this 'human being as brand' thing we have going on is exhausting, relentless and impossible .... short rant

adored vintage

There is a reason my studio is not called Cat Bites.

(other than the fact that I used to have a biting cat and that cat, who I loved dearly but who nonetheless bit the hell out of me every chance she got - was probably my last cat. I am just not a cat person. And, yes, I see the irony in this. And despite the fact that I do, yes, sometimes bite, but only small pieces and I chew 20 times now, so I'm a lot less dangerous than I used to be - yes, I've mellowed)

It may have been smarter to call it Catherine Ivins Studio ... and if the me of today had been around in 2007 it probably would be. Probably.

Dragging poor Olive into it has had some disadvantages for me certainly (not to mention Olive getting this huge head from being recognized everywhere she goes now) in terms of brand recognition and relevancy.

But, the one major advantage I might have inadvertently created is a little separation between me and my business.

This 'human being as brand' thing we have going on is exhausting, relentless and impossible.

It might have worked before the world became a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week place of activity. But maybe it's never worked. Maybe this is the real reason (and not the lead paint) the old masters all went mad.

And while I'm ranting let's stop saying "a business is only in business to make money" - that's another pile of crap that isn't true anymore.

Businesses are created for all kinds of reasons - often because we are endlessly creative people that just need to be creating something. Now someone will say, but Cat, successful businesses have to make money. Even this isn't true anymore. Businesses create value first. Businesses are sold for billions of dollars that have never made a penny.

We need a new definition of success - something about value, something within our power. We need to untie "success" from everything that is out of our hands. End of rant.

(sorry just listened to the wrong interview about branding and money that just gave me a headache and made my heart hurt)

Part III (not really but a very mini preview) what the weakest point of our business is trying to show us and why it is always the place where we give our power away; the place of fear

cork necklace by me

I had a post ready to go on this but now that I have reread it I want to say it differently, so I have to go back and rewrite it.

I want to talk about our foundations and about how attaching ourselves to external goals -

(even when things work out for us because the external world always cycles and takes our external lives up and down along with it, what is working out today may not be working out tomorrow. I remember laying in bed one night many years ago and thinking that every single things was right with my world- my daughter was happy, my mother's health was improved, we were making more money and then I remember laying in bed a week later and every single situation had reversed itself)

attachment without having these foundations in place for ourselves makes life harder (or wait, I forgot life isn't hard) - more complicated - more top heavy, less grounded, more wobbly.

The cracks in our foundation are always showing us the places where we lack trust; the places of our fear; the places where we give our power away. I know that this stuff is a practice - we don't go to the gym and consider it done - the same with meditation - it's the same with self love and acceptance - the same with everything.

I had a big lesson in this yesterday with my business although I'm not sure I want to write about it - the prophetic power of my blog posts being what they are these days and it being so ... unsettled right now.

I might though.

Have a nice weekend everyone - we'll see if I have the courage or idiocy (I can't decide which this would take on my part) to talk about this as part of this series - the "c" word problem that makers have to deal with, the one I never talk about here - the thing that feels like someone has sucked out our stomach, convinced our kids to call them mom and yanked off our arm. No, I am not being dramatic - well, maybe a little dramatic, but it's Friday ....

xo all

the foundation comes before the house (this is not a don't put your cart before your horse story) - part II

the best laid plans locket ....

There is a part I to this series somewhere a week or so back ... I think.

I get distracted.

By work and hubs and our daughter and Olive and the little tufted somethings in the tree in our backyard

(yes, there is a tree or two left out there)

that I simply must stop what I am doing right now and head out and investigate.

(baby cardinals - we have been gifted with baby cardinals - I had to google to find this out because they are not born red, how cool that this gorgeous color they are so well known for comes ... later)

Just like the house; comes after the foundation I mean.

Maybe we need to talk about this. It sounds simple and it is, but it isn't easy. Simple and easy are not the same thing.

Life is not easy. Now this doesn't mean that life is hard, because life isn't hard - it's simple.

But it isn't easy ... it's complicated. I hope you are following this. It's complicated. Life is complicated.

And life is fast. It is fast moving, We are not living in the days when a community would spend decades building a temple that would last for generations. Our temples go up overnight and they come down just as fast.

Our lives are built on four foundations - the physical, mental, spiritual and the emotional. And these sound like separate things, but nothing is really a separate thing. It's all connected. We are all connected.

This is why we can change one thing (let's say we change the physical; we start exercising and lose 5 lbs) and other things change (we have more mental energy, our emotions are more stable, etc) and also why we can change one thing (start exercising and lose 5 lbs) and not change something else, too (maybe the emotional stress) and the thing we changed doesn't stick (we gain the 5lbs back).

There is no way for me to shore up the foundation of my physical life (house, body, work) without unearthing all kinds of other treasures; treasures I want to share (you're welcome, I think).

(WARNING - I choose the word treasures carefully here - I choose not to call these things I am digging up skeletons although yes, some of this stuff has been down there a long time and is well ... some scary shit actually; not all treasure is pretty and sparkly and worth a thousand bucks an ounce - it is all valuable though).

And, no this series won't be about my house (you're welcome again) - this is a business blog (sort of) that maybe needs to get back to business (sort of - it is summer after all).

If you are like me you may have allowed your business to grow in unintended directions. Maybe you have dropped so many oars into the water the oars are dragging down the boat or maybe you are having trouble starting things or trouble finishing them. You may have been depending on the temporary fix (the doing) instead of shoring up your foundation (the being - physical, spiritual, emotional, mental).

Our business is a structure just like our house (and our body) - when stress is applied to any structure, the stress will always find the weakest point.

It may look like the weakest point is the problem- but actually the weakest point is the space that is pointing us toward the solution.

(it might look like our neck ache is the result of a poor choice of pillow or our posture or our work and all or any of these things may be true but our neck ache is also the result of - depending on where this manifests - storing up anger or our inability to carry the heavy load we are asking of ourselves, injustice, defining ourselves by what we have, hanging our head by feeling less than - neck problems often occur with excessively mental people who want to change the world but can't do it - actually we are all changing the world every second just by being here - often these are patterns in our clan, baggage the women in our clan have carried and held onto for generations - when we release this stuff, when we heal, we don't only heal ourselves, we heal all the women who come after us and because there is no time outside of this 3rd dimension we can even heal our ancestors, this is that powerful, how cool is that?!)

Part III what the weakest point of our business is trying to tell us

the law of request - if we need help, we have to ask for it - another lesson from Rumi and Captain Kirk

“Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave 
'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.”- Rumi

When my aunt died a few years ago, we found out she owed small amounts of money to every store in town.

These were not stores that offered credit or credit cards or house accounts; one of them was the local McDonald's.

We found this out after her funeral when store owners and managers were telling us not to worry about what she owed them. We were surprised, but probably shouldn't have been because this was a woman who was never afraid to ask for what she needed.

(she also lived very simply on almost no money
and was a very tiny, very wrinkly, very adorable little old woman which no doubt worked in her favor)

She once asked me for $200, cash, and told me firmly to stick it between pages 52 and 53 of a paperback romance I was delivering to her so her husband wouldn't find out about it. I did. He didn't.

We can learn a lesson from her.

Spiritual study (and Star Trek which is kind of the same thing) tells us that if we need help, we have to ask for it.

And that we help people, when we can, and when they ask us.

Jumping into their stuff is what we don't do (and yes, this even applies to our children who come through us but are not us) and if we get upset by someone else's mess that is our stuff; not theirs.  

Obviously we can't ask for help all the time - this would stop us from learning and growing stronger. But after carefully assessing the situation and determining we need it - we calmly request the help we need.
 
I was thinking about this "ask for help" thing last night - when hubby, who never reads my blog, read it and asked me why I didn't call him sooner when I had that flat tire.

I am usually not so good at asking for help. The funny thing is that life had just showed me that all I had to do was ask about 2 hours before.

When I arrived at the flea market and had to park so far away I knew my walk in the blazing sun required sunblock. I didn't have any.

I had walked in the wrong direction of the downtown stores and I knew it was not likely a vendor would be selling any at the market.

But, I thought I would use the power of intent and imagined myself putting sunblock on my arms. I silently asked the universe to pretty please, send me some sunblock.

I walked about 4 more blocks when I saw a woman sitting on the curb next to her bicycle - and yikes, she was putting on sunblock. I looked at the sunblock and looked at her. I guess the question was in my eyes. She asked, "Want some?"- I nodded and thanked her for literally saving my skin.

I thought life was sending me a little lesson on intention, and it is, but it was also a little lesson in the law of request.

As soon as we are ready to ask for help

we are ready to receive it.

Life literally rearranges itself to help us.

(and the truth about license plate # SE714K is that I wouldn't have been able to change the tire in that parking space anyway - so maybe he needed it more than I did)

I was lucky enough to experience this law from all angles in the very same morning. Life is definitely speeding up for us. xo all