Rebecca–Love of People “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” Roy Disney Seems pretty straightforward–we assume we know what our values are, right?!  But when we propose this activity in our workshops and groups, it often draws a blank at first.  This may be partly because too many of us our values are so inherent to …

Getting Clear on Your Core Values Click to Read Post »

Rebecca–Light in the Darkness Gioia and I were talking about ways to manage burn out and got intrigued by the evocative nature of that descriptor–burn out. The expression evokes all sorts of visual images: a flame sputtering and then extinguishing, a light bulb crackling on and off and finally going dark, the embers of a once glowing fire fading under …

Burned Out or Filled Up? Click to Read Post »

Rebecca–Doodling Notes from Lecture Art is intimidating. Although children usually make art spontaneously, most of us stopped doing art in our early teens.   Unless you identify with being an Artist with a capital “A,” art may be something that you relegate to your talented sister, your artsy friend who is naturally creative and has an eye for color and design, …

art with a lower case “a” Click to Read Post »

Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s This time of year always calls for lists, all kinds of lists—“Best of..”, “Worst of …”, “Things for which you’re grateful”, “What you accomplished in 2014”, “Resolutions for the upcoming year”, etc…. We’ve been thinking about lists here at CWW partly because we’re preparing for a couple of “Vision Journaling” workshops and making lists is …

Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s Click to Read Post »

Rebecca–My Lovely Peeps “I believe that unconditional love will have the final word ” Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s been a challenging year if you listen to the news recaps. Ebola. Gaza. Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines. ISIS. Robin Williams. Girls here and abroad abducted and raped. Rockets crashing. Ferguson. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of “severe, pervasive and irreversible” …

Other People Matter Click to Read Post »

Gioia–Altoid Shrine Think about three things that have gone well thus far in your day. Find a piece of paper and write them down. If the list gets longer as you’re writing, go ahead and add more When we start our workshops with this simple exercise, what we usually hear are comment such as “I got to work without running …

The Magic In Small Things Click to Read Post »

Rebecca-Ripped letter in Altered Book At CWW, we often sing the virtues of getting into flow and, of course, we suggest that doing art is a natural way for people to experience it. Flow is that state we achieve when we are fully immersed and engaged in an activity that is intrinsically rewarding to us, when we are faced with …

Warming Up to Flow Click to Read Post »

Gioia-Serenity Prayer Gioia and Rebecca have a running joke about being diametrically opposed in both mood and also our general levels of optimism versus pessimism. Those of you who know them personally can probably easily identify that Gioia is the buoyant optimist and I am the darker pessimist. The classic example they use to illustrate this inherent difference comes from …

The Optimist and The Pessimist Click to Read Post »

Joan Sadler–Leaves Falling “All the things that I was before I aren’t any more.” Leaves by Joan Sadler from Joan’s Stones We all had to stay straight and properin our former lives on the tree;now down from that cover,it’s fun to discover how interesting we can be! Rebecca’s 92 year-old Aunt Joan said this playfully when Rebecca asked her how …

Joan’s Stones: Aging Creatively Click to Read Post »