On July 27, 2015, I took a workshop facilitated by my friend and mentor, Peter Breeze (co-facilitated by Odin, who joined us online from Germany).

 

Peter has been absolutely instrumental in my journey as artist/author, showing me I could and would create my passion project that became Salt Green Death, published with Conundrum Press.  One of the exercises was to have Peter interview me on a little stage, speaking as if the book was already published and successful, i.e. to embody what it feels like when your dreams come true. It was one of the most powerful and uplifting workshops I’ve ever attended – a beautiful combination of exercises, take-away tools, spiritual guidance and humour. It was… EMPOWERING.

And today, 11 years after that workshop, I finally gave Peter a copy of the book!

During the workshop, I wrote the following letter to my future self.  A testimonial from the soul, as Odin calls it.  With Peter’s powerful guidance and exercises, I was able to speak from an empowered self.  I felt safe and ready.  Truly liberating. How fascinating to read it all these years later.

 

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[unedited]

Dear me,

You now stand fully naked, fully present, fully you.  Gone are the shackles that pulled you downwards into self-doubting, crippling anxiety.  No longer do you hesitate before expressing.  But most importantly, no longer do you collapse in shame and doubt after you expressed yourself.  

Speaking your truth used to cause you to feel like you were choking on amniotic fluid.  Felt like it came at a price.  

Now you can breathe in and breathe out with open mouth, open nostrils, open sinuses, open throat, open heart, open eyes, open mind without fear.  

You release your truth, your art, your work onto and into the world and receive back the conversations/communications with an open and fearless heart- a heart that is ready to dialogue.  

Your work used to require boundaries.  Your life used to comprise of self-imposed boundaries to protect your heart from rejection and loss.  But now you are boundless.  And so the work you have built on awakening creative expression in others- a gift you truly were born with and have worked so tirelessly to deliver- takes on a new level on a global scale.  You are not in need of accolades.  You are simply expressing, thereby allowing others to feel the same freedom.  It need no longer be frontline work (in person), it is a new principle and way of living.  

Full presence.  

You have taken all the heartache, all the joy, all the blood and guts of life and built a mission and vision that has created true abundance.  

You will never be anxiety-free and you will never not have heart-shattering challenges, but you now have a giant delicious toolbox with which to meet those challenges and easily process, die into them and rebirth from them.  You are truly living with ease.  

All is as it should be.  

Congratulations.  

Love, me 

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