There’s a verse in the Gospel of Thomas that says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” That sentiment may not have made it into what most people consider to be the final manuscript, but it’s some of the deepest wisdom I know. 2023 proved it to me. Especially the way I ended it — finally writing about the Joshua Tree incident and how I sobered up from my former addiction to social media.
I shared in that piece that I’d had the nagging sense I couldn’t “bring forth” the next book that is “within me” without going through that essay first. And, as it turns out, that was true. For the past month, ideas and guidance regarding how I’m going to tell the larger story of that Letter have been coming through quite generously. It’s hard to describe exactly what I mean by this because most of the time it’s felt like a magical little scavenger hunt that only sometimes involves actually writing.
But, basically, I kept sitting down with the intention of working on this new Letter for you and instead I just couldn’t (still kinda can’t) stop ideating and shaping the book. Which is a wonderful problem to have, in my opinion! But it does come with the consequence of this essay taking a little longer to complete.
I also find that trying to write this time of year sometimes feels a little tricky. Since we call it the “new year”, it comes with the encouragement to cast our gaze forward into the future. Which I’m all for, honestly. It’s a fun game to play and I’ve been feeling so much anticipation about everything that’s coming this year. But the difficulty is that you have to be pretty anchored in the “now” rather than the “not yet” in order to create. Full presence, all here. Paying deep attention.
And that’s a little hard because I’ve been feeling very excited for all of my “not yet” on the horizon. This is going to be a year of enormous growth and significant shifts in both my personal and professional life — new projects and opportunities, a cross-country move, getting licensed in massage therapy, buying a house, becoming a parent, starting a podcast (finally!), signing a contract for this book (hopefully!).
There’s a lot of life on the way that I couldn’t have imagined last January, and I’m so grateful. I had some strong hesitations and mild anxieties this time last year when I decided it was time to get back to work after taking over a year off. I knew I didn’t want to work the way I had before, that I couldn’t go back to a former way of being that wreaked havoc on my body and caused the burnout in the first place.
But I didn’t really know how else to do it. Since 2018, when I started working for myself, I had only experienced either the chronic stress and overworking that was killing me or the subsequent fifteen months of not working at all to try and save my life. I wasn’t sure how to kindly and sustainably find the middle ground, how to work in true partnership with my body. I had very few models for what that could look like, and occasionally wondered if it was even possible at all.
But what I did have, thanks to my sabbatical, was the newly cultivated ability to pay very deep attention to my body. I trusted her to tell me and I trusted myself to listen. And I suspected that if I could figure this rhythm out, maybe I could love my job (and, you know, my life) again. And from that place of love, happen to the things I care about even more powerfully and sustainably.
I’m happy to report on the other side that I found that rhythm. 2023 wasn’t the year I made the most money or anything, but according to every metric in alignment with my values, it was my most satisfying and successful year yet. I said yes to only and exactly the things I had desire and capacity for. I honored my body’s needs and requests in all things. And because that worked, thank goodness, things are much busier now than they were last January.
Lately, keeping up with all of it has had me feeling nostalgic for the way this time felt last year. Slower, quieter; where more of my time was my own. And I was using most of it to write. Because one of the things I was deadset on giving my yes to during my year of working differently was remembering how to write the way I’d always loved instead of only writing angry tweets and instagram-caption-length marketing copy.
So as a sort of New Years resolution, I committed to writing and sharing two Love Letters (newsletters to my email list at the time) per month until… well, really, there was no end date. I just knew I wanted to do it, so I started. And then I just kept going.
In 2023, I wrote and published 22 essays. Pretty good ones, too (imo)! I am telling you, I’ve never before had such an alive and consistent creative practice in my entire life. I mean, when I was on sabbatical, I started writing again for the first time in years, but privately. Daily pages just for me. So deciding to start and finish and share my writing publicly every 2-3 weeks was a bold choice and it stretched me and it grew me and now I am now helplessly devoted to this practice.
I’m also really fucking proud of myself. Which is why I decided that before working on a new letter, I would read all of the older ones again to mark the journey (and also maybe to remember what I sound like after taking December off). If you’re a person who creates things, I highly recommend this activity. And not so that you can “remember you’re good enough to do it” or something like that. So you remember that’s not actually how it works.
So you remember that none of this ever even comes from you in the first place.
another way I “brought forth what was within me” this month, with some of my favorite people. I’ll tell you more about this in January’s Monthly Delights. 😘
Speaking of things completely outside my control: I have Mother Nature to thank for why I even had the time to study myself like that at all. It only happened because of some snow days, really a full a snow week. That it seems like everyone in the United States had? Somehow? My partner in Washington, Erin in Oregon, clients in Pennsylvania and Kansas, and my family in Missouri. Here in Tennessee, we hit our average annual snowfall in about 36 hours last week. And it’s barely gotten above freezing ever since so the snow and ice can’t disappear as quickly as we’re used to in the south.
Last week it felt like time, and all “normal” rhythms governed by it, briefly stopped existing. Like the Earth decided to teach us a lesson about treating Winter with some respect. She is our mother, after all, so perhaps she does know best. That now is not really the best time for what we consider to be “business as usual", much less any kind of speeding up.
I know we like to think of right now as “January” and, as such, the “beginning” of something. But the only reality your animal body knows is that the Winter Solstice was one, single moon cycle ago. We’re just barely into the slow season, friends. Now is not the time for aggressive action; it’s the time for a lot of reflection and maybe some gentle planning. Infrastructure-disrupting weather or not, that’s what Winter is for: looking back and learning before leaping forward and doing.
So the week of cancellations and reschedules and less activity opened up this beautiful, wide open space for me to look back on every one of those 22 essays — ending with the one about Joshua Tree. And as I finished reading it, I realized something. I’d had no idea what to expect in sharing that essay, so I decided not to expect anything and just, you know, tell the truth. Which is why it was such a delight to have it so positively received.
Honestly, that was profoundly healing for me; so much so, actually, that I’ve decided I want to remove the paywall and make it free for everyone to read. Which I’ll do alongside the next Letter coming in a few weeks because they kind of go together. It’s cute. You’ll see.
Anyway, a byproduct of that positive reception is that there are WAY MORE OF YOU HERE NOW, reading these essays. And way more of you paying for them, too — I had an influx of over one hundred new paid subscribers in about 48 hours. I was pretty stunned, honestly. And grateful and happy and excited and honored and all of the feelings. HI HELLO, ALL OF YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. I’m really happy to have you here.
So happy, in fact, that I’d love for you to stay. Because if you like what you’re reading… everybody wins. Your contribution affords me a little more freedom to do this thing that I love, and that apparently you enjoy and believe in enough to gladly exchange currency for. I’m floored by the beauty of that dynamic; I can tell you that on this end, it feels amazing!
Aaaand also, I have a long history of doing things because I believe they’re what other people want instead of finding what feels best and most in integrity for me. And it’s pretty much always been for one very specific reason: not wanting people to leave. I realized I was starting to build some resistance around writing and sharing another Letter because I briefly forgot that no matter how big (or seemingly powerful) my “audience” becomes, I can’t write for you/ them. I can’t tell the truth if I’m worried whether or not what I say will be “good enough” to make you stay.
Because even though I love you, I cannot love you more than this. You know what I mean? That’s kind of the whole work of being an artist. Maybe even the whole work of being alive.
Last year, one of the first Letters I sent was titled: “Six Little Lessons from 2022” — my sabbatical year of healing deeply and moving slowly. In it, I shared what I learned about anger and dancing and attention and productivity, among other things. When I read it again last week, while still struggling a bit with this Letter, I remembered how much I enjoyed writing it. Which is how and why I decided to do it again. This time, though, sharing Six Little Lessons I learned in 2023 — my year of creating consistently.
But before I wrap this up and get into that list, it’s worth just stating separately and plainly that the main reason I was able to stick to a committed writing practice last year is because I finally sorted out my relationship to social media. Kicked the addiction, truly and actually. Thank God, because it was the surest, fastest path to my creativity going to pieces.
And, to be clear, I don’t mean that I don’t use social media anymore at all (obviously). I mean that I now have the ability to use it consciously, and to get myself unstuck when I notice I’m starting to use it compulsively. My phone no longer holds a death grip over my choices or my attention. I’m in charge and I use it exactly when and how I want to.
It wasn’t always this way. And having a sovereign, healthy relationship to social media (and to your body!) might sound unimaginable to you. I get it; it used to feel that way for me, too. It negatively impacted every area of my life pretty significantly — my attention, my emotions, my relationships, even my physical health. I (publicly) lost my way for a few years there, but I found the path back to my body, through a collection of both big and small changes.
My social media director Erin and I took a few years to find and live our way into those changes, and then we wrote a workshop about it together. To teach you all about what’s happening to your brain and your body, and what you can actually, sustainably, powerfully do about it. It’s called Log Off + Tune In (to your body) and we’re hosting it again this Saturday, January 27th at 2pm CST if you want to come. We actually recently lowered the price because we know it can be a tight time of year, and what feels most important to us is just getting people there if that’s where they want to be.
But whether I see you on Saturday or not, I’m delighted to share with you six (of the many) things I learned about writing from a year of consistent creativity. Moving forward, I’ll be playing with my publishing rhythm a bit now that I’m enjoying writing longer pieces. And now that I have, apparently, begun writing my next book, too. I want to be less rigid, more free, trusting that the discipline I’ve established is strong enough for me to prioritize the pleasure, too. Trusting also that it will make these Letters even more beautiful and delicious and enjoyable for YOU. Because if you like what you’re reading and I love what I’m writing… everybody wins.
Six Little Lessons from 2023:
Answering my orienting questions tells me when I’m done.
It took me longer than I would like to admit to realize that I am allowed to sound like myself when I write. But sometimes, I don’t exactly know how to find that tone. So I found it helpful to come up with a couple of questions to orient me towards my own voice. When I answer “yes” to both of them about a piece, I know I sound like myself enough to call it complete. I’m happy to share them with you, and you’re welcome to borrow them if it feels good, but I recommend taking the time to create your own. My orienting questions are:
1. Is it beautiful? 2. Is it true? In that order.
If every element of the final product (sentence, paragraph, section, entire piece) is as true as I could possibly figure out how to say it and the most beautiful (in my opinion) way I could possibly figure out how to make it sound — it can be finished because it’s in integrity. I will love it and be proud of it no matter what. Which helps me care far less whether or not anyone else thinks it’s “good” or how it’s received. And that’s been incredibly freeing.
Reading is also writing.
It counts, I promise (and also, I mean, yes, you’re still going to have to write. We’ll get to that in the next point).
I tell this story a lot — though I’ve forgotten where I first heard it or who it’s about (lol) — but it’s the possibly apocryphal tale of a famous painter who once had a journalist following him around, as they sometimes tend to do. When the journalist observed the painter lounging about, seemingly idle, he asked the painter what he was doing. “I’m painting”, the artist said. So then, the next time the journalist observed the painter actually painting, he asked him what he was doing. The painter replied, “I’m resting.”
Sometimes, passive is better than active and resting is actually working. Especially when it comes to writing and reading. The value of consuming your own craft is unspeakable. And also! It’s so fun and there are endless amounts of things to read and so many ways to do it! You can read like a reader and read like a writer. You can feel the sentences in your body and think deeply about them; dissect structures and treasure hunt for devices. You can take a lot of notes and also sometimes just let yourself get lost in a story. Just allocate the time to immerse yourself and marvel at the ways other people play.
And if you’re finding it difficult to sustain your attention long enough to read like you used to, I’ve got a workshop that can help with that. 😉
Finishing is also a skill.
Obviously, though, if you want to develop a consistent writing practice, it’s not going to go so well if you spend all of your time reading. You will also, like I said, actually have to write. And if you would like to not only write, but also find yourself in that glorious state of “having written”, you’re going to have to learn how to walk away. Those orienting questions can help you figure out when you’re close, but learning how to let go and call it complete is its own specific (and difficult) skill.
There’s a lot of talk in creative spaces about how hard it is to start something, but not enough honest conversation about finishing, in my opinion. Almost every interview I’ve ever heard or read with a well-established writer has included an admission that, if you let them, they’d edit until they were dead. At some point, they had to learn how to finish. It’s scary to publish and share because what you poured yourself into no longer belongs only to you. But there’s no way around this one. If you want to write, you have to become brave enough to know when it’s time to give birth and let it be.
I’m not blocked; I’m waiting.
I mean, what if you just tried believing this? What have you got to lose?
I’m borrowing this sentiment from a Louise Glück interview I read recently (see! look what reading can do!), as she put language to the feeling I had all year, riding this wave, working to change my deepest stories and beliefs. And I’m leaning into this even more even now that I’m playing with longer pieces where the results won’t be produced or received as quickly. Because books take a long time and that’s what I’m really working towards in this season.
These days, when I find myself in a moment that I would have previously labeled as procrastination or being blocked, I’m taking a break, taking some breaths, and experimenting with believing a different story. Since the present moment is all there is and I cannot ever know the future, I’ve found it enormously relieving to just… decide nothing is wrong. That I’m simply taking my time and waiting; that I’m actually still “painting” even when I’m resting. And then, whenever I do inevitably write again, it feels so much better and easier and more free.
And it’s also highly likely that I found my way back into the flow precisely because I wasn’t panicking. Which brings us to…
I don’t have to punish myself into doing it.
Long-prevailing narratives tend to frame the creative struggle in militaristic language, but I much prefer Rick Rubin’s tone in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Particularly in his chapter on Habits, where he expresses the wisdom of the partnership between discipline and freedom so accessibly. As it turns out, you can’t punish or shame yourself into creating something beautiful and true; what you actually need to do is learn how to love and care for yourself really well. Isn’t that the best news?!
As a somatic facilitator whose priority in all things is the well-being of bodies, this pleases me. I like to think of that dance between discipline and freedom as a dance of devotion. If you’ve ever been in love, you know that it can be, is even meant to be, hard work sometimes. But you also know that when it’s the real thing, somehow the hard work feels as easy as breathing. It’s a magic I don’t quite understand (and don’t need to) but what I want to ask you is this: What could it feel like, instead of forcing, to create nourishing, compassionate life rhythms and routines to support your ability to bring the work forth almost effortlessly?
I always have more time than I think.
One of my dearest and most powerful friends has a personal mantra that I adore: “I have all the time I need. Time expands for me”. And because she truly lives by it, she’s the most gloriously relaxing person to be around. Last year, I came to realize that my issues with creativity were never about time, they were about attention — what I did with my time, consciously and unconsciously. I’m not necessarily telling you to do this, but, as an example, a few months ago I cancelled all of my streaming services just to see what would happen. It’s made a remarkable difference in how expansive my days feel and, therefore, how I’m able to creatively show up to them.
You may not vibe with that idea or with the sentiment that you have “all the time you need”, but I bet that if you really told yourself the truth… you also have more time than you think. And that the primary difficulty has actually been harnessing that time and focusing it successfully.
I mean, if you really told yourself the truth, how much of your attention do you suspect you lose in a day due to scrolling? It’s a tough reality to face because it’s a really hard behavior to change, but it’s vitally necessary. And so, once again and finally, I will remind you that I have a workshop on Saturday that can help support you in sorting this out and finding a better way. Because it’s HARD to regain ownership over your time and attention, but it’s entirely possible and it’s absolutely life-changing.