What do you do when you arrive at one of your beautiful dreams?

“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?” ~Rumi

I've arrived at several. My beautiful dreams come at me fast now, making me almost intimidated to do the work I teach; guiding women how to vision these dreams and connect to the magic inside of them.

This is a discussion we are having over in my Magic Making Mastermind Circle and I want to bring it to you. I'll wax a bit on it, but I am most interested in what you do when you arrive at one of your beautiful dreams.

How do your thoughts start to shift and how do you integrate the arrival into the place you may have been visioning for so long?

Once I have stepped into this 'new reality' to quote one of my Mastermind women, I am often quick to move on. Lingering in the celebration of it isn't always my way. There is a depth of the shadow work I have done to arrive at many beautiful dreams and I am one of those people who craves the discomfort that growth and trusting the inner voice brings.

When I was 25 I lost my first pregnancy. Then two more. A baby was my beautiful dream and I walked through shadow after shadow, deep sickness and disconnect in my marriage to finally give birth to my daughter on Sept 15, 2002. For two weeks I was pretty blissed out. Even with the extra 40 pounds I was still holding, the swelling that refused to go away and the struggles with nursing.

At the end of week two she started to cry and didn't stop for about 4 months or so. I was inside of my beautiful dream and it kind of sucked. I was sucked into a deep depression, I felt alone and scared and disconnected from everything I had known.

My beautiful dream, everything I had wanted, to be a mom, to hold my babe. Here she was and my new reality filled me with fear.

It took me a long long time to dream again. Shell shock or high-anxiety or just pure exhaustion. I loved that little being to the core of my soul and I just couldn't imagine how a dream could feel so different. Looking back I know that I wanted to be a mom because I wanted to fill a piece of myself that felt empty, raw, exposed. I believed a baby would fill it.

I wanted to feel whole.

What the baby did was become one of my greatest teachers. All of my children become deep love in my soul but never filled me up. Never made me whole. Thank God I have them, thank God I looked to be filled through them so that they are in our life.

And thank God I saw the truth inside of the dream so that I could begin to dream again. I wanted to feel whole.

From that feeling inside the dream I have visioned my way into so many new realities. Each one lifting me up, each one teaching me that feeling whole is me becoming light. And so I dip into shadows, I come out and shine stronger, brighter.

It is the Awakening that becomes a layered goddess of story and experience and squeezes me in her fiery wild circle, refusing to let me go. "This," she says, "this is where you journey to feel and become whole. This is home."

And I love her. She found me at 19 when I longed to become whole through the love of a man. She found me at 38 when I longed to become whole through the love of my soul. She walks each day with me, visions the next beautiful dream, tells me stories of home.

As I journey and dream I am learning to celebrate the manifest of the dream, of the feeling. Teaching others how to celebrate the beauty and the joy and the desire in their lives is part of this dream.

Whatever shame I held in celebrating this life I am creating is floating away, popping like the bubbles in my celebratory glass of bubbly. This was a beautiful dream. Shining so I may give permission to others to shine. That is beautiful right?

Now that I understand it is the feeling inside of the dream that guides us, I draw these visions into my life at a pace I must account for. My world has been rocked over and over.

And I am also OK with the not knowing. There are some feelings that I want and have no way of knowing how it will look. Releasing expectation.  Arriving in perfect alignment. Finding ways to be there now.

What do you do when you arrive at one of your beautiful dreams?

Breathe into it. Notice how you feel. Remember how you wanted to feel. Lean into the new reality. Be gentle with yourself. Celebrate the hell out of it. Keep visioning.

That is me. What about you?

(Spirits of Joy, the 30 day course towards creating a vision book where you will dream and dream and dream will come out of hiding for September. And the vision book will rock your whole world.)

Remembering the good witch.

"I remember thinking this was the most feeling person I had ever found and I thought it was just all too much."

This was from one of the women in my tribe who has made such gentle, soft changes to her life over the last year. I was cracking up as she told me her reaction to my blog when she first started reading. She went on, "I thought it was too much but I couldn't stop reading it. I was hooked, I read every word."

What she didn't know then was that she was a highly sensitive person. While she had spent years being told to numb out her feelings here I was rolling them out for the world and inviting her along. Giving her permission to feel, feel, feel.

Often my clients say I have a magic wand. The wand is magic simply because we all are born with magic.

I found myself recently spiraling inside of created feeling rather than truth feeling.This is the place were you push the edge of sabotage. I wanted someone to get angry at me. I was searching for a push away so that I didn't have to feel that one tricky emotion that I have become so adept at stuffing down.

Sadness.

But more than that this time, a new sadness, one inside of dreams coming true. Sadness that must flow through as the magic twirls around.

Oh yes, the peeling. The layers. 

The feeling we have been dreaming into reality one day is there, shows up. And we want to run.

I wanted to run, to do something to prove I didn't deserve it. To go back to the old ways that I know so well.

I walk into yoga, the theme of the night is surrender. I spend time with a friend and find myself hearing the word surrender fall from my lips. I come face to face with how I want to feel but the layers of sadness must be shed first, surrender. I am slipping into a healthy amount of space so I can radiate my light, surrender.

The fish shows up. Spirit guide that won't let me turn away.

Evolution of spirit. Awakening of one of the senses. Visions.

Swim, slide, glide, vision, ease, grace.

Remember the good witch? She tells Dorothy she had the power all along but how would Dorothy ever have known had she not walked with her spirit guides, experienced the fear and joy, shed her tears and slipped into surrender.

There is magic in feeling, accessing that huge exhale of surrender.

Magic wands of feeling, visions that arrive at 4am, peeling our old hurts. Hearts desiring anything we can dream into reality.

I will link arms with the fish, the witch, the surrender and skip on those yellow bricks.

Like a dance of magic I will ask you to follow, follow, follow...into your own truth feelings.

We aren't ever off the path, this journey goes on and on. Spirit guides will change as we call them forth, lessons will be relearned over and over.

And dreams, they will show up, you won't know what they will like look but you will have already known the feeling of them.

Slip like the fish inside of these beautiful dreams and surrender to the moment when you will say, "I created this. This magic has always been inside of me."

So now I say, "I created this. This magic has always been inside of me." 

And it feels so fucking good, even in the tears.

***

Please join myself and the 80 gorgeous women who are ready to surrender...

I love this life. #operationselfcarelikewhoa

#operationselfcarelikewhoa came from knowing that I needed to heal this deep core lonliness I felt inside. It came from living so many years trying to fill myself with food, with stuff, with babies, with people, with wine, with work.

It came from knowing that for the first time in years I could fly and feel free. Asking for freedom was the hardest thing I've ever done. To ask myself for deep permission to be inside of free no matter what anyone else said or thought.

I got on a plane. That was the beginning of the journey. A plane to a place where I knew I would be wrapped inside of love and cared for but not given permission to remain stuck. (Yep, my friends are spirtual guides and healers!) A place where I would teach at a studio that years ago I had tucked into my visions.

One of the paralyzing parts of my anxiety over the years was that I was scared to do new things. Terrified. Once I started to crack and step inside the truth of my life I noticed the anxiety start to lesson. I was having a panic attack almost daily and suddenly they started to lift. It was sudden and intense. I was hesitant to trust it. I kept breathing and waiting for my heart to go into spasm.

Stillness.

No panic on the plane. I arrived in CA and sat to break bread (corn tortillas) with 9 of my colleagues and friends, some of whom I had never once pulled close and hugged. It was delicious. The women, the words, the food, the nourishment. It was not needy or forced. It was the soulfilling sauce that I crave each day.

And the tomato soup. Seriously, I closed my eyes with some of the bites and made noises of pleasure because it was like heaven, like whoa.

My spirit guides for the trip were magic, Tiffany and Rachel. There was visioning, sparkle lights, red lipstick, Prosecco, oysters, giggles, deep long talks into the night, cozy morning coffees, co-working bliss, beach walks with sand dollars and sunsets, secrets whispered and cried, aha moments, gorgeous food and California bliss.

#operationselfcarelikewhoa was in full swing and my belly felt joyful. I found I could eat almost anything and my belly didn't hurt. I was feasting on pure love for allowing myself to fill up without guilt. Without guilt. Without worry. Without regret.

I have been saying for years that people think I teach self care and that never rang true for me. And maybe in some ways I was, but my work has been formed around finding your truth. That deep truth of how you want to feel, how you want to move through the world. To know joy.

To thrive in heart-centered biz bliss. And this was is my journey. It doesn't happen in 5 days, it is a long, thoughtful process that weaves itself through your life.

The clear next step in my work as in my life is to practice the self care of freedom. Of knowing the peace. The peace.

The next step in the operation for myself was to find space. I want to find space gently. In a way that I can discover I am OK alone, with myself. I made a hotel reservation and packed a bag full of visioning supplies for the night in my own city. The kids went on an amazing adventure with their daddy (his work right now is about connecting, mine space) and filled up in their own way.

To look down on my city and see it with eyes that were all about self care was a beautiful moment. I celebrated dinner with myself and had the most delicious drink with gin and Prosecco and a stuffed salmon that I can't stop thinking about. Lick your lips, oh my god, grab-the-waitress-and-tell-her-whoa kind of salmon.

I did have text support from time to time with sweet friends checking in on me and making sure I was filling up on the joy of being with me. I won't lie, that helped!

The part that felt so real to me was learning that I could make space anywhere I was in the world. I can decide who to spend my energy with, who to share my words with, who to make space with.

I spent time with sadness. The last few months have been intense and led to so many unearthed desires. I spent time feeling it. I watched Castle reruns. Then I pulled out my vision book supplies and spent time with the prompt how do you want to feel inside of your 5 beautiful dreams.

Light, lush, WHOLE, earthy bliss, space and style, fresh stories. Each of those words finding me and becoming a feeling story.

FREE.

I stepped from the sadness into these feelings that are my gentle force. The 5 beautiful dream's cushions.

I wrote. I started my book. Oh honey, my book. I already see it. The colors, the textures, the words, the soulwork, the prompts. I see it, feel it and then release it. I will let the Universe play with tet feelings. It may be a bit lush and of earthy bliss! My job now is to fill in the words.

About two hours before it was time to go I released. I felt the exhale of the moment. I didn't want to pack up and go. Room service ordered I knew I would be stepping onto the rug and walking out the door. I wanted space to be my company, my partner. My joy.

The process is about learning to feel free and whole and carrying that inside wherever my feet guide me. The process for you is about learning to feel free and whole and carrying that inside wherever your feet guide you.

Beautiful work, yes?

I so love this life.

I love these breaths, this passion, these tattoos, my loves, the way my gorgeous goldfish swim at me each morning when I go to open the curtains. I can hear their noiseless cries for attention in the form of food. I love this life.

Even when it sucks and is raw and the tears and indecisions roll around.

I love this life.

***

#operationselfcarelikewhoa will soon be hosting an event in Providence so stay close. It is a movement so that the women who have been in the gorgeous positions of nurturing learn how to nurture themselves.

Story Whispers ~ Dave Ursillo (and a giveaway)

I find myself eager for settling in with a cup of tea or glass of wine with those whom I admire and hearing their story whispers. I crave these stories and voices.

The magic inside of the words, the treat of the truth and that moment of ‘yes, me too’ are why we must keep sharing our stories. I am making an effort to hear stories in person and through connection as well as tell my stories in whatever ways the words wish to flow out.

Go listen to the story whispers all around you and make sure to tell some of your own.

 

Today I welcome Dave Ursillo and his gorgeous ability to weave words that make you feel, move, create and desire. Dave sent me a tweet a little over a year ago saying he too lived in RI and I was pumped to find a kindred writer in my state. Then he told me he was moving to NY. Dude! But when Dave is in RI we get the chance to co-work together in my secret coffee shop location and end up talking about writing, freedom and marketing for hours. While we work of course!

Words deliver magic. Dave and I meet at that place where every word is part of the passion for living. And inside of that passion for living there are no rules; you use your breath, your heart, your hands.

Giveaway Time!!!

Dave recently launched The Literati Writer's Group a place of juicy goodness for writers at any stage. I have had some inside glances into what he has created and I am overjoyed to share it with you. I believe in it so deeply that I want to offer a 3 month gift to one of my readers. Just leave a comment at the bottom and share with me a favorite quote from a book or poem. I'll draw a random winner next Thursday!

Please welcome Dave...

Take us through your gorgeous life in terms of your senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, sound and any others that you possess.

It's the taste of like rich, slow-brewed coffee cascading off of the first glimmers of morning. The first breaths after of a day, metabolizing possibility into reality. It's the smell of a deep salt breeze whisking through your lungs from over the bay; it sounds like car horns and city bustle of the East Village; it's the feel of four-hundred eyes fixated upon you on stage; it's the passing looks of the faces of one million strangers bobbing like a river as you walk down the street. 

Life itself is a thing of artistry, and every facet of the journey should be treated as such. That's how I work, how I create, and how I live.

 

In many ways, I want my work, my writing, to both mimic artistry and inspire it: to be art in itself, and evoke artistry in whoever might come across it. For each sentence to be inhaled like a blessing of the clean, warm breeze over the bay. For every revelation to ring out like a car horn's blast, awakening all the senses to reality; a sudden awareness of what's always been hiding in plain sight. And then there are the faces. Both in writing and in life, I hope to look into one million of them, and inspire one million smiles.

The moment you knew you had found your thing, the one that would propel you forward because you can’t not do it.

The moment feels eternally present: stitches in time, one-hundred little memories rolling in a slow boil to the surface before, finally, in October of 2008, when the lid blew off. I stand on my apartment balcony, it's 1:00 AM in Washington D.C. The morning hour is cold and dry. A fountain churns across the street and cars buzz down Connecticut Avenue. Dimly lit clouds of red hover between the glistening stars. It's a rare night when sleep will not come, and a tenseness, a frustration, an anxiety in my gut forces me out of bed and to my journal to write -- long before I considered myself anything of a writer, at all. And within moments, from difficult questions asked, a flurry of answers are spilled onto paper. I'm left with a revelation. Less what to do, or how to do it, but why to do anything at all: because what we choose is what we are capable of. And to choose ourselves is truly Divine.

How do you want to feel when you are inside of your creative life?

Free. Unencumbered and light, but grounded and rock-solid. Unshakable  Unapologetic. Like no one owns, restricts, forbids or denies any part of me and what I believe and what I choose to say, do, dare or dream. From that freedom, from that space, comes great responsibility. I want the responsibility of that freedom. I want others to have it, too. We have to trust one another to be self-determinant.

Magical moments: what are they to you and how do you open to receiving them?

My magical moments usually dawn just beyond a long pause of deep anxiety: tenseness, reluctance, outright fear. It's my passion, it's my brazen, it's my tenacity that carries me through the fear and unknown to reach the other side. The fear is how I know it's worth it. And on the other side of the uncertainty, there is joy. Total, shoulder-melting gratitude. It's how it feels when the message writes itself. When I spend hours on end with a friend, new or old or a total stranger, experiencing life and stories and conversation -- true moments, true presence. It's when I stand to teach new faces, or riff on an idea that matters to the listener. It's any advice I can muster, it's saying I care, it's showing up and proving it, and proving it, and proving it, and proving it.

Ritual that you start your day with.

I'm not a very ritual person, outside of my morning coffee. And yet I try to ease into every day from the early morning to find the day's flow. To find the flow of the day usually requires a bit of exploring, bending and tweaking: it depends on factors both outside and inside of myself, like the weather, the energy of the place or people around me, how I'm feeling myself, what priorities are about me and what my wants are in that moment. It's like tuning a guitar. Find the flow. Find the tune. Play.

Favorite part of you, physical or otherwise, tell us why you love it?

My heart. Unflinchingly strong. A powerhouse for good. It is a best friend, confidant and teacher -- one that has never asked for anything in return. My heart is the strongest thing about me. And I love that, by its nature, the heart is physically untouchable -- but can be felt by all.

Favorite quote:

This is a new favorite I came across while re-reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, namely for its eerily similar sentiment of something I had been writing months prior: "A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from human lips; not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself."

A mantra or affirmation that guides you:

Lead Without Followers. Live from Within.

Your guiding word/s for the year:

Endeavor. {And, within that shell, to explore boldly; to experience deeply; to adventure widely. With total gratitude.}

 

Wanna win 3 months in The Literati Writer's Group? I know right??

Leave a comment down below, share a favorite quote from a book or poem with us. Us writer's love to collect quotes!

 

***

Dave Ursillo Jr. is an author and entrepreneur who inspires change-makers for a living. A multi-published writer, passionate leader and life-explorer, Ursillo is the founder and CEO of The Literati Writers, a premium-membership writing community that helps writers create personal freedom, inspire change and craft lasting legacies of love through their art. He can be read at DaveUrsillo.com.

Dear Magical Universe...

From a bit of soulwork in The Holiday Joy Up. Today I write my letter filled with wishes and thank yous for the year past and the year to come and invite you to make space to reach out to the magic that is waiting around you. Password:: Friday

Friday Soulwok from Hannah Marcotti on Vimeo.

***

My littlest (4) has never been sledding. He was two the last time we had a blanket of snow and the two big kids took turns on our one little sled. I wish for him a blanket of snow if he wakes up on Christmas morning to a sled from Santa.

I have visions of Chloe (10) playing the guitar alongside me, learning our favorite songs together. Singing together. Letting our spirit guide fox help us connect to that passion inside of us.

I see Eli (7) learning to play golf to help him understand his emotions and also to finally get down that last little bit in the splits he has been practicing every day.

I have visions of Patrick (41) owning his passion and place in your beautiful world.

I asked so much this past year. I am floating in the sea of all you gifted me when I saw, wished, prayed, manifested and was guided by your visions.

To travel my work, to connect deeply, to heal my relationship with my belly, to be brave, to hold space for so many women who were along on the journey to joy through ritual, trust and magic.

I am going to the West Coast 4 times this year. Seriously, 4 times. You believed me when I said I was ready to open my wings. I feel such softness and love to you for that. I pray that my work is enough thanks and that the pay it forward effect is powerful beyond my wildest visions. You are kicking me out of my cave, aren't you?

Slowly I am moving myself out of this retreat and slight isolation of the last year, or so. A time when my senses needed to draw inward, to learn and understand trusting myself and my feminine intuition. This is scary shit sweet Universe. Scary shit.

I prayed to you. I visioned with you. I haven't stopped. And now I'm a little bit, ok, I am tired and filled up all at the same time. I am ready to trust that I can take a small break. That I can blink my eyes, take a nap, go days without turning on a computer. I wish for the strength to be in a place of soft pause, floating, allowing all that has been to sink in and take hold with deep roots.

For the last month or so I haven't been able to keep my house and space clean and uncluttered. I know why, I've been exhausted and confused about things but I gotta ask you for the energy to bring my space back to the beauty and openess that I need now. So maybe if I take a nap or something? Let's work on that one.

I visioned women who would help me on the path to healing. You sent me so many that I feel I must have won the lottery as each one has come so that I could learn how to reach out, to be vulnerable and to ask for help. I never knew how to ask for help, truly, before this year without feeling weak. Now the power it provides me with helps me understand the quiet magic behind what I do in this world. You have allowed me to start connecting the dots, your stars and stand under the moon in a connectedness of love for this gorgeous world I have been blessed to be part of.

Shamanic journeys, tattoos, past lives, soulwork, spirit guides...I am hungry to learn more, to keep going, to not be afraid of what the angels know.

Every woman our energy together has brought me to work with has been an echo of my journey, of my energy. Please know that I will continue to have profound faith in the magic that can be found in that energy. I wish for each woman who trusts in my guidance that they will know that faith energy as I know it.

As you know, you and I have been on a mission of making space and I need to ask you to help me find ways to have more space so that I may spend time in stillness, deep body knowing and passion. I'm ready to let go of what I keep thinking that should look like and let you do some of your wand waving. I release...

It is hard sometimes on this beautiful ride magic maker. I understand why. I am recieving. I am listening. And I am forever wishing, visioning and doing my work, my freaking gorgeous work.

Learning to accept this ride as though I am on a magical boat, trusting the waves, the anchor and that we navigate together.

I often wonder if thank you is enough and yet it must be. Simplicity right? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

xo

P.S. So, I'd also like to throw in a request for a bra that doesn't hurt, that feels comfy and holds these boobs that nursed for 7 years of their lifetime up nice and pretty. Baby making and nursing days are over and I'd like to treat them well.

How we make this little thing called magic.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl

Here is your soulwork for today. Pick a word or a color or an object. Think about it, hold it inside your mind and your heart. Focus on it for at least 10 minutes in silence.

As you go through the next few days keep your camera or your iphone handy and take a picture every time you see the word, color or object. Watch how what you focus on and believe in shows up.

This is the first step to magic making. Focus and belief.

For added fun a hashtag on instagram #magicmaking if you want to share your magic. (Find me at @hannahmarcotti on Instagram.)

“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” ~ Terry Pratchett

I have two spots open for November Magic Making Sessions. If you are being called deeper into understanding yourself and your creative work life, let's make some magic together. xo

***

"Hannah Marcotti is my secret weapon.  As a mom & a coach, I was struggling a bit to find balance.  Hannah met me exactly where I was & guided me toward a healthier lifestyle.  Through her intuitive coaching style & her unique business savvy, I was able to completely take Soul Carrot to the next level!"

 http://www.soulcarrot.com

 

 

"I let go of three of the four services I was offering and wow, do I feel so much better!"

http://sagelifeconsulting.com/

Believing in Rudolph

The boys were sitting in the warm bubbles of the bath. Eli adds some bubbles to his chin and says, "I don't believe in Rudolph, it is a myth. But I do believe in Santa."

Uh, um, well... ill prepared for this moment.

"What do you mean by myth?" I ask him.

He tells me how there is no way Rudolph could really exist and that people just made him up and created stories.

We make reindeer food in our house and throw it out on Christmas Eve. We leave out a carrot and an apple for Rudolph. If there is one thing I have never stopped believing in, it is Rudolph. And his magic.

Rudolph is like so many of us, whose gift is misunderstood and even teased until it becomes a blessing to others. Rudolph is joy - regardless of religion, the thought of a reindeer flying in the sky with a shiny red nose - yes joy. The fact that he is hooked up to a sleigh full of toys, icing on the cake!

So I am on a mission to share my belief with Eli. To show him that the magic of this world exists in such special places inside of us. Those things that we cannot see or hear but must dig deep inside our hearts for, that tingle of excitement of what could be. Magic.

I still lie in my cozy bed on Christmas Eve, snuggled up, giggling and trying to stay awake to hear the sound of Rudolph's feet hitting the roof. That myth doesn't stand a chance against me believing in Rudolph.

*** *** ***

What do you believe in? Where do you still carry magic in your heart?