The power of letting go

Just in the last few weeks i've been examining the role of simplicity in my life

Simplicity is my word for 2014 and i'm enjoying exploring what it might mean for me and my life. What might it take for make my life to feel simplier and lighter.

And it's got me wondering...

Have you ever had the feeling that something’s got to give but despite knowing that, you hold on for dear life? no matter how much it hurts, no matter how scary? When it hurts more to let go than to keep holding on? When the pain is feeding us negativity, shame or worry, do you really want it?

Really?

Now if you're lucky, and you realise what's going on, what needs to shift, eventually you will get to tipping point where the pain of staying put is greater than that of letting go.

You can choose to let go and release that pain or keep holding on and suffer longer, keep going round the same loop, never really moving forward.

I’ve been coming to this realisation for a while now in my life and it feels like the realisation became stronger when I was travelling in Costa Rica and Argentina in 2012.

Glimpses of something simpler and more peaceful were given to my senses and I came back to this world seeing changes that need to happen in the way i live my life and in the way I create my business, doing the things i love to do.

Now, I've tried to change them, and in some areas of my life and business i've been able to make great shifts in my ways of being and focus on the way I want it to be.

But all the while, I was still keeping some of the deeper habits, ways of thinking and objects that were always just there, weighing me down.

For long enough, I was denying that the change needed was for me to say NO! and let go... in order to feel more alive, ready for deeper change and opportunity to come my way and light myself up.

Promise that you'll remember this!

Letting go is not failure, it's not giving up.

Letting go is …

making space for something new to emerge

to allow space to breathe

a chance to feel peaceful

to imagine

to get curious

to start over

to ask what if?

To look up, see what’s been going on when you haven’t been paying attention.

To take the chance to reconnect with what really matters to you: your meaning, your why, your reasons to get up in the morning and be open to the potential positive possibilities all around you.


So, whether you're letting go of those possessions, that way of being, that story you tell yourself, that part of your business or a relationship that no longer lights you up,

think of what wonders and delight you could be saying YES to instead and practice day by day...

Letting go.


What are you practising letting go of right now? What do you feel in your heart that you need to let go of to take the next step in your life?

I'd love to hear from you, let's chat about it, over on my facebook page

light blessings

Jaimie x

My year in review 2013

So, I decided to write a 2013 review. I wrote it for myself, to see what i'd been up to, to honour and celebrate the adventures. It felt like a quiet year for BIG adventures but many smaller adventures and wanderings made it a wonderfully rich year and i'm grateful for every single one of them.

So, here it is, i wanted to share it with you!

Some workshops I delivered

A whole series of  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Repair workshops for Edinburgh Council, in wonderful Libraries across Edinburgh. I created a simple drop-in workshop where children and adults could come along and create a super simple piece of upcycled jewellery. you can read a blog about it here

Creative reuse crafts workshop with Lothian Association of Youth Clubs members

An Upcycled jewellery workshop with lovely students from Edinburgh Uni Art Society and also one from my wee studio.

Craft workshops with carers and carees through VOCAL and Ca(i)re

Nature inspired workshops at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh

Collaborations I leapt into with gusto

Connect to Nature Connect to self- a series of creative adventures- August 2013- with Morwhanne Woolcock. For every person who took our Connect to Nature course, we had a tree planted for them in the Calidonian Forest, Scotland. 17 trees in all.  Our community emerged reconnected, having created and noticed the beauty in their nature spots.

We are delighted to be running this workshop again in March 2014 just i time for spring!

 Find out more and book YOUR place HERE

Designed and launched a brand new Swap Shop in St Margarets' House, studio building.

Places I visited

Argyll- Auchindrian township- an gorgeous little place which is the last surviving example of a Higland farm township. They have been struggling for funding this year and are in danger of closing. So if you would like to make a donation you can do so here.

Norway-Lindesnes Kystkultursenter, Ramsland- A glorious sunshine filled time, making new jewellery, having daily adventures on coasts, boats and lighthouses, or just simply hanging out with new friends eating sardines.

Oxford- Art-in- Action- I was very very lucky to have the chance to have my work on display at Art-in-Action. A place where some of the best craftspeople demonstrate their skills. I was invited to help my friend Catriona Mackenzie glass with her stall and got a wee corner of my own into the bargain. :) I got lots of lovely feedback and sold a few pieces of jewellery that made people smile.

Bristol- where I met Morwhenna Woolcock in person for the first time! :) whoop!

St Kilda- an epic adventure to an incredible place! The further west point of Scotland, about 100 miles of the west coast of the mainland. It was a rough journey there and my poor tummy was never so happy to arrive anywhere! Most importantly it was precious time spent with my lovely Dad.

Videos I created
mini 'animations' of my random collections of plastic bits
red collection
deo tops

Connect to Nature: Connect to Self & Trees for Life- The Highland Adventure- a video celebrating our connect to nature course and our day visiting Trees for Life at Dundreggan Estate, meeting wild boar and planting trees.

things I learnt, tried and loved

How to embody my inner Craftivist @Craftivist Bootcamp with the fabulous Sarah Corbett of Craftivist Collective

singing in a flash mob- twice!- once in front of a room of people eating lunch, then again in Waverly station! We almost got kicked out but carried on regardless.:) so much...slightly nerve-wracking fun!

Helped cooking a meal with ingredients originallly destined for the bin with Foodcycle Bristol

using my other senses to find my way- with the guidance of 2 lovely ladies from Embercombe

These last 3 adventures were made possible through Edinburgh Do

others wonderful things

going to see the Lion King and
going to Jupiter Artland with a friend and her son. Days of peaceful delight outdoors, playfulness, and awe-inspiring spectacle.

All the time I spent in nature

foraging for wild garlic, three cornered leeks, woodruff, brambles and rosehips, using them in our cooking and learning even more about foraging with Fi Martynoga and her book - Scotland's Wild Harvests

Touching brand new leaves on the trees- the delicate newness is so precious and  gave me a deep sense of possibility.

Walking barefoot- so fresh and invigorating

Spending the day with inspiring artists from Imaginate, Neil from Wild Journeys and Dougie of The Dark Mountain Project. We learnt about the power of whakapapa and stood knee deep in the waters of Loch Katrine while Dougie read The peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry. A deeply peaceful and joyful day

Reconnecting with my childhood playground and rediscovering the wonders of the wild

and so much more...

I'd love to hear about the magic moments in YOUR 2013 where you allowed yourself to explore your curiosity and learn new things about yourself...or even what you've been thinking about doing recently but haven't leap in yet... head over to my facebook page and we can chat there 

embrace the possibilities today

jaimie xx

The First Step

‘Whatever you believe or know you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it’

I've been stalling on writing blog posts, perhaps it's the blank page, the newness, the endless options or i've been waiting for the right thing to say….or knowing at all what it is I want to write about. Something I can know and share wholeheartedly.

Then I realised, I created made curious as a place for you to explore your possibilities and the world that you create for yourself, so why shouldn’t I use it for that exact same reason?!
I want to share my points of curiosity with you, my wonderings and my discoveries so that you may be courageous, step forward and discover yours…deeply.

I’ve re-realised that it really is only in the starting of something that we will truly know what we stand for, what gets us out of bed in the morning, what makes our very own curiosity receptors tingle and let ourselves be drawn by them.

Start…simply
…write 5 lines in your diary with feeling…do you feel differently? What feels different?
…bake a cake with the flavour you’ve been wondering about and would love to try…what does it taste like?
…find a place to be peaceful…sit for 5 minutes. notice the rhythm of your surroundings
…go to a place where you feel at home…be there and notice what makes you feel comfortable
…imagine what it’s like to not know the world at all…to be brand new…Where would you go? Who would you speak to? what would you ask? 

What first step will you take today?

I'd love to to hear your thoughts, so please come over and share on my facebook page

The Beginning of my imagined future

he other night I actually did it! I did something I'd been thinking about doing for quite a few years. I learnt lots and it was heaps of fun! 

Want to know what happened?

I'd been curious about exploring ways that I could merge my arts education and coaching skills, to consciously put them together and find the sweet spot where they made sense together, where they had more clarity and purpose.

I wanted to give people a powerful and meaningful experience. To begin to feel what it was to take a step in a new direction in their lives and reconnect with their futures. A place where I believe in their innate creative energy and they learn to believe in it too. To be able to grab hold of something in their future that will draw them towards it and help them shine.

The pilot session of 'Imagined Futures- discoveries in vision jewellery' was launched into the world on Monday 28th May.

A group of 5 of my lovely friends, intrigued by the email I'd sent giving a mini idea of what I’d been thinking about, gathered together in a small education room. I'd laid out all the resources and materials I thought we'd need and taken a bit of time to tidy my brain so I could focus on what was about to emerge. 

I was willing to try and so were they.

We chatted and got comfortable, I said a little more about why I'd invited them and before long I was asking them to close their eyes, so we could begin a visualisation of a moment in their 'Imagined Future'.

getting started can be the hardest part

Once everyone opened their eyes there was a flurry of frantic scribbling of all of the detail they had seen inside. It was fascinating to watch, the unfolding, it looked like they were capturing something that they didn't want to get away from them. 

It made me smile!

We each had our vision and we set out to transform that vision into something tangible, something that represented what we saw for ourselves. A piece of jewellery that when we see it we could feel whether we were creating aspects of it in our lives...or not.

Capturing something abstract, something with energy and

approaching it differently than you might do otherwise.

a messy life can be a beautiful life

Creating something that embraces the fact that life won't always be plain sailing, or turn out the way you imagine it will, but focusing on seeing the bright moments, the flashes of colour and the moments of happiness. It all ties together.

These 2 pieces - both brooches- represent a vision of being by the sea, the textures, colours and tiny details that capture the feeling of all the freedom and energy of being there in tha

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'Like an island'

Movement, flow and energy,

like a 'blissed out' jelly fish!

A future memory of being in a garden, one day having her own garden, of being in her mum’s garden, somewhere she feels happy and creative.

I loved the variety and the subtlety of metaphors that came out, especially from those who felt uncertain to begin with, those who didn't believe they were very creative. 

I understand so much more about what drives me in this now, what people value about this kind of approach and the possibilities for where it could take me and others if we're brave enough to take the next step.

I know I am!