Merry Christmas Honeybun*!
It started here,
and then led to this blog post, which gave me the most comments ever.
So then I put out this challenge,
which inspired this video,
created especially for my husband ~
Mr. Swirly,
the Italian Human Man,
Mr. “Don’t Say Yoga Pants”,
or, my personal favorite:
The One Who Brought All This Craziness on Himself.
*He doesn’t like “Honeybun” either. HaHa!
Praise for Desire to Inspire
{Photo by Justin Davis Davanzo}
Positive reviews are already being posted for Desire to Inspire. I will add links as they come in. If you write a review on your blog or website, please send me a link!
“I’ve had this on my wish list since it was first available and although I haven’t finished reading it page by page, it is already inspiring me.” ~ Kass Hall / read the full review right here
“OMG, two of my favorite topics: creativity and transforming the world – all rolled into this little gem…” ~ Kimberly Wilson / Tranquility du Jour February Online Book Club Choice
“…if you haven’t looked into Christine’s book, you need to!” ~ Jessica Brogan / Jessica wrote about creating a 52-card inspiration deck a la Desire to Inspire; read this moving, beautiful story right here
“There are lots of juicy exercises and…cool stories inside this little gem.” ~ She Pushes a Mad Whip / read the full review right here
“Each page turn of Desire to Inspire is a revelation.” ~ Lisa Occhipinti / read the full review right here
“If you’re needing a touch of inspiration to re-ignite your creative passion this January and get you truly following your bliss, snag yourself a copy of…Desire to Inspire.” ~ Ruthie Collins, Inspirational Woman Magazine / read the entire review and my musings on the meaning of bliss on pages 46-47 of their Bliss issue
Desire to Inspire is on Britt Bravo’s Fun, Do Good Books for 2012 ~ See the whole list here
“Desire to Inspire encourages a sense of personal purpose the way twinkling white lights evoke a sense of magic.” ~Tonia Davenport, Editor, North Light Books
“Best book of 2011: This book is pure food for the soul. I could not put it down. I gave up trying to copy inspirational passages after page 38 because there were just too many.” ~ The Dreaming Cafe / read the full review right here
“Upon opening and reading the first chapter, I was instantly aware that this book was not a showcase of art, but a map. A map of how to take my current self and transform it into my newer, brighter, better, MOST TRUE self.” ~Jessica Brogan / read the full review at In Search of Dessert
“Amazing new book filled with inspiration.” ~ Kimberly Wilson / see more at tranquility du jour
“It is fuel for your fire and a kick in the pants all dished out with love and soulful insights.” ~ Jess Greene / read the full review at Seek Your Course
“All in all, this book is a like a hug from a friend. But even better is the friend that challenges you to become more, because they know the potential you have as a creative person.” ~ Lindsay/ read the full review at Craft Buds
The Work ~ Part Three
{Beautiful beyond words ~ some of the Desire to Inspire contributors. Photo by Justin Davis Davanzo}
{See my previous two entries for Parts One and Two}
The fallout that occurred in the midst of the release of Ordinary Sparkling Moments was so intense that I had no choice but to try a different tactic, and so a new journey began. Before too long, one opportunity after another came my way, each one taken with careful, mindful attention. And every time I got through a situation with greater peace than the one before, a deep, simmering joy began bubbling within me. The more I practiced quiet, stillness and trust, and the more I honored my own boundaries and limitations, the better I felt, regardless of the details of the situation. The final outcomes might not always be what I want, and through a certain lens might not even make much sense, but if I have been honest, then I have done my work.
Which brings me to right now ~ to the work of bringing Desire to Inspire to life and the beautiful celebration of its release. A number of people have been asking me what I thought of the event, and was it what I wanted, and was it all I expected. Most people receive and are content with a brief, happy answer, but for a few of my closest comrades, I have explained it this way ~ that this book launch was a validation of all the work I have been doing for the past three years. I had nineteen contributors and an online book tour with more than twenty fellow bloggers. The book launch had well over fifty guests and eight people boarded airplanes in order to be there, coming from as far away as India (India!) I have been receiving cards and emails and notes and phone calls and well wishes all month long, and the night of the book launch was a night of boundless, beautiful joy. And it all came about for one reason: Because I did this work ~ both personally and professionally ~ and those who saw and trusted and believed in and weren’t threatened by this work showed up. Everyone who showed up was there because they wanted to be there, and I could savor their presence with the total abandon because there were never any expectations weighing those moments down. And for those who have not reached out, have not congratulated, and are not with me on this journey, it is OK. It is sincerely, truly, wondrously OK. Even in those pockets of quiet there is joy, and that joy is always available to me.
I said in the first part of this story that I wanted to be careful about this, and that concern had to do with presenting these two books as a better/worse scenario. There is no scale of goodness here and I haven’t been keeping score. These two experiences are different ~ as they should be ~ and that is all. If I were going through the same tight spots with Desire to Inspire as I was with Ordinary Sparkling Moments, then shame on me for not taking the opportunities I had a few years ago to change the patterns in my behavior that weren’t serving me. Not that I’ve got it all “figured out” ~ not by a long shot ~ but I’m at least a little bit closer, and grateful for every bit of it.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.” ~Melody Beattie
The Work ~ Part Two
{Photo by Justin Davis Davanzo}
{See my previous entry for Part One.}
What commenced was the beginning of a personal transformation that I consider as profound and meaningful as what I went through during my divorce, which is the time I consider the end-all-be-all train track cha-chunk change in the course of my life. The difference with this more recent re-calibration is that it has been a slower, more methodical undertaking, happening over the course of countless tiny moments ~ moments I recognized as opportunities to put new habits into practice and establish new patterns in my life.
The life cycle of these small yet potent exchanges have gone like this ~ something happens, and I get immediately wound up. The getting wound up part then sends my brain a message: “Hey look! An opportunity!” whereupon I immediately settle down and begin to think carefully about how I want to react, respond, interpret, and judge. And this always leads me to the same conclusion, which is that I don’t need to do any of those things. I do not need to react, respond, interpret, or judge. I only need to be honest with myself, take responsibility for whatever I have done to create the situation I’m in, and then, if it involves someone else, be honest with whoever I am dealing with. I may need to set a boundary, I might need to apologize, or, as in most cases, I might not need to do or say a thing. And in between these trigger situations, my most important work is to release any and all expectations regardless of the situation. Any. And all.
You see, before I published Ordinary Sparkling Moments, I made decisions about the way I thought things should work and then proceeded to mistake those assumptions for truth. I decided that A + B = C, unaware of the blind spots such decisions created. I walked through life thinking that if I acted and spoke and lived and created in a certain way, then the parts of the world I existed in would function a certain way. The cycle I kept repeating occurred in those moments when the dominos didn’t fall in the neat, orderly dance I believed they should, and, for too long, instead of taking a close look at the assumptions I was making ~ and the expectations embedded in them ~ I simply dug in deeper and became more determined to do what I felt like I needed to do to create what I wanted in my life.
{more tomorrow…}
The Work ~ Part One
{That’s Melissa and me at the Desire to Inspire book launch last week. Photo by Justin Davis Davanzo.}
I want to be careful about this. And this may become a two or three part entry. So bear with me ~ I’m flying by the seat of my pants here…
I could say the Desire to Inspire Book Launch was an event that happened after weeks of planning and organizing, but it was actually more akin to a blossoming. Soon after the book was officially finished and on its way to the printer, contributor Anne Carmack called me and said, “Let’s have a book launch at the Ambrose [where she works],” and that is when the seed was planted. Once the date was set and I posted the first “Save the Date”, the book launch developed a momentum of its own, and my job was to let it lead the way. This is an experience I’ve had over and over again in my life, where I embark upon a dream, and before too long I realize I’m not in control of it and need to just get out of its way ~ do the work, but don’t try too hard to sculpt it in a pre-conceived form. This has been such a powerful awareness that I devoted an entire chapter to it in Desire to Inspire. It is my job to set the wheels in motion, and then to let the dream steer.
Nearly four years ago I made the decision to self-publish Ordinary Sparkling Moments, and that dream came to life in its own magically unruly way as well. Like always, events transpired that I could have never imagined on my own, including an extraordinary book launch at the first Squam Art Workshops (SAW.) Beyond deciding to publish the book myself, just about everything else related to that book came about on its own. The release date was set because of where my printer could fit me in their calendar, the book launch was planned spontaneously the day the first SAW website went live, and it just so happened that many of my best friends at the time were going to be there. I set the wheels in motion, but then the book took me the rest of the way.
When the Desire to Inspire book contract was finalized, it was not my intention to compare this experience with that of Ordinary Sparkling Moments (OSM) every step of the way, but I have looked at this as an opportunity to be mindful of the journey that began with the release of OSM. Because as joyful and beautiful and magical as that experience was in the summer and fall of 2008, there was also a fair amount of strange drama. In the days and weeks that followed the official release of OSM, I went through a time of disillusionment, disappointment and ~ let me say this plainly ~ the aftermath of experiences that were deeply hurtful. I felt unmoored in many ways, and totally lost.
One of my favorite expressions is “The first step is to lose your way”, and in that period of feeling like I was in a hot air balloon floating in a sea of clouds, with no sense of where I was, where I belonged, or where I was headed, I understood that if I really wanted to work through these things, I had to take a good, long look at my own behavior ~ at what I had done to set myself up for the experiences I had just gone through that sent me into such a tailspin. Blaming others or continuing to play the soundtrack of these stories was going to get me nowhere; the only way to steer clear of such situations in the future was to change my own behavior.
{more tomorrow…}
Epic
{Photo by Justin Davis Davanzo, Official Book Launch Photographer}
Last night: Beyond words.
More soon.
“We have come into this exquisite world to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom and light!” ~Hafiz
Today
{Excuse the blurry photo ~ we’re moving and grooving over here!}
…I am visiting with the beautiful Jen Lee. It is getting down to the wire here at Desire to Inspire central. Vineeta arrived safe and sound ~ and bearing beautiful treasures ~ and another crowd is landing at LAX as I write this.
I might not be able to check in again until after the festivities, so until then I want to send a million THANK YOUs to everyone who has been writing, tweeting, e-mailing, calling, and sending good wishes my way for the release of Desire to Inspire and tomorrow’s celebration. I have felt supported in so many ways, and have savored every single moment.
THANK YOU * THANK YOU * THANK YOU
Holiday Shopping
{Give Away Goodies for the Desire to Inspire Book Launch!}
I went to Target yesterday, and filled a cart to overflowing. I had to go to the second level, and decided to take the escalator, because they have those contraptions that will take your cart up alongside you. So I shove mine in, whereupon it gets immediately stuck because the toilet paper and tissue boxes I had underneath fell off and jammed the equipment. Of course the whole thing stops, and as I look around – both on the first level and up above on the second level – everyone is giving me looks that say, “Thanks a lot you f***ing idiot.”
Trying to solve the problem myself, I reach over and pull the toilet paper up – Got it! – but the tissue boxes are still down there, and just a wee bit farther out of reach. So I step onto the first step of the regular escalator – which is still working fine, by the way – and try to reach down for the tissues. Naturally, as I reach down, the moving hand rail begins to pull me upward, and my feet kind of fly up and I have to clumsily leap off and get myself down off of the escalator before it carries me up to the next level and I then get looks that say, “Please go back to the home for special needs where YOU OBVIOUSLY LIVE and where your caretakers clearly made a bad decision giving you permission to go out in public without a guardian.”
A very nice Target associate helped me out of my predicament, and I got all of my shopping done without any more fiascos, but let this be a lesson to you: Don’t go shopping at Target with me. It will only embarrass you.
In other news, I recently visited with Desire to Inspire contributor Jamie Ridler, where we talked about meditation, Twyla Tharp and more juicy bits.
Countdown
{These little gifties will be given to the first 50 guests at this Thursday’s Desire to Inspire Book Launch!}
This is the week ~ when friends will be packing suitcases, boarding airplanes, and, for one lovely soul, getting a passport stamped. On my end, there are goodies to be assembled, lists to go over, and a house to prepare for a weekend of guests. I have been looking forward to this for so long, and now it is here! As I attend to all the final details, here are some updates from the Desire to Inspire Headquarters ~
* Today I am oh-so honored to have an interview with the lovely (and feisty!) Stephanella Walsh. She was a Book Fairy, and I love her website The Creative Identity.
* Tara Agacayak is featured on my latest interview for Global Inspirations.
* Thank you to everyone who took advantage of my recent Ordinary Sparkling Moments Limited Edition Hardcover Special offer ~ there were ten available at the softcover price and now those are all gone! But there are still eight left (and only eight) in my inventory, so if you’ve had your heart set on one of these very special creations, now is the time to get one before they are all gone.
* I’ve also re-listed two journals in my Etsy shop.
* If you pre-ordered a copy of Desire to Inspire on Amazon, then you’ve probably received a notice that your book(s) will be shipping earlier than expected. They are on their way now! If you would like a signed copy, head over to my Etsy shop.
* And just in case you haven’t heard, the Desire to Inspire Book Launch is now mere days away! I hope to see you there!
Five Things
1. Kim Reese just had her first solo show ~ Congratulations!
2. The Creative Salon with the lovely Ruthie Collins
3. Congratulations to Tara Sophia Mohr on the publication of her poetry book Your Other Names…Bravo Tara!
4. Check out The Declaration Project
5. Anne Carmack and Jeremy Sole are two of the most hip, creative, kind, inspiring people I know, and Anaïs Wade has a gorgeous interview with them that is not to be missed. If you are in the LA area this Saturday – that’s tomorrow! – they are having an Open Studio and Record Sale from 2:00 – 6:00pm.
P.S. Anne is a contributor to Desire to Inspire!
