Time plays such an interesting role in our lives. For most of my life, I thought of time as this precious thing that is in short supply. And time is precious of course. But my experience of time in these last few months has been so….unusual. It’s as though time is this adjustable experience, slowing down almost unbearably in certain moments while flying by in others.

The other day I was reading an article on home projects. They were suggesting things that you could do to make your space feel special during quarantine. An image of books immaculately organized by color immediately jumped out at me.

I’ve certainly been inspired by images like this before and wanted to “be that person” who organizes their bookcase according to color. But good old time always taps me on the shoulder, cautioning me against getting distracted from the productive life that I’m supposed to want. And so the idea goes on the back burner.

But something about this article caught my attention, or maybe it’s just that I now have an abundance of free time to explore new hobbies at home. Speaking of hobbies, I should mention that David has practically started a bakery in our house. I know that baking bread has become a thing “in these uncertain times” (groan), but I’m talking about prolific, next level baking here. He has made crusty sourdough bread, crispy rice crackers, chewy pizza dough, fluffy pancakes, moist banana oatmeal muffins, heavenly carrot cake cookies with cream cheese frosting, whole wheat sandwich bread, hot dog buns, hamburger rolls and more and more.

I (and my jeans) gently mentioned that, um, perhaps some of this creative energy could be channeled into gardening? As comforting as baking seems to be for him, I thought gardening could be grounding and relaxing as well. (This suggestion isn’t out of nowhere; David has enjoyed gardening before he fell down the baking rabbit hole).

He liked the idea of channeling some creative energy towards gardening, and remarked that he’s been admiring all the succulents that we see while walking our dog. He started watching YouTube videos on how to create potted succulent arrangements.

And so, now we have a succulent arrangement in almost every corner of our house! I really appreciate the colors and textures that they bring to our living space. Although I feel lucky to be able to work from home, I realized that even with all of this extra time, I haven’t really given myself the opportunity to be creative. I have been reading more, binge watched a ton of shows, but haven’t really explored a new creative expression.

This past weekend I decided I was going to visualize some expressive green energy and make it a creative expression day! I went back to that photo of the color-coded bookcase and set out to reorganize all my books in my office the same way. I was inspired and the vision was on!

As I started taking books off the shelves I really got excited about the vision. See? I am so this person (I thought to myself). I’m a color intuitive, and it seemed like a perfect complement to my office. And besides, the Taurus in me was living for how organized it looked. Think of how amazing my Zoom backgrounds would look with these perfectly organized books!

I was having a great time sitting on the floor and organizing books into piles of colors. Greens go here, Blues go over there – our dog Bernie was circling around me, sniffing the books and excited that we were doing something new.

I have a habit of taking sentimental birthday or anniversary cards and hiding them in books. I do this because I love how years later, I might pull a book off the shelf and then be surprised with a happy memory when a card falls out of it. “Hey David! Look here is a card you gave me on our 5th anniversary!” We read it together and laughed. I found a vegetarian cookbook with a perfect purple cover. In it was a sweet message from my late Mom, wishing me happy 17th birthday.

It was turning into the perfect Sunday. Abba was playing in the living room. David was on the patio making little succulent vignettes. We were deep into what I call a vision phase and it felt really good to spend some time just being creative and letting things come to fruition.

When I finished my project I was quite pleased with the results. My office felt organized, vibrant and balanced. I quickly sat at my desk and turned on Zoom, wanting to see how it would look on camera. This is when I realized that – wait a minute – you can’t see the bookcase behind me! I moved the camera angle around and made some adjustments, but it was just too low to be seen. I told myself that when I am teaching or with a private client I need to be visible – not my bookcase.

I quickly snapped a photo of my final project so that I could show my friends. I then compared my project to what I had seen online, and was immediately disappointed. I also realized that there were links to buy everything needed to create this oasis. For the color-coding, they sold boxes of fake books separated into colors so that you could make it perfect.

This is always interesting to me when it comes to claiming a vision, and then observing how the results are perceived by our consciousness. I was inspired by that colorful bookshelf in the article. It was visually pleasing because every book was the same size and shape. The color blocking made me feel not only peaceful but also energetically organized, and I wanted it for myself.

But it wasn’t a reflection of reality. Or at least not mine.

I could have chosen to buy a bunch of perfectly colorful books that would never be read in order to recreate that perfect image. But when I walked back into my office and looked at what I had done, an awareness arose in me. Sure it wasn’t like the picture. But those are my books, ones I have actually read and may do so again. Some of them were gifts from my Mom. Some of them are written by dear friends. There are a healthy number of my own books in there, and hidden among them are love notes, meaningful thank you cards, sentimental happy birthday cards and even journal entries. This is an accurate and loving portrayal of my reality.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about vision and the future. 2020 has been a real curveball for everyone. I can’t think of a single person on the planet who hasn’t been affected in some way. Even the queen of England had her first zoom! Look, life is different and that can be unsettling to say the least.

But it’s also an opportunity to reassess our vision and bring it into focus. What do you really want? I don’t mean what you think you’re supposed to want, but rather what will fill you up and make you feel like your true essence is being expressed.

It is completely normal to be inspired by the perfect relationship, the perfect job, the perfect loaf of baked bread, or the perfect color-coded bookcase. But as many of us will find out in this lifetime, “perfect” is not only unrealistic, perfection will look different for each of us. The Universe’s goal is to take pride in improving our reality, not achieving someone else’s idea of perfection. Loaves of bread may come out lopsided but are full of flavor and love. A messy, hardly legible birthday card made with crayon is always better than store bought. And my bookcase may not make it on the cover of a magazine, but it is full of loving intention and is perfect for me.

Much Love,

To learn more about how you can use color to manifest goals that are perfect for you,  join me for my upcoming online workshop called The Aura Of Intention.<<<<