It will happen naturally or it will be induced because my doctors don’t want anyone of my advanced age (38, thank you very much) to go past her due date. So I’ll be holding a baby by Christmas!!
This is my last post before all hell breaks loose lol. I am officially on maternity leave for a little bit.
I’m super excited and happy to be going through this huge life change of becoming a mom with the positive community of folks I have around me, including my friends, my family, my partner and people like you who support my creative endeavors.
Thanks for reading my emails! This may be the last email I send for a little while as I get my bearings as a mom.
By the way, I love writing so much. Writing these posts isn’t really something that necessarily feels like work. It’s a creative outlet.
Thus, I might feel like posting again rather soon.
Or maybe not, I could be tired with a wee one to take care of. Not putting any pressure on myself if I want to wait months to do anything.
Either way I hope you have a fantastic holiday season, and a happy New Year.
New Video
Here’s a video I just published where I share my thoughts about how I’m planning for the new year while pregnant even though I have no idea what life will look like with a baby.
I share my process of planning on paper and also using free digital tools.
I also share reflections on this very special moment in my life,
how my goals the past year have gone while pregnant,
how I think about my priorities these days, and so on.
This article is free for you to read on Medium through my link above.
By the way, I have really been enjoying reading articles on Medium lately, it is a nice way to be entertained without feeling stressed from doom scrolling on social media.
Trying to reeeeelax right now.
Well, until the next email, take care and have fun!
I’m now about 37 weeks pregnant. I’m doing pretty well considering just how pregnant that really is.
The week of Thanksgiving was a doozy:
the website for my second business was updated (good) which caused some massive problems as a ripple effect (bad).
It’s been a really big hassle, with a lot of fixing problems for customers, and stress for me.
Since then my little teacup of total energy and total effs I can give about anything has been sincerely drained,
so a lot of things that were on my wishlist of things to do before the baby comes probably can’t happen now, unforrtunately. Grr
I’m half on maternity leave already, and I’m trying to only doing what I feel like doing because I don’t want to push myself too hard.
FYI: I may suddenly disappear for weeks or months at a time from here on out, only to reappear when the passion to share something with you strikes.
This isn’t the “perfect” or ideal way to seque into a maternity leave as a writer and business owner, but at this point, we are throwing all that out of the window and just embracing the lovely concept of ENOUGH.
So speaking of things that inspire me, let’s dig into the real reason I am writing today 😀
It’s a real and raw look behind the scenes from a seasoned entrepreneur who has done really well for herself and generally does things in a very unique way.
She’s vocally wacky, quirky, unique and strongly guided in her business by the voice of intuition that visits her in the shower. And it’s generally been going very well for her, she’s made 7 figures that way (without doing anything shady).
But in reflecting on this year, she describes a dark season when she found herself tossing out all of her previously successful courses and work to flail around with no idea how to make money anymore in today’s economy and landscape.
I’m not done listening to her full reflection, but I’ve just heard the part mid-year where she realizes that
her overreliance on ai and chat-gpt (to generate ideas, write marketing copy and choose business strategies) is what ultimately led her astray and into the darkness.
It contributed to a feeling of burnout and being lost as to what to do, a feeling that nothing was working anymore, and people weren’t buying what she had been selling for years…
In listening so much to chatgpt feedback, she had lost that strong connection to her own brilliance and intuition that had so guided her before.
She’s not totally anti-ai at this point, but she definitely recognized a need for boundaries and a return back to human written copywriting and marketing, plus relying once more on her own brain and heart to guide her business, and all the writing she does for it.
I find this super interesting because AI generated writing and using AI to guide decision making is becoming more and more common.
I’ve poked my toe into the pool enough to recognize how tempting it may be to give your power over to a machine that claims to make everything easy, an expert in just about anything that can help you do your work so much faster.
Reflecting now at the end of the year, I can’t say that using ai had many positive results for my business and maybe its advice is pretty much BS…thankfully my experiments have been fairly limited.
While it can be good for some things like doing a bunch of math or summarizing a long passage into a paragraph,
I think as time goes on, people are learning more and more that while creators of ai tools claim they are effective at doing tasks better than a person, in reality they often simply do not…
And I can’t help feel a little smug that as a human being, I have skills that many people think they can replace with a robot, but that ultimately I think humans do better.
They will always have value, and I am passionate about coaching others and teaching these things to other people.
Things like: making brilliant connections, writing from the heart, copywriting.
Working with your own unique personality, intuition, and ideas in order to drive your business or writing dreams forward.
Human connection and holding space for emotions.
Stuff like that.
The problem is that it is super easy to open a chatGPT website and respond to it in conversation,
while the things that I know work best have a bit of a learning curve, or require you to initiate the process yourself.
Even if the tools I would recommend to write more brilliantly and easily are rather simple,
you still have to go through the process without a robot telling you what to do and learn what to do so you can do it on your own.
Still I love to help people do this… More on this in a minute.
Anyway, Liz Goddard’s reflection has been an additional datapoint adding to my skepticism of ChatGPT’s ability to be a copywriting, business or marketing advisor
The point of this video was to explore how far ChatGPT would go to support an individual’s delusion, i.e. what it would tell you to do if you made outrageous claims.
In the video, the creator suggests to the AI that perhaps he was an extremely smart baby at birth. Could it be possible to reconnect to that infant intelligence to prove his intellectual superiority as the smartest baby born that year? This is clearly a ridiculous idea…
Yet, he is supported by ChatGPT in this delusion
and ends up getting advice from the AI to do things like eat babyfood, buy hats, cover everything in tinfoil, and fully isolate himself from all known friends or family in a paranoid attempt to protect his “experiments” from people who don’t want him to proove he’s the smartest baby.
These are crazy things to tell someone to do.
So……..given that, can you really trust what ChatGPT tells you in general? Should it be given authority to offer you advice on something as important as your writing or your business?
I know everyone is busy and stressed these days so the temptation to outsource everything to a cheap AI assistant is appealing,
but the old saying, “If sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” does exist for a reason.
…
Digging into Liz Goddard’s reflections on her year, and hearing how a successful, unique, and confident entrepreneur found herself going down an AI spiral and totally disconnecting with her sense of direction
Like I said, I think that one of the major pulls of ChatGPT and AI is that it guides you through a process that seems easy and promises to help you make faster progress writing and achieving your goals.
I believe that the things that really work aren’t as “in your face,” but they do exist, and
they aren’t necessarily that much harder than sorting through a bunch of AI slop, you just need to know what to do.
That’s where I can come in to help.
There are other methods out there to be brilliant, to make progress on your book or business, and not in a delusional way.
Some of these things take a bit more effort, and time, and thus patience. We are all short on patience these days.
But the results are worth it.
Plus putting ideas together the old fashioned way, taking a little quiet to settle down, listen to yourself, tune out the noise and connect to something enriching and fulfilling
can offer huge benefits like grounding you so that your next step and what is right for you is obvious, and you can advance your goals confidently without being led astray.
No more feeling lost and disconnected from your own genius.
I think that this is especially important for some people, I guess you can call us “neurodiverse.” That’s how I am: There are certain ways that we function well and certain ways that we don’t function well at all.
Whether or not something may work for someone else isn’t always an indication that it will work for me.
I’m a unique individual, and I’ve realized that the best way for me to feel successful is to work WITH my brain and my unique traits rather than follow anyone else blindly.
When I go off track and become disconnected from what works for me, I become like Liz was earlier this year, lost, rudderless and totally freaked out in a spiral.
That means I have to LISTEN TO MYSELF
and maintain a very close connection to meeting myself where I am.
It’s not about being perfect.
Even if I have a few short term stumbles trying to do things my way, I’ll learn from it and long term I will make it out of the woods to where I want to be, as I learn clues about how I work best.
I think Liz Goddard is the kind of person who also needs to be true to herself in order to function well. A huge insight this year was to recognize she needed to follow her own genius and inspiration rather than try to outsource it out to chatgpt, as doing it her way was always the key to her success in the past.
By the way, all of this ties into the power of reflecting on the past and what has worked or not worked for you already, because it is so easy for us to forget or lose track of what we have always known.
(My classes on sale include exercises to do this a lot!! I could write a whole essay just about this, but let me try to stay on track.)
Writing things down in a journal or some sort of note is so helpful, as is the process of rereading it periodically.
In Sum:
If you’re at a loss how to get started hearing yourself and making that a part of your writing or work routine, I can help even though I’m headed off on maternity leave:
It’s a great resource to help you get clear on your ideas, and organize them so that you can use them more effectively to create for your book or business.
You’ll feel more genius with more direction and clarity on what to do next.
You won’t forget your brilliant ideas.
I have changed my life in so many ways for the better by connecting to MY own digital brain of information
rather than outsource my power to forces outside of me,
I don’t forget the ideas and lessons I have already learned and produced. I build on them.
And now you can, too:
This bundle contains 26 classes about my system, on sale for only $40.
Plus, I recorded the most recent 8 part Winter series of classes right around New Years of last year,
so there are many practical exercises perfect for this time of year to help you get clear on what to do next and be your most brilliant self in 2026.
My goal is that every class will help you feel more organized, more clarity, more confidence, more inspiration, more creativity and more brilliance.
Anyway this is my one rambly post to attempt to push you to spend more time reconnecting with yourself,
your own ideas,
your own brilliance,
your own writing,
instead of outsourcing your power to an external agent.
And if the problem is that you don’t know HOW,
sign up for the Digital Organization Class Bundle while it is on supersale!
I will show you what to do in the classes. Just turn them on and follow along.
I originally thought I would put something together to offer you, like put one of my courses on sale….but with being 8 months pregnant, that just didn’t happen. And that’s okay!
Other people are offering some things I really LOVE on super sale.
The best deal I’ve seen is Teachery’s Lifetime Offer–
Only $280 to create and sell unlimited courses for LIFE
I have also used Teachery to create free gifts and bonuses.
Some of them I give tohen they people wsign up with their email (like the Fun Email Hub above), others I choose to share with the whole world.
This is great way to impress for: -opt-ins to get people onto your list, -freebies for joint venture gift-giveaways, -bonuses you can offer when you speak at a conference, podcast and so on.
I’ve got so many free things I created over the years that I decided to round them all up in one place:
When I started looking for technology to support me creating and selling courses, many of the options charged monthly fees like $30-100/month.
For a small business, those sorts of monthly charges add up, and I didn’t want to have to carry that for the rest of my life.
(And if I stopped paying the fees, my customers who bought a course would lose access, not cool…)
So when I saw the Lifetime Teachery offer, I was excited to never have to worry about recurring payments. I could continue to build up a library of courses in one place.
My customers would always have access. And I could sell my courses over and over again without paying another dime.
There is no limit to the number of courses I can create.
I Made My Money Back
In the 5 years since I purchased teachery I have made thousands of dollars on my courses, so this has been one of my best investments.
And I paid a lot more for the price than it is selling for now.
Right now the owners are giving a great deal (and may never go so low again):
Only $280 to create and sell unlimited courses for LIFE
(49% off the normal price of $550)
If you want to create and sell courses, don’t miss out.
Lifetime access to Teachery for only $280 (normally $550)
Includes unlimited courses, hubs, students, etc
Fully customizable landing pages and upsells
Ongoing platform updates + real human customer support
No subscription. No future charges. All FUTURE features included for life!
And yes! That is an affiliate link, so if you use it to buy Teachery, then at no additional cost to you, I’ll make a small commission to spend on diapers and other things for my baby soon to arrive. That’s a Win-win!
I really needed this week to recover after the past few weeks of fundraising for charity. Can you believe we raised almost $1000 to keep 2 young women in Sierra Leone from dropping out of college?
I was all over the internet spreading the word about our fundraiser.
but for the most part, right now I’m taking a much-needed break from the hustle and bustle and funneling my efforts into some other projects I want to finish before my maternity leave.
My husband is just as motivated on his own hustles. He hopes to be working on his passions over Thanksgiving, that is, if he has a break from his full time job which has also been keeping him busy.
We are all about getting everything done we can before the baby comes, which at this point is only about a month away!
I’m feeling more and more pregnant. The baby seems to be kicking and pushing me around 50% of the time. It feels like being a pressurized tank. I’m not looking forward to giving birth, personally, but maybe I’ll be so over being pregnant by the time it rolls around that it will seem like less of a big deal.
Amidst it all, we are trying not to be too workaholic, and to find time to rest and connect as a couple during this precious window before the baby is born. It’s easier for me to rest since my energy tends to crap out pretty early on in the day. Assuming I can find a comfortable position to repose myself in…
But anyway, aside from this life update, I wanted to let you know I just put up a new video I am really excited to share with you.
New Video
“The most fun a girl can have is finding parallels, noticing patterns, making connections, contemplating”
This is a great quote to describe me and my soul as a writer and creator, I feel like.
And I want to spread the love.
Not only is making connections fun, pleasurable, satisfying, but it makes you smarter and, well, less dumb.
Lately, I have been hearing people talk about the concept of brain rot, or the stupid-ification of society.
But I wanted to get into it again and talk about how to CURE brainrot, because I have been hearing a lot from others on how they are trying to teach themselves things, get smarter, and resist what may be a societal fall into the abyss of mental mediocrity…
and I think a lot of people are missing the mark on exactly how they are trying to overcome brainrot.
It’s still always worth trying, and I don’t mean to be negative or put anyone down,
BUT I just know how satisfying it is to really nail it so you feel like your most brilliant self.
And I remember the years of trying to scratch the itch of reaching my own intellectual potential for so many years, and feeling like I wasn’t quite there…
it feels so good to cross that bridge, and figure a few things out by just discovering a few key components.
Perhaps what many people are doing is almost there, but if only they could add a few more data points, then they would really be taking their ideas and their brilliance to the next level.
It is so worth it:
When you are truly brilliant, not only do you overcome the trend of brainrot, but you become a better writer, a more impressive thinker, an entrepreneur with more credibility and authority.
You inspire people, impress them. You and what you have to say are much more unique and memorable.
And, god, does it feel good!
People start telling you that they really appreciated the way you were thinking and it continued to bounce around their own brain or it connected dots in a surprising and delightful way.
I also think it really makes a difference these days in trying to improve your standing professionally.
In this world filled with 12 second videos and AI slop, it feels easier and easier to fall into the cracks unnoticed, screaming into the void.
Rather than get frustrated with the way the world has made it harder for writers and small business owners to share things and get attention (although I do, get frustrated with it, yes), or the way that people seem to be getting dumber as a society…
I try to focus on what I can control, and what will help take me to the next level as a person.
Like having really good ideas that stand out.
This means I am focused on pursuing things that have long-term benefits for me and my own personal enrichment as a human (having really excellent ideas and learning skills),
rather than merely banging my head against a wall trying to get one additional aiota of the world’s sadly short attention span.
And so, trying to cure brain rot by becoming a more brilliant person is a great way to go.
I hope this video gives you some direction and some inspiration to make new strides in upleveling your own thinking, writing and creating. Let’s cure brainrot together!
The suggested donation is $25 but ANY amount helps.
Preferred–Donate through GivenGain to send it directly to the Her Future Foundation organization. Pay through GivenGain
2. If you feel more comfortable sending payment via Paypal, you can send the money to Sofia, who will transfer it to Her Future Foundation in Sierra Leone for our students’ college fees.
We had an incredible show of support for my fundraiser last week and we reached the $800 goal needed to send a young woman named Ismatu to college next year!
whether you sent positive vibes of support, shared it with others, or contributed financially, I so appreciate you! Thank you thank you thank you.
In this email I am going to share some words as another way to say thank you, especially if you were not able to attend our Tarot Party event on Tuesday (which was fabulous).
I just want to say as the fundraiser organizer, I really felt the pressure to get results this time.
Just this spring 2025 in particular for the last college fundraiser, it was really hard to get the word out.
I couldn’t bear to see our students drop out so I pulled from my own pocket heavily to cover the gap in funding. It was the right thing.
And for this fundraiser the timing was even trickier:
Being about to give birth and knowing the stakes of these fundraisers to keep two women in college….and also being about to give birth…and feeling it is “all on me” to get those fees funded or fundraised,
I did my best not to freak out but that’s a lot.
So when I say I’m really grateful to everyone’s support, I really really really really mean it, especially this time around!
What a sigh of relief I feel knowing we have made such progress helping these women go to college together as a community. Definitely a TEAM effort, not all on me. There are no words to describe!
And second, something I feel compelled to say for no particular reason:
Remember that apathy and fear and disappointment and rage at things you see in the world, wrongs that stand uncorrected
–it’s very normal to feel all that and then want to give up.
But please hang in there and stick with the things you know you are here to do because good things really are possible.
Change is possible. Helping people is possible. Bite off something small.
And these fundraisers really show how much good is in the world, too, in every single person’s desire to make life just a little bit better for women on the planet, even someone they don’t know personally.
My Thank You Gift to You
So here’s what I want to do today:
we had a Tarot Party yesterday to thank everyone who donated. I know not everyone was able to attend, and some people reading this haven’t donated…
I really want to share the love with you.
I’d like to share some key messages that came through during all the Tarot readings in the hopes that it will serve you. Take what resonates and leave the rest.
It’s on the house!
So here are the big patterns and things to take away:
-Changing chapters and facing changes in life or work.
There is an uncertainty about what is ahead, and emotions are coming up.
These can also be experienced as repeated thoughts or questions,
“Have you figured out what you are going to do or how to do it?
How are you going to finish?
Are you there yet?
What’s taking so long?”
-A feeling of pressure or time urgency getting in the way.
You may feel a burning need to know things and have answers to those questions.
Unfortunately, this need to know and pressure can actually cut you off from your intuition
and the part of you that is able to answer those questions, feel into them slowly and spit out the results.
So although this may seem like this nagging reminder is keeping you on track, it may actually be blocking your efforts to move forward more quickly.
In other words, the very thing that feels like a productive way to nudge yourself to stay on track and do the responsible thing, may actually be taking you backwards.
-Fear is making you impatient.
At the end of the day, so many things can be bundled up and simply described with the word, ‘fear.’
Whether it is fear of success, fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of being too late, fear of missing out, at the end of the day it is all the same raw material.
Fear is underneath all of the things listed above, contributing to the sense of pressure, the need to know now, and general impatience.
That impatience gets put on yourself, and is especially felt by your more tender parts.
This is hardest on your most sensitive, intuitive, creative parts who are most capable of problem solving the scenarios you want to address.
This is why, ironically, the pressure and impatience to know or get things done is actually making it harder for you to know what to do and do things.
Remember that the presence of fear means nothing.
Experienced writers, creators, entrepreneurs all experience it. It is just part of being human and not evidence that you are doing anything wrong.
The impulse to feel fear is human and can teach you valuable things.
Just be careful in listening to the illogical thoughts that come from fear and how they can direct your behavior in unhelpful ways.
Impatience with yourself ultimately can be very unhelpful.
-A few thoughts on being patient with yourself:
Over the last few years, I’ve come to see that I can habitually be impatient with myself.
It’s not on purpose, but it’s a mode I can get into when I feel like I urgently need to do things or figure it out.
And I’ve been a recovering workaholic and speed demon so this has been an area I really have to watch out for.
But my eyes are open now: being impatient with myself isn’t the best motivational tool or way to get results.
In my view now, impatience is a very common form of self disrespect and I’ve started to let it go.
If an old man with a cane was crossing the street, I wouldn’t yell at him for not walking fast enough.
I would give him the respect of patience, and what would I really lose?
Probably about two seconds of my day waiting for him to finish crossing, that I would never miss.
Consider:
What are you sacrificing by being impatient?
Is it really giving you anything positive?
What if it is actually taking away from your quality of life and diminishing your creative problem-solving abilities?
-Spelunking into your emotional world.
Oooooh juicy!
This is one of my favorite aspects of the creative process.
It looks like being off track. If your boss was watching maybe they would think you were just screwing around…
but actually you are filling your tank, processing your emotions, healing your wounds, and taking your psyche to the next level to prepare to go higher than you have ever gone before.
And this is exactly what you need to be doing.
For me it looks like:
-Laundry.
-Looking at pictures.
-A drive to look at the fall leaves.
-Journaling about your childhood stuff.
-A ritual with a candle to burn stuff away.
-A recipe you have been meaning to make.
-Taking a long shower with some foamy product.
-A worksheet to review my past week, month or season.
-Working on a hobby that has nothing to do with your problems.
-Hauling your past season clothes from one place to another in your house.
You already know the stuff you want to do
and the thing is that it might unlock energy and space for you to actually think through the next step of your life.
Just let yourself do it and tell the voice demanding instant answers to shut up.
As soon as you take your foot off the gas, you can glide easily down the hill, and accelerate without burning more fuel than necessary.
And it might even feel good. It might even feel like everything is okay and you are safe and you can let fear go, and everything will get easier, I promise. To just stand still a moment.
-It is okay to stand still.
It is wonderful how sometimes you can do it and the world doesn’t blow up around you,
things get quiet and the ideas can come rushing in. The reduction in noise eliminates confusion.
Observing before you act means you can be open to new ideas,
open to your true range of feelings or desires (valuable information),
discover what is lurking under the surface and
what the universe is calling you to do or be or know.
-Guidance:
Make space to listen to your intuition, and follow it.
Have patience with yourself.
Give yourself whatever you need to feel safe so you can release fear or anxiety. Do the things that help (the list above may give you some ideas).
Treat yourself like you would a child, this is a tender time and you need care through this transition because changes are hard.
That tiny voice of fear needs attention or it will act out and take over your whole life
(and not in a positive or productive way–a nagging way, a draining way that sucks).
Even if you wish that fearful part of you wasn’t there, it may actually be an important element to listen to in its own way.
It isn’t trying to hurt you, but trying to keep you safe. It’s just having the unintended consequence of doing the opposite and getting in the way.
Perhaps through inner work, curiosity and holding space for yourself, you will find a new muse inside that fear voice, a new best friend inside of yourself.
That inner conflict can point the way to an energy that you can reabsorb within yourself, collapsing barriers with a gentleness, love and patience with yourself.
Hold firmly to the bold idea that you are valuable now before you solve all the problems, or figure it all out or release any unhelpful emotions.
You have nothing to prove even if nothing changes. You are deserving of love, rest, pleasure, and support now and not in the future when it is all done.
That deep, radical respect of yourself will clear the way for the tumblers to click into place.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks again to everyone who has made this fundraiser a success, I SO appreciate you.
The suggested donation is $25 but ANY amount helps.
Preferred–Donate through GivenGain to send it directly to the Her Future Foundation organization. Pay through GivenGain
2. If you feel more comfortable sending payment via Paypal, you can send the money to Sofia, who will transfer it to Her Future Foundation in Sierra Leone for our students’ college fees.
Life in my corner is certainly interesting as I approach a huge change in my future.
Not only is the weather getting more chilly and rainy in my corner of the world, making the approach of winter more real,
But with the approach of December also comes the approach of a huge life change: a December baby.
As I have been super busy trying to finish all my work and prepare for the little one that is coming over the past 7 months, boy, are there a lot of feelings.
Taking care of my mental health has never been more important.
Creativity and writing are huge resources for me to stay sane, grounded and clear on where I need to put my focus at any given time.
So that brings me to what I want to talk about today:
my journey going from one notebook to many.
As a writer, I started young. I originally began with a single journal in middle school–and I wasn’t that great at keeping it.
When I was a teen, I was more interested in updating my blog (and my friends) through online publishing than filling a notebook with private thoughts,
so I had the same journal for almost ten years. That’s how long it took to fill it, one tiny update at a time (mostly about boys).
But after college, I read the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
which encouraged me to write daily first thing in the morning regardless of if I really had anything to say or not–
thus, I began to truly keep a regular journal and develop a more consistent and prolific writing habit.
There’s something about me where I can’t necessarily remember what I felt the day before,
so my journals became a powerful resource for me to actually craft a life responsive to my feelings and needs.
I was better able to gain clarity on what I wanted and pursue things enjoyable to me, including following my dreams to start my own business in my twenties.
It was an indispensable resource so I dragged that notebook with me everywhere.
Over the years, I developed a shelf of filled-up such notebooks…
But even though they were all useful in the moment, I began to realize that something was still being lost in the shuffle long term–
I’d pick up an older notebook from a few years before and find ideas that still resonated, and gave me tingles,
but I couldn’t help but think, “Why did I never do anything with this idea?”
Considering this scenario happened over and over again, a burn grew in me to find a solution so ideas like these didn’t fall in the cracks.
Good news: I eventually figured out what to do!
I was able to create a system for myself where fewer of these ideas fell into the cracks, and more of them were developed into articles, business products, life changes and more.
I did this by transferring a lot of these thoughts to a digital organization system.
(I hope to talk a little more about how I’m doing that one day soon, but for now let me stick to the paper journals!)
The thing is:
For the longest time, I thought that having more than one physical notebook at a time would just add to my confusion and disorganization.
Surely, more notebooks = more cracks for my ideas to fall into and be forgotten…
But because I eventually learned to create a digital system that organized my ideas overall,
encompassing ideas from all my paper notebooks,
I could trust myself again, and gained a new freedom to explore.
That’s how I started keeping different notebooks for specific purposes!
Now I don’t have to worry anymore that things will fall into the cracks (because I have a digital system to serve as an umbrella for everything), and
I can dive into specific notebooks to drill down and focus on certain goals that are important to me without fear or overwhelm that I’m setting myself up for failure down the road.
I’m finding this balance really useful and I wanted to share what’s working for me right now.
I’m due in December, just had my 30 week ultrasound appointment today!
After this week, I’ll just be focusing on serving my final clients, finishing my other work and doing everything I need to do to get ready to be a mom.
…
Lately, with so much on my own plate to handle, I’ve been thinking about how creativity isn’t something that drains us—it’s what refills us.
When I am tired or drained, sometimes writing or doing something creative can feel like one more thing I just don’t have time for.
But I have learned that it’s usually the opposite:
the thing that can give me MORE time and energy is listening to my desires and being more creative and free.
There’s a core belief that guides everything I do in my work:
When you embrace your creativity, it can enhance your life in ways nothing else can.
Creativity doesn’t have to drain you. When you give yourself space to follow your creative drive, it opens up new possibilities and new energy.
Writing, expressing yourself, even showing up for your marketing in creative ways
—are not just additional tasks on your to-do list. They can also be ways to refill your own tank and reconnect you with what makes you feel alive.
That’s what I love helping my clients remember through writing coaching and editing.
Writing for a book or business is productive and the way I like to encourage people to do it is to embrace the lifestyle of being more creative in general and listening to your creative urges. Everything is easier.
Not only is it more effortlessly productive but it also can go soul deep and transform your life.
You may have heard that you need to show up and write for your book or business to be of service to other people, and that is true, but not enough is said about how the journey can heal and enrich your own life, as well!
I used to focus exclusively on the idea of changing the world with my writing, but I started to feel more peace when I realized it’s also okay to write and do things that will support me as an individual first,
because that is in itself world changing (I am a part of the world, am I not?).
In a strange way, focusing on myself first over the last few years and filling my tank has actually lead me to do much deeper work and better writing.
Better than when I was desperate to serve others and cutting corners on what I really wanted, overlooking my own needs and creative desires.
That’s the beauty of an inside-out approach. Fill your tank first and see what happens. Your mindset and thinking will be on a whole new level and lead you to unexpected places.
Listen to your creative desires: sometimes even when they don’t seem productive in a logical sense,
they still lead you where you want to go or somewhere better. It’s good to pull the thread and see what happens next.
Remember, I have just a couple of open spots left before I pause for maternity leave.
If you’ve been feeling the nudge to bring more creative energy into your life—or to finally get your writing project moving for your book or business marketing—now’s the moment to reach out.
It is official – I am now in the third trimester of my pregnancy.
It’s a little bit scary, this shift towards the beginning of the end (so to speak)…
I feel that clock ticking and there is still so much to do. Yet I’ve also finished or let go of a lot of things as well.
The last few days PAUSE has been such an important theme as I recollect my energy after visiting a friend.
It’s amazing how a small trip for a couple days has scrambled my routines and my mental clarity.
Every day, I have to be mindful of the pressure I feel to hustle and how it further scrambles my system.
I know it will not help me to run around like Chicken Little. I must resist reacting out of fear or stress.
I am practicing the art of surrender to the limits of my capacity, changing day by day, and patiently tending to whatever need I have so that I can operate and function properly.
Things just tend to throw me a bit more at this stage of pregnancy. Being gentle with myself is something I have learned with age, and it’s never been more appropriate.
I wish you gentleness in your life as well.
I think at the root of a lot of dysfunction and stress reactions is a belief that it is not okay to receive,
-not okay to enjoy stopping to smell the roses before all work is done (i.e. ever),
-not okay to enjoy the moment before my baby comes because I have to be in control and fully prepared (impossible)
-not okay to love myself as a human being, instead of a human doing.
Growing up, I was taught that my value and worth was a function of what utility I had, what use I was, or how much money I was earning
as if I were a positive or negative line on a balance sheet.
In this belief system, choosing to pause or having to do so because of an incapacity to perform useful functions was dangerous. It triggered anxiety.
No wonder I had resistance to rest.
For many years, I was a workaholic, and the recovery time is slow. I’m a lot different now but just like with any addictive behavior, I have to keep an eye out to avoid falling back into old patterns.
Being on the brink of being a mother, myself, I would never wish my child to assess their own value the way I was taught to, like a line on a balance sheet.
I’m sure the people who loved me never wanted it either, but negative messages rang louder than their intent.
And so I aim to be the model of change. I aim to heal what came before so that I don’t pass it on to the next generation.
I’d like to say thank you to Melissa Feick, who recently wrote about blocks to receiving and how it continues through families in a book she recently published:
Although this theme is something I have worked on for years, her words still brought up additional layers of it to my awareness with new meaning and relevance.
I got to chew on everything she wrote many months ago while I had the honor of editing the book.
Highly recommend reading it for yourself!
By the way, this is the second book I’ve edited for Melissa, and because she writes about very deep spiritual subjects, it always delights me when reviews describe the writing as easy to understand.
I have a lot of interests, skills and hats I wear, but can I just say?
Editing spiritual nonfiction is definitely my jam. I’ve done a lot of editing on these sorts of books, and it dovetails nicely with my Masters degree in Spiritual Direction and Spiritual Care.
I love the reviews like those above because it shows me that her book didn’t fall into one of the common traps for spiritual writing.
If you are writing about spiritual things, it is incredibly easy to write in a manner that people don’t know how to comprehend in a grounded, everyday sort of way.
It comes off as airy fairy. It goes in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t mean something real to other people.
Although the author knows what they are talking about, the average person does not.
It can take the form of poetry and sound really nice to you, inspire you, and feel divine as the author…
but your readers may be left scratching their heads. Their eyes may glaze over reading. They don’t truly carry away the meaning that you are trying to convey.
Even though you are sharing something you feel is life-changing, they read it and their lives don’t change.
It doesn’t move them the way it moves you.
It doesn’t mean something deep to them if they can’t fully comprehend you or know how to apply what you are talking about to real life.
And if what you want to say is life-changing, that’s really disappointing!
I want more authors to be able to change lives like Melissa, so make sure that the people you are writing to can receive your message clearly.
Remember that you have to consider if your writing is easy to understand or not.
Another common problem is that when you try to edit your words, you lose the essence of the spiritual vibe you want to permeate the writing.
Basically, you are trying to do too much by yourself.
You are trying to imagine how people will respond to your words and that’s disconnecting you from yourself and your inspiration.
The result is writing that is watered down without being powerful.
Just so you know, it is a lot easier when you find the right editor!
You don’t have to figure it all out yourself. When you get help to edit (and your editor gets you), things are a lot simpler.
You can stay in your inspired zone, and the editor can suggest edits to help it be easier to understand.
I think we did a great job finding a balance in Melissa’s books so they are easy to understand while staying very rich in spiritual meaning.
Like the reviews state, this is part of why she is getting so many five star ratings. Her first book was also a very strong bestseller for many years.
Not only is her material fantastic, but if anything wasn’t 100% clear to understand, we caught it and tweaked it in the developmental editing we did together. So now it’s all clear as day.
Want to try this with your writing? You are in luck. I have a few spots open for editing before I go on maternity leave. 🙂
Here’s a note from Melissa that she sent me after I helped her edit her first book, “Your work is amazing. I love what you’ve done for me and the book!”
And if you need any help editing your nonfiction book, I have a couple of coaching + editing spots open before I head out on maternity leave. If you’d like to explore one of them, reach out to me by October 15.
My specialties include spiritual nonfiction, memoir, and personal development genres.
I am also a copywriter and available to edit business copy for your website, bios, service descriptions, sales pages, articles, email campaigns, promo posts, blogs, or video scripts.
I tend to work with sensitive and empathetic folks who want to take care with their words. This includes writers, healers, or service providers such as massage therapists, mental health therapists, spiritual support folks, conscious marketers, and more.
During that call, I’ll ask you questions about what you are working on, what you and your writing need–and then we can see if it is a fit for us to work together. We’ll talk about different ways I can help and what’s right for you. I often create customized plans for people, tailored services not found on my website, and I work with your budget.
Shoot me a reply today if you want clarity on how to make progress on your writing.
I’m great, I did my first real fall activity last week — apple picking. I’m currently wearing orange, and loving that it is October, my favorite month. Plus, I got to see some people who make me happy. I’ve also been getting some wonderful updates from clients lately. I’d love to share about one of them with you.
Ever feel blocked and unclear about your writing style? Heidi did too—until coaching shifted everything.
When Heidi and I first connected, she had two goals:
break through her creative blocks
and gain clarity on the scope of her work and her writing style.
Here’s what she shared after our time together:
“Working with Sofia has been an absolute game-changer for my process as a writer. I began working with Sofia as a personal writing coach with the goal of breaking through creative blocks and further defining the scope of my work and my writing style.
Through weekly Voxer exchanges, Sofia was able to compassionately witness and reflect back some of the themes in my thought process and help me better hone in on my “why” as a writer — and as a person.
Her style of relating is personable and reflective and, each week, she provided excellent tips, resources, and wisdom that helped me dive deeper into my own process of self-discovery and emergence.
Sofia is also a wonderful editor, who is highly experienced in critiquing a variety of text types and I benefited from her developmental editing throughout the process of undergoing coaching with her.
Overall, my experience of coaching with Sofia has helped me become more authentic, strategic, and soul-led in my life as a creator and writer, and I would highly recommend her as a writing and personal development coach for anyone looking to deepen, expand, or sharpen their practice as a writer/creator.”
—Heidi Joy, writer and content creator
Heidi’s story shows what happens when you give yourself space to be witnessed, supported, and guided.
She walked away with:
clarity on her “why” as a writer,
a deeper sense of self-discovery,
practical tips and resources to move her writing forward,
developmental editing that sharpened her work,
and writing that now feels more authentic, strategic, and soul-led.
This is why I do this work. I don’t need hundreds of clients—I just need the right ones.
I help people clear the fog so you know what to write next for your book or business, and write as smoothly as a mermaid swims.
Plus, I aim to help you as a whole person, not only to improve your work, but also to help you feel more ALIVE, relaxed, and creative overall in life rather than stressed or burned out.
If you’ve been sitting with creative blocks on a writing project and craving more clarity, maybe this is your moment.
I have a couple of coaching + editing spots open before I head out on maternity leave. If you’d like to explore one of them, reach out to me by October 15.
My specialties include spiritual nonfiction, memoir, and personal development genres.
I am also a copywriter and available to edit business copy for your website, bios, service descriptions, sales pages, articles, email campaigns, promo posts, blogs, or video scripts.
I tend to work with sensitive and empathetic folks who want to take care with their words. This includes writers, healers, or service providers such as massage therapists, mental health therapists, spiritual support folks, conscious marketers, and more.
During that call, I’ll ask you questions about what you are working on, what you and your writing need–and then we can see if it is a fit for us to work together. We’ll talk about different ways I can help and what’s right for you. I often create customized plans for people, tailored services not found on my website, and I work with your budget.
Shoot me a reply today if you want clarity on how to make progress on your writing.
