I had just finished a series of long facilitation days with a lot of give. The kind that leaves me on empty hours before it’s time to turn in. I was digging deep, running the inner generator and sourcing energy from the sheer commitment to making a difference and not mucking it up. That kind of push renders me raw and tender, like my skin is turned inside out, like I could cry for no other reason than to release what I’ve been holding. As I was packing up my bag, a colleague came up to me and said “I’ve got some feedback for you”. Ugghhhhhhhhh. Adrenaline released an explosion of prickles under my thin skin. My heart started sprinting as it sank into my gut, nowhere to go but dread. What is it about feedback that feels like a crowbar to the knees? Before I had any indication of where this feedback was going, my body was flooded with messages of danger. Defend and resist the attack. When it comes to feedback, or let’s be honest, what most of us interpret as … [Read more...]
My Unintentional Creative Hiatus. When What’s Calling You Demands Death
I stopped. I hadn’t planned on stopping. I didn’t hum and haw over it, I didn’t make space or have a strategy around taking a creative hiatus. I just stopped. I stopped writing. I stopped filming and publishing and posting. I stopped planning. Every project or bit of content that bubbled up in me, died off before I could see it through. More than that, the future of what I was going to create started to die off, leaving this mysterious void. Straight up, my friend, it was confusing and incredibly anxiety provoking. I’m easily seduced by my plans, by my bright and full future. Paring down the ideas are usually the challenge, not waving them away as wisps of insignificant mental ramblings. The creative rhythms I’ve come to trust go something like this: Idea rains down. Maybe it’s a title or a concept or an observation or practice. It presents itself as something that must come into form, that either wants expression or wants to serve a purpose. It chooses me to carry it out. Most … [Read more...]
The Right Path
There once was a Right Path. It was the step ahead, the reach, the breath. It was moments of oneness that bled into moments of separation. I am this. I am not that. The Right Path became what I wanted when I wanted it. Others were there as helpers or hinderers but the path was clear. Impulsiveness. Need. Greed. Hungry child hands stuffing pockets with the sweets of immediacy. And then the world opened, there were rules and order, process and power. The Right Path had been forged, let’s look around at what we do here, what we wear here, where we go here, how we behave here. Here are paths for you, all laid out, the brick borders your security, the horizon a predictable view. But then you tested those bricks for bounce. You bounced and you bounced and they cracked and you kicked the pieces aside and saw that you could carve paths in the soil with your own boots. So you carved and your body surged with freedom and you said ‘I want to go over there!’ And you did, didn’t you? … [Read more...]
Are you trash talking yourself into being more productive? Why love over leverage will get it done.
Striving. Self-Violence. Pressing and pushing up hill and through pain and resistance. You know the jam. The pathologically masculine and sadistic relationship to productivity that permeates our culture. We have medication ads glamorizing the get up and go when the body’s breaking down. We have over-scheduled, back-to-back days where a final collapse in front of Netflix is classified as lazy. We get leverage on ourselves with ‘motivating’ dialogue that’s actually just a loud asshole giving us a play by play of how we’re behind. Are any of these familiar? “Keep going.” “You’re not done yet.” “Don’t give up.” “Push through.” “Dig Deep.” “Don’t be a quitter.” “You always give up too soon.” “You don’t finish what you start.” “You need more will power.” Bloody exhausting. I’m so tired just writing that, I don’t even know if I have it in me to finish this post! Maybe I should say something mean to myself and just trash it all together. Maybe I should give up, slosh around in the shame … [Read more...]
Love Lessons From the Beginning. How to Make it Great.
I’m head over heels in love. We’re newly engaged. We’re past the total insanity phase. We’ve swooshed beyond the ravenous giggle-swoon-love-bath-hang-off-every-word-and-hold-our-farts-in phase. We’ve exited best behaviour. We no longer pick up our dirty socks or wait patiently for the other one to finish speaking before interjecting our opinion. We’re comfortable and gross and funny. But it’s still the beginning. It’s been just over a year since the moment I was like oh-my-god-this-man-might-be-my-person. Fast forward through one helluva year and we’re (he’s) sanding hardwood floors in our new place, both work from home together and have just started on some work projects together (eep!). He’s actively engaged with my son, been embraced by family and community, and has the most hilarious email exchanges with my boy’s daddy. I adore his family, his brilliant mind, and the way he takes care of me and puts me in my place all at the same time. We move well together. Sometimes I’m … [Read more...]
Contraction and Self-Disgust. What My Creative Genius Looks Like Inside-Out.
I was waiting for it. I’d even blocked it into my schedule. I’ve done enough ‘expansions’ to know that after stepping into a new space, creating something at my edge or launching something new, I experience an equal and opposing sense of contraction. Since launching new programs, I’ve been waiting for some massive attack of paralysis or closure. Instead it snuck up all stealth and subtle. This is apparently not something that people talk about. Although I feel like I talk about it quite a bit since I work with creatives, entrepreneurs and development enthusiasts. But I guess a lot of people who are ‘out there’ aren’t talking about the inner storms of their outer offerings. So, I thought I’d let you in on mine. Not because everyone should be exposing this, but because I’ve worked with so many people who make themselves wrong for these rhythms and I’d love to help bring some self-compassion and relief to others. In a recent Dear Chela episode, I answered the question as to whether … [Read more...]
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