It’s weird, before my book was published, I used to hesitate to say “I am a writer”. And yet, I’ve been writing since I was a child, poems, stories, I even scratched my name into a table with a nail at one point in my very early years. That’s a pretty bold, “I am a writer” statement.
We’ve been sold the idea that we need to ‘produce something’ before it counts. The Industrial model of life, school, and work is a powerful force that operates in the background of our lives, influencing our choices in ways that are rarely helpful to our human wellbeing.
I want to shine a light on these things, to live more aware, so we’re able to flip the script on those stories that aren’t serving us well. It took a lot of years of practicing by just writing anything and everything; poems, blogs, journal pages, notes, texts, marketing copy. After years of practicing writing, something I’ve loved since I was a child, I finally focused it on a topic I care about to produce a book.
What if . . . we focused our I am statements not on what we produce, the role we play, or the outcome . . .what if we focus on what we love to do, what we are passionate about, because of HOW IT MAKES US FEEL!
I have loved how I feel when I’m writing since I was a child. It inspires me, frees me, and helps me process my emotions. My texts and messages to others have made them laugh, cry, and helped them heal. Writing is one of my gifts. So why in the name of God and everything holy would I hesitate calling myself a writer when it gives me and others “all the feels”?
Because in the industrial model of life, we have to be paid to do a job or produce an outcome for us to feel “official”. Some external validation of our gifts must be established through a certification, a degree, or a title. This my friends and neighbors is a bullshit lie from hell designed to keep you striving, struggling, and stuck.
I also have great news!
We don’t need permission or a note from our mother to STOP doing this.
Let’s start paying attention to our feelings. Emotions are information and data just as important to our wellbeing as food, water, and sunshine. What are those activities, people, and things that light up your emotions, that speak to your soul?
In our Industrial mode of life, we don’t honor our feelings enough, we don’t give them a space to speak to us, usually because we’re so damn busy. I recommend a Daily Stillness Practice, 15 to 30 minutes every morning to check in with our feelings, our dreams, and our emotions. Capture them in a journal. Glance back at them once in a while and look for the patterns about people, places, and things.
Give it a month of practicing daily stillness. Cancel that 5 am Orange Theory class for a hot minute, and don’t jump straight to email on your phone from bed. Grab a cup of something warm and delicious, give it a mug hug. Breathe. Be still. Breathe again. Let the energy of your cells just “BE” for a minute, without planning, plotting and thinking! You can’t think your way to a better life, you feel your way through. This isn’t airy-fairy woo Instagram fluff, it’s science. Your brain’s conscious thinking area is only 5% of your total brain, the other 95% is subconscious, feelings, and emotions. I learned all of this from my NeuroNerd business partner Eliza Kingsford, one of my badass Thrive Guides.
Do you have 30 minutes a day to commit to a better life by tapping into 95% of your brain and giving that 5% of your thinking brain a freakin’ break?
