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What if it’s the relentless press to be productive and commodify every free moment that’s the problem? What if it’s the equation of busyness and self-worth? What if we must finally, once and for all, smash the foolish belief that everything is going to feel “normal” again just because we landed on a certain date or reached some artificial milestone?
We want to become bolder, braver, more competent storytellers because we need to integrate our gifts, ideas, and experiences.
This writing prompt, originally crafted for the Sovereign Writers Circle, is designed to help you begin the work of creative integration
We’ve all left “Normal” and have set off on the Hero’s Journey, entering the great unknown with hopes of coming through on the other side with a sense of renewal and hope.
This post includes a Sovereign Writers Circle writing prompts and ideas for how to meet this move out of the ordinary world we knew before the global pandemic.
My well - of energy, of words, of vision - has been running dry for weeks. I've tried to fake it, and from time to time, I pulled it off. Inside, I have been feeling parched, barren, and exhausted.
This week, I started over.
I've been living in the in-between place that comes after a great big project is completed and before the next push really begins. It's a hard place to be, all full of self-recrimination about how I "should" be planning more, earning more, speaking more.
Ultimately, I knew I needed this trough after the huge wave of energy and creativity that was the final sprint to finish my book, but it was hard to settle into that truth. I'm too well programmed to equate the push with success. I'm too accustomed to beating myself up for being lazy and playing small.
I finally got the physical and spiritual support I needed to figure out why I've been feeling so drained and depressed. (Thank you, Eleanora Amendolara of the Sacred Center Mystery School for your healing wisdom! Thank you for seeing that the problem was my thyroid and my adrenals as well as a struggle to step through the portal into a new phase of spiritual expansion.)
With that wisdom (and some powerful herbs and nutritional supplements), I gave myself permission to stay quiet for a few more days. I watched those phenomenally impressive Americans speak truth to Congress. I read Meggan Watterson’s book about Mary Magdalene and reconnected with one of the most powerful spiritual foremothers.
And then, I started moving all the furniture around.
I needed my space to reflect that my spiritual furniture has been completely rearranged by the writing of The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman's Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic. I needed this room where I do my work to look like an author's study rather than a mompreneur's cluttered office.
It's still in process, but there's a new flow to this space. This room feels like it wants to hold the mystery, the growth, and the new connections I'll be making in this next phase of personal, professional, creative, spiritual becoming.
Where are you right now?
Are you riding the wave, doing the work, and making it happen?
Are you sliding down into the doldrums because you need to give into gravity for a little while?
Are you struggling, thinking you should be riding or resting in a different way?
Are you ready to rearrange the furniture on the inside and do the healing work?
Are you ready to rearrange the furniture in the office because you're ready for a new phase?
Wherever you are, I invite you to pause, to look around, and to take some notes. Capture this moment on the page so you know what it's like to feel wildly free or in gentle recovery or in the dark place in between.
And if you need help along the way as you try to sort out just where you are and what to do next, call on me.
Book a Tarot & Intuitive Healing Session or join The Sovereign Writers Circle.
Every once in a while, when you’re not cursing the tech issues and the travel delays, Mercury Retrograde offers near unimaginable gifts.
In my case, this period gave me a chance to reflect on a recent business decision and heralded the return of our beloved online community, the Sovereign Writers Circle.
Many of us have lost track of a wider sense of belonging because of our relationship and family structures, because of our demanding jobs, because wine is easier, because there are so many things tugging at our attention that seem more important than connections with soul friends.
It’s time to look at our need for community, our need for sovereignty, and how the two blend together.
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.
A creative life. A spiritual life. An artist’s life. A writing life.
This new year is breathing down our necks with the icy whisper of a frigid New York winter.
On the other hand, this is a great big world with all kinds of weather… The new year just might be caressing your skin with the sweetness of a Carribean breeze.
No matter what, the new year tends to bring chills of anticipation.
We can count the hours until we can sit down with sparkling new, soul-defining day planners. We’re so close to cracking open these wonderful books that we entrepreneurs SO love to buy and creating a fresh 365-day collection of plans and affirmations and visions and promises and appointments that will make this year different…
If you’re anything like me, you’re shifting back and forth between “yes, finally!” and “no, I’m not ready!” as the sands of time drain from the 2017 hourglass… There’s all of excitement for a fresh start mingled with the worries that a new calendar won’t necessarily make for a whole new you.
We’ve just wrapped up the latest #7MagicWords Challenge, so the potency of a single word is abundantly clear right now.
#7MagicWords takes place at the turn of each season, and, as this is first time we’ve run challenge in the winter, it’s the first time we could use it to help us find a word of the year. Just about every invitation to join the project included: “You can find magic in a word and it can light your way - day by day and throughout the year to come.” And as the last magic words appear in the Facebook group and on Instagram, it’s clear that the challenge fulfilled its promise for so many of the participants.
The #7MagicWords Challenge is always 8 days long (because, why not?) and the eighth prompt is always the same: a word that integrates. Though I hadn’t intended my integration word to be my guiding light for 2018, it seems that it is. It has to be.
Drum roll for something so obvious it’s just gotta be true…
My word of the year is “writing.”
You could say that every year is about writing for me, but now, as I continue to grow as a writer and as a guide for other writers, I see the word coming into fresh, undeniable focus. And, as I look at my own big, thick 2018 planner full of endless unwritten possibility, I know that I will write my way into just about every accomplishment.
A word of the year or any magic word is special because it's multifaceted and can hold your evolution in many ways. I know my word is the right one because...
How about you… what’s your word of the year, #7MagicWords inspired or otherwise?
“If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way.” One of my favorite poets, Seamus Heaney, said that. I always keep it on my desk as a reminder.
Here are two words I know can help you find the most direct way to your truth and your intention: writing and community.
That last item on that word-of-the-year list? That promise to support writers in new ways? That’s why I am launching the Sovereign Writers Circle on January 2.
In this group of therapists, coaches, and transformation professionals, you’ll have the community encouragement to do what can feel like a very lonely thing - writing your blog, your website, your info product, or your book.
Yes, we’ll think about publishing and using writing to build a business, but we’ll also focus on the healing power of writing. You’ll be invited to use the blank page to discover what it is you really want and what you truly know about your own Sovereign Story.
Learn more about the group including the schedule for our 6 monthly calls and other benefits of joining the SWC.
If you commit to a three-month membership before midnight on December 31 you’ll also receive a free 60-minute writing coaching and story healing session with me. (That's a $150 value!)
There are new stories to tell, stories you and I have been hoarding and neglecting and allowing to wither away while we were busy striving and coping and growing and losing track of who we really are... Writing is how we find ourselves again and build the stamina to keep ourselves from losing track of what's really important now and in the future.
I invite you to write with me. I promise words and magic. I promise to dive deep into the mystery, to help you find the stories that hide within and write the stories that must be shared.
