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What if you could live in a blissful state of awe, free from the misery of anxiety & depression? Let’s adopt an Open Mindset, relax our urge to control, & allow our Creativity to create happiness NOW.

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 11 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 11: Don’t Know Mind, MB invites us to continue opening our mind to the magic of possibility. When we let go of our certainties — in the rigid beliefs that are mostly based on the Role Rulebook that Society’s indoctrinated us to believe — we open to a more expansive view of ourselves and the Universe in which we live.

She begins by telling us that, due to the process of cell regeneration, every part of our body’s only ever 7 years old.

Yet, we feel this strong pull to remain the same when our body’s are literally not. It reminds us that our physiology’s open to becoming something new, and invites our minds to do the same.

That’s the Door to Freedom.

Doesn’t it feel freeing, to realize there’s no real requirement to maintain a rigidly consistent identity with our past?

If we want to, we can change who we are by choosing who we wish to become. We only have to adopt an Open Mindset to allow ourselves to explore new ways of thinking.

Reflect on that.

Really think about it.

If you’re anything like me, just imagining the possibility for purposeful reinvention allows me to see it, that Door to Freedom that’s slowly opening.

Can you see it, too?

It’s ajar, urging you to meditate on this wondrous possibility, to ask yourself…

What if we could live in a blissful state of awe, free from the pain of anxiety & depression that makes us miserable?

As MB’s drilled permanently into our heads by now, the SOLUTION — the way we can walk through the Door — to bask in the joy of a Creative, Purpose-Driven Life of our choosing is NOT found in the Roles Rulebook that Society’s indoctrinated us to follow.

And, no matter how hard Society tries to get us to apply its rules so rigidly, a deeper, wiser part inside of us whispers — and, if we’re lucky, eventually YELLS —

The TRUTH: Society’s Rulebook Doesn’t Have All the Answers — not always — and certainly not always when it applies to the special & unique YOU.

How can we BREAK FREE from the vice of Society’s grip on us?

It starts in our mind. Our thoughts. And our ever-present ability to think critically.

When we do, we can realize…

The REALITY: No one can claim absolute certainty.

Even among scientists, the debate between Materialism and Quantum Physics rages on:

Does consciousness stem from matter? Or, is consciousness foundational, and we merely tune into it, like a radio dialing into different frequencies?

Does Creativity arise from us, and us alone? Or, can we partner with the Universe in a dance of Co-Creation, as many successful writers & artists say they believe?

No one knows the definitive answer. And that’s ok.

It’s hopeful, even.

Because we can be Creative Cosmonauts.

We can be Creative Cosmonauts when we’re brave enough to open to the brilliance of our always-evolving, infinitely-creative neuroplasticity.

We can break free of the societal ties that bind us.

Who knows where we can go when we count down & blast off!

Let’s explore the Freedom that can be found when our tank’s fueled by an Open & Creative “Don’t Know Mind”:

Take a Mindful Minute to Meditate on the following ways in which MB invites us to expand our understanding of ourselves, based on how we think the Universe works.

But first, a NOTE:

There are MANY examples that MB provides in this Chapter. The ones I’ve included below are just a few.

If you’ve been following along every week, but you have not gotten the book, I highly recommend that you buy it for the examples she describes in Chapter 11.

Why? Well, whenever I read & take the extra time to do a deep-dive to study any book, there’s always a point where I get super excited reading it, like, “YES! THIS part made buying the book 💯% worth it!”

Because it’s blown my mind. It’s broadened my perspective to the point that I’m thankful. I literally thank the Universe for bringing the book to me at this precise time.

I felt this ecstatic thankfulness many times as I read this BEYOND ANXIETY book — and I’ve read all but 1 of MB’s books!

And, I have to say, Chapter 11 really helped me to not only see, but FEEL, my mind opening to a newfound sense of awe, possibility, and wonder.

So, if you’re on the fence about actually buying the book, don’t be! There are so many examples in this Chapter that will broaden your mind, and allow you to experience the FEELING of Freedom — not because YOU KNOW, but precisely because YOU DO NOT KNOW.

I think that’s so rare these days. Usually, we’re rewarded when we have all the answers. When we follow Society’s Rulebook. When we meet external metrics that Society — and, let’s face it, our peers, colleagues, friends, and families — use to measure our “success.”

This is different.

It’s allowing yourself to NOT-Know, on purpose.

And feeling a strange giddiness because you DON’T know.

At least it did for me.

⭐️ I’d love to hear if it did for you, too.

⭐️ Did you feel a growing sense of wonder & awe? Like a child, learning something new, opening to the beauty of limitless possibility?

On to the few examples I’m sampling:

⭐️ As you meditate on each, close your eyes, witness your reaction, and describe the following, in your journaling:

• Do you feel the urge to reject the statement?
• What happens if you open to the possibility that it’s true?
• Which feels better in your body: the urge to reject? Or, the willingness to soften to the possibilities inherent in a more Open Mindset?

SAMPLE #1 to Embrace NOT-Knowing:

When Harvard’s Daniel Goldman and Richard Davidson used MRI machines to peer into the heads of…Tibetan monks [who had spent thousands of hours meditating as part of their spiritual practice], they saw brains that looked much younger, and much more wired for happiness, than the brains of most other people. The effect was strong in monks who’d spent more time meditating, which means the men weren’t just born with happy brains; they had transformed their own neurology through spiritual practice. These practices were not about learning dogmatic beliefs but about letting go of the dogmatic need for certainty.

⭐️ This #1 may not shock your modern day sensibilities. But what about these awesome truths that are the exact definition of “awesome” because they’re truly awe-inspiring:

SAMPLE #2 to Embrace NOT-Knowing:

Esref Armagan is a Turkish artist. He was born with one eye, which is the size of a lentil and totally nonfunctional. His other eye is completely absent. Armagan has literally never seen anything. Yet he paints recognizable portraits and realistic landscapes that feature birds in the air and linear perspective. Armagan has been studied by researchers from multiple universities, including Harvard. They verified that no one is assisting him in any way as he paints these realistic images.

🫢😍🥳This one blows my mind. I had never heard it, anywhere.

Combined with another example she gives about twins whose lives were insanely identical — despite their living apart for 39 years — are the mind-bending, eye-opening examples that are so astonishing and evoke such a sense of mystery in me…

I’ve never been so happy to not-know. 🤣

I’m inspired to be a Creative Cosmonaut,

aren’t you?

Are YOU as ready as I am, to BREAK FREE &

• Adopt an Open Mind?

• Allow your thoughts to drift away from Certainty & Control, so you can…

• Feel a sense of awe, inspiration, & wonder?

• Welcome opportunities to be surprised?

• Explore the Path NOT Taken, no matter how winding your journey might be, only to discover it leads to a Creative, Purpose-Driven Life beyond what you might expect?

• Where you’re astronomically successful — not only wealthy in money, but more importantly, wealthy in creative practice & spirit?

• And you’re FREE to be the boss of your own destiny?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you BREAK FREE?

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to feel wonder, joy, and hope when we do NOT know and go exploring instead.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys, to be the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

The Creative Cosmonaut in me honors & respects the Creative Cosmonaut in each of you.

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together! Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) You’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️ If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.

🙌 Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

What if life didn’t have to be so hard?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 9 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 9: Breaking Your Role Rules, Minding Your Mission, MB invites us to imagine who you might be if you “abandon anxiety as your basic role motivation and imagine who you might be if you follow your sense of curiosity, creativity, and connection.”

She gives many examples of people who’ve dared to break the mold that society’s tried to force them into, and paints a beautiful picture of the creative & professional freedom that they found on the other side.

It’s so inspiring, because even she had to go through it.

Despite becoming a Professor.

Despite her Harvard pedigree.

Despite all of her impressive accomplishments.

Was it enough — to meet society’s expectations? No!

She was miserable. Trapped in Anxiety Spirals so severe that her body forced her to stop. She became bedridden with fibromyalgia. Her days were filled with non-stop fatigue and pain.

But, as she put it:

[T]he “Harvard academic” role made me an anxious mess. When I decided to leave it and follow my curiosity into joy, I finally felt “on purpose.”

It wasn’t easy, though. She says,

I still cringe at the label “life coach,” which didn’t exist when I was growing up, or even when I was getting my doctorate. “Life coaching” is way outside the role rules of academia; it’s the kind of title that makes traditional scholars want to take you out back and shoot you in the leg.

Ouch.

But, she became a life coach ANYWAY. Because it was RIGHT for her.

And it’s led her down an enviable path, where she works with Creative friends, coaches Creatives like us, and actually enjoys her work, full of writing, artwork, and in-person safari adventures surrounded by the nature and wildlife that she’s loved since she was a child, on a regular basis, at the Londolozi Nature Reserve in South Africa.

Talk about assembling your very own, highly personalized Sanity Quilt Life!

It’s PROOF!

We, too, can live life in rhythm with who we are & who we’re MEANT to become.

We can live in a state of JOY & FLOW if we follow Our “Innate Creative Genius.”

When you follow your “Innate Creative Genius,” you stop dreading the passage of time like you’re watching paint dry, and start pining for more time to enjoy your passions.

A creative life isn’t easy. It’ll take plenty of hard work.

But, it will feel like FUN.

Just Imagine:

What might happen if you reconnect with your passions and indulge in your curiosity?

You, too, could step into the mysterious flow of Creativity and find you’re on the path to finding your life’s Purpose.

But, how?

(1) Beware the Detours

Hidden in the brush, danger lurks.

Beware the times you back away.

Beware the limits you randomly put on yourself.

Notice when anxiety’s pushing your Left Hemisphere into overdrive.

Soothe your Inner Creature.

Not to accomplish some miraculous feat of inestimable Creative Nirvana, but…

(2) Take One TEENY, TINY Step

Sometimes it’s not the grand resolution that works.

Many times, all it takes is the teeny, tiniest step to calm your nerves.

To gain some movement.

Then momentum.

And, when anxiety stops pushing your Left Hemisphere to strive and grind, you can finally…

(3) Allow your CURIOSITY to PULL, rather than push, you into a Creativity Spiral that naturally carries you toward your life’s Purpose.

“Hallelujah!” you’ll get to yell from the rooftops, head up, chest out, and full of pride.

When you enjoy your very own Eureka Moment!

When you’ve found what your Creative Genius would LOVE for you to do with your life!

Then what? Do you just keep walking?

Of course, you’ll want to. You may even run.

But, like all great Quests, obstacles will impede your path.

As you continue on your Creative Journey, just remember:

(4) You have to stay “On Mission.”

Beware the “No,” when our Left-Hemisphere Dominated Society tries to drag you down, screaming lies like, “It can’t be done!”

Take, for example, the biggest of all lies: “You need more money.”

Ask yourself, “Is that ABSOLUTELY True — in all cases, each and every time?”

Sure, we all have to make a living to survive, but therein lies the trap.

When we’re too focused on making money, we shut the door to possibility.

If we wait for more money before we’re willing to leap, we never will. Instead…

(5) We have to give our Right-Hemisphere enough space & freedom to rally our Creative Genius, to come up with creative alternatives to solve our predicament.

We can start simply.

We can develop our interests — without the unnecessary pressure of making money at it.

We can use our CURIOSITY to our advantage, to regulate our emotions and ease our Nervous System out of panic mode. Just…

(6) Be willing to SIMPLY SEE what develops & ENJOY the process.

And remember, when Passion Hits, Magic Happens!

Our typical hum-drum social roles can shatter.

Our identities can be transformed.

Deep Play can become Our Purpose!

I can fully attest to that.

Because I found my way there.

But, my journey was rough. Like MB’s.

Mine was a saga of depression, anxiety, and self-doubt.

My Inner Critics — the wraiths of my discontent — made my mind & body succumb to so much dis-ease that I suffered from relentless rumination & unending migraines.

I reached an impasse, too.

At the time, I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to me.

Because it went straight to my Identity. It threatened how I saw myself. The role I thought I was supposed to play. It was what I still consider to be…

My Own Existential Crisis

Read about it here👇

Break Free: How You Spen Your Time Dictates Who You Are

Read full story

Or watch my Storytime Video here👇

It hurt. But now, I’m GRATEFUL for it!

It was the only way I could learn: my PAIN could be my Purpose.

And it serves a purpose still, because it’s now MY MISSION to encourage others to do the Creative Work we dream of doing, no matter how much time has passed. No matter what anyone else says.

Like me…

YOUR PAIN Can Be the Fuel that Helps You to BREAK FREE, to Break The Mold Society Assigns to You.

When you hit your lowest point, it can be a forcing function that makes you find a way out.

The pain pressures you to discover what’s really true for YOU.

Not because of some role you’re forced to adhere to.

But how you respond to it.

How you come to question it.

How you begin to rail against it.

In this way, you redefine the role you believe you are MEANT to embody.

You finally see you’re not meant to be caged in the limited role that society dictates.

Are YOU Ready to BREAK FREE, too?

Or, are you too afraid to stop caring about what other people think?

BEWARE: Your Approval-Seeking Behavior is a Red Flag

As MB says, “Approval seeking is an anxiety based behavior favored by a left-hemisphere belief that there is only one way to live.”

So pay particular attention anytime you find yourself afraid to color outside the lines.

Notice when your creative inclinations are rebuffed or ridiculed.

That’s how you know you’ve found the edge of what society deems “right.”

DARE to question it.

On the other side may just be your freedom.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our journaling this week, let’s do the exercise MB provides at the end of the Chapter, to imagine what it would feel like to go slightly outside of our current role by completing this sentence:

“Today, I could break my role rules by _____.”

⭐️ How do you feel about the prospect of actually doing it? What if you broke the rules, just a little?

⭐️ Experiment. As MB says, try it:

“Do what you want. Break the rules. You will probably feel very anxious about this. Just breathe, calm your creature, and stay the course.”

⭐️ Journal to reflect on what happens. How do you feel, now that you’ve had this taste of freedom?

Are YOU as ready as I am to

let your Creative Genius BREAK FREE?

To embrace your Curiosity & Intuition,

and let go of society’s oppressive role rules?

We just have to remember:

Freedom’s found when we choose to define our own Identity & create our own Sanity-Quilt Life.

Joy can steer you. Drawing you closer to who you are meant to be,

pulling you like a magnet, from your past ho-hum Role

to a much brighter, happier, saner, & more peaceful existence!

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you BREAK FREE?

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can BREAK FREE.

The FREE Creative in me honors & respects the FREE Creative in each of you.

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together! Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Rally your Creative Genius. Only s/he can rescue you from the flames!

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 8 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 8 — Mastery: Freeing the Magician — MB tells us one of the greatest truths that society indoctrinates us to forget:

We ALL have a Creative Genius Inside of Us!

Even if we tell ourselves lies like, “I’m not creative at all,” like one of my friends told me about herself, it’s NOT too late for us to wave our magic wands and be the Creative Geniuses we are still meant to be.

Even if we’ve abandoned all hope in the past.

Even if we feel we’ve given up on ourselves too many times.

That bright spark of creativity still exists inside each and every one of us.

We just have to be willing to go in search of it.

It may very well reveal itself in the most unlikeliest of places.

Take, for instance, the story MB tells, about the literal Firefighter (not the IFS-kind) who was the sole survivor among 14 smoke jumpers who were engulfed in one of the worst wildfires in Montana history:

Robert “Wag” Dodge survived purely because of his creativity. When he “realized that no one could outpace the fire…Dodge stopped running, lit a match, and set fire to the grass in a circle around him. He shouted to his men, telling them to gather around him, but in the confusion, they continued to run away. Dodge threw himself down in the smoldering circle of burnt grass, covered himself with a blanket, and waited for the fire to pass over him. The flames raged all around him, but the burnt circle gave them no fuel, acting as a firebreak around Dodge’s body. Thirteen other firefighters died. Dodge survived, basically unharmed.”

What makes this story so impressive is the fact that Dodge came up with this method on the spot.

Contrary to what firefighters are trained to do today, when this happened in Dodge’s time (1949), creating a firebreak for this purpose was something that he’d never been trained to do. In fact, it was something “no one had been trained to do.”

And yet he came up with this plan, this seemingly miraculous feat of ingenuity, in mere minutes, maybe even seconds.

The TRUTH: How Creative Inspiration Strikes

Society teaches us in overt & covert ways to trust in rules, methods, step-by-step instructions.

To color within the lines.

But, if Dodge had followed that logic, he would’ve perished like his comrades.

Instead, it’s the Creativity that resides in the right hemisphere that literally saved the skin on his back.

As MB explains, it’s “our creative thinking [that] marshals our right hemisphere’s ability to associate everything we’ve ever learned with whatever is happening to us in the present and come up with completely new ideas.”

Often, genius-level strikes of inspiration aren’t found inside our go-to (conscious thinking), but inside our subconscious, where our Creative Magician resides.

For Dodge, MB says he was “[w]orking outside his conscious thinking [when his] right hemisphere evaluated the situation, combined memories of many previous experiences, decided on a solution, and pitched it into Dodge’s awareness as a flash of inspiration.”

Like Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” when he stepped into a bathtub and noticed how the water was displaced when he slid into it. Without meaning to, he saw the water shift and his mind drew the creative connection that submerged objects will displace a volume of water equal to their own volume.

What an amazing feeling that must’ve been, to solve such a difficult problem plaguing Archimedes with such a life-changing, world-altering stroke of inspiration!

It certainly makes you think…

What Hope Do Us Mere Mortals Have, to Experience Our Own Creative Genius?!

Hope’s not lost.

Creativity is not reserved for only the few.

We just have to be willing to not only think outside the box, but to step outside of it.

We must take action.

To take our coloring outside the lines off the paper and into real-life.

MB says there’s no better way to do it than the real-life way that Dodge got it done, with these 4:

(1) Circumstances that require you to grapple with difficult problems;

(2) Interest-based curiosity (as covered in Ch. 6) that prompts you to gather knowledge and experience;

(3) A dollop of courage; and,

(4) An apparent impasse.

Real life is full of these. Lucky us!

Take it from Dodge, who’d garnered a plethora of firefighting expertise based on his lived experience on the job. After many hours of training and learning how to solve problems based on troubleshooting all types of circumstances, he had the knowledge and real-life know-how to tackle many scenarios with courage & aplomb.

But, interestingly, his Creative Genius didn’t bust out to save the day until he’d reached the impasse of all impasses: a conflagration so massive that there was no escape. With fire engulfing the forest everywhere, he was forced to come up with a solution to save himself or he’d die.

The 4 forced his Eureka to come.

Scream it with me, “EUREKA! There’s PURPOSE in Our Pain!”

As MB states so eloquently, “[O]nce I really understood that difficulties and impasses are necessary components our brains use to make creative leaps forward, I stopped feeling so anxious about all my problems. I even became less anxious about the problem of anxiety itself.”

Looking back, I see how true this has been for myself.

After years of being depressed and anxious grinding as an Attorney, with no creative outlet, I didn’t have my Eureka Moment until it dawned on me:

I had to STOP prioritizing a To Do List that leaves ME off of it!

I had to carve time out for me, to do all the creative writing I wanted to do!

I had to experience that impasse — one so full of pain and suffering that I was forced to get real with myself.

To stop waiting for someone to come save me.

To make myself wake up at 5am every day to give my creative mind time to write.

And, boy, it gave me more than the 3 books I’ve written for THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES, with the 1st published and the 2nd I’m about to release.

It gave me the confidence to see that I get to write my own story!

If I want to be more than an Attorney, I can. I just have to do it.

In that way, my pain did serve a purpose.

And it serves a purpose still, because it’s now MY MISSION to encourage others to do the Creative Work we dream of doing, no matter how much time has passed. No matter what anyone else says.

And when you do it to honor yourself, you’ll discover the truth:

Creative EUREKAS CAN CURE Your ANXIETY

How?

It transforms our relationship to life’s problems and the struggle to find solutions.

We needn’t fear our anxiety. Or our seemingly insurmountable problems.

To the contrary, we can WELCOME them as a sign that we’re about to achieve a Eureka Moment of our own!

Nothing compares to the way it feels when your entire body, soul, and spirit gets to shout, “Eureka!”

You get to FEEL the tremendously freeing state of FLOW that can only be found when we let our Creative Genius rescue us from the Fire of our Self-Doubt, Self-Denial, & Far-Too-Serious, Always “Professional” Self!

When we get into a state of Flow, when we stop locking our Creative Creature inside a cage, the real magic happens:

We become highly motivated to keep going.

To keep trying.

To keep learning.

To keep growing.

And we gain the best accelerant we could ever wish to add to our creative arsenal:

We’re finally pulled by our curiosity.

To new heights.

To the loftiest experiences only our Highest Self can take us to —

NOT out of anxiety or fear, but because we’re propelled by our own Highly-Motivated, Self-Honoring Creativity!

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️📝 For our Journaling this week:

⭐️ Ask yourself, “How can I free my own Creative Genius?”

⭐️ Notice how your limitations can be turned into strengths.

• Like how MB’s favorite art teacher expanded her creative capacity by forcing her to grow by restriction, namely, practicing how to draw a straight line or a perfect circle. Sounds boring. But it forced her to slow down and perfect the foundation of her artistic skills.
• And using a drafting pen forced her to learn how to shade in a new way, instead of blending with her preferred drawing tools.

I love how this mindset can help us to reframe the problems that we encounter in life. Many times, limitations are an impediment.

But they can also be forcing functions that become the precise reason why we grow.

⭐️ Can you see how a limit you’re facing could spark your own Creative Genius?

⭐️ How might you view it as an opportunity, a blessing in disguise?

Are YOU as ready as I am to let your Creative Genius guide you out of the woods?

To embrace your Curiosity & Intuition,

and let go of society’s oppressive seriousness?

To live a healthier & fun life,

wrapped in the warmth of

your own free-flowing joy & self-soothing sanity?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can be the Firefighting, Creative Selves we are meant to be.

The Firefighting, Creative Genius in me honors & respects the Firefighting, Creative Genius in each of you.

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

…and what’s Squirrels got to do with it?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 7 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

Got Squirrels?

In Chapter 7: Making Your Sanity Quilt, MB describes the boundless joy dogs experience when they chase the squirrels that they find endlessly fascinating, and she invites us to ask ourselves, “What’s YOUR squirrel?”

It might sound silly, but it matters. Because when we find squirrels for our curiosity to chase, our anxiety automatically tampers down.

Why?

Because we give our minds better, healthier options to occupy our attention, compared to the often unhealthy alternatives that our inner Firefighters like to use to help us feel safe in the moment, but hurt us in the long run.

Make Your Own Sanity Quilt

MB suggests that we do as the Amish community does when they finish making quilts comprised of highly precise geometric patterns: they collect the remaining scraps of beautiful cloth into a “ragbag of curiosities,” full of pretty patterns from which we can pick.

Not to make another precise, ornate blanket. But to make a free-flowing quilt that’s guided not by precision but by curiosity and intuition.

To allow the quilt’s design to unfold naturally, into a beautiful work of art — a “Sanity Quilt” — that’s designed based our own creativity, not a pattern we are forced to follow.

This is how we can allow our imaginations to flow effortlessly into a Creativity Spiral, guided by the same childlike wonder she experienced when she was a child, exploring the scraps in her mother’s ragbag.

Are You Open to Soothing & Comforting Yourself?

Personally, I’m excited to envision the creative scraps that I’d sew into my own Sanity Quilt.

I find the idea of a Sanity Quilt so comforting. I imagine wrapping myself in the comfort of all my creative interests (writing, making art & music, and dancing up a storm). Just the thought of it brings me immense joy & peace. Like hygge for my soul.

And I’ll always remember to keep the process light. How could I not? I can’t help but laugh when I picture MB’s description of…

A Sanity Quilt…made of Fuzzy Squirrels?!

What a fun & funny reminder that sometimes it’s healthier for us to put aside the “serious” geometric pattern that society usually demands from us.

Instead, we can follow what actually interests and excites our Creativity.

We can have fun & experience freedom quilting what our imaginations inspire us to design.

To go on a creative journey — one that need never end, no matter how old we get.

To honor the creative child that yearns to be listened to, inside all of us.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️📝 For our Journaling this week:

• ⭐️ 🐿️ What are your Squirrels?
• ⭐️ 🪢 What can you add to your own Ragbag of curiosities?
• ⭐️ 🧵🪡 What would you sew into your Sanity Quilt?

Are you as ready as I am,

to find the Squirrels hiding in your own backyard?

To embrace your Curiosity & Intuition,

and let go of society’s oppressive seriousness?

To live a healthier & fun life,

wrapped in the warmth of

your own free-flowing joy & self-soothing sanity?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can wrap our Creative Selves in the Sanity Quilts we all deserve.

The Sanity Quilter in me honors & respects the Sanity Quilter in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Who’s the real victim, when your Deprivation Curiosity kills your Interest Curiosity?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 6 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

You’ve probably heard the saying “There’s a thin line between love and hate.”

But…

Did you know there’s a thin line between curiosity and fear?

In Chapter 6: Curiosity: The Secret Doorway, MB describes how we are born as inquisitive, creative babes. When we’re kids, we explore the world and ask questions like mini scientists.

But then we get used to coloring inside the lines.

The structure and culture of our society indoctrinates us to abandon our free-flowing creative impulses.

It’s in the way we are taught to follow the rules; the left-hemisphere-dominant ways in which we are educated; and the way our institutions favor hierarchies and reward competition.

Sadly, for most people, our anxiety ramps up the older (and more socially indoctrinated) we get. Anxiety hampers our sense of safety and dampers or prevents our curiosity. And our interests are relegated to the back-burner or abandoned entirely so we can focus on winning socially, gaining approval, following rules, and getting promotions. Climbing up that ladder until we retire, and we suddenly realize our lives have passed us by.

In other words…

We’re indoctrinated to listen to and address our fears, more than follow our curiosity or creativity.

We think this guarantees we will be “successful,” but as MB hilariously illustrates, coloring inside the lines and doing what’s “expected of us” can fail — miserably:

In the early 2000s, Peter Skillman tested how well different teams would perform as a group on a creative task: to “build a freestanding tower using several sticks of dry spaghetti, one meter of string, one meter of masking tape, and a marshmallow.”

Kindergarteners out-performed adults by a mile. Especially when compared to business school students, who were far “more focused on social anxiety,” like speaking up in the “right” way, to not offend their peers. Following social norms and taking an overly rational approach is what ultimately caused them to fail. Meanwhile, the kindergartners launched themselves into the task, full steam ahead, without worrying about what their peers might think. They allowed their creativity to flow in all its messy glory, all the way to the finish line.

Why the difference? Turns out…

There are two types of curiosity:

• “Interest curiosity comes from a sense of wanting to know, the way children want to know what will happen if they put crayons in the toaster.”
• “Deprivation curiosity is a worried need to know that stems from lacking enough information to feel safe.”

We’re all born with a high level of Interest Curiosity, but our society conditions us to exhibit less and less Interest Curiosity until Deprivation Curiosity becomes the norm or even the default for us.

⭐️ Has that been your experience, growing up?

It certainly has for me. My childhood was filled with ample Interest Curiosity. But the older I got, the more pressure there was to perform academically, the more Deprivation Curiosity began to take hold.

Based on the way our society’s structured, that transition feels inevitable. When there’s pressure to perform and get a good score on anything, our education system focuses our attention on meeting set criteria to be competitive and get the A.

But, it also becomes easier to lose that sense of excitement, creativity, and flow that comes from pure unbridled Interest Curiosity.

Deprivation Curiosity vs. Interest Curiosity

Viewed from this lens, one can clearly see that the adults in the experiment suffered stagnation because of the former, while the kiddos were propelled to success by the latter.

Lesson Learned!

Understanding the difference between the two invites us to be deliberate about the type of curiosity we can choose from moment to moment.

But, BEWARE!

MB points out how insidiously society can dissuade us from our natural inclination to be curious and be deliberate about devoting time to pursuing our creative interests.

To illustrate her point, she tells a wonderful story about how she had her own “Interest Curiosity” maligned in a not-so-subtle way, when she was diagnosed with ADHD and the practitioner said, “It means you have an abnormally interest-based nervous system…. It means you pay more attention to things that interest you than things that don’t.”

Of course, the practitioner offered to help her “overcome [her] learning disability,” for “several thousand dollars.”

It’s true, we do need to be able to focus on what we dislike — pretty much every day — to take out the trash, weed the garden, pay the bills, and function in our society.

But, I agree with MB that…

At a fundamental level, having an “interest-based nervous system” is not problematic. It can be our North Star.

We can work with our minds, bodies, and emotions — instead of struggling against them.

We can choose to use our interest-based nervous system to navigate closer to who we truly are, encourage us to build upon our strengths, and pursue our dreams.

Our interest-based nervous system can show us how to live fulfilling lives.

Indeed, as MB states, her interest-based nervous system “feels like a navigation tool, one that’s always guided me into life situations that feel meaningful….”

I wholeheartedly agree, because it’s the specific interests that we have that makes us special, unique individuals.

What’s more, MB says…

Our interest-based nervous system can be a cure for anxiety.

As she puts it, her “interest-based curiosity is the doorway leading me out of anxiety and into creativity. It has helped me solve countless real problems in practical ways.”

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our private Journaling, when you reflect on your life, do you experience a good amount of Interest Curiosity? Where? At work or outside of work?

⭐️ How do the two — Interest Curiosity & Deprivation Curiosity — feel different for you, in your emotions, in your physical body, in your ability to not only learn, but to experience enthusiasm, excitement, and joy?

⭐️ Do you want more Interest Curiosity in your life? Could you do it by exploring something creative?

Are you as ready as I am to leave your

Deprivation Curiosity in the dust?

To embrace your Interest Curiosity,

each and every day?

To live a much healthier & fun life,

full of unbridled joy & creative flow?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can soothe, nurture, & love the Creative Self inside all of us.

The Interest Curiosity in me honors & respects the Interest Curiosity in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Who wins, when the Left and Right Hemispheres of our brain duke it out?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 5 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 5: Activating Your Creative Side, MB takes us on her own Wild Toad Ride, filled to the brim with creativity. She decides to take an entire month to paint and ends up painting non-stop, to hilarious (and envy-inducing) effect.

⭐️ Wouldn’t you just love to take an entire month to focus on just your Creativity?

Sounds like luxury, right?

No wonder. We all know what it feels like to deny ourselves the time to be creative because we have “better” (often more left-brained) things to do, like MB did all those years focusing on her studies at school and work.

I saw myself in her.

In her years of suffering because she believed she had to do the sensible thing and meet expectations all of the time. I, too, have lived my life this way. And felt the immense joy when I finally carved time out of my schedule to dedicate myself to my Creativity, most of all when I started to write my creative writing series, THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES, and published Obsidian: Birth to Venus.

I’m finally going to publish the 2nd book soon. It’s taken me a while, so my inner Toad’s eager and excited to get it done!

💌 Send me a Direct Message if you want a FREE Advance Reader Copy of Book 2, ’cause I’m putting together a Launch Team now.

⭐️ What’s your Wild Toad’s Ride? Have you let yourself loose before?

⭐️ Or, are your days still dreary with endless, uncreative To Do’s?

What I love most about this Chapter is the realization that we are all “Creatively starved.”

It’s not something unique to me or to you. All of us are deprived — through our societal conditioning — of the ability to spend time creating, without feeling some level of guilt.

Like creativity is somehow less-than the “real work” we do to pay the bills.

As if spending time honoring our creativity is a “waste of time.”

When, in reality, creativity can be our Saving Grace.

In a world full of stress and strain and struggle, our creativity can activate the Right hemispheres of our brain, switching our Anxiety off.

As MB states, “Creativity is the opposite of anxiety.”

Literally. At the physiological level of the brain.

Like the Left hemisphere of our brain that tends to enter Anxiety Spirals when the left amygdala’s triggered, the Right hemisphere of our brain has the capacity to enter Creativity Spirals when the right amygdala’s triggered, too.

The best part?

It doesn’t need much to turn our Creativity Spiral on.

We don’t have to experience some magic strike of Creative Gold.

We needn’t write some magnum opus, compose a symphony, or craft a masterpiece in our minds to get the Creativity Spiral going.

Nope.

All we need is a small amount of curiosity to get our Creative juices flowing.

The ball’s not that hard to roll.

But the conditions do have to be right, for us to go on a Creative Journey or to learn anything.

As MB states, according to one view of the brain developed by education, our nervous systems are always asking three questions, in this order:

1) Am I safe?

2) Am I loved?

3) What can I learn?

Learning happens only when we can answer the first two questions with a “yes.”

No wonder she preceded this Chapter 5 with Chapter 4’s invitation for us to try Dr. Richard Schwartz’s IFS therapy.

If our Managers and Firefighters have run amok, 1 and 2 are likely a “no.”

Our Managers often scare our frightened Anxiety Creatures even more, or make us too disciplined and too rigid to create.

Likewise, our Firefighters’ usually maladaptive efforts to keep us safe don’t work. At least not in the long run. On some level, we know — deep down — that we aren’t at ease so, of course, we don’t feel safe.

And, it goes without saying, when you have Exiles, you don’t feel loved. You feel so unloved that you literally ostracize parts of who you are. You keep Exiles separate from the rest of yourself.

We can gain a greater sense of wholeness if we work to unify our separate IFS parts.

But, that isn’t the only way…

Diving Straight into Our Creativity Works & Has Extra Benefits.

Thinking has its place. But words have a downside too:

As we learned in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, the Left hemisphere can “show us only half the world [because it is] unable to see or acknowledge anything but its own perceptions….”

In contrast, MB says, the Right hemisphere sees everything: “It’s aware of all our perceptions, not only creative ideas but also the logical, analytical thinking that happens mainly in the left side of the brain.”

Let’s Put It to the Creative Test

MB invites us to think of an issue we’re facing, something that would normally cause us anxiety.

Then take out a piece of paper. Write our name, as we usually do, from left to right.

But instead of using our words to journal all the pros and cons using our Left hemisphere, we can activate the Right hemisphere of our brain by writing our name again — but, this time, write its mirror image horizontally.

And, if we really want to get fancy, we can write the entirety of that upside down, as if the whole thing’s being reflected vertically, in a mirror.

I tried it.

My Conclusion? The Creativity Spiral’s better.

When stressful thoughts entice me to engage in rumination or an hour-long CBT session, I can save myself the mental and emotional bandwidth, by just writing my name, a word, a picture. Even a scribble or doodle works.

It creates that space — however brief — between the anxiety-inducing stimulus (whatever F.E.A.R. that’s facing me) and my response.

After doing this a few times throughout the week, I notice my first response isn’t my go-to, knee-jerk, reaction to launch into my standard left-brained, wordy analysis anymore.

The Creative act gives me a momentary respite from my tendency to analyze, argue, solve, and make sense of absolutely any thought that passes through my mental landscape.

Instead, I can simply take a few moments to be. To create. To exist in the here and now — without the story.

The way I used to when I was a carefree kid.

It doesn’t last forever. But, could it?

MB goes so far as to say…

“Your whole life can be a happy childhood.”

Sounds hard to believe, but I know I’d love to live like that.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our private Journaling, give the Creative Test above a try.

⭐️ Did it work like magic for you, too?

Are you as ready as I am to leave the F.E.A.R. Zone, and let our Creativity Spiral spin us free,

to live a much healthier & fun life,

full of childlike joy & creative flow?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free of anxiety by entering your own Creative Flow…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can soothe, nurture, & love the Creative Self inside all of us.

The Happy, Creative Child in me honors & respects the Happy, Creative Child in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

We are not 1 Self, but many. Are you ready to feel peace, to experience life as a Unified Whole?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 4 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 4: The Creature, United, I loved learning about the multitude of “Yous” inside of us.

And, thankfully, how normal it is for the different parts of us to be at odds with each other most, if not all, of the time.

As usual, MB made me laugh at her anxious “if I do,” anxious “if I don’t” self. I’m all too familiar with that whiplash.

Lucky for us, there is a pathway to freedom:

MB invites us to integrate all the various parts of ourselves using parts psychology — specifically the “Internal Family Systems” model of therapy created by Dr. Richard Schwartz in the 1980s.

In IFS, we can understand our psyche as a resourceful conglomeration of distinct identities inside of us that can be divided into 3 categories:

• Exiles,
• Managers, and
• Firefighters.

Exiles are the “pain containers” that our psyche’s banished, to protect us from being overwhelmed by our psychological pain. Often, Exiles resemble our younger self, or selves, that are frozen in time, stuck at the ages when we experienced pronounced emotional pain or trauma in our lives.

Managers keep us on track by being virtuous, telling us to be good boys and girls, to obey cultural rules. To work hard, be kind, and do what society expects of us.

Firefighters care most about stopping our Exiles from experiencing pain, even if it’s accomplished with maladaptive means, like avoidance, distraction, addiction, and tantrums. Firefighters do whatever they can to give our Exiles a momentary semblance of peace. No matter how temporary that band-aid might be. No matter how much it might derail our lives in the long run.

Ultimately, our Managers and Firefighters are stuck in Anxiety Spirals that keep our Exiles in hiding. Which prevents us from being able to give our Exiles the comfort they need, so we can reintegrate them and experience peace as a unified whole.

What’s so great about IFS Therapy?

I see IFS as a promising methodology for understanding ourselves because it does not pathologize our often competing internal interests.

The solution isn’t to malign our Managers or Firefighters that only want to keep us safe.

Instead, we can get curious. We can ask our Managers and Firefighters to step aside, so we can get to know our Exiles, and find ways to show all our parts the compassion, understanding, and empathy they need to feel safe, freeing us to live a happy, healthy, and successful life.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ What are your thoughts about the IFS approach?

• I’d heard of IFS in the past, but I’d never tried it before.

⭐️ For our Journaling this week, do you want to give IFS a try?

• I tried it. Journaling IFS is eye opening and also kinda funny to put words to paper in different voices. Thankfully, no one gets to read our private Journaling (unless we want them to)!

⭐️ Can you use one of the Amygdala-Whispering Methods (see the list of AWMs from Ch. 2) to help you feel calmer?

• To regulate my nervous system, and bring me back to a state of calm, I used:
• MB’s AWM (the “Sigh”): my go-to method (meditation)
• MB’s AWM (“Move”) specifically, I chose: Yoga with pranayama breathing.
• Plus, my faves: Dancing & Singing.

Overall, the combination worked wonders and showed me —

Yes, IFS works well, to heal the most anxious, fearful, and protective parts of me.

Are YOU ready to listen to the many Selves inside of you,

to experience peace, as a Unified Whole?

Do you have a “safe place” and/or a “safe person”

who can help you to realize that every part of us

— all of our Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles —

want & need to be soothed, nurtured, & loved?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to be a safe person to help you…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell us what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what surfaces, what worked, what didn’t, what you’d recommend and, maybe, what you don’t want to try again.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safe places & be safe people.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can sooth, nurture, & love every Self inside of us.

The Whole Self in me honors & respects the Whole Self in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

The 5 F’s are NOT our BFFs. They’re our Frenemies. But, how can we break up with them?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 3 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 3: When Anxiety Creatures Get Stuck, we learn about the Defense Cascade:

The 5 Fs

1. Fight
2. Flight
3. Freeze
4. Fawn
5. Flop

These 5 often knee-jerk responses might’ve served our survival in our evolutionary history, but they now fail to serve our best interests.

How Familiar Are the 5 Fs to YOU?

I’d heard of the first 4 before, but “Flop” was new to me. The idea of just doing nothing. Laying on the couch. Avoiding tasks altogether. Giving up early or before you even start. Not trying as an (ineffective) safety mechanism. I considered them all different forms of avoidance, but I love knowing that they’re good examples of “flop.” The term’s a quick mental reminder that inaction can be a stress response, too.

Meanwhile, “Fawn” reminds me of the common scenario when we suddenly morph into a proverbial “doormat,” saying yes when we really want to say no, and doing whatever people ask of us when, really, we’d rather impale our eyes with a hot poker. Just so we don’t “hurt anyone’s feelings.”

Some people spend their entire life learning how to get rid of unhelpful patterns of behavior like that.

Seeing MB describe many different examples creates some distance, helping us to see how Defense Cascades don’t serve us — despite the false stories our Anxiety Spirals might be telling us.

The 5 F’s Are NOT our BFFs. Most of the time, they’re our Frenemies.

Defense Cascades can take over in unhelpful situations — situations where we need to show up for ourselves and others — when we’re on the job, dating, and/or navigating relationships with our friends and family.

But, when the Defense Cascades take over, it prevents us from handling life’s challenges.

Worse, our Defense Cascades can turn into full-blown Anxiety Spirals, where the left hemisphere of our brain tells us a story to justify our unhelpful behavior (the Defense Cascade itself).

As we learned in Ch. 2, the Anxiety Spiral tells us a false story that frightens our amygdala even more, and the left hemisphere of our brain not only weaves this story with “logic” that sounds true, but also fails to acknowledge facts that can disprove the false story.

As MB puts it, our left-hemisphere loves to “fight” both real and imagined threats in these two ways: “(1) [coming] up with explanations that justify our feeling of fear, and (2) [figuring] out ways we might take control of the situation.”

Overall, the Anxiety Spiral makes it more likely that we’ll fall into the same unhelpful pattern (the same Defense Cascade) in the future.

How can we break up & back away from our Frenemies?

We can “decode” our false stories in a “safe place” with “safe people,” whether that’s with a therapist or with our own introspective practice, like Journaling with our Highest Self.

Take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our private Journaling, let’s describe a Defense Cascade of our own. Describe one scenario that’s been troubling you.

⭐️ What’s your typical response: fight-flight-freeze-fawn-or-flop?

⭐️ What’s the story that your Anxiety Spiral tells you, to “make sense” of your Defense Cascade?

⭐️ Is that story accurate? Is it true? Or could it be false?

⭐️ If you continue to believe in that story, are you more or less likely to exhibit the same Anxiety Spiral in the future?

Do you want to abandon your Defense Cascade?

Do you have a “safe place” and/or a “safe person” who can help you to decode your triggers, and /or to release your unconscious dependence on a Defense Cascade?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to be a safe person to help you…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell us what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safe places & be safe people.

Together, we can support each other in our healing journeys.

Together, we can abandon our unhelpful Defense Cascades & avoid Anxiety Spirals.

The Safety in me honors & respects the Safety in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

I drew our inner Creature & made a Coloring Page, just for YOU!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Let’s go, 2026!

On Monday, we’ll be in our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT ☕️🍵 , so we can jump back into the deep dive of our Book Club selection — BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

⭐️ In the meantime, let’s share our New Year’s Resolutions for 2026!

⭐️ What are you looking forward to?

🥳 For 2026, I’ll be…

Leaning into my VICTUS Method to THINK-DO-&-BE my way to becoming the Creative I choose to be on this amazing Attorney-to-Creative Journey I’m on.

That means I’ll be dedicating more of my time and attention to creating everything I LOVE:

♥️ creative writing,

♥️ books,

♥️ art,

♥️ music, &

♥️ singing!

For a long time, I’ve wanted to QUIT what no longer serves me. It’s why I wrote this poem, urging us to QUIT what’s wrong for us, to reclaim our POWER and be AUTHENTICALLY YOU!

It’s important for me to do this in a way that’s healthy & balanced.

That’s why my goal for 2026 is to focus more on my intuition.

To slow down enough to go inward.

To make choices that are in alignment with who I am & who I aspire to become as a Creative.

⭐️ Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

Are you headed in the same or different direction?

What do you hope to accomplish? Personally? Professionally? Creatively?

How can you accomplish your goals in a healthy & balanced way?

🥳 No matter what we choose, let’s remember we don’t have to do it alone.

We’re all on the same journey: Life.

And life needn’t be full of non-stop struggle, stress, or anxiety.

Instead, I’m looking forward to applying the lessons we’re learning in Martha Beck’s book to…

Calm our frightened inner Creatures, using our magical Creative abilities.

Most importantly, our ability to

🔮 Love, 🔮 Soothe, & 🔮 Nurture

ourselves & each other.

🎨 In that spirit, I drew our inner Creature & made this Coloring Page, just for you! 🖌️

Please feel free to print it out & color it in, to ring in the New Year, and decorate it with any other words you wish to write in, to guide & empower you in 2026 & beyond!

I hope you enjoy this fun & artsy gift, and I wish you peace, comfort, & creativity, as we continue our Creative journey together.

Hope you all have a very Happy & Healthy 2026!

The Creative Creature in me honors & respects the Creative Creature in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

Right now, we’re doing a deep dive (one chapter per week) on BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

It’s really opened my eyes to how left-brained dominant I’ve been, and it’s motivated me to lessen my anxiety by activating the right hemisphere of my brain with my creativity. It’s only been a few weeks and I feel much calmer and more centered now.

Hope you’ll join us in the CHAT. It’s a warm and welcoming group!

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!