The feng shui of the day is all about jumping into the deep end with your passions that are languishing in your life in a frustrating and even stifling haze because you can’t quite hit the “go” button and start living them.

The principle here is one of harnessing your energy- or life force, your brilliance, your chi- rather than scattering it around in a zillion directions. Its a bit deeper than that though, because when you fully commit to something, all in, 100%, there’s a sense of necessity level that you can’t avoid.  

You have to learn to swim when you are tossed into the deep end of a pool (I did!  That’s the only way I learned how to swim!) or else panic ensues.  While I don’t wish any of you have the harrowing childhood experience of a local bully throwing you into a pool when you can’t swim- its just not safe and I’m lucky it worked out!- I do know that the initial panic and confusion faded fast when I realized I was actually sinking if I didn’t swim.

That old “sink or swim” saying always hits me in a personal way.

Here’s the thing about immersing yourself in what you love in a way that matters— you have to figure it out!

There is a vast difference between learning a foreign language in a textbook or in a classroom and learning that language when forced to do it in order to communicate and get through a day.  Personally, I can’t learn languages from books or downloads or learning methods… I have to be stuck in the middle of a country and not know how to speak, grabbing with full attention to every new work to make each day easier and more clear.  I had that little lesson when I arrived in Puetro Alegre Brazil as an exchange student and didn’t even know how to say Hello.  Three months later, I was dreaming in Portuguese.

Its not always easy, but when you find your way in these deep immersions it becomes the most organic, exhilarating way to really grow.

For all the self-help you can read in books, nothing beats the the self-help of having to make something work out.

I’m an immersion person.  At six in the morning when I’m knee-deep in flowers and buying plants and creating gardens and writing and playing with colors and fabrics, I come to life.  That’s when time becomes elastic, when space is mine for the shaping and the day becomes a carnival rather than a to-do list.

When I avoid my immersion ways, getting stuck in my head,  in the average roll of a day that bounces me around like a ping-pong ball, everything falls flat. It’s work suddenly to create things.

I have seen that is the case with most people I work with and most people I know.

Take a class on having a baby.  Then have one.  My friend was more prepared than anyone on the planet to raise her first child, and while that preparation was invaluable, it was nothing like the real thing!

If you are having a hard time translating the ideas and the vision and the deep desires you have into real things in life, I am right there with you. Its the reason I am dedicating so much time to synthesizing creativity into an immersive course for the New Year.  But… in the meantime… you can start immersing yourself right now and seeing the organic changes in your life immediately!

I made this video, one of my favorite stories, a while back.  It is still the best story I have ever heard where living your passion is involved.  If you aren’t quite ready to quit your job, move to a new city, or radically remake your days, you can still find a way to make an immersion happen today.  I call it “How To Do Anything Better.”  It never has failed me in practice.

Wishing you days of doing and far less thinking, excitement rather than waiting and fun rather than frustration…! We are all meant to create.  As Julia Cameron says:

“I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.”

xoxo Dana

(*thank you Alexis Hyde for all the pictures of our flower day!)

 

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Welcome to Creating Genius!

I spent the last year creating this e-guide to balancing and unblocking life by pulling together the best of a decade of space-changing and life-shifting feng shui! It’s 50 days and 50 ways to use feng shui to shift your space and your routines to move from “stuck” to creatively inspired and alive.

Start Creating Genius right HERE!

Gather up your magic & make gorgeous dreams come true!

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