Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Gifts of Imperfection - prompts & my Daytimer

After checking my daytimer today I realized that I had some work to do before my Book Club meeting tomorrow.  Brene has given the students of her course follow up work - Stay Awake Journal Prompts - to do until the second half of the book is presented in Part Two of the online course starting in March.  Number one was about finding ways to be supportive of yourself when you are tempted to "suck it up" or "keep on, keeping on".  I went looking back for my comforting activities and put those on my DIG DEEP BUTTON.

I hand lettered the title, the words and illustrated my button using a fine tip Sharpie marker.  After I was finished I added watercolour to the titles.  I will probably go back later and add colour to my illustrations as well.  It will be one of those activities I can choose when I need some down time.  It will be creative yet undemanding.  I did the same for my other pages - lots of lettering and then a bit of watercolour.
Number two concerns connection and being proactive in thanking those who stand for us, with us and provide balance in our lives.  
Number three concerns being aware of ways in which we attach judgement to receiving from others. We cannot freely give to others if we hold judgement about receiving.  If we are attaching judgement to our actions and/or those of others only awareness will bring us to a new way of thinking.
Number four concerns our feelings of being worthy! We need to change our thinking from "I will be worth when......................." to "I am worthy now - not perfect, but worthy because I was born to this time and place".  I arrived worthy and nothing can change that, but I do have a choice to think as I wish. I need to change my mind!!
Number five concerns our definition of LOVE!!  We need to find some action words that define this word for us.


I have filled in my pages and they are ready for my meeting tomorrow!!  I am so grateful for my daytimer - it's a place I can keep track my life and it keeps me ahead of the curve. I keep track of swaps, projects, household responsibilities, my to do list, long range goals, etc.  I am currently using a table in Word Perfect with four columns - date, today's to do list, events and my master list.   I cut and paste items from column to column as needed.  I leave everything that gets done in a day in my second column next to the date and usually include any noteworthy events such as arrivals of swap items, etc.  It is really handy for tracking swaps - finding when I mailed it and who I sent it to.

Therese

Gifts of Imperfection - Mantra and word for 2014

These are my last two pages for this session of the Gifts of Imperfection with Brene Brown.  I had finished the work but not yet created the pages before Christmas so today I decided to get them done!!
"Be not afraid" is my mantra for the for this year!! There are simply too many things that hinder the forward progress in my life that stem from inside my own head!!
I hand lettered the words using a fine tip Sharpie marker, added the bright spots and coloured them in with my favorite colours - green, pink, blue and yellow using colour pencils.  I used a handwritten word on a page in my Creative Lettering book as inspiration for the lettering though mine does looks a lot different but that is the beauty of inspiration!!  Great book!!
It has become popular to pick a word for the year and after reading Andrea's perspective on the process I decided it would be beneficial for me to have a touchstone word to support my mantra for this year so I choose "courage - the ability to do something that frightens you".
So I cut my letters from a variety of red cardstock because that is the colour for courage using an alphabet die set (SU) which I had yet to use!!  I layered the letters on black, added 2014 using a white gel marker and glued it to my page.  I added a a selfie I took this morning and embellished it with my fine tip Sharpie.  I added some little leaves to symbolize the new growth which I will be taking on this year.  As I accomplish my goals I will be adding my achievements besides the leaves!!  You can see on my mantra page that there is also a little leaf that is a symbol for growth.
I am ready for a new year!!  Looking forward to letting go of my old ways of thinking and taking a new approach to how I see things and what I say and do!!  For our lives to change we must be willing to think, say and do differently!!

Therese