​So, as you know, I’m big into helping people make their dreams come true. It is this atavistic urge, rising in me, emerging from my gut like Sigourney Weaver’s babies in, “Aliens.” It wants to be bigger than the body that holds it. It stretches which contains it. When I unleash it, it howls in rage and joy, changing everything in its path. It is a beast that will not be denied. It’s ravenous and relentless and it will not stop until I create. Until I am finally of service.
​
Unless there’s a new series on Netflix.

Then, depending on my level of motivation, on my level of courage and determination, my beautiful beast, bent on nothing but creation and service is pushed back down into the numbing cauldron of comfort and forced to slumber for another day.

And there have been a lot of days like that lately. This fall, the mastermind on which I’d been working all summer fell through. Not enough people. Not any people, actually if I’m telling the truth and I don’t want to, but this isn’t a blog for keeping up appearances. So, not one single person signed up this fall.

It hurt. My creative beast’s heart was broken, and the wound left behind was raw and needing love. Or at least, it would have if I’d if I’d given it a chance. Instead, I immediately turned my attention on other things. Important things, yes. Job things. Job-searching things. Adult things. Reasonable, life-skill maintaining things. Things that few people would argue needed attention. So, I put the beast in the cauldron, screwed a lid on it and promised to face them once I had time. Part of me was cut open and I used popcorn, consignment clothes shopping and the Marvel X-Men series, “The Gifted.” as antiseptic until I had the capacity to deal with it.

The antiseptic numbed the pain. It also paralyzed the beast. Instead of feeling, I was reading. Instead of sharing, I was chatting and instead of creating, I was shopping. But it didn’t stop the beast, not totally. I could hear them whimpering softly from their cauldron, begging to be let out. It was easy to ignore at first, pile enough new sweaters on top of the pot and their cries were muffled. I justified it to myself, I had those adulting things of which I needed to take care. I felt that in order to keep both the beast, myself and my cats in house and home, other subjects were more pressing. So, to drown out the beast’s cries, I turned up the music and my attention to the business of living.

Well, the job things are settled for now, happily so, I might add. Now, the life-force burning underneath the cauldron in which I stuffed beast has roared back to life. And the beast has busted out. They and their broken heart are demanding to be heard.
So, here I am the Friday after Thanksgiving, having had all the naps and turkey and Netflix I can tolerate, finally doing what my beast demands that I do: create in the hope of being of service. Demanding that I face the pain I so neatly silenced by the books about modern-day goddesses and bejeweled sweaters and live with the profound discomfort of knowing what I want to do but not quite knowing how to do it. Here I begin: gently cleansing the wounds left by my failure with my tears and patiently making lists of ways I can create again once more.

I’m uncomfortable. I’m tearful. I’m frightened that I won’t ever find a way to get from the “here,” where I write this blog and the “there,” where I’m living my dreams. But I’m facing my beast and my beast is holding out their hand, ready to lead the way on this unmarked path.

What is the beast of creation urging you to do?

​I’m convinced I’m part vampire. 

Unless I’ve stayed awake for it, seeing the sunrise feels like a cruel punishment. 

I get to work by 9:00am and with Co-vid, that means I roll out of bed at 8:45am. I’m a little ashamed of that. My day starts out groggy and I only really get my mojo going around 11:00am. That’s a lot of time spent in a haze. And life is so short and the joy to be gotten from it is so precious. So, why not get up earlier to enjoy it?

I’ve always had this image of mornings spent in blissful communion with the waking sun, over a cup of herbal tea, sitting in my white linen jammies while I ponder my many and varied blessings before I start a day of joy and purpose. But the thing is, I don’t like tea. Who wears linen jammies? And as I’ve mentioned, I don’t care much for the morning sun either. In my ideal life, however, all these things are true.

Apparently, my ideal life can’t start at 10:00am, as I swig a Diet Pepsi and admire myself in my fabulous outfit (because that’s a standard upon I will NOT give up). It appears that this totally achievable goal, given my current work situation and love of Diet Pepsi is not up to snuff.

No, life must start at 6:30am. Well, ideally, it should be 5:00am, like all the high-powered executives I’ve ever worked with start their day, but even in my fantasies, I can’t imagine getting up that early. No, in my ideal life, I arise joyfully at sunrise serenaded by chirping cartoon birds, just like Snow White.

For years, I’ve set my alarm for 5:00am in a sincere effort to achieve that vision. I go to sleep, determined that tomorrow will be another day - only to wake up to a gospel version of “This Little Light of Mine,” ready to weep at the prospect of achieving consciousness. I realize there’s no one who’s actually counting on me to be up and at that time in the morning, and that really, considering the unpleasantness of the task ahead, why would I put myself through all that? I determine that as it turns out, I was woefully misguided the night before and that in fact I’m not actually that concerned about my wake-up time. What’s in a wake-up time? And so, I re-set my alarm for 6:30am, and then 8:00am and then I press snooze for 45 minutes; brush my teeth and stumble in my decidedly non-linen jammies to my computer for my first meeting of the day and trundle on through until I can actually get my act together around 11:00am. In sum: I start my morning failing to meet my expectations, which really sucks.

So, here’s the rub, the part I just don’t know; do I set up a structure that allows me to get up at for a 6:30am communion with astral bodies, or do I accept who I am and sleep in? Which is the more life-giving choice? On the one hand, discipline is good. Setting a goal and achieving it right out of the gate sets me up for a beautiful, joy-filled day. When I am able to get myself up at 6:30, I can pretty much guarantee I’ll have a fantastic day. It’s just . . . . so hard. Especially when the only thing depending on me to get up at that time, is a very anxious and comfort-seeking me. I’ve been working for my boss for five months now, and he just asked me about my start time last week. I’m the only one who cares and at 5:30am, I just don’t.

Which brings me on to my second option. Do I learn to radically accept my nature as a child of the night? There isn't anything inherently wrong with being up late. Is it really some sort of moral imperative to be up before the birds start warbling? Isn’t there just as much joy to be derived at 11:00am than there is at 6:30am? Can I envision a future that accommodates the real me? The one that wants to emerge from slumber like a cuddly baby marsupial emerging from their mother’s dark and soft pouch when my natural rhythms dictates? The questions, as you’ve seen, go on and on.

I’m not sure which is best. I've got to decide thought, because this tug-of-war between “should’s” and “what is’s,” is getting old.

Probably, like most things, it’s a combo platter. I bet this means I’ll need to give up a little on my heretofore consistently unachievable standards on one hand, and on the other, kindly, gently, kick myself in the ass a little to create the life I want. I think an intentful beginning to the day makes sense. Gratitude. Contemplation. Both good, life-affirming things. I think I can make them happen, even if it’s a little uncomfortable at first. I think I’ll ask some friends to support me and reward myself to make it happen. I also think I can lighten up on myself. In Minnesota, the sun doesn’t come up until 7:30am in the winters. Why should I beat it to work when I don’t have to?

So, that’s the plan for tomorrow. If it doesn’t work, I’ll make another one for Thursday. And if that doesn’t work . . . and so on until I figure it out. Like most things, I’m pretty sure that if I keep moving towards what I want, while accepting where I am, I’ll eventually find a way to get up in time to see my joy rise.

How do you reconcile what you think you should be doing with what you are doing to see your joy rise?
 
 

​I’ve been living in my lizard brain.

Do I have enough cat litter, enough Ragu? Will I keep my job? Is that tickle in my throat just allergies or the precursor to doom? Will the morning news ever stop making me curl into a ball? Survival. That’s it. Run and hide from the bad things and hold on desperately to the things I need to stay alive. I haven’t bitten or hissed at anyone yet, but if there were someone standing between me and the last bag of popcorn, I wouldn’t put it past me.

So, if you were looking for advice, move on to another blog. I’m just trying to figure out how to pry my greedy little fingers off of my extra rolls of toilet paper (I have enough to last me until January 15th 2021 – I counted) and give it to someone who needs it more.

There are a lot of reasons to be afraid; I bet I’ve considered approximately 75% of them (or maybe I haven’t , maybe this is just the beginning of the end, maybe I’ve been living in blissful ignorance of the YA dystopian novel-esque changes that are about to come, maybe I’ll get sick and grow horns from the latest mutation of the virus, maybe I’ll start fearing that my cats are staging a coup, maybe, maybe, maybe . . . I think you get the point.) The jist of it is, I’m scared.

But right now, however, right this very moment, I’m trying something different. I’ve beaten back the urge to count how many packages of Ramen I have and am trying to create something. With the writing of this blog, with the commitment my friend Gigi and I have made to each other to write each day at 6:00pm, I’m trying to remember that I’m a dreamer.

I need dreams like I need breathing. At some point, as we either emerge from the shock of what’s happening, or move into a new way of being, I’ll need to imagine a different life for myself – one with beauty and hope. I have to. I know that if I give into my lizard brain, that’ll be the end of the Cherie I strive to be. I’ll become a hunted reptile wearing a human-suit. And I want to be her, the Cherie I’ve worked so hard at. I’ll be damned if I give her up now.

Like breathing, like eating, I need to open-up space for beauty in this new reality. I need to re-purpose the blood currently flooding into my lizard brain towards the part of me that conceives of joy, or I’ll break. I just will. In sum: I need to slither out from under my dark, cool rock where I’ve been living in the past couple weeks and warm myself in the demanding heat of creation.

Will you join me in taking your dream out of isolation and exposing it to this brave new world? I don’t want to do it by myself. I will, because I think it’s either that or cleaning my bathroom, but I’d rather not do it alone.

For what dream are you willing to leave your shelter? 

But the point is this, that whole “letting it go,” thing? It needs an upgrade.
So, a qualifier before anyone takes my advice literally and ends up in the cardiology unit, the practice of letting things go is powerfully positive at times. It is often the healthiest choice available to you. Stupid drivers, incompetent customer service reps, and sugar-drunk children? Let it all go. There’s no point to holding on to your vexation. You have no control in these situations. The only thing anger will do is damage your psyche and relationships. Invest in a punching bag, swear when no one’s listening, and consider making meditation a regular part of your life. In short: deal with it in whatever method is most effective for you, and then, let it go.

BUT

When things piss you off and you have control over them? Get pissed and stay that way! That anger? It’s the well of motivation and creativity you need to kick the status quo in the ass. Every person with a health comeback story started by being pissed when their doctor told them their cause was hopeless. Those curve-jumping billionaire entrepreneurs? They were pissed because they saw a problem that needed fixing and promptly created a product/service to fix it. And all those rights and freedoms we enjoy? They came into being because brave people got pissed when they were told, “That’s the way it is,” and decided to fight for another way.
​
So, stick with it. Hold onto it. Embrace your inner crabby-ass and let them push you through your doubts and fears. It’s one of the best weapons out there for creating something beautiful in a world that’s at peace with its ugliness.

What are the things about which you need to get angry to keep your dream alive?

​I didn’t want to write this blog. My friend Tia didn’t want to make her pendant either. It isn’t because I don’t like writing blogs; they’re totally absorbing. And Tia loves making jewelry. She can sit doing it for hours, happy as a clam.
​
But we still didn’t want to do it. 

I think getting started is like plunging into that early-summer lake. Going in is breathtaking. Not in the, looking at the Grand Canyon, or gazing upon the Mona Lisa kind of way, but in the can’t breathe because my lungs are shriveling like a beached sea creature kind of way.

But, as is evidenced by the blog you are now reading, we jumped. After the requisite snacking, gabbing and pet-snuggling, we took the plunge. The gasping for breath, was inevitably followed by the flailing and thrashing of beginning - of not knowing what exactly what we were going to do, of starting, deciding it’s no good and starting again. We both felt clumsy because even with years of experience in our respective disciplines, we still didn’t know what we were going to do. I hated my first three attempts at the beginning paragraphs, they felt over-generalized and heavy. Tia doubted her design for the pendant she’s making, wanting to make something wearable, something that adequately expresses her love the gift-ee. We both wondered if our offerings are “good enough.”

We contemplated retreating from this vexing awkwardness to engage in conversations, cookie-eating and dog-cuddling. We did more than just contemplate, actually; we indulged with abandon. The chatting, snacking and dog-petting was lovely. Almost lovely enough that we considered abandoning our creative endeavors altogether – avoiding the cold waters for yet another day. Eventually though, the lake called us back. The siren-scolding of our better-selves goaded us until we went back, whimpering resignedly into the dark waters of not-knowing.

But then, the ungainly flailing slowly transformed itself into rhythmic strokes, and those, eventually, blessedly turned into progress. Tia got an idea to repurpose the stones from beautiful but rarely-worn necklace into the new pendant. I decided to skip directly to the second paragraph, and then replaced that one with the third paragraph, trusting that the beginning would find itself by the time I was done.

Things became interesting. The physically necessary reordering that happens in the minds of creators began to take hold. Tia played with different combinations of jewels and I finally had enough good sentences to start rearranging them into a coherent structure. We asked each other for opinions, each of us just ending up giving the other validation of what we already knew intuitively. We were both caught up in the worlds of our own creation.

At that point, there was no stopping us. For her, stones conjured themselves onto wire in joy-inducing patterns and for me, the sentences piled into paragraphs filled with meaning. We hummed along merrily, the sound of Frank Sinatra and the occasional random comment to sped us on our way.

Surprisingly, and it’s always surprising, even though it’s pretty much inevitable if you’re willing to just keep swimming, Tia finished her pendant and I edited the closing words on this blog. We gratefully/reluctantly climbed out onto dry land to eat our well-earned supreme pizza. Each of us resolving to remember the fun of the swim next time, not just the dread of the plunge.
​
We’re both glad we jumped.

What do you need to do to jump?

​In her book, Big Magic (So awesome.  Buy it, like yesterday), Elizabeth Gilbert describes how she believes our ideas for the things we want to create are actually sentient beings; that they float as translucent, ghost-like specters through our workaday world, looking for a receptive host to birth them into reality.  If you are the right person, the person with the particular passions and skills necessary for its birth, it chooses you.  It asks you to use your skills, courage and love to bring it forth into our time-space continuum - to make it “real” book or painting or concerto or pulled pork sandwich food stand, it yearns to be.  

And if you ignore it, if you tell it to wait until you’re done creating your nest-egg or after you’ve settled into your new job, it’ll go away and find someone else to make it real.  Kind of like Pinocchio, your dreams need your love and attention to make them real.  If they don’t get it, they are eventually relegated to the universal toy box for abandoned playthings in the sky

“Okay, so yes,” you say to yourself. “I get that I need to love my dreams.  I’m down with that.  No problem.  Here I go, loving my dream.”  And you do.  You really do.  You set your intentions.  You meditate with your crystals and even make a vision board to hang in your cube at work. 

But . . . . after a certain period of time, you realize that as much you’ve loved your dream, as much you’ve talked about it with friends and thought about in your ride home from work, it isn’t happening.  “What did I do wrong?” you question.  “I really loved it,” you assert earnestly.  “Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea in the first place,” you consider ruefully. “Perhaps I don’t have it in me to do this,” you mutter with grim resignation.  “I guess the dream was just not meant to be.”

(GUH!!! Don’t even get me started on the, “It’s just not meant to be,” bullshit people sell to themselves as it pertains to their dreams.  Guh!  New-agey woo-woo chicanery dressed up to look like Zen wisdom.  Just GUH!  I have a whole other blogs-worth of “Guh” in me on the subject that I will share at a future date, but I still can’t help ranting a little bit about this one.  It’s pernicious bullshit.  Don’t do it.  It’ll kill your dream.  Deep cleansing breath.  Images of mineral baths and lavender-scented candles.  Okay, petite-rant complete; back to your regularly scheduled blog.)

But you see, that’s not true!  It isn’t that the dream wasn’t meant to be, or that you aren’t up to the task, it’s that your dream was halfway down the birth canal that is your brain and you chose to divert the energy needed for its emergence by watching live-stream Youtube videos of kittens in a box. (Made ya look, made ya look!  And see? What if Hemingway had gotten seduced by the mischievous charm of that little long-haired tabby when he should have been being true to the creation working through him that was trying to be The Old Man and the Sea?)

No, dreams need actual love.  Real, out-of-control, ass-over-tea kettle, goofy-smile-inducing, embarrassing-proclamations-of-hyperbolic-commitment-making, love.  And it needs it for the long-haul.  It will demand your time, your patience, your courage and your even maturity as ingredients for the magic it needs to transform.  If you expect to get out of the dream manifestation process with your dignity intact, you are sorely mistaken.

So, if this all love stuff sounds too awkward for you.  If the thought of over-wrought vows of devotion to your dream fill you with queasiness and disdain, then do the right thing and cut it loose.  Tell your dream that you’re just not that into it so it can find someone whose really is ready to take the plunge and fall head-long into the kind of love it needs to make it real. 

For various reasons I’m endeavoring to do art journaling. The image to the left is my first attempt. I kind of love-hate it. I love it because it exists. Its existence means that I fought back my sense of perfection and mad a bold step into a new and untried artform. It means I spent an hour using brand new parts of my brain; that I battled back the knee-jerk-like habit I have to fill my free time with either obsessive work or mind-numbing Netflix viewing. I did something new and slightly uncomfortable, and as you know from Oprah, to Brene Brown to about every other meme you see on Facebook, doing new things is the courageous first step to a well-lived life. I also love it because it’s true. You should. Just start. Even if you suck. I’m glad I brought something out into the world that reinforces that message.

And I hate it because it’s bad. It’s poorly placed on the page. The color palette is disorienting and my ability to create fancy fonts, free-hand (say that five times fast) is sorely lacking.
I, like everyone else, want people to think I rock. And I, like most of us I believe, know that the best way to get people to think you rock, is to show yourself off doing things at which you rock. Visual arts clearly is not that medium for me.

So, I hear you saying to yourself, “It’s okay that she sucks, she’s just beginning. Why doesn’t she just wait to show off her art until she actually knows what she’s doing? She could take a few classes and practice some more. She could do more drafts along the same theme and then share it. Even in today’s share-everything society, you can wait until you can put your best proverbial foot forward.?”
​
And as I type your imagined advice for me, I realize it is good advice. Good, rational advice. You can take time until you actually know what you’re doing before you share it. You can get a solid foundation of skills underneath you before you fling your tender-hearted creations out into the electronic ether. You have a point; a great one, actually. And sometimes, it’s important for even typo-happy goofs like me to settle-down, button-up and fly right. There is a time for whim, but there is also time for credibility and professionalism. Sometimes looking like you don’t have your act together distracts people from your message; it keeps them from appreciating its power. That’s a real thing and should be taken seriously. And maybe your point would make for a wonderfully thoughtful blog post you could share on LinkedIn; after you’ve proofed it, or course. I’d read it.

So, you should do that. When the stakes are high and time is available, pull back. Take a deep breath and get your poop in a group before you charge forth undaunted into disapproving decision-makers.

But . . .. (you knew that was coming, right?)

Not at the expense of taking action. Sure, I could have waited until I knew what I was doing before I shared my drawing, but (there it is again) at what point do I decide that I know what I’m doing? How many drawings, or classes or drafts do I need to do before I share it with the world? Couldn’t you get so wrapped up in your preparing that you never actually do share? The decision to have your act together before you go out and share things is a good one, and you should do it, but not at the expense of never feeling good enough to actually share. So many businesses haven’t been started, paintings haven’t been painted and inventions haven’t been invented because people are planning on fixing to get ready, to prepare to try something . . . . when they know what they’re doing of course. It’s good advice, it can also be the death of dreams.
So take it. When you have the time and when you have a reasonable balance between preparation and action, take your time and do it right. It will probably save your ass.

But (this is the last “but,” I promise) for every other time (and there are a lot of them, probably 10xs as many when you’re making your dream happen). Just start.

What haven’t you shared with others because you didn’t think you were ready?

I’m afraid. I haven’t been taking care of business and it’s getting out of hand.  Little things, but they’re adding up. ​

 My spending is loosey-goosey, way too much money going to the altar of Starbucks. And I have clothes tossed all over my bedroom.  I can’t find my hamper for whites, so they’re piled in a corner of my closet. I’m still getting work done, but just doing what needs to get done.  My business is going okay; but it's just moving towards where the money is, not in the direction of my dreams. Lately, there haven’t been any to-do lists and I’ve kind of forgotten what the overall plan is.  It’s just been me, my dreams and my gut, keeping it together for now.  The writing’s on the wall, though; I’m mos def making the devolution from waltzing to crashing through life.  
​
But I could ignore it.  It isn’t really that bad yet.  The things about which I’m afraid are still manageable. There’s money in my account.  I exercised.  I still have clean laundry and I can definitely justify the daily pilgrimage to the caffeine Mecca since I’m getting breakfast there, not coffee (“Which is somehow better!?!,”I say to myself even as I write this).  I’m still doing work I love, even if I’m way more dreamy/floaty than fierce/focused about it.

I figure, going at this rate with no changes, I could muddle along for another few months before I really need to wake up and (not) smell the coffee.  I could wait until my life starts unraveling, which it inevitably does when I’m not taking care of business.  Until my recovery spirals or I waste another month watching the new Dynasty instead of trying to change the world.  I’ve done it before, a lot actually,  and I’ve pulled myself out every time; usually coming back stronger than ever.  I could let my life crack and then make some big dramatic gesture that pulls me away from the brink of despair, only to begin again with those small homely steps that when taken, always bring me back to my core self and the life I value.  I totally could.

Or I could face the fear now.  I could “Lean-in,” as my Lean-In compadres say (Hey Linda, hey Amy), and face the discomfort of realizing that I’m slipping.  That my dreaming: doing ratio is off and I need to rebalance the scales.  I could own the fact that things have gotten fuzzy and passive and that instead of wading in and shoveling through the muck, I’ve retreated to rationalizations and YA fantasy novels about women who actually ARE making their dreams happen.  The urge to evade the fuzziness is strong in me.  It’s awkward and uncomfortable.  There are lots of hard work, scary conversations and annoying action-planning between me and my dreams right now. 

But fuck it.  I’m not going backwards.  Or at least not any farther.  I know what it feels like to be alive and aligned with my values; I know the sensation of purpose coursing through me like an electrical current; it’s beautiful, it’s holy, it’s why I think we’re supposed to be here on this planet, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give that up now.  So yes, there’s fear; it’s unpleasant and it would be really nice to avoid it right now.  But I know where that leads, and it’s no-where good, so I’m planting my feet and getting ready to duel with my bullshit, because it’s either my fear or my dreams and there’s no way going to let them down. 

What do you do to get “fearce” when you’re afraid?