I finally published my book!
haha, well at least a prototype :)
If you have been following my blog over the last year, you'll know that I have been dragging my feet on
publishing a book of affirmations, and this month I felt the final push to make it happen. This little gem is a gift to myself. A way of honoring the goals met and set aside during
Hint Jewelry 2009.
Last June, I was procrastinating on my goal of
publishing a book of affirmations because I had unanswered questions. Waiting five months proved to be the best medicine for my project. I refined my affirmations, learned to let go of concepts that were getting in the way of the message, and came up with a better way of packaging my book
Heart Speak.
Back to the beginning.
Heart Speak grew out of intensive personal therapy that I faithfully performed over the course of six months. Whenever I noticed a negative core belief getting in the way of me being at peace in the world, I would journal my judgments about a situation and then turn the statements around into positive beliefs. The simplest metaphor was that I took lemon thoughts and made lemonade beliefs. Wow, there were a lot of lemons to work with!
Once I found the single most perfect positive affirmation that transformed my negative core belief into something liberating, I would write it on a 3 x 5 inch card and use it during meditation practice. I would say the affirmation aloud and then feel the positive feelings associated with the moment. My stack of cards grew until I started repeating myself, signaling that I had cleaned up my fundamental core belief system.
Through the practice of dialoguing
nonviolent communication (NVC) with myself, I noticed that I rarely touched upon positive feeling words. Like being lost in the desert, looking for a drink of water, my soul was yearning to feel a positive feeling.
It was not enough to just say "I feel happy" or "I feel confident." I had to learn how to feel in my body the physical sensations of what it would be like to feel "happy" and "confident." This was quite different then saying the words because I used my imagination to project an image where I was feeling a positive emotion and all the sensations accompanying it.
The more work I did with Marshall Rosenberg's
Nonviolent Communication practice, the more I wanted to spend time with his list of
positive feeling words. When using my affirmation cards I would associate the phrase with a
positive feeling and mentally imagine the sensations.
Remember being a kid in the middle of a heatwave and feeling the joy and refreshment of running through the cool mist of a sprinkler? This is the closest picture I can paint of what it is like to read these affirmations and give myself permission to feel positive sensations.
I created a poem of pure emotion through positive words. I love shuffling the cards and seeing a new random
song of myself each day, watching fresh connections form as a feeling word pairs with a positive affirmation. Now I know what
Walt Whitman meant when he wrote "I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself." Like a devotional prayer, every morning and evening I read through my stack of affirmations and positive feelings and experience blissful renewal.
Acknowledging the amazing randomness of the cards was the last element I needed to see the structure of my book as a stack that can be used in a variety of non-linear ways. This concept led me to choose
Moo.com to publish the prototype of my book as a stack of
business cards. All I needed was one photo image and then jpeg files with the words and phrases for the reverse.
I imagine women carrying these cards around in their purses and pulling them out in frustrating situations. Or people tucking them in their pockets and reading a card during a stressful office meeting. Word Refreshment!
What are the next steps in fulfilling the vision of
Heart Speak? Right now my book is completely unaffordable to be resold, so I need to find a way to print these cards in a cost effective manner. I've also been imagining them as an electronic book (ebook) that people could download to their
smartphones so that a positive affirmation is just a click away. How different would life be if you looked down at your phone when someone is yelling at you and saw the message "I surrender to the beauty of others."
I had set out in January 2009 to self-publish a book by the end of the year, and in my own fashion it manifested into being. It took some goal setting and a great deal of letting go of expectations, but these two actions continually motivate me to be in business for myself. When you in engage in goal setting, you are creating a relationship with your deepest desires. It's like partnering in a dance with your Self. What could be more beautiful?
Sometimes the goals you set fall away or turn into new goals. Sometimes they don't happen in the manner or timing that you planned, but the most important thing is to first put the goal in motion, step out on the dance floor and enjoy a moment of being with the most authentic parts of yourself.
Whatever goals you've set for this past year, I hope you have had fun playing with them and whatever goals you've had to let go of, many blessings to your heart for putting them in motion and experiencing your most beautiful self in a new way!
Kitten Instincts, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design): fine silver kitten charm
Be Mine, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design): fine silver valentine heart charm
Perfect Fit, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design): fine silver puzzle piece charm
Forgiveness, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design): fine silver flower in hand charm
Star Shine, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design): fine silver star charm
Absolute Truth, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry Design): fine silver swan charm
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