a circle. The full moon. The yin-yang. These are all examples of circles that hold so much meaning.

So when we’re drawing our own mandalas, the circle can hold our meaning, too. Our stories. Our feelings and experiences and fears and curiosities. Our expression of who we are.

There’s something magic that tends to happen when you create with others - often, the positive effects are amplified, because you’re not just doing something creative, you’re also part of something creative.

So here’s your gentle encouragement to find a friend or several friends and spend some creative time with them. Read on for more ideas…

There’s a saying that drifts around the place about humans and time that says something like: we overestimate how much we can get done in a day, and we underestimate how much we get done in a year.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built.

To make this quirk of human minds work for you, read on for a suggestion..