On Listening and Voicing -- a special guest post by Rachel Awes

Dear Creative Souls, 

Happy April! Today we have an extra special guest. My dear friend and soul-sister, Rachel Awes is here with a BOUNTY of goodness -- empowering poems, free art downloads, and some incredibly helpful prompts for you to dive into. It's all geared around a big theme I am honoring this year -- VOICE. From inner-voice to outer-voice, to all the ways your voice longs to show up and express itself. 

Have you met Rachel before?? She is pure joy, pure depth, and pure dee-light. Let me introduce you to her, and her special brand of magic --

Rachel Awes

 

This is Rachel. Isn't she a candy colored delight of a human?! She is an author, psychologist, and art playgroundist. She is fully-present, and fully gifted in listening -- her first book "All I did was Listen" is super inspiring (along with all her books, "The Great Green Okayness" and "Diving In")

Without further ado, here's some delicious goodness for us, from Rachel.

  

Her Voice by Rachel Awes

We are all treasure chests
with hearts in the middle
and we get to make room for
what really belongs inside.

Water.
Mandalas.
Surprises.
Creating.
Intertwining with the good.
Planting.
Marinating.
Being our fullest.
Growing.
Being authentic.
Receiving.
Dressing up.
Being deliberate with
what we keep in
and what we keep out.
Engaging in what we love.
Listening to what we want.
Trusting our thoughts.
Waking up to wonderment.
Pressing imperfectly on.

Gems will appear when we listen.
Voices will be heard.
Even sung.
They have been there all along.
Needing to be mined

and they are
all mine
and they are
all yours.

Free Downloadable Art Print

My Words Come out Good by Rachel Awes

I am practicing
saying words
that come out of my heart.
Like they do
before falling asleep.
Like they do
when sitting with
a trusted friend.
Like they do
when writing next to
a big lake.

I am paying attention
to what happens
when
I give myself
space
to do this
important work.

The shower invites me
to sing bigger.
Canyons coax me
to be heard.

It is how
our world is made.
It is how

we are made.

Free downloadable art print

Creative exercise with VOICE

Get our markers, crayons, finger paint, or whatever suits your fancy, and put what your voice looks like on paper or canvas. What are the colors? Shapes? Words or no words? Feelings? Needs? Treasures? Secrets? Dreams? Invitations?
Write a love letter to your voice. Trusting one’s voice tends to develop around age 9. Maybe consider a love letter to your inner 9 year old. What does she need to know?
Practice hearing your words, through a voice recorder or in the shower or singing in the car. Practice holding your voice with compassion.
If you could give your voice a new practice, what would you love to do? Read stories out loud? Sing? Tell your truths in the dark or to a waterfall or to your angels?
Write a poem using “VOICE” as acronym, like:

V oice turned
O n AND
I nspiring
C ourageous
E mergence.

Listen
1. How did you listen to your inner knowing and wisdom as a child? What memories arise?
How about as a teenager, young adult, and now?
2. What messages throughout your life have inhibited such listening? What have you come
to fear about listening to your heart? What might be new messages you can give from
your wise self to your scared self?
3. What helps you to listen to your heart? Art-making/creative projects? Walking in
nature? Journaling? Prayer? Meditation? A silent retreat? Talking with a trusted friend?
Talking with a therapist? Talking with a healer? Massage/body work?
4. What if you created an invitation to listen to your inner wisdom? In the form of
handwriting on a card? A painting? A collage? A vision board?
 

Speak
1. Psychologists say that we develop a sense of voice around age 9. What was happening
for you around that age? Were you coming to trust your voice, hide it, question it? What
stories were influencing your voice journey?
2. What are memories of you using your voice? Hiding your voice? Who supported your
words and who discouraged? What are you choosing to tell yourself now?
3. How do you currently care for your voice? How do you feel about your boundaries of
who you share your truths with and how much you share?
4. How do you currently feel inspired to use your voice? Are there words you want to say
to a particular person? To a group? To the world? To yourself?
 

All shared with LOVE & DIVINE SUPPORT for your listening & speaking & whole
life, XOX,

 Rachel Awes
Psychologist, Author, and Art Playgroundist

http://rachelawes.com
http://rachelawes.etsy.com
https://www.instagram.com/rachelawes/
https://www.facebook.com/rachel.awes/
https://www.pinterest.com/rachelawes/

Wondrous Weaves and Healing Spirit Dolls Collection (+ my vintage shop)

 

 It all started with a spontaneous trip to IKEA, to look at chairs for Ever's room. In the kid's section, they had a loom set up. This loom was standing there smiling, calling my name... 

 

"Oh, this will be sooo fun!" I thought it would be something I'd mostly do with Ever. 

 

After I got home and made the first piece, it swirled me into creative whirlwind. The next thing I knew, I was rummaging through all the precious fabrics I'd collected over many years running an online vintage shop. Little and big scraps wove their way in. Finally a place for these treasured scraps to land! 

 It feels sooo good to create without an end result in mind. . . 

to feel a force greater than myself as I let my hands and heart roam. 

This healing collection is available now: www.carissapaige.etsy.com

For those interested in my vintage shop, see below!

www.jackandtilly.etsy.com

  

 With massive amounts of love, 

Carissa 

 

Let it flow

 Let it flow

New Art Coming Soon: www.carissapaige.etsy.com

When I read some of my public writings or journal entries over the past years, I see where I slowed down. I see where the flow turned into an eddy, which turned into a staircase, which turned into a deep cavernous crack in the earth which I shimmied down. At the very bottom were two caves. In one, a lioness and her cub. She gave me red rubies, and I went off to gather a big leg of some creature to give in gratitude.

I still visit her from time to time. She is patient and kind and fiercely supportive. Her paws gigantic, her breath magnificent. It blows all the dust away.

When I think about what’s stopped me in my creative flow, I see a set of stairs in my throat.

Stairs… That’s interesting. It’s not something that stops someone. But when I see these lines, this movement of energy -- it feels bumpy. It’s the pausing and questioning before the next piece of puzzle has a chance to express itself.  

I don’t want to create from a staircase. i want to create from the river I am.

I realize how precious my time is now. I have these windows to create within, as my son naps or sleeps. Looking back at the amount of time I had previously, and how much of it I spent in sacred pause. . .

In my next post I’ll share more about the events that stopped me in my tracks. It’s not that I stopped entirely — I was delighting in new paths, secret trails, and a quiet kind of growth that first blooms itself close to the earth, then upwards along fences into trees and limitless everything.

Not everything has to be visible.

With immense love to you who is reading this, and to all the invisible, tangible growth that happens on the inside.   
 
Carissa