creativity -

4 Steps to Conquer Your Emotional Triggers | Transmute Creative Rejection & Disappointment

by Amanda StoneCreativity, Inspiration, Spirituality June 1, 2023June 1, 2023No Comments

Creative rejection and disappointment can be difficult to process, but it doesn’t have to be. In this article, I’ll share a four-step process to help you move through triggers along your creative journey. Step 1: Listen Objectively The first step is to listen objectively to what your ego and mind are telling you about the experience. It’s important to give voice to the inner dialogues that come up, whether that’s through journaling, speaking out loud, or reaching out to a friend. It’s also important to remember that these dialogues are not necessarily true. Your ego is trying to protect you and will look for conditional circumstances in order to make sense of things. Step 2: Push Conditions to the Side In order to connect to your soul’s truth, you need to push all the conditions to the side. Your soul’s truth is unconditional, pure, and loving. It’s connected to Source and is the thing that really wishes to be expressed. Take a moment to sit in a pool of gooey loving energy and allow yourself to soak it all up. Remind yourself that you are an Awakened Creator, that this is the path you are meant to be on, and that everything that is unfolding for you is for you and is growing you. Step 3: Open Up to Gratitude The fourth and final step is to give gratitude to the entire experience, including gratitude to your ego and mind for showing you what was not in alignment with your soul’s truth. Allow yourself to be thankful for the rejection and for not getting the results you expected. This will help you reaffirm your connection to the divine and open up to the truth of who you are. Step 4: Download My Free Heart Alignment Guide If you want to start strengthening your connection between you and your soul’s truth, I highly recommend you download my free heart alignment guide. This guide will share with you a three-step process that you can do anytime, anywhere to get connected to your heart’s truth. It’s fantastic for getting connected right before you go into an audition or start putting paint to canvas. Conclusion Moving through triggers along your creative journey doesn’t have to be difficult. By following these four steps, you can start to understand how the process works and strengthen your connection to your soul’s truth. I hope this guide has been helpful and I wish you all the best on your creative journey.

A Call to Arms | Channeled Messages from Awakened Creators

by Amanda StoneChanneled Messages May 18, 2023May 18, 2023No Comments

Creatives are often held back by lies perpetuated by those in power, and those who are afraid of what they might make. This denial of their creative power keeps them from experiencing the abundance that the universe offers. In this channeled transmission from Source, Amanda shares a call to arms for creatives to step into their power and do what they came here to do. https://youtu.be/lBTrsP7xJiQ Lies Held By Creatives Creatives often deny their creative power, thinking that their contribution to the world is not valuable. They think that there is no path to living their truth, and no way to experience the joy they crave. They accept what is given to them, and deny themselves access to the abundance that the universe offers. Accessing the Divine Creatives possess within themselves a direct channel to Source itself. They possess within themselves a golden corridor allowing access to the divine, access to wisdom beyond their understanding, and access to illuminated visions of what could be. These pieces of information, insights, and inspirations are offered freely by Source itself to those who are willing and able to take them on, receive them, and bring them into form. Stepping Into Your Power Creatives are asked to boldly step into and allow through their vessel to be who they are, to be proud of who they are, and to no longer deny who they are. They are asked to be present with the All That Is, to receive its messages with an open heart and an open mind, and to form them in the physical so they are accessible to others. There is no right way to create, there is only your way. Your way, connected to the divine, is the divine way. Creatives are asked to step fully and completely into the power of what they are – a master creator, a soul who has opened themselves in this lifetime to allow that which they do not always understand into their awareness to be shared. Forgiveness and Transformation Creatives must release all of the judgment they have for themselves for their past choices and for the causes and effects that they have enacted up to this point. They must forgive themselves for walking a path they knew inside was not their own, and for transgressing against the truth in their heart. All of the experiences leading up to this moment have been a blessing to allow them to step stones through the waters. Creatives are asked to boldly be who they are, to no longer deny who they are, and to do what they have come here to do. They are asked to accept their spiritual gifts, and to recognize that their purpose can only be known by them and Source itself. A Call to Action Creatives are asked to step into their power and do what they came here to do. They are asked to boldly accept the power of what they are, and to no longer deny who they are. They are asked to forgive themselves, and to surrender what they think they know about their future, what they are capable of, and how much they are lovable. When they are ready, they are asked to throw their hands up, bow their head down, and humbly request assistance. Source will intervene only when it is given permission to do so. Creatives are asked to recognize the magnificence that they are and always have been, and to feel the love that Source has for them.

Have Everything But Still Unhappy? You Might be a Repressed Creative

by Amanda StoneCreativity, Inner Child, Inspiration June 29, 2022June 29, 2022No Comments

For over a decade I forced myself to deny my heart’s desires and go after career goals and aspirations that had more to do with what other people wanted than what my heart did. I figured, like lots of folks do, if I just check off this list of things (house, job, education, family, etc.) I would be satisfied. But when I got there, I was still unhappy. I had a master’s degree, a full time job helping others in higher education, a custom-built suburban home, a marriage, and a child. I had everything I was told would make me happy, but I was still miserable. Symptoms of my Core Unhappiness I felt ashamed. What was wrong with me that I could have everything and still be unhappy? And when you are unfulfilled, you look for ways to “fill up”… I didn’t know what the real problem was. I just knew I was unhappy. So I drank. First a little. Then a lot. And when the liquor store worker starts to know you by first name…you have a problem. But I didn’t know what the real problem was. I just knew I was unhappy, despite having everything. After hitting my rock bottom in 2017 and nearly throwing myself off a bridge and leaving my 2-year old son and husband behind, I had a change of heart…or well..my heart had a change of me. I had trapped my heart in a prison of other people’s expectations of the “right way” of living. But what could be more wrong than denying your heart its happiness?? Understanding my True Identity as a Creative I remember like it was yesterday. The energy was immense and pink and loving. It hit me like a wave and was so overwhelmingly loving that I broke down and cried, watching as all the shattered pieces of my life were stitched together in a perfect mosaic and I saw the truth. I was creative. A very, very repressed creative. I realized I was an artist (and always had been) who was pretending to be something I wasn’t. I had trapped my heart in a prison of other people’s expectations of the “right way” of living. But what could be more wrong than denying your heart its happiness?? Thus, my creative and spiritual awakening journey began, exploding in a swirl of writing and painting combined with meditation and journaling, as all manner of authentic self expression unleashed. I didn’t realize how much repressed creativity and suppressed emotions lived in me, stemming all the way back from childhood, that just wanted to be seen and heard. The more I expressed creatively the lighter I started to feel, like layers of heavy blankets being pulled off my spirit. Shortly thereafter, Awakened Creators was born in my mission to help others find the joy within that I did. I was tired of seeing creative souls suffering in jobs they hated, doing what they were told would make them happy (like I was) and being miserable day in and day out. I had broke free from my own prison and I was ready to help others do the same. Choosing to Live a Creative Life Instead Five years later, I am officially done with my unfulfilling 9-5 job and traveling the world full-time with my family, all while serving the creative community I love through Awakened Creators and expressing my own creativity through my writing and painting. I never thought I could be this happy! And don’t think I had some formulaic plan or strategy. In no way did I imagine things happening like they have. The Universe is so much more intelligent than I. All I knew was that creative expression was the answer and honoring it (despite how scared I was to follow my creative passion) has freed me to pursue the life of my dreams. Not to mention…doing a TON of inner work so I could do the outer work I loved. I share this raw truth about my past battle with addiction and suicide because it all led me to this moment. A moment my heart has waited all my life to feel again. Freedom. Joy. Purpose. And I believe you can make the shift as well, even if you are just at the beginning of your journey. So if you are told you have everything, but you are still unhappy, consider that you might be a repressed creative and let’s open the doorway to your heART. You are in the right place I promise. Welcome home, Awakened Creator.

3 Powerful Lessons Reclaiming Creativity Taught Me

by Amanda StoneCreativity, Inspiration January 10, 2021May 28, 2022No Comments

If you would have met me back in 2017, you would think I had everything going for me. I had a partner, a child, and a good paying job. I was even going to graduate school to further my career prospects. But despite appearances, my life was a complete mess. Beneath the surface, I was an alcoholic, putting down 1.5 to 2 bottles of wine every night (a huge improvement from my former pints of vodka). When I remembered, I would take my anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication (a terrible mix with booze btw). And whenever alcohol wasn’t available, I would eat my feelings in a stomach-turning sugar binge. All of this self-destruction and self-loathing led me to the brink of suicide for the second time in my life. That is, until my creativity stepped in to saved me. Literally. When I began to reclaim my creativity, everything changed. I found my missing piece. The piece I had denied myself for so long because I believed the lie that my creativity wasn’t important, wasn’t practical, and wasn’t needed. This is the biggest lie a creative soul could ever tell themselves! After surviving this supreme low in life, reclaiming my creativity taught me 3 powerful lessons that I’d like to share with you. My sincere hope is that by sharing my journey, you will never need to sink into the darkness, like I did, to find these truths. 1. Creative expression is necessary for some people Society likes to treat creativity like sprinkles on a cupcake. An added extra to flavor life, but something you could easily do without. My experience taught me that this isn’t true for some people. For “creative souls”, our expression of creativity is as important as breathing. It is a vital element of our well-being and should be treated as such. When we disregard our creativity as an afterthought, or relentlessly judge it, we rob ourselves of this incredible lifeforce. As seen in my story, and in many I’ve heard from other creatives, ignoring this can be a death sentence. 2. Creativity is an act of self love When we take the time and space to pursue our creativity, it sends a powerful signal to our soul that we love and appreciate what makes us happy. By accepting creativity as a real part of our identity, deserving of our attention, we give ourselves the healing gift of unconditional love. It isn’t about achieving some creative goal or level of recognition (although that is very possible as an Awakened Creator). Reclaiming your creativity is caring about yourself enough to put your own oxygen mask on first before anyone else around you. To choose your creativity is to choose to love yourself. 3. The creative journey is all about transformation Creative souls aren’t just creatively talented for the heck of it, our creativity is a divine gift. When applied properly, our creativity can transform our lives and carry us on an incredible lifelong journey of self-discovery through joy. Your creative projects (and your setbacks) are a reflection of your inner state, and with each one, you learn something powerful about yourself, about life, about…everything! Creativity is a force for deep healing, and serves as both the tool and the path. As you transform, your work becomes infused with the wisdom you’ve gained and holds the power to help others heal as well. So how did I start reclaiming my creativity? How can you start making your creativity a priority and showing yourself some love through your creative expression? Here are 3 tools that worked beautifully for me (and that I still use): 1. Shadow Journaling At Awakened Creators, we refer to self-reflective journaling as “sacred journeying”. This invaluable process allows a clearer window into the often subconscious source(s) of blockages in our creative process. By surrendering our fears, anxieties, and rage onto the page, we not only give ourselves a safe space to feel our emotions and demonstrate powerful self-compassion, we start freeing ourselves from unhealthy attachment to and blind acceptance of false narratives that keep us stuck. I often share journal prompts on Instagram to encourage this practice and offer guidance for going deep. I recommend every creative keep a journal, and use it as often as they feel called, especially during creative blocks. 2. Meditation Meditation is a very powerful tool for learning how to quiet your inner critic and untangle old programming that is leaving you stuck. Meditation can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, so don’t feel bad starting with just a few minutes a day. As you start seeing the positive results of a meditation practice, you will actually want to do it for longer and more often. I use meditation as both a daily practice (as often as I can) and as a prescriptive medicine when I get into a funky head space. If you want help getting started, guided meditations are great because they walk you through the process step by step. I have a growing library of meditations I’ve recorded on the Awakened Creators YouTube Channel that you can check out. 3. Create (of course)! Did you actually think you could reclaim your creativity without picking up that pencil or paintbrush? Not a chance! Whatever your medium of expression, you MUST actually do it to experience the transformative power of the creative journey. I get it. It can be scary to start, especially if you’ve been repressing your creativity for years, but the rewards will be great. Yes, you will judge yourself. Yes, you will wonder what the heck to create, but taking that risk will be so worthwhile! When you are living in your joy and feeling better about your life than you ever have, you will only wish you’d started sooner! Well beautiful soul, I hope reading this helped you understand how essential reclaiming your creativity is to your well-being and given you some practical tools you can use to begin your journey. It is …

5 Signs You’re a Repressed Creative

by Amanda StoneCreativity, Inner Child, Videos July 4, 2019March 10, 2023No Comments

Are you unsatisfied with life, even though on paper everything seems like it should be fine? Does it feel like no matter what you do or try, you never seem to find that ever elusive fulfillment that you are seeking deep within? If so, you might be a repressed creative. Check in with the 5 Signs You’re a Repressed Creative outlined below and then catch my 3 solutions you can use to awaken the creator within. How do we become “repressed creatives”? Creativity comes in many forms and often times when we are younger we are more tapped into that source of creative flow, but as we age, practical things like education, bills, mortgages, and jobs take over our lives. Even if we are happy for the most part with what we have around us, we can still feel that odd pull within that somehow we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing. You may have a lot of obligations in your life that you feel keep you from expressing your desires, emotions, or dreams. It may be obligations you chose but might be ones that were given to you, or passed on through family traditions. Usually, through our lives we reach a point where we stuff the creative parts of us away, deem them unnecessary or frivolous and begin a journey into practicality and “realistic” thinking. While it may bring us financial or physical prosperity, the repressed creative will still feel unsatisfied with this abundance because it does nothing to feed its soul. Look through the following signs to see if you resonate with being a repressed creative and learn 3 ways you can unblock your creativity today and start feeling better. Sign #1 – You Were Talented/Gifted As a Child Children are naturally tuned into their creative joy and generally, adults do not steer them toward more “practical” pursuits until later in life (though there’s always an exception to the rule). As a younger person, you may have been in a special program based on your innate talents. Or perhaps you were told how creative, artistic, or unique you were growing up. Maybe you even played an instrument, wrote songs, sang, painted, wrote stories, or made short films. Fast forward to today and any trace of that part of you is all but forgotten. You may still have some memories of it lying around in a dusty box somewhere, but for the most part your life hardly resembles that of an artist, writer, filmmaker, or creative person. Which is part of the reason why… Sign #2 – You Deeply Admire Great Creators Even if you don’t create currently, you find yourself admiring highly creative people. Perhaps there is a particular screenwriter or film director whose movies you’ve watched dozens of times. Maybe there’s a musical artist that you never get tired of and you listen in awe at how deep the lyrics are or how innovate the beat is. Perhaps there is an artist whose work you would love to one day own a piece of, or an author whose written “voice” instantly transports you to another world. My father once told me, “greatness recognizes greatness.” And I firmly believe that you resonate on such a deep level with those you admire because you in fact have a similar innate talent and ability to create amazing things. You resonate on such a deep level with those you admire because you in fact have a similar innate talent and ability to create. But you don’t create. Instead… Sign #3 – You Binge Watch Creative Competition Shows You could (and perhaps do) spend hours watching creative competition shows like: Face Off, Skin Wars, Master Chef, Project Runway. If there are creative people expressing themselves, you are tuned in and curious. Your interest in these types of shows is primarily because of the same reason mentioned in Sign #2 and that is that you recognize a part of your own desires in them. Basically, when you are watching, you are living vicariously through these people. As you watch, you may start to imagine what you would create or design but quickly negate the idea with negative self-talk or other reasons why you aren’t as capable or able to accomplish such things. Which is the kind of thinking that shows… Sign #4 – You’re Secretly Jealous of Creative People Although you admire creative folks, you may find your mind turning negative and saying things like: “I could do a better job.” “I’d love to give up my job and paint full time but everyone knows that’s impossible.” “She’s only big now because she knows so-and-so.” Take it for what you will, but these negative thoughts are all limiting beliefs we have imposed on ourselves. They are lies the Ego tells us to keep us small and protected. Branching out would require us to risk getting hurt, failing, or being rejected and we are far too fragile for that right now. So instead, we watch with envy and prevent ourselves from seeing ourselves as fully capable of achieving the same success. Which is why… Sign #5 – No Level of Achievement Satisfies You This is a HUGE red flag. You may be highly accomplished in your education, career, or domestic life. On paper everything looks fine, but something deep inside you just doesn’t find fulfillment in it all. You may even feel guilty for feeling this way. I know I did. This subconscious dissatisfaction can start to manifest as addiction issues with shopping, alcohol, food, even sex and TV. You might find yourself doing everything you can to stuff down these feelings because you don’t feel like you have a way to solve them. So what can you do about it? Assuming you’ve read down this far and can see yourself clearly in the signs described above, I imagine you want to do something about this. “So I’m a repressed creative, now what?” Well, there are a couple of …

happy woman with paint on forehead and cheeks

Permission Granted | Embodying your Creative Truth

by Amanda StoneChanneled Messages, Inspiration, Spirituality February 18, 2019May 18, 2023No Comments

It is easy to say one thing and do another. We’ve all heard that talk is cheap. What isn’t cheap, however, is permission. And I’m not talking about the “permission” you grant every app you download on your phone to have access to your personal data (which you should maybe ask yourself about that BTW). No, I’m talking about the permission we grant ourselves, to be…ourselves. It is easy to tell your loved ones, and anyone else you encounter to “be yourself,” “do you,” and “follow your heart.” But how often do we give ourselves that permission, without condition? Too often we say, “be yourself” to a friend, but for ourselves we mean, “be yourself only if it will gain you approval or bring you recognition from the external.” Or we’ll shout, “do you” to an eccentric stranger, but to ourselves we mean, “you better do what they expect you to do or else you’ll be left alone in the dust, forgotten and abandoned.” Like the fairy godmothers to our loved ones we’ll whisper, “follow your heart,” but to ourselves we mean, “if you think heart following is going to pay the bills you’ve got another thing coming.” Why do we give everyone else permission, except ourselves? To speak truth, you must EMBODY truth. To speak truth, you must EMBODY truth. You must LIVE that truth, every day, even if it means relationships slip away or people look at your confused because they don’t understand. Until you can step into your own words, they are without value and without conviction. The next time you tell someone something encouraging, consider whether or not you truly believe and embody that in your own life. So, the next time you tell someone something encouraging, consider whether or not you truly believe and embody that in your own life and if not…thank you Universe for pointing out the part of yourself that needs a little more love and get to work. The time is now to live your truth. The world needs you. Just as you are.