I love this sentiment.

At every moment- total transformation is waiting for you if you need it.  

At any moment, decisions can re-shape your life for the better.  

All the time, you can practice something better for you than your current practice has been. 

For me, it’s been a wild game of dumping the societal prescriptions and trying/wishing/hoping to fit in and learning to go my own way.

It’s part of the joy and power of living without the idea that we “should” do things.

The more those “should’s” I’ve absorbed — and even sought out– from popular culture, other people, old memories and even ancient traditions have been faded out of my days, the more the feelings I’ve always craved of creative freedom and real connection to the magic of life have been able to take root and flourish!

(acrylic pours are my fascination)

I have probably watched 50 or 60 acrylic pour videos on Instagram in the last year. Liquified paints of every color get layered into cups and then dumped in a glorious way onto a surface, finding their own beauty as they flow.

Now, I have to do this. It’s part of the new “right” art for my bedroom that matches my feeling about moving through every day.

Pile up the ideas like multicolored layers of paint. Let them flow. Admire the beauty in it all. Embellish as needed with gold and glitter. And, if it’s not to my liking, pile up more ideas and pour more onto the day.

I love synthesis. I have always thrived on bringing seemingly unrelated facets of life into a whole. It’s the way I see the world.

I spent a long time writing papers in college about viewing art like eating a salad versus viewing art like eating a sandwich, male supermodels as a harbinger of a changing standard of beauty, spinning neon signs as a call to action to stay connected to Nature. I was a very weird person by the academic standards of Art History, but I wasn’t going to be denied my voice and had no feeling that compromising myself would be a good thing. I was writing about what I saw, how I felt and what mattered to me. I had no desire to be how I “should” be.

Strangely and to my surprise, I won an award for my seeming weirdness at Stanford when I graduated. Apparently, it was less weird than my friends were able to grasp who thought I should be more standard and appropriate.

I wish this was where I learned this lesson and just did what was right to me, but the “real world” took hold really fast.

Quite quickly, “should” captured every bit of my talent and leveled me to zero. I was not made to confirm to a corporate culture as hard as I tried. I was not wanting a husband like other friends of mine. But… what should I do, then?!

I collected people to tell me what I should do to fix this, more people to tell me how I should socialize and how I should dress. How I should… and should… and should…

It was the saddest time in my life. Also, it was the most unproductive, broke and unhealthy that I’ve ever been.

This whole world of feng shui you’ll find on the blog and in the Camps and now in the School of Intention is a synthesis of everything from art to housekeeping, psychology and science to ancient tradition, life stories to interior design, holistic modalities and so much more. It’s not normal or typical; it’s intuitive and rooted in personal experience.

It’s the absolute opposite of SHOULD. Even though it took time to develop and test my ways, it was the happiest, healthiest and more prosperous time in my life that started the minute I decided to take something interesting to me (Feng Shui in this case) and go my own way with it.

Should faded out. I figured, if people don’t like it, they won’t do it.

Should faded from other parts of my life quickly, too.

I realized I could actually design my life in my own way and feel much better.

I still had a “day job” for a long time in all this experimenting but it was not the kind of wild oppression I felt when I was trying to turn a Job into a Career that was not for me.

I still had challenges, but they were way more of a learning process than yet another obstacle on the earth to finally becoming whole again!

Without should, I was back to being me in a way that I missed sooo much!!!

I wasn’t walking through every day trying to measure up.

It slowly —but surely— pulled my life into focus. It allowed me to say NO to things I did out of guilt. It cleared my life of energetic drains. It led me out of the wrong relationship that should have been great on paper. It opened paths to more health, happiness and all of this.

I’ve lived with “should” for long enough to know that it was my personal sabotage.

If it’s been in your way, too, you might want to start easy and let go of just one “should” thing that’s lingered in your life.

From there, step-by-step, you’ll feel the pressure fly out of your days and a lot of joy and power coming back with every “should” that you erase.

It’s exhilarating, it’s creatively awakening and I think if you’ve felt stuck you’ll feel far more free.

xoxoxo!!!

Dana

P.S.: You can start the FREE Wealth Feng Shui video series here!

And if you’re ready to take things to a new level of Professional skill in Feng Shui, The Feng Shui School of Intention is starting soon and you can grab the details HERE!

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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!

xoxo Dana