The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos: Insights and Inspiration to Spark and Sustain Your Creative Life: The Joyful Artist, #4

By Cassandra Gaisford

Connect With Inspiration Every Day

• Do you struggle with staying positive in a seemingly toxic world?
• Do negative thoughts sometimes take a stranglehold on your mood?
• Is life stressing you out?
• Would you love some inspiring, easily actionable strategies to help you feel better instantly?
• Are you an established artist, a hobbyist, or someone fascinated by artists, their creative process and their lives?

 

Whatever your motivation, there's something for everyone in The Art of Life: Surviving Through Chaos.

 

In this book, award-winning artist, Reiki master and creativity coach Cassandra Gaisford (BCA, Dip Psych) shares insights into her creative process.

 

From the best-selling author of The Joyful Artist, Mid-Life Career Rescue, Stress Less and How to Find Your Passion and Purpose, Cassandra's latest book is filled with sweet soundbites to help you build optimism in the wake of life's tsunami of stress.

The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos doesn't turn a blind eye to negativity; instead, the strategies in this book will help you control how you react, reduce worry and look for the silver linings, passion and purpose behind events, people and situations.

In The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos, you'll find actionable strategies that can make an immediate and lasting difference in dealing with life events that would otherwise drive you to negative thinking. The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos will raise your vibration and empower your life with creative inspiration.

 

Can you paint your way to happiness? Cassandra's answer is a resounding, 'Yes!'

 

"My hope for you in reading this book is you will be encouraged, emboldened, and energised to start collecting art or begin creating too."

 

The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos will help you:

 

• Discover why showing up for love is an antidote to stress

• Feel inspired and uplifted

• Boost your happiness and sense of wellbeing

• Super-charge the confidence needed to make an inspired change

• Inspire and sustain your creativity

• Rediscover joy and love life again

 

Sweet soundbites will help you build optimism in the wake of life's tsunami of stress.

 

Nurture your happy, bubbly self. Scroll up and purchase this book today.

 

BONUS.
Excerpt: The Art of Success: How Extraordinary Artists Can Help You Succeed in Business and Life

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cassandra Gaisford
• Release date: Feb 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781990020735

Cassandra Gaisford

Cassandra Gaisford, is a holistic psychologist, award-winning artist, and #1 bestselling author. A corporate escapee, she now lives and works from her idyllic lifestyle property overlooking the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. Cassandra is best known for the passionate call to redefine what it means to be successful in today’s world. She is a well-known expert in the area of success, passion, purpose and transformational business, career and life change, and is regularly sought after as a keynote speaker, and by media seeking an expert opinion on career and personal development issues.  Cassandra has also contributed to international publications and been interviewed on national radio and television in New Zealand and America.  She has a proven-track record of success helping people find savvy ways to boost their finances, change careers, build a business or become a solopreneur—on a shoestring. Cassandra’s unique blend of business experience and qualifications (BCA, Dip Pych.), creative skills, and well-ness and holistic training (Dip Counselling, Reiki Master Teacher) blends pragmatism and commercial savvy with rare and unique insight and out-of-the-box-thinking for anyone wanting to achieve an extraordinary life. ​

Book preview

THE ART OF LIFE: THRIVING THROUGH CHAOS

INSIGHTS AND INSPIRATION TO SPARK AND SUSTAIN YOUR CREATIVE LIFE

CASSANDRA GAISFORD

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. STEP INTO YOUR FLOWER

2. GIVE UP THE STRUGGLE

3. MOOD MUSIC

4. STAY IN YOUR BLISS

5. ILLUSION

6. COLOUR POP

7. TAKE TIME

8. TRUE LOVE

9. Te ATAROA

10. PURPOSEFUL PASSION

11. LOVE STORY

12. ALWAYS SUMMER

13. DOPE YOUR DRESS

14. WHAT WOULD LOVE DO?

15. PEACE BE WITH YOU

16. WORD WANDS

17. YOU ARE NOT ALONE

18. POSITIVE PRESSURE

19. UNITE

20. UPLIFT EACH OTHER

21. RETURN TO LOVE

22. TURN ON THE LIGHT

23. WHAT IS SOFT IS STRONG

24. CREATE A WEB OF UNITY

25. GLOW

26. ODE TO JOY

27. GIVE HAPPINESS AND JOY TO OTHERS

28. MAKE JOY FROM Sh*T

29. LOVE THE IN-BETWEEN

30. BEAUTY BLOSSOMS WITHIN BOUNDARIES

31. STAY IN YOUR HEART

32. RESILIENCE RISING

33. LOVING LEISURE

34. REIGNITE THE SPARK

35. SHADES OF GREY

36. THINK PINK

37. THE POWER OF NOW

38. SMILE

39. CHERISH SILENCE

40. DIVINE GRACE

41. JUST BE

42. KEEP YOUR VIBES HIGH

43. BEAUTIFUL

44. STAY CONNECTED TO NATURE

45. FLOW GRACEFULLY

46. STAY IN THE MAGIC

47. HAPPY HABITS

48. WHOLE-HEARTED

49. BELIEVE IN MIRACLES

50. YOUR BIG IDEA

AUTHOR’S NOTE

GRAB YOUR FREE GIFT

ABOUT CASSANDRA: THE JOYFUL ARTIST

EXTRA INSPIRATION AND SUPPORT

STAY IN TOUCH

ART RETREATS AND CLASSES

CREATIVITY COACHING

THE ART OF LIFE INSPIRATION DECK

ALSO BY CASSANDRA GAISFORD

COMMISSIONS

EXCERPT: The Art of Success Leonardo da Vinci

The Art Of Success

Praise for The Art of Success

Untitled

Foreword

Author’s Note

How To Use This Book

PRINCIPLE ONE: THE CALL FOR SUCCESS

What Is Success?

What Can Success Do?

Success For All

You're Never Too Old or Young to Make It Big

Did you enjoy this excerpt?

COPYRIGHT

Great works of art, music, and architecture that calibrate between 600 and 700 can transport us temporarily to higher levels of consciousness and are universally recognized as inspirational and timeless.

~ David R. Hawkins M.D. PhD

INTRODUCTION

Can you paint your way to happiness? My answer is a resounding, ‘yes!’ Isabel Allende once said, Write what should not be forgotten. The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos is part memoir, part reflections on living and creating during a pandemic and part sharing the inspiration and process behind my ‘happy’ paintings.

I began to write The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos in 2020 to uplift myself during the tsunami of stress, fear, and division energy created during the pandemic. As with all my self-empowerment books, I write to inspire, heal, encourage and cheerlead myself and others to keep being rebels with a cause—to show up for love in a world enamoured by war.

The Art of Life expands upon the themes introduced in my oracle-inspired guidance cards which I produced while the world was in the throes of the global Covid response, The Art of Life Inspiration Deck. Each chapter features a work of art I created, which I have paired with an insightful quotation and an expanded interpretation.

My hope for you, dear friend, is that in reading this book you will be encouraged, emboldened, and energised to start collecting art, or begin creating too.

Sometimes all it takes to radically transform your life is one word, one sentence, one painting or one powerful but straightforward strategy to ignite inspiration and reawaken a sense of possibility.

Like Cynthia who wrote to me after receiving my newsletter, "I'm just sitting here trying to reply through blurry eyes full of tears after having a good cry & wondering where I lost myself & thinking how much I miss my happy bubbly self...That was just beautiful.  Thanks for sharing that with me."

Connect With Inspiration Every Day

Sometimes uplifting words, received at the right time, can reawaken our hearts and set us on a path of inspired change. I feel the same about uplifting art. Which is why I’ve also included images and links to my paintings in case one of my available works sparks happiness and you would love a piece of my joy in your home.

What you're about to read isn't another self-help book; it's a self-love book. It offers ways to increase your resilience and stay in the high vibrational energies Dr David Hawkins spoke of— love, peace and joy. From these energies comes the power to live fearlessly and create a life worth living.

The Art of Life: Thriving Through Chaos will help you:

Discover why showing up for love is an antidote for stress

Feel inspired and uplifted

Boost your happiness and sense of wellbeing

Super-charge the confidence needed to make an inspired change

Inspire and sustain your creativity

Rediscover joy and love life again

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The chapters in this book may be followed sequentially or, guided by your intuition, used randomly for daily inspiration. As I frequently do in the mornings, you may like to ask a question such as, What do I need to know today? Intuitively select a chapter, then let the images and words work together to encourage uplifting contemplation. Read the words aloud if appropriate. Be open to the wisdom of these messages. They will unfold within your heart at the perfect time.

Let’s step into your flower…the theme of chapter one.

1

STEP INTO YOUR FLOWER

Transform passionate anger into something

purposeful and beautiful.

Art is alchemical. You can transform something upsetting into something beautiful. As always I like to transform anger into something purposeful. The painting that accompanies this chapter is, Step Into Your Flower. This painting embodies my passion for using your emotions to spark the creative process.

The name was inspired by a call from one of my favourite astrologers Pam Gregory, to avoid feeling disempowered, and step into our power, our bliss and our joy.

When I began creating this piece, I was feeling angry about the initial Covid response in New Zealand and the stories I was hearing of the needless pain the majority of the population suffered during lockdowns.

People's businesses were shut down and they were not able to earn any money and the promised payments had been delayed. Often they were too little, and not enough. I heard of many families who were super stressed and struggling to pay their bills. Worse, I heard of people taking their lives. I felt so distraught. And yes, mad.

As I created Step Into Your Flower, I added in layers of purposeful pink during several painting sessions and continued playfully and intuitively. Pink is a colour of strength, love and peace. Pink encourages us to look on the bright side of this crazy life and see the world anew, to set our intentions and forevermore not to think low.

I worked with a mixture of paint straight from the