Sarah K Peck – Page 12

The upside of being busy

Posted on December 6, 2014December 17, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

Being busy – being full, having a lot to do, filling your calendar to the brim — can be overwhelming, tiring, exhausting. Sometimes we’re busy for busy’s sake. And answering “busy” to how have you been is, well, annoying.

But sometimes there’s an upside to being busy.

When you’ve got a handful of projects to work on, you don’t have as much time to worry about whether or not they’ll work out — you’re busy making something new instead and learning from the results.

When you’re focused on learning new material, you don’t have time to worry about what people think of you, what you should do next, or how to spend your time.

You’re too busy doing.

Emails don’t stick or sting too much because you don’t have the time to think about it for another second.

There’s a reason people say “if you want something done, ask a busy person.” Busy people get things done.

Up to a point, busy can actually be helpful.

Maybe the answer isn’t thinking more, but doing more. Maybe getting a little busy will help you out of your next rut.

Why quitting is perfectly okay.

Posted on November 22, 2014December 21, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

10802447_763955216997425_47234659_n

It’s always the same story for me: I start a project, a class, an idea, or a story. I eagerly rush in, align my pencils, lay out my notebooks, and make delirious plans in my calendar. That first day, ideas and dreams pour out of me.

Then four days pass. I waver, tired. My calendar seems oppressive. The new habit loses its stickiness against the watery pulse of time and circumstance.

I lose another day, a week, and slip behind.

Last Spring, I started Hannah Marcotti’s beautiful Spirits of Joy and did ten days of paper crafting, collage making, glue bending. The drawing ignited in me a new set of doodles; the ripped paper and tacky glue nudged the sleepy muse inside of me.

And I ran from the class to my journals, getting lost inside of my own writing project. The crafts lay quietly on my desk for the next three weeks.

I used to beat myself up for not finishing things. Like the fits that “Crazy Eyes” has in Orange is the New Black, I’d cringe and mentally beat myself up each time I found another project laying around the house, paused or half-done.

It was a pattern so familiar, I started to observe it.

What was happening? Why was I quitting?

Life happened.

Things got hard, they got rough: deadlines built up. Real work pulled me in. The need to take a run and take care of my body surfaced. The competing pulls of attention and focus and deadlines wrapped me in their compelling arms.

But something else was happening, too. Ten days of paper-crafting with a beautiful spirit course led me to building an entirely new online program of my own.

Skimming the lessons in a business-building mastermind opened up a new way of creating sales pages. Reading half of a book propelled me into my next project.

And then it hit me: what if I was getting exactly what I needed?

What if I was getting exactly what I needed? These courses and events served as inspiration for my soul, and my soul nudged me when it was time to begin working.

Like a creative coach blowing the whistle, she stood on the sidelines while I soaked in knowledge until they stepped in and said, “Okay, Sarah, go make that thing. You heard the whisper. Now make.”

What if my ego was the only part of me that really cared about finishing?

You don’t have to do everything to get something out of it.

Twelve half-finished books is still reading six full books. (Many books are inflated lengths anyways and should be shorter). Some things are meant to be finished. And some things don’t need to be finished.

You don’t have to finish your meal. (In fact, not finishing might be better for you). Or your art project. Or the class you signed up for after you get exactly what you need out of it.

We think we know what we need in advance.

The more I plan in advance and then later watch my life take shape completely differently than my plans, the more I realize that planning ahead can be a flimsy wish at best.

It gets our foot in the door. We often underestimate how much time things take, or assume we know all the steps we’ll take before we get started.

You can pause. You can wait. You can enjoy the space.

You can quit.

You are allowed to leave things half-finished and undone. You can walk away.

Writers who join my programs always fall down. This is life, it happens: we get sick, we get tired, we have late nights. Instead of beating yourself up, I remind them to build in “life” days.

Want to blog? Make a plan to do it weekly, with a free pass to skip one week a month for when life gets a bit frenetic.

No one said you have to get 100% done and be perfect to enjoy the fruits of your progress. In fact, if you write two essays, that’s more than zero.

Somewhere in the quest for perfect, we forget to acknowledge that something is better than nothing.

An apple is better than no apple. A walk is better than sitting. Sometimes, some days, I say to myself, just walk around the block. Just write a little story. Just make a couple of lists.

And here’s the secret grace: when you let go, you make space to return.

When I feel the pull again, I get that half-finished notebook of Hannah’s off my shelf. I collect magazines and glue, snippets and scraps, words and graphite. I work into the late evening, wine by my side, lost in messy piles.

My book, a 30-day project, might take me 180 days. I may never finish. What I need is not a 30-day check mark of completion, but the grace to return to crafting whenever my soul calls for it.

And what if, instead of a routine, you let yourself come back in?

I always hear new writers tell me stories about giving up after failing to stick to a routine (the same is true for people beginning a new exercise routine).

But what if, instead of betting yourself against a routine, failing, and then quitting — instead you took a breath on the off days and let yourself come back in?

Like writing morning pages to warm up for writing, the little movements are what bring us back in to our greater works. The biggest dreams are sometimes the hardest to start.

It’s hard to feel progress in the tiniest of moments, but it’s not about the goal. We can’t fathom the experience in its entirety. The peak is a representation of the work, a moment.

By letting go of the deadline, the need for perfection, my ego’s need to complete everything I’ve started, I allow myself the space to come back in.

Because it’s always about making.

Come back in.

Come back in. Whenever you want.

Have You Ever Lost Your Temper?

Posted on November 11, 2014January 6, 2016 by Sarah K Peck

10268777_1570050379872988_927911944_n

This is an excerpt of an essay from my twelve-essay short series on Grace and Gratitude. Each day, I send a story with a nugget, an idea, and a practice — everything from losing your temper, to finding small happiness, to practicing meditation. The program is here; or just enjoy the essay below as a window into our world.

The other day I lost my temper.

I’d been holding on tightly to so many projects, and I was carrying both loss and love in my heart. An email came in and I swore softly under my breath. (Edit: perhaps not so softly). I stomped into the kitchen and started muttering.

This person, I thought angrily, had no right to be so demanding about the project we were working on. I proceeded to launch into a tirade, ranting about the terrors of this person, sending grenades of vicious language into our living room from the kitchen table. My honey raised an eyebrow from his chair in our office and turned around, listening. He hadn’t seen me like this too often.

My mind and tongue got swept up into a spew of vitriol. Getting angrier seemed to somehow make me… angrier.

And in the middle of, around the third or fourth paragraph, my body started to sag. I felt energy fall out of my body, and somehow I felt even worse. The crazy yelling wasn’t helping at all. I was just working myself up into a funk and I was horrified at the things that were coming out of me. It was like anger spewed out of me and I had lost myself in a tirade of feelings just because I could. For a brief second, I saw myself from across the room—this human body standing in the kitchen, frothing anger at the mouth.

And in that realization,

I took a breath.

I paused.

I stopped talking for one second.

And changed my mind.

“Oh noooo.” I said to my partner, my face scrunching up into a mash-up of worry and frustration, gasping breath in,

“I don’t like what’s happening. I don’t like talking like this. I need to watch my tongue. What’s happening?”

I exhaled completely, shakily. I called a time-out on myself. (I think my partner thinks I’m comical when I do stuff like this). Marched myself into the other room and sat down on the bed, steaming mad, huffing and puffing, shaking and stomping, still angry, but with enough of a fraction of awareness to take my piping-mad self into the other room and give her a little time out.

“You know what?” I yelled from the other room.

“I’m going to go shower and stop talking and see if I can figure out some of these feelings. I’m sorry about losing my temper.”

It came out “I’M SOR-RY I LOST MY TEMPER. HUMPH.”

I walked (stomped) out and headed to the shower. Not the classiest apology, but.

That.

That was a moment of grace.

It’s not about being perfect and never making mistakes (Please! Who are we kidding?).

It’s about giving your self the grace to become aware in the present and to shift your thoughts or your behavior.

You’re allowed to be imperfect, and you’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to edit yourself, reflect, and improve. It’s about owning where you are at this exact moment. It’s about being honest and brave. And it’s about being able to say,

“Oh gosh, that just isn’t what I meant to do. That’s not what I want to be. I am so sorry, and I’m going to shift. Right now, now that I’m aware, I’m going to change my mind.”

And

I have permission to do it another way.

As a husband or a wife, you can pivot. When you make a mistake and you yell at your child, you’re allowed to go in and say to your partner, “I think I goofed. I think I did that wrong. Can you help? I’d like to find a better way.”

And

“That didn’t feel good. I want to do it better next time.”

This is a moment of grace. Of presence. Of foundation.

Here’s the interesting thing about grace: grace can happen anytime. Grace can happen anywhere. It’s a softening, a releasing, and a letting go. It’s permission that you maybe don’t have everything right. And you can pivot in a minute. You are allowed to be you.

Words of wisdom: you’re allowed to make mistakes. And have feelings.

As humans, part of our job is allowing ourselves to make mistakes, acknowledge them, own up to them, and reaching out if we need to. You’ll know the feeling. You have a pang, a little emotional signal shooting up at you when you think that maybe you’ve over done it, but you stubbornly don’t want to admit it.

Feelings are our body’s way of talking to us. Most people tend to ignore their feelings or cover them up by stuffing them under a rug or trying to forget what happened and move on. We puff up and change our behavior largely because we just aren’t sure what to do with that firestorm of feelings brewing beneath the surface. It’s not entirely our fault, either: we don’t have great language (or cultural norms) for talking about and identifying all those feelings we have inside.

When you start to analyze what the feelings are behind the emotions and reactions, it will become easier to understand your reaction to different people and events and learn from it.

The more awareness and emotional intelligence you have around your feelings, the less you become a reaction fuse, and the more you’re able to look inwards and say, “Huh, that really made me angry. She pushed a nerve—she triggered this insecurity within me. I now have a choice in how I react.” (The alternative is a blind “nerve-pushed! nerve-pushed!” reaction).

The more you can take a look at the deeper feelings behind every action, and how each feeling connects to an action, the easier it gets to connect the feeling to the action in real time. To be fair, however, sometimes it takes me months to figure out what the real feelings are behind something that happens; other times the connections become more and more apparent.

Forgiveness—of both ourselves and of others—isn’t about forgetting or surrendering to other people. Forgiveness is seeing things as they really are. It’s about seeing yourself as you really are (and the inner stories you have, the feelings you’re feeling, and the work that you’re holding); and it’s about seeing other people as who they are, in real time. It’s about realizing that everyone has their own body of work to do.

“Forgiveness is the choice to see people as they are now.” —Marianne Williamson

The more you practice, the easier it gets.

There’s a really important point about this exercise that’s worth pointing out: the more you practice it, the easier it gets.

In life, there are examples of small-but-tangible practices. Have you ever dropped litter on the ground? Some people stop to pick it up and don’t even think about it. Pretend that you accidentally dropped a wrapper on the floor and you don’t notice for a few steps. When you turn around, you see the trash behind you.

What do you do?

For many of us, it depends. If it’s far away, we might continue walking—even though there’s a ping in our hearts that says, “I really should go get that.”

Actually, the biggest and most opportune time to practice a behavior is when it’s so small it’s easy to do.

Whether or not you pick up the trash is incredibly important for the neurons and habits in your brain. If you practice picking up the trash every time, you begin to tell yourself a story about what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. You commit to taking action when you notice something that’s wrong.

“The most opportune time to practice a behavior is when it’s so small it’s easy to do.”

It initiates a cascade effect of good behavior. The next day, if you see someone leave their tablet out on a table and forget it, it will be a smidgeon easier to walk over to them and say, “hey, I think you left this behind!” The behavior chain and habit pattern continues. Then, when you get to a moment and you’re in a heated fight or angry outburst, this neuron—this behavior pattern that lets you pivot, that lets you initiate, that knows that you trust it to do something right—it will speak up. It will nudge you, and it’ll say,

Hey, maybe not this way.

Try again?

Let’s pause.

Let’s do it this other way we’ve been training.

Let’s look at ourselves, imperfect, fallible, strange, growing, and remember that it’s okay to learn. To grow. To adapt.

We’re allowed to make mistakes. We’re allowed to breathe. And we’re allowed to say, hey,

I’m going to try to make this a little bit better.

Cool?

How to write more handwritten notes.

Posted on October 27, 2014October 27, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

I love checking the mailbox. I’ve had pen pals since I was seven years old — and it’s one of the ways Alex and I first met.

Yet in today’s busy-busy world, how do you make time to sit down, get out the pen, and write a note?

Here are a few tricks you might love:

handwritten notes-moleskine

1. Tuck a few cards into the back of your moleskine.

If you’re like me, and you carry a notebook and a pen around, use that back flap to tuck a few postcards and blank notecards into the back. If you have a laptop case, a soft case for your ipad or tablet, or a kindle case, that also works. (I keep notecards in my kindle case and my moleskine).

2. Stock up on notecards and postcards at thrift shops or airports when traveling.

I always add an extra $20 into a trip to buy a little set of cards from a local artist or craft store. It’s a great way to get a souvenir without having to take anything extra that stays in my home for too long.

3. Keep a stack in a box on your desk.

I have a small box with several dozen cards and postcards in it that sits on my desk, next to my pen jar. Anytime I’m waiting for something to load (saving, uploading, syncing, rebooting – you name it, there’s technical lag time) — I’ll grab a card and write.

4. Keep a special slim bag for notecards and stamps.

I have a special zippered bag that has travel essentials in it — whenever I’m consulting, teaching, or getting on an airplane for a work trip — and I keep my converters, chargers, and essential digital items in there. (It’s a handy bag that I adore and it has all the wires and cords for setting up projectors, adaptors, and more). It’s got a little sleeve down the side and I put in a stack of notecards and business cards to be ready whenever I need them.

I love those waterproof all-in-one zippered bags, cosmetic bags, or all-function zippered bags from MUJI.

handwritten notes-zipper bag

5. When you feel the urge or a twinge that says, I miss that person — write.

Capture the intuition. I’ve written to people I’ve barely talked to, people I admire online and respect greatly, and send notes to people who I can sense are having a hard time. Sometimes it’s been years and I see someone’s face again online and I think — ahh, that person is lovely. I know we didn’t keep in touch, but I’ll send a little note.

6. Use takeoff and landing time!

When airlines tell me to “put away and stow all electronic devices,” I smile and grab my notecard bag. Whenever I’m departing is a great time to scribble out a few quick thank-you notes to the people who hosted me, people I just met, or people I spent time workshopping with. There’s usually at least 20 minutes between takeoff and getting to cruising altitude, so I use that time to jot out my notes, thank-you’s for the holidays, and anyone else I feel like writing to.

But what do you say?

Writing quick cards is about cultivating the habit — keeping the cards near you on your desk, in your purse, or in a device that you use all the time (read: laptop, kindle, tablet) means it’s super easy to grab one quickly when you need it. I keep cards all around me so that when I get the urge, I can cultivate the habit.

Keep the notes simple.

And here are a few scripts I love. Take ’em, use ’em, run with ’em:

“Congratulations! I saw your recent good news and I wanted to say how inspiring everything you do is. Keep it up! XO.”

“Been thinking about you. I know it’s been forever since we’ve connected, but I wanted to drop a note and say how delightful it is to see what you’re working on. From an old friend, XO.”

“Sending you lots of love and hugs right now! I know that life has a lot of rough and tumble spots and I wanted to send a little smile your way.”

“I wanted to drop a quick note and say THANK YOU for hosting me this past week. It was wonderful to stay with you and meet your crew and I appreciate your hospitality so much!”

“You’re the best. Seriously. Thank you.”

“Just wanted to say hi!”

When in doubt, add your favorite quote or two and just a couple of sentences. It doesn’t have to be an epic letter — the note says enough when you send it.

I love handwritten notes.

Send a little happiness into the world!

sarah signature

Have you changed your narrative lately?

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

As I wander through cities, one of the things I look for is evidence of fresh construction. Cities are living, breathing, pulsating organisms, and a great indicator of change is the number of cranes you can see dotting the skyline. In San Francisco, new construction emerges when the lack of residential units becomes absurd; in my new neighborhood in Brooklyn, new housing developments are popping up on vacant lots every few months.

Everything is always changing, even if we aren’t looking for it.

You have trillions of cells in your body, one of my yoga teachers reminds me. And your cells live, grow, and die and replace themselves every seven years. Every seven years we become an entirely new collection of cells. And in our personal and professional lives, metamorphoses happen even quicker. Your narrative changes every two, three, four years. You were a college student—then you weren’t. You were responsible for only yourself—and then you became a parent.

Every seven years our physical bodies completely regenerate. How often do we renew our stories of self?

Your narrative is always changing.

It’s easy to cling to a story, even if it doesn’t serve us anymore. It’s harder to shed the layers of past selves and emerge into a new narrative. The transition can be awkward, abrupt, or bumpy.

As things move and shift, you’re learning, iterating, growing, changing. You’re new to twitter and then, months later … you’re not. No one is listening to your blog, and then, some time later, people are listening. You’re embedded in the flush of a new job, thrilled to be working on your project, and then, a few years later, you’re tired. Ready for the next project, story, or idea.

Don’t cling too hard to your old narratives. Instead, build new ones. Grow into future ones.

When you’re a new employee, the biggest thing you don’t know yet is that you’re only in the entry level category for a short time before new faces come along and you’ve got to hand your bag of tricks over to the new staff. That management you’re secretly griping about? That’s you, really soon. Trying your best to do better, and learning the reasons why it’s so tough to implement your ideals. At the end of my twenties, just a brush away from my thirties, I realized with somewhat of a start that I graduated from college 9 years ago –

What? NINE years ago?

People were asking me questions that I had answers to — and many that I didn’t. I knew a lot, and yet there was so much more I wanted to learn.

You are, until you aren’t.

You aren’t, and then you are.

In my work with storytellers, educators, corporate leaders, and innovators, one of the things we do is unearth their current narratives — and watch people rebuild. Michael Margolis reminds me that “as you tell your story, your story moves.” When we take pen to paper, when we sit with friends, when we convene and collect and talk about what we’re doing — our story changes.

The act of expressing your story helps set your past narratives free. The act of imagining your future narrative helps you grow and transition into your next iteration of who you are.

We grow through story, and we grow into our story. Your narrative is changing.

What stories can you retire?

Who are you becoming next?

Writing exercise: get out a sheet of paper and write down as many stories and scripts that you carry around with you. Your age, what you believe in, how you explain who you are and what you do. Are there any that can be changed? Anything new emerging? Write down stories of your next, wiser, growing self. Who are you becoming?

PS: For everyone who’s interested in working on their writing and storytelling, I’ve got a surprise coming out in the next few weeks — if you’re on my mailing list, I’ll send you a note when my big surprise goes live!

The man at the grocery store.

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

The man in the grocery store is in love with me.

I can tell by the way that his eyes watch me, and the way he smiles at me from behind the counter. I pull my basket up around the edge of the aisle, glancing briefly at the pop tart magazines.

Mmm… chocolate. I grab one. Impulse buys.

The elderly couple in front of me tinkers with the credit card machine, pushing buttons. Their necks crane and squint a bit, staring at the box. Yes. Pay. No. No, we don’t want any money back. Yes again. Beep!

I catch his eye while I’m in line, and I see him staring at me, his mouth hanging open slightly. When he sees that I see him, his eyes squeeze and his face bursts into a grin. He ducks his head, shyly, and busies himself with packing bags and stacking the groceries as they come down the end of the conveyor belt.

I smile, too, and turn my head back to the cashier. She swipes each item past the barcode reader, tracking and recording my food purchases, automatically smiling at me and asking me about my day. I check in here almost every day, buying my lunch, sometime around noon, a creature of habit. The store is only 2 blocks from my office, and on the busy weeks I rush down here and buy a sandwich for a quick meal. There aren’t too many checkout lines and he’s always here, smiling.

His green store apron is slightly askew, his hands shaking as he picks each item up carefully off the belt to put it in a bag. I reach my hand over the counter to stop him, shaking my head slightly, reminding him again that I brought my bag.

See? I ask — and point to my big purse — I have my bag, I remind him. I don’t need another one. He quickly straightens up and arranges my items again, placing them each on the counter carefully and grinning back up at me once he’s done arranging the items.

He stutters a bit and starts talking to me, a pattern of words I’m used to from seeing him almost every day. His brown eyes open wide and take in every gesture of my being. I face him kindly and listen to his story, thanking him silently with my body for taking the time to tell me his thoughts. Today, he’s urgently and excitedly telling me about my sandwich, which, as he attests to, I will certainly enjoy.

“It’s – it’s – it’s a good, it’s a good- — good – sandwich.” He grins.

He has Down Syndrome, I guess, or some other difference, something that makes him seem unusual at first glance. I’m not sure which, nor do I feel the need to name it or identify it. His laughter is playful, childlike, eager. We are just people in a world, together. I am in joy knowing that he is here, able to participate, able to be, able to share his excitement about the world around. Maybe more people should wear smiles as frequently as he does.

Yesterday he saw me in line and his eyebrows burst up in semi-circles of recognition, and he turned around and walked away for a bit. I watched, bemused, wondering what he was up to, until I got distracted by the grocer’s cues to complete my payments. Suddenly he was there, by my side, both hands wrapped around a small flower pot with a long stemmed orchid in it. He extended both arms.

“H-H-Here,” he said. “A pretty, a pretty — a pretty —”

“A pretty flower for you.”

He blushed and turned shy when he realized what he said.

Thank you, I said.

Thank you so much. I love the flower. Today, maybe I don’t need the flower, but I love the flower. My eyes look at him, longing to understand, to try to feel what he feels and see what he sees and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to know the world as he knows it, if I’ll see it with his beauty, with his eyes, with his yearning. My mind flings to things far away from the present, lost in times far gone. And I think, too, if anyone will ever see the world as I see it, or if we’re both just lonely—lost in our own minds, not truly able to share our worlds completely with each other.

But they intersect, these moments, and his brief thoughts, his words, his gifts to me, his interest — they are the meat of it all. They are the reason we do these things. His smile makes me smile, and his words and ideas bridge a small gap between our minds.

Thank you.

Today, I pack my things in my bag and walk away and he waves, shyly. He waves, goodbye! and follows me with his eyes out of the store. I nod and smile, wave goodbye, and then watch him briefly.

His eyes turn around and they pop open, already smiling at the next customer. Each customer is a love, a treat, a friend in waiting. His love is effusive, gentle, patient and ready. If only love were always that easy.

Maybe love is that easy.

Want To Learn Yoga in 5 Minutes a Day?

Posted on September 23, 2014July 21, 2016 by Sarah K Peck

100-yoga-grams-cover

I was sitting at dinner with my friends Amber and Farhad recently, and the conversation turned to yoga, drawing, and art. I mentioned an idea I had, to make small “yoga grams” on my Instagram with a posture or two that people could learn and try in just a few minutes a day. If you know Amber, you know what comes next:

“Yes, yes, Do it! How about 100 days of YogaGrams?”

100 days of YogaGrams was born.

On August 30th, I started a mini-project to teach people yoga through Instagram. With the hashtag #100YogaGrams, I’m sharing one new pose each day for 100 days to help people practice yoga, build their understanding of asana and vinyasa, and enjoy moving in their bodies.

The hardest part of any practice is often the beginning. I’ve often been overwhelmed, confused, or scared to begin because I think everyone else knows so much and I don’t have an easy way in. This program looks at one pose a day, and gives you notes and a fun way to practice, and to do so simply.

Want to learn yoga in 5 minutes a day?

Sometimes it’s nice to have a little email boost to keep us on track. I’m building 21 days (a habit’s worth) into a daily delivery program. The first one will go out in just a few days — a free email post-it note for you to practice yoga!

Sign up here if you’re interested in getting the free series delivered to your inbox.

About the project:

The goal is to explain yoga in ways that can be done in just a couple of minutes per day, in a way that’s relatable to your every day life (sitting at a computer, being tired at the end of the day, wanting to move some of your pent-up energy through your body). I share the yoga pose and the idea behind each one in a tiny instagram – a ‘yoga bite’ if you will.

The weekly sequences usually start with a warm-up on Mondays, build to a harder standing pose and inversion option by Thursday or Friday, and then cool down with a restorative pose on Sundays. By the end of #100YogaGrams, you’ll have a sample platter of several warm-ups, standing poses, and restorative poses so you can customize your own yoga practice by mix-and-matching with the cards.

Every so often, I show you a couple of poses in a day-by-day pattern, and then string them together in what’s called a “flow.” So, for example, poses #3 through #7 can be tied together in what’s known as a vinyasa flow, and I draw an asana glyph series on day #8 that shows how to link them together. I also show a video (#9) that demonstrates how to tie the poses together in your own 5-minute or 10-minute sequence!

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by yoga, or you feel like a class moves too fast for you — or you just want to take a 5 minute break in the middle of the day — #YogaGrams.

Yoga changed my life, and it keeps making it richer.

Yoga has changed my life. I’ve lost weight, gained mental clarity, become more at ease, and so much more. I trained for the past year with Abhaya Yoga in DUMBO, Brooklyn, with Tara Glazier, Aaron Angel, and James Fideler — and so many more wonderful and wise souls. Over the last year, I moved to New York, joined this yoga studio, began deepening my yoga practice, and completed my 200-hour teacher training.What started as a craving to deepen my practice deepened my spirituality, my ability to teach, my philosophical understanding, and my grounding in the world. Showing up each week, sometimes almost every day, even if just a pose at a time, has helped me build a way of life that I love.

Yoga is a gift to yourself, your body, and your soul. Enjoy the delicious treat of five-minutes a day of movement and rest — and if you’re like me, you might start to love it.

The entire deck of notecards will be posted to this website and Instagram for free. Enjoy!

You can find the full series on my Instagram or here on my website at sarahkpeck.com/yoga.

How to Create an Online Home You Love: a one-night live event in NYC with Holstee, my hubby & me.

Posted on September 17, 2014January 10, 2016 by Sarah K Peck

How’s your internet home treating you? Are you loving it, hating it, indifferent towards it, or … not making it?

If you’ve ever wanted to start a blog, write an e-book, or create your own online home powerhouse to showcase your creative ideas, then it’s time to make it happen. I’m thrilled to announce a LIVE evening workshop with some of my favorite people (@Holstee!), an extra-special co-teacher that I happen to adore — and be, well, married to.

And — YOU, of course!

If you’re in New York on Monday, October 20th, you’re invited to the Holstee laboratories in Brooklyn for an evening event focused on crafting your voice, your art, and your work — and translating it to the online world. The Holstee studio and company, home to the to the globally-loved This is Your Life manifesto, are focused on mindful living practices and creating art, experiences, and opportunities to change the way people look at life.

Do what you love and do it often — @Holstee

In our first-ever LIVE class together, my husband Alex and I are going to be teaching a workshop focused on creating your own online home — and navigating all the tools and opportunities to discover how to best showcase you and your work in this increasingly noisy (internet) world.

There has never been a better time to have your voice heard and your work seen.

From book publishing and graphic design, to content strategy and thought leadership, Alex and I have each spent over a decade working in communications, design, and publishing — and we’re bringing these goods to a private, 20-person laboratory style event. Think of it as a guided session built around our best-knowledge combined with all your questions.

Join us at the live event! We’ll look at:

Understanding where you want to go and what tools you can use to get you there;
The nuts-and-bolts for creating great graphics, imagery, and words to reflect your personality and soul.
How to hone your voice with Sarah’s “content strategy toolkit” to help make writing easier, more manageable — and published!
Best-practices for working with designers to execute your vision — distilling Alex’s experience in the industry working as a designer and design strategist with global leaders;
The art of creating your online home and how to craft a meaningful space that resonates with who you are.

Want to create an online home that you love?

By the end of the evening, you will have practical insights for how to develop your own online space in a way that feels uniquely YOU. From what to write about to how to create imagery that stands out in the crowd, this workshop is perfect if you want to get started on (or revamp) that project you can’t stop thinking about.

All the details —

Monday, October 20th. 7:00 – 9:30 PM.
Brooklyn, New York City.
Holstee’s (New!) Learning Laboratory
Read more + register here.

Only 20 spots. Sign up to join us at the live workshop.

PS: This is the inaugural session of the Holstee Learning Lab (and I’m honored to be a part!) so if you want to join us + sign up before October 1st, you get a 20% discount. (Just use the code EARLYBIRD20 when signing up).

I’d love to see you (and meet you!) there.

Sarah — and Alex!

sarah signature

Making space: holding the container open, empty, and ready.

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

Cleaning out sometimes feels a bit like a death.

Whenever I pack up bags to give away, it feels as though I’m going through old remnants of my past self, closets of things that represent who I used to be, and parting ways.

Lately I’ve been cleaning out everything: getting rid of extra toiletries, clothes, miscellaneous things, even most of my books, in an effort to minimize and make space. Sometimes giving things away feels ceremonious and I’m glad to be letting go of things. I joyously depart from practices that no longer serve me.

Other times, it’s downright painful to leave a city you love behind and jump off the edge into unknown territory and build your next life.

Change can be painful, emotional, and difficult to embrace.

Christina Rasmussen, an author I stumbled across last year and who I have come to adore, started a similar conversation about letting go. She pointed out how these shifts happen across not just our physical lives, but our digital, connected, and spiritual lives:

“During the last couple of weeks I have been unfollowing some people I admired years ago. It is not that I no longer admire them; I am just looking for another place for my eyes to land. Facebook can be both a horizon and a wall. When you start seeing the wall, you know what you need to do.”

I couldn’t agree more. It is more than fine to unfollow. Unfollow to make space for your own brain to think; slow down to cherish your own heartbeat; let unread books become donations to people who will read them. And in the digital world, while the work people are doing may be beautiful and wonderful — it might not be the vibration that you need in your life anymore.

Even when cutting feels aggressive, by doing so, you make space for new beautiful souls to wander into your life. And better yet, you make new space for the same two souls to mature independently and for you to meet again in the future, on another level, with a new relationship.

By nature of existence, we both accumulate and eliminate.

Growth comes with death. Each year, living things cycle through similar processes. We all grow, evolve, shift, and change. What you love and need one year is not the same as the next.

Just as Kate Northrup writes about deadheading as a growth practice, making space is about removing what’s dead in your life so new growth can flourish. It is through this cutting, this elimination, this space-making, that we make room for us to grow beyond our container.

To expand.

Ship. Iterate. Improve. Repeat.

Posted on September 2, 2014September 2, 2014 by Sarah K Peck

How do you make something great?

Start small.

Build something that you can do today, this week.

Ship a little piece of it. Stop holding on to it. Maybe keep the idea big, but just start with something so small you can’t not do it.

Make the smallest version possible. Give it away. Share it. Sell it. Tell people about it.

But start small. Make an MVP (minimum viable product). It’s okay if you wince at the difference between your grand vision and your actual iteration. The first iteration can be improved. So can the second.

But only if you start.

Experiment. Play. Ask people to pay you money for it. (PS: it’s okay to ask for money.)

What can you start, today?

What can you finish, today?

What can you ship, this week?