Constructing This New Great Hall of Truth, One Door At a Time

Every time you speak a word, tell a story, or share your experience, you draw a door.

You create a new opening into awareness. You invite someone to enter your world, to be moved by your presence and your truth, to be changed in some way.

We Are Constructing a New Great Hall of Truth

As we hurtle and stumble through a moment when so many sexual assault and abuse survivors’ stories are coming to light, it feels as if we are walking down an endless hallway of suffering and secrets revealed. As authors of our own stories, we are actually building this hall, door by door.

It’s immensely personal, this process, and, at the same time, it’s creating something tremendously vast and important.

We are expanding the collective consciousness when we speak up. We are drawing a door that just might lead to a new world that is built on honesty rather than silence, where we quit muting ourselves to spare others’ discomfort.

You’ve probably this line a dozen times in the last month. I am almost certain it’s completely true. And, I am utterly terrified that we’re fooling ourselves and all this truth telling will come to nothing.

The Words and Stories Matter. All of Them.

Here’s what we need to wrestle with in this time of truth telling: When we decide one word, sentence, or story has power, they all do.

Even the words spoken in sudden anger and frustration. Even the hateful stuff the “other side” spews. Even the lies. (We don’t have to believe them, but both spreading and hearing lies has consequences, and so, they matter.)

We’re wise enough to know, after years of hurt and repair, that “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is one of those fundamental deceptions.

At best, this playground rhyme distracts us as we draw a door so we can get out alive in order to tend the wounds in private. At worst, it’s the song we sing to combat the unrelenting tinnitus of abuse and cruelty that just seems to ring through our civilization.

But Wait, Do Our Own Ugly Words Matter Too?

And sometimes, we - the well-meaning members of the light and love crowd - are just plain pissed off. We snarl at the kids and snap at the cashier because we’re so damn hurt by all the words swirling around in the ethers.

And the laughter. Oh, the laughter.

We rage at the derisive words and the cruel laughter and the dismissal of all this truth and all this pain.

Let’s be honest here: as much as the rhetoric from the podium and the roar of the crowd at those rallies seems to reflect the meanness and scorn that lies so close to the bones of America, we have some of that in our own bones too.

Our words have power, and we’re pretty conscious of that - most of the time.

But then, there are moments when we’re just so tired, so frustrated, so damn angry at a hundred things we can’t change that we just want to scream. We want to tell every power hungry monster to choke on his own tongue. And, because those guys are rarely standing in the kitchen with us when we’re ready to pull a Kali, we take it out on someone else for something really minor. Or for nothing at all.

But this isn’t meant to make us feel guilty for yelling at our families and flipping people off in traffic.

It’s likely that hurling our frustration at innocent targets is unhelpful, but getting down on ourselves for our own imperfections and just trying to wear a happy face while we boil inside… that might even be worse

Be honest. Be an ass. Be kind. Be righteously wrathful. Be messy as all hell.

Apologize when appropriate.

Continue being human and repeat as necessary.

But Then, Come Back To the World Splitting/ World Rebuilding Stories

We could get tied up at the intersection of “talk is cheap” and “words matter” for eternity.  We could get lost in why “fuck the patriarchy” is valid and how that nasty white supremacist misogynist internet troll is spewing hate speech. We could try to dismiss them all with “don’t let the bastards get you down.”

It’s all too easy to get all tangled up in guilt for the thoughtless thing we just said to our children and to use our own actions against ourselves, wondering if we need to excuse public figures for their public speech.  

That’s not where I want to go, not here, not now, even after I opened the Pandora’s Box of “all words and stories matter.”

Instead, I want to give us a chance to pause and think about all the ways that our words draw a door. I want us to celebrate how our beautiful, powerful, painful, dangerous stories can create new portals into new worlds.

Maybe that door is for someone else to walk through. Maybe it will change them in some way.

Ultimately, it’s not about them - not yet at least. It is about realizing that each word, sentence, and story can open a door for you. That is where you can and must begin.

It’s so damn easy to feel trapped in our stories, in our helplessness as mere constituents waiting on the next election, as choir members just preaching to each other, or as “the hysterical one in the family” who is screaming into the void of everyone’s obliviousness.

We can draw a door. We can shift the narrative of helplessness. We can tell ourselves a story in which we take action, not in which we watch another horrible thing happen.

Draw a Door With Your Words

Oh, this is so easy to say, but what is it like to do, really?

I feel as if I haven’t been able to take an unrestricted breath in weeks - especially since we knew Dr. Ford would tell her story. I have been feeling trapped somewhere between impotent rage and the overflowing of possibilities that dry up the second I get to the computer screen.

Scanning Twitter often seems more constructive than facing the blank page and my fear that I can’t really accomplish much of anything with “just another blog post” or just another social media observation shared with my carefully curated circle.

But what if it is not about drawing a door that will call some imagined reader into a unexpected epiphany?

Instead, I draw myself a door by daring to figure out which stories want to rise above the noise.

By drilling down deep enough in a draft - or in countless drafts - I to begin to see myself in my words. I begin to see my true self beneath the sentences that simply sound good. I come to know my own truths, rather than just feeling like I’m in a game of telephone influenced by headlines, friends, heroines, and random people online.

My writing sessions, and my tenacity to keep pursuing my own truth may turn into the posts I publish or parts of my memoir-in-progress, The Book of Sovereignty.

The doors I draw may help me express myself more clearly in a heated conversation or they may help me avoid falling for the next round of political gaslighting because I will be rooted in something deeper than in-the-moment reactions.

The more I write, the more I am willing to uncover and craft my own stories, the more ready I’ll be to craft a response that moves the conversation forward and helps more stories from the new Great Hall of Truth be heard.

Let’s Write Together. Let’s Gather In the Great Hall.

On Friday, October 19 at noon ET we’ll join together for another free community writing practice session.

When we gather to write you’ll give yourself the space to meet yourself on the page and you’ll get the writing prompts that will keep you focused on the stories that matter to you.

Sign up to join us live or to get the recording and the prompts emailed to you after the session.

So You Dream of Creating “A Writing Life”…

So many of us walk around with a secret (or not so secret) yearning for some other way to be, some other kind of life to lead.

This thing you yearn for, it’s not so far from who you are now. You’re not asking to join the circus or live on the moon. Instead, you want your own life, plus a little something more true, more authentically yours.

You find yourself reaching for some kind of life that’s perpetually almost within your grasp, but not quite. You taste it during stolen hours or weekend retreats, but it doesn’t stay. It’s like living in a constant state of “If only... but not yet.”

A creative life. A spiritual life. An artist’s life. A writing life.

What You Learn Two Decades Into “Not Quite a Writer’s Life”

For me, it was always the quest for “a writing life.” It was the quest to reclaim the life I’d had when I was too young to feel unworthy of it.

The adult me could write now and then, sure, but to have a life that placed my own writing somewhere near the center of my day and my identity? Oh, that sounds absolutely divine, thank you, but I just couldn’t possibly!

The excuses evolved through the years, but they all seemed reasonable enough at the time…

There was the relationship. My passion and my confidence about the words I put on the page dried up when I fell in love with an older guy who fancied himself a writer. I was 17. None of my girlish stories could be more important than loving a man and the creative work that he was sure were so important...

There was the inner critic. Eventually, we broke up and that guy went on to not actually become a writer, but I still couldn’t get my inspiration to conspire with my reality to create a writing habit. Though I had plenty of time throughout my 20s, I would be all full of passion and potential until I sat down and stared at a cruel blank page. No story could ever be good enough after all that time spend wishing I could be a “real” writer...

There was the mothering. Once I hit my 30s and found myself with a house and children, there was barely time to shower or even to think, never mind develop a writing practice that was nourishing and consistent. No story could be more worthy than my family and worries about our finances...

One constant belief that carried me for over 20 years: a writing life was something that other people could have.

The blessed ones. People who didn’t have to work, who didn’t have to parent, who didn’t have to sleep. People with stories more compelling, tragic, and impossible to ignore. People who were born brilliant. People born without an inner critic. People who trusted that they were here to be artists and had some sort of creative grit I just couldn’t find or fully understand.

But then I began to realize… There’s no such thing as “other people.” And I had a twisted perspective on what it meant to be “blessed” to boot.

Good news: the entire world is conspiring to help me (to help all of us) reckon with - and struggle with - these truths.

Division and Illusion On a Grand Scale

Right now, on a global scale, the waves of manufactured division are trying to erode the bedrock of human connection. Illusion is trying to flame brighter than shared truth.

There are structures in place - old, top-down power structures - that tell us we are a country checkered with two primary colors and that we are a world that’s meant to be sliced up according to our differences in politics, religion, and culture.

And yet, we’re also watching the entire spectrum of colors and identities emerge, rise up, blend, shift, and find countless new forms of expression.

It’s both painful and easy to see the contradictions, to see why this moment in history seems so overwhelming, confusing, and just so wrong… There are things we know in our bones, the basic stuff of right and wrong, but then we’re barraged by narratives of an alternate reality constantly being presented by “the other side.”

Division and Illusion on the Individual Scale

To varying degrees, we are reflections of the collective. Throughout my creative life I’d created my own private biosphere where I constantly planted hope, but the brutal storms of division and illusion always seemed wash away the seeds and destroy the immature root system.

In this world I had created, I wasn’t like the fortunate, productive people who wrote great things and boldly took in the harvest.

I couldn’t be savvy enough or brave enough to make the sacrifices to prioritize my writing. Somehow, my burden was heavier - even if it was the weight of the horrifically mundane. Those other people and their secret success sauce were meant to be followed and envied, but also avoided.

I told myself I had to push through my own workaday reality, which could never be quite as bright or full of promise as the creative reality of others. I had to take each practical project that came along to pay for the groceries and simply tell the art to wait in line. When I had all the money, marriage, and mothering figured out, then I could write.

Oh, My Heart, I Am Sick to Death of that Story

There’d be a certain amount of continuity to this tale if I told you that I came to my epiphany when I reached my 40s. But really, it’s just not necessary to wait another nine months for the revolution. The change is happening now…

I’ve quit praying for a writing life and decided that I’d better just start living in.

In part, change is rolling through because I was bored sick of the old stories, limitations, and fear. In part, it’s because time had done its work and life had started to change around me.

I started to see that my marriage (to a different guy who never considered himself a writer and who was never threatened by my creativity) wasn’t served by my playing small. My children got older. The years I had spent writing words for others seemed less like lost opportunities and more like the apprenticeship that would hold me as I grew a family.

And I just plain old outgrew the narrow life offered by my bad old friends division and illusion.

So many moments and choices brought me here, back at the page with the trust and confidence of my young, fearless self. Countless stories and words had to pile up until I could again trust my voice and declare that my life must be a writing life.  

Ultimately, though, it all comes down to one word - one enormous, magical word that I plan on spending the rest of my life teasing out…

Photo by Dev on Unsplash

Sovereignty.

It’s a word that found me long before its definition did.

Sovereignty came to me as something to do with freeing the princess, crowning the queen, and embracing the wise woman. This trinity of ideas found me during the darkest time when I was mourning my mother’s death, trying to figure how to be a mom to my newborn, and stumbling through the early days of entrepreneurship.

Sovereignty was a signal fire that shone on a distant shore, finding me in the midst of a long dark night.

And yet, for so long, sovereignty was as much of a “someday” dream as having a writing life was.

I knew I wanted to be sovereign, that I had to be sovereign in order to fully experience my own life. I knew I was meant to...

• fully accept and inhabit my own worthiness

• connect with and own my creative power

• feel whole and comfortable in my own skin, on this earth, in my relationships, and in my own story

• reckon with all that I yearned for, all that I’d been, all that I am in this moment, and all I’ve denied about myself, my reality, and our collective reality

• take on the truth of the world and be strong enough to make a difference - without sacrificing myself, body, mind and spirit.

It’s been a long, spiraling journey to get anywhere near sovereignty, to get anywhere near a writing life.

But here I am, with over 45,000 words in my Book of Sovereignty manuscript.

And here I am, founding the Sovereign Writers Circle and holding space for a phenomenal group of healers and creatives who want to bring their words and stories into the world.

I waited for my reality to change, I waited for my real life to sort itself out in order to make way for my writing life.

And then I stopped waiting and started writing and I realized that the difference between me and a real writing life, a real creative life was about 1000 words a day devoted to a passion project that integrates the most essential parts of who I am and what I know I must say.

What If the Writing Life You Long for Isn’t Really About Writing At All?

The most true advice one can offer an “aspiring writer” is to quit aspiring and start writing.

It’s also the most brutal advice, and I think I have finally sorted out why…

Writing is less about putting words on a page than it is about expressing your sovereign story - as an individual, as a creative, as someone with a story that you know in your bones is worthy of remembering, imagining, drafting, editing, and risking in the world.

And so, I invite you to lean into your longing for a writing life, but please don’t stop there. I invite you to set a goal to live a sovereign life as well.

On Being Free, Charging a Fee, and then Finding Freedom (AKA the Story of #7MagicWords)

You might know #7MagicWords, the week long challenge that encourages you to find seven special (or seemingly not so special) words that will illuminate your life, work, and art. Perhaps you’ve played with the daily prompts and met other Magic Makers along the way already. Perhaps it's time for you to see what the buzz is all about...

It’s something we do at the turn of each season, and we’re about to begin again as we welcome the fall.

Sign up now and read on to get the truth behind all the sparkle.

When #7MagicWords was born in June 2017, I desperately need to find - to create - something that was mine. It needed to serve me, and it needed to somehow align with what was mine to do.

I’d lost myself, you see. I’d lost myself in shoulds and the pursuit of the “practical.” I’d lost myself in partnership and a vision that was not my own. I was lost in the place between being a mom and being myself, usually mired in “not enough” on every front.

There was one thing I knew: I needed to focus in on bringing wonder-filled creativity and magic to the core of my life, and I knew I was supposed to call others to come along with me.

But, I also felt isolated by my own yearnings. The sense that I had something important to give but had no idea how to wrap it or where to send it constantly weighed me down.

It was when I was literally marooned on a sidewalk chalk island on a late spring day - my girls were drawing pictures around me - when the idea came to me.

(The best ideas are at once totally surprising and completely inevitable. That’s how it was with what would become this shared 7 day challenge.)

At the start of the year, I had launched #365MagicWords, a personal project that would help me connect to the creative impulse within and enable me to show up in the world each day. By June, I knew that there was power in the practice of finding a daily word. I had built a daily structure to hold the glimmers of insight, yearning, and experience already. It was clear that this project could hold me.

And after six months of an individual practice, it was clear that magic words could hold others too.

This is part of the mystery, you know. You create a container to hold your ideas and your dreams and then you soon discover that the container or project is actually holding you.

Develop an authentic space for others and you'll soon realize that it wants to become your own safest space to land.

Hold and be held.
Trust and be trusted.
Create and be created.

All of this #7MagicWords holding, trusting, and creating was happening within a much bigger story. It was yet another chapter of the adventure that had to be lived before it could be described. It was part of the quest for Sovereignty that’s at the heart of my life’s work. (And this is all part of the work in progress, The Book of Sovereignty that’s due out in October 2019.

“When you are sovereign, you are the confident, compassionate ruler of your own life.

You are rooted into your belief in your own worth and guided by your dedication to the greater good.

Confident, anchored, ready, you are able to hold and heal others so they can connect with their own sovereignty, their own creativity, and their own magic.”

— The Book of Sovereignty

Finding my magic words and developing the space for others to find their own words was sovereignty in action for me. Over four seasons I crafted prompts and curated quotes and assembled images. I was watching a community garden grow.

But somehow, as the project went on, things became imbalanced.

I felt like I was putting more energy into the whole extravaganza than I was getting in return. Somehow, the promise was not in alignment with the reality. What started as “easy, one word a day fun!” was being asked to do so much.

What was meant to be an offering of love and possibility was being weighed down by expectation and worry.

This sense that something was "off "wasn’t coming from the Magic Makers who joined in. No one ever hinted that I wasn’t doing enough to incite magic. It was all coming from me.  Clearly I had my own empty spaces to fill... 

Projects reflect their creator, of course - I am a chronic complexifier and over-deliverer. I’m also hell bent on evolution and transformation.

To simply update the prompts each time, but generally keep the same shape and scope overall? That couldn’t possibly be enough. I had to offer more.

As I write this, I remember that Mother Nature has never ever stressed that last spring’s flowers, last summer’s sunshine, last autumn’s brilliance, or last winter’s icicles looks just like last year’s. She serves up her magic according to the season and trusts that we mortals will welcome her offerings, hungry for the renewal that each new season offers.

But I didn’t see that until now.

The beautiful simplicity & utter necessity of consistency

This June, to counterbalance the effort I had been putting into the project, I upped the ante. I started to charge a small fee to participate in the project. I lavished so much time and attention on the prompts, the quotes, and the trimmings...  

Only now do I see that we began to lose the original power of a simple invitation to “Find a word that…”

I know that the smaller group of Magic Makers who showed up each day and played with - and struggled with! - the prompts got something important from the process. There was true beauty in the project, but that initial spontaneity just wasn’t there as I strove to take it all so seriously.

Magic isn’t in the efforting. It’s in the allowing & the welcoming of the unexpected.

And then, things shifted

Recently, I told you about *All The Things* that I have experienced and have planned as a result of an unexpectedly full and fruitful summer. Rediscovering my inner performer, putting the book first, finally stepping more fully into my Sovereign Story…

This is a space of such exquisite freedom, a space that I always believed was available to the chosen ones, the lucky ones, but never me.

There’s a new lightness and a sense of trust that I don’t need to hustle for worthiness or do the stuff that “should” be profitable and popular.

I don't need to try to do more or to pull off the impossible in order to introduce you to your own magic.

In our complex, material world, more freedom is actually about the right amount of less.

And that’s what I hope to embody and transmit in the next #7MagicWords Challenge.

To join us, simply say “yes to magic” below.

You’ll receive daily prompts encouraging you to seek, create, and make room for simple creative magic each day. All it takes is a word. Really.

The Confidence to Focus On All the (Right) Things

It’s just past Labor Day and everything is ending and beginning all at once. I find myself brimming with *All The Things.* This particular kind of internal motion and infinite possibility is as comforting as it is overwhelming.

Part of me is longing to find the superpower that enables me stretch these stories, experiences, and opportunities over a year, not just a handful of warm weather months. It’s a long winter, after all. All too soon, we’ll find ourselves shuffling from bed to kitchen to car to office, hoping that the grey skies might give over just enough sun to reveal some life beyond the windowpane.

But we haven’t reached that long dim hibernation yet and there’s too much to do to burn energy wishing for time bending tricks.

The harvest is just beginning.

Collectively, we’re invited to live in the bounty of right now and challenge ourselves to embrace it, be it, do it, and care for ourselves along the way.

I'm taking this chance to tell you all about my summer bounties and autumn challenges in hopes that you'll be inspired to join me, celebrate with me, and, in the process, uncover your own.

Knowing (and Breaking) the Rules When It Comes to Spreading the Word

Once upon a time, I was in the website creation business and I used to spend a lot of time writing about online marketing. Times have changed, and now my work is a whole lot more creative, soul-filled, and magical, but I still need to think about the marketing stuff - for myself, my Sovereign Writers, and for my healing & coaching clients.

I'm betting that you have to devote a fair bit of your brain to cast a spell of self-promotion and making connections with people too. Along the way, you've likely come across the rules of writing good emails and blog posts:

• Brilliant subject line/ title. (Confession: after years of crafting subject lines for myself and clients, I'm still convinced they're un-openable every time. I’m trusting that “All The Things” resonates with you, vague as it is.)

• Timing is key. (Confession: I was supposed to publish this in the midst of Labor Day weekend, which was  probably a bit counterproductive and counterintuitive. I'm not getting this out on the (unofficial) first day of fall because it's strategic but because I just couldn't get it all polished when I meant to.) 

• Focus on the reader. (Confession: As you may have gathered, this posts borders on the "all about ME." I'm aware of that and hope you'll see yourself in it and the overuse of the "I" will work out for both of us - just this once.)

• And then, there are the guidelines about writing about just one clear topic per message. (Confession: I see the reasoning behind this, but we are expansive, creative, holistic beings who speak, live and work at so many levels… Sometimes one clear topic is “the everything.”)

The rules are about to go out the window, friends, because...

All. The Things.

“I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.”
- Jeanette Winterson

For quite some time now, I have been coming to grips with a naked, unpretty little truth:

I have been playing small.

Seeing as I have been raising small people and I have been coping with any number of challenges behind closed doors, I forgive myself. I understand.

And I also know that it’s truly and deeply time to change my approach, my actions, and - goddess help me - my results.

This summer has been a season of growth and change and finding out that my life isn’t nearly as small as I feared. As the next chapter opens, I am realizing that, throughout my thirties, I really had been laying the groundworks for the next year and the next decade of life.

And I’m good with that. Finally.

Let's Limit "All the Things" to “4 things I would love my community to know”

1) What I Did On My Summer Vacation

“Camp GLP is always simultaneously a point of arrival, and a point of departure.”

- KC Carter, emcee, yogi, dad, executive coach, unicorn guy

A week ago, I got home from a fan-freaking-nom-en-al experience at Camp GLP during which:

Image by Darlene Hildebrant

• I defied my fear of heights (and lack of upper body strength) and took on a ropes course 30 feet in the air.

• I sang in front of 450 people -  just me, an old Irish song, and a dear guitarist friend who believes in my voice and my passion for the stage.

• I attended workshops that stretched my mind and sense of possibility, meditation sessions that stretched my consciousness back in on its clearest sense of self, and yoga classes that stretched my body back into a sense of at-homeness in my own skin.

• And, woven into every moment were relationships and connections I know will sculpt my life.

2) What Got Published When I Wasn't Paying Attention

In the midst of Camp GLP, I got an email from the editor of Feminism and Religion. They really liked the submission I'd sent in the month before. What's more: they were publishing it in two parts and making it the weekend feature

Read: What Your Learn When Your Voice Shakes (Pt. 1) and When Silence & Speech Both Burn Too Much (Pt. 2)

These pieces were tough for me. They forced me to come to terms with what I really wanted to say about all that felt too hard to say.

And publishing them challenges me to keep showing up as part of The Resistance, as a voice advocating equality and social justice - even when I know my initial instincts as to how to do it might not actually be born of the most aligned, productive energy.

In the midst of everything else that is going on personally and professionally, I know that it would be easiest to take my eye off the Resistance ball. My relatively newfound Twitter habit - following every political and social outrage in real time - was a huge drag on forward momentum. It was a constant source of wounding too, really, and I'm feeling more whole now that I've quit. (Yes, this is part of focusing on all the right things.)

And so, in the midst of all the personal growth, the quest is to keep folding in the desire to create a just world, not only in my direct sphere of influence, but in a wider sense, reaching to help those who might never connect directly with me and my work...

3) What I Committed To Without Much Thought

September has long been the month I GET SERIOUS ABOUT THE BOOK.

I’m not yelling at you, honestly. It’s just that this has been an all caps kind of priority for me ever since I committed to publishing with Paper Raven Press and set The Book of Sovereignty's release date for April 30.

Eek. (And lots of other four letter words creatively strung together with -ing endings and references to fictional characters who get themselves in impossible messes.)

Because of “all the things” it would have been easy to let the start of September slide by - particularly since it was smack in the center of this Labor Day weekend that’s all about recovery and reorganization. (Listening to Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living An Awesome Life while clearing out pantries and cabinets is really good medicine!)

And so, late on Saturday night, I did something rash: I wrote on my wall calendar and I snapped a picture and tossed it up on Instagram for to amuse everyone who was bored during the Netflix “next episode is starting in 5 seconds” countdown.

1500 words on 9/1

1200 words on 9/2.

1000 words on 9/3.

Please help hold me accountable for day 4 and beyond...

4) What We're All Going to Make Together

Many of you got to know me because of the #7MagicWords Challenge.

#7MW is back. And it’s simpler (and, I really think better) than ever! We begin together on September 14.

And, it’s free - again. (Just like it was in every round before I decided to charge a small fee for the June edition.)

I learned from the last go round that overcomplicating magic doesn’t make it more effective. By trying to make the magic fit into certain entrepreneurial expectations, I med the project something of a burden.

It's time to restore the project's light-hearted, possibility-laced sparkle.

To sign up for the simply magical seven day challenge that is #7MagicWords, just leave me your name and email address here.

Let's Close This Out With a Nod to the Whole “Confidence” Idea…

The word "confidence" appeared in the first draft title of this post without a second thought. But then I started to overthink it...

As I edited and wrote the conclusion, I really wanted to change it to "wisdom." I'm comfortable with the steady introversion of being wise. The great promise of "confidence" - that makes my playing small self squirm.

But what if "confidence" is exactly what's emerging after taking to the skies and to the stage, publishing a piece that feels scary, revamping and restoring the initial spark of the #7MagicWords project, and telling the world about my progress on the book?

What if I start embracing new superpowers and realize that I'm not faking it? Instead, what if I'm owning it?

What if owning my own story and my own confidence is exactly what the people in my community need from me?

Grounded & Lifted By All The Things 

My mentor, teacher, and healer has helped me understand that my creative magic looks and feels an awful lot like chaos sometimes. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. (Not if I own my creative process with confidence.)

Trying to force straight lines of “should” into my riotous spirals of actually getting things done is just going to send me into paroxysms of "not good enough."

And so, I am actively embracing all the things. Just not at the same time.

To make that happen - and actually find pleasure and security in the process - my newest mantra is “Grounded and Lifted.”

In every situation that threatens to grind me down or spin out of control, I remember that the magic is in the in-breath and the out, in the flesh and bones that act as the container as well as in the invisible, ephemeral air that enlivens it all.

Lots of feminist luminaries have been credited with saying “Women can have it all, just not at the same time.”

I agree - especially when you’re on a mission to integrate the “all” in such a way that the motherhood, the couplehood, the creatorhood, and the livelihood all get invited to play at the same table.

Sometimes I'll carry and juggle all the things with grace and flair. Sometimes they'll all fly and fall and I'll need to rest, regroup, and reach out in order find the confidence to do at least some of it the next day.

I do hope you’ll come gather around the virtual table with me during the seasons to come…

There will be richness, abundance, and possibility and they’ll occasionally rub cheeks with depletion, fear, and overwhelm, but I trust that we'll constantly dive deeper into a shared cauldron of experience, support, and wisdom.

We'll find the magic, we'll find the words, and we'll find the way.

How to write what you know when it hurts too much to talk about in public

Do you keep a journal?

The Gifts of the Regular Writing Practice for the Person & Professional That You Are

A regular writing practice is good medicine. Writing keeps you going through times of frustration and confusion. When you fall into the rhythm of your own words you can keep fear and loneliness at bay… at least for a little while.

As you make and keep writing dates with yourself, you become stronger. You get to know what you really think and how you really feel.

And, if you’re a lifelong diarist, if you ever need to do research on something like what true love’s first kiss feels like, you have exclusive access to a primary resource. (Or at least I do, but that’s another story!)

If you’re a professional in the transformation business who wants to change some corner of the universe with your ideas, a writing practice helps you become the person who not only thinks brilliant thoughts, but who also changes lives with them.

Your Journal Has Some Secret Gifts to Share with You

As someone who has carried around a journal since shortly after I learned to use a pen, I figured I knew every trick in the blank book of personal writing, but then I met Monica Kenton of the Spiritual Innovation Lab and she revealed a secret that every journal keeper must know:

Use your own journal as a book of answers. When you’re stuck and seeking guidance, ask the greatest authority on your life: yourself. Think about what you need to know and then open your journal to a random page.

Monica shared that idea last month in a workshop at Camp GLP (the most wonderfullest gathering for creatives and entrepreneurs EVER!). I’d forgotten about this magic trick until now. But, as I sit on my front porch, trying to force out a blog post in a few stolen moments while I try to tear myself away from the latest headlines, I realize that I just might have access to exactly what I need to write for you today.

We all break that “write what you know” rule sometimes, and then...

Seeking a taste of my own wisdom, I flip to a random page of an old journal.

Only July 17, 2016 I was up at 5 AM and feeling simultaneously filled up and emptied out by motherhood. Mothers of young children are creatures of the dawn, so I’ve seen the day from this angle countless times, but this wasn’t always the case.

That morning, I scrawled:

In high school, I wrote a story about a world trapped in the eerie half-light of dawn. It was fantasy - and not only because it featured druids and all sorts of enchantment. In truth, I wasn’t all that sure what dawn looked like. Sure, I got up in the dark to catch the bus, but I was too busy putting together my mid-90s flannel ensembles to look out the window.

At sixteen, I was breaking that rule that begs to be broken: write what you know.

Who can blame me? When you’re just desperate for something to happen to you, it seems like all you know are curfews and boys who just don’t get it. It’s almost impossible to write stories when you’re inside them - especially when you think the story you’re living is too limited. As a result, I turned to the completely made up.

Here’s the thing: I think it’s possible to write what you know even if your story is full of unicorns and dragons (even if you haven’t seen one - yet.).

If that story the sixteen year-old me was actually about yearning to be kissed by "the one" and a teenager’s longing for freedom, the silver horned creatures and the weird atmospheric conditions would have been completely believable and wonderful.

Thing is, I wasn’t writing a truthful story because I wasn’t willing to live the part of it that was completely accessible every damn morning.

You wander into “fraud” territory when you write about a daily planetary event and don’t actually bother to go looking at it.

You’re out of step with authenticity when you ignore that you and your life have a part to play in the stories you tell.

Apply the “write what you know” advice in a way that supports your life and writing process

But we're not kids anymore.

So much has happened to get you to where you are - so many terrible mistakes and private joys and worrisome truths. There’s an inherent challenge embedded in “write what you know” when what you know is too private or stressful or in-process to share in public.

And, "write from the heart" is a downright punishing statement if you’re a healer or a clinician who helps people solve problems and find peace and happiness when your own daily life is full of conflict and confusion and frustration.

But what DO you write about when life is hellish and your brand is meant to offer clients hope and solace?

The sunrise.

I’m taking this 2016 journal entry literally. If you can’t write about what’s happening in daily life, you must be able to write about what it means to stand in the stillness of dawn and tune into something bigger than your dramas.

Here’s your writing prompt:

Watch the sunrise.  Why would your perfect reader/ ideal client/ the individual who needs the change you seek to be in the world benefit from experiencing the stillness of dawn?

Give yourself permission to see that sunrise through the shadows that cloud your vision, through the hopes that blur your sight, through your biases that create your perspective

Even if every writer in this community wrote their next blog post about a sunrise, we’d all write something unique and show up as OURSELVES in the page. We’d offer some specific medicine that would help our own communities of clients see themselves more clearly and heal their lives.

You're invited to show up for the display nature puts on for free every day and turn that into your own story

I invite you to get up early tomorrow. Make a cup of something hot and strong. Get yourself to a window or snuggle into your coziest robe and face east. Then, go write. Please share the link in the comments or tag me in social media so I can see this particular sunset through your eyes and the eyes of the people you're writing for.

Want more writing prompts like this one? Join the next free community writing practice call.