Notes on the Harvest (Plus, Cool Stuff Offered By My Friends)

I realize that I often mention what's happening outside my window when I sit down to write a newsletter. Perhaps it's simply easier to begin a conversation by talking about the weather. I think there's more to it than that, though...

Telling you that the trees at the five-way crossroads where we live are whispering about the coming October with gold-flecked tongues seems important. I want to set the scene because strong stories depend on generating a sense of place. In fact, I think the land and the elements are actually characters in my daily writing, especially when I'm writing in my own voice and sharing what is on my mind.

And then there's the fact that I believe in the practice of land acknowledgement and naming the people who lived here before colonization.

The Esopus tribe, part of the Lenape nation, thrived upon this land before the French and Dutch settlers arrived. They spoke the Munsee language, but their name is all that is left here now. Those native peoples who survived wars and dislocation were forced to take their language, culture, and stories to Wisconsin and Ontario, far from the Hudson River they knew to be Mahicannituck. 

In light of this, it's interesting to think that my family actually lives in the town of Esopus, but the vagaries of mailing addresses and school districts cause us to tell folks that we live in New Paltz. The story of the colonizers shapes the story in one more small way.

The little that I do know of the people who would have hunted, gathered, and planted in the Hudson Valley comes from school field trips with my kids. It seems we always enter the replica wigwams and longhouses when the corn and gourds are being harvested.

There's a shared fascination with harvest time. There's an earthy truth that we need to acknowledge and celebrate (even if the modern harvest in the Hudson Valley looks like traffic jams caused by apple picking day trippers). We are creatures of the turning seasons, even if our pumpkin spice comes with orange dyed sprinkles.

A Rich Harvest of Ideas and Innovation

I'm so grateful to be standing in the midst of so many creative beings whose visions are coming to fruition right now.

Yesterday, we began a thirteen-week journey in the Sovereign Writers’ Knot.

As one writer put it after our group's first writing session (paired with art by Theresa Vee):  

Feeling EXACTLY like this painting after our session today!

And, as this special group of nine writers begins new projects or deepen their relationship with existing, in-process work, I'm so happy to watch other friends, colleagues, coaches, and clients out their creations into the world:

• Biz Cush, an alumna of my Sovereign Writers' community, is rebranding and relaunching her podcast. Perhaps hanging out with women who speak of the princess, queen, and wise woman had an influence on the new name?
  
  Awaken Your Wise Woman promises to be a great new show from this veteran podcaster, psychotherapist, and women's life coach. I had the honor of turning the tables on Biz and I got to interview her for her first episode. Listen to our episode and subscribe to the show!

• My former coach, KC Carter of This Epic Life is releasing his first book, Permission to Glow: A Spiritual Guide to Epic Leadership.
  
  I had a chance to reconnect with KC and soak up a few thousand jolts of inspiration this weekend. I'm excited to get my copy this Tuesday. And don't just take my word for it. Ani Difranco (yes, the singer who created her own label and is the voice of a generation of feminists) calls it: "Freakin' EPIC! This book teaches many of us how to lead, and all of us how to truly live."
  

• And finally, my current coach Jeffrey Davis is also releasing a book this week: Tracking Wonder: Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity. 
  
  On Satuday, Jeffrey is hosting a free half-day online event this Saturday, 10/2 called The Wonder Summit. His guests include Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Danielle LaPorte. It would be wonderful to see you there. Register today.

To your harvest, to your stories, to your sacred relationship with the land on which you dwell,

Marisa

What Story Is Mine to Tell Right Now?

Whenever I find myself spinning in circles and I have the urge to write,  I ask myself:

What story is mine to tell right now?

This is the essential question, whether my mind happens to be looping with anxiety or leaping with inspiration. 

(Have you noticed how they both tend to buzz at the same frequency? The nerves of worry and the nerviness of creativity are easily confused. When I ask this question, there’s a better chance of moving toward healing and productive cross pollination. That’s when the words finally start to flow.)

So Much To Say, So Hard to Find the Words

From my experience, “what story is mine to tell right now?” is the only place to begin when you feel the pressure to put words on the page and feel wordless at the very same time.

Here’s something we tend to forget when we’re overwhelmed and there is so much to say, either because the brain is swirling too fast with worry or soaring with new ideas: we writers can only set down one word at a time. 

“One word at a time” is the blessed miracle and the maddening flaw of language. 

We are forced to condense the immense and the ineffable into clusters of letters, limiting it all down to discrete, interconnected units of ideas. With time and focus, we spool a narrative. We can throw ourselves wide open to the expanse of sentences, stanzas, and stories. 

Here’s what might happen when you dare to ask, “what story is mine to tell right now?”

When I ask myself this question, I am almost always surprised. 

Sometimes, I need my journal and quiet hour. I must fill the page with rhetorical questions, nonsense sentences, and magnificent, revelatory errors of all kinds.

(When I wrote into this prompt yesterday, I definitely scrawled “when I know when I must right…” Cringe! But look what was revealed in that misspelling! Oh, my obsession with being correct, even on the uncensored pages of my own little green book)

Sometimes, the words take me to fairy glens and eighteenth century drawing rooms.

(Ok, so the novel got stalled in the transition between the endless 18-month summer and the uncertain fall, but there’s a book brewing, and it’s the story I was born to tell. When I give myself the freedom to describe a sacred well made of starlight and sphagnum moss or invent a whispered conversation between the countess and the peddler down the lane, I trust that I am making magic. You transform the very fabric of the world when you conjure and describe you own visions, stitch by stitch and word by word.)

Sometimes, the words come out seeking their place in the marketplace, issuing invitations to come play. 

(I’ll be the first to say that the “real writer” in me rolls her eyes at this naked display of capitalism, but then I remember that we live in a both/and universe. As the Irish poet Rita Ann Higgins says, “poetry doesn’t pay,” but the mortgage still comes due. And so, I ask my words, as they emerge one letter at time, to call in the writers, the healers, the dreamers, and the sovereignty seekers who will hear my song and use these ideas to add to their own. So, next time you see my images on Instagram, do read the captions, too. They’re lovingly crafted by a writer trusting the story that wants to be told.)

Sometimes the story is a text to a friend. Sometimes it’s an email to my grandpa. Sometimes it’s a note I stick in the lunch box in case second grade feels hard today. 

And sometimes the story that is mine to tell must be silently pounded into the pavement or held by the trunk of a beloved tree. Sometimes the story that is yours to tell is not yet speech ripe and will not come no matter how fine the pen, how quiet the room, how inspirational the view.

Trust the story. Trust the moment. Trust yourself.

The words will come in their own time, as they always do: one at a time, in a jumble or a flow. They will carry you onward to the story you must tell.

“What story is mine to tell right now?” is just one of many questions I pose to the dreamers, healers, and seekers who long to build a writing practice and birth their stories into the world.

In the Sovereign Writers’ Knot, the newest incarnation of my online writing community, you can find the the space, time, and company that will help you bring your words into the world.

We are welcoming new members through September 29. Learn more and apply now.

Time, rest, work, and the shaping of a writing life

“Women can have it all, but not all at the same time.” Brilliant, successful people from Betty Friedan to Madeline Albright to Oprah to Anne-Marie Slaughter are credited with this line. I don’t think anyone is irritated about plagiarism because truth is truth and amplifying shared wisdom raises everyone up.

I need to come clean: right now, I’m not occupied with writing a seminal feminist text or running the State Department or establishing myself as the ultimate media mogul.

Nope, my reality isn’t nearly as high profile or quite so life and death. It’s just as real though. I’m dancing with the daily truth about the choices that must be made: “this, not that.”

The "thises" and the "yeses"

My “thises” include mothering sick children and tending to my own wintertime ailments. When I’m not tossing tissues in the trash, I’m taking on copywriting work and writing coaching commitments for healers who are changing the world, one client at a time.

I’m also immersed in the Practice of Being Seen community for therapists and its delightfully demanding sister project, the Practice of Being Seen podcast.

On the podcast, we talk a lot about the various roles we play as individuals, as professionals, and as change agents. Often, it’s about “you can do more than one thing, but let's think about how that will feel...”

That’s what we explored in the recent discussion we had about Resistance & The Princess-Rebel Role Model. You can be both princess and rebel because, let’s be honest, we often want to be saved just as much as we want to change the world. But what does that really look like in practice? (Listen in and decide whether it’s something you can really do at the same time.)

The "thats" and the "not todays"

But the act of podcasting - and doing all the behind the scenes work it takes to make it happen - creates a whole new bunch of “thises” and excludes a whole lot of “that.”

As you may have noticed, blogging about writing and the creative quest have been in the “not that, not today” pile for some time. That’s due to the concrete realities that contain our boundless universe and give our lives some kind of reliable shape. I assume you know these - very real the constraints of time and energy?

The shaping of the time. The container of rest.

All this has me thinking about time and energy more than ever. I’m thinking about  as discernment too. And I have a couple of resources for you to check out that speak right to what I know is a very common concern for so many of us - particularly those who try to  fit parenting and entrepreneuring and client supporting and creating and self care all into one day.

Jeffrey Davis of Tracking Wonder invited me to write about my tango with time. It felt good to offer up some of my finite number of hours to Stop trying to make time. Enter into relationship with time.

In the post, I talk about how “I enter into relationship with time so that I can see the relationships between my ideas and the work I want to manifest.” The patience and the resources it takes to enter into such a productive relationship rely on one essential thing: rest.

Karen Brody’s work with yoga nidra has long been a source of solace and support, and I’m thrilled to tell you that she has a nine-month immersion in yoga nidra coming up.

This  sleep-based meditation is radically necessary and powerful, but that isn’t the only reason I am so excited to share the program… Daring to Rest: Wild Woman Writer is specifically for women who know they have a story to tell. A playwright and author as well as a yoga nidra expert, Karen is the perfect woman to combine story, sleep, and personal revolution.

Ultimately, yes, it does come down to balance

It's as trendy to scoff at balance as it is to strive for it. When the contemporary tussle over a word becomes too much for me, I look to the ancients.

Balance | #365MagicWords by Writer & Storytelling Coach Marisa Goudy

This is the latest image in my #365MagicWords series. As I am thinking of shaping time and prioritizing rest, and I am also thinking of the Eqyptian Goddess Maat who was the keeper of universal balance. The daughter of the Sun and the wife of the moon, she had great wings and always wore an ostrich feather headdress. She was the embodiment of justice and the grounding of reality.

A fine spirit guide for these tumultuous, over scheduled times, yes?

15 Stories that Will Help You Find Your Way Through the Holidays

It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the sun has some climbing to do before it reaches the horizon. The house quakes in the wind and I’m unaccountably sad that there are trucks collecting garbage in the freezing darkness of rural New York November. Somehow it seems tragic and strange that we live in a world that doesn’t have enough daylight hours to deal with its trash. Perhaps my cozy, privileged little bout of worry is forcing story into the hands of those hardened waste collection warriors.

It’s just a paycheck, lady, they might say. You keep to your words and those gigantic cups of tea, and we’ll work at the edges of the day to keep the world running smooth enough for the storytellers and the dreamers and mothers and all the rest who create pretty things for a living. After all, someone has to keep clearing away the scraps to reveal all that beauty you’re looking for.

Stories always find a way. Stories help us find the way.

That. That right there. That little paragraph is proof that there are stories waiting to be revealed in every conversation - real or imagined. Stories lurk in every moment of reflection. Stories even hide in the noisy blackness of a Hudson Valley back road at six AM.

Stories guide us toward the dawn. Stories anchor our worries and our blessings so they become real enough to be spoken aloud.

I didn’t wake up this early to fret over America’s waste problem or its labor practices, though both would be worthy preoccupations in their own time. I’m at my desk because I’m sleepless with stories and gratitude.

I’m here to offer 15 tiny gifts that are all more enduring than the latest soul shaking headline or the worries that race through your mind.

Each story you read, each story you write: it’s a gift.

Early in 2016, 15 writers answered a call.

Fifteen writers joined me for my frightfully ambitious #365StrongStories project. Each contributed a story - of birthing, of dying, of living in spite of all the pain that these simple events bring forth.

With their contributions, each writer lightened the burden of a daily writing project that ended up demanding too much from me. After well over one hundred posts, in May I abandoned my promise to tell a story each day. My life wasn’t designed to produce and publish a story 365 times in a row. I’m not sure that anyone who is dedicated to tending and protecting her creative source would want to force herself into such an arrangement.

But the writers who joined me were doing so much more than helping an overcommitted #365project sister out. Each story was a gift: for me, for the readers, and for the writer who gave herself permission to lavish attention on her own tale.

It’s not to be taken lightly, this work of shaping ideas into something that has a beginning, middle, and end. Turning twenty-six letters into a code we can all understand and then deftly splicing and slicing the words in their own divinely inspired order so that they make a story… that’s alchemy. And alchemy is transformational magic.

[tweetthis]This work of shaping ideas into something with a beginning, middle & end is not to be taken lightly[/tweetthis]

15 short story shaped gifts for you & yours this Thanksgiving

And so, now that the sky is brightening and it’s time to launch my girls into one more school day before the Thanksgiving break, I want to take a moment to thank each writer and to offer their stories to you as the gifts that they are.

Before the family arrives, before you’re up to your elbows in stuffing and sage, and before you have that next glass of wine, read a few of these stories.

May they offer comfort. May they offer inspiration. May they remind you of what you have lost and what you still might find.

Meet the #365StrongStories guest storytellers

Read Doubt and Annie D. by Suzi Banks Baum when you’re rumbling with creativity, self-doubt, and missing your babies.

Read Knowing Motherhood by Barb Buckner Suárez when you’re struggling to find your own voice while still honoring those who taught you to speak.

Read Echo Grandma by Evelyn Asher if you’re separated from your loved ones and are seeking creative ways to connect.

Read When Elder Becomes Child by Tania Pryputniewicz if you’re carrying a parent as you hold tight to stories of the way life used to be.

Read The Woman and Her Irishman by Brenna Layne if you have an ancestral mystery to solve.

Read Traveling Distances by Peggy Acott when you’re journeying to a meal you’re never going to forget.

Read Luis: A Study in Breath by Liz Hibala because we share this holiday with our animal companions too.

Read As I Remember It by Ginny Taylor because the past is often full of pain and survival and we need to honor those memories.

Read The Inconvenient Allure of Solitude by Maia Macek if you just want to slip away from the table to be blissfully alone.

Read Dance Camp by Sara Eisenberg because you need to experience your body through movement, not through overeating.

Read Walking Home by Dawn Montefusco because you need to root into your core beliefs… especially when certain members of the family start talking politics.

Read Stand Here by Stan Stewart if someone in your family is struggling with addiction.

Read The Martyrville Messenger by   Lois Kelly if a loved one’s illness keeps you close to home this year.

Read Up the Mountain by  Sharon Rosen to dive into the sensations of the body and savor the blissful and the brutal.

Read Never Evens by Kelsey Rakes to prepare yourself for the unexpected - especially if you’re expecting.

Are you ready to tell your own authentic, compelling stories? Learn how the Story Triangle can transform your writing and your practice.

Get Your Free Storytelling Guide

The secret behind your post-election writer's block

Someday, it might be fun to tell your grandkids that you had a front row seat for what will surely go down in history as one of the most infamous elections ever. Since every person must tell the story from their own point of view, there will be hundreds of millions of versions of the 2016 presidential race, and they’ll only have one thing in common: each story will have a beginning, middle, and an end.

Eventually, you’ll have the perspective to understand when and how the story started (it probably wasn’t the day the winner announced his candidacy).

You’ll figure out the turning point (surprisingly, it wasn’t the day the Access Hollywood tape was released).

Already, some Americans can tell you the last line of the story: a 3 AM victory speech.

Others are still waiting to figure out how their story ends.

[tweetthis]If you have post-election writer's block it's because you're still living your story[/tweetthis]

How to be sure your 2016 election story isn’t finished yet

It's important to note that having an unfinished election story does not imply that you refuse to accept the results of the American democratic process or that you're into the whole #notmypresident thing. You could say it's more about the state of your heart than it is about making plans to move to Canada.

Here's a quick self-test to see if you're in the camp that's still waiting for an ending:

• If you have a love/hate relationship with the social media feeds and recognize that all these reactions are wrecking your health, but you still can’t look away, your story probably isn’t finished yet.
• If you’re someone who is trying to avoid all political material (except Joe Biden memes) and is focusing purely on videos of cats and puppies, then there's a decent chance your story isn’t finished yet. (And I’m really flattered you broke your own rules to read this!)
• And, if you’re someone who can’t turn journal entries or scattered notes into a complete article or blog post, your story definitely isn’t finished yet.

(Oh, and should you fit the unfinished story profile you probably appreciate pantsuits and the color blue, but that’s sort of a side issue at this point.)

Ultimately, you see the 2016 presidential race as something that’s about a lot more than the person who sits in the Oval Office. You understand that many of the the people you care about and work with can’t get back to life as usual in our post November 8th world.

You’re in touch with all of the feelings of shock, outrage, confusion, and emptiness that make you fantasize about taking to the streets or hiding under the bed. (And you probably vacillate between the two options in the space of a minute.)

But what about the persistent inner voice that says “you must write” (or podcast or try Facebook Live)?

A wise friend, a therapist and writer, who has been writing boldly into the most troublesome issues of the day kindly advised me to "give yourself a chance to wait until you regroup and heal."

My response? "Well, I guess I will be doing a lot of writing from the other side of the grave."

As a writing and storytelling coach for therapists, healers, and people in the transformation business, it’s my job to be two steps ahead. I’m here to support people who write to deepen self knowledge and publish content to support their practices. I show up online in order to model that process, but how on earth can I do that when I have no idea what I really think and I feel unqualified to offer guidance?

That sort of extra pressure only makes the writer’s block even more painful, of course.

But then, I remind myself that every honest person who has shared any insights over the last week owns the fact that they’re stumbling along unmarked paths with everyone else. Many have found a way to say… something. Few of these pieces feel complete or definitive, but that’s ok. Certainty is a lie when you don’t know the story’s real ending.

It’s enough to hold space like Dani Shapiro did, to own our disbelief and disorientation like Rob Bell did, or to apply timeless principles like Susan Piver did.

If it’s not a time for storytelling, it’s a time for story holding

What eases us through this time of confusion?

Stillness. Being aware of the mess. Feeling all the feelings. Kindness. Compassionate conversation.

We actually heal confusion by admitting that we’re mired in it and, as much as we hate to admit it, when we realize that confusion has a measure of power over us.

We collectively achieve clarity when we refuse to rush a story to a neat little ending before its time.

The good news? The wonderful news for therapists, healers, and transformation professionals? It’s your job to hold and keep safe the stories of others. Even if you’re a teacher and it often feels like you're called to perform and convey information, you’re also someone who witnesses and supports others’ growth.

The kind of work you do is about listening. It is the kind of work that asks you to respond to one person’s needs. It does not require you to fully articulate the new left wing agenda or how to reverse this new racism and misogyny sweeping America or how to decide if it's better to protest or pray.

Your work requires you to be articulate in long moments of silence and to hold space for clients going through their own dark nights, through their own stumbling confusion.

Your clients don't need to be guided to the end of their own election story. Your clients need you to help guide them back to themselves.

[tweetthis]In the #election aftermath, it might be better to be a story holder than a storyteller[/tweetthis]

And yet, it is always time for writing and self expression

Even as your work may call you to be fluent in the language of silence, please don’t silence yourself if the words are aching to come through.

I invite you to rely on your writing practice (as well as your meditation practice and other healing modalities that calm and unbind your soul) to find your way through your own confusion. And I invite you to heed the call to share those ideas when you trust the moment is right, when you trust that you must be heard.

Here are 3 things I know as I write beside you through this time of uncertainty:

(And, yes, it's based on the Story Triangle that I use to help writers connect with their readers and their own truth. Click here to learn more. )

1. Self-focused first drafts are essential. Anne Lamott gave us permission to write “shitty first drafts.” By all means, feel free to write utter crap as long as it means you’re getting words on a page.

But please, please, please don’t allow yourself to write lousy versions of what someone else told you to think or what you assume the people want to hear from you. Write for yourself first in order to discover the truths within you.

2. Keep your audience in mind. What does your reader need from you? Why are you writing in this particular public forum? The territory you cover on a Medium post will likely be very different that the ideas you share on your business blog.

Know your platform and know its audience. When you get that SFD into the final draft, it needs to be re-crafted according to the needs of your reader. Do they need reassurance, do they need resources, do they need you to raise a ruckus, or do they need respite from all that election talk?

3. Remember that complete, compelling stories are everywhere, just waiting to be told. The great big election story is still being written as we see what a You Know Who presidency looks like, but there are countless little stories to be told along the way.

Even though many kids have taken the election results pretty hard (who else loves an elementary school kid who is still heart broken because we don't have a “girl president?), children are resilient. What stories are they living in the present moment?

Look for the ways that hope is being wrapped in a beginning, middle, and end. How are people uniting and taking positive action, despite the heavy November clouds?

Do you have stories that are begging to come through you? I can help hold space for you to tell them, support you as you clarify your ideas, and help you craft your words.

Set up a free 15 minute consultation to learn about how writing and story coaching can help you build your writing practice and your professional practice.