New Book Release! Embracing The Spark: A Simple Guide for Using Creativity to Live Brlliantly

It is right around this time last year that a new journal, and a small entry into that journal, began the evolution of an entire book. I had no idea where Spirit was leading me but I remained in trust throughout the process. Here I am, only one year later, delighted to announce, that book is ready to be shared!

Embracing The Spark: A Simple Guide for Using Creativity to Live Brilliantly is the edited and expanded edition of the now retired Inside the Spark. It has way more exercises, user friendly charts, and checklists to help the reader use the tools immediately to bring in brilliant and exciting changes the moment he/she starts using them. Many other books have strategies for working with creativity that require weeks or months of work before the benefits are seen, but not with Embracing The Spark. You can begin shifting immediately and reunite with your passion for living right now.

 

The purpose of the book title is to remind each of us that what we are looking for is already within us. All we need to do is embrace this gift inhabiting the divine spark found in our hearts. It is this connection to our hearts that fuels the imagination and leads us to our own personal excitement and a fulfilling living experience.

As I wrote, my guides brought many of my life experiences together like pieces of a puzzle to reveal the message. I literally watched the material come into being before my eyes from beginning to end. As this process evolved, I began to see how undeniably and absolutely we are each divinely guided with every step we make on this exploration of life. However, it is up to us to enjoy the ride. This message reminds us of a way to do just that!

Some of you may remember Inside The Spark. I released it back around June of 2014. I want to thank all of you for the love and support when I published it. Many of you know it was a difficult time for my family and having the project to motivate me and support from all of you leaves me forever grateful. For those of you who pushed your way through the pages of that book, I have great news― the gift is now even bigger and ready for receiving.

This message founds its voice because of the loving guidance and powerful questions of my brilliant editor,  Karen Newcombe. Inside The Spark had missing components and structure problems that made it difficult to understand and read. I only say this because of the respected feedback I received from my wonderful readers. I listened to each of you with a hopeful heart and open mind. You all saw the value in the message, but how could we fully use it, or be motivated by it, if it was hard to translate? That’s when I was led to Karen and brought her in to help us decode the message and push the messenger (me) just a little bit further. What we have now is a guide filled with many tools to use anytime we feel a little idle or disconnected. We have a message from all of our guides to help us love even more of the life we live. How flippin’ exciting is that!?!

Want to know what else is exciting? If you order your copy of Embracing The Spark through one of my local favorite spiritual centers, The Mystical Moon, you can get an autographed copy! Every book they receive from me for purchase through either their online store,  by phone order, or from the full in-store shopping experience, will be a personally signed copy. Yes, you can also find it on Amazon, but just remember I won’t be able to sign and send it. E-books are in the works, just not available yet, sorry!  I will let you know when they become available. I am working on the formatting, but the artist in me is working on many projects currently, so I may need a little patience with that one.

I can't wait to hear your responses to the message. Please feel free to email me anytime with questions or to share whatever comes up for you! It's all exciting to me.

Much love to you all!

jodi lynn lamure  (to contact me click here)

 

Below are links to the wonderful people and businesses who are mentioned in this email and have helped this project evolve. <3

 

Remaining Grateful Through The Pain

 

Back in December, I suffered a pretty bad fall from the top of a ten foot ladder. I was fortunate. Nothing serious resulted except for some extremely sore muscles and possibly a bruised or broken rib. It took about six weeks to recover from the pain. Of course, due to the holiday season, I pushed my way through the pain and tried to maintain a jolly spirit, nonetheless. Family was in town, I was in the finishing stages of editing the book, writing a book proposal for a major publishing company, and having two younger children, it's just what you do around Christmas when you don't have time to slow down. At least this is what I thought.

An injury recently came about as a sort of aftershock from the fall. This one took me down with the pain the way I needed. Driving caused pain and sitting caused pain, sleeping was frequent, short spurts, and so I was left with pacing.

A girlfriend of mine came by to check on me during this time to drink coffee and keep me company. Thank goodness she did, because she told me about a Matt Kahn video she had shared on her Facebook page, "Healing Space." Matt Kahn is a Spiritual Teacher out on the West Coast. I took a look at his videos when she left. Although it wasn't the video she posted, he gave me this little reminder of why I was experiencing my pain and what to do with it. I have to share this because it was so profound in my healing.

I have learned so much spiritual guidance in regards to pain, but a lot of it had me chasing my tail. Even in my own book I talk about all situations being viewed as gifts and opportunities, and I had forgotten. I had forgotten that even the physical pain is a gift.

I wasn't seeing the pain as a gift! I was judging myself for what I was missing in my own healing work. I was judging my ability to understand the lesson or the meaning of the experience. I was frustrated with how the pain pulled me into my physical body and detached me from my emotional and spiritual self. Anger and frustration would build up when the pain would peak, only to remind me of my to-do list and the many tasks I should've been taking care of. Instead I was lying around, dozing off because of the lack of sleep at night, and forcing myself into creativity through the only necessary avenue that couldn't be avoided, cooking!

Thank goodness for Spirit to bring the message and assistance I was begging my guides for through people around me. I was having such trouble hearing my guides from this cave carved from pain and suffering, and so they delivered my answers through other resources.

I had to stop using spiritual beliefs as my current abuser. I had to remember that all is love and purposeful. I had to start being grateful- even for the pain.

When I found gratitude for the pain, and started loving myself again instead of abusing myself through my thoughts, old teachings, beliefs, and inner dialogue, I began healing. I didn't just heal my physical self by doing this. I healed emotionally and spiritually as well. When I welcomed the actual pain to be the gift, instead of the pain being the negative result of me missing or not understanding something in regards to the gift, only then could the pain heal me. Only then, could I allow myself to heal.

 

I am grateful today to know there is guidance all around me, in the physical dimensions and beyond the dimensions I can easily see. I am grateful to have the trust, that even when my ears can't hear and my eyes are blinded with tears, I know the Universe is listening and wants nothing more than to help each one of us. Keep praying, and talking to your angels, guides, guardians, God(s), Higher Power, Spirit, Great Mystery, etc. They are all listening and ready to remind you (yes, remind you) of the information you need as you walk your journey.

 

 

It's such a beautiful Universe to be connected to! Take the time today to embrace it, if only for a minute. Thank it for all it provides for us. It deserves our immense love and gratitude for the opportunity to experience this thing called living.

 

Much love to you all,

jodi

 

Changing Directions

Well, I got some news last week that could've been pretty disappointing. I put a lot of work into a project that didn’t result in the outcome a person who went through all the work should want.

It’s as if I were running a marathon and just as I got to the finish line, I stopped to tie my shoe and decide if I really even wanted to cross the finish line. After watching several people pass by me, I finish the race, but really only to congratulate the winners because while I was tying my shoe, I realized it wasn’t what I even wanted when I began running. Somewhere over the miles, the direction changed. As I watched the crowd surround the winners, feelings of relief and freedom were what surrounded me.

I realize have been writing a lot more lately. Everything around me seems to inspire me. The topics are finding me. All I have been doing is acting on the inspirations.

It is easy to complicate the heck out of life and overlook the subtle turns the journey takes you. Once we have made a decision about a goal or direction, it’s easy to keep working toward outdated ideals and desires. We can travel far beyond the turn we were being guided to take if we become too fixated on an outcome versus the journey.

About a week before the news came in, a new direction for my journey appeared. Over the next several days I wondered if the two directions could really work together, or if I would in fact find the fork in the road and a decision to make. Well, a clue to the answer lies in the last sentence. Two directions can’t in fact be the same direction. We can bring aspects of the one direction into the new direction, but we can’t walk in two directions, scattering and separating our energy.

I didn’t need to make the decision alone. It kinda took care of itself it seems. I now know without doubt the direction I am being guided to take. What was really amazing, is I got to feel the difference between the two paths as they presented themselves. I was given the opportunity to feel the excitement and inspiration behind the right path versus the path that wasn’t really for me to travel at this time. This new opportunity that presented itself felt meaningful beyond any selfish desires. The original direction wasn’t bad, but it would have removed me from being a part of the process and would have forced me to focus more on the destination.

As I’ve said before, the destination is not a fun place for the artist. As a creator, I want to be the paint not the purchase. I want to sweep across the canvas, dance like music notes on the lines that lead me, spin on the wheel in the hands of creation, and feel the warmth and peace of the sunset in the photograph. This is what living creatively feels like to me!

I am so grateful I don’t have to do the decision making on my own.  I am also grateful to have had the opportunity to feel the difference between the two options for use in future decision making! It’s supposed to feel good― really good, and bigger than I am capable of imagining. Then all I have to do is trust and go with it. Let it lead me where I need to go, even though it may never be what it started out to be or where I thought I was going. I've realized I'm not taking the longer route by changing direction right before the finish line. I'm taking the creative route, that's always changing, dreaming, exploring, discovering and always building.

Namasté.

 

 

Is Bigger Necessarily Better When It Comes To Creativity

Have you noticed everything has grown bigger over the past few decades: bigger T.V.s, bigger ideas, bigger fitness plans, bigger bank accounts, bigger houses, etc. Better, better, more, more!

Creative ideas come in and we judge them immediately. Is it perfect? Is it great? Is it going to make me rich? Is the idea enough? Am I enough? Will it make a difference? Will it be easy? Will it be worth it? Do I have the time for that? I couldn’t do that. Could I?

Whoa! Let’s stop.

Take a deep breath-

Allow yourself to stop for a moment and breathe.

 

We are constantly viewing in social media pictures with famous, brilliant quotes that are meant to inspire us, healthy lifestyle movements whether food or fitness, technology changing into bigger and better versions of itself, or simply hearing new music on the radio. We have the world at our fingertips at any moment. This can be a very powerful tool when used properly, but what if it’s stunting our ability to be creative. What if it’s all the great and better around us that is causing us to judge the subtle and the tiny nudges of the creative source within. The good news is once you realize it may be affecting you, the awareness stops the destructive backfire of the process.

Maybe the next creative idea or action you feel inspired to initiate won’t be better than Einstein’s ideas and discoveries. Maybe it won’t be what gets you the bigger house. Maybe the idea won’t get you fame. But acting on it, no matter how small, does change your world. It will change our world.

Allow yourself to begin remembering that all ideas and acts of creativity, no matter how small, are significant. Each inspired idea comes from a place within you, connected to your heart and soul and interpreted through the imagination. These ideas are guiding you and building the bigger picture of your journey.

By listening to these gentle nudges, you open the door for them to come through more frequently and consistently. You align your energy with the creative source you are made of by acting creatively. This naturally raises your vibration, energy, and vitality, giving you the ability to share this with the world around you. By sharing this with the world around you, this is what reveals itself in the reflection of the reality you see around you.

So the next time you rip out that recipe, make it. The next time you’re driving to a restaurant for dinner and see a new one you haven’t tried before, go there. The next time you feel you need a little nap, take it. Missing the sunshine? Just step outside for five minutes, close your eyes and feel it. If it’s cloudy, just pretend it’s sunny and use the imagination to see it and/or feel it.

Your imagination is here to help you shift your frequency! It is not something you only needed as a child. Use it! It is holding hands with your inner child, missing you, staring at you from within, waiting for the next tea party or fort building. As an adult these tea parties may be coffee with a friend or building the fort may feel more like the inspiration to paint the bathroom the color of the ocean. The energies of these are all the same if we embrace them with the same excitement.

Creativity isn’t only for the known genius. It is connected to the genius within. Creativity isn’t a thing for kids. It is a tool for living life and every moment fully.

Creativity is infinite! How much bigger can you get?

The secret is it may be getting overlooked in the tiniest of places!

 

The Step Ahead of The Struggle

Some of you may have seen my post recently about forcing my kids into creative mode through boredom. It works! My daughter has started to catch on without the unnecessary discomfort. If I ask her if she is bored while she gazes aimlessly around the house, she often replies “no, I just haven’t figured out what I want to do yet.”

Yes! I love this. I know she gets it by her response. Every day will be what she decides it will be. It can be a gift, or it can be a drag. Before she gets to a breaking point, she will often ask me for ideas or as I talk about in my book, “call for back-up.”

Asking for help isn’t weakness. It's creative. It’s creative when we act on the solutions found between minds working together on ideas. Both are constructive actions that weave colorful threads into the reality of the world around us.

My son on the other hand is a little more difficult in these situations. His typical solution to boredom is shopping. Does that sound familiar to anyone? He usually thinks the answer to all his problem is something else. This is when I get to step in and say “no.” I have six more years to get this point across before he doesn’t need to ask me and can get to the store himself, so wish me luck!

Spirit has had his best interest at heart of course and some of this lesson came in for him over the holiday season. Nearly every gift or “thing” he received for his birthday and Christmas this year either was lost, broke, missing pieces, or hasn’t even shown up yet! I must admit he has handled it with grace and understanding because to a ten year old, this could have been cause for a complete meltdown and pity party. It hasn’t been. He became more grateful for what he does have and has been more creative with activities like origami, building forts, and playing outside with friends.

The point is we don’t have to get hit with a lesson this extreme, into an uncomfortable situation, or bored before we make the decision to get creative because it’s the only remaining option. We have the ability to head off many of these scenarios by staying in habits that are creative.

One might ask what my son could have done to head off his lesson. Well, let me share with you what happened around this time. Originally, he asked for snow for Christmas. My kids have yet to experience this natural wonder first-hand living in Florida. Obviously, I explained if I could pull off this opportunity to go discover and experience snow, I wouldn’t be able to afford to put things under the tree as well. At first he was totally okay with this, but then something shifted as we got closer to the holiday. He changed his mind. He wanted stuff he thought would bring him more happiness. But did it? One was creative, the other not so much. Can you recognize why this is?

Soon, Embracing The Spark: A Simple Guide For Using Creativity To Live Brilliantly will be available for purchase. It will provide all the tools one needs to use this holistic approach to creativity as a way of living and transforming daily life into a personal masterpiece. These tools will not only help each reader move more in alignment with a vibration that benefits one’s authentic self but also benefit the world touched by the creative actions of the reader. I am so very excited to get the message out in a language that can be understood outside of my own brain this time! Let’s all thank my editor, Karen, for this one! I am so very grateful for her hard work and powerful questions.

Take the time to explore creativity in your life. Any idle time we find in our busy schedules is our heart's way of pulling us back to this natural state. Head off the hard lessons and wasted time. Use the time to do what would most benefit not only your vibration, but to the collective vibration. Explore, dance, walk, sing, write, discover, play, reconnect with friends, share, cook something new, learn something new, etc. The possibilities are really endless!

 

                            Embrace the Spark!

                                        love, jodi

 

 

 

LIghting Our Path With Creativity!

 

 

Have you ever experienced that moment, when your path aligns and you feel like your purpose begins to expose itself with greater clarity? This recently happened for me again. Little bits continue to reveal themselves as I align my energy and actions with a more natural perspective of creativity I will be sharing in the re-release of my edited and expanded book, Embracing The Spark: How Creativity is Shaping Our Reality.

This blog is basically me meditating while I am writing. It is an example of how the imagination can guide us, using intuition and information connected to the higher self. The heart lights the path when the mind can cloud or dim the same light. By writing out my thoughts in this manner, a new revelation came to me in regards to my journey. Enjoy!

It’s as if you have been traveling along the journey at night, and as the sun slowly begins to rise. Even though you may not be able to see the sun, the light finds you through the trees, revealing a little more of the road ahead.

Negative beliefs quickly attempt to extinguish this new, fiery enthusiasm and hope. The thoughts of many who walk near me in this forest, and many who have walked before me, leave a lingering energetic impression on my belief systems. Knowing this, I begin to sort through them, looking to find my own compass. It is not lost. It is only covered up in this bag of unnecessary belongings.

Gratefully, I quickly find the compass, because this new path has led me to a dense and overgrown area of the woods. I can tell it has been traveled through before, but it is all completely new to me and definitely has had a lot less traffic. The brush has grown up tall and thick. I have no idea where to begin. I trust I have been led here for a reason, so I know there must be a way for me to move forward.

Determined, I bend back the first branch which blocks my path and I am face-to-face with spider. She has started to fade into sleep after an evening of feeding and diligently working on her own intricate home she now rests upon. Although I love her energy, I much prefer to stay out of her personal space. A moment of hesitation and fear creep into my thoughts again. Can I move forward through the unknown without disrupting her or will she be upset with my intrusion? She notices my eyes gazing at her, and turns her body to face me.

She is a mirror for me. Here she is, at the entrance of my path, representing one of my greatest gifts (creativity) and one of my greatest fears (spiders). There is no coincidence she has come to be my teacher. It is here I am able to recognize for the first time it was never her I was afraid of. It was of the gift itself. Spider was only holding the space for me to recognize it. As my eyes soften from this new awareness, she scuttles off to the edge of her web to let this lighter version of me pass by.

I have found the entrance. The sun continues to rise and the path before me is brought a little more into the light.

I am so grateful that tears of joy, rather than tears of pain, begin to flow from my being. They have become more common place in my life these days. I wish the same for each and every one of you. I know the reflection each one of us sees can be a beautiful.

As I discovered from spider during this writing meditation, even my gifts can be scary. When I wrote about the negative beliefs that come in, I am referring to ones attached to this. For example, I fear if I fully embrace my creativity and the beauty I see all around me, others may perceive me as living in a fantasy world. Heck, some of them already do! “How dare I talk about how great and grand reality can be when there is so much discord going on in the world right now?”

That’s just it! I know everything we can imagine can be real. Energy grows where attentions goes. By me focusing my efforts and energy in the areas that make the living experience a positive one, I am contributing more positively to the whole. As I continue to embrace my creativity, which by nature is always building, I can participate by helping build the new world. We all can participate in building the new world. All we have to do is believe in the fantasy or construct the beautiful in our own reality, through one creative action at a time. I have been watching this manifest around me in such magnificent ways. This is what I want to share with all of you.

Take today to play with your imagination. What is it whispering to you or showing you? What is your heart inspiring you to build around you? Start there. Did you know starting is an action aligned with creativity? It is possible. It is not fantasy. It is just as real as anything else. True creativity is always building, without hurt or harm to yourself or others. When we align our actions by this definition, we automatically stay out of any area that is destroying the world around us. Your imagination knows, your heart knows. All we need to do is listen.

(Any of the words highlighted in orange are actions that align with creativity. Use these if you are feeling less than creative, or blocked. They will help you begin aligning your energy with the creative.)

Love light and hugs!

     jodi lynn

Little Legos

Ahhhh. 2015 is here! There is so much change in the air and all around us on the ground. Anyone on social media can witness the multifaceted topics of change brewing. The turn of a new year can also stir up one's internal reality, can't it? It may be bringing up awareness of the year past and year to come. Ideas of letting go of the things that do not serve us like bad habits or procrastination. There could be feelings of resentments, regrets, or unresolved emotions. The beginning of a new year can rekindle hope of better days to come for some. It can be a very positive event, or negative event depending on how one choses to perceive it. It could even be both positive and negative. Do we make resolutions, or do we not? The turn of the new year can feel like standing in the center of a teeter-totter for many, shifting our weight, back and forth. Do I or don't I? Should I or shouldn't I? Why or why not? Aren't your legs getting tired?

So how do we stop? How do we achieve balance once we recognize we are bouncing between different ideas about what the new year will mean for us personally, so we don't become complacent or overwhelmed and do nothing.

Acting Creatively! That's how!

The imagination has already begun nudging us, leading us in the direction we feel might be more desirable. Are you listening? If you are hearing its guidance, are you acting? Trust it! The imagination is communicating with your heart.

Think of the new year like a new Lego set. Pull it out of the box and it's multiple bags of little pieces meant to be put together in multiple stages to form a whole. The key word there is little. It can take hours to put together a small set, so don't rush. It takes what it takes. We may even make a mistake along the way which requires us to remove a couple steps and do things different to make it work. Don't focus on all these details. Don't count the pieces to make sure all 1000 of them are there. Trust the process and act!

All we really need to do is start with two little pieces, fit them together, and we are already further than when we began. This is creative. Creativity always builds! We have jumped into alignment with an energy that will help us move forward. Smaller, attainable acts lead to success! We don't have to worry about all the other pieces until it's their turn. We only need to look for the next little piece, and sometimes that next piece is really tiny. No matter how tiny, in the world of Legos, it's not insignificant.

Allow the process to guide you. One small piece at a time. Take breaks if you need to. Change direction if you are led to do so. It doesn't matter. Just get off the teeter-totter and start creating! Let go of the details and expectations and play! You have the potential to build your best year yet!

Happy New Year Everyone!

 

love, jodi