Unbeliever: I am the one who has all the questions, the one who has some of the answers. I am the one who sees the butterfly flap its wings in Tokyo while the full moon laughs remembering all the yesterdays gone before.

Do you believe in magic?

I believe in magic, but I don’t know that my definition matches everyone else’s.

This is what I’ve come to believe that magic is:

Get really, truly clear about what you want.  Not sorta want; not oughta want….WANT!  DESIRE! with every molecule of your body.

Clarity makes it very easy to say:  Hell YES I WANT THAT! 

Say it boldly.  Say it outloud.  Dream  it.  Doodle it.  Draw it.  Collage it.  Say it to your friends.  Say it to your family.  But most of all, say it, with conviction, to yourself.  Every free minute you have to think about it.

Hell YES! I want that – pay attention to how it feels now that you have it (because you do already have anything you really want – you just haven’t decided to open the door to it yet), think of what you can do now that you have it; think of how you can act now that  you have it (try that role on for size and see how well it fits you – why would you ever squeeze back into playing smaller than your are?!).  Pay attention to the want under the desire.  KNOW what you want and why.

Never mind the how.  How always takes care of itself.  Trust me.

 In the beginning of 2007 I participated in the Philadelphia Buyer’s Market of Craft.  My first time – and I was so psyched!  If you read this blog, you know that the beginning of 2007 was not a good time for selling crafts – or at least I told myself that the lack of buyers fortold the coming recession.  And I believed in that recession.  And pouted over it and did nothing for the rest of 2007 because my story said there was no reason to do anything:  we were in a recession.  No money for art.

Last fall, at the end of my UpLevel Your Business Program with Christine Kane, I reiterated that story (even after working with Christine’s most excellent program).  Yesterday I listened to myself tell that story (Christine recorded the gathering) and I thought: trapped and tangled in a story!  Me – who did my Master’s work on story in the mid 1990s; who reads everything she can get her hands on to understand the stories we tell as individuals, families, communities, nations, as a world.  There I was – trapped in a story that had never and still wasn’t working for me. Well, we humans do that, don’t we?  We like our nice comfortable stories because we don’t have to do anything  if we write a script for ourselves that says we can’t, why bother, out of our hands. 

So, as I’ve learned in the past 6 months, I forgave myself for this, and immediately changed the story to:  recession or no, people need beautiful things to help them remember who they are.  My art does that.  I am being selfish when I don’t take responsibility for my purpose in this life:  serving others by creating that one very special piece of art which will help them open to themselves, and by creating a space for other artists to discover and follow their purpose.

Of course,  ”suddenly” magic is happening in my life.  And of course it isn’t “suddenly” at all.  It’s the culmination of daily decisions and baby steps and stumbles and getting up and every morning and every day and every evening saying to myself:  THIS (art and working for myself) is what I want.  No:  “Well, I can always get a real job.” backup.   This is it.  This is my real job.  And it is.

I have a great new website (not perfect, but I’ve got time and it’s getting there); I am interviewing folks to start getting my galleries on the website up and running (take pictures, insert into galleries); I have hired someone to help in the studio and at the end of the month with bookkeeping.  I have someone making calls to shops and who straightened out and updated my individual client and my shops/gallery lists so I just have to run labels now to do my mailings (which I’m doing at planned intervals).  I am writing an eseminar on AmpUP: Color your art business Out Loud – quickly because I’ve already sold it to my first client (I’m staying about 2 weeks ahead of delivery).  And I can pay for all this because my sales are up (recession or no).  And I believe my sales are up because I am focused and very very clear about what I really truly want (and the how keeps showing up, like magic).

And here’s what else:  not only did my business UpLevel but I am also working less.  Now I have time every day to work out for an hour – because that was part of my Hell Yes! (I want to be healthy to enjoy the benefits of all this UpLeveling).

I could go on, but what I want you to get here is that you can do whatever you want:  it’s just one Hell YES! away:

• Hell YES! I want that!
• Hell YES!  I will take my first step – no matter how small (or how large – even scarey!) - towards that!  And then another and then another.
• Hell YES! I will get up when I fall!
• Hell YES! I am the most important part of my business and I will invest in myself!
• Hell YES! I will go forward, even imperfectly, because action creates its own energy and its own return of serendipity.
• Hell YES!  I will step into my power, take responsibility for my decisions about my life’s purpose!
• Hell YES! I will believe in the magic of ME!
• Hell YES! I BELIEVE IN MAGIC! HELL YES!!

So, do you believe in magic?

[note:  Hell YES! comes from a great post of Christine’s, Hell, Maybe!).  Christine has a new UpLevel Your Business program starting on February 1..it isn’t too late to sign up/sign in  – that will get you the last minute follow-up emails you need – and invest in yourself…do you believe in magic?!)

Wylde Women’s Wisdom:  We are creatures of the stars, created from the birth of galaxies, created from the cooling of this planet, created from dust and gas, created from the elements, created from time and space, created from silence.  Gunilla Norris

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