art, artists, Awakening, Creativity, Growing, Photography, Spark Joy

Waking UP, UP, and UP to Our Creativity!

Lately I am SO SOOOOOO excited about awakening my own artist within but also in seeing so many people in the world awaken to their inner and outer creativity.

On Saturday I popped into my local Winners store and happened upon a book that has been truly life changing for me. I was  so inspired after starting to read it, that I nearly burst. 🙂

My creativity and feelings of passion were bubbling up inside of me as I read the book!

The book is  “Styling For Instagram” by Leela Cyd.

styling for instagramred

When I saw the book, the student and forever learner in me, kind of thought, yeah I’d like to get better at Instagram,  so I scooped it but… but… this book is much more than Instagram!!!!

Leela says “With a phone in your hand you can be a “photographer.” There’s no extra buy-in fee, you already have what you need, and “auto” mode works just fine.  With technology having evolved so quickly in the past decade, there’s no reason not to try your hand at making beautiful images”.

I have been taking phone pics for years and those that know me, know that I am constantly saying “I gotta get a pic of that”. 🙂 But I have since discovered that I am also a passionate creator who loves to capture beauty and inspire others and the world…. so this book just blew the lid off for me. So many endless ideas and opportunities that I now see to create and play and delight in making these creations!

The book is laid out in an easy format to follow, with clear and concise concepts and pictures for each one. For example, she has two page creation concepts that she covers like “Light & Airy”, “Props”, “Plain & Simple”, and countless others.

This morning I played with using the sun that was casting itself on one of my chairs in the house. I propped up one of my wall pictures and was able to capture the sun on the wording which I thought was pretty cool.

life is a beautiful adventure with sun (2)

I am so grateful that there are so many people in the world so willing to share and help each other and that technology allows for so much creativity and culture that we never had access to before.  And let’s not forget the technology as tools for editing and creation too. It really is true that anyone can en-JOY photography, art, creation, and that there truly are infinite possibilities.

Yesterday my daughter and granddaughter were with me painting pictures. Sivanna showed me a place online where she finds ideas of what to paint. It may sound simple to some, but I thought that was amazing! A place to find endless ideas. In the old days one had to physically be at various places to get ideas and inspired and now endless ideas everywhere!

sivanna and trin art

I will close now and I hope you too are inspired to awaken to your creativity if this is something that brings you JOY to do. I am excited to share my newly inspired creations over at my Instagram account and I would be honored if you would be so kind to follow me and to comment on any of my creations as I learn and grow! And please in turn I would love to follow you! Nothing brings me greater JOY than following the trail of inspiration!  You can find me on Instagram Maggie’s Instagram Account 

Maggie Holbik.com is a Creator and Communication Artist who gets great JOY out of personal inspiration, but her greatest JOY comes from inspiring others to live with passion and purpose.

Growing, Learning, Self-Discovery, Spark Joy, wisdom

It’s Back to Kindergarten for Me! :-)

Here is the audio of this blog post if you prefer to listen rather than read, or both 🙂

I had a thought yesterday while I was learning something new. I was trying to figure out how to start recording audio and podcasting for the very first time. I spent part of the day googling, recording, uploading, and using new platforms. And it was a success. I felt really empowered and really good at the end of it.

Later in the day while I was doing my yoga,  it hit me! I flashed back to my kindergarten class. I can still ‘feel’ how that felt. It was so exciting, new and fresh. I can remember vividly turning the pages of the coloring book, the smell of the crayons and the vibrant colors as I created in this book. It was my masterpiece.  I can still remember the moment when I fell in love with Robin’ egg  blue.  It was exhilarating. It got me thinking…..

Why do we lose this feeling and why do we sometimes feel inadequate when we don’t know something, or when we want to learn something new? Why as we age, do we think we are supposed to be more adept at learning things or that we ‘should know how to do things’. Or why are we  afraid to ask questions and expose our inadequacy?

I think we should all go back to kindergarten in the way we learn.  We can get excited and feel like we have our whole life ahead of us, because we DO! The rest of our life is our whole life and we can learn new things, open our minds, venture out, try new things, use crayons, paint, draw, and even stomp our feet if we want. 🙂

See you in class!

Maggie Holbik.com is a Certified Life Coach and Board Certified Nutritionist who loves learning, loves colors, loves the featured picture in this blog post (it makes her girl-like heart smile) and she love life! She is excited for the rest of her life as the best of her life. 🙂

Awakening, Gratitude, Gratitude Pop, Joy, Joy Pop, Spark Joy

Gratitude Pop!

Today while messaging a client I came out with a new phrase and thought I would make a new category for it over here at my blog. “Gratitude Pop”. I love it! These can also be called “Joy Pops”, which I love too.

Here is where the gratitude pop stemmed from today.

gratitude chocolates

It is my client’s birthday and she sent me this picture of what she found on the table this morning from her son. I said to her that her heart must be bursting and she said “YES!”

It is such a good feeling to have a pop or burst of gratitude. The new show “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” uses the term ‘Spark Joy’ for keeping items that you absolutely love and cherish. Whatever we call them, they are awesome indeed, and very well something worth focusing on and looking for throughout our day. Think of them like bursts of joy, pleasure and an indicator of something that makes your heart and soul happy. 🙂

This morning I had my own gratitude pop when I saw that the sun was once again rising,on this cold January day in Canada.
sun joyred

What about you? Can you start to add to your Gratitude Pop list throughout your day? Maybe it simply starts with the fact that there is another day. Not everyone will wake up tomorrow to another day sadly, but true. Or maybe you get a Joy Pop when you look at your pet sleeping so cutely and looking so peaceful.

Whatever way you find them, I hope you find lots of Gratitude Pops, Joy Pops, bursts of ‘Spark Joy’, and that many smiles cross both your face and heart today and everyday!

Maggie Holbik.com is a Certified Life Coach and Board Certified Nutritionist who loves life, laughter, and finding JOY in each and everyday. She purposely looks for and seeks JOY. In fact, truth be told she’s a JOY Junkie and she’s okay with that 🙂

happy, Joy, Spark Joy

Choose Happy

the festive joy mobile

Here is my little car that I love. I call it The Joy Mobile. The Joy Mobile is getting festive today…. spreading Smiles and Joy wherever we go. I learned a long time ago you take Joy with you. You choose Joy and Happiness and you take it with you as you go about your day.

This#5 top regret of the dying from Bonnie Ware’s book “The Top Five Regrets of The Dying” pretty well sums it up for me:

#5

“I wish that I had let myself be happier.”
This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.
When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.
Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.
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I love this and this has been one of my fav books of all time. People dying teaches us about living. I wish you Joy today and always and if you see the Joy Mobile around town, give us a wave or a honk. 🙂

Maggie Holbik.com is a Certified Life Coach and Certified Nutritionist who reaches for Joy and Happiness as much and as often as she can, because Why Not? 🙂