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.