Women’s Body Stories
Yoga and Writing to Tap Your Body’s Wisdom
Sunday, December 5th, Studio Be Yoga, Boulder, Colorado
Join us for this unique experience. Find out more.
Creativity
Today is the day you become a writer.
Forget all the times you abandoned the book you were working on. Forget the times you gave up before writing a word because you couldn’t figure out how to begin.
It’s time to learn how to embrace your impulse to write, whether it’s for work or for pleasure. To stop dreaming about it and start living it.
Today is the day you become a writer. I’m going to show you how.
Coach Yourself Through the Difficulty of Creating
Another revision of your essay. Writing your artist’s bio or the About page of your blog. Putting together the promotional material to let everyone know about your new show or offering.
You’re jumping up and down, eager to do these tasks, right? I know. Not fun. As I mentioned in last week’s article, sometimes creating is difficult. I highlighted the benefits we get from facing difficult work and here I want to share my coaching strategies for getting through the tough labor of creating anything.
Follow these steps to take the sting out of hard creative work. [Read more…] about Coach Yourself Through the Difficulty of Creating
Empower Yourself: Embrace the Difficult Work of Creating
You’re working to get your business off the ground. You’re trying to write great blog entries. Or you’re pitching your book to publishers. You’re discovering a hard truth: it’s not easy, and sometimes it’s downright difficult.
You feel trapped and find yourself procrastinating. You don’t believe that you are capable of doing the work. Despair makes you want to give up altogether. It’s much easier to grab a glass of lemonade and go hang out in the hammock.
But by avoiding difficult situations or work, you’re missing out on the very benefits you need to be creatively empowered and bring your projects to satisfying completion.
I’m going on eleven years and draft fifteen of my novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach. Thinking of doing another revision feels difficult. But I can look back to previous iterations and see how staying with it has empowered me to tackle other creative projects.
This work has given me innumerable benefits, and here are five qualities that I’ve gained from the often-difficult work of creativity.
[Read more…] about Empower Yourself: Embrace the Difficult Work of Creating
Marcus McAllister: The Dreamed Journal
Join me in Marcus McAllister’s Paris studio for a peek into his illustrated journal.
Let the Body Lead
** Winner of The Ultimate Nap Book: Change Your Life without Getting out of Bed by SARK is……
Clara! I drew Clara’s name at random and you’re the winner, Clara! Please email me with your mailing address so I can send this out to you. Congratulations, and thanks for commenting. Happy napping!
Many of us live from our heads, ignoring or trying to forget that we have bodies. We don’t eat as well as we should, we sit too long at the computer, we don’t pamper and
treat our bodies with respect.
Travel, however, forces us to live from the body. You can’t override the effects of jet lag.
Your body will wake you up at odd hours. Your usual gymnastically-active mind
will suddenly go limp, all coherent thoughts fleeing to the shower room.
There’s nothing to do but surrender and let the body lead. The body will say, “Nap now.” Or “Get some exercise immediately!”
This is an issue that comes up often for my clients. I’m like them; we try to ‘get things done’ and sometimes we’ll ignore the signals our bodies’ signals.
It’s important to let the body lead. When people ask me how to be more creative, these are among the first practices I recommend – the actions that allow our natural creativity to blossom.
How to let the body lead? I’ll share an example from my experience plus a few suggestions.
[Read more…] about Let the Body Lead
Make Your Creative & Graceful Return
When you come home from a trip of any length, you’re not the same person. You’re just not. It’s impossible to go out into the world and not be affected.
If you’re like me, you want to make the most of what the world has given you. You embrace the gifts of the journey – new possibilities, insights and confidence.
But it’s easy for all that to slip away into the ignorosphere – that place where your ideas and possibilities exist but you don’t do anything about them.
I’m just off the plane from Paris – actually two trains, three planes and two busses, not to mention airport shuttles.
I’m still in motion. It’s like that feeling you get stepping off a moving walkway, still cruising but off-balance while you try to integrate the new pace.
But I’m happy to be back in the office and using my tools from my e-book The Graceful Return to get my footing. In this week’s newsletter I want to share what I’m doing to cull the juice from my trip to Paris.
It would be easy to pull an article together from the e-book, and I often do that. But this time I’ll share what I jotted in my journal on the way home.
[Read more…] about Make Your Creative & Graceful Return
Juju Infusion 12: Live Like You're Dying
Join me for my last hours in Paris and my journey home, carrying lots of goodies and juju!
In this episode:
Join me in Père Lachaise cemetery, a beautiful place to reflect on the journey and gather inspiration for life.
Daring…what will you dare this week? See my incredibly daring act that I pull off while traveling! (That's tongue-in-cheek.)
Pastries, beauty and juju all included. Thanks for watching!
Juju Infusion 11: Who Is Sylvia Beach?
Straight from Paris, an infusion of creative juju for your weekend!
In this episode:
more Paris treats: food, fashion, the Louvre, and the bizarre…
Who is Sylvia Beach and why am I chasing her?
Quick links for things mentioned in the show:
Pozzetto Italian gelato
Duvelleroy French fans
Ladurée French pastries
Juju Infusion 8: Yoga for Travel
Welcome to Juju Infusion – travel, productivity, yoga – fun juju all around for creative people.
Quick links for things mentioned in the show:
Welcome to episode eight of Juju Infusion! Yes, it's already been two months since I launched the show. It is so fun to produce these shows. I hope you have fun watching them!
In this episode:
Travel Yoga – Jet Lag!
Getting over fear – two weird ways I conquer fear
and more!
Please do leave a comment. Next week I'll draw from your comments a name and that lucky person will receive a pack of my Journey Blessings.
After that, I'll be in Paris and I'll be gathering goodies and giving them away to commenters! So stay tuned for the Paris juju coming our way!
To your juju infusion,
Cynthia
The Emotional Labor of Creating: Can You Bear It?
I was thrilled to read the term ‘emotional labor’ in Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. Finally, a phrase to capture what I consider to be at least half the work of creating anything.
The emotional labor that goes into building a business or developing an art or writing career is enormous. It’s why I have a job as a coach. If it were simply a matter of executing tasks, any monkey could create. It’s the emotional labor that separates those who can succeed and those who give up on their creative dreams.
So what is this emotional labor? Because emotions aren’t visible, and because we’re often besieged by several unpleasant ones at once, we often don’t recognize the work we’re putting in.
Doing my own emotional labor and facilitating that work for my clients, I’ve gained a sense of what it takes emotionally. When my clients learn to acknowledge and value their emotional efforts, they’re empowered. They know they can overcome fear and resistance. They know that they will be able to manage future conflicts more easily.
Kinds of emotional labor
The following list contains qualities, rather than emotions. Being able to feel, practice and live these qualities is good, hard emotional labor.
[Read more…] about The Emotional Labor of Creating: Can You Bear It?
Juju Infusion 6: An Extraordinary Yoga Feat
Episode Six of Juju Infusion – inspiration, fun, yoga and productivity hacks for creative kooks from coach Cynthia Morris.
Quick links for things mentioned in the show:
Cynthia Morris’s Secrets of Empowered Creativity – Free Course
Creative Fortunes
Muji
Manduka Yoga Mats
Andrew Locke – “Help My Business Sucks!”
Le Thé des Écrivains
Welcome to episode six of Juju Infusion. Thanks for all the comments and support you’ve shared with me. It makes it that much more fun.
Enjoy this wee pause to inject an infusion of Juju – good, zesty creative energy – into your day.
In this episode:
- A Creative Fortune for you
- Vital Yoga Challenge – and my extraordinary yoga feat!
- Q&A: How did you get started making videos, Cynthia?
- Journal Juju – Last week’s winner of the journal juju giveaway* was Jaime Lyerly. Who is it this week? Watch to find out!
Please share your thoughts and questions in a comment below. You may end up on the show!
*Winners of the journal juju giveaway must contact me with your address so I can mail your journal. Without that, I can’t send your journal!
To your juju infusion,
Cynthia
(There are no paid endorsements in this episode. Other than my own. Original Impulse Inc. pays me to do this silly show.)
Celebration Is Vital to Creative Success
When you’ve hauled yourself over the line of your deadline, when you’ve gotten the news that your story has been accepted, when a gallery finally sees your brilliance and puts your work on the walls, there’s only one thing to do: celebrate.
Of course. This may seem obvious but we often forgo celebrating, forging ahead to the next goal or project. And when we do, we’re missing out on something that’s vital to the creative process.
Celebrating sends the message to yourself that the time and effort you put toward creating is acknowledged and rewarded. It’s a message of respect and of joy. Celebrating makes you stop and reflect upon what you did to arrive at your goal.
Yet most of us blow past this vital and loving part of the creative cycle. Almost every one of my clients and students needs nudging toward making celebrating part of the creative life. To make it easier for you to bring celebration into your life, here’s a baker’s dozen of simple, inexpensive and fun ways to celebrate your successes.
[Read more…] about Celebration Is Vital to Creative Success
Juju Infusion 5: Take a Stand
Another dose of creative juju in my weekly web TV show, Juju Infusion!
Quick links for things mentioned in the show:
Rhiannon Connelly of Starry Blue Sky
Article about Carl in the Boulder Daily Camera
Wild Heart Dancing by Eliot Sobel
Welcome to episode five of Juju Infusion. Thanks for all the comments and support you’ve shared with me. It makes it that much more fun.
Enjoy this wee pause to inject an infusion of Juju – good, zesty creative energy – into your day.
In this episode:
- Paris Juju Shrine
- The Carl Show! Carl breaks news in Boulder, does magic at the table and asks good questions.
- Things I Love: Two Balls in a Sock
- Q&A: What’s the biggest block creatives face and how can they get over it?
- Journal Juju – Last week’s winner of the journal juju giveaway* was Kathy Loh. Who is it this week? Watch to find out!
*Winners of the journal juju giveaway must contact me with your address so I can mail your journal. Without that, I can’t send your journal!
To your juju infusion,
Cynthia
(There are no paid endorsements in this episode. Other than my own. Original Impulse Inc. pays me to do this silly show.)
Juju Infusion 2: Dealing with Difficult
Creativity in unexpected places…join me for this week’s infusion of creativity – Juju Infusion!
Quick links for things mentioned in the show:
AWP Association of Writers and Writing Programs
Curious Amsterdam: June 13th – 19th – last chance to register this week.
Hello!
Welcome to episode two of Juju Infusion.Take a break to inject an infusion of Juju –
good, zesty creative energy – into your life.
In this episode:
- Falling in love at the AWP conference.
- Yoga Juju: Utkatasana! (Say it with me.)
- Journal Juju: Join me on my jaunt to Northern California
- Journal Juju – Last week’s winner of the journal juju giveaway was Janet Keen. Who is it this week? Watch to find out!
Plus more surprising juju in action.
Thanks for watching and please do let me know what you’d like to see in future episodes!
If you watch my show, please let me know by rating it or by leaving
a comment below. (You’ll want to leave a comment anyway, to be entered
in the Journal Juju giveaway next week!)
To your juju infusion,
Cynthia