Tag: creativity

Do What You Love & You’ll Never Have To Work A Day In Your Life

On By Rebekka LienIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Lying in bed, this question popped up “What am I doing with my life?”

Recently I had a realization that I was still striving for success, so that I could provide for my family, give my future kids a better life than I lived, and…well not have to “work” anymore.

We all strive for that don’t we? For future happiness. 

And we continue to live in discontentment and the what ifs, preparing for future disaster, but never looking life in the face. I remembered a 30 ish year old friend telling me that he wish he had started doing what he loved earlier, that he should have given up what he loathed to dive head first into his love, his dream. This day, he is living his dream despite the obstacles, rejections, failures…but he is reaching his dreams.

Even though I teach everyone around me to live their dreams, out of necessity, I felt myself slipping into “what do I need to do to get by, to make it”, I started following patterns that bored me and copying peoples’ tactics… I lost my creative heart.

When you lose your creative heart out of daily obligations and “necessities”, you lose your ability to create INSPIRED work out of a creative heart. A Creative Heart Derives from Love and Rest. 

The other night, I was on a floatie having a heart to heart, and it struck me so hard when he said “sometimes when things are not going the way you want it to, you have to let go and then you’ll start to do things the way you did them when you were really good at it… artists paint out of their love for painting and expression, versus the need to produce an artwork“.

I posted this on Facebook-

“I had an epiphany today….what am I doing with my life?

I know I seem very inspirational and I am doing a lot of different things to actualize my dream, but what if all I want to do is lounge at the beach, get a tan, play music and be a part time hippie? What’s so wrong with that?

And maybe I really don’t want to be Asian Oprah or travel the world or manage multiple businesses, maybe I just want to grab my backpack and disappear into the jungles and deserts of the Middle East and South America.

Maybe I have still been succumbing to society pressures to be someone I am not. I believe if you focus on what you love, your dreams will chase you versus you chasing the dream.

I started teaching yoga and meditation because I was doing yoga as a hobby and posted pictures online. I was also giving people advice on how to solve their problems and create boundaries. Someone who saw my pictures asked me to teach a class, and the rest is history. Someone else referred me to a dance studio and I took the opportunity and grabbed it by the horns. I created 1 session of 4 classes, printed fliers, walked around town dropping them off at cafes, created videos, facebook invites, meetups, now I am registering people for the next 2 sessions. Was it scary? Yes. Was I doubtful that anyone would even sign up? Yes. Was I scared that I would lose money? Yes. Everything that I was scared of I faced and slapped away. 

Another example of how something I naturally did turned into work was —I posted inspirational statuses on facebook and a newspaper editor asked me to compile those, NOW I write a monthly column.

If you do what you love, you will organically attract opportunities. That’s what life should and must be about.”

Life is not seeking opportunities outside of you, 

It is knowing that everything is within you, waiting to be manifested into reality. 

What Is Synchronicity?

On By Rebekka LienIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Synchronicity is when you let go,

let be.

Synchronicity happens when you stop trying and let the pages fall into place.

Synchronicity is when you give yourself a break after pushing fiercely in the beginning and know you have done everything you can

to make it happen.

Synchronicity is when you don’t care anymore how and when it will work out.

Synchronicity happens when you chill and breathe.

Synchronicity happens when you choose to be happy in spite of all the gray colors.

Synchronicity happens when you learn to enjoy life and you stop planning how IT SHOULD happen in your mind.

Just do your best and let the rest fall into the beautiful place it wanted to be in anyways.

Where there is fear and hesitancy, the universe resists. Where there is 110% unwavering faith, the universe flows to meet and greet you. Faith is actually not a feeling, it is belief in yourself, in a bigger being, in imagination and creativity. If you can imagine it, it will happen. The key is to be joyful in the process, because you are only losing energy by being stressed. 

I know this because I go through this all the time, the expectation of something to fall through. It is only when you don’t care too much about the results, that things fall into place….when you learn to have fun and celebrate in the process, things happen easier.

There are lot of doors closed, but we focus on knocking at one door when just behind us is an open door. 

This is where creativity kicks in, we should always use our critical and creative thinking skills- there is more than one way for things to happen, I have experienced this in the past. The beautiful thing about life is that things can happen anyway we allow them to happen, ALLOW, yes, not want, but allow. And sometimes when we allow doors to fling open, we are not dead panned on one door opening, we will flood our lives with blessings that are beyond the human eyes.

 

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Photos by www.shotbystarrkidd.tumblr.com

At The End Of My Life…

On By Rebekka LienIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

At the end of my life, I want to say that I lived fearlessly. 

At the end of my life, I want to say that I grasped each moment with vigor.

I want to learn from each lesson and live with boldness so that I have tried all solutions, all desires, all impossible feats, I have tried. So that at the end of my life, I won’t be an old lady who sits at a chair and mopes about what I did not do and what I wish I had done.

No, I want to be a fire and life filled old lady with electric blue dyed hair who enjoys her beach side home hanging out on a hammock with live bands playing by the fireside. I don’t want to submit to the structure of this world, a script that I never wrote…I want to define each moment of my life so that I am living on my own terms and not on the words which bellows out of the lions’ den. 

I want to be good to myself, women- it’s a message for you. You put you first and the rest comes. If you are depending on other people to make you happy, forget about it. Your happiness is not going to last. 

At the end of my life, I want to say that I enjoyed every year of my life. Maybe I had really horrible years, but I learned to have fiestas with my circumstances. I learned to see the beauty in mistakes and pain. I don’t want to live in a bubble of plastic situations and man-made synthetic fabrication of “what should be” or “steps a, b, c” or “because he/she told me to”. Let my life be original….so that when someone writes about me or makes a movie about me, it is not identical to others, but uniquely me. 

At the end of my life, I want to say “I loved myself well” and because I loved myself well, I was able to give the gift of me to others, whole, 100% authentic me without BS. 

I want to have lived in the present, embracing wholly that which the moment gives, sound, light, color, energy, positivity. I let the negative feelings of bitterness, anger, sadness, guilt, shame….dissipate into the abyss. I let light seep into my every pore so I am entrenched and filled with liquid love. At the end of the day, you have you and you have love. And that, is really what matters. 

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If you were speaking to your inner child, what would you say to her or him? 

Are the things you say to yourself something you would never say to your own self when you were 3, 5, 10??? 

Would you say the same things to your own child?

If so, start speaking truth, love and hope into your inner child. These are words you should be speaking to yourself, because that is love. 

KreativHaus ART DAY

On By Rebekka LienIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

KreativHaus ART DAY

KreativHaus ART DAY Located in Pasadena, California.

Feeling uninspired? Come create art with us at our KreativHaus. Be a kid again. Kids are welcome!

Suggested Donation: $3 to cover snacks, drinks, electricity, water, toilet paper, soap, supplies, free swag bag worth $20. Or any amount you feel led to give 🙂

Please click this link to make your contributions and register:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NFGSSWWU2YT7G

I will email you the address when I receive your paypal notification/donation. Thank you!
Rebekka

13 Days of Meditation- Day 10- 6 Ways To Solve Your Problems

On By Rebekka LienIn entrepreneur2 Comments

Writing 13 days of meditation is not easy, 13 days has required more discipline than I expected. I skipped a few days and sporadicly started writing again. I am going to draw today’s blog. I find that the older I get, the more obsessive I get about figuring my life out and trying to SOLVE problems in my life.

Follow my drawing below…

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1. Problem: I have issues, problems and don’t know how to deal!!!

2. What should I do?????? (we usually obsess about it and thus, end up with depression and mental health issues).

3. STOP THINKING!

4. Draw. Run and exercise. Commune and discuss with friends, seek advice or simply talk to people. Create (music, art, poetry, literature, spoken word, etc). Explore (go somewhere completely new, take a new route to work, do something completely different, try something new, go to a new restaurant or cafe, make a point of meeting with friends you don’t usually hang out with).

5. Have faith everything will work out….

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Finally, remember that THERE IS A WAY TO DO ANYTHING YOU WANT IN LIFE! 

You think the problem is TOO big for you to solve, well, maybe sitting on your couch and thinking is not such a great problem solving technique. Try doing something different, your eyes might just open to new ideas…to do something completely NEW!

For example, you may be stressed out about paying bills- where can you cut corners, how can you create more income with multiple streams of revenue? You may be having trouble with finding the right person- maybe look somewhere you have never been, do something you don’t normally feel comfortable doing, perhaps a Zumba class? You may be pursuing a client, but they are not pouncing, perhaps focus on other clients and don’t stubbornly stick to one way of marketing yourself…..

The key is to CONTINUE innovating….seeking new methods….learning….NEVER STOP growing. You want to be creative in every capacity. Our human brain learns fast, if you stop learning you will have an old pattern, an old path of thinking. You want to create new paths constantly so your mind does not get stuck in a rut. 

Do not be so hard on yourself, enjoy life and shoot me an email or comment below if this has helped or if you need advice. rebekkalien@gmail.com

Thanks!

http://www.twitter.com/rebekka_lien

http://www.facebook.com/houseslady

The Creative Business Guru

The Secrets To A Happy Life: Being Still

On By Rebekka LienIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have been watching many documentaries and my daily practice includes yoga and pilates. I have discovered that there is a rhythm to life.

The rhythm of life includes seasons.

Seasons can be split even into weeks. It is not just fall, summer, spring and winter, it is a season of working and a season of letting go. 

In our American society, we often think of working hard until our time to retire. 

I believe the contrary, I believe that in order to live a long life of health and happiness, we must learn to surrender to the rhythm of life and observe the seasons that require us to throw our hands back and listen to stillness.

This season requires us to trust that everything will work out, that there is a higher wisdom which we do not understand now, but will eventually. 

Our unrelenting striving can cause physical illness, mental anxiety, anxiety attacks, unstable hormones, emotional breakdowns, temperamental issues, and others. 

That is why, it is ESSENTIAL to allow ourselves to be still, to do nothing, to breath deeply, to listen and observe, and soak in wisdom about our situations….and lastly to trust. I often try to figure things out with my thoughts, I research relentlessly, searching, striving.

Reacting. But reacting is not the our best creativity, our best service to the world, reacting is a left over remnant of our energy.

If we desire to be the best that we can be, we must give ourselves the best gift of letting go, sitting still, being still. 

 

And perhaps, after an hour or two of continuously being still, we can give the best of ourselves to the world. Perhaps in those few hours, we attain more energy, more wisdom, more creativity, more ideas and revelations than we could EVER WORK for in 20-30 hours, weeks, months of work.

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My First Photo Journal – Mi Nombre Es Rebekka

On By Rebekka LienIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

My First Photo Journal entry! ….the end says “but I have FAITH!” You can contribute to my volunteer trip here.

I just had this ingenious idea right now and decided to share my journal with you. I’ll be posting doodles as I go to Ecuador and Brazil. I won’t be bringing my laptop due to safety and well, my mac is my life, so I’ll be handwriting all my experiences. These doodles will eventually become a little book that I’ll sell and all individual doodles will be for sale on Etsy!

Today, I went to Healthy Traveler in Pasadena to get my yellow fever vaccination. I had a moment of squeaking before I had to sit down and get the shot. I was anticipating a long drawn out shot, but it literally was a stab in the arm and VOILA it was done! Cha-Ching $154 please. Throw-up. Yep, the cost of traveling to a 3rd world country is much higher.

Furthermore, I found out I actually leave ON Mother’s day, the night of (1:30 ish am). Here’s a poem for ya’lls.

Push and pull, our story goes. I’m holding back, a flood of emotions, allowing the gift that is me, space and time. The essence of doing nothing, waiting feels like a suffocation. Though, each moment, I’m breathing, being in the present. He once said, breathe and pull yourself to the present since all you have is now.

In the gift of space and time, trusting that love is true even when words are not spoken. This is my dilemma. Why is it so hard to just be? To give up trying and receive. To give up pushing so you can push forward. To let go and breathe, letting love be free, flowing, not suffocated or silenced. Now I know that love was never easy, love was never just admiration and immature play…love is, more complex, more present, more simple. It is a dichotomy that can only be learned through experience.

How To Achieve Your Dreams Without Any Initial Money- Advice From A Broke Entrepreneur

On By Rebekka LienIn Uncategorized2 Comments

Growth- get the Art Print here! 

I woke up this morning, light pouring into the room. Yesterday I completely transformed my room. The bed is now in the middle and my desk near my graffiti wall. I’m sitting at my newly transformed bedroom/office.

Last night, I got to dance with my friend at a goth club on Wilshire. The whole time I was trying not to laugh because my friend and I are used to house/electro music, not every other beat goth music. I thought about how I just spoke at the Latina Blog Conference and how I am going to Ecuador and Brazil in two weeks. I thought about how my writing has been published and how I’m starting to get PAID to write (FINALLY). I thought about the close knit circle of friends, the support I have, the abundance of vitality that is my life and the beauty that exists within my life….

And all this, when I was broke as hell. 

A lot of entrepreneurs don’t talk about this because well, it can be embarrassing. Yet, I’m so proud of the hardships I went through. For 3-4 months, I was totally unemployed. I had no financial support and was penny-less, I ate rice and vegetables only and sold whatever I could to survive. I went to peoples’ houses and brought home left overs, you get the picture.

Out of my lack of financial stability, opportunities to be creative flooded my mind. I wonder why Darwin never talked about creativity, because creativity is essential for survival.

Many of us say “someday when I’m rich, I’ll do this or be that”.

Mine was: “someday when I’m rich, I’ll help people and empower them by giving them jobs”, “someday when I’m well off and meeting important people, I’ll dress nice and be the powerful woman that I am”…etc.

I then realized, the day is TODAY, now.

I’m not 80, I’m not retired, I don’t have health insurance, life insurance, retirement fund, and or a savings account. I guess you can call me impractical. I’m 24 and what I said when I was 18, has come true. Whatever beliefs I carried in my heart has birthed. Whatever lies I let go of has lost its’ grip on my life. When I was 12, I was such a dork, I wore uncool clothes and wrote about deep philosophies. I never thought I could become famous for my creativity and talents. I never thought I could be in a relationship because I was way too unlovable and unattractive.

Today, I don’t believe those lies anymore. I am super attractive, creative, talented and I know in the near future, I will be making big bucks doing what I love.

Be, Do, and Have (not the other way around).

Don’t wait until your life is perfect to be or do. Life will never be “perfect”. Allow the little you have to kick start your dreams and present reality.

I decided to go to Ecuador to see my sponsored child 2 months ago. At that point, I was also broke. Starting your own business means months of 0 discretionary income. The moment I booked my one way flight, the universe aspired to provide the resources and people to help my vision. I met a girl from Ecuador who drew a map of Quito for me and explained where I should go and who to call for emergencies. Up until now, the people who have given to my trip were people who believed in me (you can give too)! I have only $2,000 to raise in 2 weeks!

The power does not LIE in the resources and the finances you ALREADY have, the power to achieve your dreams lie in your HEART to ACT. Do you ever wonder why people get to where they are? It is because they believe in themselves, believe in their vision and take the first step to go for it….and of course, THEY DIDN’T GIVE UP despite how damn impossible and desperate it seemed at times.

So do you have a dream? And what is it? Comment below!

Remember, achieving your dreams is not about striving. It is an outflow of being, that means you may have to rest and do the hard thing of WAITING. Note also the reason I say, “initial money” is that eventually you will fund your dreams by building your tribe who believe in your art, work & vision. The key is to DO what is impossible, when nothing is evident, there is no proof, there are no resources- once your mind says “I CAN” then EVERYTHING in the universe aligns itself to help and equip you.

No Bullshit- Letters To the Sane

On By Rebekka LienIn Uncategorized2 Comments

The need to be normal is the predominant anxiety disorder in modern life. —Thomas Moore, Original Self 

I can feel the wind howling at me, it was all good. If the weather agreed with my inner ranting, then I could say that I was virtually sane.

“I’m saying this because a lot of people are thinking this. Why should I give to her when I have to work 9 to 5 and she gets to travel?”- a family said.

“I’m working too you know. I’m working everyday”- I said.

Does my pieces of art that took me a month to complete mean nothing to the world? Does my writing, my ranting, my art mean nothing compared to staring at a screen in an office all day? Does my longing for beauty mean that I’m lazy, irresponsible, and a complete idiot? 

I sat staring at my coffee, trying to hold back my tears but only hearing the song “maybe you were born with it”. I can’t help that I was born with a vagina or that I have always had this crazy obsession with the outcasted, lonely, weird people. I can’t help that at the age of 14 I wanted to travel the world and obliterate human trafficking; I wanted to run into homes where women were being beaten senseless and bring justice and healing to them. 

After the car started, I wanted to weep. I wanted to yell and so I did. I yelled “MOTHERFUCKER!!!” and then I thought “do you know how many times I prayed that God would take me, or how many times I prayed that I would be normal, have normal desires for a normal life. Do you know how many times I wished upon a star that I wasn’t chosen, that I was just a normal person that could marry young and have kids and age and die? Do you know how many times I wish I didn’t have these abnormal desires to save little children, change the world and be someone really famous and incredible?”

I can’t help that I’m abnormal you know?

And it’s not like I like not having discretionary income. I mean no one enjoys not being able to buy things. So I guess you can only ask yourself, well then why the hell are these crazy people living the way they are- because we really can’t be anyone else dude.

I was encouraged when I saw these cacti today. They were so beautiful, yet they hardly need any water. They can survive the toughest drought and so can artists who see beauty where there is none.

Trash To Treasure, Pre-Brazil Film: Waste Land & Vick Muniz

On By Rebekka LienIn Uncategorized1 Comment

As I was flipping through Netflix, I saw Waste Land with Vick Muniz, the most famous Brazilian artist. In the beginning, I thought I would lose interest, but when they started interviewing the recyclable material “pickers”, my interest piqued. The film turned out to be inspirational, tear- jerking and one that ALL artists and humanitarians need to watch. It is also a great film for those that DON’T understand the importance of the arts, when you watch this film, you will SEE the concrete and soul changing IMPACT that art can do to a community, people and even the government.

What is the film/documentary about? Filmed over three years, Vick Muniz visits the trash pickers of Brazil, in Jardim Gramacho (the largest landfill) in order to create portraits out of trash/recycled goods and to bring awareness, raise funds through the art. His visit turns into a collaboration with the trash pickers, who are inspiring, cheerful, positive people. The catadore (garbage picker) support each other like family; aka someone broke 2 arms and a leg due to being crushed by a trash truck and 20 people donated their blood to him.

By the way, did I mention I picked this movie because that is by far, one of my favorite artworks in history (man in bathtub, dying).

Result of All This? The community was so encouraged, some got to go to London, they got to see the ACTUAL work of their own hands….they realize that they could do something great. One lady left an abusive husband because she SAW herself and her worth through creating art. Art empowered her. Moreover, they raised so much money from the art that in 2012, Jardim Gramacho landfills will be shut down and they will be transitioning to another system. Vick’s efforts has led to a learning center which educates and

You can see the trailer here:

Why Am I Talking About This? This film truly shows the LIFE changing power of the arts. The art seeks to bring beauty and worth to the audience as well as the creator. This film was also vital for me to understand an outcasted part of Brazil, where I will be going May 23 to June 7. Though I have applied for the press program in Brazil, I have yet to hear from them. Watching this film made me realize that perhaps it’ll be okay to pave my own path, whatever that may look like. Perhaps I will meet people on the street that I may become good friends with and teach me about life, I am open to where the spirit will take me.

I can also relate to Vick because like him, I had to work my way up (well, now I don’t think of “going up”, I think of “going forward” since we Americans have such disjointed views of what that looks like). He was born into a lower/middle class family and was relatively poor. One time he accidentally got shot by a guy who had money and compensated him for the wound. Vick was smart enough to use the money to fly to NY where he became a renowned artist.

I don’t think it’s accidental that I watched this film. I have always pioneered to create art that made people think, someday I want to be a successful artist who can help people like that. But for now, I think I’m already doing that, though I can’t see the impact sometimes.

Help me raise $2,600 by May 13 so I can experience the film first hand in Ecuador and Brazil. The leader of the Pickers Association had a dream to have an association, even his family rejected him and people thought he was crazy (even the people he tried to help). At one point, the $6,000 he got from the bank to pay his workers was taken by a stranger who put a gun to his head. He wanted to give up at that point- I started crying because I KNEW EXACTLY HOW HE FELT. You believe in your dreams, but few people do. You meet obstacles and you want to give up. I’m telling you- DON’T. 

“I’d rather want everything & have nothing than have everything & want nothing because at least when you want something your life has meaning, it’s worthwhile. The moment you have everything, you have to search for meaning in other things. I spent my whole life wanting everything, but having nothing. Now I have everything, but I don’t want anything.” -Vick Muniz

Comments are very welcome! Please leave a comment even to say hi! I appreciate it!