Let it simmer, celebrate & push restart: Transitioning into the New Year and the Cultivators Community

Over the holiday break this year, I focused on letting it simmer. 

I enjoyed the sweetness of rest. I let things simmer and integrate, fill up, and fully flavor my life. This has been really good for my creativity, my art, and ultimately the work I do here with you at Art Nurture. It was a good time. And quite frankly, I realized how much I love sleep and movies and eating slowly.

Then the New Year rang in and it was time to celebrate & push restart.

Whether you are all for New Years Resolutions or really against them, the New Year makes itself known. We realize it is a new year every time we realize it's January. Every time we realize that we put the wrong date again on some piece of paperwork we have to fill out. Every time we hear people talk about all the new stuff they are starting or all the old stuff they are quitting.

Whether we like it or not, change occurs and transition is necessary. 

I have honestly resisted some changes in my life so hard that I probably caused myself more pain through the struggle than I would have experienced from the change alone.

These days I try to listen to those things. I try to pay attention to what the resistance, the fear, the frozen-ness, the struggle are trying to tell me. Because I realize the quicker I deal with those things, the less I stress and the more in the creative flow I can be and live a life doing the work that I love.

So these days, I like to let it simmer like cinnamon.
 
I like to celebrate.

I like to focus on what works and pour more into that well.

What works for me, is me working with you. I love working with you and I love what has been built here so far and I look forward to more of that going forward. Let's start this year off right. Let's make the stuff we believe in and let's give our best to our families, our communities, our art, our work, our gardens, our pets, all of it! 

At the beginning of 2014, just a few short months after Art Nurture: The Simple Guide to Cultivating Your Creativity was released I embarked on a beautiful and unknown journey (and some of you came with me!). 

I had always hoped that from the book being released out into the world, a community would grow. I had hoped that this community would be one filled with people who were seeking to live out their authentic Art Nurture Journey, living their creative potential for their greatest good and sharing it with the world. So in January of 2014 came the first ever Art Nurture Book Club. We had over 40 members from all over the globe and we had weekly live calls and went through the entire book together. The conversations were amazing. I was so honored to have people reading the book together and sharing openly with one another. Quite frankly, the entire thing was magical. It really blew me away and I found myself craving more of this interaction with all of you.

Over the course of the year, I held some workshops, did a lot of one-on-one coaching through my Creativity Cultivation sessions, learned a lot, shared a lot, got to lead a group of lovely women to Spain for Art Nurture's Andalusian Adventure, and kept thinking about how awesome creative community was...

...and that is when the idea for the Cultivators Community came. From your feedback and from my desire to connect more and have more creative community, myself and 14 Cultivators embarked on a BETA version of this group coaching community. We met for three months and each of our live group calls were amazing. I felt like, 'Yes! This is awesome! We need more of this! It should never end!' 

Not only was I jazzed, but the people who were a part of our BETA round made some amazing moves for themselves in their creative pursuits. Some gained clarity, some began sharing their work more, some made more art, it was awesome! The focus of our calls each week was that we would celebrate exactly where we were at, we would get down to the nitty gritty on our struggles, and we would take real actionable steps to move forward.

So here we are, 2015 well under way, and I am honored that you take the time to hang out here at Art Nurture, it means a lot to me and I am here sharing this work for you, because quite frankly it feels too good to keep it to myself! It's better and more fun to share! I love hearing what each of you are working on, and up to, and thinking through. Thank you for sharing, keep it coming!

I also want to invite you to join the Cultivators Community 2015! Our first "official" call will be next Wednesday, January 21st 2015 and we will keep going through the rest of the year! If you are interested in joining the group, learn all the details and register here.

If you choose to join the Cultivators Community, awesome! I look forward to talking with you at our regular monthly calls! If you have questions, please feel free to write me and ask because this is a conversation and I do take the time to read e-mails as quickly as possible. 

If you are loving this, please share it with those you believe would love it too.

Art Nurture is about being fully alive and living life with the soul of an artist. A life filled with passion, intention, and purpose. Thanks so much for your time and your presence.
 
Cultivate & Nurture, 
Court McCracken

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