A Muse's Daydream: Creative Journeys to the Present Moment

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The Muse's Daydream is back. I've been spending time working on a card of decks... no wait, a deck of cards. I explain about them, read two of them, and invite you to buy a deck in case you want creativity to be easier for you. Also a Zoom workshop is included as part of the purchase.

You can buy a deck here.

Upcoming trainings:
The Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training : June- October

The Muse Facilitator Training June- August

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Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com

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This episode is a momentary departure from the usual frivolity for reverie of the inspiration, relaxation, and the possibility of creativity.
Script and Poster of the poem is available to purchase at this link.
"Don't let the future hold your happiness hostage."  ~Sam Harris

Workshop: Blessing of the New Year
Join me in a complimentary workshop called Blessing of the New Year, on December 27th, 12pm pacific time/ 3pm eastern. 

 Welcome 2024 by creating a simple blessing with inspiration from poet, David Whyte and your own intuition. For writers and non-writers alike. Included in this workshop is a new year guided meditation to spark a creative relationship with yourself to last throughout the year.

 I'll also talk about one of my biggest concern and frequently seen challenges... not enjoying what you're doing or feeling enough.

 There’s a lot of areas where I could use improve: organization, a balanced social life, politeness to name a few.   But the moment is mine to believe it’s perfect as is AND I can make small improvements without needing to be perfect. 

 Despite irritability, bad hair, and a non-linear journey to get here, my current existence is crackerjack. I’ll share the five practices to which I credit this most wonderful phenomenon.  Register here
Other:
Let's Talk About Creativity

Saturday, January 13 9:30 am pac,10:30mtn, 11:30 cen 12pm eastern  

The Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training was recognized by Life Coaching Magazine as the best creativity coaching available. Now the tools and approaches that won it that honor are shared monthly, starting in January in a Zoom Session called Let's Talk About Creativity. We will talk about ways to get through procrastination and talk about what we love about what we do. Free to members of The Underground. 

 Wild Abandon Writing Workshop on Zoom

4 weeks starting January 10 3-4:30 pacific time
You know all those prompts in my books? We will be doing some of those and other wacky prompts. We start with raw materials in the form or words and phrases and collage them together

Writing workshop info here

 Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training:

17-week training on Zoom beginning Monday, January 21

Whether you want to help others or understand the power of your own creativity when mindfulness, compassion, intuition, and small steps is in the mix, come find out why this training was recognized by Life Coaching Magazine as the best creativity coaching training. Filling fast. More info here. 

Art and Creativity Walk in Italy - I'm so excited about this.. We will be using mindfulness and creativity through art, smart photography, and writing to add to the enchantment and appreciation of the Italian Riviera. October 2024

Hope you can join me... it's half full .

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Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com

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I’ve spent a career teaching how self-judgment works against us in the creative process. 

I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with my own harsh self-judgment, so I have the requisite compassion to understand its costs.

Once we’ve made it to a place of near completion, there is time is to be discerning, but the process requires license to start out crappy, make mistakes, and tolerate not being able to bring into reality the exact thing we envisioned. We need that freedom for  the enjoyment that leads to the best end products. 

The inner critic comes with being human, but it is vital to our success and enjoyment as creative people to persist in spite of it.  In this regard, the creative process is an opportunity to create a better, more resilient self as we learn to be there for ourselves with compassion.

Listening to Amanda Knox in her series called Resilience on Sam Harris’s podcast, Waking Up, is the first time I heard the following logic reached as she contemplated the self-judgment she was feeling while being incarcerated four years for a murder she did not commit:

 “Berating yourself for being stupid does not make you smarter.” 

Along the same lines, berating yourself for:

•  not feeling good enough at your passion 
• not being the same as other artists or writers you see on social media
• procrastination
• resistance
• hesitance
• anything else you're struggling with

 ... does not improve the quality of your work or to get you to show up for creative pursuits.. 

It’s what we naturally do because that’s how evolution wired us, but it’s why we need to be ready to shift our thinking when we notice we are ineffectively judging ourselves again.  

 Van Gogh had such a strategy.  Here’s the script to my 2021 episode of A Muse’s Moment to go along as you listen to the narration and music.

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent Van Gogh said that. In less than 10 years, he painted almost 900 paintings – the voice that told him he couldn’t paint… didn’t have a chance.

 Now picture yourself fueled by this sentiment.  
 Think this: There’s something I want to do but I’m not feeling that good at it, or, I feel others are better than I am, or that it’s not something I can ever do, or I’m too old, I don’t know where to start .. but by all means I’m going to do it …. paint, write, dance, speak, build my business,  and head toward that creative north star that is calling my name anyway. 

 I don’t need to be perfect, but I do need to find enjoyment along the way … with patience and curiosity.. because the more I allow for the process to be enjoyable, the more I will, by all means doggedly stay with the process until the doubting voices pull up a chair beside me and start giving me ideas instead of discouragement. Or maybe they could write a critique for tuna casserole.

If you hear a voice within you say you cannot be creative in any way say: Thanks for sharing…I’m doing it anyway. 
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The Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training was recognized by Life Coaching Magazine as the best creativity coaching available. Now the tools and approaches that won it that honor are shared monthly, starting in January in a Zoom Session called Let's Talk About Creativity. Free to members of

Support the show

Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com

Send us a text

Sometimes a little humor and perspective around the holidays is called for.  I know it was for me. This episode gives a number of tongue-in -cheek and whipped-cream-in-mouth ways to deal with a dysfunctional family at the holidays... or really, anytime.

Have a beautiful holiday season.
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A new Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training is coming up in January 2024. For those who want to understand more about how to unfold the creative process for others and/or yourself, through science, intuition, mindfulness and not taking yourself so seriously. More here.

I loiter here.

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Sometimes the undesirable and embarrassing parts of who we are make the best stories. 

Writing does that... it uses creativity to lift us out of self-judgment about our personal weaknesses and into comedy, healing or just an awareness of our common humanity. , 

I've brought one of those stories I'm particularly startled by, to sound effects, music, and uncut candor on this episode.

Unearth creativity's resilience, joy, and mindfulness in your life by joining my new group, called Talking About Creativity ... If you're a podcast listener you get a special rate, so contact me..
Or join a group one that's been around for a long time that's accepting new members at the old price that will be increasing in January: The Underground Highway to Creative Results which includes Talking About Creativity

If creativity is a value of yours, you know  it can make every part of your existence better.  Conversely, when you don't get to it, you feel a kind of spiritual constipation and free-floating crankiness .  There's no doubt getting into a creative flow can be elusive, frustrating, or seemingly impossible. 

I've been there with the distractions, perfectionism, doubt, overwhelm, and resistance but I've also discovered ways to make it more of a priority in my life . It grounds me in my gifts and my relationship with myself makes living a whole lot more enjoyable.  And I've taught these "ways" to people for the last 20 years.

It helps to have a place to show up so the effort is made easier and the inspiration is designed. Talking About Creativity and The Underground Highway to Creative Results are two such places.

 More with Jill Badonsky here

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If you've ever tried to record a podcast without the proper sound proofing it can be challenging. 
This episodes illustrated the frustrations I encounter with interruptions and how they can be good practice for resilience. 
The secret to happiness is also revealed.
 
Script

Making a podcast is challenging in many ways but can be a particularly frustrating when you don’t have the proper sound studio set up, meaning a separate room lined in egg grates, foam squares, marshmallow peeps, or whatever soundproof material you can get your hands on. You may be at the mercy of all the noises in your immediate vicinity and sometimes ones coming from your own body.

 Just when you think you are in your finest podcast moment, recording the most profound, ,  brilliant, hopefully helpful narrative in your life -- your cat plays with a bell toy, the leaf blower next door roars for 15 minutes, and i when it finishes, the leaf blower on the other side goes off, airplanes fly by, sirens sound off, dogs bark, dump trucks thunder down the street… things fall from the sky, satellites come weirdly close to the earth, the French national anthem is serenaded by random strangers, unidentifiable sounds come out of the wall sockets, someone throws a rock through your window, your souffle' explodes, your stomach growls, and your neighbor sticks his head in the window and says Hello (voicy)

 You may ask, Why not use a more soundproof studio? Or you may say loudly… GET A SOUNDPROOF STUDIO. It would save a lot of time, aggravation and trouble. My answer? Putting things off until conditions are just right is not the way I roll.   I like to do with what I got..My motto? ready-fire-aim! otherwise hesitation, researching, ordering, planning, constructing, testing, adjusting, decorating, the sound studio could steal the momentum. Plus it’s expensive and the cats are in possession of the spare bedroom.  So yes, I end up spending time pausing, editing, cursing, and rerecording because of the unexpected sounds … but in a way, it’s lesson in patience, practice to endure, to make the best of the situation as is, to   there’s a certain satisfaction in overcoming obstacles as insignificant as noises on a podcast because we all know life is filled with complications – and practice with the small ones can make us more effective with the bigger ones

So I suffer through having the sounds that end up on the reel but when the final recording comes out,  it’s as if they were never there, there’s just a merry sound track playing in the background and a friendly narration with no evidence of the insanity, , profanity, throwing of things has been cut out. No one listening to the final production knows the troubles I’ve known. It’s therapeutic to be able to manipulate reality like that. Therapeutic and satisfying – then I think of the things I might edit out of my life. Things I shouldn’t have bought, or said, clutter, cat hair, bad decisions, people who turn on you, sadness, irritability, chin hairs … but I don’t want to edit those things out except the chin hairs. What would I write about?  These are the grit of life, fodder for creative expression, metal waiting to alchemized to gold. They make the splendid moments splendider, the marvelous, marvelouser, the people who are on your side more treasured.   

For ways to triumph over distractions to your creativity, subscribe to my newsletter. 

Other places you can find me.
Come to Italy with me October 2024

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Hi,

Thank you for listening. Think of someone who might like it and please, spread the word.
Here's the blog that goes along with the newsletter.

Written, narrated, and enginneered by,
Jill Badonsky

The Script :
I’ve always identified with Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, the ugly duckling story… maybe that’s why I don’t eat duck or why I should. 

I wasn’t exactly a swan born in a family of ducks, I was more like say, a penguin or a frog floating by on a lily pad. Point is, I didn’t belong with ducks especially deeply conservative ducks, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I wasn’t, which made it a bit lonely.  I don’t think I’m alone in feeling lonely for this reason .

When you feel you don’t belong in your family, a strange thing happens because you’ve been imprinted with a I don’t-belong kind of radar because not belonging feels familiar so you may find yourself subconsciously gravitating toward places to feel you don’t belong because we like the familiar.   

Speaking of…  A few years ago, I thought about taking a hip-hop dance class.   My background is in ballet, but for some strange reason, I love hip hop music.     There was a class close by at a place called Culture shock.  

Signed up, got some shoes, and, I changed my mind. 

Yeah, too much of a … culture shock. I’m thinking there will be kids jumping and spinning and executing complicated choreography all in sequence and I have problems with the Macarena among friends  Hiphop would mean I’d feel klutzy, embarrassed, and possibly in need of hospitalization.   

So …  back to the Stairmaster with the penguins   

The hip hop desire didn’t want to go away though. But every time I thought about going, I imagined people lots younger than me with caps on backward, pants half-mast saying, “yo  “Yo.” I was overthinking it… I thought, so one day I just went.

When I got there, there were a bunch of young people with backward caps and pants half-mast, including the teacher.  But soccer moms and white college girls were there as well.  There was a woman at least five years older than me and another one in the first row, two moves behind everyone, so I thought yo, maybe I have a chance of fitting in.    

Then I looked in the mirror…  Everyone else’s head in the class ended at my shoulders.   In other words, I was in a troupe of stocky, shorter people, because hip-hop works best and looks best when you’re short and stocky. In the mirror’s reflection, at 5’9” my head looked like a giraffe in a jungle picture where the giraffe’s its head is awkwardly sticking up above the rest of the herd, and I thought… I’m in the wrong herd, I don’t fit in.  Or do I? The woman next to me looked up at me with a look on her face that said, “No, you don’t fit in”. I thought… I should go. 

But I stayed, despite the hip hugger mishap. I forgot was wearing waist high big girl panties and hip huggers.  I looked in the mirror and two inches of pink underwear were sticking out of the top of my hip black dance pants.    I turned pink too, I’m not sure why… but I left them that way.  They were like a billboard that said, I SHOULDN’T BE HERE.

Then, Miss Trina Lyons entered the room. Miss Trina Lyons was the hip-hop teacher who moved like a movie queen in the most self-confident style of breathtaking, beat-perfect-precision hip-hop I ever knew possible. She started leading a dance move where the herd was turning in a circle with arms in a stiff gangsta-tude swing.  In the mirror I saw that my ‘tu

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Nothing here except this:
Subscribe to my newsletter for podcast scripts and more creative inspiration.
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Thanks for listening
Brought to you by Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training

 Written, narrated, and engineered by Jill Badonsky  
Music and sound effects by Epidemic Sound

Support the show

Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com

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William James, philosopher and psychologist observed,   “… when we reach the end of our days, our life experience will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default.” 

 I’m over 60., but I don’t care,.  I don’t choose to pay attention to my age most of the time “Age is only a number.” 

 There are occasional reminders that I’m not the number 20 or 30– Getting out of a chair after sitting for a while is interesting.

I don’t go to Denny’s at 4 in the morning, wear short skirts, somersault, anymore, but I don’t miss those things.  

I’d rather stay home and write than go to a party or a bar or anywhere there’s a crowd. 

 If our life experience equals what we have paid attention to, I want it to equal the way a paint brush can make the sun rise on a white piece of paper even if it’s four in the afternoon –  

I want it to equal a belly laugh, waltzing, watching a comet passing by in the night sky

the way dogs wiggle when they walk  

I want it to equal the rare thrill of successfully parallel parking on the first try

 I want my life experience to equal standing in the path of a wave that will roll to the shore whether you’re standing in its way or not, baptizing you with the cold shock of courage required to leave behind the comfort of being dry and warm in exchange for the sea enveloping you in her wild nature at dawn

I never want to take for granted dark chocolate covered almonds

the way people smile at you even when they don’t know you

the way you can burp a pickle jar to make it open easier

the liquid light that lingers on a raindrop lingering on a rose after a rain

a rose … period

the peace inside, that’s there no matter what 

 I never want to take for granted

the words table for two, please

the words thank you

the words.. I do..

 I’m recording this a month and a half since I said “I do”

 Someone asked, “Why do you feel you need to get married - you’re in your sixties?”   

I’m happy to answer.

 I don’t need to…I’ve learned I am enough alone. The reason is, I want to. 

I want to look into the eyes of the least annoying person in my world and say, “I could laugh with you for the rest of my life and not get tired of it” and hear him say, something like that back, I want have a long meaningful kiss with him right in front of a bunch of friends without worrying about grossing them out

I want to walk in a room of friends and they and applaud our  love. 

My heart …is also applauding, for the courage I mustered up to try again.  

 I want to eat white cake with strawberry frosting, take shoes off , dance, and feel like we are 17   …

17 is way too young to get married, 

But we do anyway… because … age is only a number

 Our  life experience can be more than our aches and pains, political divisions, worry a judgment, and your preoccupation with getting older – there are  so many things of wonder and love around us, but we default to the negative… we’ve got to go find the good stuff or pay attention to it, because most of them are right there now.

What are you paying attention to?

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Thanks for listening
Brought to you by Kaizen Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training

 Written, narrated, and engineered by Jill Badonsky  
Music and sound effects by Epidemic Sound

Support the show

Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com

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Ever find yourself in a job where you don't recognize who you are anymore? "Sold your soul to the company store?" I did for 10 years. It made me cranky but ultimately gave me compassion, resilience, confidence, and the determination never to eat duck again... so to speak.

Learn to facilitate creativity groups and/or recognize and celebrate the depth of your creative self by taking the Modern Day Muse Facilitator Course.

Subscribe to my newsletter for podcast scripts and more creative inspiration. 
More here

Written, narrated, and engineered by Jill Badonsky
Sound and music by Epidemic Sound

Support the show

Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com