Back in November, I interviewed Winifred Whitfield, a wonderful artist and photographer, whose passion is creating portraits for women of themselves – not their everyday selves, but their inner selves, their intimate selves.

Since that interview, Winifred has been pretty busy – teaching in her workshops and seminars in New York and London, making portraits, and working hard collating and editing her images to produce her first book - “Intimate Portraits for Women”. The book is now available – a beautifully printed hardback edition – one of those irresistible coffee table ones – and you can preview it here online: CLICK HERE.

Are you doing what you love? Something that you’ve dreamed of doing? longed for?

Or are you doing something close – in the same industry but a different role, in a field which gets near to, but isn’t actually what you’d like to have done?

How close are you to the Big Hairy Audacious thing you’d LOVE to be doing? (not necessarily the thing you think you can do or should do)

Are you indeed a shadow xxxxx?
(insert your dream you eg. artist, photographer, actor, surgeon, politician, journalist…)

We had fun in my Writers Group this week – we each did our own Annual Review! Yes, I know ‘fun’ and ‘annual review’ aren’t usually words that go in the same sentence. But hey, Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity is at the heart of this one, so they do!

"Transforming The Light" oil on canvas - work in progress

Not only was it fun, but the process was surprising and really useful too. Chris does a review every year at this time – he doesn’t wait until the New Year to look forward and make plans for what’s ahead. Last night in my monthly New Moon Energy call with Donna Heath, I learnt some more reasons why this part of December is a great time to plot the year ahead.

“Don’t wait to figure it out – start…
You can’t go wrong here, because there’s power in just getting going. Do something… You can’t make a mistake here – just get on, like live, come alive!”

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“…we’re always at a new edge, there’s always that new frontier that we’re exploring and that comes with a certain level of tension, it comes with a certain level of anxiety at times and doubt at times, and that’s a good thing… celebrate the challenges rather than think they shouldn’t be there.”

It’s day 27 of the Prosperity Experiment and I just couldn’t help it spilling over into this blog . The exercise today is to let yourself free on a Rampage of Appreciation. Just let it all out – all the things you’re grateful for, all that you love, everything that gives you joy or make you feel bliss…. HAVE FUN with it!!! Enjoy. Once you get going, who knows if you’ll be able to stop… Here’s a wonderful example in motion of such a Rampage:

I’m going to Aina’s next Taming Your Dragons 3-Day course in London later this month… very excited…
Also, listen to our conversation click the Listen tab…
Aina teaches in over 30 countries worldwide – contact her directly to arrange a Dragon-Taming course in your country!

This week I’ve joined Mary Jaksch’s Virtual Zen Retreat: How to Turn Anxiety into Inspiration. What a beautiful course – thank-you Mary, Deb, and Miraz… I’ll be talking to Mary later this month about her work in the Personal Journeys series of interviews here, so watch this space.

In today’s Zen post, Mary shared this video by Alan Watts, filmed over 10 years ago talking about Work as Play, spontaneity, pleasure, Hindu philosophy, the atomic bomb, Dante and enjoying our lives. It’s so NOT like the 15 second attention span, hi-speed, blip-verts that we’re so accustomed to watching these days… change gear for a few minutes and maybe be inspired – he even sings at one point – magical!

It’s the last few days of the long school summer holiday here in Spain (12 whole weeks!) and I’ve been reflecting on how we’ve used our time together. Did we mainly use this gift or squander it?

Well, much of it was spent muddling along, trying to forge a home-based ‘routine’ that allowed David and I to both continue working, without depriving the boys (aged 4 and 6) from having us there with them and joining in with their time out. At the beginning, this felt like an almost impossible challenge – I mean 12 weeks!!

“Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha! Do you like my evil laugh?” (from me to Hugh MacLeod on Facebook)

I’ve been playing games all this week. Well, no, when I haven’t been coping with our poorest cash flow week this year, and working until 2 or 3am every night, I’ve been playing games. It’s funny how life manifests in extremes sometimes.

“recognise that it is a struggle… it’s not an easy task for most of us… its actually something you need to work at through self-knowledge and through courage… stick with it as much as you can, because the only way forward is to move forward…”

Are you doing Great Work? not just good work, but really Great Work? Michael Bungay Stanier asks the bigger questions and helps people focus on doing the work that has meaning and will make a difference. With his company, Box of Crayons, he’s created numerous practical tools to help others find their purpose and ’stop the busywork and start the work that matters’, including books, workshops programs and some inspirational Flash movies (links below).

“You don’t have to struggle with your dragons for a lifetime……trust that things can radically change and they can change very quickly…”

Aina Egeberg is a master coach and trainer who runs numerous workshops and programs to help people overcome their ‘dragons’, or the things that might be holding them back from creating truly amazing results and fulfillment in their lives. She works with individuals, teams and companies in over 25 countries worldwide and speaks six languages fluently, enabling her to reach many people with her transformational coaching.