Photography :: Garden Reflections

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I've been taking some of my own photos for stock images. Its been a particularly fulfilling creative act.  For a while now I've been relying on stock images or photos taken by others. Though both of those have their own benefits, I'm really enjoying a new approach to increasing my image database.

The reflection ball in the garden at mom's.

My Brand

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I've thought a lot about the brand of my business, Upward Spiral, and recently about my mom's business, Atlantic Institute of Aromatherapy. But I've also wanted to work on my personal brand, what I'm creating here. 

The reason I'm sharing this is because I want to be transparent in my journey to create successful businesses, one's that embody the things I truly believe in (positive change, transformation, learning to be who we really are, to name a few...). Since I have many projects, it makes since to also cultivate a personal brand. 

And as always, there's a lot of fear and resistance to putting myself out there.

So I figured, I'd start by sharing that struggle. Hopefully, I'm moving swiftly beyond that but we will see as time unfolds. 

If you are also working to put yourself out there and are finding it challenging, know that you are not alone. 

 

 

Sustaining

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That's one of the hard things for me. Sustaining something...

I have lots of ideas of what I'd like to write on this blog, all the stories I'd like to share, insights that I think will be interesting to other people than just me, but all those are almost useless if they just stay in embryonic form in my head. 

So but life is all a practice and here is me starting back up again. 

Hello World.

Poetry :: Reinventing Valentine

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Reinventing Valentine

 

I thought my heart

was something

I’d have to stuff

through a straw.

 

With fists

clenched

to my lips,

my breath

 

projects this wad

past air like an arrow,

 

clean and deadly.

 

But  my heart is

actually

in my hands:

 

a thousand paper

petals waiting

to be released

 

into the sun.

 

What a delicate,

dry trickle,

 

I think,

     admiring

each

      tiny

            dance

 

how beautiful,

            how alive

 

 

Nyssa  Rhiannon Hanger, As Light Ascends, Beauty is Beauty Press, 2012

Poetry :: The Journey

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The Journey

One day you finally knew 
what you had to do, and began, 
though the voices around you 
kept shouting 
their bad advice-
though the whole house 
began to tremble 
and you felt the old tug 
at your ankles. 
"Mend my life!" 
each voice cried. 
But you didn't stop. 
You knew what you had to do, 
though the wind pried 
with its stiff fingers 
at the very foundations, though their melancholy 
was terrible. 
It was already late 
enough, and a wild night, 
and the road full of fallen branches and stones. 
but little by little, 
as you left their voices behind, 
the stars began to burn 
through the sheets of clouds, 
and there was a new voice 
which you slowly 
recognized as your own, 
that kept you company 
as you strode deeper and deeper 
into the world, 
determined to do 
the only thing you could do-
determined to save 
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.

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Beginning at Home

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Its always easy to begin something; its quite another to finish it.  

I find that the space around me has a large effect on my productivity. So I've been doing some rearranging at the house. I'm just about ready to do some rearranging online as well. 

I've been working hard on a new website to debut my new business venture, The Upward Spiral Center.  Its building on the work I've already created with Upward Spiral Therapy, but I'm ready to grow and become all that I dreamed. 

So that means really committing to an online presence.  I tend to shy way from such things due to anxiety over my own persona and fear that it will all feed my ego. But I also believe I can approach it in a way that helps me learn about and from my ego. 

Here we go!

 

altar1.jpg

Enough Already with "not enough"!

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Back in August, I started the second annual

101 Days of Gratitude

.  The idea is to post something that you are grateful for everyday.  Last year, I did this to both create meaningful daily content on my

Facebook page

(the key to social media success, so I hear) and to force myself to work through my aversion to social media. It worked really well! I got more fans, even had a few people join in with me, and surprised myself on how fulfilling posting things online can be.

This year has been different

. I started this project with the intention to start to create a community around my ultimate dream of creating the Upward Spiral Center for Healing and Transformation.  Earlier this year, this dream started to look like a reality and I have been working hard to make it happen.

But that's a lot to juggle.  The creation of the center has brought some core issues of mine up to the surface and that's caused some breakdowns and needs to withdrawal. For the past month or so, I've taken a step back from major work on creating the center, because I realized"

If I'm going to create the Center, I need to first find my own.

There is this saying in Chinese Medicine that

"one can not inspire a virtue in someone else unless they first possess it themselves."

Since I came across this thought in my Daoism and Chinense Medicine class back in 2009, it has infused much of my thoughts about work and therapy.

One basic issue for me (and I know for a lot of my clients) is essentially that

I'm not enough

.

And the silent belief that follows is that

no one will love me

.

To create the center is to affirm the opposite:

I am working to create a space for all of US to explore what our healing journeys can become

. To do this, I will need lots of love and support from my community.  It can not happen with out it.

In addition to really slacking on my own gratitude posting during this year's project, I publicly admitted the other day that I miscalculated 101 Days.  The intention is to lead up to Thanksgiving, but I started a week early. So its 108 days instead. Thankfully, its a symbolic number!

I've still felt alot of 'gratitude guilt' (which essentially traces back to "I'm not good enough") about neglecting my gratitude and miscalculating.

I was overjoyed at the responses I got after posting about 108 Days. You can see some on our

Facebook Event

.

I had a guy write me a personal message and say:

"

no embarrassment needed ... I just kept thinking how is my counting wrong !?! lol its an awesome idea and has brought joy to even more people than you'll ever know ... it's fabulous and I wouldn't change a thing"

I also had a friend of mine tag me in a post:

"I am grateful for 

Nyssa Rhiannon Hanger

, a great friend, and someone who has the imagination, thoughtfulness, and work ethic to do something good for her community. Or better yet, to get us to do something good for ourselves!"

How can I not feel loved and enough reading things like this? I am bookmarking this page for the next time I feel bad : )

I don't know if I can really say "ENOUGH!" to "not enough," but I'm sure gonna try. This is what I hope to inspire in others eventually at the

Center

, but for now I'm going to continue to work on me and inspire the community I already have.

Thanks ya'll, for all your love.