So you’ve written your lists, made your resolution, maybe even filled out your workbook.

The place we fail in our resolutions

We don’t remember to make our goals into concrete action.

Our brains just don’t have the capacity to walk through each day trying to remember our intentions and goals.

So how do you actually remember them? And then make them come true?

Here’s the secret:

Turn your resolutions into a SYSTEM.

Say what?

What is this hippy speaking of? Accountability? Left brained planning? SYSTEMS?

Yup. This messy, tie-dyed goddess is a big believer in supporting your right brained dreams with savvy left brained smartness and systems.

And systems CAN be creative!

A Weekly System For Your Goals

So we need to make them a system. Simple reminders to keep us heading in the direction of our goals.

And make each day a ritual day :: a day that holds one of your intentions!

You’ll then make sure you use that day of the week to fulfil your goal.

Make sure you write your ritual days down… EVERYWHERE.

On every calendar in your house! On your iphone! On your Stickies!

Get SO used to them that you know every one by heart!

Here’s how I do mine:

Intention MONDAY

One of my goals this year is to be more strategic in my business and life. To stay clean and clear and have clarity. To make plans. To not get distracted by shiny things. To consciously sit with myself, check in with my needs and where I am heading.

So I do this on Monday to set the groundwork for the rest of the week.

How this works out?

On Mondays, I:

• do a weekly check-in & answer these questions
  - Am I getting enough sleep?
  - Am I eating clean, green & allergy free?
  - What do I need to give myself this week?
  - What does my business need from me this week?
• set our week’s tasks in Basecamp for Marissa & I to work on
• meet my local mastermind group (every second Monday) for accountability + brainstorming

This ensures I stick to my goal of being strategic & aligned with my intentions.

Yoga TUESDAY

One of my big goals this year is to do yoga regularly. Now, I usually say this, do one or two classes with gusto and promptly fall off the wagon.

To change this cycle, I instead gave myself a goal of 25 yoga classes for the year (one every two weeks) which I think is doable.

And I proclaimed Tuesdays “Yoga Tuesdays”.

There’s two yoga classes I can head off to – either a Mums & Bubs yoga class in the morning or a solo night-time class.

And it’s okay if I miss a week or two. I know I’ll get back on the wagon. I want to reach that goal of 25 classes, danggit!

Bed WEDNESDAY

Up until Ostara was 6 or 7 months old, I went to bed with her every single night at 6pm.

I swear it was the only reason I got through that crazy period of newborn + breastfeeding + up every 2 hours.

When I started getting up after she fell asleep, I swore to myself I’d still go to bed early one night a week to keep on top of mama-tiredness. And of course, I didn’t. As any mama knows – once you get the taste of baby-free-freedom, you want MORE. And sleep can fall by the wayside.

Bed Wednesday is my promise to myself to head to bed early – maybe not at 6pm. But 8pm. Or 8:30pm.

And sleeping in in the morning! YEAH!

Ostara will wake up, have a breakfast boobfeed, toddle off to chase dogs, I’ll roll over and pull the duvet over my head, and poke at Chris till he wakes up and realises IT’S MY SLEEP IN TIME, SUCKAH.

Ostara will toddle, eat breakfast with her Dad, watch kids tv & artfully rearrange our house until it hits 8am and she wants another boobfeed.

And by then I’m feeling totally well rested. (Instead of days when I wake up feeling like a horse has kicked me in ze face. Mamas, you know the tired I speak of, right?)

Bed Wednesdays are my total permission card days to sleep as much and as well as I can.

IT ROCKS. The End.

Fun THURSDAY

Yeah! FUN! Thursday!

Fun is my word of the year.

So on these days I try to make sure FUN happens.

Whether I have a date with the girls,
or we have a family adventure together
or if we don’t head out I make a mini-FUN project to do together.

It all works!

Date Night FRIDAY

Another goal for my year is to have AT LEAST 12 date nights a year.

I’d really prefer for it to be a weekly event instead.

We don’t head out, but on Friday nights we hire a movie and make sure we put the laptops away. We stop work + study. And just spend the evening hanging out together. Me + him. Watching a movie. Talking shit or talking soul. No matter what, it’s all good.

Connection time!

Switch Off SUNDAY

I’ve been doing this ritual for a few years now.

Every Sunday I switch offline for at least a couple of hours // half a day // a full day.

That’s the day to write letters, drink tea, read books, make art.

It’s returning to Sacred Sabbath.

Time to make YOUR 2012 goals come true!

When we make our dreams come true, it turns our years from rudderless to exceptional.

All we need is a system behind them.

So take some time, gorgeous.

What are your days of the week?

Sit with your calendar.

What do you need and want each day of the week to be?

How will it help you fulfil your goals?

And of course, if this article is in any way helpful, please do share along with friends + family so they can create their own exceptional years too!

love love LOVE!

A whole workbook to make your year extraordinary:

Surprisingly amazingly quickly.

I’m feeling like there must be something big coming that will claim my time instead for my dreams to be manifesting this quickly!

(No. No baby! A growth-spurt of my business-baby instead!)

One of my finishings is to finally edit down our wedding photos that our beautiful doula took and create a wedding album.

And I fell in love with one photo.

A photo that just said “Wedding” to me.

It wasn’t the two moments before we had bound together before others.

It was the moment, in the sea, alone.

You see, we’d gotten married in a court house the week before the wedding. Our dear mentor Ellanita wasn’t a court-registered celebrant, so we did the legal bits before. And it was funny and sweet. A wee roadtrip with my sister and my love’s cousin and her son to stand in an old white washed court house in Bowen and become Mrs Dawson.

And it wasn’t the moment we handfasted in front of others an hour before that either. I remember the smell of smudge, and Ostara’s joyful babbling as she koala-ed up and down me, and our hands were held together with lilac and lavendar flamed ribbons. I do remember how his eyes lit up, and how deeply we looked in each other’s eyes, and how I thought

“Wow, this man loves me so very deeply. I forget that, especially when we argue, but look. Look at the way he looks into my eyes. I know this is the right choice.”

And how my Dad cried over us, running over as soon as we were wed to sweep us both into a bear-ish cuddle and cry into your shoulders. “It was too much,” he said later.

“Just the way you two look at each other.”

But those weren’t the moments we married.

No, it was the moment we spread our wings down to the sea. My dad had swept Ostara into his arms, and my love and I left the tribes. I ran towards the ocean, arms outstretched, laughing, wild. And my love followed me, as he does. And we met in the water, in that same place where sea meets land, where he’d asked me to marry him three years before, in the same place we’d fallen in love on our very first date ten years to the day before.

And he pulled our wedding rings out of his pocket. They still hadn’t adorned our hands – Ellanita told us later she felt called to let us do our ring swaps later. And we washed them in the ocean water, and we planted them on each other’s fingers, making the promises in words that had never been rehearsed and instead came straight from our spirits. Simple, organic, true.

“I promise you we will always grow, we will always transform, we will always be becoming our best selves together,”

I tell him.

And I mean it. Cross my heart.

A rose gold ring engraved with an oak tree slips over his finger and there it has stayed.

And he tells me

“Yes. We will have an amazing life together.”

And my opal mermaid ring washes over my hand.

And we looked into each others ocean eyes, smiling, serious, there, witnessed by turtles and pelicans and sea eagles.

Together. Alone.

And that was the moment our photographer photographed us.

Making our truest vows to each other.

*

And it is only now, sorting back through all the photos, that I find that one.

And suddenly, I realise it is the photo I found years before.

A little mini dreamboard of what I wanted my wedding to look like.

It was lo-fi. No crazy wild Pinterest board here. Just a saved photo here, a journal page there, a skerric of a hand-drawn wedding dress.

The photo of a couple being married here was the one that sung to me the most.

The one that made me say:

Yes, that is marriage. That is what I want my wedding to be.

Here is the dream:

And here is the dream come true:

Thus marking off #14 on my Things To Do This Life List written many years before:

14. Hold the hands of my beloved on a beach and say *I do* while looking intensely into his eyes

I have no idea how these things work.

I just know they do.

Somehow, the path of our life takes us where we need to go:

through lessons and medicines great and at times painful,

so we can find our way home to love, to spirit, to ourselves,

to the dreams that are inside us,

waiting for the right moment, the right time, our right selves, to be birthed.

love,

Hola gorgeous goddesses!!!

Tis the season to be dreaming… setting our intentions for the year ahead using the 2012 Creating your Goddess Year workbook.

As part of our 2012 Dream Extravaganza, I wanted to invite some gorgeous friends to share some of their filled out pages from the workbook & what they were dreaming of for 2012. I get SO inspired hearing other people’s dreams + plans!

Today we are hearing the beautiful sharings from a Goddess Circle sister, the gorgeous Charlotte Gonzalez (who happened to edit my latest book!)

Look at that picture of her! Doesn’t that make you totally fall in love with her?

The bandanna! The mountains! The baby! The smile!

What a gorgeous, gorgeous soul.

Charlotte is a blogger, creative rainbow mama to two, chakra-loving hippy & fitness trainer-in-training living in Switzerland.

We heart her! We heart her!

Opening, gentleness and cuddles

There is something so immensely powerful about writing down your goals from a place of intention and dreaming about how you want to feel. It causes magic to happen. I can’t explain it, but I know for sure that it’s true.

In 2010, working through the first ever Creating Your Goddess Year workbook revealed to me that the half ironman triathlon that I had signed up for was not what I was really dreaming of. What my heart wanted for instead was to begin the journey of conceiving my longed-for second child. He was born less than a year later, a burst of giggling joy into my life.

In 2011, I didn’t print out my workbook until November. It was a big year getting used to being a mama of two and having to go back to work, breaking my heart every day as I left my tiny little boy behind. In spite of my happiness as I cuddled and cared for my two divine children, I was feeling utterly drained and terrified.

Oh hello again post-natal depression, are you trying to tell me something? My longing for healing, recuperation and rest spilled out of me into the pages of my workbook, showing me what was really needed in my life.

And in early 2012, as I began to heal, my dreams came to me bright and clear and filled with vibrant colour as I let my heart pour purple words out onto the page.

My intentions for 2012

What came out this year was a continued yearning for gentleness and rest, but now it was clearly accompanied by a need to open up creatively, writing, painting and speaking my truth out loud into the world.

In 2012, I choose to be utterly kind and gentle with myself.

I choose to spend as much time as possible with my children.

I choose to get enough rest, silence and time in nature.

I choose to write, paint in glorious colour and express my unique creative voice

After a lifetime of shyness, hiding and keeping quiet, I choose to begin slowly and softly opening up.

Changes have happened in my life already

I’ve been writing again, after a long hiatus from myself. I’ve begun working through the Artist’s Way, waking early to write morning pages while my children sleep. My awakening creativity gave me the urge to buy some children’s watercolours and just play with the colours I was dreaming of. I haven’t painted anything except rooms since I was 14 or 15 years old! And yet here I am, sharing some of my tentative beginnings to the world.

I’ve been allowing myself to rest more and ask for help when I need it.

I’ve been allowing my dreams to bubble to the surface once again, writing draft blog posts and preparing my website so that I can begin to send my thoughts out into the blogosphere.

What else came up for me as I filled in my workbook?

My main priorities for this year are to work (at my office job) a lot less (like, not at all) and to cuddle and nap a lot more.

To find delicious, soul-nurturing ways to work from home.

To paint in gorgeous, luscious colours and let my writing out into the world.

To let go of things from my past, both physical objects and big resentments.

And to continue on my healing journey by gently nourishing my body and doing only the things that make my heart sing and my spirit dance.

***

Oh.Em.Gee.

CUTEST EVER.

Thank you beautiful Charlotte, for your insight, love, honesty + joy.

love,

Great Aunt Lucy & my grandmother. Sisters for 95 years.

Three nights ago, my love and I were restless, searching for sleep, kicking our legs, tangling them into sheets.

Just as slumber’s crescent fell forward over us, I sat up and leaned over him.

“If my grandmother dies, would you come to her funeral?”

There is silence as he adjusts to the sudden question.

“Yes honey, I would. What makes you ask this?”

Who knows where this question has come from. All I know is I’ve been dreaming of dying elders.

We rustle it off our shoulders, and fall back into sleepless poses.

*

Two days ago, I am possessed with an inextinguishable need to paint Ixchel, the Mayan mother goddess.

Just as I think I have captured her with my brush, she disappears again.

Over and over, with charcoal, crayon, paint, I try to draw her out again.

She glimmers, and I paint her gold.

Then I do what I never do:

Took her and my daughter out into the backyard,

and I burned her.

A sacred, simple ceremony filled with dried mugwort and lavender.

I have no idea why I’m called to do this, but the words run through my head:

I don’t need to think about Ixchel. I need her in my life. This fire will call her to me.

Ixchel disappears in flames, and my daughter dances in the smoke,

and I smile.

It is a visible prayer,

a painting taking flight

into the heavens.

*

Today I note:

Today’s the day to make some big shifts, tie up loose ends, do the big things you’ve been meaning to do.

I change my name, change our mortgage, change my biz name.

We head out into the day and make it all happen.

Let go of the old. Clear way for the new.

As we drive home, my love says:

I need some things. Let’s get some groceries.

So we do. And I marvel at how life takes us at the places we need to go.

The only shopping cart lane open is tended to by a friend with onyx hair & kind eyes that know every side of life. She knows everyone in this small little town.

“I’m sorry to hear about your Aunt Lucy,” she tells me.

“Why? What happened?”

“Oh…” she says.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but she passed away this morning.”

*

In my life, I’ve been very blessed to have three elders.

My Great Aunty Lucy was (and still is) one of them.

The most ginger of fairies. The kindest of souls. The one who saw beauty wherever she went.

*

My sister & I convene at my grandmother’s place.

We don’t think she has been told yet.

A nurse is there visiting. They are sitting on her verandah surrounded by garden. Her nurse looks like an angel.

We sit, we make small chatter.

And then I tell my gran.

And I think my own little heart will break open.

I think about how sad I will be when my sissy & I live into our nineties and she takes off before me.

“Your sister died this morning, Granny”

I tell her.

Her eyes swell up with tears, and she pats my hand.

“Oh, I know dear. I’m sad, but I’m okay. I’m sensible like that. You can’t live forever.”

*

We sit and talk for a long while.

Paint her toenails glittering blue and her fingernails bright pink.

Ostara takes out the Bio-Oil and we start our weekly ritual of massaging Granny’s legs and arms.

I sing ancient songs softly.

Wishitadoyadoyadoya. Wishitadoyadoya hey!

I marvel at Ostara’s tiny little baby hands squishing at her great-grandmother’s legs.

This is how to heal.

*

She sorts in her purse and pulls out $20.

“Here. Go buy some ice-creams together. I want you to have some ice-cream.”

My sister and I smile at each other.

We haven’t been bought ice-creams in years.

But today, it’s important.

*

Before we leave, her nurse tells us her own daughter has been holding Aunty Lucy’s hand all week at the nursing home. How they’ve all been holding the space for her.

(Bless this miracle of a small town!)

And we trade stories of our favourite Aunt Lucy stories.

About how she would dance to music, and when she couldn’t dance anymore, she’d sit and sing and clap her hands perfectly in time.

How she’d forget in the depths of dementia where she was and say “Am I in Proserpine, dear? I hope I’m in Proserpine!” (That part makes me well up. Goddess Persephone, this little goddess village, is my Aunt Lucy’s birthlands and heartland. I’m so glad the answer was always “Yes. You are in Proserpine. You are home.”)

How when Chris & I would take her and Gran for drives, she would alternate between gasping at how beautiful the mountains were, and giggling over boys from their teenage years with Gran.

How she was married to her soulmate, the boy from next door, the man who would give you the shirt off his back if you complimented him on it.

How after so long of being without him, she’ll be with him again. Lucy and Fred, forever.

*

Today,

I am stilled by the beauty of the world,

and the way we’re not just passing through.

We’re always just here.

My Great Aunt Lucy (who by the way, would have the exact same mtDNA as me) was born from this land, and to this land she returns.

She started as a fragment of light in my great-grandmother’s womb, pulled from the earth just a mile or two east of here.

And now she’ll be a part of that beautiful piece of earth just west of here, a mile or two from where I sleep, in the land that looks over her beloved mountains.

*

And here is where I finish.

With love. The deepest of gratitude.

Tears at how lucky I’ve been to know this woman.

Big, oceany, tender heart at life, grief and the inbetween.

But mostly, just grateful.

As my love says:

How can we be anything but happy? Aunt Lucy is amazing. She won the lotto. She won in the way everyone wants to win. She is happy.

So here is what I finish with…

This is an Aunt-Lucy approved message.

For all of us who have been touched by the wisdom of Aunt Lucy,

and the love of the elders.

Aho, and giant sacred love,

Hola gorgeous Goddesses…

Every year I have a Dreaming Extravaganza in our backyard.

It started here, with the very first workbook and a pregnant belly in our little courtyard backyard in the city:

And a year later it was with mermaid hair and a sweet little 9 month old baby who mostly just chewed on my pens before wanting to breastfeed again in our tropical paradise that we’d just started planting in:

And this year, it was done in sprints with short hair that I’m oh-so-in-love-with & an incredible toddler in our backyard in tropical paradise that is slowly but surely becoming a sanctuary:

Imagonnabe honest here – I only managed to jot down a few more things onto my list before Ostara decided she really REALLY needed to “help”…

Seriously though.

Look how ridunkulously cute she is:

AAAH. THE CUTE!

Yeah. I know. She totally IS amazing.

Ostara of the Light.

The one I have been waiting for.

Incase you were wondering, I really really love that button.

Even when I’m going a wee bit bonkerdoodles from attempting to do anything at all.

Mamas out there who understand the nature of that kind of bonkledoodlery, raise your hand.

*RAISE BOTH HANDS*

I remember when we were pregnant,

and this doctor smiled this fond little smile,

and said

“Welcome to the cutest little time-consumers you will ever know.”

True story, mate.

True story.

It’s a constant balancing act to work out creative ways for all of us (me, my husband and her) to get what we need.

Right now, she’s with her Daddy-o while I’m out in the Creative Caravan tip-tapping this love letter away to you.

I’m typing away as quickly as I can because my time is almost up, and my love needs to finish a university assignment.

We are a tag-team of parenting duties.

“I’M IN!” “I’M OUT!”

So he can get the time he needs. I can get the time I need.

And she can get the time she needs.

And we can all do it together.

She is radiant like the sun.

Full burst.

I remember when we were pregnant, we would muse about what star sign she’d be – either Pisces or Aries.

My love and I are both watery, intense Scorpios.

And we decided that it would be better for all our sakes if she wasn’t Piscean – otherwise we’d spend all time crying over our hurt feelings together and our house would be an ocean of emotion. And it would be better for her to be a strong, sure-of-herself Arian goddess to contend with two always-right Scorpions.

So that’s what we got.

This incredible, fun-loving, Arian goddess with a HUGE energy all of her own.

And it couldn’t have been any other way.

She’s the kid we were born to have.

She (and each other) are our destiny.

Some days it’s a destiny that’s easy to soak into.

Some days it’s a destiny that makes you grow.

But still:

Destiny.

This year’s Dreaming Extravaganza happened under a wet season sky.

By the end, Ostara was running around naked

and I was running back inside with the laptop out of the looming rain

then running back out to chase a giggling toddler inside before the thunder started.

I love this land so very much.

You know, this is supposed to be a Dreaming Extravaganza! I’ve already shared about my Word for this Year.

So today I wanted to share with you one of the pages from the 2012 Creating your Goddess Year workbook and my answer.

Oh wait… what’s that?

You can’t read all the scrumptious dreams on there?

Have no fear, typing it up into a cute list for you is here!

HURRAH!

1. Change my biz name to Goddess Leonie
2. Change my middle name
3. Meet a beefalo
4. Have a NY intention party – DONE.
5. Make a flipping amazing 2012 workbook folder for myself
6. Make a Biz workbook?
7. Get at least six five massages
8. Make my caravan a sanctuary
9. Have at least 12 11 date nights with Chris
10. Find kindred spirits
11. Grow my business sustainably, organically, joyfully & easily
12. Get another pedicure
13. Find another sitcom to fall in love with
14. Be a SOVEREIGN woman.
15. Find a pic or draw a pic of Ixchel that resonates.
16. Read Ixchel’s story.
17. Turn my book into a Kindle edition.
18. Find REALLY COMFORTABLE resting positions.
19. Have a night time soiree at Jodie’s.
20. Make interesting things for and with Starry.
21. Let go of APPROVAL needing. Yeah!
22. Research Personal Power.
23. Be happy.
24. Get the fenceline how I want it.
25. Have “theme” months of what essences I’d like to learn.
26. More girl time! Women soirees!
27. Put music I LOVE on my Mac & Ipod
28. Enjoy meditating more
29. Create monthly check in worksheets
30. Change name over everywhere.
31. Enjoy writing again.
32. Get some Vibram shoes.
33. Actually enjoy exercise.
34. Heal Itchy Leg Syndrome.
35. Do at least 25 23 yoga classes.
36. Eat my own grown passionfruit.
37. Find out who lives in the purple house.
38. Have fun with Marissa.
39. Make chocolate fudge.
40. Go to the islands.
41. See a dolphin!
42. Learn how to make creme brulees… make it a date with the girls!
43. Private (I KNOW RIGHT? I ACTUALLY HAVE SOMETHING I DON’T WANT TO SHARE ON THE INTERWEBS???? WHAAAAT?)
44. Begin & finish second gratitude journal
45. Baptise Ostara
46. Ride a horse
47. Have a dinner at Croc Cafe
48. Go to concert or movie
49. Have massages // treats regularly
50. Have an adventure at Brandy Creek
51. Eat green
52. Go to sound healing workshop
53. Make wall hanging with pockets
54. Go to Mums & Bubs yoga
55. Mosaic with Trish
56. Have weekly or fortnightly Mama/Babba FUN & spirited & gentle gatherings
57. Find my women’s circle here
58. Have fun side projects
59. Giggle + ENJOY LIFE!
60. Have rest & vitality
61. Do what I want
62. Get caravan stumped
63. Make caravan cool & comfortable when it’s hot
64. Release 5 new products to the Goddess Circle!
65. Make another Instagram album
66. Make wedding photo album
67. Get wedding canvasses
68. Grow watermelon or pumpkin in front yard
69. Plant small shrubs in front yard & make a welcoming walkway
70. Read or give away all the books in my book case
71. Let greeting cards RUN WILD.
72. Get so flexible I can bend my head to my knees
73. Tell a stranger they look beautiful
74. Redo kitchen
75. Finish bathroom reno
76. Get a bicycle!
77. Create & release oracle cards
78. Be a fun, loving, happy mama
79. Read tea leaves
80. Make more friends
81. Be a good, loyal and in-communicado with my dear friends
82. Play Bingo or something suitably oldishladyish
83. Get a tattoo
84. Play a magical April Fool’s Day trick
85. Design my own awesome stickers that I ADORE
86. Read “Women Who Run With the Wolves”
87. Let go of CDs?
88. Great Book Release Program continues!
89. Continue paring back my belongings
90. Check out Denise Linn’s Power Book
91. Move home loan to another bank
92. Put over savings onto our mortgage
93. Eat allergy free
94. Have Mackay adventure
95. Read at least 12 11 books
96. Reinstate Switch Off Sundays
97. Stay aligned, centered and in progress
98. Keep rebuilding my body & getting healthier, stronger & more radiant
99. Die hair turquoise
100. Shag at least once a week

HA! What a way to end it off!

And THAT, my loves,

is the very best way I know

to make the AWESOMEST year of my life

come true.

Love + wild wild hope,

If you like this post, I’m pretty dang sure this is going to rock your world:

Hola gorgeous goddesses!!!

Tis the season to be dreaming… setting our intentions for the year ahead using the 2012 Creating your Goddess Year workbook.

As part of our 2012 Dream Extravaganza, I wanted to invite some gorgeous friends to share some of their filled out pages from the workbook & what they were dreaming of for 2012. I get SO inspired hearing other people’s dreams + plans!

Today’s gorgeous goddess sharing her dreams is Molly Mahar, a ridunkulously joyful goddess. Leonie hearts her!

Molly is the founder of Stratejoy, a positive corner of the Internet that provides thousands of women the tools, strategies and camaraderie to lead authentically joyful lives. She is a full-time coach, facilitator and creator of the online Joy Equation Course and Joy Juice Prompts. Molly helps women live life on their own terms, celebrate their worth, and change the world through individual fulfillment.

Take it away beautiful Molly!

The 2012 Dreams of a Joyful Goddess!

I completed my first Goddess Workbook just last year, tucked away in my cabin on a river in the woods of Washington State. I woke up every morning for weeks, drank tea or rich coffee with cream, and dove into a few pages at a time.  Once my visioning was complete, I created a vibrant vision board for the cover and got the whole thing bound at my local copy shop, because I didn’t want it to languish in some drawer, unseen for the rest of the year.

I became so attached to my workbook that I proceeded to carry it around with me — during a 2 month road trip up the west coast of the US, on a wonderful girls trip with my momma and sister to Greece, on a major move with my husband to sunny San Diego — and the rest of the time it lived on my alter with my meditation books and Louise Hay intention cards.

My Goddess Workbook reminded me of my theme for 2011: Joyful Devotion.  It was the juicy catalyst (and steadfast proof) of my very first ever experience of manifestation!  It kept me both grounded and dreaming big over the course of a year that saw many changes: a big move, major business growth, and new pregnancy.

I started the year with deep reflection and a dedication to writing through my complete of the workbook.  And it continued throughout the year as one of my highlights of 2011!

Joyful Devotion reminded me to take my gifts seriously, with loads of belly laughs and sparkles and extra doses of *Molly* in everything I created.  I treated Stratejoy like the soul-filling and life-supporting community that it is.  I played hard — gathering with friends, new and old, treating myself to exploration day trips just for the heck of it, and lots of time snuggling with my husband.  I did my best to balance Joyful Devotion in my workdays, as evidenced by all the coaching and creating that took place on my sunny deck with minty lemonade in hand!

Of course, the year wasn’t a total walk in the park…  Rarely does that happen in real life, eh?

As I started my reflection for the 2012 workbook, one of the pieces I noticed was a whole lot of anxiety around change this year.  My husband started a new business.  We moved to a city where I only knew 2 women.  I found out I was pregnant (super hurrah about this news in general!) and felt very alone in my new home, without my family and friends from Seattle to share in the daily joy of growing a tiny human.  I spent a lot of my time and energy trying to control things that were beyond my control last year and knew that this feeling would play into my theme for 2012.

There’s going to be loads more big change this year, and though I want to continue to be joyfully devoted to my life and business, my word needed to reflect a calming, a gratitude, and an adoration of my truly lovely life.

Treasure.  It’s my perfect answer to the question “What is it time for?”

And there’s more!  Some of the highlights from my 100 Things to Do in 2012 List (one of my favorite parts of the workbook!)

• Give birth to a tiny boy person
• Launch the Fierce Love Course
• Read in the sunshine as often as possible
• Get another tattoo
• Paint without worrying about the final product
• Buy a piano
• Be brave
• Have more hot sex
• Skinny dip in the ocean during a full moon
• Enjoy every moment of being a mama
• Bake pies and eat them with french vanilla ice cream
• Love hard

I’m still working on my vision board and finishing up my workbook, as I always give myself the month of January to take my time really working through it, bit by bit.  But you better believe it will be toted around just as lovingly this year, in the midst  of all the madness.  I’ll be reading it out loud to my swelling belly.  It will be my reminder to Treasure my world.  It will be proof of my power to create a world of my own imagining.  It will be my totem to remind me of what I’ve declared important and scared for this year.

Thank you, Leonie, for reminding all of us to take pause in our crazy lives and reflect.  To celebrate.  To dream big and then to actually make it happen!

Hola gorgeous goddesses!!!

Tis the season to be dreaming… setting our intentions for the year ahead using the 2012 Creating your Goddess Year workbook.

As part of our 2012 Dream Extravaganza, I wanted to invite some gorgeous friends to share some of their filled out pages from the workbook & what they were dreaming of for 2012. I get SO inspired hearing other people’s dreams + plans!

Thien-Kim Lam is a mama to 2, a night owl and a modern Rennaissance woman.

She blogs about foodie obsessions and the creative journey as an artistic mother at Cup of Creativi-Tea. She especially loves cutting up old clothes and upcycling them into cool new stuff! She shares her multicultural parenting experiences at I’m Not the Nanny. And she runs a virtual book club of over 100 bloggers at From Left to Write.

2012 Dreams of a Renaissance Woman

I finally took the plunge this year and cracked open the Goddess Workbook. I’ve always had many interests from crafts to cooking to writing to empowering women in the bedroom. Last year I felt so unfocused. I tried to do too many things without a plan. I was so stressed last year.

This year, I have Leonie’s beautiful workbook to guide me through 2012. Earlier this month, I found myself with some quiet time (hard to come by with a 2 year old and a 6 year old) and dove into the workbook with sips of grande mocha in between pages. My word for this year is ASK. Last year I just floated from project to project that came my way. This year, I’m being proactive instead of just reactive.

Working from home means a lot of coffee, tea and late hours at my desk. I don’t mind the late hours because it means I get to be home for my incredibly active toddler and pick up my daughter from the bus stop every afternoon. I wrote my Magnificent Mottos to help me power through my late nights and early mornings.

My journey as an artistic mother can be tricky to balance juggle, so I’m sharing the pages from the goddess workbook that will help me focus on family.

Hola gorgeous goddesses!

Quick reminder!

There’s a ridunkulously fun, fabulous & illuminating LIVE gathering of goddesses this weekend via phone…

will you be there?

I’d love to invite you on a personal inspiration date with me…

Feel like the seeds of your dreams have yet to take root?
Still not quite clear on what to set as your intention for the year?
Or want to know what to do to supercharge your efforts + make your intentions come true?

Have no fear, the free seminar is here!

I’ll be sharing my five biggest jewels of wisdom + powerful tools on:

• how to get clear on your dreams
• how to actually make them happen
• how to make 2012 your most incredible year yet. Wahooooosicles!!!

I like to think I have a pretty huge amount of expertise in this area…

Some of the dreams I’ve made come true:

• made a ridunkulously HUGE number of my life goals come true (and I’m not even 30 yet!)
• created a multiple six figure dream business out of my beautiful creativity & spirituality hobby that made me zippo-dobleros
• wrote my first book at 22, had my first solo art exhibition at 23 and began leading women’s circles and retreats at 23
• created one of the biggest and most celebrated online women’s creativity, spirituality & business circles in the world
• have written a second book that’s hit the Amazon top 4 in spirituality!
• made so many more dreams come true… moved my family across the countryside to live in tropical paradise, manifested a creative sanctuary out of a run down old nudist colony caravan (!), lived in Malaysia, travelled the world, gave birth, painted hundreds of artworks + created a gazillion courses + kits.

The seminar will go for about an hour + will be packed full with gigglesnorts, good vibes, smartnesses + happy. It’ll leave you feeling juiced up + ready to fly into your day and your exquisite year.

Save the date ::

USA

Pacific :: 2pm Saturday 28 January
Eastern :: 5pm Saturday 28 January

UK

London :: 10pm Saturday 28 January

AUSTRALIA

Queensland :: 8am Sunday 29 January
Sydney + Melbourne :: 9am Sunday 29 January

How to sign up!

Call is totally FREE!!!

Just jump on my VIP Goddess mailing list below + you’ll get the emails closer to the day with your call-in details!

This is going to be SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!! Can’t wait!!!!

love love love,

P.S. Mark in on your calendar, say it is “Hot Date With Goddess Leonie + the ripe juicy Goddess that is me!” Tee hee!

P.P.S. Please do share the seminar along with your dear friends + family who may need an extra surge of delight in their year right now. This will help give them so much more clarity, goodness + juju! YAY!

Hola gorgeous goddesses!!!

Tis the season to be dreaming… setting our intentions for the year ahead using the 2012 Creating your Goddess Year workbook.

As part of our 2012 Dream Extravaganza, I wanted to invite some gorgeous friends to share some of their filled out pages from the workbook & what they were dreaming of for 2012. I get SO inspired hearing other people’s dreams + plans!

Today’s gorgeous + useful sharings are by the incredible Sara Avant Stover (aka The Way of the Happy Woman!) She’s definitely a soul sister in the world of women’s work, and I’m so honoured to have her share here.

Sara Avant Stover is, first and foremost, a yogini. Second to that, she’s a motivational speaker, teacher, mentor, and author of The Way of the Happy Woman: Living the Best Year of Your Life (New World Library). After a cancer scare in her early twenties, Sara moved to Thailand, where she embarked on an extensive healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia and served as one of the pioneer Western yoga teachers in that part of the world. She now lives in Boulder, Colorado, and continues to teach women about wellness, spirituality, and lifestyle around the world.

How the Happy Woman Creates Her Year

I’ve been doing Leonie’s Creating your Goddess Year workbook + planner each January for the past three years.

Here’s a video I made after filling it out for the first time in Thailand:

It’s a yearly ritual that has reached the “indispensable” status.

You see, my life and life’s work is in service of evolution. I’m here to become a fully realized woman— professionally, spiritually, creatively, and relationally—and to inspire and empower other women to realize the same.

As part of this path, I’m a growth junkie. A transformation addict. A change fiend.

This conscious expansion requires regular check-ins.

What were my triumphs and defeats? Where did I keep my word to myself and where did I betray it? Did I stay on course? If I veered off, was it intentional or sleepy? What, exactly, in me and in my life, is changing? Where am I stuck and where am I soaring?

The Creating your Goddess year workbook helps me to answer these questions with honesty, compassion, and faith.

Over the past few weeks, sometimes with my morning tea, sometimes by candle light in the evening, I’ve been savoring my annual goddess review.

I’ve noted what I’m celebrating and releasing from 2011 (like publishing my first book and surrendering expectations of how the world would receive it).

And I’ve been invoking 2012.

This year I’m giving myself permission act more resolutely from my divinity. To trust my wisdom and my greatness. To move, speak, and breathe as the BIG SHE.

But instead of sharing with you the broad strokes of this vision for 2012, I thought it would be more useful for me to share how I intend to walk my talk DAILY. Because staying on track and holding ourselves accountable for our dreams is the hard part. It’s at just about this point in January that we can start to stumble. We feel the depression and darkness of winter, rather than the New Year’s verve with which we set out intentions.

But if I find ways to stay on track (and then you’re inspired to do the same), we’re all set up to WIN the game we’ve entered ourselves into.

Here’s what I’m doing each (ok, most) day(s) to realize my vision for 2012:

1.

At the beginning of each month I’m filling out the monthly planning sheets (p.76 in the Workbook for January).

I’m filling in “The essence of what I want to accomplish” that month, plus three main “To Do” items.

2.

Then I write the action steps needed to accomplish those three things into the calendar (p. 77 in the Workbook for January). I make sure to check these all against my larger vision for 2012 (which I’ve already uncovered and fleshed out in the earlier parts of the guidebook.)

3.

I’ve made extra copies of the “My Goddess Day” action sheets out of the Workbook (pp. 74 + 75).

Each morning (or sometimes the night before), I fill them out. What are my 3 MIT’s (Most Important Tasks) for that day? What’s my intention or affirmation to help me succeed at those and to stick with them, even in the face of obstacles, resistance, and distraction?

4.

At the end of the day, I review, using the “4 G’s” method. What am I Grateful for? What was Good (did I do well)? What were the Glitches (inner and outer obstacles)? What are my Goals for the next day (here’s where I plan for my next “Goddess Day”)?

5.

At the end of the week and month, I do the same 4 G’s review.

6.

Then, by the time I get to January 2013, I will have actually LIVED my goddess year, everyday.

Thank you, Leonie, for the playful, beautiful, and insightful prompts in the Creating your Goddess Year workbook. And here’s a big virtual hug and hooray for all of you as you too live your visions, daily.

___

Yay!

That was so gloriously, magically helpful + practical, dearest Sara.

I just LOVE knowing how other goddesses are using the workbook to plan out + MAKE HAPPEN their most exceptional year yet.

GROUP HUGS!

HIGH FIVES!

love love loveeeeeeee!!!

If you like this post, I’m pretty dang sure this is going to rock your world:

Hola gorgeous goddesses!!!

Tis the season to be dreaming… setting our intentions for the year ahead using the 2012 Creating your Goddess Year workbook.

As part of our 2012 Dream Extravaganza, I wanted to invite some gorgeous friends to share some of their filled out pages from the workbook & what they were dreaming of for 2012. I get SO inspired hearing other people’s dreams + plans!

Today’s post is from my dear friend Gina Rafkind from Veda Sun. She has the soul of an ancient healer woman in the body of a gorgeous pixie, and her lessons in self-healing are big and true.

I’m so grateful she’s here to share her light with us.

My Year To Come Alive using the Creating My Goddess Year Workbook & Planner

Every year now I look forward to receiving Goddess Leonie’s Creating My Goddess Year Workbook & Planner. It’s become a New Year’s tradition of mine. It’s so colorful and inspiring and it just makes you want to Come Alive, which also happens to be my word(s) of the year. And this workbook has helped me plan to Come Alive at 45 in 2012!

The planner helps me to really get psyched to create and deliver what I am here to share while I’m here on this earth.

There are ups and downs and challenges that come along with be a small biz owner,

but somehow, working through this workbook and planner,

I know that everything will be ok.

One of the ways this workbook is helping me to be all that I want to be this year is

by giving me my permission slip to be just how I want to be.

This workbook also reminds me of the value of writing down all I want to do this year and to remember to HAVE FUN!

And it also gives me ways to remember that I AM A GODDESS! I filled out the little affirmation signs, cut them out and taped them to my mirror so every day, when I look into that mirror, I am reminded of ALL THAT I CAN DO AND BE!

As well as a reminder on my calendar of things I can do ‘in case the suckies strike’ and also to remember I AM LOVED!

Now that is what I consider a damn good healing tradition to start every single New Year! Thanks Goddess Leonie!

___

Gina Rafkind is the Holistic Anxiety Coach. She helps women cultivate awareness so they can ‘Wake Up’ to their life and start really living! She does this by helping women discover how to melt away anxiety holistically by connecting within so they discover their truth and find meaning and purpose in life.

___

Thank you beautiful Gina.

I love love LOVE your idea of putting your list of “Things To Do When The Suckies Strike” on your calendar. Perfect. Just PERFECT!

Okay party peoples, let’s go out & have a RIDUNKULOUSLY good time today!!!

Bear hugs + angel kisses,