First of all, this: "I'm slowly learning to be someone who can embody my dream."
Second, this: I finally have a novel, or a series of stories, that is grounded in a female character who:
1. knows what she wants
2. realizes that her circumstances may prevent her from achieving what she wants
3. chooses to run away from her dream instead and sequester herself
4. forgets what she wants
5. experiences psychological and physical upheaval that reveals what she continues to want
6. figures out how to move through anger, regret, self-loathing, etc. to work toward what she wants and realizes that working in this way is enough
She's the daughter of a 12th century craftsman and the stories will explore issues related to gender, socioeconomics, education, creativity and magic, and the ever-changing natural world.
Third, this: I spend two to four hours a day actively resisting this work by applying for jobs I don't want to do, making lists of tasks and errands unrelated to this work, pretending that sorting email messages is productive, and worrying about the income I'm not earning as I procrastinate.
Gunter Grass, a writer I admire, talks about approaching writing and creative work as "crabwalking," moving sideways toward an object as you look at it from the corner of your eye because looking at it directly -- really seeing your goal, your dream -- will surely stop you from pursuing it. So every day, as long as I can remain in awareness, I manage a step or two down an oblique path toward my goal.
Paula, your story sounds amazing! I hope you write it so I can read it.
I love the crabwalking analogy. Oblique seems to be how we arrive. Unless it's a purely academic goal, like getting a degree, where we show up in a linear fashion and eventually arrive there it seems to be an up and down process.
Thanks for mentioning the contrast between academic and (let's just call them "other") goals: the linear rules (and expectations!) we learn in that world (which starts, for most of us, at the latest in first grade) don't match any reality other than the unique academic reality they create. I learned those rules so well and still try to apply them even where I know they don't work. Then, in frustration, I throw out all rules and muck around in chaos until I become exhausted. But now you've got me thinking about making some new rules (or at least guardrails) that apply to the oblique path. Hmmm.
I love the crab analogy :) I take heart in more people talking about progress being non-linear (it only *appears* linear with hindsight I think). Squiggly Careers talk about this a lot, and it's helpful.
This is a fascinating comment thread following an excellent post, thank you Jennifer. Top drawer as usual💕
I am currently working on a series about change, laying out the tools we can implement to be able to move toward Wholeness and that thing our soul is calling us to do. Reading the comments here I see that so many of us know what we want but the stumbling blocks seem to be:
1. logistics - life is in the way, such as children, parents, day jobs, reality that cannot be changed;
perhaps in these situations, we are being called to hold on to moments and, as Paula said in the comments, travel obliquely toward our hearts desire, rather than facing it head on.
2. trust - developing an innate trust in our ability to pull it off, I think this takes practice and if we start with the little things and notice them, pay attention and cement them into our consciousness it lays down an imprint that we can take on more than we think. So often we aren't confident in our ability because it gets eroded by lack of attention and comparing ourselves to those further along the path. Intentional effort at noticing ourselves stepping up to the plate may make a difference.
3. surrender - I am talking about surrendering to the process and the effort, recognizing the journey, and allowing it to unfold. Releasing our expectations of the outcome (this is super difficult to do in real life, at least for me) but perhaps it is the whole point?
After achieving my dreams of getting a degree and becoming a Mom, one of my biggest dreams was to ditch the alcohol in my life. This seemed unrealistic for years until I started to put a process in place to make it become a reality (yay!). Now my dream is to implement more fun in my life (I know it sounds like something from a SNL skit but I really need it) so I am working on a plan for that because, at 57, it's not coming naturally🤣
I went after my big dream, which was to go back to school at 29 and finish my Bachelor’s degree, finally, at 35. Then I started grad school which I finished at 39, so I could begin a career as a therapist. This dream seemed totally unattainable when I started, yet I achieved it. I found out there was so much more to what I could be, do and achieve as a therapist than I knew when I only had the dream. In other words, I have done and become so much more than I dreamed because of what is possible after I pursued that dream and achieved it. For a long time it seemed like that was my only dream and once I achieved it, I would be “there”. In fact, in many ways I was in survival mode for more than a decade in pursuit of that dream.
Now I have other dreams, creative dreams, like to write about my life, and to learn to make and glaze pottery. I want to be good at these things and part of me believes I have some talent or ability to do them. It’s very hard to keep working at these dreams because they don’t come nearly as easily as the schooling did. I spend far more time wishing I were making progress on these dreams than actually working toward them. When I make pottery I feel very satisfied with the process and usually somewhat disappointed with the product. The same is true when I write. Im working to embrace all of the feelings that come up, including the disappointment, discouragement, frustration and wanting to give up. If I were speaking about someone else I’d know that whatever years I have left in my life (.most likely 30 years or more), can be spent working toward these dreams. I haven’t failed yet.
Well done Laura getting your degree and becoming a therapist. I was just commenting that academic goals, while still very difficult, seem easier because they are linear and we can arrive at a destination. Creative goals are slippery and more about the process. Trust and surrender really come to mind so I am going to put my thinking cap on about that!
It took me 11 years to finish my doctorate - partly because eight of those years I was caring for my mom and there was little space to to write and finish the dissertation. But also, partly because I didn't think anyone would want to read what I wrote - to hear what I had to say. But after submitting, my advisors asked when I would turn it into a book - that the world needed to hear what I had to say - that young women could read it and know so much is possible. So, there is my dream - to turn it into a book - but should it be a memoir or a how-to or a fictionalized story based on real events?
I love to write, but I struggle with the age-old "perhaps the world doesn't care about what I have to say" syndrome.
oh I have so much to say about this! How about a write post for you! Because that "the world doesn't care" is both a question you can use to write your book - who does care and why! - and the culture trying to shut you up!
I signed up for the White Belt Nia training so I could teach it, lead classes. A day after I registered, I regretted it because I just can’t picture myself doing it after more than 40 years of working behind a desk. Also, I wish I could retire (I will be 64 next month) so it seems crazy to me to try to reinvent myself at this age but I simply can’t afford to retire since I don’t have a company pension.
Carole will you still do the training? I had this fun image of you using movement to step (dance!) into this new dream. Holding hope it’s a great fit and a fun way to earn the money you need.
Yes, I will go through with it. Even if I don’t end up teaching, Nia is a holistic practice so I hope it shifts something within me and helps me to get unstuck.
I love Nia and there are no live classes in my community either. There used to be a class at the local YMCA but it wasn’t well attended. Maybe folks just don’t know about it.
I enrolled in an online master level poetry course but haven’t attended any of the live calls and I’m missing community connection. I want to have fun and take my writing to the next level. I’m also out of work on an injury, caring for my school age kids, caring for my mom who recently went to the nursing home. It’s a lot on my plate. I recently got my kundalini teacher certification and I haven’t practice teached in so long. I doubt myself that I can lead groups because I had one negative experience leading a group over a dozen years ago. My identity has really been my 22 plus year career so it’s no wonder that I’m not taking any outward forward steps
i see you! I know that place of feeling deluged by all the health and family stuff. I also know how loud and convincing that negativity bias can be - my god I replay the bad comments or rejections. I wonder about teaching a small class for friends to start to replace that bad experience? And maybe you can connect with other poets in the class even if you can't attend live?? Hugs!
My dream is to trust that going no-contact with my family of origin and allowing myself to be held and supported by those who really care for me is the right choice. Along with it comes the dream that all the creativity that this new sense of safety is allowing within me can be of value to others.
I've wanted to be a full-time energy healer and spiritual teacher serving corporate professionals since I tentatively put out my shingle in 2002. It makes me sad from time to time that I am not there yet and I've had to keep doing day job work as a Contract Attorney...but my spiritual work won't leave me alone, so I continue to try, hope and trust...thank you for listening.
My dream is being someone who can take big steps to do things that make me happy - like going on a European holiday, or buying my grandparents’ house in the tiny village I grew up in, and restoring it.
What holds me back is a lifetime of keeping small, something I learned out of fear that no one would like/love me if I was too “big” or “out there” or arrogant or weird. Being seen taking big steps off my expected life path is challenging!
The other thing that holds me back is plain old fear. Fear of other people’s actions, catastrophes out of my control, plain old fear of failure and less than perfect.
But largely because of some excellent therapy this year - I know these imagined roadblocks. I see them but they don’t hold me back any more, consciously or unconsciously. We fly out in 7 days on our trip, and when we return, I’ll be planning a year of working on that beautiful old house - which I bought in October.
I’m an enneagram type 7 - we are FULL of ideas but really don’t complete well! So this very much resonated, except for the fact that I don’t have one dream, mine are many 😂
I resonate with lots of the comments. I’ve done yoga teacher training and never taught, I’ve ideas for both novels and non-fiction that haven’t been followed through, I started my Substack but then don’t write for six weeks or more. I started a herbalism course and now I’m in my second year and it’s more serious I want to give up.
I’m some ways I think as I approach 50 I’m really putting ambition down and leaning into joy. I just took up street dance classes and am loving it. Not to be a world champion dancer, or to teach, but just to move and laugh and have fun to loud music! But there is a part of me wondering if I’m setting aside ambition too prematurely. I think it’s maybe just fear and lack of confidence that makes me want to set it down.
Enneagram 7 yes so much passion. So fun! And often you fear you don’t know what you really desire and will it be the best choice? Focus is important for your growth but also so blah. I love that you are dancing with these questions of what you really want!
Totally blah! 😂 and yes, there’s a part of me that feels very insufficient because I don’t have one dream and I don’t know what I want.
My husband has one big dream and has pursued it all his life, and now does that for a livelihood. I kind of wish I were like that... but also love my way of being so curious about everything in the world!!!
This reminds me of what Barbara Sher called a Scanner, someone with many interests who can often look like a flake to others and themselves.
I am not an Enneagram 7. I'm actually a 6, but I have some 7 tendencies, some Scanner tendencies. Once I've delved into something deep enough and long enough, I lose interest. I got what I came for as Barbara would say. I satisfied my curiosity, I know enough, and I'm done with that subject.
I often wish I were more like your husband as well. It seems so much more stable and satisfying.
But I'm also learning to lean into joy more, like you, and let go of some of my old preconceived notions of the "right way" to live life.
I want to write a novel too. I wrote this beginning years ago already. I am afraid I don’t “know enough” to write it.
“I am the storyteller and the medicine woman of my tribe. From before I was born, my mother held her hands against her womb to feel me move within and to comfort me as we sat next to the fire. I learned her voice as she told me the old stories. You may say I couldn’t possibly remember, but I know I do. From a young age, she taught me to gather herbs and medicines. Now the women of the tribe come to me when they are heartsick or their bodies require healing.
My name is Syiah, Daughter of Leandrah, who was the daughter of the Priestess Isheara.”
Thank you for this, Jen. My dream is to lovingly, gently, listen to and feel the sadness my creative self has silently held/carried since i was a child - sadness about how my feelings, my observations, my experiences were ignored and overlooked - to let her know that I am here with her again, sharing those emotions with her (ow!), and rejoining with her so that we can let the creative energy flow and carry us to exciting new places together, to the places we want to go!
I may have the opportunity to return to school to become a landscape architect. I wanted to be one since I was a little girl, designing and growing my own garden out of an area of the yard my mom gave me. In highschool I took drafting to prepare. However, in a class of all boys, with a male teacher, I and my parents were told I wasn’t good at drawing and would never make it as a landscape architect. I carried this shame around with me through art school, where one of my teachers was so incensed that he ranted at me in every class. I eventually drew, but was traumatized in the process. I focused on photography in art school at first opportunity. I only took drawing because it was required.
So now I am facing enrolling in a master’s program. I’m on disability right now. I am afraid if I go this route I will loose my disability. I wonder how much going back to school and busywork is an avoidance tactic for accepting that I am truly disabled and the grief that might come with that acceptance. Of course I also worry I won’t get in to the program. My shoulders are in my ears, as I write this. Tension much?
So much grace to you as you reclaim this part of you. Because no matter what you decide, the one of must draw and must create is back! she's in you and she can have a voice no matter what! And let's do a banish creative shame ritual, okay?I have to some to banish too.
Thank you for writing this. For years I’ve toggled between full time parenting and working as a learning professional. My career has been less than stellar but I am a great learning designer and facilitator. I recently gave up the last soul destroying corporate job to build a learning facilitation business. I want to be in demand and acknowledged. First I have to market myself. I’m not very good at that. It exhausts me. Lots of bootstrap pulling Sigh
let's talk about marketing because it really can be - I swear! - fun when you think about marketing as teaching as in letting people sample your brilliance vs. pick me and then I'm good enough which may not be how you ever feel about marketing but has certainly been my feeling
Here’s the interesting thing. I KNOW (deep in my soul) that it’s all about shifting the lens. And yet it can be like staring at a blank sheet of paper waiting for inspiration. Sometime we just try too hard. We need other people to help us make a shift. Thank you so much for helping me with a shift just now. Truly grateful for this thread.
I wonder if you've heard of Marketing for Hippies? He comes at marketing from a very different perspective. It's about finding a good fit, not all of the manipulative and sleazy things we tend to think of when thinking about marketing. He has lots of free stuff on YouTube and his website. His name is Tad Hargrave.
I've learned a lot just by watching his videos on YouTube. Of course, I still haven't done much marketing, but it feels less intimidating and gross than it used to.
And he also says we aren't supposed to be good at marketing ourselves. Think about how weird it is that we think we should be good at it. Like it's normal to go around bragging about how great you are. But think about how easy it is to promote someone else, like I am currently doing with his stuff. I don't have my ego involved at all. I just find his stuff super valuable and thought you might as well.
I want to be a business writer and a teacher - teaching about application and action through interactive classes, mentorship, and YouTube videos. But I’m terrified to step away from some of my high-touch client work because of the fear that I can’t recoup that income quickly enough. And I’d have to dip into my savings.
I love that you're already doing this and also just wanted to let you know that I really think it's possible to build a large enough community around your work to be able to reduce the high-touch client work. It may take more time than we like, but stick with it and let your high-touch work inform the public/group stuff, it's kind of where the magic is! :)
First of all, this: "I'm slowly learning to be someone who can embody my dream."
Second, this: I finally have a novel, or a series of stories, that is grounded in a female character who:
1. knows what she wants
2. realizes that her circumstances may prevent her from achieving what she wants
3. chooses to run away from her dream instead and sequester herself
4. forgets what she wants
5. experiences psychological and physical upheaval that reveals what she continues to want
6. figures out how to move through anger, regret, self-loathing, etc. to work toward what she wants and realizes that working in this way is enough
She's the daughter of a 12th century craftsman and the stories will explore issues related to gender, socioeconomics, education, creativity and magic, and the ever-changing natural world.
Third, this: I spend two to four hours a day actively resisting this work by applying for jobs I don't want to do, making lists of tasks and errands unrelated to this work, pretending that sorting email messages is productive, and worrying about the income I'm not earning as I procrastinate.
Gunter Grass, a writer I admire, talks about approaching writing and creative work as "crabwalking," moving sideways toward an object as you look at it from the corner of your eye because looking at it directly -- really seeing your goal, your dream -- will surely stop you from pursuing it. So every day, as long as I can remain in awareness, I manage a step or two down an oblique path toward my goal.
i am so struck by how your story is teaching you what you need to know. keep crabbing friend keep crabbing!
Paula, your story sounds amazing! I hope you write it so I can read it.
I love the crabwalking analogy. Oblique seems to be how we arrive. Unless it's a purely academic goal, like getting a degree, where we show up in a linear fashion and eventually arrive there it seems to be an up and down process.
Thanks for mentioning the contrast between academic and (let's just call them "other") goals: the linear rules (and expectations!) we learn in that world (which starts, for most of us, at the latest in first grade) don't match any reality other than the unique academic reality they create. I learned those rules so well and still try to apply them even where I know they don't work. Then, in frustration, I throw out all rules and muck around in chaos until I become exhausted. But now you've got me thinking about making some new rules (or at least guardrails) that apply to the oblique path. Hmmm.
Hm, mucking around in chaos sounds vaguely familiar to me🤣
I love this novel outline so much! Keep crab walking and let us know when the novel is ready for readers!
Thanks for your support! I have an idea about sharing the novel in progress. Working out the details now.
I love the crab analogy :) I take heart in more people talking about progress being non-linear (it only *appears* linear with hindsight I think). Squiggly Careers talk about this a lot, and it's helpful.
Squiggly Careers, what a great name! Just the word squiggly is awesome.
This is a fascinating comment thread following an excellent post, thank you Jennifer. Top drawer as usual💕
I am currently working on a series about change, laying out the tools we can implement to be able to move toward Wholeness and that thing our soul is calling us to do. Reading the comments here I see that so many of us know what we want but the stumbling blocks seem to be:
1. logistics - life is in the way, such as children, parents, day jobs, reality that cannot be changed;
perhaps in these situations, we are being called to hold on to moments and, as Paula said in the comments, travel obliquely toward our hearts desire, rather than facing it head on.
2. trust - developing an innate trust in our ability to pull it off, I think this takes practice and if we start with the little things and notice them, pay attention and cement them into our consciousness it lays down an imprint that we can take on more than we think. So often we aren't confident in our ability because it gets eroded by lack of attention and comparing ourselves to those further along the path. Intentional effort at noticing ourselves stepping up to the plate may make a difference.
3. surrender - I am talking about surrendering to the process and the effort, recognizing the journey, and allowing it to unfold. Releasing our expectations of the outcome (this is super difficult to do in real life, at least for me) but perhaps it is the whole point?
After achieving my dreams of getting a degree and becoming a Mom, one of my biggest dreams was to ditch the alcohol in my life. This seemed unrealistic for years until I started to put a process in place to make it become a reality (yay!). Now my dream is to implement more fun in my life (I know it sounds like something from a SNL skit but I really need it) so I am working on a plan for that because, at 57, it's not coming naturally🤣
I went after my big dream, which was to go back to school at 29 and finish my Bachelor’s degree, finally, at 35. Then I started grad school which I finished at 39, so I could begin a career as a therapist. This dream seemed totally unattainable when I started, yet I achieved it. I found out there was so much more to what I could be, do and achieve as a therapist than I knew when I only had the dream. In other words, I have done and become so much more than I dreamed because of what is possible after I pursued that dream and achieved it. For a long time it seemed like that was my only dream and once I achieved it, I would be “there”. In fact, in many ways I was in survival mode for more than a decade in pursuit of that dream.
Now I have other dreams, creative dreams, like to write about my life, and to learn to make and glaze pottery. I want to be good at these things and part of me believes I have some talent or ability to do them. It’s very hard to keep working at these dreams because they don’t come nearly as easily as the schooling did. I spend far more time wishing I were making progress on these dreams than actually working toward them. When I make pottery I feel very satisfied with the process and usually somewhat disappointed with the product. The same is true when I write. Im working to embrace all of the feelings that come up, including the disappointment, discouragement, frustration and wanting to give up. If I were speaking about someone else I’d know that whatever years I have left in my life (.most likely 30 years or more), can be spent working toward these dreams. I haven’t failed yet.
Well done Laura getting your degree and becoming a therapist. I was just commenting that academic goals, while still very difficult, seem easier because they are linear and we can arrive at a destination. Creative goals are slippery and more about the process. Trust and surrender really come to mind so I am going to put my thinking cap on about that!
That makes sense and feels true for me, Donna!
It took me 11 years to finish my doctorate - partly because eight of those years I was caring for my mom and there was little space to to write and finish the dissertation. But also, partly because I didn't think anyone would want to read what I wrote - to hear what I had to say. But after submitting, my advisors asked when I would turn it into a book - that the world needed to hear what I had to say - that young women could read it and know so much is possible. So, there is my dream - to turn it into a book - but should it be a memoir or a how-to or a fictionalized story based on real events?
I love to write, but I struggle with the age-old "perhaps the world doesn't care about what I have to say" syndrome.
oh I have so much to say about this! How about a write post for you! Because that "the world doesn't care" is both a question you can use to write your book - who does care and why! - and the culture trying to shut you up!
I signed up for the White Belt Nia training so I could teach it, lead classes. A day after I registered, I regretted it because I just can’t picture myself doing it after more than 40 years of working behind a desk. Also, I wish I could retire (I will be 64 next month) so it seems crazy to me to try to reinvent myself at this age but I simply can’t afford to retire since I don’t have a company pension.
Carole will you still do the training? I had this fun image of you using movement to step (dance!) into this new dream. Holding hope it’s a great fit and a fun way to earn the money you need.
Yes, I will go through with it. Even if I don’t end up teaching, Nia is a holistic practice so I hope it shifts something within me and helps me to get unstuck.
that sounds like a wonderful plan!!
Last night I was just thinking how much I miss my Nia class. We haven’t had a live class in years and I miss the niche community we created.
I love Nia and there are no live classes in my community either. There used to be a class at the local YMCA but it wasn’t well attended. Maybe folks just don’t know about it.
I enrolled in an online master level poetry course but haven’t attended any of the live calls and I’m missing community connection. I want to have fun and take my writing to the next level. I’m also out of work on an injury, caring for my school age kids, caring for my mom who recently went to the nursing home. It’s a lot on my plate. I recently got my kundalini teacher certification and I haven’t practice teached in so long. I doubt myself that I can lead groups because I had one negative experience leading a group over a dozen years ago. My identity has really been my 22 plus year career so it’s no wonder that I’m not taking any outward forward steps
i see you! I know that place of feeling deluged by all the health and family stuff. I also know how loud and convincing that negativity bias can be - my god I replay the bad comments or rejections. I wonder about teaching a small class for friends to start to replace that bad experience? And maybe you can connect with other poets in the class even if you can't attend live?? Hugs!
It's so hard to face not having attended those courses and calls. I have lots of regret around that too.
My dream is to trust that going no-contact with my family of origin and allowing myself to be held and supported by those who really care for me is the right choice. Along with it comes the dream that all the creativity that this new sense of safety is allowing within me can be of value to others.
that's a self-loving dream! I hope the holidays feel nourishing in this creative held way for you with your family of choice and your creative play!
I've wanted to be a full-time energy healer and spiritual teacher serving corporate professionals since I tentatively put out my shingle in 2002. It makes me sad from time to time that I am not there yet and I've had to keep doing day job work as a Contract Attorney...but my spiritual work won't leave me alone, so I continue to try, hope and trust...thank you for listening.
That’s so beautiful!! Thank you for lighting my day with your dream!
I'm moved that anyone even asked what my dream is- THANK YOU.
I'm so happy to hear it!
I love how you are continuing to tend and mind your dream in whatever way you can..
and me yours!!!
My dream is being someone who can take big steps to do things that make me happy - like going on a European holiday, or buying my grandparents’ house in the tiny village I grew up in, and restoring it.
What holds me back is a lifetime of keeping small, something I learned out of fear that no one would like/love me if I was too “big” or “out there” or arrogant or weird. Being seen taking big steps off my expected life path is challenging!
The other thing that holds me back is plain old fear. Fear of other people’s actions, catastrophes out of my control, plain old fear of failure and less than perfect.
But largely because of some excellent therapy this year - I know these imagined roadblocks. I see them but they don’t hold me back any more, consciously or unconsciously. We fly out in 7 days on our trip, and when we return, I’ll be planning a year of working on that beautiful old house - which I bought in October.
That is so darn awesome! I love that you took the time to share this. Thank you thank you!!
I’m an enneagram type 7 - we are FULL of ideas but really don’t complete well! So this very much resonated, except for the fact that I don’t have one dream, mine are many 😂
I resonate with lots of the comments. I’ve done yoga teacher training and never taught, I’ve ideas for both novels and non-fiction that haven’t been followed through, I started my Substack but then don’t write for six weeks or more. I started a herbalism course and now I’m in my second year and it’s more serious I want to give up.
I’m some ways I think as I approach 50 I’m really putting ambition down and leaning into joy. I just took up street dance classes and am loving it. Not to be a world champion dancer, or to teach, but just to move and laugh and have fun to loud music! But there is a part of me wondering if I’m setting aside ambition too prematurely. I think it’s maybe just fear and lack of confidence that makes me want to set it down.
Enneagram 7 yes so much passion. So fun! And often you fear you don’t know what you really desire and will it be the best choice? Focus is important for your growth but also so blah. I love that you are dancing with these questions of what you really want!
Totally blah! 😂 and yes, there’s a part of me that feels very insufficient because I don’t have one dream and I don’t know what I want.
My husband has one big dream and has pursued it all his life, and now does that for a livelihood. I kind of wish I were like that... but also love my way of being so curious about everything in the world!!!
This reminds me of what Barbara Sher called a Scanner, someone with many interests who can often look like a flake to others and themselves.
I am not an Enneagram 7. I'm actually a 6, but I have some 7 tendencies, some Scanner tendencies. Once I've delved into something deep enough and long enough, I lose interest. I got what I came for as Barbara would say. I satisfied my curiosity, I know enough, and I'm done with that subject.
I often wish I were more like your husband as well. It seems so much more stable and satisfying.
But I'm also learning to lean into joy more, like you, and let go of some of my old preconceived notions of the "right way" to live life.
Always loved her description of that!
I want to write a novel too. I wrote this beginning years ago already. I am afraid I don’t “know enough” to write it.
“I am the storyteller and the medicine woman of my tribe. From before I was born, my mother held her hands against her womb to feel me move within and to comfort me as we sat next to the fire. I learned her voice as she told me the old stories. You may say I couldn’t possibly remember, but I know I do. From a young age, she taught me to gather herbs and medicines. Now the women of the tribe come to me when they are heartsick or their bodies require healing.
My name is Syiah, Daughter of Leandrah, who was the daughter of the Priestess Isheara.”
Wonderful!! Does it still call to you? Because writing a novel can be learned!! 🫶🏽
It does! And thank you. 🙏
Then off you go!
Thank you for this, Jen. My dream is to lovingly, gently, listen to and feel the sadness my creative self has silently held/carried since i was a child - sadness about how my feelings, my observations, my experiences were ignored and overlooked - to let her know that I am here with her again, sharing those emotions with her (ow!), and rejoining with her so that we can let the creative energy flow and carry us to exciting new places together, to the places we want to go!
you are doing it! you are letting it flow!!! I see that!
I may have the opportunity to return to school to become a landscape architect. I wanted to be one since I was a little girl, designing and growing my own garden out of an area of the yard my mom gave me. In highschool I took drafting to prepare. However, in a class of all boys, with a male teacher, I and my parents were told I wasn’t good at drawing and would never make it as a landscape architect. I carried this shame around with me through art school, where one of my teachers was so incensed that he ranted at me in every class. I eventually drew, but was traumatized in the process. I focused on photography in art school at first opportunity. I only took drawing because it was required.
So now I am facing enrolling in a master’s program. I’m on disability right now. I am afraid if I go this route I will loose my disability. I wonder how much going back to school and busywork is an avoidance tactic for accepting that I am truly disabled and the grief that might come with that acceptance. Of course I also worry I won’t get in to the program. My shoulders are in my ears, as I write this. Tension much?
So much grace to you as you reclaim this part of you. Because no matter what you decide, the one of must draw and must create is back! she's in you and she can have a voice no matter what! And let's do a banish creative shame ritual, okay?I have to some to banish too.
Thank you for writing this. For years I’ve toggled between full time parenting and working as a learning professional. My career has been less than stellar but I am a great learning designer and facilitator. I recently gave up the last soul destroying corporate job to build a learning facilitation business. I want to be in demand and acknowledged. First I have to market myself. I’m not very good at that. It exhausts me. Lots of bootstrap pulling Sigh
let's talk about marketing because it really can be - I swear! - fun when you think about marketing as teaching as in letting people sample your brilliance vs. pick me and then I'm good enough which may not be how you ever feel about marketing but has certainly been my feeling
Holy Hannah - genius!!!! Thank you.
Here’s the interesting thing. I KNOW (deep in my soul) that it’s all about shifting the lens. And yet it can be like staring at a blank sheet of paper waiting for inspiration. Sometime we just try too hard. We need other people to help us make a shift. Thank you so much for helping me with a shift just now. Truly grateful for this thread.
holy hannah yes we have to keep shifting! yes to that!!
I wonder if you've heard of Marketing for Hippies? He comes at marketing from a very different perspective. It's about finding a good fit, not all of the manipulative and sleazy things we tend to think of when thinking about marketing. He has lots of free stuff on YouTube and his website. His name is Tad Hargrave.
I've learned a lot just by watching his videos on YouTube. Of course, I still haven't done much marketing, but it feels less intimidating and gross than it used to.
And he also says we aren't supposed to be good at marketing ourselves. Think about how weird it is that we think we should be good at it. Like it's normal to go around bragging about how great you are. But think about how easy it is to promote someone else, like I am currently doing with his stuff. I don't have my ego involved at all. I just find his stuff super valuable and thought you might as well.
I do know Tad. He recently featured my Insta in something . I appreciate his perspective! and yes he’s right so much easier to promote others!
I want to be a business writer and a teacher - teaching about application and action through interactive classes, mentorship, and YouTube videos. But I’m terrified to step away from some of my high-touch client work because of the fear that I can’t recoup that income quickly enough. And I’d have to dip into my savings.
So lovely to see you here Jessica! :)
I love that you're already doing this and also just wanted to let you know that I really think it's possible to build a large enough community around your work to be able to reduce the high-touch client work. It may take more time than we like, but stick with it and let your high-touch work inform the public/group stuff, it's kind of where the magic is! :)
And clarifying - I do this today. Just not at the speed or scope in my heart!
With you! The terror is real and I’m trying to look at what expenses I can really let go of and how we can live simpler. But still - terrifying.
Thank you, Dreamer!
❤️🌟❤️