“I began to see it wasn’t my external circumstances that created my reality; it was the way I viewed and thought about my situation that formed my experience.” -Elsie Spittle
I was bitten, but by what? It happened at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in majestic Taos, New Mexico in the early 2000’s. This is where I met Michele Cassou and directly experienced her Point Zero Painting Process.
I had put my name on the waiting list for my very first workshop, feeling confident that it wasn’t going to happen. Two weeks before the workshop was to begin, I got the call that I’m in. Yikes! What have I done!! Since I had dropped out of every formal art class I had ever enrolled in, I had great doubts about what I could possibly do for 9 days in front of a piece of paper! It’s no joke when I say I didn’t have a clue what I would do. I meant it. I was afraid AND had no art experience. But something propelled me to show up anyway. The first few days were filled with doubt and skepticism. I really couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of “no right way “ to do this process — there was “no wrong way” to do this process; everybody in the studio “got it” but me; and there was nothing to “figure out”! After the third full day of putting paint on paper, something inside me was deeply touched. Something that had longed to be present in my life. Something that I didn’t know I was missing. Michele’s process was an invitation to experience being me and to explore following my intuition with no consequences.
As I reflect back, I realize what I was bitten by — 100% permission, freedom, and natural creativity. And my life was transformed. That bite was the best bite ever!
This process continues to introduce me to the limitless nature of life and the benevolent spiritual intelligence that handles all of the details.
Cherie Ray, Point Zero Facilitator.Coach.Consultant
I’m committed to my clients in support of them following their internal spark while, seeing the simple in what looks complex, with a feeling of light-hearted learning. In my decades of exploring the spiritual nature of life while navigating life in real time, I see where real leverage comes from. I support Michele Cassou in her workshops and trainings. I offer painting workshops virtually and in Houston, Texas at True You Creativity Studio.
www.trueyoucreativity.com and www.cherieray.com
“Our thoughts are the camera, our eyes are the lens. Put them together and the picture we see is reality.”Sydney Banks
Hello Friends,
Today I’m writing you from Salt Spring Island, BC, where I’m attending a conference. Preparing for this conference is where this story begins. Getting
to Salt Spring requires taking a float plane. It all sounds fun until you get the news that you can only carry 25 pounds on the flight. That’s it, 25# for 6 days, including purse, mobile office, etc. I’m laughing because my clothing takes up the least amount of poundage in this equation and my incidentals the most!
What occurred to me, through this process, is how often seeking solutions can bring additional stress. In our innocence, we get to work on ‘figuring it out’. This is where we start to resemble a dog with a bone; we chew on it until we’re exhausted or stressed out. We just can’t let it go until we know the solution. There’s another way.
Here are 4 Tips for Stress-Free Solutions:
1. Know that you have a factory installed Creative Process built into your design as a human being. We all carry this feature. What’s cool about this 
feature is; the more you enlist it, the more it works on your behalf, the more you experience it, your confidence in its presence in your life soars.
2. Stop ruminating or trying to figure out a solution. This habit adds congestion to your head space and consumes your bandwidth for what’s requiring your immediate attention. Too many things living in your head space is where the feelings of overwhelm and burnout come from.
3. Relax; know that you have an inner resource that will lead you to your solution. Listen for fresh insights and ideas that show up on the scene about your topic.
4. Engage with these fresh ideas. Don’t poo-poo on them, follow the thread. When you poo-poo on these next steps, your creative process interprets it as you don’t want help and it retreats. Tip: these fresh ideas don’t always show up as logical. Keep following the crumbs and you will arrive at a solution that’s a perfect fit for you. This approach to arriving at solutions is like a mysterious treasure hunt. The discovery is fun and the bounty brings something brand new. In addition to a solution, you will also experience a new found hopefulness and resilience.
Right about now is when I usually hear someone say, “Yeah, but the solution I need is bigger than a weight issue!” No worries, the mechanics work 
the same regardless of the topic. Try it out for yourself. I’d love to hear from you.
My packing journey turned out to be a very fun ride. I woke up to new ways to travel with more efficiency, much less weight, and a whole lot more ease getting through my flight connections. The process also offered me the opportunity to hop on 2 earlier flights, arriving hours earlier to my destination. Following the ideas that occurred to me through this process brought me to the scales with a stress free 22.9 pounds and a big inner chuckle.
I encourage you to enlist this factory installed resource and let it work on your behalf. If you’d like to learn more and be supported in discovering a multitude of unrealized internal resources, I’d love to work with you. Let’s set up a time for a conversation.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sending smiles,
Cherie
Hello Friends-
In my work with coaching clients and facilitating workshops exploring innate creativity, my intention is to have you realize you are not broken or deficient of what’s needed to live authentically and to have a wonderful experience of life. Your True self consists of love, peace, joy, and harmony. This is what you are!
Too often your True self gets covered up by many layers of life-conditioning and experiences. As you move through life you interpret these experiences and conditioning to be the truth about you and the truth about life. If you want to live authentically, it’s helpful to be reminded that you don’t need to add anything. Typically, what’s most helpful for you, is to let lots of mental-things fall away. When that happens, your True self has the opportunity to be seen and experienced.
Below you will find an excerpt from a book that articulates exactly what I’m attempting to express.
Smiles,
Cherie
Excerpt from:
Seduced by Consciousness
by Jack Pransky
Essence and Oneness
What exists, what remains, once we see illusion for what it is?
The essence of who we are as Human beings, spiritual beings.
We are the essence of who we are. We are essence! Our true nature. We can only create the illusion that we are not.
Our essence contains pure peace, pure love and pure wisdom. How do we know? Because when our mind clears or shuts down or quiets from its personal thinking, this is what remains as our experience. We feel closer to it.
What is our essence connected to? The Oneness of All Things. We are one little teeny part of the Oneness. No real separation. A part, not apart. It only looks as if we’re separate.
Within the realm of essence and Oneness no problems that appear within the world of form even exist. Within this realm all our form-problems are a joke.
Recently I noticed that when I considered following a new idea or inspiration about my business, some very familiar thinking would show up almost instantly. I also began to notice the same dynamic kicked-in when considering the holidays or thinking about other things in my life. What I noticed was a flood of very real familiar thinking, very specific to the topic at hand, would show up in my mental conversation. This immediate-believable-absolute-feeling-seemingly-truthful flavored thinking showed up almost on que to tell me the truth about how life works.
As I noticed this dynamic happening more and more, these thought patterns occurred to me as my First Responders. Just like emergency first responders that show up on the scene to support us in times of need, these familiar thinking thought patterns show up on the scene to offer me a helpful dose of my reality. Something smelled fishy; my mental 1st Responders had a bias toward limitation. I found this interesting too!
In the game of life, if you look around, the nature of life is synonymous with potential and possibility. How could something live in my head, be so familiar, feel so definitive, and not be true about life? In understanding more about our human operating system, we live in a world of thought and then see it as real, so this is where my curiosity kicked in again. If my First Responders are not telling me the absolute truth about life, what else is there to see to around the topic I’m looking at? So, it occurred to me to consider there are holes in their stories and to keep my eyes and ears open to seeing something fresh. Guess what? New fresh possibilities are coming to me and it can work the same for you.
Here are some bullet points to raise your awareness to your First Responders:
This is all good news. Why? Because we all get a chance to see more of our humanity as just that, an aspect of being human. Not a problem that needs to be overcome, just something to be aware of. The more you see the role of thought in the moment, the more relaxed you effortlessly become. Get curious. There’s always more to be seen.
Even if you’ve been grappling for years with the persistent sense that you just don’t know how to get life right, you can discover in yourself a wise, creative, and compassionate guide.
You can wake up to your own creative process, a process that is both mysterious and utterly reliable. When understood, trusting the process is not even an issue.
Yup, it’s possible, even when you think you’re your biggest barrier to self-expression. Even when you have a history of getting in the way of what you want to create where you want to move in the world.
Reboot Your Life is a deep dive into the creative spirit that you know lives inside of you but that sometimes seems ridiculously elusive. It’s designed to show you how you are designed to reboot effortlessly.
Join us, and greet the New Year with fresh inspirations and ideas custom tailored to who you a really are, what you really care about, and how life 
really works.
Won’t you join us to make space for the full-bodied experience of a rich and fertile 2018?
Reboot Your Life is a virtual retreat. That means you can participate from your own home, office, or studio. The retreat runs from Thursday through Saturday, December 28, 29, and 30, 2017. Before we begin, you get an individual coaching session with Cherie or Molly to clarify your intentions.
During the retreat, we will begin each day with a virtual retreat community gathering at 8:00 AM Pacific Standard Time (10am Central Standard Time) using Zoom. Zoom is a free videoconferencing platform you can use on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. You can even join by phone, if you prefer.
By the way, this is strictly a come as you are happening. We plan to show up in pajamas, paint-stained coveralls, or whatever is easy, and we hope you will too.
We’ll meet for an hour to an hour and a half–long enough to connect, share insights into the innate creative process, and address whatever might seem to be in your way.
Then you play. Experiment. Create. Dream. Nap.
Reboot.
We come together again in the afternoon at 2:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (4pm Central Standard Time) for another community retreat gathering. You’ll have time to share your insights and breakthroughs and ask for what you need moving forward.
After the retreat is over you get two coaching sessions, one each with Cherie and Molly, to integrate your creative insights and vision into your life and work.
And throughout the retreat you can pop into the Reboot Your Life Facebook group to share insights, breakthroughs, and connect with the community.
Reboot Your Life is for folks who:
Believe it or not, you and every human being on the planet were designed to thrive. To create. To receive and follow custom-tailored guidance.
We’re betting that sometimes it looks that way to you, too. Even if it has been years since you last really trusted your creative self, something in you knows it’s there.
Knows that it is infinitely resourceful.
And longs to experience and express it more fully.
That’s what Reboot Your Life is all about.
Cherie Ray, MLA, Consultant & Coach
Cherie’s work supports individuals, teams, couples, families and business leaders in understanding how living creatively free impacts intimacy, collaboration, productivity, and profitability. She has shared her rich understanding of the creative process with others for 15 years. During this time she also completed the Pransky & Associates Mentorship program. Read more about her work at www.cherieray.com and www.trueyoucreativity.com
Molly Gordon, Master Certified Coach
A coach since 1996, Molly is known for her creativity, humor, and commitment to helping clients get off the merry-go-round of serial self-improvement and into the slipstream of infinite possibility. Her work is firmly grounded in the realization that every human being is inherently whole, creative, and resourceful, and she is thrilled to partner with her clients to create lives and work they love as the experience sand express their unique creative genius. Learn more about Molly’s work at www.shaboominc.com.
Sign up now and save $100
Your investment for Reboot Your Life is $700. There’s a $100 discount if you register before midnight Pacific time on Wednesday, December 13.
Contact us today and we’ll get back to you ASAP!
There is no cost to join a Zoom meeting from a computer, smartphone, or tablet. If you participate by phone, it is possible that you will incur long distance charges.
The Zoom videoconferencing platform works a lot like Skype, but seems to be more stable. The free Zoom software runs on Macs and PCs and on smartphones and tablets using Android or iOS (Apple) operating systems. You will receive instructions on setting up the software after you sign up.
That’s up to you. We find it enhances connection when we can see each other, but if you’d rather participate without video, that’s fine. Even if you participate from a computer or device with a camera, you can always turn the video off.
Yes, every meeting will be recorded, and you will be able to listen to or download the audio of the meeting by the following day. Recordings are strictly for the personal use of the participants.
It’s fall! It was very exciting to step outside this morning and feel a hint of fall. With the change of weather it occurred to me how that seems to stimulate an awakeness to life. All of a sudden any feeling of stuckness goes to the back and aliveness comes to the fore front. Aliveness is a topic that fascinates me and seems to show up in the majority of my coaching client’s desires for seeking support.
My curiosity about about aliveness brings me many insights. Why? Because I’m looking in the direction to see more. When we give our mind an assignment it seems to put in the coordinates, like GPS, and begins to serve up fresh information.
What has appeared true for me recently is that aliveness exists in engaging in life at the speed of life. Not living in my thinking about living, but about showing up in life and engaging with what’s next for me to do. It fascinates me on how our thinking can stall us from living. This may be common in most human beings but it’s not helpful.
My invitation to you is to engage, regardless of what seems to be stopping you. ENGAGE! Let it be simple. Let it be easy. The engaging will bring a new perspective, not what’s accomplished and acceptable to the mind. I promise. It’s in the engaging that aliveness and fresh perspective appears.
Where do you go when you’re not present in your life in real time? I don’t know about you but I find myself in Crazy Town. I named this place Crazy Town because I find myself there when I’m living from my thinking and not in the moment. Have you noticed how often you find your mind has taken you into another place or time? It’s like waking up from a dream! You were having the full experience of somewhere else, the past, the future, or an imaginary situation.
I find myself there much more than I would like. It appears to me to be universally natural for human beings to not be living in their life, at the speed of life, but in their perception of life as they’re seeing it through their mind’s eye. We seem to be more familiar with the limited nature of life as it appears to us personally rather than the true limitless nature of life’s potential and possibilities.
This is what looks true for me:
I noticed how frequently I over think the most benign actions in life. Recently, I saw the gap between responding in the moment and when I think I should respond. I noticed this on something as simple as returning a phone call. Instead of picking up the phone to return a call, I’d find myself considering the best time to call, etc., etc., etc.! It exhausted me upon reflection. How much energy was I wasting with my habit of hesitation? Too much! Now I’m practicing responding in the moment, with less considering, and my life feels lighter. One simple step created a big impact.
Living life in real time brings a natural sense of lightness, ease, and hopefulness. Fortunately, I’m laughing at my humanness more and more. I’m noticing how often I’m not in the moment and how consistently I’m buying a ticket on the train to Crazy Town. And that’s OK.
About Cherie Ray, MLA
Cherie Ray is a coach and consultant on human potential to individuals and businesses. She teaches a clear understanding that brings incredible impact with less effort. Her work enables her clients to experience greater satisfaction, resilience, and success in both their private lives and their work. www.cherieray.com www.trueyoucreativity.com 832.545.8488
Lately, in my coaching practice, I’ve heard many clients talk about feeling overwhelmed. They believe it’s from their current life circumstances, or from the amount of ideas that are coming into them. Oftentimes, when you open yourself to the truth that all things are possible, yes even for you, the flood gates seem to open. When this happens, it all appears chaotic or too much to deal with.
So, what can you do about it? First, recognize that overwhelm is a concept. Granted, a concept that people have bought into for a long time but one that often trips them up. For some people this concept doesn’t even exist in their lives. Secondly, that ‘too much’ feeling is not coming from the circumstances or ideas. It’s coming from the volume of mental chatter you have around what you’re seeing or the ideas you’re receiving. For instance, a new inspiration comes in, and it’s often followed, by the mind, offering a big laundry list of reality questions such as how, why, when, etc. Your head space starts filling up? This marathon of examination fills your head with a sense of it’s all too much. Hopefully, at this point, you’re seeing it’s not what’s happening in your life that’s too much. It’s what you’re making up about what’s happening in your life that’s creating this saturated feeling.
I feel very confident that the intelligence that brought you these situations or new ideas will bring you the how, why, when, and what to do about it. 
There’s no need to fill your head with logistical data that hasn’t arrived yet. What to do instead? In order for the saturated sponge to do what it does best, you have to lessen the amount of liquid in it. This allows space for the sponge to operate more effectively.
This is exactly what I invite you to do. I invite you to empty your mind of all that busyness. When more space is available inside you, you will operate more effectively. You will have space available to receive, hear, or notice the next piece this same intelligence is sending your way. Take a walk, tear paper, collage, watch a movie, listen to music, paint, or soak in the tub. You pick what does it for you. Then relax. You’re never given a situation without the information to execute your ideas. It’s that simple. It’s that easy.