Life Dreaming

Lot’s of interesting words in todays title … barter … abundance … cash.

Anyone who has read my Liz Biz personal blog over the last few years will know that I have a mountain load of certain abundance in my life … and a certain lack of abundance in one area … cash … and cash flow.

I know that money and all the stuff around it [attracting it, keeping it, sharing it etc.] is one of my huge life lessons … and darlings … have I been given some huge kick ass lessons.

3 years ago I was at the cutting edge of the recession here in Ireland … paid work just dried up and in the next few years I got to really draw on all my skills and resources to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.

I was really challenged to live my core mantra … that I have the power to choose my attitude in any given situation.

I might have been cash poor but I was a time billionaire … Life Dreaming wouldn’t be where it is now without all the time I had to explore, design and develop it.

I’m not out of my personal cash recession yet and that doesn’t bother me because I’ve seen how bloody resilient and creative I can be in living the life I love.

My life is wonderfully abundant in so many ways … health, family, friends, fun, Coco dog, books, creativity, bubbles, etc etc … and I am grateful on a conscious and daily basis.

And here’s a good question I can hear some of you asking ‘ How do you get the life dreams that cost money when you have so little cash?’

Excellent question … and one I’d expect from such intelligent and gorgeous readers.

There are a number of ways that we can receive the things we need/want in our life:

• Cash – Pay for them with cash
• Free – Be given them for free
• Barter – Create an exchange of goods or services

They are all different forms of energy exchange between people and  they are all important in their own way.

There is another way that people exchange skills and services and it’s called L.E.T.S … Local Exchange Trading Systems. It was developed in Canada as a way for cash poor/skill rich communities to create and acknowledge the value of peoples skills, goods and experiences. I was very aware of it in Australia over 20 years ago … there are whole towns that work on L.E.T.S. It’s not as well developed in Ireland. Basically, you list your skills in a database and can then draw on other peoples skills. You sell your time for an imaginary currency and that is credited in a central database … and you draw down on your balance when you draw on someone elses skills. In one town you could go to a hairdresser/butcher/grocery and if they were in the L.E.T.S scheme you could pay part real cash and part imaginary currency … and they could then draw on their balance to maybe get in a painter or carpenter. I just found out that Western Australia [where I come from and my family still lives] has the most L.E.T.S schemes than anywhere else in the world. Here’s another site with loads of L.E.T.S info.

Cash – I still need cash for a range of transactions and am working on many ways to reduce the amount of money I need to live my life. My goal is to be debt free by the end of 2011, save money to live in Bali for a year and reduce my expenses. As I work to simplify my material life there is the beginnings of a sense that I only need to earn a certain [and not high] amount of cash in a year to meet my living needs [and still buy bubbles!]. The other thing I am doing is developing a few income earning streams rather than depending on one large income source … little streams can all join to form a larger cash flow.

Free – my life is choc full of really generous people. The year I turned 50 [2009] a number of friends and family sent me cash as presents and two friends paid for me to visit them in London and play in Dublin. Other friends gave me their cottage on a mountain free for a week so I could build the Life Dreaming Expedition modules in phase one. Friends have driven me to places without charging me … fed me when baked beans stopped being my favourite food … and treated me to bottles of bubbles.

There’s been a lovely lesson for me in how to graciously ask for and accept people’s help and generosity. Love you all.

Barter – in the last few years I have bartered my skills for goods and services. The more I write and talk about it … the more people ask and offer to barter. People often feel better when they can do an exchange rather than just receive something free.

In the last few weeks I have bartered and been offered barter in the following ways:

• I’m getting 1 to 1 tai chi lessons [1 hr a week for 4 to 6 weeks] in a gorgeous park in Dublin city in exchange for my help adding value to the design of the instructors wordpress site
• I’m doing 1 to 1 Life Dreaming sessions [up to 6 hours] in exchange for the professional services of a pr/communications person. She will develop my pr strategy for the Design Your Own Blogsite workshops I’ve started running … so I can get some of the cash I need on a more regular basis. The blogsite workshops are one of my little income streams
• I’m attracting house/pet sitting gigs so Coco dog and I can live rent and bill free for periods of time this year
• I’m getting a Mac Air in exchange for a friend attending one of my blogsite design workshops and giving some 1 to 1 help in building their business site
• I’m exchanging time I spend cleaning the house I’m renting a room in [and for the first time in my life I'm loving housework ... developed a passion for vacuuming stairs!] and the owners look after Coco dog when I have to be out for a day working or playing

In some cases I asked for the barter and in others people asked me …  usually because they knew I was open to it and therefore felt comfortable asking.

Barter Abundance is the new black and I am loving thinking of new ways to make it happen.

I’m also loving the different ways I’m creating cash earning opportunities by doing things I love … and I’ll always love getting presents and the odd freebie!

Life Dreaming Activity

1. Have you explored ways to reduce your expenses and increase multiple earning opportunities?

2. List all the skills, knowledge and experience that you could barter in exchange for goods and services.

3. Now start exploring who you could contact to start bartering … let people know you’re open to it.

4. List all the areas of abundance that you have in your life … now sit still and just feel happy to have all that in your life.

Please share you ideas on barter and abundance and earning streams … I’d love some new ideas and I’m sure other readers would love to hear as well. Write to me below.

If you liked this article then please Like it and Share with your friends.

What if you went to sleep tonight and woke up tomorrow morning to find that:

• all your problems had disappeared

• the negative self talk/chatter had died

• your fears were stilled

• you had all the skills and resources you needed

• you were totally aware of all your strengths and power

• there were so many people who believed in you and wanted to support your dreams

• luck had nothing to do with it

• the way was clear and you were ready

• your dreams spoke to you

• your imagination knew no limits

• you knew what was important in your life right now

• your passions danced

Life Dreaming Activity

What would your day and life look like? How would you know it was different?

Take time this week to really explore this … have fun … no constraints.

Just keep asking yourself ‘what then … and then what … and then …’.

Play the Perfect Day vid as you explore.

I’m going to do it as well … I feel I need to break through some perception and imagination barriers I’ve created in my life.

Let me know what you created. I love hearing about other peoples dreams … they help me expand mine.

Thanks in advance.

Liz

I love my senses … I revel in them … I explore them … they give my life undiluted delight.

I adore:

• looking - really looking at texture and colour and movement … everywhere … the fireplace in winter … landscape … art … wind dancing … great design
• tasting – ahhh the taste of things … my bubbles … wonderful food … the taste sensations of sweet and hot and cold and savory … smooth and crunchy … great chocolate
• smelling – my Jo Malone perfume … the herbs I grow … the burnt aroma of lapsang souchong tea … the scent of my sweet peas … my dog … rainy days … food cooking
• hearing – different accents … my family and friends voices … music … nature … even city noises
• touching – velvet  … my dog … hugging friends … running my hands along brick and stone …

My senses help me create beauty in my life. Without them I would feel lost.

I’ve never understood why people create such sterile working and living spaces … particularly when they are running workshops on anything to do with personal development.

I remember doing a 2 day workshop once as a participant.

I paid a lot of money to go and had really high expectations … most of which were dashed … except for the lunches.

The woman running the workshop did it from her home and her husband created the amazing meals. They were a visual/aroma taste sensation … and I really just wanted to hang in the kitchen and learn from him … because all I learnt from the woman was how not to run a workshop … and that’s a story for another time.

I think that some people who run workshops think that the way to look professional is to make the space look and feel like either a school room or a corporate board room.

Waaaaay too boring for me.

I’ve worked with thousands of people over the 25 years of my career … and I’ve never seen any reason why we can’t have fun while we learn or discuss or plan.

I bring chocolates and tasty edibles to groups that I facilitate … even to the men in suits.

I love seeing peoples reactions when they walk into a room I have prepared. There’s chocs and fruit and coloured pens and coloured post its … and they smile.

It creates an unconscious sense of play and people know they are about to embark on something different.

When I did the first Life Dreaming workshop the creation of a sensually beautiful space was a priority [oh yeh ... and I had to create some creative and practical LD sessions as well].

The woman who had nagged and nagged me to create Life Dreaming had also offered her beautiful home as the venue.

On the first night the 8 women arrived to a space that was beautiful and relaxing and gently nourished all the senses:

• scented candles everywhere
• gorgeous silk and brocade cushions to loll on
• beautiful hand made papers to write on
• wine and tea and water and juices
• chocolate and cherries and dips and breads and fruit in beautiful bowls
• soft music [blues and jazz and classical ... not a squeeking dolphin sound anywhere]
• beads and sparkles and stars for the fun things we made to go along with each Life Dreaming activity

I wanted to create a space where women felt they could relax and be cossetted … feel safe … and just luxuriate as they did the Life Dreaming work. I love creating the spaces as much as the women enjoyed being in them.

[Edmund Dulac heaven but the image of fulfilled desire]

My home is a sensate space for me … full of colour and texture. I love growing things and at the moment the house is full of daisies and sweet peas and lavendar I’ve grown. I love cooking and going to my back door to pick coriander and basil and mint and rocket for my salads … the scent of herbs as I pick them can make me dizzy.

I wasn’t always so conscious of the importance of sensual beauty in my life.

In my 20′s I rushed a lot … sometimes because I was trying to get somewhere [education; career; men] … and sometimes because I was trying to avoid things … and sometimes just because so many things are new in your 20′s.

In my 30′s and onward I became more conscious of the power of sensual beauty to relax and comfort and energise me.

It’s a running joke with my friends that when I move to a new house … before the first box is unpacked … I’ll have the fire and candles lit … music playing [and thanks always to Marc who sends me the best music compilations] … a plate of olives and dip ready … and the bubbles open … and one painting hung.

I stop a lot through a day and focus on a sense … looking … listening … smelling … tasting … touching … and revel in it.

I walk Coco dog every day for 90 minutes and at the beginning [and obviously the end] of the walk there is a tree on the path that has a divine scent … it’s delicious and makes me smile. I look forward to the scent every day.

Creating sensual beauty in your life doesn’t have to cost a cent.

Just stop and let your senses … sense.

Take the time to really look at the colours around you. I love doing stuff like saying ‘ I’m going to see how many shades of green I’ll see today’. I live in rural Ireland so that’s a lot of green.

Stop reading and look around you … at light and colour and depth and movement.

Savour the taste of your food and drink.

Stop and sniff things … right now … what are the aromas in the air around you?

Touch … wherever you are now … touch something that’s close by [no ... not the stranger sitting next to you] … how does it feel?

Move – just dance and move around … enjoy how your body works.

Listen … what can you hear? Can you separate all the sounds. I can hear a tractor and the wind and my computer humming … and Coco barking. Put on some music and give your ears a treat.

Explore how you can bring more sensual beauty into your home and life … seriously … a gorgeous cushion in an amazing fabric and colour can lift a mood … growing a few herbs and flowers … making a meal from scratch … having music playing.

I have flowers from my garden through the house and when there are no flowers … I’ll bring in leaves and grasses. Simple and free.

Sensual beauty connects to our hearts, minds, bodies and spirits … it’s absence can be a real loss.

Marc and I created a Life Dreaming Promise that has the word Beauty in it … that’s how important we feel it is in our lives … and we will make everything we create in Life Dreaming beautiful.

When we run our first Life Dreaming Voyage in Bali next year the 8 or so people that come along will be cosseted and surrounded by beauty and sensual delights … and have the best fun doing their own life dreaming … deciding what’s important in their lives right now.

Life Dreaming Activity

1. How do you enjoy your senses and how do you create sensual beauty in your home and life?

2. What would you like to do to add more sensual beauty in your life?

Let me know your answers … pop a comment in the box below.

I’ve had times in my life when I’ve said to myself … when ‘x’ happens … then I’ll be happy.

[kay nielson - in the midst of the gloomy wood]

When I:

• lose weight
• earn more money
• have no debts
• start that new business
• exercise more
• find that person who will be my soulmate

Thankfully, I say that less and less in my life these days.

Why?

Because I choose to be creative, content and bloody grateful every single day … regardless of my circumstances.

I’ve written before about a quote I read when I was 30 or 31 by a guy called Victor Frankl. He wrote an amazing book called Man’s Search for Meaning and one quote in particular changed my life

Everything can be taken from you but one thing: the last of the human freedoms … to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one’s own way. 1959.

Let me put that quote and the man in some perspective for you.

He wrote this book after he had spent many years in a nazi concentration camp … where everything is taken from you. He decided that we all have the power to create meaning in our lives regardless of how bad [or good] our external circumstances look.

That quote shifted the axis of my world when I was 30 and has been at the core of me ever since.

In 2008 and 2009 I experienced the cutting edge of the recession here in Ireland … nothing like being a trailblazer!

The clients I worked with in the non profit charity sector had their budgets decimated and they couldn’t hire me.

In those 2 years my income nearly disappeared … money was really really tight. In 2009 I couldn’t pay my rent for many months and heating the house in the winter was difficult.

I sound a little like the match stick girl in the snow … but I wasn’t.

When I saw what was happening I knew I would find ways to cut back, create new revenue, find ways to stay warm and eat … I see myself as very resilient and able to deal with the shit when it happens. And I asked and received different kinds of help and support in that time.

That wasn’t the core thing I did to thrive [notice I didn't say just survive] in those challenging times.

I sat myself down and had a chat with myself and this is kind of how it went …

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[edmund dulac - dreams]

So glad you asked.

Life Dreaming is something we all do.

It’s those moments when you find yourself musing on … what do I want to do and be ? … what if ? … how about?

And too often we find ourselves caught up in the hurly burly of living … all the grains of sand on the beach … all the reasons we have not to dream.

Life Dreaming is something I’ve done all my life and it became particularly important when I moved out of my 20′s and into my 30′s.

I did a lot of work with communities and groups all over Western Australia … working with them to imagine their future … and what was helping and hindering them from creating that future.

A group of women asked me if I’d create something that would give them the space to reflect … dream … imagine … & decide what was important in their lives right now.

Initially I said NO NO NO … too busy … too this … too that …

And one of the women should get a medal for persistence … she just nagged and nagged and nagged … until I said Yes just to shut her up!

Life Dreaming was born.

We had a wonderful time … and I’ve done Life Dreaming many times over the years but not as my core activity. It felt so special to me that I just let it happen whenever.

In 2007 I wrote the Life Dreaming workbook as a gift for the people who did Life Dreaming sessions. My wonderfully talented brother Marc did the design and I wrote the content.

In 2009 he emailed me and suggested that I give the workbook away for free … and I did … and hundreds of people have used it and loved the whole process.

And the day after giving the LD Workbook away for free … Marc suggested [notice I don't say NAG! ... he doesn't nag ... he just gently and persistently keeps asking] that I take each of the Life Dreaming workbook sections and expand them into a big bodacious Life Dreaming Treasure Chest of delights.

I procrastinated [thy name is Liz] and he kept ‘suggesting’ … and I found reasons to be too busy to do it … and he kept ‘suggesting’ … you get my drift.

I eventually took myself and my dog Coco to a cottage and wrote all the Life Dreaming modules.

Then I had to type them up … and there was always a reason why I couldn’t … and Marc kept emailing gentle requests for the text so he could begin the design … and I found reasons to be busy … and he kept emailing until I did an all nighter and typed some of the best Life Dreaming stuff ever.

You know what bugs me about a lot of life coaching and personal development and courses?

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