I went to my first InterPlay class last night.  A few weeks ago at a networking event, I met a fun woman named Gretchen.  Given my expressive arts coaching approach, she thought I’d appreciate InterPlay and invited me to check out a session with her.

I loved the studio the minute I walked in.  It was warm, open and inviting and the people there were very welcoming.  I felt right at home!

We did a series of individual, group and partner exercises involving movement, sound and play.  One of the activities was allowing ourselves to “exform.”  Interplay defines exformation as the opposite of information.  Instead of taking in energy and data, it allows us to release excess energy.  After “exforming” I sat back down with my dance witness Gretchen to debrief.

I talked about what it was like to move around freely (after having been sitting most of the day), to be inspired by what I was sensing and to let those sensations be explored and expressed.

I started to say “I feel…” searching to find the words to describe my experience.

I tried again to articulate it, “I feel…….”

Finally, Gretchen just said, “You FEEL!”

“Ah, yes, you’re right, Gretchen!  I feel (period).”

As I sat along the wall, I could feel its cool, rough texture through the back of my t-shirt.   My feet felt moist against the smoothness of the hardwood floor.  My fingers tingled with energy.  Dancing around and letting my body wisdom move me was very freeing and helped me be hyper aware of feeling!  Fancy that.

I’m definitely coming back to InterPlay!  By the way, their booklet explaining InterPlay’s eight body wisdom principles is a small handwritten accordion book (see picture above).  Are these my kind of peeps, or what?!

We live in an old home with old pipes. Over the years our shower has slowly become less and less powerful.  Brian ordered a new shower head made for low water pressure.  When he went to switch the old one out, he was surprised to find gravel stuck in the old shower head.  We have no idea how it got in there, but that sure explains why the water barely trickled out!

Anyway, he installed the new shower head and it works fabulously.  The water is once again flowing freely!  Ahhh!

This reminded me of that parable about the rocks and the jar.  If you tried to add large rocks to a jar already filled with gravel it would be quite challenging to make it all fit.  But if you started with the large rocks first and then poured the smaller rocks in to fill the gaps, everything would fit rather easily.

I feel like I’ve been playing catch up on lots of details and to-dos (a.k.a. little rocks or gravel) the past week since my back-to-back trips to Dallas and L.A.  All that focus on the little things gradually stifled my creative flow.  Today I attended to the big rocks first.  I cleared space to do more big picture thinking and planning.  I refrained from checking e-mail incessantly.  I indulged in making some art.  I opened up the windows and blinds in the office to let the sun and fresh air flood in.  New ideas are already percolating.

What can you do today to clear out the “gravel” blocking your creative flow?

Today Kate and I participated in Kimberly Wilson’s Yoga and Creativity workshop.  Through a blissful blend of journaling, visualization, asana, collage and meditation my inner teacher and inner muse came out to play.  I loved being on the mat in a room full of yoga enthusiasts and women wanting to connect with their creativity.  These are my kind of peeps!

During our discussion, a theme emerged around striking the balance of being inspired with lots of creative thoughts and being grounded enough so that we can implement them.  I know with my vata kapha dosha, I can tend to get overwhelmed and flighty with my whirlwind of ideas or stuck and sluggish from that very same overwhelm.  That’s when I need to fire up some pitta to get me in action!  And I can use that right about now given the goals I have for the rest of the year.

For the workshop, I dusted off my yoga teacher training journal that I made with papyrus from my trip to Egypt and a copy of my lotus blossom painting.  I realized that I had stopped regularly journaling about my practice sometime in 2007, yikes! I’ll definitely pick that back up again, even if it’s just short entries about what I’m noticing with my yoga. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a year since my teacher training!  It felt good to reconnect with that journey in a creative way again.

And that’s the Hip Tranquil Chick herself with me (and my new very asymmetrical haircut!).   With all her entrepreneurial ventures and her lovely presence, Kimberly is truly an inspiration. What a treat to meet her in person!!

You can find us both as guest bloggers on the wishstudio blogzine!

Brian and I just had date night. We dined on delicious seafood at Anchor and Hope and had a great conversation. With all my recent travels, it was nice to finally have some uninterrupted quality time together! After dinner, we walked over to SFMOMA to see the incredible and wildly popular Frida Kahlo exhibit. It was amazing to see that many of her paintings all in one place. The intensity and vulnerability of her work is so powerful and moving.

It was a lovely evening and I’m looking forward to more date nights in the near future :). Given that we’re both pretty busy, this was a great reminder about the importance of consciously making time together a priority.

On Thursday, the question of the day at Cafe Gratitude was, “What is luxurious about your life?” My answer… the fact that I have the freedom and flexibility to have a nice lunch in the middle of the day with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages. I had been so looking forward to seeing my friend and old Old Navy HR teammate Meredith and hearing the latest and greatest in her life! We had such a wonderful time reconnecting. She’s getting her masters in Expressive Arts Therapy so we also had a great conversation about using Expressive Arts in therapy and coaching.

While we were there, I looked a few tables over and thought that the woman there looked kinda familiar. I said to Meredith, “I think that woman wrote the book that’s in my purse right now!” I’m taking a workshop from Kimberly Wilson this Sunday in the city, so I’ve been reading her awesome book Hip Tranquil Chick. When we were done with lunch, I went to the bathroom and pulled out the book to check the headshot. I was pretty sure it was her and thought, oh what the hell, I’ll just go over to the table and ask! Turns out it was indeed Kimberly. She was really sweet and she recognized me from the wishstudio blogzine where we both have a guest column. I’m looking forward to her Yoga & Creativity workshop this weekend.

After lunch, I had a quarterly in-person check-in session with a long-standing coaching client. We did some cool work together using the Inside Team model with Expressive Arts. I’m excited to be incorporating these new tools into my practice and seeing the powerful impact it has.

I had a couple of hours before my SF Coaches board meeting, so I stopped off at Fillmore Street to hang out. Went to Paper Source and bought some new pens. Then moseyed on over to Bittersweet for a lovely cup of White Chocolate Dream (my absolute favorite is their Spicy! hot chocolate, but I knew if I had it that late in the day I’d be wired… yes, I’m that sensitive to caffeine!).

Finished the night off with a great BBQ and meeting on the deck of fellow board member Heidi’s Marina apartment.

Ahhh, I’m grateful for my luxuriously leisurely and synchronistic day in beautiful San Fran!

This month’s Musepreneur column is about the Right-Brain Business Plan. Head over to the wishstudio blogzine to check it out. While you’re there, get inspired by the other creative bloggers sharing their insights and musings. It’s a wonderful community!

I’m in Dallas this weekend for the annual eWomen Network Conference. It’s been an amazing past few days meeting so many talented, smart and savvy women (there are about 3,000 women entrepreneurs here at the Hyatt Regency!)

One of my favorite things was getting to spend lots of quality one-on-one time with publishing experts and authors as part of the eWomen Publishing Network. I got fantastic “femtoring” (as eWomen Network founder Sandra Yancey likes to say) from Jan King, my book coach and founder of the eWomen Network Publishing Network, Debbie Mzarek, a fabulous woman I met a last year’s conference and author of “The Field Guide to Sales,” Jennifer Madson, a fellow lady launcher and author of “A Financial Minute,” Gail Richards, a fellow creative spirit and head of Author Smart, AND (OMG!!!!) the brilliant and wonderfully down-to-earth Tama Kieves author of a super-inspiring and best-selling book, “This Time I Dance.” I read it a couple of years ago right around the time I quit my corporate job and it was just what I needed to hear then. Anyway, I shared my Right-Brain Business Plan, dream box and Unfolding Your Life Vision collage books with her and she was so thrilled!

I even asked Tama to give a video testimonial for me, which she so graciously did as you can see below. All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!!

And if all that wasn’t enough, while I was in the Publishing Pavilion, I met this really sharp woman April from Georgia. We hit it off and she invited me to dinner with her friends from the Savannah eWomen chapter. So I got to know Deborah, Melissa, Nanci and Judy, too! What a positive and empowered group of women.

I can’t wait to continue connecting with them after the conference. There are so many other cool people I’ve met here, and I’m sure I’ll meet more tomorrow before I head home.

The morning always starts off with some surprise entertainment. So today we saw jugglers John and Owen of The Passing Zone. These two funny guys pulled off crazy stunts including juggling machetes while balancing on a beam and standing on top of each other.

And then they juggled sickles while a brave audience member balanced spinning plates and a ball! (I’m glad I wasn’t in her shoes!).

And finally, a really inspiring part of the program was hearing Sandra talk about The GLOW Project, which includes a full-length movie and a magazine to showcase uplifting success stories of women. They had a panel of a few of the women featured in the movie and it was extremely touching to hear about their journeys and how they keep their inner glow burning.

Whew… It’s been a very, very full day and I have lots of great ideas to absorb! I’m always amazed at the power of networking with so many incredible women.

On Wednesday night I had the honor of being a guest speaker along with fellow member, Greg Nelson, at the SF Coaches meeting. (I’m glad I recently took Patricia Fripp’s Public Speaking Class!) My presentation was on Expressive Arts Coaching.  I define this approach as combining multiple art modalities (e.g., drawing, painting, dancing, sound, music, poetry, etc.) to help clients deepen awareness, imagine goals, discover fresh perspectives and accelerate action.

It was so much fun to share what I know about this emerging field with my peers. We scribbled with crayons, danced around with colorful scarves, vocalized sound and some even penned haikus! I wish I had a picture to capture the energy of the room. In the midst of all the wild creativity, it was super cool to see people gain some really deep insights about themselves and their lives. Goes to show how powerful this work is!

Earlier this year, I was disappointed when a proposal I co-submitted to a large conference on this same topic was turned down. So, you can imagine how excited I was when I found out I was selected for this opporutnity. The icing on the cake was seeing the delight on people’s faces as they let their inner artists burst forth that night and to hear people say on their way out how much they had fun and learned.

Who knew that I had a wild blackberry bramble in my backyard?! Well, my next door neighbor did. This weekend, she was trimming some of the vines that had grown over on to her side of the fence. She had a large basket full of branches brimming with berries and she offered me some to me.

As I picked the luscious, dark jewels from their prickly stems, I was amazed that this succulent fruit was right in my backyard (hidden behind a big Camellia bush to be exact!).

I enjoyed a handful of the berries on my yummy waffle breakfast!

This impromptu harvest of delightful berries reminds me that there are often juicy surprises just ripe for the pickin’ right in front of us if we’re willing to look.

My friend and fellow Lady Launcher, Cami Walker, was visiting from L.A. this weekend and recently asked me to lead a Right-Brain Business Plan workshop so she could make one for her new creative venture. We gathered seven other participants for a fun afternoon of visioning and planning. I wrote a bit about the workshop here.

I originally planned to launch this workshop in the fall. What I love, though, about having creative cohorts is that they are there to help spur things along! If I were just plodding along by myself, I would’ve sat on this idea for a few more months. I might have worked on the concept here and there and eventually set a date later this year.

But with a simple nudge and within just a few weeks, I’ve gained tons of momentum. By putting myself out there (perhaps earlier that I had originally planned), I now have new insights on how to improve the workshop and also confirmation of some other ideas I was tossing around. This weekend was a great reminder that creating is an iterative process. A process that starts with putting something out there! It sure helps to have a friendly catalyst nearby who can help propel you forward.