Before I forget, because I am easily distracted, the free monthly creativity coaching call open to all is this Thursday evening. Sign-up link 

 

Mid-sssummer lightning ssstorms can light up the skiesss just as creative ideas can light up your mind, your consciousness, and basically life in general.  However, and pay close attention here, it is an empirically tested truth that, and you can quote me:

 

 

Chances are when you see a lot of text clumped together on the Internet or even in this, your favorite newsletter ;)... you will skip over it because it requires more time than your brain has been inadvertently trained to invest. 

 

See if you can stay with it, despite wanting to skip over it because it's not a brief encounter.

See if you can do it.

See Dee Eeee F Gee H I dare you.

Doing something like this a little at a time strengthens your focus muscles.

 

There seems to be a loss of concentration going around.

 

HEY! over HERE!... See what I mean? Your mind was beginning to drift. Luckily I noticed. I'm acquainted with the dilemma.

 

Here is an example of where my mind goes sometimes when I attempt to write my book:

 

It's never just one thing either is it? We are multi-talented and pride ourselves on the multi-tasking that robs our ability to go deep with ONE thing.

 

And guess what? Creativity requires that you go deep with one thing at a time, even if you have three projects going on.

 

The Internet, though filled with instant information and immediate gratification is also training our brains to spend very little time doing ANYTHING.

The TV started that retraining and the Internet has beautifully tagged-teamed up with the tube (or excuse me, the flatscreen) so our short attention spans are flitting like hummingbirds from one form of the nectar to the next and never staying long enough in one place to write the story of the Hibiscus's Dream. What joy are you scarificing because you can't concentrate? (I know.. I spelled "sacrificing" wrong.. but scars are scarier than sacs and that's what I'm going for - boo).

Lack of focus is only a problem if you want to be creative. 
If you’re reading this newsletter, creativity may be a value of yours. 

 

A creative idea can come to you in a flash, just like a pop-up on a website. Wouldn't it be nice if we could click on the link and download the idea all played out, mapped just as we imagine it - the book, the authentic voice we create in our art, or creative abundance, the invention.  

 

However, that creative idea requires the kind of concentration that is beginning to become endangered.

 

Those of you who have truly gotten into the FLOW know that you get there by penetrating layers of distracting debris, plugging into a focus with determination, dancing with the idea - staying there musing, tinkering, playing, rearranging, tossing, connecting, cutting, slapping your forehead, playing some more, sweating nails, failing, abandoning, returning, hurdling the chaos, and finally following a thread into a flow that timelessly dazzles every cell in your body with a feeling so divine you wonder if you are still of the Earth (you're not). 

 

So whataya do? Forcing yourself sometimes works but there are better ways. The process may be pleasing for the results to be in alignment with joy.

 

Join me Thursday, August 5th in a free teleconference about how you can get your focus back or if you never had it in the first place... GET IT, so getting to and staying with your creative passion becomes easier.

http://kaizentral.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54fa8a2638833013485f28240970c-pi

5 pm pacific, 6 pm mountain, 7 pm central, 8 pm eastern, 12 am GMT

Teleconference: Staying Young by Staying a Kid: FOCUS

Sign up.

 

Just THREE more spots available - Grab one!

Be a Modern Day Muse Group Facilitator- Why?

Being part of a group that facilitates creativity covers three of the four main ways we stay youthful and fulfilled as we hang years on our life line:

1. Cultivating a creative outlet 
2. Sustaining meaningful connections (with people who actually 'get' us),
3. Having a flexible attitude, perspective, and frame of reference that magnetizes joy.

 

With Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching founder and author, Jill Badonsky

Assistant Director, KMCC, Rae Warde

Modern Day Muse Facilitar and Creativity Coach, Janet Whitehead

Barbara Krauss teaching optional NIA class

More information ta-da

 

Mondays, September 28 - December 6, 2010 5-7 pm pacific/ 8-10 pm eastern  ALL classes recorded.

On-line/ Teleconferences Modern Day Muse Facilitator Training with Janet Whitehead and Jill Badonsky and I'm thinking YOU

$650 ...includes comprehensive manual.

Renegage Muse website will be our forum as well as an on-going support for those trained in September

Sign-up here.

 

Friday and Saturday October 1-2, 2010:
Weekend Creative Retreat Finding Your Creative Joy: It's Your Turn

Jill (that would be me) returns to Prairiewoods in Iowa for a weekend Retreat

We all are creatively and abundantly gifted and this retreat will support you in recognizing it, claiming it and living an even more joy-filled, intuitive and creative life.  You will go away with tools and skills and intuitively calibrated wonder that will guide you to the fulfillment that is waiting for you. From the creative beginner to the creative pro.

 

This is a most coveted retreat and salon designed to give you space, inspiration, structure to get to know your creative voice or go deeper.

 

You can structure your time in Taos and at the Mabel Luhan Lodge according to your needs as all workshops are optional. Just being in Taos and having time for creative renewal will be healing and motivating. But there will be an array of inspiration including lively evening salons like they had back in the days of Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway!

 

Optional creative exploration through writing, art and Muse Yoga daily with Jill Badonsky. All delicious meals included.

 

Many of the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaches offer free introductory sessions. Our philosophy prohibits pressure. Clients find success through compassion, play, non-linear strategies, focus on their strengths, intuition and imagination. No one needs one more place of pressure or one more person telling them what to do. Creativity is enticed, lured, and tricked out of hiding with our tools. Relaxation and fun result in more creativity than linear pressure-fraught goals.

Find out more about KMCC on the Thursday call.

Find a KMCC coach here.

 

Join Kaizen-Muse on Facebook

 

For Writers:

 

For Artists or people who are hot or having hotflashes:

 

Join The Muse is In Writing Club if you need some incentive, inspiration, support to write regularly so that you begin to LOVE your writing chops. Sometimes the only way we get things done is with deadlines that OTHER people give us and a little investment that is less than ONE movie out.

An example of what it looks like: This week's prompt.