It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.
Ursula LeGuin

Mixed Feelings as I read the last post of the online course Hello Soul Hello Business today. So happy there will be a few more with the Mini Master Classes they had offer for the next week with some awesome collaborators (can’t wait). I am kind of sad because the course is over.

As I celebrate this amazing journey that lasted almost eleven weeks (with some breather weeks between classes), I want to share a mixed media, which reads A Lovely Journey. I add one of my mom’s crocheted doilies, celebrating her journey in this earth. I am happy to share (and I know she is too) that the store of the Museum of Art sold the original. Mixed feelings again because I was about to take it back for me…but I know it is in the right hands..and I know my mom would be so proud to know one of her doilies is out there with her daughter’s art.

This HSHB course has been and I know it will continue to be A Lovely Journey…I am so grateful and proud for being part of this amazing group. I love that we call ourselves soul sisters because we share our dreams, our joys and tears, our excitement and our frustrations, our mistakes and successes. Thank you all! We will continue Flying High!

With LoVe,

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover

– Mark Twain-

I have been postponing my blog writing for more that a month. Why? Considering my work load I have these days, writing in the blog was kind of a luxury activity. As i wrote in the last post (almost two months ago) the past year I have registered for a few online courses. I couldn’t start one of them or finish another or be able to do them on real time. I have too much in my basket and I was (well…I am) living in a roller coaster. Thank God those courses are still there so I can start in any moment or finish those I already started. But that was not the right thing to do. I was suppose to enjoy the connections in those courses and be there day by day interacting with the teacher and the group and asking questions and complete the exercises. In the middle of this roller coaster, I was trying to answer a lot of questions my inner self was constantly asking. There were questions about my art, my job, my future, my family, my finances, my blog writing, my purpose in life, the meaning of money, of success, of abundance, of plenitude, the relationship between my spiritual life and my creative business…about everything regarding my everyday life. Looking back in my life, I think I am questioning my WHY of everything since I was a child. As I grew older this why became a nightmare as I was doing things I couldn’t feel any joy or get any reward or find any meaning. The worst part was asking my self Why I make art for living? Why I sell my art? What am I going to offer to the world with my art, with all the ideas I have, with all the products I create? Why I want to go to SURTEX? Why?? Why?? Why??

At least at one of the online courses I tried (I am still trying) to work hard and stay alive on real time, to connect, to question, to share. This is Hello Soul Hello Business, the same I wrote about in my last post. Why? Because the first part of the course was about our WHY….Synchronicity???? As soon as I knew this was the first question we needed to answer, I knew I had to do everything to stay in the course on time and to read every single post of it. The goal of one of the first lessons was to identify our WHY, our mission, to discover our deepest dreams, to dig deep in our soul. As I was writing the answers to my WHY I realized that I was asking the why a lot but I didn’t take the time to find the answers because I was living in the NOW and in a roller coaster. The why was always there with no answers. A quote in the course hit me hard:

“To find your mission in life is to discover the intersection between your heart’s deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger.” -Frederick Buechner

And what if my heart’s deepest gladness was related to making art, to design products around my art? What if I need money in order to fulfill my whys…,what if…what it…what if…..

One of the best things that happened to me was reading the TOMS story during the first stage of this course. And again, Synchronicity?? I am a very spiritual person and having conversations with God is one of the most important aspects of my everyday life and when I use the word “synchronicity” or the “universe conspiring” I always think of God. I see in all of them a God that is listening, answering, providing, talking, inspiring, caring, and who is right there for me. Reading the TOMS story helped me answer a few of my questions regarding my art, my purpose in life and my next moves in my creative business.

It is a long story, but as soon as I start digging deep and writing down my Whys, everything made sense. There has been a lot of “synchronicity”, a lot of messages from God, a lot of provision, and a lot of JOY.

Since this is (again) a long post, and now that writing in the blog is connected to my Whys, I will take the time to write more often and in the next ones I will share my Whys, other inspiring people in my life, my mission and vision of my business and of life and the stories of synchronicity I have been experimenting regarding with my new found answers about my Whys.

I want to end the post sharing one of my favorite mixed media (with my own ceramic tiles in it) and some quotes and lessons learned in the past weeks…Enjoy!!!

Lessons and inspiring quotes from the book written by Blake Mycoskie telling the TOMS story.
1. Totally inspired by the title of his book: “Start Something that Matters”
2. First words I read in the book and hit me: Love your work, do what you love, and change the world, ALL AT THE SAME TIME”..I was longing for this!
3. My favorite quote in the book came from Ghandi: “Be the change you want to see in the world”
4. Some inspiring words from Mycoskie: “When you go back to your core motivations, you affirm the authenticity of your project….when you are living your story, it means your actions and your mission are the same”.
5. OMG…this hit me harder: “Someday” is a desease that will take your dreams to the grave with you…If it’s important to you…just do it”

God Bless you, and remember……Enjoy the Ride…. the Time is NOW!

With Love,

Elizabeth