I broke a tooth last week — no pain, just a broken tooth; so I went to the dentist.

When I arrived, I was asked to sign a warranty. I haven’t had major dental work done in years so this was new to me.

The warranty included stipulations about the patient holding up their end of the bargain — like having check-ups twice a year.

This got me thinking about having my own personal warranty.

How do I ensure that my outlook stays “sunny” or that my body functions optimally? What good habits do I have in place and what habits might need updating?

My morning ritual is to read something uplifting and then to write in my journal. I've recently added writing to my Inner Wise Self as well.

After that my days are a bit scattered. No two days are alike. Some days I teach in the morning, some days I teach in the afternoons. Some days I sell art at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Some days I run errands, or have a coaching call, or do paperwork, or marketing.

How would it feel to create a tighter schedule for myself? "Scary, icky, no thank you", are my initial reactions.

I have lots of excuses for NOT creating a tight schedule: I like my freedom; I prefer to “go with the flow”; I don’t like being hemmed in; I’m a “Horse” (Chinese Astrology) and a quadruple Aquarian (Western Astrology).

I believe in small changes, so I’ll start small. I'll begin by setting my timer so that I don’t spend more than 20 minutes at a time on email or Facebook.

WIN! I can do that easily!

Another change I can make is to consciously set intentions for myself, both for the entire day and for short segments of time throughout the day.

For example, I intend to paint with abandon and joy in my heart. OR I intend to feel joyful as I do x, y, and z (those tasks less fun than painting).

Setting intentions creates a roadmap for the day.

By consciously setting our intentions, we have increased awareness of the processes in which we engage.

Set your intentions in the present tense. Start with the way you intend to feel today, or the way you’ll feel when a task in front of you is completed. Focus on whichever of those feelings feels best.

Intentions can be a bit of a reach, but only a bit. You want them to be believable!

Now that the Art of Aloha Cruise: Discovering Paradise Inside and Out is open for sign-up, we're beginning to set our intentions for the cruise — private, personal, and group intentions.

The energy is building to make this an exciting journey for all of us.

There's room and time for you to join us. Click HERE to download the pdf file of information. Fill out the last two pages and follow the directions to enroll. Please email me if you have any questions. Please note: To fill in the registration form on a computer you will need to use Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) or Adobe Acrobat.

‘Luke, come to the Dark Side.’ ~ (my memory of Darth Vader enticing Luke)

Those words echo in my head each time I face a painting that needs dark colors.

In the beginning, the painting is meant to be mostly light and medium tones

Dark colors provide contrast, interest, intrigue, and excitement to our work.

Adding the darks to our paintings can be SCARY!

It’s scary and it’s exciting and it makes a HUGE difference in our paintings.

If the dark color is “perfect” when we paint it, it’s probably too light. If it looks “too dark”, it might just be perfect!

Scare yourself just a little bit. Add dark colors & the difference is immediate. It’s hard to appreciate the edge of darkness when we’re scared.

Noticing that we’re scared is the first step to shifting into action. Fear lives right next door to Excitement.

Move from fear to excitement by breathing into your fear. Inhale and feel the feeling rise from your belly to your chest (your heart center).

Remember that if the painting isn’t finished, or if you’re not happy with it — if you don’t like it — it isn’t finished. You’ve got nothing to lose by adding darks. 

If you don't like your painting, what's in front of you is just a piece of paper!

Still mostly light and medium tones, with definition added

Remind yourself that no one will die if you add darks to your painting. You'll likely energize your painting by adding dark colors.

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are “plunging into darkness” (on so many levels I’ve lost count — mostly I refer to winter).

Darkness is scary because we don’t know what it holds. 

Winter is a time of rest and of letting the ground lie fallow.

View fullsize

It’s a time for us to ease up, maybe just a little bit, maybe take a nap, and certainly to reflect on all that we’ve done this past year. 

It’s also a time to plan ahead and to set our intentions for next year.

What is it you most want to see, do, or BE next year? What would light up your life and energize you?

If you want to relax, feel great, enjoy life, see the world through fresh eyes, and spark your creativity, join me on Art of Aloha's 8-day cruise through the Hawaiian Islands August 4–11, 2018. Come Discover Paradise, Inside and Out. Click here to receive first dibs on the great Balcony Cabins!

I attended two SARK retreats in June, one in Portland and another in Carmel. I felt joy and excitement before and during both of these retreats.

During the past nine months, I attended all of the online classes and in-person retreats. I filled two journals with notes and began shifting the ways in which I create my world.

I felt great, focused and excited about the process everyday … until I didn’t.

Anxiety rose up to meet me a week before the final retreat in Portland. I was shocked this was totally unexpected!

I turned to my watercolor paper and painted my anxiety while teaching my Hide-N-Seek painting method at a “Playshop” for the Hawai`i Watercolor Society on September 30th.

The painting began horizontally.

As my left arm circled the brush round and round, my right arm made the infinity symbol with the brush moving from left to right and back again. All the while I verbally and visually explained my inner feelings.

My left hand described my frustration with going over the same learning cycle, again and again, feeling stuck, seeing the same issues rising up over and over in my mind. (Remember the Onion from the last post?)

At the same time, my right hand explained my desire to break free of this cycle.

Step two of this painting process is the removal of texture, revealing the underpainting. It was then that a heart appeared, and I knew this painting would be vertical.

On the second day of the final SARK retreat, I watched in awe as Dr. Scott Mills drew out the exact structure of my fresh underpainting on the flip chart for the class.

Scott explained that it’s easy to get stuck in the seductive loop of learning and that it’s essential to break free from that loop so we do the work we’ve come here to do.

We need to use all of our learning
or we’re wasting everyone’s time.

Learning and Doing are parts of the infinity loop. One side feeds the other. If we get stuck on either side, we’re out of balance.

I’m committed to learn and evolve throughout the whole of my life. Now I have more tools with which to do my internal excavation.

The deeper I dig, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more questions I have and the more potential and possibility I find. And the more I have to give and share with others.

The world appears to be “out there”. Yet the VAST majority of it lies “in here” — within and for all of us.

That’s why I’m inviting you to join me for my first ever 7-Day Creative Cruise through the Hawaiian Islands, August 4–11, 2018.

Together we will Discover Paradise Inside and Out.

The official pre-launch is in December. Find out first by sending an email to me: Patrice@artofaloha.com. Please put cruise in the subject line so I’m sure to respond quickly.

I’ll share with you the processes I know to dig down deeper within and outside our selves, to hunt for and find the clues being left for us by our Inner Wise Selves.

Together we’ll discover new vistas,
both within ourselves and throughout the world.

Last year I met a new “character” in my dreams. She’s pretty remarkable and unforgettable; she has six eyes. I never gave her a name; she's an image of me.

She populates two three-dimensional watercolor pyramids and a few small paintings, most notably, “Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling”.

Postcards of this image are available, send SASE: PO Box 61707, Honolulu, HI 96839-1707

A few months later I saw another image in a dream, this time of an onion with six eyes. Onions are a ubiquitous food in the world, so this image leads me to believe that we all have six eyes.

This is the first of many more onions in the book I'm creating.

Peeling an onion reveals more of the onion, sort of an internal archeological evolutionary “dig” into our psyche.

Shortly after the six-eyed onion appeared to me, I received an email, seemingly out of the blue, from SARK. She invited me to attend a webinar about a Succulent Wild Business Incubator Program she was starting.

My energy was on high-alert after the webinar so I signed up for the nine-month program.

The weeks leading up to the first in-person retreat filled me with anxiety. I knew I was about to begin a new important leg of my journey through life.

I was scared.

What if I couldn’t do it? What if I couldn’t live up to my potential? What if I failed?

I took all of my anxieties to watercolor paper and created “Eyes of Awareness”.

The painting calmed me down and gave me hope. My anxieties were no match for what was to come.

All of my energies would be joyfully, gleefully released when I allowed myself to move forward rather than stay stuck in fear.

At the first SARK retreat in Key West, we were introduced to SARK’s tool, “Inner Wise Self Love Letters”. Essentially we all have an Inner Wise Self and she/he is always with us.

Many of us have known about this inner wisdom and call it by different names. No matter what you call it, feeling its loving presence is a gift.

I credit my Inner Wise Self with giving me all of the imagery in this post.

I’m delighted to have a new, more direct way of dialoguing with her as a result of working with the SARK team (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, Dr. Scott Mills, and Suzanne Evans). Mahalo nui loa!

But Wait! There’s more to come.

I’ll share it with you soon. Stay tuned for “My Inner Wise Self and Me, Part 2”.