“I will not reason or compare. My business is to create.”
William Blake
Is it following what delights your heart or leading a life you deeply love? Is it psychology or spirituality? How about Integrative healing modalities or practical advice for effective and compassionate leadership? Is it soulful wisdom, sacred embodiment, poetry, soul experiences, or practical application?
Do I use the words mindfulness, heartfulness, compassion, or somatics? Am I focused on poetry or practical wisdom for navigating life?
It is about work, workplace wellness, personal wellbeing, or global change? Is it mind, body, and soul?
Is it following your intuition or how to connect effectively with your partner, boss, colleague, kid, friend?
Is it meditations, poetry, soul experiences, art, therapy, coaching, leadership guidance? Is it parenting, being a creative, running your own business, being in a relationship, or following the call of your heart?
Is it focused on healing for the individual, the workplace, or the world? Is the spirituality about the goddess, god, nature, sacred movement, or the divine?
Am I a mystic, mother, leader, creative, poet, or wholistic healer, entrepreneur, psychotherapist, somatic experiencing practitioner, speaker, blogger, podcaster, meditation instructor…?
For decades I have been writing, creating, leading, facilitating, and holding space for individuals, workplaces, creatives, leaders, parents, women, some men, young and old, readers of my written works, listeners to my podcast and meditations, participants in my workshops and experiences….
And in it all, as I seek to describe my work for super practical reasons – a tagline, a description on a social media platform, my website, in a bio, or for a program I am offering – I have STRUGGLED to describe what I am about and the healing work I am about. These thoughts swirl in my head and rob me of my joy and seek to put out the spark of creativity.
I’m not having it anymore. You shouldn’t either.
The Struggle Caused by Trying to Put Ourselves in Someone Else’s Boxes
I have struggled not because I am not clear within myself. I have struggled because I can’t seem to squeeze myself into the boxes that our world wants us to fit into.
I have listened to so many business coaches and copy writers – choose one thing/theme/issue/topic, focus on the value a client is getting, name their problem and pain points, no one cares about delight, you can’t do leadership and poetry and spiritually and individual holistic healing, do one thing really well, like a flagship or signature program, price things this way/that way….
None of that has ever resonated with me. I have tried. But I don’t do it well. I don’t fit in well to those boxes or that kind of advice. And when I try to fit into those boxes, I get all up in my head, I spin into paralysis, I doubt myself, and then I stop creating — which serves no one, especially me.
Does this jive with you, too?! People or society or work or our world putting you into a box, slapping a label on you, trying to your into a 5-word tagline or a 10-word description – and it just doesn’t work for you?
But here’s what I have done really f-ing well and has had a major impact on my personal life and how I work with my clients (start thinking of your own list of things you’ve done really f-ing well as you read this):
– Listening to my heart (gut, god, goddess, divine, intuition, angels, ancestors, and guides) and having the courage to take the soul risk to honor what I hear.
– Creating a life with a sacred rhythm that nourishes me and allows me to show up for whoever I am serving being grounded and fully present – like how I hardly ever see clients back to back, how I build in time off throughout the year, how I work almost exclusively while my children are in school, how I hang out with my dog all day long, how I get out in nature every day, how I have even just a bit of quiet time to write and meditate and nourish my body and soul.
– Holding space for people and crating healing experiences – 1:1 or groups (about all the things above – from trauma to yoga, from leadership to workplace wellness)
– Writing sacred poetry and being the modern day mystical poet the divine has called me to be
– Being super intentional about my decisions, how I parent, how I fuel and move and love my body, what work I get into, who I work with, who I spend my time with and hang out with, how I love, how I fill (or don’t fill) my schedule.
– Listening to my body and honoring its wisdom – from what intuition it gives me in session with clients, to choosing the expressions of embodiment that feel good to me – like skiing, yoga, weight lifting, walking, biking, meditating, touch, the clothes I wear, the food I nourish it with, the elements and stimuli I expose it to.
– And weaving all that into how I authentically show up for my writing, my creations, and those I serve.
Those are just a few things that are on my mind right now. I know I do several other things really f-ing beautifully and well (and it feels good to say I do a lot of things beautifully and well. Try it for yourself – say “I do x and x and x beautifully and well!”).
And by well, I mean: intentionally, with authenticity. Not the world’s definition of “well” or successful.
Drop trying to figure it out in your head and start dropping into what is sacred.
Here’s one thing that I haven’t done well: saying f-you to the BS of how to organize and market my offerings.
I have spent waaaaay too many hours looking at what others are doing and how crafty and smart they are with how they box their expertise and sell it.
I have spent way too many hours comparing myself to other writers, leaders, creatives, speakers, poets, healers; etc etc. and declaring that “I must be doing something wrong” and “if I could just figure this out…”
(sounding familiar?! I’m with you!)
I have spent way too much time questioning things like: long blog posts or shot ones? Short paragraphs or long ones? Book or online course? Gatherings or 1:1? Delight or compassion or connection or sacred or embodiment or…..etc etc etc.
Here’s the thing: I don’t want to figure anything out – at least not in a way that sucks the life force energy right out of me. I don’t want to figure anything out in a way that has me all up in my head trying to tease out “is this good? Is this what people want? Is this how people would understand my work and offerings?”
Sit with that for a moment.
I bet you, too, get caught up in your head and that “figuring it out” way only sucks the life out of you. It has you spinning into paralysis, decision fatigue, flat out just “fatigue” that lays you up on the couch binge watching a crappy Netflix show. (No judgment!).
That’s our society – the norms of the world – infiltrating your sacred way and making you question every damn thing about yourself.
This is what I want when it comes to my work, vocation, creative endeavors, and offerings: I want to listen within, create from what I hear, and then share it.
That’s it. That’s my “expertise.” That flow is my genius.
And I’m tired of holding back that creative impulse. I am tired of analyzing it, second guessing it, and putting it through the filter of how the world might like it presented.
That literally hurts my brain. It fatigues my body. It stresses the f out of my nervous system. It spins me into paralysis and I end of holding back.
Holding back! A nervous system – a body – a soul — can only do that for so long before we get sick, sad, disillusioned, constipated creatively, wither, or rage with furry.
Recently, I was at an animal rescue farm. The owner told us that the farm did have horse stalls in a barn, but they are rarely used. Instead they allow their horses (and other animals) to roam on the land AS THEY WERE BORN TO DO.
“They don’t like being in a stall for too long,” she said, “Imagine being contained like that and not being able to do what they were born to do.”
And my heart nearly leapt out of my body. “I know exactly what you mean!” I thought!
I bet you do, too.
Maybe it’s me turning 50 this year, but:
- I do not want to give any more energy units to trying to figure out what anyone else wants, how they want it, how to word it, how to price it, or how to even describe it.
- I am listening to what the divine puts on my heart and comes into my awareness as a deep “knowing” that feels like alignment and peace. And I am following that.
Maybe you, too, have tried to squeeze yourself into a box that does not fit your magnificence. And in fact, it crushes you. It suffocates your divine genius. It puts you out of alignment with your soul.
Maybe you, too, are tired of trying too hard to figure something out in your HEAD, when your heart and soul and body have known all along what you GOTTA do.
Maybe you, too, want to let your creativity FLOW – finally – freely, authentically, gorgeously… unconstrained by the rules of our society, but rather guided by the riverbeds of a more sacred structure.
It’s so damn time.
It’s so damn time to stop squeezing yourself into the boxes the world tries to put you in and the labels and descriptions the world tries to put on you.
It’s so damn time to wear the clothes you want, use the paints and colors you want, use the punctuation and form (or formlessness!) you want, use the words you want, sing the song you want, play the music you want.
It’s so damn time to stop second guessing yourself into paralysis and depression.
It’s so damn time to open to the sacred flow of love, creativity, and joy in you.
It’s so damn time for you to be happy, to feel in alignment with your soul, to follow what delights your heart, to lead a life you deeply love, and to honor your “soul call” or soul callS.
It’s so damn time to sing, dance, move, wake, go to sleep, dream, eat, walk, interact, work, and be according to what’s right for your body and soul.
It’s so damn time for self-honoring.
(Which always leads to earth-honoring, other-honoring, communal-honoring).
The traditional structures and institutions are crumbling – within us on a micro or personal level, and on a macro or global level. It’s time. You need it. We need it. Our future generations need it. Our earth needs it.
Invite in the new sacred structures. Invite in the new ways of making decisions. Invite in the new definition of success and wellness.
Invite in softness and tenderness as well as wild and untamed.
Invite in the sacred and intuitive.
Honest to god, I know this because I’ve seen it in my own life: as you make decisions based on the sacred and soulful, the practical will work out. What you practically do will be so much more deeply grounded because it is informed by and guided by a much, much greater and loving Force than the mind trying to figure it out.
I can tell you that for my own life, spending so much time trying to figure it out has taken me out of myself and away from feeling in alignment with Source. It hasn’t brought me any more “success” or peace. Ironically, whenever I fall into trust, when I honor Flow, I have always, always been cared for and supported.
So please, take the soul risk. Have the courage to step out of the boxes, pull off the labels, forget about getting the descriptions right, drop the perfect.
And let yourself dive into the sacred, the divine flow within you – WANTING, yearning to flow freely within you and out into the world.
You and I honoring the sacred within us shapes the landscape around us to become something much more sacred and in “right relationship” and peaceful and compassionate.
We are the ones to usher in a new way of being on this planet and together that is much, much more sacred and loving.
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So what does this mean for you, my dear reader? What can you expect in terms of my offerings and how I show up to write and share?
It means you can trust that whatever I offer and share – whether that’s free or with whatever price point I put on it – whether that is in written form, spoken, visual, experiential – whether that is 1:1 or a course or a pop up gathering – and whenever I share – I have deeply listened within and I am honoring what I hear and I am inviting you to join if you feel an inner prompt to say “yes.”
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Coming Soon…
On Sunday, I will be back with a new opportunity for us that will support you in getting clear, (even organized!), and revitalized for fall. Stay tuned!
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Have you meditated with me yet? Come join me on Insight Timer! I’ll help you fall asleep peacefully, wake with lovely intention, get re-energized in the day, and end your day feeling satisfied. These meditations are FREE!
Blessings,
