A Time to Tell Your Story: Look the Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future in the Eye

When I was a senior in high school, I put on a bonnet and heavy black Victorian gown and took the stage as Ebenezer Scrooge.

It was 1996. Our school auditorium was under construction, so the drama club took over the empty Woolworth’s store, assembled a stage, and put on a show. Looking back, it was all a little ragtag (in later productions at the new theater our wizard of a director had the ghosts of A Christmas Carol flying through the air!), but I don’t think it occurred to us to feel deprived. Instead, we were caught up in the wildness of putting on two shows a night for most of December and the privilege of taking up residence at the Cape Cod Mall.

It was certainly a wild time for me. I remember vividly when my mother tracked me down near the food court between performances, waving a big thick envelope and unable to contain her jubilation: I’d gotten into Boston College on early decision. At points, it was hard to be in the moment and embody one of Christmas’s most iconic characters when I was so busy imagining myself walking across my dream campus on an autumn afternoon.

And then, on closing night, a former drama club guy, now a sophomore in college, came to the show. We were dating by mid-January and I spent the next couple of years losing myself in crazy love.

Here we are in the present.

I’m telling you a story from my past and inviting you to wonder with me about a collection of moments that created the future.

At Boston College, I’d pursue my dreams of Irish literature, spend my junior year in Galway, and eventually win a BC fellowship that would enable me to get my MA at University College Dublin. Though I would set aside those passions and allow them to become a mere hobby for the first act of adulthood, you might say that writing and publishing The Sovereignty Knot was the beginning of my second act. Now, I am reviving and deepening those dreams with the KnotWork Podcast and planning my future accordingly.

As for the love story, I wouldn’t end up marrying that first real boyfriend (though that was the plan for a while), but I still hope my girls have “a practice relationship” with someone who shares their interests and passions the way I did. I lost a great degree of my wild princess sovereignty for the sake of romance, but then, sovereignty is something that you have, and lose, and find again, at least a dozen times over in life. I don’t think I could change a line of that story and be who I am now.  

Every personal story has these elements of past-present-future time magic

The personal history stories we tell are crafted based on the preoccupations and passions of the present. And, when those stories make it out of the daydream or the journal and into conversation or onto the public page, there’s a chance to shape the future in a new way. 

As you read these words, learning a little about me and my origin story, it may shift the way we relate to one another next time we meet, online or in person. 

Even more importantly, it may shift the way you relate to the stories of your own past. Maybe you’ll retrieve a memory of your almost-an-adult self. Maybe you have a Christmas play memory of your own. Maybe you’re having a flashback to your teenage days at the mall!

What we learn about story, healing, and the way we weave time from Scrooge’s Christmas Eve journey

Enough about me. This is actually a story about your story and about one of literature’s most beloved curmudgeons. (Damn, was it liberating to be seventeen and to have permission to look and sound as unbeautiful as possible!)

With this past-present-future “this is your life” morality story, Dickens invites us to explore our own lives through that fogged glass of the holidays.  The nostalgia, the grief, the denial, the fear, the joy, and the regeneration. Throughout our lives, and throughout every December, these emotions permeate the air, looping back to the past, entwining through the present, and swirling on into the future.

Peering, Gently, Into the Past

You know the basic plot of A Christmas Carol, right? The old miser Scrooge is visited by the ghost of their business partner, Jacob Marley, and is told to expect visits from three spirits over the course of Christmas Eve.

(We used the feminine pronouns on “girl nights” and the masculine on “boy nights” as the two casts of our high school play were basically divided according to gender. I love that the use of neutral pronouns and our evolving understanding of gender makes this casting choice make even more sense than it did in the 90s. And seeing as years of theater history have shown us that Ebenezer is not defined by masculinity, I am adopting “they/them” throughout this piece to refer to the character.)

Though we didn’t all work for “Old Fezziwig, bless his heart,” we can all look back to past holidays (and any moment from adolescence) and either get caught up in the good old days or utterly overcome with regret for past mistakes and sorrow over past hurts. Either option can make looking back feel fraught, as we tend to be wracked with longing for what we believe was lost or we spiral into blame or self-recrimination.

When you go back to past events because you want to share the story with others, you must look at the glittering and the shadowed, the perceived perfection and the sources of trauma. This honest look at the past is a vital part of Story Healing, and it’s what I help folks do in my Healing for Heroines sessions. 

Ultimately, we review our own history not just to replay the old tapes, but to make sense of those old stories in order to create meaning moving forward. We seek out what’s true then and look for how that truth can help construct a grounded, empowered present and future.

Acknowledging the Present

Next, of course, Ebenezer meets the Ghost of Christmas Present and watches the tiny feast at the Cratchit house. Seeing the world as it is, Ebenezer has a chance to reckon with both the delusions and the hypocrisy that lurk within. 

Few of us are as misanthropic as Scrooge, but we all feel the burn when Ebenezer, shocked to learn Tiny Tim will not live another year, must endure the pain of their own past words, “If he is likely to die, then let him die, and decrease the surplus population!”

We know how it hurts to have our own limited, ignorant opinions reflected back to us. It’s what keeps us from looking unflinchingly into the past. To live and tell a story of transformation, we need to be honest about the darkness of what was so the light of what is can shine bright and true.

When we can anchor into what is really happening around us, refusing to let the narratives be warped by our own fears, or twisted by conspiracy theories and what Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls “the overculture,” then we can move beyond delusion and hypocrisy into awakening and recognition.

Peering Into the Future

For Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was the most terrifying because there was nowhere to go but down after a life so limited and devoid of compassion.

Telling a cautionary tale, Mr. Dickens surely assumed his readers would be called to pause and evaluate their own lack of charity and compassion. Repentance counted for something then. Surely self-examination and a dedication to constructive change haven’t totally gone out of style in the 21st century.

Even for Ebenezer, who gets to look beyond the veil of time, the future is all unknown and unwritten. All we can really do is set the groundwork for growth and connection by looking to the past with clear eyes and dedicating ourselves to seeing and speaking to the present with a radical dose of fierce, loving clarity. 

Weaving Time, Healing Stories

Clinging to what you wish were true or what you think ought to be true and then trying to force that story into the world simply doesn’t work. Not if you’re really interested in bringing more beauty, healing, and truth into your own life and into the collective. You risk feeling and sounding as cruel and hollow as Scrooge—woefully, willfully ignorant of the reality of suffering (and the simple joy) that permeates the everyday. 

And so, you’re invited to compassionately begin to weave time, calling on the strength and wisdom that are available to us from our past, present, and future selves.

When we seek out a story, when we sit with a story, and when, perhaps we tell and share a story…

We stand consciously in the present to reach back to the past.
We weave together what was with what is.

If we share this story on the page, we touch someone in an unknown future moment.

We knot time together (not in a tangle, but in a sacred pattern).
We weave our stories. We strengthen ourselves, build relationships, and create a legacy.

We weave time and heal our stories to do our part to make this world more beautiful, more honest, more whole.

Want to Put this Past-Present-Future Work into Action?

Join me for the half-day end of year retreat I'm offering on December 29, A Sovereign Way. We’ll anchor ourselves in the present, look back on the year that was, and use these insights to imagine a new year full of presence, beauty, and healing.

Hear, Heal, and Craft the Stories that Connect Us

In the KnotWork Podcast, we’ll share stories from ancient mythology and folklore, particularly from the Celtic world, and explore why they still have resonance for us today. The show debuts on 2.2.22, but you can get a preview of what’s to come.

Are you feeling the tug of your own past stories? A Healing for Heroines session can help you access your past experiences and give you a fresh perspective. Whether you want to craft a story or are on the path of self-discovery, when you see yourself as heroine of your own story, you can transform the next chapter of life.

Excited to begin writing your own stories? The Sovereign Writers’ Knot will welcome new writers for our next 13-week session on March 2, 2022! Registration will open soon, but you can get learn more and get on the interest list so you’re the first to know when applications are open.

Untethered and (Dis)Connected: How to Return to Your Creative Path On Your Own Time

That crunch.

You know it. I know it. Everyone who has owned a ridiculously fragile electronic device that goes everywhere and is relied upon to do almost everything knows it.

The crunch that you hear when the screen hits the floor.

On Labor Day Monday Monday, I felt that sinking dread when my Apple Watch slipped from my fingers and fell face down on the tile.

For over two years, that little piece of wildly powerful technology has been securely fastened to my body. It’s own tracking data will show you that I would wear it for well over 12 hours per day. And, if you don’t have access to the app, you can see it in the pale strip on my arm where the freckles have faded after years under cover.

Now it’s Thursday, and though I am fully clothed, I feel naked. 

I have no idea how many calories I have burned, whether I got a text in the three minutes since I picked up my phone, or what the temperature is outside. It will take me more than two taps to figure out exactly when my next menstrual cycle begins. If you call me and I don’t have my phone on me, I will not be able to answer you by talking to my wrist like Penny in Inspector Gadget.

I am realizing the depth of my addiction to that tiny glass square. Well, the glass was just the vehicle. My real addiction was to quantifying the success of each day based on my move goals and the illusion of constant connectivity.

At this point, I am not sure if I am uncomfortable because I feel so disconnected or if I’m uncomfortable because I have to reckon with being so addicted to machine that monitored my every move.

Either way, this is not how I planned to land post-Labor Day.

I am untethered. I am lost. I am free.

Of course, I am more than my history of shattered Apple products. It’s also the first week of school. And I am suddenly realizing that after eighteen months of certain uncertainty, the prospect of five days a week of school is immensely challenging.

This return to “normal” is what we’ve been yearning for. Why is this so hard?

Sure, there’s the chance that schools will close or either of the kids could be quarantined for weeks. There’s a chance that Covid could be more than a mere inconvenience as we see infections rise in children. It’s hard to get excited about the new routine when a stray cough could bring the whole fragile arrangement crashing down.

I am so dazed and unfocused. I can’t seem to shake the “I need more tea and then some chocolate and then some pretzels before I answer this next email” state of mind.

It’s more than vicarious first day of school jitters, though. 

Instead, I realize it’s immense pressure that comes with “Psst, Mom! It’s finally quiet. Go be outrageously successful and accomplish every single one of the professional and creative things right now so you don’t fail at post-pandemic reentry!”

Back in the old days (like over the weekend), my watch could help me track when anxiety would set my heart racing. I don’t need the heart rate monitor to tell you that there are too many stress hormones in my system right now. (Oh, hey, maybe I’m already learning to live without that device!)

There are too many stress hormones in our collective emotional system right now. While we have a lot to be stressed about, some of that pressure is self-imposed and truly is optional. Like the pressure everyone puts on themselves during new beginning moments, like the end of summer and the return to school.

So, if you’re a parent and are feeling the press of “I should get my business/creative practice/self care routine up to 117% because the kids are finally back where they belong,” I see you. I feel you.

Regardless of whether we have kids in school or are going to class ourselves, September is a chance for many of us to begin again. We can all use a little more self-compassion right now since it’s far from easy to get back into the post-Labor Day routine.

I’m holding hands with all of the writers, creatives, and entrepreneurs who are staring into the next season wondering how on earth you’re going to find the energy, focus, and confidence to get out there and make the next thing.

Here’s what we’ve learned (since March of 2020 and throughout our lifetime as sovereignty seekers, word witches, and all around weirdos):

• The old rules don’t apply any more.

• The old structures cannot support us.

• The old routine can’t be revived in the same old way.

If the timepiece that used to help us make sense of the world cracks, we need to find a new way to navigate our lives. 

In this early September moment if you can’t quite find your center, find your muse, or find your pen, remember this: your lack of inspiration, motivation, or imagination is not the problem.

What if it’s the relentless press to be productive and commodify every free moment that’s the problem? What if it’s the equation of busyness and self-worth? What if we must finally, once and for all, smash the foolish belief that everything is going to feel “normal” again just because we landed on a certain date or reached some artificial milestone?

What if you didn’t have to start today, but you trusted yourself and believed that in your own time, you’d settle into a new cycle of being, making, doing, and creating?

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When it is time to set off on your own creative path — as a writer, as an entrepreneur, as a seeker looking to understand your own story in a new way — I’d love to help.

The Sovereign Writers’ Knot, the new iteration of my online writing community, opens again on September 27.

The Story Illuminations Sessions are a great 1:1 option if you’re trying to figure out just where to start and need to heal some of the old wounds that hold you back from stepping forth on your creative path.

Forget Your Deadlines, We're On Sovereign Time

Time.

It is what it is, right? Relentless and uncaring. Immutable and inevitable.

We can lose ourselves in time travel fantasies. (Who else is an Outlander fan?)

We can agree that time flies when you’re having fun and that it crawls when you’re stuck with a task that you dislike. 

But really, we just have twenty four hours in a day and the calendar pages will constantly flip and we’ll all be another year older when May 2 comes around once again.

And yet… Is this all there is? Could there be an alternative? What if we didn’t need to buy into the relentless progression of time and those killer deadlines we live (and die) by?

Our Life-and-Death (Mis)Understanding of Time

Funny that we’ve all signed on to honor our deadlines - especially since none of us were soldiers in the American Civil War.

What was a deadline exactly?  “A line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.”

The folks at Merriam Webster are certain of the 19th century bloody origins of “deadline,” but they’re pretty vague about how, over the next one hundred years, we collectively agreed that this term was about time management rather than inmate management. The dictionary doesn't say much about why we went on to co-opt this dire word to describe all sorts of mundane tasks either.

But then it makes perfect sense that “deadline” emerges from the language of war. We’re constantly in a battle with time, right?

Let's End Our Punishing Relationship With Time

Presumably, the men in those prison camps who were hellbent on survival would do everything they could to distance themselves from that line in the turf, but here we are, planning our lives around deadlines every damn day.  

Honestly, what is up with that?

There really is another way.

I recently rediscovered a French philosopher I studied in grad school named Julia Kristeva. She coined the term “Women’s Time.” It's a powerful, viable alternative to the relentless linear nature of time that rules our culture has completely capture my attention. In Kristeva's essay, Women's Time is about syncing ourselves to the cycles of nature and the sweep of eternity. 

I agree. And, for me, I take Women's Time further into being about creativity, flexibility, and giving ourselves permission to grow and connect in a way that's nurturing, not punishing. I want time to be about the moments we spend living, not a countdown for dying.

Let’s think about what it means to move according to Sovereign Time

These ideas are magical. And they're tricky too. We still want to live and serve in the real world, we still want to make commitments that count and be there to support those who need us. And yet we want the freedom to breathe and dream and let things unfold naturally. 

I'm dancing with all this. I'm weaving the contradictions into my book-in-progress, The Sovereignty Knot, every time I sit down to write.

And - here's what's even more exciting right now: these ideas about Women's Time and Sovereign Time are already influencing the way that I work, coach, and teach.

Last month, I conceived and launched a brand new program based on my forthcoming book. I did it in record time because it just seemed right. (At the time.)

But then I realized that my rush to plan and promote and launch wasn’t necessarily divinely inspired. Instead, it was inspired by the stuff of deadlines and chronic overcommitment.

The good news? I didn’t need to cancel the whole thing and call it a huge, embarrassing mistake. Instead, I just needed to pause and breathe and give the project and the people who are excited to join it a little bit of space.

I’ve given us all the gift of time. I’ve pushed the start date for Your Sovereign Awakening back to May 13.

Why did I make the change? Because Women's Time. Because Sovereign Time. Because the "deadline" I set was too tight both for me and for the women who needed to work out childcare and move evening meetings to be there. Because we don't have to always live and die according the calendar. Because it's ok to be vulnerable and admit the initial timing wasn't right.

You Still Have Time to Join Your Sovereign Awakening

The program empowers you to free the princess, crown the queen, embrace the wise woman, and establish a totally new relationship with time. We'll meet on five Monday evenings from 7 - 9 PM beginning May 13. 

Can you shape your time and your schedule and be there with us?

Conversations With an Empty Chair, #365StrongStories 53

One Friday, my Mom and I spent the day in the kitchen talking about a revolution.  Well, we were whispering about the stuff that eventually leads to revolution. We were talking about the state of the world and daring to examine our fears and entertain all the “what ifs?” What happens when we all find out that Al Gore has been right about the climate?  What happens when people really start to run out of water? How many links in the chain have to break before our global network of food distribution is disrupted? In what part of the psyche and the spirit should stories like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road reside?

It has been six years since my mother and I had the luxury of marinating on our 3 a.m. worries together. We lavished so much attention on hypothetical global crises and never spared a thought for the private tragedies that could be so much harder to bear.

We had no idea then that mom had a few hundred thousand minutes left to live. She’d be dead of a sudden heart attack by mid-summer and she’d never know if any our great big global fears would change our comfortable American lives.

Now that I sit alone at the same kitchen in 2016, I don’t have any clarity more clarity about the fate of western civilization. I’m not even sure have any more perspective on the unbearably brief and precious nature of an individual life. I still wish away time as I long for spring and pray that the tougher phases of childhood will pass quickly.

But then I dive deep into this line from Natalie Goldberg: “Give everything while you can.”

I think it’s easy to misread this as “do more!” After all, we live in a “lean in” and “manifest 6 figures in 30 days” kind of world. But I guess I have learned enough about mortality and personal tragedy to reframe these words into those that heal rather than strain.

That winter day in 2010, my mother and I didn’t leave the kitchen. We didn’t solve a single problem or even take the dog for a walk. We snuggled my new baby girl and we loved one another and we dared to be vulnerable and speak our truths. Though I cry as I type these words, it’s just because I am overcome with gratitude for knowing that on that particular day, we gave each other everything while we could.

“I don’t have time to write!”: the Tough Love Answer and the Soul-Level Response

Sovereign Standard, Issue 35 What’s the reason why people get this close to inviting me to be their writing coach and then press the pause button?

“I really want to give this content creation process the attention it deserves, and I am just not ready to do that yet.”

Whether you're looking to hire a writing coach and editor or whether you're working solo on all the website content, blog posts, and guest posts, you feel the same pressure: “I don’t have time to write!”

The tough love answer to “I don’t have time to write”

Because I like you, I will tell you that, even as a writer, I understand this squeeze. Granted, for me the problem is “I don’t have time to write enough,” but the principle is the same.

There’s so much you want to say, so much that you want to explore… there just aren’t enough hours in the week.

And because I love you, I'll listen to your “not enough time!” lament. Then I will then ask you what your goals are - professionally, creatively, personally.

You’ll think I’m changing the subject and giving you a chance to tell me about all the other really neat stuff that’s more important than your writing practice including your plans to:

• Start a podcast
• Build a membership group
• Develop a product and make money while you sleep (finally!)
• Work your way to Oprah’s couch (because it’s the goal even when you need cable to see it)

I will be so excited to hear about everything you've got cooking! And then I am going to say, because I really believe you have valuable insights that will earn you income and recognition: but how are you going to manifest all that without a writing practice?

Praying that you don’t think I’m telling you to put your dreams on hold while you do something "impossible" (dedicate three hours or more per week to the process of writing), I will remind you:

• A powerful podcast grows thanks to the strength of its show notes and the written content that attracts readers and converts them into listeners.
• A membership group that is all audio or video based will disappoint people who prefer to read information and it will never be a fully searchable, useful resource for anyone.
• Even a sound and visual-based product needs a written component too - and it needs to be marketed with rich content that tells a story.
• Last time I checked, the way people like you and me get on Oprah is by writing a really awesome book.

The soul-level response to “I don’t have time to write!”

“Because it will forward my business” and “because I need to boost my visibility to share my message” - these are great reasons to develop and stick with a writing practice.

But are knowing it's good marketing strategy and understanding my points above really enough to get you to set writing dates with yourself?

"Because entrepreneurship" has never been a strong enough reason to get me to show up to this blog week after week. No promises of big money or fame has inspired me to fill all those little black journals.

There has to be something more to this writing thing. There's a deeper value that compensates the time and the energy and the devotion you must lavish on the writing process.

But, of course, a writer says writing is "the thing"

Now, taking writing advice from a writer -  someone who needs to write to make sense of this heartbreaking, ecstatic work of being alive - it’s a dicey thing.

Admittedly, I’m a person who would ask a dozing seatmate on a packed New York City commuter train for a pen because a 90-minute trip without writing implement is unendurable.

It's good to have crazy scribes like me out there (unless you're a cranky commuter). We're here to do the writing for you, right?

The copywriters and the writing coaches in the world - we're good, but we're not that good. We can help you get clear on what you really want to say.  We can make you look good on paper. We can empower you to feel like a "real" writer and not just somebody blogging for attention.

But, you need to touch the words at some point in the process. You cannot outsource the practice of writing itself - the discipline of it, the ritual of it, the insights and serendipitous connections that spring from it. Well, you could, but then you'd miss out on all sorts of untold magic.

When you delegate the entire writing process you lose tremendous opportunities to explore and expand your own thoughts. As a creative entrepreneur, as a clinician or healer who wants to make a difference in the world - you need access to your own brilliance.

Writing gives you a direct path into your own most vital wisdom.

Writing = thinking, understanding, feeling

Need some inspiration to turn the writing chore into a writing practice? Meet Saundra Goldman and her #continuouspractice project and join the community of people who show up each day to the practice that matters.

Ready to make time for the writing your business needs you to do? Let's talk about how writing coaching can help you create a practice that works for you.

And, even though my "brave" writing is mostly being confined to my journal, I'm still inspired by the Bravery Blogging Project. This week, it felt courageous to ask other great writers to speak for me!