I See You.

“Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognize him or herself in you and that will give them hope.”

— Charlie Kaufman

Today someone wrote to me and shared how the words published here on this tiny piece of internet real estate made them feel less alone and more hopeful.

And that’s what all this is really for. On the long days when the blank page and cursor blink in front of me and I’m tired and my brain feels exhausted and fried, it helps to know the effort and energy of sharing my writing and these simple ‘musings’ help someone feel more seen and understood.

Thanks for being here.

Make Something Everyday.

How it’s going… the thrill of completing my largest custom card order to date!

Where it started… October 2016 after making 100 handmade cards for 100 consecutive days.

Six years ago, as a way to reinvigorate my stagnant life with some joy and creativity, I committed to making a handmade card for 100 consecutive days. I was out of practice and TBH, many of them weren’t my ‘best work,’ but they were each made with love for someone I had in mind. I learned to be ok with being a beginner again, and trust that my good intentions would somehow unfold artistically on that blank card each day.

It was the act of making something daily that would encourage and bless someone else that ultimately led to a career pivot. It revealed to me that I wanted to use my creativity and ideas outside of the hospital setting to motivate, encourage and coach individuals in their wellness.

This week I fulfilled my largest custom card order to date. As I designed, hand-lettered, and painted each one, there were ones that smeared or where the centering was off. I was gentle with myself, took a deep breath and started again. And sometimes again. I couldn’t help but remember how all this started six years ago. I felt stuck and unhappy at a job that I knew wasn’t meant for me. This practice of making something daily connected me to my heart, and I found my way out by turning inward, following my intuition and curiosity, tripping, getting back up, and believing in a bigger dream.

To this day, I receive messages from those individuals who still have the cards I made them from back in 2016. They tell me they framed it, or it sits above their office desk, or they posted it on their kitchen wall. They take it out and read it when they’re feeling down or discouraged. Someone recently told me she’s never had anyone take the time to make her a homemade card, and receiving it moved her to tears. Hearing her message moved me to tears.

We never quite know the ripple effect that a single action done in love can have. Remember, love moves both ways. What began as a project to make art and encourage people was ultimately a way that led me to a place of newfound peace and contentment.

So today, do that one thing that connects you to your heart. It can be small. In fact, the smaller the better. Tomorrow, do it again. And keep going. If you smear or trip, that’s ok. Get back up. You never know where you’ll end up and what you’ll create.

Remember Your Future.

I’m currently wrapping up my largest custom card order to date. Add to that a few more custom card orders that trickled in over the weekend. Some of them involve writing poems and paper cut illustrations. I’m so excited and happy to be creating all of these by hand, but I’m not gonna lie, it’s a lot of energy and effort. My hope is that the recipient feels this love and intention when they hold my card in their hand.

Five years ago when I shared my big dreams with my friend Brian, I told him one day I’d love to have my cards in stores. “You can even probably make custom cards for people, and they’ll place orders with you for Valentine’s Day and birthdays,” he suggested. I just laughed, sipped my coffee, and stared off into the distance entertaining that wonderful thought.

I am now aware that this has all come true. I tell myself all the time, “REMEMBER YOUR FUTURE.” Instead of fixating on the past, where old hard-wired feelings program the body into the familiar past, I am consciously creating my future. Feeling into how it would feel to have my cards in shops, feeling how it would feel to hold my published book in my hands, and feeling the overwhelming gratitude of the generous present moment where I have already received everything I’ve wanted even before it’s happened.

Try it. Feel those positive, loving emotions- feel as though you’ve gotten the dream job, feel as though your project has come to fruition, feel as though you can run and ride without pain after your ankle surgery, feel as though you’ve lost the weight and your body feels strong and resilient. When your mind wanders back to the familiar past of pain, negativity and lack, woo it back into the generous present moment.

If we can master our thoughts and feelings, we can, in essence design our future.

Now back to making cards.

Tuning Out the Noise.

I can’t believe they’re still together. She must be staying with him because of the money. Anyways, when I saw her last weekend she definitely put on weight. I think her son’s going to be an orthodontist. Which is good, right? Orthodontists make a lot of money.

My esthetician shares the same space with a hairdresser. I was sitting back in the chair and couldn’t help but hear the incessant gossip coming from the other side of the beauty salon where a woman was getting her hair colored.

I looked up at my esthetician and whispered, “How do you handle listening to this all day? It would literally drive me nuts.”

She smiled. “I’ve learned to tune it out. In the beginning it really bothered me, but I’ve trained myself to not listen. It’s like white noise to me now. I don’t even hear it.”

Her answer amazed me. She became immune to the toxic conversations because she trained herself to block it out. She didn’t allow the negative energy of gossip to pollute her positive attitude and vibration.

After she was finished, I paid her and smiled. In reality, I had also purchased an important lesson. Sometimes in life we don’t have control over the people we share physical space with. But we always have seniority and agency to control the energy that we allow into our energetic space.

The Great Secret.

(Photo: Zach McGarvey)

“When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.”

— Rumi

My Replenishment Cycle.

What restores your soul? Supports your physical and mental health? Fills your cup? Replenishes you? Today I identified the activities enjoyed both alone and with others that make me feel refreshed, happy and satisfied in my life, and organized them in a fun data doodle. Seeing them visualized this way helps me prioritize the big-ticket activities that replenish a large percentage of my physical/mental health so I can carve out time to strategically build them into my calendar. What’s included in your replenishment cycle?

The Reverse Gap Theory.

Someone asked me last week, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I couldn’t answer that question.

All of us have visions of our future- what we’ll accomplish in work, our financial security, our ideal bodies, where we’ll live and who we’ll surround ourselves with. I’ve learned it’s dangerous to fixate too much on a concrete future vision. Things change, and often our brains can’t fathom what we’re capable of accomplishing and becoming. Don’t postpone your happiness for your future self. Soak it in now by remembering how far you’ve come.

This pic was taken 5 years ago, right before I left a job I’d worked at for 11 years. It was all I’d known and at the same time, I knew deep-down that it wasn’t my calling. I was terrified and excited and felt compelled to leap and follow my heart. It would’ve been impossible to predict all the serendipitous opportunities and doors that have opened once I let go and finally surrendered.

So instead of feeling anxious about your future “5 Year Plan,” I invite you to try something called “The Reverse Gap” exercise. Take out a piece of paper and grab a pen. Write down everything you’ve accomplished and overcome and created and transformed and how you’ve changed for the better in the past five years. Read your list. Save it and read it over and over again whenever you get too caught up in “Future You” and forget to celebrate how far you’ve come.

Everything you’ve done in the past has brought you to where you are.

You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be right now. Put your hand over your heart and repeat that.

I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.

Change Your Perspective.

Last week I started making art and writing from a different side of my table. Sitting in a new place has generated more creative ideas, in part, because it has literally changed my perspective of the world. I’m now facing my living room, with the sunlight shining on the right side of my body. My monstera and money tree plants and bamboo and orchid and fiddle fig are all thriving and growing in front of me. My vision board for 2022 is visible on the wall to the front right side of my visual field, and I feel, well, refreshed and reinvigorated.

Working from a new angle sparks new neural connections. It’s such a simple, small change that has profoundly impacted my creativity. I write today from this new spot, sipping my coffee and staring outside at a part of the sky that’s been obscured from my view for the past two years.

I invite you to change your scenery, or the angle of where you decide to work/play/create (even if it’s within the confines of your own house). Mix it up a bit! Seeing the world from a new angle and direction may inject your work with a new vigor and energy.

Tiny Adjustments, Big Changes.

Yesterday as I was riding I felt my lower back tighten up. It was the type of pain I remember feeling when I was a newbie getting used to the positioning on the bike. It seared down my left leg with each extension but I ignored it, thinking it was due to my lack of fitness and not putting nearly as many hours on the bike as I used to. As I contemplated the source of my discomfort, a pack of PenVelo cyclists came from behind me as we began the ascent up King’s Mountain Road. One rider came up next to me, greeted me, and kindly commented, “I noticed your hips are rocking a bit. You may want to lower your seat just a smidge- like 0.5 cm. You may find it’s much more comfortable. And you’ll have a lot more power with each pedal stroke.” I thanked him and he rode off.

At the top of the hill, I adjusted my seat down. Just a hair. 0.5 cm.

I got back on and WOW, what a difference. In comfort. In power. In overall speed. It was a cascade effect that changed not only biomechanics, but my mental state as well. I felt like a new person with new legs and no back pain. All because of 0.5 cm.

What other areas in life can we experience massive positive results from tiny adjustments? Investing 5% of every paycheck. Meditating for 5 minutes every morning. Waiting 5 minutes to respond mindfully instead of automatically reacting to a triggering person or text or email. Reading 5 pages of a book each day.

Small things make a big difference.

Unplug.

My power went out around 2am Thursday morning. I woke up around 3:30am and noticed everything was more noticeably dark and eerily quiet. I had no Wi-Fi. The usual gurgling of water in my Aerogarden was silent. I showered with no music and I wrote my morning pages by candlelight. I noticed how I strangely welcomed the quietude. It was a new way to begin the day- in silent reverence to the natural rhythm of the earth. I sipped my coffee and watched the gentle and gradual way my morning started as the sun rose.

I went to the office, and returned home later to a dark and quiet home. It was strange but also, a much-needed and pleasant change to the usual action-packed evenings I sometimes have. I stretched and did yoga by candlelight, rehearsing sequences I’d remembered from earlier classes. Without music or any instructor to follow, it was just me. My breath. My thoughts.

I drew a hot bath with epsom salts and soaked by candlelight, welcoming the silence and the darkness.

Yesterday I realized how much of our lives are driven by electricity and batteries- our computers, lights, Wi-Fi, televisions, phones.

The lights are back on today, but I won’t soon forget how badly my nervous system needed a deliberate pause and break from always being ‘on’ and ‘plugged in.’

Sometimes it’s good to unplug. To disconnect from the world. To sit with the unknown, where newsfeeds and social media are muted. Where you’re not consumed with the past or worrying about the future. Welcome to the generous present moment. You’ll find that this is the magic space where you can connect deeper with yourself and fully recharge physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Beannacht.

“On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.
”

— John O'Donohue

I heard this poem read on a Friday evening of the very first writing retreat I attended in Point Reyes in the winter of 2015. The wind was howling outside, rain poured sideways in heavy waves across the open fields, and we sat huddled around a wood-burning stove with our journals and down jackets. I remember in that moment feeling the comfort and warmth in O’Donohue’s words.

This Christmas, my friend gifted me the book Anam Cara by John O’Donohue. As I stretched out on my comfortable ottoman and opened the book, this poem greeted me. It brought me back to that dark and rainy night, sitting in an oversized plush armchair, surrounded by other hungry writers. We listened to these lovely words read by the flickering fire, open to the possibility of a blank page and excited to discover our rich inner worlds that awaited us.

Here’s to 2022.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours. May the clarity of light be yours.