Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching

"Not enough of life makes sense for you to be able to survive it without humor." ~Jerry Seinfeld

Become a Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach. Next Training is in August. Email me about your background and why this is a good fit.

The Power of a Reframe From Albert, The Muse of Thinking Differently

Smoking Reverie with Anais Nin

Second week in the Modern Day Muse Series. This week is about Albert, The Muse of Thinking Differently.

You can get a dailyish dose of thinking differently at The Muse is In blog and Substack... but if you're not into clicking around, here's today's.

Last week you met Aha-phrodite, the Modern Day Muse of Paying Attention. The second Modern Day Muse was named after Albert Einstein. Read on this week to find out why.

Albert Einstein said, “If at first the idea is not absurd,
then there is no hope for it.”

I think there is hope for the following encounter.

Anais Nin, a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories once said,
“He does not need o***m. He has the gift of reverie.”

So I am smoking some reverie with Anais Nin.

Her full name is Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell..

She tells me to just call her Anais.

My full name is Jill Ann Baldwin Badonsky Brisebois

But she calls me the “writer.”

This strain of reverie we’re smoking is very good.
With it we ponder, deliberate, ruminate, reckon, believe, retrieve, recall, reckon, and suppose …

The high starts at the crack of surmise, We land in a golden afterthought,
And in the space between the worlds,
We drift along a train of creativity …

Characters, storylines, poetry, images, and tunes emerge
-- and take us high
Above the dribble, the news, the bills on the kitchen table
A high we wouldn’t have … if we weren’t smoking reverie.

Anais writes erotica.
I write stuff..

Anais begins tell me of her “bicoastal trapeze.”
That’s what she calls being married to two men at the same time.
One in LA one in NY

“That’s mad, Anais,” I say.

“That’s the point, writer. You’re mad too,” she says

[I'm relieved]

“Why do you say so?” I ask.

“You’re talking to someone, who has been dead for over 40 years.” she says.

Talking is right. The stub of my daydream goes out. The reverie vanishes in a puff of smoke.

I was just curious.
What if I could smoke “reverie”?
What if I wrote as if I were talking to Anais Nin.

“I have no special talents.
I am only passionately curious.”
~Albert Einstein

The question, “What if …?” is starter fluid of curiosity in the creative process.

It is the gateway drug to imagination, ideas, and inventions, even absurd ones. It is a precursor for intuition. And “what if …” can be asked anywhere: In a shower, on a walk, while scrolling, between commercials and cups of tea.

It can be asked in the same amount of time it takes for a butterfly to light on a flower and move on to the next so it even works for short attention spans.

To ask it, is to feed your creativity. The creative subconscious loves questions.
To play with absurdity is to have run with it.

For short-one- paragraph reminders about Thinking Differently this week subscribe to or visit SubStack, or The Muse is In Blog. Links in the comments.

It's a new season.
This is what I say to myself when I'm discouraged, think I haven't done enough at the end of the day, or when I mess something up.
Use as often as needed. No expiration date.

This is your brain on creativity.

Aha-phrodite: The Muse of Paying Attention and Possibilities

“Receiving unexpected ‪poetry means someone is paying attention.” ~April Mae Monterrosa

Two finches are performing for an audience member that would like to eat them. The birds peck at sunflower seeds in a transparent acrylic bird-feeder suction-cupped to the other side of my window so the cats can watch (and no birds are harmed). Sunshine, the Siamese is motionless, preparing for another futile ambush. Her instinct makes her do it.

Max, my other cat, lies in between my legs. He notices the finches, but unlike the Siamese he relaxes and purrs like a muffled outboard motor engine. Max’s breed has different wiring. He’d rather be comfortable and cuddled than in ambush.

My instinct is to write. It’s a passion of mine. Sometimes I succeed in ambushing it when I’m paying attention and mostly to amuse myself. It’s a passion of mine.

Aha-phrodite the Muse of Paying Attention and Passion tells us, creativity is not possible without paying attention. In the creative process, attention paying is the scaffolding for:

Ideas triggered by visuals, random thoughts, memories, and what’s right in front of us and making sure we capture them by taking notes. (Aha!)

When and what makes us feel most creative.

What we love about the process Associations, memories, word and image connections that trigger ideas.

Which idea or step from our list energizes us the most.

What’s working for us now and, when stumped, revisiting what worked in the past.

Remembering anything a mentor or fan of ours has said about our creativity that might fuel our confidence, inspiration, and persistence.

For a few more reminders about Paying Attention in the interest of increasing your creativity, follow my SubStack column or subscribe to The Muse is In Blog.

First line in your bestselling memoir about your life as a painting hanging in a modern art museum.

Imaginary Friends: Then and Now

When I was nine years old, my imaginary friends convinced me I could herd cats in my backyard; it was a fulfilling but fabled endeavor.

They also appointed me daughter of secret agent, Illia Kuryakin; I was successful in foiling evil villains from destroying the world on my Schwinn.

And it was their idea for me to wear a towel on my head so I could have the long hair I … longed for. They saved me from a troubled childhood just as art and writing saves me from harsh realities now.

When I was fortyish, I wrote a book with ten imaginary friends I called the nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard) who ironically helped me write the damn book. I was procrastinating, doubting my idea, and questioning my ability. Given this creative call, I had no idea how to fulfill it. But I did write it and much to my surprise, it sold to Penguin Putnam. Who knew? Evidently the Muses did. Insight, resources, and common sense surfaced when I imagined my inner voices as helpful Muses rather than inner critics, doubters, and the piped pipers of distraction.

These wise inner voices said things like:

Pay attention to what energizes you not what depletes you.

Think differently from the obvious and what’s already out there.

Have fun with your idea, play with it without being so serious.

Be kind to yourself -it will result in more work than harsh pressure.

Practice without expecting perfection, love the process.

Act as if you have courage even if you’re scared.

Take a break once in a while to refill inspiration and take note of your progress.

Have compassion for your faults to free up energy for your strengths.

Just take really small steps – they create an unpressured momentum that will keep you going.

Protect your time, your intention, and your belief in yourself.

I gave the bearers of these messages names and they became the voices of and the book called The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard): Ten Guides to Creative Inspiration.

In its fourth edition and twentieth year, the Modern Day Muses (and the Bodyguard) remain whimsical, wise-crackers with surly attitudes and good advice. They continue to offer profound and applicable ways to make creativity easier so our visions and voices can be brought into existence despite everything working against them. The Muses’ principles are part of the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training curriculum.

To continue with the theme of I Make Art so I Don’t Die of Reality, I’d like to share with you how to stay creative, how to be more creative, and how to get through all the detractors to the creative process so you too can use the creative process as sanctuary from the harshness out there in reality, and in fact alchemize some of reality’s truths into inspiration for art and writing.

In the next ten articles, I’ll share with you short, painless snippets about each of the Modern Day Muses (and the Bodyguard). Aha-phrodite will be first.

If you listen closely, you’ll hear your own Muses guiding you to answer your creative call. You have wise inner voices too, BUT YOU HAVE TO LISTEN.

Onward,

Jill Badonsky
To find out tools that will help with your creative process, subscribe to The Muse is In on substack:
https://jillbadonsky.substack.com/p/imaginary-friends-then-and-now

Taking Application for the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training
Tools, approaches, and Muses to be a creative mentor and/or unleash a deeper relationship with creativity in arts, writing, and living. Mention you are a FB friend and get a discount- http://www.kaizenmuse.com/

“Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, ‘I’m not good at being a monk.’ You are either living as a monk or you’re not.” ~Rick Rubin

Good Morning.
If you're looking for a way to get through some of those creative blocks like procrastination, too many ideas, resistance, overwhelm, harsh self criticism etc. I have a free meeting scheduled on Wednesday May 8 at noon pacific that gives you a sample of the creatively freeing experiences in my upcoming workshops, retreats and the KMCC training - on Zoom. You can hide or be on screen, but come get a little creative nurturing in a low pressure way.

Register at the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErcuigqjkrHNdoTBzPR74yIcfZ22swZH7T #/registration

Art in all its forms, doing it, witnessing it, being it, is where we can find refuge and retreat . Whether I make it or get lost in it, it’s a way of finding order in chaos.

We will be getting lost and finding in art and writing today... studying rhythm and repetition of famous artists and writers and then making and writing our own accidental masterpieces.

There's calm and restoration in repetition and rhythm so consider this cheap therapy and maybe the beginning of moment.

I don't usually mention workshops more than once, but I'm excited about this one because repetition also brings unity and it seems like something we can use right now.

Two times - same workshop: noon and 4 pm pacific/ 3 and 7 eastern
recorded if you can't make it
Free if you're in The Underground
Usually $35 but $25 today for civilians

Two minute read unless you can't read, then it'll take longer:

"I became a writer to escape the despair of the real world
and enter the world of hope I create with my imagination."
- Ray Bradbury


"We have art in order not to die of the truth." ~ Nietzsche
A friend of mine asked me why I make so much art. Or maybe he asked how I make so much art. The answer to both questions is the same. I make art so I don’t die of reality. A rather dramatic answer, maybe, but if “all the world’s a stage,” I am on theme. I write every dayish too.

This isn’t the first time in history we’ve have been hit by hard times, but it’s the first time horrific news, often reported unreliably, is in our face as much as it is. It’s the first time in my life that our country is so divided and angry.

Art in all its forms, doing it, witnessing it, being it, is where we can find refuge and retreat . Whether I make it or get lost in it, it’s a way of finding order in chaos.

"Art is not escape,
but a way of finding order in chaos …
a way of confronting life." -Robert Hayden

Like I said. ^

Art and writing remove life's harshness and replaces it with resilience. When reality is fodder for art and writing, it doesn’t hurl me into despair as much, although my purse strap still frequently catches the doorknob and yanks me backward as if to say, “Not so fast little missy, your day is going a little too smoothly.”

I wouldn’t literally “die” if I didn’t make art but I’d be a lot less polite.

Reality is a source of wondrous, delicious, funny things, other times it sucks.

To escape its severity, we binge on Netflix and French fries, play computer games, over-schedule, fall into the underworlds of social media’s dopamine high and incessantly wipe down the kitchen counter. Those escapes have their place, some offer benefits, but in excess they become hollow rewards.

Creative expression is not always easy. But when you continue painting despite the portrait you’re painting looking more like a turtle than a human, writing even when you think it’s been said better before, or understand that it takes longer than two weeks to play the guitar, you’ll find the skills that you used to persevere spill over into believing in yourself, being more tolerant, and saying “yes” to other things that expand your existence.

Creativity requires, patience, perseverance, resilience, resourcefulness, humor, courage, and an evolving relationship with ourselves in order to triumph over the usual ambiguities, doubts, and failed attempts. So does life. Mastering one assists in making the other easier. Plus, what could be more fun than losing ourselves in creativity?

What's one 30 second step you can take to find a little refuge in creativity and expand your existence on the pleasant side reality?

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to courage.
~Anais Nin
Like I said. ^

Best wishes for kind reality,
Jill

Hiya!

After working on them for months, the Creative Thoughts Cards are available to pre-order, ready to go out in a week. Get yours while supplies last. I love how they came out.

What are Creative
Thought Cards?
Ever wonder what thoughts work best to ignite the creative process? Me TOO!

But I figured it out.

Many of them are in this deck, and the more you read them, the greater the chance you will show-up for your creativity, be happy in the process, and rewarded by the results.

Procrastination, resistance, overwhelm, fear, and perfectionism will be confused and leave the vicinity.

Believe me, I know those things well, I’m Jill Badonsky, author/illustrator of three and a half books on creativity, creator and teacher of Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training, and person who lives life like creativity is my oxygen.

I wish for you the joy and semi-sanity I’ve found from creativity.

Buy yourself some inspiration and buy one for the creative seekers in your vicinnity
They're Judgment deductible
;)
Link is below.

I’ve spent a career teaching how self-judgment works against us in the creative process.

I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with my own harsh self-judgment, so I have the requisite compassion to understand its costs.

Once we’ve made it to a place of near completion, there is a time is to be discerning, but the process requires license to start out crappy, make mistakes, and tolerate not being able to bring into reality the exact thing we envisioned. We need that freedom for the enjoyment that leads to the best end products. Or for the enjoyment... period.

The inner critic comes with being human, but it is vital to our success and enjoyment as creative people to persist in spite of it. In this regard, the creative process is an opportunity to create a better, more resilient self as we learn to be there for ourselves with compassion.

Listening to Amanda Knox in her series called Resilience on Sam Harris’s podcast, Waking Up, is the first time I heard the following logic reached as she contemplated the self-judgment she was feeling while being incarcerated four years for a murder she did not commit:

“Berating yourself for being stupid does not make you smarter.”

Along the same lines, berating yourself for:

not feeling good enough at your passion
not being the same as other artists or writers you see on social media
procrastination
resistance
hesitance
anything else you're struggling with
... does not improve the quality of your work or to get you to show up for creative pursuits..


It’s what we naturally do because that’s how evolution wired us, but it’s why we need to be ready to shift our thinking when we notice we are ineffectively judging ourselves again. I just say, "So what, I'll do it anyway," when something tries to stop.

Van Gogh had such a strategy. I love the writings of Van Gogh. Listen to it in this episode of A Muse's Daydream .. It's 2:24 long...

9 Ways to Get Into Creative Flow Is your creativity stymied by unrealistic expectations or negative self-talk? Here are 9 ways you can connect with your inner muse and reclaim the joy of creative flow.

Things Talking and Wild Abandon Sampler The Muse is IN

Small steps, lowered expectations, making it fun are a few of the KMCC tools that have helped thousands of people break through creative blocks and made the persistance that creates skills, confidence, and success possible. 🖌🎨👩‍🎨🤸🏽‍♂️😎
Now taking applications for the August 2022 Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training. www.kaizenmuse.com

Instead of beating yourself up when you haven't met your expectations, instead of focusing on regret, be in the moment and just begin again with a small step .. a momentum might be next.

kaizen-muse-creativity-coaching-training.teachable.com/p/kmcc-jan2022
Now accepting registration for January

January 2022 Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training The Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching™ Certification training is filled with the brilliance, abundance and rewards that come with creatively coaching others to life-changing results.

Who's feeling Flawsome today?

Sometimes the resistance melts when you fool the resistant region of the brain by just taking a tiny step.
In writing, sometimes just writing a few words can start a flow, if not, a few words are better than none. They subconscious will begin to incubate more. Can’t add something to nothing.
This is Kaizen, something to muse.

Exactly.

‎Ignite Your Spark: IGNITE with Creativity and Jill Badonsky on Apple Podcasts ‎Show Ignite Your Spark, Ep IGNITE with Creativity and Jill Badonsky - May 31, 2021

Is the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training for Me? The Muse is IN

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIscu-vrDgpHt2krFJLTbwsenYJFQySomNt
May 27: Come find out if the KMCC Training is for you either to become a creativity coach or to learn the tools that have set free the creativity of thousands. 11am pacific/2pm eastern.

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Is the Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Certification Training for Me. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. KMCC has been training creativity coaches since 2004. It's a non-traditional, unconventional way to help individuals access their creativity through intuition, pleasure, and small steps. It's an intersection of mindfulness, psychology, and compassion. Come see if the training is for you in this info...

Have some mini-vacations and creativity prompts from Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching and A Muse's Daydream

The Modern Art Museum of Your Mind The Muse is IN

A celebration of time, imagination and fashion on Albert Einstein's birthday https://www.buzzsprout.com/1583452/8137520

A Dailyish dose of wonder for March 14. It's a celebration of Albert Einstein's genius, concept of time, and fashion advice. There's a creativity prompt that helps forge new neural pathways for idea fluency too. Listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1583452/8137520