Category: Creativity

Creativity, focus, Personal Development, Personal growth

Gratitude, Devotion, and Dedication

Adele Satori

I clean a music studio once a month. I looked down at my bucket, and.. well. I can’t quite describe all the feelings I had. I remember there was a time in my life I was quite adamant that I would **never** have a job cleaning bathrooms, and yet.. at that moment, there I was about to do that very thing. And I felt so much gratitude for that bucket of water.

My life seems to bounce around extremes, sometimes simultaneously. During the next couple of weeks I’ll be decorating a house that is amazingly delightfully over the top. And no, I can’t share pictures; it’s one of the conditions of my working there. This is year three!

A practice I want to reignite: I would do any “job” for awhile, save up my money, then take a sabbatical and focus on something that reflects my true heart. It’s given me something to look forwards on both sides of that journey.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concepts of devotion and dedication lately. To me, they are similar, but not the same.

Devotion I see as coming from a place of loving attention. Dedication as more of a practical nature, and commitment to a process/ideal/cause. They work in partnership, the dance of loving attention and practical commitment complementing each other, and nurturing the journey.

I’m feeling on the cusp of Something Really Big and Good lately. I know what some of it is, and feeling frustration around my survival gig not allowing the flexibility I think I need to do it. I would love to have the resources to fully jump into what I know is my What’s Next, but I don’t. So I’m working with the constraints of perceived lack of time and resources, and finding a way to make it all happen anyway.

Choosing to see my survival gig as a venue to hone my skills of interacting with all kinds of people, communicating, sharing, sending out love and healing. (You’d be surprised how many people come shopping in search of healing). Learning how to exchange energy without being depleted, because if what I feel is coming for me is coming, and I work to make it happen, there’s gonna be a whole lotta ‘xchangin’ goin’ on.

I know this is more rambly than usual. Some feelings are hard to put into words.

If you made it this far, thank you! I love you, and I can’t wait to discover together and share what’s next!

Creativity, drawing, focus, Personal Development, Personal growth

Creative Block

Adele Satori

Creative Block.

OK! Let’s start off with the biggie that affects us all, eventually. Creative block. The ideas just won’t come. We suddenly have to clean our living space/binge watch/party. Anything but deal with the empty page/canvas/uncut fabric/musical instrument/dance floor staring back at us.

The key for me is to simply start.

“But Adele!” you say with exasperation “I can’t think of anything!!”
You want to know a secret? You don’t have to!

Take the 15 minute challenge! Set a timer if you like. Are you pacing, mind racing? Get outside for 15 minutes. Go for a walk, mindfully. Turn off your phone. Walk and observe. How would you describe what you are seeing? How are the trees moving? If you were a bird, what would your song sound like?

Another approach I use: when writing I might just start listing words that come to mind, in no particular order. Look at something nearby and describe it in minute detail. I will pick up a pen and start doodling with no objective. Play scales. Move around. Just. do. Something.

Close your eyes and breathe. Yes.. meditate! Get out of that “I can’t” head of yours!

Ready? Take the 15 minute challenge and let’s talk about it.

creative block, Creativity, focus, Personal Development, Personal growth

Make the Most of Constraints

Adele Satori

I was waiting at the bus stop, looked up and saw this banner “Make the most of constraints”.

Many of us are familiar with the phrase “work with what you have”.. but how often have we seen constraints as a challenge to reach deep into our creativity, instead of limitations?

Perceived lack can often be an excuse to not create. Not enough time. Not enough money. I don’t have the right equipment/materials.

What can you do with what you have? What lying around might become a musical intstrument you hadn’t considered? How can you shift your mindset of limitations to be a creative challenge or inspiration instead of a block? What poem or drawing will flow from you in the 15 minutes you have if you allow it? What sculpture could you create from that stack of paper bags and ball of string?

I invite you to shift your vision. Make the most of your constraints, and see what wonders you can unleash into the world.

Feel free to share your discoveries, and how it felt in the comment section below.

Creativity, focus, Personal Development, Personal growth

Devotion to Your True Heart’s Calling

Adele Satori

In that delicious place between wakefulness and sleep came to me: to follow the call of your soul, serve in devotion to your craft. Make it a priority every day to do something that calls your heart. We all can find a few minutes at least to write, to doodle, to garden, to enact positive social change,to make music. Whatever it is that keeps whispering for your attention. To write our goals and aspirations and the action steps we will take in the coming week to actualize our True Heart. The only true obstacle is our self limiting beliefs in what we are able to accomplish with what we already have.

Even when you’re not feeling it. And especially when you’re feeling stuck. Sit and write a description of what’s around you. Doodle without thought or plan. Sing or play scales or chords for a few minutes.

Set a timer for ten minutes. If you feel inspired to continue beyond that, do!

I invite you to share below what action step you will do today. How will you show devotion to your craft?

Creativity, drawing, focus, Personal growth, sensation, spirituality

Visualizing Sensation

Adele Satori

visualizing-sensationb

Today while walking, two men passed me.  They smelled of old books.

Not long afterwards, I saw them admiring a tree.  One patted it with affection and said “I’m sure this tree has stories to tell.”  The other nodded.

Later I saw them again, looking at the plants in the garden.  First one would say something about it, then the other.  Sharing their knowledge, not in competition, but in conversation.  They looked at each other often in the way of loving understanding that only people who’ve been companions a long time do.  In my head I named the men Verso and Recto… facing pages in a book.

I sat on a bench and began to doodle, as I sometimes do there.  Doodling for me is a way to turn off my Inner Narrator- that constant voice in my head. I don’t think about what comes next; I just let the pen go where it will on the paper.  This time, I realized.. I was drawing the way the garden sounded and felt.  I was drawing sensation.. not what I saw.  I tuned in and continued with this focus. I will leave it to you to interpret what I was hearing, seeing, and feeling.

I’ve done this with creating music, or dancing before, but not drawing, and it felt amazing.

Will you take a moment to let your Inner Narrator settle and silence?  What do you hear?  What do you feel?  What does that look like?

I’d love to see what you come up with!