Expanding your intuition means expanding your imagination. As writer’s we don’t just “make stuff up,” we get to the truth or the heart of the matter. We’re able to see and sense things that everyone else overlooks. That’s intuition.

Over the past few years, I’ve polished and developed my own intuitive skills quite a bit to bring in subjects such as synchronicity, clairvoyance and even working with muses into my own writing. And yet, the more I learn, the more I realize, we use this stuff all the time without realizing it. Here are three fun exercises that will not only open up your intuition but your imagination and consciousness as well.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s one of my all-time favorite quotes:

“Nothing is forever except change.”

-Buddha

In other words, the only thing that doesn’t change is that everything always changes. We might sometimes forget this in life, but it’s essential to remember in your writing. Whether you’re working on fiction or nonfiction, a book is basically a chain of changes that climaxes into a major transformation.

Usually, major changes in love, health, spirituality, or finances come through a series of smaller turns, even if we only recognize them in hindsight. In your story, this will be the outline that leads to the climax and eventually the resolution. It’s actually a very natural shape that occurs again and again in our lives, in ways big and small: a problem or desire intensifies like a wave until it breaks.

Whenever procrastination bares its terrible fangs, you know your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Possibly something you don’t want to hear because you’re scared.

Well, fear not! Together we’re going to lower the stakes on creativity because none of this is as bad as your subconscious believes it is.

Here’s the step by step:…

I often look back at the two year period, where I was working as a school teacher, raising a toddler and getting up early every morning to write and meditate . How did I do that?

How did I cultivate that belief in what’s possible? How did I consistently wake up at 4:30 AM? How did I produce interesting and novel creative work?

And reflecting back, I’ll tell you honestly, it was not only easy, it was addictive.

Recently, I discovered why. Every morning that I woke up early, I entered a state of flow; I had unknowingly cultivated flow state in my life. Entering flow doesn’t require that you get up early, but it has 8 verified characteristics according to the father of “flow science” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He was the head of the psychology department at the University of Chicago, and studied this for decades. I’ve interpreted them through the lens of writing.

How’d 2019 go?

This can be a tough question to answer. Sometimes we might even be scared to look back. However, no matter how difficult or successful the past year has been, I’ve got some great journaling exercises that will help you distill the meaning of what happened and propel you into a better future.

The time has come to heal the wounds and discover the gems. Try these on for size!

Every once in a while, in this baffling jigsaw that is life, some unseen force bends logic just to send you clues. Magical “coincidences” that provide us with a wink of support right when we needed something, anything, to lighten our load.  As if the Universe doesn’t want us to give up hope. I'm so grateful and wouldn’t be enjoying my author career without them.

But let me be clear, this is not dumb luck. When you follow your inner guidance and connect it to something greater than yourself, the exterior world responds in surprising ways. All of a sudden, it’s as if everything aligns to help you write your book.

On your marks, get set… NanoWriMo!

This month is National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo), and whether you plan to get down 500 words a day (as many participants do), or simply use the motivation to push you forward, it’s an excellent opportunity. But it begs the question, how do you muster the willpower to keep going?

Honestly, does anybody know how to properly balance rigor with rest?

It seems that most of us have a tendency to fall on one side of the spectrum or the other. However, I’ve divined so much wisdom from the chakras on this one. It’s all about maintaining a healthy solar plexus, or as I call it “Going Pro.”

Buddha said, “Nothing is forever except change.” In other words, the only thing that doesn’t change is that everything always changes. We might sometimes forget this in life, but it’s essential to remember in your writing. Whether you’re working on fiction or nonfiction, a book is basically a chain of changes that climaxes into a major transformation. If you’re writing fiction this is doen through a series of scenes that reach a climax, and in nonfiction, especially self help, this is done through a series of chapters that lead to the major result the reader is after.

Usually, major changes in love, health, spirituality, or finances come through a series of smaller turns, even if we only recognize them in hindsight. In your story this will be the outline that leads to the climax and eventually the resolution. It’s actually a very natural shape that occurs again and again in our lives, in ways big and small: a problem or desire intensifies like a wave until it breaks.

You may have heard me say this before. I say it a lot.

It’s not just your imagination. Trust your imagination.

The problem is we don’t prioritize our imagination. We’re trained not to! It’s considered silly, the territory of dreamers who live outside the “real world” in a way that seems to insinuate that the real world is a fixed object that we must conform to, rather than mold.

Well, not according to the chakras. In this process of manifestating an idea moves from inspiration in the crown chakra to images in the third eye. Everything that exists has been imagined into reality.

People come to me with big dreams and big books. I believe big dreams are a naturally occurring phenomena that coincide with being connected to your higher self.

You have visions of spreading your book to hundreds, thousands, millions of people, getting interviews with people you admire, speaking to large audiences, creating movies, TV shows and viral Youtube channels. These dreams are deep truths, because your soul self plays on a big stage and sends you visions and messages about what’s possible.

The challenge is to stay in your soul self, or your authentic self, and not your ego. What your soul sees as an exciting challenge, your ego sees as a frightening and even exhausting creative risk.

Right when those dreams start to take off, your ego starts to ask, “How do I know this will lead to that?” “And when exactly? I need dates and times.” “How much time and effort will this require?” “How much will it cost?” And then the ego finishes with, “I need all of these details before I even start so I can calculate whether or not it’s even worth it.”

This is why your ego never creates anything. If you’re doing something truly new and creative, it’s impossible to know before you start. Whereas planning can be useful, the logical mind can shut down creativity.

Synchronicity plays an essential role in a writer's life simply because it guides us forward when we're feeling uncertain. Little secret: that's everything. Really the number one factor in becoming a successful author is the ability to move through criticism and insecurity. As we venture out into the unknown territory of writing a book, doubt will inevitably rise up to meet us at the door.

Uncertainty is a necessity of creativity. If you knew what you were doing already, it wouldn’t be that creative. That’s why as you brave this path of becoming an author, you’ll find you’re not alone. As we nurture our raw creativity, the Universe responds by nurturing us right back. So many miracles await as we open up.

During the past few weeks (as I’ve been contemplating writer’s block and perfectionism) my inner critic, very appropriately gave me a body slam.

It was one of those moments that we all come to when writing a book, where we’ve come a certain distance, and suddenly the mind goes dark. If I turned on the thinking, it was only terrible horrible thoughts. My incredible, invincible “Why” had wilted into “Why bother?”

However this was actually a wonderful opportunity, I needed to have that experience again in order to remember that the inner critic is not a voice, it’s a state. For me, this has never been a battle between thoughts. It’s never been a battle between “I’m good enough,” versus, “I’m not good enough.” It’s been a battle between states.

When my inner critic (or my ego) takes over, there are no opportunities, nothing makes sense, and I don’t know what to do. When I move into my authentic self, I’m excited just to be here. Possibilities light up and I want to experiment and learn. Simply tipping the scales in the direction of my inner genius has created so much momentum.

The fact is, you have a story inside you, and that story has a message. You don’t just want people to read it, you want them to feel it. It’s a seed to be planted in the soil of readers’ emotions where it can grow and flourish.

Metaphors make us laugh, they make us cry, but most of all they make us think. I’ve got plenty of examples in the blog, but first and foremost I want to explain why they’re so important. It’s going to challenge you to bring your content creation to a new level.

And it’s fun.

When writing a book you need to be unstoppable or you will become extremely stoppable. Time will stop you, money will stop you, cleaning will stop you, other people’s priorities will stop you.

I speak from experience. This is why people hire me.

These are the manifestations of a belief system that says your book, your words, your unique contribution to this world is not a priority.

This is a habit you can cultivate. The muscle of believing in yourself gets stronger with practice. It’s not one triumphant moment of fireworks. It’s the simple act of jumping out of the shower and writing down an idea while dripping wet and naked. It means keeping a pen and paper on the nightstand so you can sketch out the thoughts that wake you up from dreams. It means reserving an hour or two a week in a cafe to scribble down your progress, just as you would to take your kids to a birthday, or if your boss asked you to stay late. You deserve your own time as much as anybody else.

Finding your voice as a writer is the adventure of a lifetime, because your true voice exists on the other side of your ego.

Your true voice has the ability to look past everything you resist and see the most meaning in whatever’s in front of you. That’s how a great novel that can express the beauty of both life and death, pleasure and pain, equally. And it brings up the same experience in the reader through catharsis.

The ego can’t see that, because frankly, it doesn’t seem to make sense. The ego is always scared. It judges everything, sees it as right or wrong, good or bad, good enough and not good enough. Plus, it has no patience for the organic process through which anything meaningful and creative comes into begin.

If your ego was watching a flower, it would probably just keep yelling “Hurry up!” until it drove itself completely mad. Sometimes the creative writing process is like that too. That’s when you know the ego is arising.

That’s where surrender comes in...

The time to write your book will never yank you by the collar, spring to the top of your inbox, or nag you. You have to seek it out for yourself. And when you invest time in your book (and the whispers of your soul) you become the author of your life.

Competing priorities and an over-stuffed calendar are some of the biggest blocks to writing. It’s not that we don’t have a voice, or an essential story to tell, we’ve got the most important elements buried inside, we just don’t have time to express them.

It’s always something. But if we’re honest it’s usually the same thing, or at least there’s a pattern when we can recognize it. When we find the flaws in how we think about time, the whole game changes. Suddenly we can use that precious resource to hurtle us forward into becoming the author we’re meant to be.

Is it good enough?

That’s the big impossible conundrum we all come up against when we sit down in front of a draft. Answering it about a piece of writing is just as impossible as answering it about a human being. It simply is what it is, and that’s good! The fact that the story exists (just like the fact that the human exists) is great.

The end of 2018 taught me a lot about fatigue. So much so, that I haven’t even written about it until now. I’m finally ready to look at my lessons and really learn from them.

One thing I want to say to begin with is, fatigue is real. It has to be appreciated, understood and cared for, much like an infant. If you think your creative well has run dry, and you’re frightened that you may never feel that spark again, please (with all my heart) don’t be scared. What’s happening is natural. It’s happened to millions of other artists before, and there is a clear path out.

However, that path does not include beating yourself up, pushing through, or getting impatient. Let go of those habits because they make it worse.

As many may know, 2018 was a big year for me. I left my full time job of seven years to take my author coaching full time and launched my first course, The Writer’s Lab. At the end of the year, I had reached a place of exciting success and fulfillment as found myself checking off the final items of my To Do List.

My first thought was, wonderful! Clean slate! Now I can start planning my next big creative project! But I also felt I deserved a nap. I remember laying down for that nap on December 4, 2018, and didn’t fully snap out of it for about eight weeks.

Always remember you're not alone. 

No matter what kind of creative journey you're embarking on, you always have access to both interior and exterior guidance.  I'm here for exterior guidance, obviously, but you can also develop your own intuition to increase creativity and productivity. 

In her book “Big Magic” Elizabeth Gilbert talked about her own experiences being visited by “ideas” and bringing the to life. Those stories caught like wildfire and there was quite a buzz about it in creative circles.

I remember the first time I heard the phrase “develop your intuition,” my own heart caught fire. For the first time I thought, “You mean intuition isn’t something that just hits you out of nowhere? It’s actually a skill that can be learned and developed?”

And so it is. Just like writing.

What I really want to share is the writing process I used when I was transitioning out of my job into writing full time and running my passion business. It didn’t actually take time because, like many of us, I didn’t have a moment to spare.

It was more a series of internal shifts that then lead to a profound transformation in the way I organized my life and time in general.

When we really take on a manuscript, it’s not just the writing time we set to write that gets it done. We enter a path of discovery, and life gives us clues wherever we go. We start to live the book.

Therefore, it’s not about jailing yourself in a chair, where anxiety rises, and then you procrastinate, or give yourself a hard time for not getting enough done. Instead we’re going to use a process where the writing becomes timeless. You ponder your characters, ideas or concepts effortlessly and that fuels your progress.

We all know that feeling when we’re sitting in a taxi, and characters, ideas or even entire chapters download themselves quickly.