Visualization on Love and Compassion

Posted on May 28, 2016 by Patti Clark

“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one’s neighbor.”

– Mother Teresa

Do you consider yourself a loving and compassionate person? Are you able to show love and charity and compassion towards your neighbors? And if so, are you practicing this same love and compassion on yourself. Most of us, especially the women among us, find it difficult to be very loving toward ourselves.

Lucille Ball famously said – Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.

I believe we do have to love ourselves first, be filled up with love, in order to let love flow. And when we are filled up, then let it flow; flow freely and copiously, because love and compassion are not luxuries, but necessities:

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries, without them humanity cannot survive

-Dalai Lama

I’d like to share one of my favorite visualizations with you today.

Do it today, do it everyday . . . Love the Earth, Love Your Neighbors, Love Yourself . . .

I would love to hear any feedback about how this visualization was for you; I always love hearing about people’s experience with creative visualization. And as always, thank you for stopping by, I appreciate it.

Visualization on Goals

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Patti Clark

“One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals.”

―Michelle Obama

That quote by Michelle Obama is quite fitting to me today for a couple of reasons. I have been very busy with my own, very personal goal this week. I leave for the US in only 10 days. I’ll be in the States on a book tour – the realization of a long held goal and dream. And one of the goals I have at the moment is to load all the visualizations and quick scans from my book on to You Tube. So as of today, I have 15 videos loaded on to my You Tube Channel. No mean feat I can tell you!

I am also loading them on to my website, thiswayupbook.com, with each exercise loaded under the workbook tab, under it’s specific week where the exercise is in the book. This has been such a steep learning curve for me, a 58 year old woman, with both sons living away from home. I’ve had to search up solutions to problems I’ve faced, watched endless youtube vids about how to load youtube vids onto youtube! It’s been a mission . . . (*however I have asked for a lot of help from my sons who have done so much remotely, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea that I’ve been able to do this alone, because I haven’t.)

But the main point I’m trying to make here is that I’m doing it. I have the goal and I am steadily walking toward it. It hasn’t been easy, but it is so worth it, and as Michelle Obama says, I shall not be distracted from my goals.

I would like to close, fittingly, with a visualization about achieving your goals. Special thanks to my son Devin for composing the music and overlaying it on the video. And special thanks to my son Lukas for creating the website in the first place. Yeah, like I said, I didn’t do it alone…

I would love to hear any feedback about how this visualization was for you; I always love hearing about people’s experience with creative visualization. And as always, thank you for stopping by, I appreciate it.

Creativity – Externalizing the Internal Stuff

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Patti Clark

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

― Jon Kabat-Zinn

Get the Crap Out! That is what we oh so graciously call it in our workshops. Shrek had it right: Better Out than In!

Sometimes shedding light on the negative stuff and the obstacles is difficult, but it’s always better to look at it and deal with it rather than pretend it’s not there.

The exercise is from Week Three, Day Two of my book, This Way Up.

Deb and I talk about the process in this video. I’d love to hear your feedback, not only of the video, but also of the process if you have tried it yourself.

I would really love to hear you thoughts on this process. And as always thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it.

Quick Scan on Health

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Patti Clark

“Our bodies communicate to us clearly and specifically, if we are willing to listen”

― Shakti Gawain

Do you listen to your body? Most of us don’t, I know I often don’t. I push myself to do one more thing when my body is sagging or to run one more errand before I stop to eat. But more importantly, do you listen and work on healing at a deep level.

Science has proven time and again that we can heal ourselves, but sometimes it takes focus and effort. For the most part, the body naturally heals itself. Dr. Lorraine Day wrote an excellent article about our body’s amazing ability to heal itself.

Deepak Chopra has a wonderful article about self-healing on Oprah.com. Deepak Chopra has been a great proponent of self-healing for decades. In the article Chopra advises:

Is there a way for each person to influence his body consciously? We do this all the time, of course. You can’t lift a finger, throw a baseball or drive a car without translating a mental intention into a physical response. But when it comes to disease symptoms, the mind-body connection feels weak or nonexistent. Every sick person wants to get well. How can the mind help?

There are four conditions that would insure a stronger mind-body connection during illness, and all are inter-connected:

The mind contributes to getting well.

The mind doesn’t contribute to getting sick.

The body is in constant communication with the mind.

This communication benefits both the physical and mental aspects of being well.

I believe there is a way to stay in a healthier state by using what I call The Quick Scan for Health. I discuss this in my book: This Way Up: Seven Tools for Unleashing Your Creative Self and Transforming Your Life. I have also made a video modeling this exercise. To be honest, I feel very vulnerable and exposed putting this on video, it is something I use daily, but only when I’m alone! So putting it out there in such a public way is rather intimidating. But I believe in it, and people have asked for help doing the exercises in the book, so here it is.

I would really love to hear how this was for you and if you have any comments about it. And as always thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it.

Creating Your Sacred Space

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Patti Clark

“Visualization works if you work hard”

― Jim Carrey

Shakti Gawain describes creative visualization as:

The technique of using your imagination to create what you want in your life. There is nothing at all new, strange or unusal about creative visualization. You are already using it every day, every minute in fact. It is your natural power of imagination, the basic creative energy of the universe, which you use constantly, whether or not you are aware of it.

We do this everyday, so we may as well do it consciously. I have found that the best and most effective way to do creative visualization is to first create a sacred space to work from.

Creating that sacred space is the first visualization exercise from my book This Way Up: Seven Tools for Unleashing Your Creative Self and Transforming Your Life – from Part Two – The Workbook – Week Two, Day Three.

In my book, I have written out the words for the exercise, but for ease and simplicity, I have made a video to aid in the process.

You will find all of the exercises and visualizations from This Way Up on my You Tube Channel and also on my website: www.thiswayupbook.com

A huge thank you to my son Devin for his amazing music. Devin composed and performed and uploaded this original music for my visualizations. The music is absolutely mesmerizing!

Please give yourself 20 minutes to complete this visualization; and I suggest you take time to journal about it afterwards, making note of anything that might have stood out for you – a color, an unusual image, etc. This is the same sacred space that you will go to for all future visualizations from my book, so take the time to create the perfect space for yourself. The more you practice, the easier it is to do. Enjoy!

Using Creativity to Externalize the Internal Process

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Patti Clark

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.”

― Pablo Picasso

My dear friend and business partner, Deb Brock, is such a creative being. I love being around her when she is in Flow. in the zone, just creating. Being able to get into that place, that zone, I think is key to connecting to that deepest sense of self. And when we connect to that deepest sense of self, that is where we find our answers.

Join Deb and I as we talk about Creativity and Externalizing the Internal Process.