Our unconscious is probably involved when:

• Everything looks fine on the surface but something is still bothering you.
• You just can’t make a decision.
• You freeze and stop moving forward for no apparent reason.
• You’ve tried and tried to make something happen and it just doesn’t.
• Things aren’t so bad, but you feel bored and restless.
• You’ve forgotten why you do the work that you do.

It can also play a role in specific business processes:

• You are struggling to figure out your niche or unique purpose.
• Your “elevator pitch” feels scattered and unclear.
• Your creative process is stuck.

In these situations there is a disconnect between your conscious self and all the unconscious parts of yourself. There are things going on beneath the surface that are powerful, in charge, and not getting communicated to the conscious mind.

In our rational, left-brain world, we like to think we are in charge. We make goals, we get things done. Our lives are explicable.

And much of the time they are. Not a whole lot of thought needs to go into buying groceries or taking out the trash.

But when you are running a business, only a portion of what you do is that level of routine. There is a lot to your business that ties into deep issues of motivation, purpose, self-worth, boundaries, and your deepest dreams of contribution and connection.

The process I’m going to describe isn’t just a way to solve problems. It’s a way to align yourself with your deepest truth. It’s a way to stay in touch with the vital, creative part of yourself that is at the core of your being.

Your unconscious has a lot to say. And you need a way to listen.

Our unconscious thinks in pictures, not words. If you want to access the deeper motivations and concerns of your unconscious mind, you have to venture in to territory of metaphor and imagery.

The second ingredient is permission to follow your intuition. Our unconscious is not linear and focused. It’s more like water–you turn on the spigot and let it flow. You don’t know where the river will take you till you get there. The process is the point. You have to be willing to jump in the water, not knowing what it will be like and where you will end up. You have to operate on faith that you will discover something if you start, and then let go of the outcome.

The last necessity is time. There are always more urgent, ‘purposeful’, and easier thing to do than write or make art. Not that it’s hard exactly, to listen. But it takes a clear space in your mind and life to happen. It’s not going to happen on its own–you have to consciously choose to create a regular practice of setting aside time to communicate with yourself. And because it can be a non-linear, unpredictable process, it needs to be time you do not begrudge if “nothing happens”. It’s time you give yourself, not time you expect to get something.

Now that we have the ground rules, let’s talk about techniques.

• intuitive painting
• intuitive writing
• intuitive collage
• intuitive <insert your favorite medium here>

The distinction between “painting” and “intuitive painting” is important. If you sit down to paint a picture of a flower, you’ll end up with a flower. If you sit down to paint, and let your color choices and paintbrush be guided by your unconscious, you won’t know what you’ll end up with. That’s the point.

The same is true of writing. If you sit down to write a story, or an article, you may produce those. But sitting down to just give yourself an opportunity to speak through words being put on the page is different. Many people have never written that way. I encourage you to try it. Just start writing, and give yourself the ingredients above: time you don’t begrudge yourself, permission to open the gate and see what comes through without being goal-oriented. Don’t edit and don’t critique. You aren’t writing for anyone else; just for yourself.

Collage may be the most accessible medium for many people. All you need are some magazines, paper, scissors, and a gluestick.

An integrated exercise: collage + writing

I’ve developed a printable exercise that will lead you through an intuitive collage process, with a writing portion afterwords.

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

You may get messages about your life rather than your business. That’s OK. They are probably connected. If you work with the information you get from your first collages, you may find that it leads to insights on the business issue you are struggling with. Or, maybe your unconscious is digging in its heels in your business because of something you are neglecting in your life. If you have a habit of ignoring self-care in favor of productivity, or subject yourself to a great deal of stress worrying about the future, your unconscious may want you to lighten up and have some fun before it has an opinion on what you should do about your next year’s goals.

Your attitude toward the process is as important or more important than any materials or techniques you use. If you come in with frustration about not knowing the answer, you’ll end up with frustration about not knowing the answer. You need to start with acceptance of right where you are, and curiosity about what is underneath. Think of your unconscious as a child who wants to play. If you’re angry at it or expect performance from it, it’s not going to feel freedom to play. But if you sit down and have fun with it, that sense of creative excitement and energy will come out through this process.

With that, here is the exercise:

Download Business Archetype Collage Exercise (pdf)

Here are some example of finished collages and the writing they inspired.

Note: the exercise calls to write from the perspective of the card, as each collage represents an aspect of yourself.

	A community of individuals I feel alone but I’m like a lot of others. I’m looking for commonalities. I like my space but to be connected to others and see what they are up to. I like to see that I’m not alone, even though I don’t have to be glommed into one group–I still get to be me. I connect with people who don’t think of business as just about money–it’s about bringing goodness into the world. I connect with people who also need solitude–who understand it. I get overwhelmed in groups and feel disconnected. I like community that is authentic, low-key, and real–where everyone has space to be themselves.
	Awe & Wonder I am why you came here, to Earth. Life is full of surprises. It’s intense, amazing. I study and discover the endless realms–the true nature of things. It’s fascinating. And what’s more–by discovering them, they change. AND–I love watching other people have these moments too-of discovery and change.
	Inner Space I am vast and silent. My light stretches throughout the galaxy. I shine above and through all creation. I hold every creative endeavor and infuse it with light. You need a vessel and quiet time to collect the light. I’m timeless and endless; that’s why you need open time and spaces to resonate with me.

The above exercise is based in part on the Soul Collage method developed by Seena Frost. For more information and tips on intuitive collage, check out the extensive KaleidoSoul website.

P.S. If this exercise works for you, upload your pics to Flickr or Facebook and post the links in the comments.

Is your true work something that hasn’t exactly been done before? Do you want to learn skills in helping people, but don’t know which model to use – teaching, coaching, therapist, etc? Maybe none of them feel quite right? Do traditional trainings feel boring, too structured, or not adequate to prepare you for what you truly want to do?

I was in this place a year ago. I was simultaneously attracted to and repelled by many different training options. I knew I wanted to learn more about helping people, but nothing was exactly what I wanted.

I really wanted an apprenticeship of some kind. But even that didn’t seem right, because nobody was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. Heck, I didn’t even know what that was.

The answer I came up with (after working through considerable fear) was to just jump in to trying different things.

My self-made apprenticeship has included:

• Half of a life-coach training, which made me feel more confident starting…
• Several trades of one-on-one business coaching over several months, which led to…
• Teaching a class with one of my trade partners, which turned into…
• A lot of curriculum building and a group-coaching atmosphere (this was the most fun so far!)

Here is what I’ve learned:

It’s a process, jump in.

It’s really scary to start something brand new and be a beginner. It’s tempting to want to find the exact right type of training that will perfectly prepare you for your work and give you a structure to fall back on. But if that’s not happening, you have to just pick one direction and go in it. Trying one thing leads to the next thing which leads to the next thing. So just start.

Move forward when it’s time.

When you’ve gotten enough out of one phase of your training, let go of it. For example, I quit my coaching training half-way through. I can always go back if I later decide I want the certification aspect, but in my body I felt done and I wanted to move on to the next phase of my learning. I realized in the training that I didn’t really need as much formal training as I thought, and I just needed to start doing it. The training helped me realize this; that was it’s job. Each stage’s purpose is to move you to the next stage, until you find something that is so fun you want to keep at it. If you don’t keep moving, you get bogged down. Stay in tune with yourself. You’ll know when it’s time to move on to the next step.

It’s more fun with friends.

In a formal training, one of the aspects that makes it safe for learning is that everyone practices on each other. You can set this up for yourself by doing trades with people who you know and who know where you are at. If you don’t have a strong business community around you, start building one, but also just put it out there on places like Facebook and Biznik. Be honest: I’m learning this thing, and I want to offer sessions for trade, low-cost, free. Make sure you feel OK with whatever you are asking in return, whether it’s low-cost sessions, free sessions, or trade sessions. Often there is a progression where at first you just want to do it for free, and then as you learn your skill you want to at least do a trade, and then you want to primarily be paid. Honor each stage and let yourself ask for what you need to feel good about doing it.

Honor your panic zone.

The learning zone is in between the comfort zone and the panic zone. Don’t push yourself so far, so fast, that you shut down. Let yourself learn gradually, at the pace that is right for you. One of the top benefits of creating your own learning program is that you get to honor your self-hood at every single stage of the journey.