As with any practice, there are times in our lives where other things take priority and it's okay to change things up. What is also important is to recognize what a practice means to you and when it becomes necessary to "get back on the horse" as they say.

Exercise, journaling, mediation, creative hobbies, and more ask us to become better at discipline, at choosing to say yes to something that nourishes the self, and in return allows us to show up better for others. 

Writing has always been that salve for me, but I've not always been good at keeping it a "practice." As a teenager I'd write most nights before bed, recounting the events of the day and allowing myself to express the things I observed and felt so that I understood more fully my place in the world.

As an adult, it became much harder to maintain this practice, especially after having kids and then smartphones took away much of my attention span and evening ritual. 

So I've been reclaiming my writing practice in...

This morning I resisted the mindfulness practice I'd committed to this week. I have a few choices for those 10 minutes, different ways to slow down, get present, and release some stress and anxiety. I wake up anxious most days, before my eyes are even open, so it's pretty helpful to get up and start the doing of the day instead of wallowing and getting sucked down into a pit of anxiety oblivion topped with a shame spiral.

So I did well at the getting up part, took the dogs out and tidied up the kitchen. Enough doing had gone by that it was time for the mindfulness choice, and I didn't want to do any of it. So I got my coffee and now I'm sitting here with you and my laptop and I'm considering the senses.

In writing, we talk about using sensory details to bring our readers into the moment. It's a good idea to describe what a character or narrator is seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, and smelling... not all at once, but enough to bring the reader into the moment.

A mindfulness...

"Set a timer for 15 minutes," I tell my child sitting a few cushions down from me on the couch.

"Okay... Ready, Set, Go!"

I begin typing here, now, because I am a writer who writes. And, because I am in integrity with the promises I make to myself about writing for at least 15 minutes a day and posting it on my blog. 

So here I am writing, after a full day supporting clients at different phases and stages of building their business, of up leveling their marketing, of writing and dreaming up new beginnings.

Of endings, too. With each level of expansion we enter in, there is a closing of doors, a turning away from so that we may turn toward the next iteration of who we are becoming. What an honor to witness and share this journey with so many amazing humans doing good work in the world.

Expansion isn't easy, the cycle of contraction and expansion, of opening and closing is not an easy one. But we don't have to suffer unnecessarily in it, we can acknowledge the grief and the...

Dear Procrastination:

I know we have been together for a long, long time. I remember vividly the first time we had a big fight. I was in 5th grade, and I had this glorious vision of the art project that I wanted to proudly display in the storefront window of our community's then lone mall. It was going to be pretty special for our class to get to do that. I wanted to create a real work of art, full of color and fabric, a design I could see so clearly in my mind's eye. But every time we were supposed to work on it, you'd show up and tell me stories, get me to talk to my friends, even line up the markers by rainbow color over and over... and then the bell would ring and I'd have nothing done.

Weeks went by like this, and on the last work day I stared at a blank canvas, a poster cut into the shape of a head and legless mannequin that I had nothing to dress it with but a few random pieces of string, and markers that I drew haphazard lines with in different colors. When it came time to...

I am showing up.

In whatever way that ends up being: body in process, tired mind, here.

Some days it's the bare minimum, but what matters is keeping our agreements to ourselves.

It's not about the number of words, or the magnitude of the message.

Today, it's about doing what I said I was going to do.

It's about being a writer who writes.

And I'm here. 

And so are you.

So maybe you can give yourself permission to show up as you are.

To just do the thing.

And then rest. 

In the car this morning, I ran through some possibilities of what I might write about today. One of the things I often think about but never seem to execute is planning my writing topics. I have visions of this neatly organized thematic table with quotes, ideas, and calls to action pulled together for months of content.

Maybe this is a dream of yours, too? Whether for a consistent blog, or for your social media marketing and visibility we know that structure and organization will allow us to show up more consistently (if that's your goal), will allow your readers and viewers to feel more held (and if we're lucky, even excited about what's coming next), and it allows you to do some work in bulk, schedule posts ahead of time, and have a little more freedom for other parts of your writing or entrepreneurial life.

But when forming a new habit, or reigniting an old one like I am, it's also important to not pile on too many perfectionist tendencies. I didn't make that nice organized...