Tag: scared

Project hangovers, self-criticism, and the necessity of making messes.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I have a confession.

Sometimes–more nearly like every time–after finishing a project, I hate it.

My writing class? Sucks, obviously. Last week’s essay? Good God, that could have been better. All those open and empty drafts waiting to be finished? Seriously, could have worked harder to get those done. 

And on and on… My brain and the ego mind can be wicked.

When a project is done and in the world, I want nothing to do with it. I see it in all of the flaws, errors, imperfections. All the ideas that didn’t transpire the way I wanted them to show up; the folds that didn’t turn into corners and angles the way that I wanted, the misprinted line weights, the typos, the sentences. The project in its fascinating speculations and then, the seeming sigh of its final iteration. The scalding difference between my brain’s dreams, desires and wishes and the tested, iterated manifestation of creating that product with my hands and resources.

It seems impossible to see the final product without the embedded knowledge of all of the processes that it took to get there.

I wonder why on earth I did the project in the first place, and whether or not its worth anything. Surely, they’ll all hate it. The same is true on stage. I finish my talk, I finish the presentation, the idea, and I leave, not deflated, but with a fatigue from the project’s finale and the owner’s knowledge of everything that could have been or should have been, with the result left on the table. Everything left. Performance. Done.

Could have been better.

But I remind myself, each time:

Messiness and imperfection are part of the process of creation.

[tweetable hashtag=”#creation #manifestation @sarahkpeck”]Messiness and imperfection are part of the process of creation.[/tweetable] Manifestation and realization—bringing something to creation—requires endless amounts of decision making. There is a cruelty inherent in cutting out all of the ways you won’t move forward, in order to move from the infinite boundlessness of ideas to the limited arena of conception. An idea always seems smaller when it becomes a practical thing. Perfection is an ideal that lives in our minds, a lifting, an aspiration, a drive towards the higher creativity we all have within us. The act of creation, however, is messy, fragile, fraught, and filled with the mistakes of making.

The secret grace of making (and pushing publish):

The thing is, no one else knows what you know.

What’s fascinating is that for all the razor-edged criticism I can muster, the audience is presented only with the work at hand; they see the work for the first time, with new eyes, with their own perspective. Everyone has a different opinion. Many see flaws I never saw. Conversations are sparked and ideas fly.

Sometimes the reviews are quite good.

Because I, the owner, cannot comprehend what it means to experience the data, the idea, the print, the drawing, the presentation for the first time. (This is why giving presentations is also so difficult). But the thing is they don’t know inside my brain, inside all of the things that could have been; they just see what is.

[tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]Your audience, users, customers, visitors–they don’t know what they don’t know.[/tweetable] (There is grace in this). They don’t know the alternate version of the website. They don’t know the eight chapters that got chopped. They don’t know the fourteen other parts to your talk that you accidentally skipped over. They only know what they saw. What you gave them, in it’s presented version. Just because you know all the details, doesn’t mean that they do.

What does this mean?

It’s important to remember to maintain enthusiasm through a launch, through a release. The birth of a project is a commencement for you–the end of the creation cycle–and the initiation of the new project in the audiences eyes. They experience newly. Look at it with their wonder. Try to visualize experiencing it for the first time.

Planning for the rhythms: making time to rest after production.

It is important to also remember that a project life cycle has within it the natural hangover phase; the point at which you are so sick of hearing or thinking about it any more that it’s time to put the pencils down, pin the work up, step back, get feedback, and take a short rest.

An overnight to reconsider.

And preparing for this lethargic state, in my experience, helps wonders. I need to plan a night of quiet before the storm of publication or release. You can’t stop a launch after you release; rather, this is when the communications and marketing builds steam.

Practices for finding the good + restoring your energy:

:: Find the good. Think back to the moment you began, when this idea was nothing but an idea.
:: Thank yourself for having the grit to make something.
:: Thank yourself for showing up.
:: Write down at least a dozen things you did right in order for this to happen. List out all of the things you did right. (We’re too quick to forget this).
:: Acknowledge how much energy and time you gave to the project, no matter how it turned out.
:: Acknowledge that you are smarter, wiser, and more learned that you were before.
:: Trust that you get to keep all the knowledge you built along the way. Even if the project goes in the trash, your skills stay in your mind.
:: [tweetable hashtag=”@sarahkpeck”]Look to the long view, and remember that this is but one moment of many.[/tweetable]
:: Forget about the project, and cradle your heart in your mind.
:: You did well.
:: You did good.
:: You are a good person.
:: That is all.

And sometimes, months later, I go back and look at the work that I did, the project, the talk, recorded digitally, the book, on a fresh counter top. And I realize, finally, strangely, after the time apart, that the work isn’t all that bad. Of course, sometimes the work is bad, and I cringe, and I learn–but sometimes, I finally see.

That maybe, in fact, I did a good job.

Good job.

Alright, Carry on.

Your life is a set of made-up habits.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Your life is a set of made-up habits.

You learned how to behave by doing something, and then repeating it hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of times until it became normal for you. When talking to one of my yoga instructors the other day, he said: “Want to change your personality? Just do something 1,000 times and it will feel like it’s you after a while.”

You learned how to tie your shoes one way, and then you did it thousands of times. You learned how to ride a bicycle, swim, dance, hold a pen, write in cursive, and use a computer — or if you haven’t yet, you might still want to.

You can change, make up things you want, do new things. It’s totally up to you. Once you realize how weird you are currently — from the way you organize your bathroom to the times and frequency of eating to dropping clothes on the floor randomly — you can decide, hey, I want to be weird in a NEW way.

You can set your radio to wake you up to chants, decide to go running at 4AM and then go back to bed, begin a writing habit even if you’ve never done it before, or decide to start Tae Kwon Do at age 48. It takes us a bit of new energy to start a new habit, but it’s not impossible.

The biggest thing holding us back from doing new things is a frail set of patterns that tell us we are what we already have done.

Screw that. It’s a big open empty canvas in front of you, and you might have to scratch a little to climb out of your past, but you really can shift and change.

You are your habits. And your habits can be changed.

Are you minimalist enough? An experiment in giving up clothes for a year.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Leaning houses San Francisco

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post on Joshua Becker’s Becoming Minimalist site about giving up clothes for a year–and my experiments with minimalism, living with less, and what felt like too much pressure to whittle down my life to a certain number of items. Here’s how the experiment played out: 

Minimalist enough? Giving up (new) clothes for a year.

“We live in a world of scarcity. Which means we feel like we never have enough.” – Brené Brown

Living in a world of scarcity means that we’re constantly searching for the next thing to fill us up, the next destination or achievement to make us whole. Our world is filled with messages that tell us we don’t have enough space, enough stuff, enough clothes, enough fitness. We’re never skinny enough or pretty enough or good enough or rich enough.

This scarcity model drives consumption and accumulation; it spurs us to want more, to buy things because we think it will fill the void. We press to work harder, to get fitter, to buy more clothes, to acquire more things in the name of filling the hole.

The problem with scarcity, however, is that you can’t fill it or fix it with things.

The answer to scarcity, ironically, isn’t more. It is enough.

What you have is enough. Who you are is enough. As Danielle LaPorte says in her Fire Starter Sessions: “You already have everything you need.”

What about Minimalist Enough?

This cuts both ways, however. As a person with lots of things, and an apartment with hundreds of books, I sometimes feel like my efforts to de-clutter and reduce the number of things that surround me aren’t enough. In my efforts to reduce clutter and consider minimalist–or simplicity–as a strategy, I begin to doubt my efforts in being minimalist. And the thought begins to creep in: I’m not minimalist enough. I see someone who is minimalist and only has 100 things and the internal voice begins again, “I guess I’m not minimalist… enough.”

These attitudes are pervasive and can race around in my head. I can quickly become overwhelmed with the desire to eliminate stuff, lose weight, be better, do more, achieve….more.

But the idea of minimalism isn’t about reaching a goal, or checking off a box, or reaching a certain destination. To me, minimalism is realizing that what I already have is enough, and that adding clutter to the pile won’t make it any better. And chasing a dream of more minimalism is, ironically, not what I’m after either.

To me, as I breathe out and sigh into the life that I’m living, and find gentler ways to tweak, edit, and refine; I find that recognizing what is important and what is not is the most critical exercise.

Stripping away the excess lets us get to the bones of what really matters. Get to the heart space. Get to the pieces that are important. And that level can be different for different people.

For me, minimalism is about having exactly what you need–and the things you love–without having stuff and clutter that overwhelms your life. It’s filling up your time and space with love, not excess.

My Modest Minimalist Journey.

I spent 2011 conducting an experiment in which I decided to stop buying new clothes for the entire year. (There were two exceptions: shoes and underwear, but only as needed). For an entire year, I lived without buying anything new, on purpose. As a female in a clothes-and-image-centric society, I wanted to see what it was like to live without shopping for a while.

I was always dismayed by the number of female friends that were readily going into debt to maintain their image in public. When I thought about it, $400 outfits (the average price on any feature shopping magazine page) can add up to a lot of money if one were to wear a new outfit every day for a year. (Think about it: $400 a day for clothes is $150,000 a year just on clothes—who are we kidding?). You might think I’m joking—but to be perfectly honest, I know people who are $20,000 and $30,000 in credit card debt from clothes shopping alone. The image pressures on females (and males!) can be increasingly intense. As someone with immense graduate school debt to overcome setting off into my twenties, the thought of doubling that debt felt paralyzing. I wanted freedom, not debt.

Yet over the year, as I experimented in my journey of wearing and re-wearing the same outfits hundreds of times, I also found there were times when I got discouraged—especially when I looked around online and saw things like the Versalette by revolution apparel. I inadvertently compared myself to other people who were doing a better job at buying nothing than I was.

But then I realized: I don’t have to be the best or the most minimalist. I can be minimalist enough. Minimalism isn’t about winning, and it isn’t about a particular achievement. It’s about finding out what matters to you, and getting rid of the peripheral.

Over the course of the year, I thinned out my closet and pared down to a few favorite items. I made over twenty trips to charity with bags of clothes and gently worn shoes that I no longer needed. At one point, I had socks and underwear with holes in them, and I got out my sewing machine and fixed them up. Making old things new again was surprisingly satisfying. Getting rid of all of my extra socks—and just having a few pairs to use each day—actually made my life simpler. The process of getting rid of things reminded me of what I liked and what mattered.

Over time, I started to become acutely aware of everything that crossed the physical threshold of my front door. The amount of stuff that piled up around me on a daily basis crept into my consciousness, and I’m still surprised by the amount of clutter we let into our lives each day. Every time I brought something new in—mail, letters, books, ideas, shopping bags—I tried to make a conscious effort that the stuff I was bringing with me was valuable, and that I was also taking enough stuff out of the apartment each day to keep my space maintainable.

Untethering from the need to consume was surprisingly easy. It was the attitude change that made the most difference: looking through my things and realizing I already had enough—that I didn’t have to rush out and buy something new to fill a hole or a need—let me breathe again. It was relaxing and reassuring to know what I had was okay. What you are is already good enough.

I learned, slowly, that having excess stuff was giving me a headache, wasting my time and energy, and wasting a lot of money I wanted to focus on eliminating debt.

Even though the experiment is over, I still carry several of the themes into my current shopping habits: I buy new things that are disgusting to buy used (exercise clothes, underwear, socks, and shoes are typically new purchases); and I buy things new that are very difficult to find used (long-enough pants and long-enough jackets are two of my indulgences); but my favorite place to shop is at a thrift store with a bag of donations in hand–I’ll exchange three old things for a few new things. The smaller my closet, ironically, the happier I have been.

Over time, I will continue to whittle away at the things I don’t need in order to make space for the things I love. It turns out, all those unnecessary clothes were crowding out the space of the things I loved. I got rid of several boxes and cleared off a space for all of my books—one of my loves. Clearing out, to me, is about reducing the unnecessary clutter in your life to make space for what matters, and finding a balance that lets your soul breathe. It’s about stripping away the things you don’t need so you can focus on what’s important.

Sometimes a subtle attitude shift or a small sacrifice can make a big difference. Like taking the time to appreciate that what you already have is enough. And your effort? It’s enough.

Because stuff isn’t what matters.

What you have is enough. YOU are enough. 

To read more about minimalism and check out one of my favorite blogs, see Joshua Becker’s site, Becoming Minimalist.

The power of breath: why breathing happens before anything else.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

06_San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge in Fog

It’s not always easy to breathe.

Breathing—the intake of oxygen and the exhalation of carbon dioxide—is life’s essential force. It’s the first step our physical bodies take towards making all other actions possible, including thinking.

In swimming, the rhythm of breathing is essential: you only have a few opportunities to catch a breath; it’s about timing your intake with your arms, kicks, and rotation. Without air, you can’t work the water.

Breath happens before anything.

Out in the open water, in the waves of the ocean, with the salt water sprays and the swells that take over, sometimes I turn my face upwards and a wave slams me in the face. I close my mouth, pass by that opportunity, hold the air in my lungs, and try again on the next cycle. Sometimes it takes a few turns before I get to suck in some oxygen.

My relationship with breathing has always been tenuous: when I was eleven, I was diagnosed with asthma. I learned my lungs were restricting my airways—and it would jump on me like a sudden cold, onset in minutes, causing breathing to be painful.

I would hide my inhalers, because I didn’t want something that gave me a crutch or a reason that I couldn’t be as good as anyone else. I learned how to push my back open against a floor, to rub my lungs to clear them, and how to hold my breath to stop my body from panicking.

I also learned how to hold my breath for a really long time. Getting into the pool every day gave me an intimate familiarity with the ways my lungs worked.

Swimming actually taught me how to breathe again.

Today, three years later, I’ve become an open water swimmer, chasing longer distances with each ocean adventure I find. I will routinely be late to work or leave for long lunch hours just to spend those hours in the ocean, my friend, the place where my soul is restored.

I need to touch the water, to splash, and to feel the curve of a wave beneath my hands. I’ll grab a board, and float out to sea, heart and head against the board, listening and feeling the rhythm beneath my body. My breathing will inadvertently sync up with the ocean swells, and the anxiety of my digital, corporate life gets left ashore. I’ll get up early, earlier than the sun, wander down to the ocean, and get into the water just to tune my body back into the rhythm of the earth.

But I had to learn how.

Your breath: check in with yourself:

First, right now, as you’re sitting at the computer or staring at your screen to read this post: what does your breath pattern look like? Do you notice it? Are you breathing? Some people stop breathing while they are reading, and they raise their shoulders and hold tension in their bodies while at the computer. (A telltale sign is if you let out periodic sighs. Listen to others if you’re in a room, or set an audio-recorder on yourself for an hour. You’ll forget about it and can then listen to the breath sounds play back. It’s fascinating.)

Next, find a space to lie on the floor. Take a deep breath. Take ten slow breaths, with your eyes closed. Push the air all the way in and out of your lungs. Where are the bottoms of your lungs? Where are the tops of them? Can you fill the space entirely?

Practice changing the cadence of your breathing. Take 10 very quick micro-breaths. Feel your rib cage move in and out. Feel your heart race, your pulse jump, feel the reaction.

Breathe again, slowly.

Your breath is the foundation on top of which every other activity takes place. You can train it, just like you can train everything else. Change your body rhythms by controlling your breath.

Breathe.

sarah signature

I originally wrote this post for Julien Smith’s Homework series during the epic campaign to swim naked from Alcatraz to San Francisco. Breathe is powerful, so I’m reposting as part of this November series while I’m away in Bali. 

Bali, bliss, and a big old birthday: taking a life, work, and digital retreat.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

rice-terraces-bali_1680x1050_74061

 “Do great work, and love–that is the meaning of life.”

Bali, bliss, and a big old birthday.

It all started with a single post in February, 2010.

I had just gotten an extra job as a writer paying $10 per post, and I snapped it up. It was my side project. My writing was terrible. I was paid to give advice to new college graduates on how to navigate the corporate world, and despite being a few years into my own career, I still felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.

I started my blog–a friend set me up on a wordpress site and domain (which I didn’t quite understand). I wrote about not working too hard, how to recover from long work days, staying motivated, and allocating for food costs on measly budgets. I wrote book reviews and interviewed my professional friends in sports medicine, biotech, web design and more–to get their insights on what they’d learned on the job and how they crafted their careers.

Did I know what I was doing with the blog? Nope. No idea.

I just knew I wanted to write. So I wrote, every time I felt like I wanted to write about something.

I probably didn’t hit my stride until well after the first year, and I’m still learning. Each post, each month, and each iteration I continued to refine and hone my writing. I wandered through styles and posts and wrote about topics that felt like I should write about, but that truthfully I didn’t adore. But even though I didn’t know what to write about, I still wrote. I whittled. It got better. I adjusted. I said more about what I was thinking and feeling, less about what I thought people wanted to hear. It got better.

Fast-forward nearly four years later:

I’m celebrating. Big time.

I love (LOVE) what I do. I discovered an incredible connection with the written word, and I write as often as I can. I get to share it in community with other like-minded and incredible souls. I am blown away by the people I’ve met, and I’m so grateful to be a part of this. I celebrate through hard work, through experimentation, through hugs, and through trial-and-error. Tears and laughter are part of the process.

Because I’m celebrating a lot of things in this life right now, I’d love for you to join me in celebrating my birthday, this blog, and the community we share.

When I left my job earlier this year, I left in order to focus on a couple of things: movement (or health in my body), writing, and teaching. In the last few months, I’ve also started my own business, enrolled in yoga teacher training, launched several programs, and taken action on several dreams that had been sidelined for too long.

In order to do this, I saved for five years, paid down big piles of debt; gave up clothes shopping for a year; experimented with minimalism, sewing machines, and free-cycling; worked several side jobs, and hustled to make things work. I sold my car (finally), soaked up and swept up as much knowledge as I could, met incredible souls, friends and teachers, created new things, and built project after project.

Big, sweeping changes have happened alongside smaller, less outwardly-visible changes. Across all of this has been an emphasis on health, healing, and happiness. On mindfulness, movement, and growth.

Beyond the tactical and structural (quitting my job! signing up for yoga! moving! God, it sounds so much easier writing it!), there are also mental shifts changing, aligning, and expanding as I spend time listening and growing.

“You don’t have to be so busy,” the softer voice in my mind reminds me. “It’s okay to pause, reflect, and live inside of this quiet, vibrant stillness.” When I feel things–the sadness, the anger, the fear, the totality of being human–I spend more time resting in it, moving in it, moving through it. We work together, me and my emotions. It’s the human condition.

amber zuckswert teaching yoga in Bali

Amber Zuckswert teaching yoga in Bali.

Birthday bliss: taking a break in Bali.

In the spirit of health and healing, for my 30th birthday–and in honor of the work I’ve done over the past several years–I’m taking a digital sabbatical and sojourning to beautiful Bali paradise with Amy Rachelle and Amber Zuckswert for two weeks of meditation, yoga, reflection, and emotional healing. Bali is known as one of the most healing places in the world, and I’m joining a retreat group that’s focused on learning how to craft raw foods, heal the soul, and engage in mindfulness and meditation practices.

Nearly a decade ago, I started my career in architecture and design and I’ve been working nonstop ever since. For the last few years, I’ve been dreaming of taking a restful vacation–and yet I kept pushing it off. I promised myself that when I hit thirty, I’d take at least a few weeks to rest, recover, and recalibrate.

Beyond just a “vacation,” I’m opening up the mental space (and nooks and crannies!) for a reconsideration and reflection on what I’ve done, who I’ve become, and what I want to build. This marks the beginning of a different year in my life: one that’s less focused on being frenetic and more focused on being present. It’s time to celebrate, reflect, restore, and be fully Sarah–in the present, and in the moment.

I’ll be offline while I’m gone – completely unplugged and digitally unavailable – but in advance, I’ve written a series of essays that are coming out over the next few weeks.

In the spirit of reflection, birthdays, and changing decades:

This week I’ll transition out of the twenty-something decade and into the next decade (Holy smokes! I’m turning 30!). Last year we celebrated by raising $32,398 for charity: water for my 29th birthday, and the year before I wrote 28 in 52 notes, a years’ worth of lessons in one post.

In the spirit of letting things go, moving forward, taking care of yourself, and celebrating the year, here’s my annual birthday post–although I’m sure I’ll have a bigger round-up of notes and thoughts from unplugging in Bali. It can’t be a birthday without a bit of reflection on some of the learnings and highlights from the year. Here’s what I’ve learned (and am always learning):

Going pro, turning 30, and the biggest lessons from this year.

Place a lot of bets.

Try a lot of things. A year is a long time, and five years is a great amount of time to make more than just one thing happen. You can work a side hustle on the side of your day gig in a few minutes a day–write one page every other day and see what happens in a couple of months. Throw your work into the ring, and keep making your work. Try one connection or conference, and another. Don’t put all your money on one thing if you’re just starting. Get started, and test out a few things.

Be modular.

Build in iterative, successive capacities. Try things until something works, then adjust it so it works better. Put it out there. Keep going.

Do not work in isolation.

Seek feedback.

Ask for help.

Ask for everything. The more you ask, the more you get.

You don’t have to do what anyone else does.

You can do things no one has done before, you can be weird, you can be strange, and you can decide to do it differently than anything you’ve seen before. Be aware of the sheep mentality. Ask for exceptions. Modify the program to fit your needs. Learn about yourself, and make it better so you get better.

Take care of yourself.

You are the only one who can take care, and those small things—like going to sleep early, giving hugs, smiling, eating good food? They mean the world. Take very good care of yourself.

When you get better, the world benefits.

It’s not selfish.

The more you push, the more resistance there might be. Do it anyway.

The ego yells a lot of loud and scary things at you when you’re heading into moments of insight and brilliance. The more brilliantly you shine, the louder your ego–the voice that wants you to worry, to stay comfortable, to stay the same, to do things that feel safe–the louder it shouts. Listen to it like the dull roar of a stadium filled with fans, and not the shouty-shout voice it’s trying to be.

It really can be wonderful.

Be you.

“Be Sarah,” I write on my wall. (Thank you, Gretchen Rubin for the reminder to “Be Gretchen.”) Be you. “There’s nobody you-er than you,” says Doctor Seuss. Let yourself be you, deliciously and deliriously you. And the more YOU you are, the more wonder there is.

We all have self-doubts, demons, and critics.

And we all have stories. The person across from you is holding pain, hurt, and fear just like you are. We’ve all got something. Be kind and generous with their soul, and kind and generous with your own. Cradle your heart in the softness of the hammock of your ribs. Let it rest, fully, in the feeling of a breathe. Fill your lungs with love for you and the world around you, despite the pain.

Give up on dreams that you’ve tried on or dreams that you realize aren’t yours.

It’s not giving up if you don’t want it. For the longest time I had a dream to run a marathon by age 30–until I realized that I loved swimming, singing, dancing and yoga far, far more than running. And picturing myself at the end of a marathon just made me feel tired, not thrilled or excited. So sweep! I let that dream head on out the door. It wasn’t mine–it was just visiting. Finish it or punt. Know when to quit.

You don’t have to know how to explain yourself perfectly.

You can use as many words as you like, and you can screw up many times. It’s all fine. Start somewhere, tell a little story, and bit by bit we’ll get the picture.

Stories are how we understand and see the world.

We use stories to understand complex phenomenon and hang onto information. Watch, study, and listen carefully to the stories you’ve programmed in your brain and the stories you tell yourself about who you are. Changing the stories you tell yourself (through visualization, practice, and manifestation) can be incredibly powerful.

If it’s too big to do, make it smaller.

Seeing is an art, a study.

We’re designed to throw away most of the stimulus we receive because it’s too much to comprehend—we’re constantly simplifying things in our mind in order to understand them. The challenge of writing and of art is to learn how to see the world around us anew. If you want to learn how something works or how its made and marvel at it, try to draw it. Pull out a pen or pencil, a sheet of paper, and practice mapping the object onto the page. Rather than say that it’s impossible, or say that you’re terrible at drawing, study why you drew what you did. This is your brain schema, at work. This is the translation of space in the world into products in your hand. Keep practicing. Fix the little wiggles. Notice when you make a simple curve instead of the parabolic curves of the real thing.

Good is the enemy of the great.

(From Jim Collins): Iterate towards great, but also remember that complacency, comfort, and “good enough” are some of the most insidious enemies of making great work.

Being comfortable is not my end goal.

There’s so much joy on the other side of myriad discomforts: freedom, expression, learning, connection – many of these things can come after a bit of leaning into your edge. Yoga poses unlock freedom despite various levels of discomfort held in our joints. The payoff is expansion, self-awareness, reducing pain, and freedom. It’s worth it.

At the same time, understand when you’re pushing too hard, and when to yield to the universe.

When to soften, because the things will arrive in their good time. When to yield to grace, and move without force. Leaning into discomfort is not the same thing as pushing forcefully into all arenas.

Healing, health, and care are critical.

We all work too hard. It’s not about hustling indefinitely, although many folks hustle for decades before getting a break–it’s also about taking the time to heal yourself, help yourself, and be kind to yourself in the present moment. Health is critical. In my pursuit of projects, I’ve often sacrificed wellness in the aim to create great works. I’m softening this, and attempting to learn how to receive rest and healing even amidst the busy-ness.

And when I get back…

When I return, I’ll be hosting a micro-workshop focused on cultivating gratitude and grace in your spirit, life, and daily practices. It will begin on December 1st, and I’ll share the full details when I return. If you’re looking for inspiration to reflect, restore, and to practice more grace and gratitude in your lives, I encourage you to check back in late November for how to join the workshop. It will be delightful.

And as my birthday present:

By the time this post goes live, I’ll be curled up into a sleeping position with my jammies and my hat in an airplane heading forward in time to my destination. I’d love to hear from you while I’m gone, however, in the comments: share with me something–a gift, joy, or grace–that you’re giving to yourself of someone else this week.

How are you taking care of yourself? What gifts of grace can you give to yourself? What does healing look like for you?

With big internet hugs,

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Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone: Why We Should Strive to Die Empty by Todd Henry

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

SWIM OUT TO IT

The cold water shocked my arms and sent a panic message from my limbs to my brain–and my heart.

I was set to make a big swim–a 1.5 mile arc from San Francisco’s Alcatraz Island to Ghirardelli Square, the famed Alcatraz swim. The thing is, I said I would do it naked as part of a bet. It was time to fulfill my end of the bargain.

Sliding off a boat wearing nothing and splashing into sub-sixty degree water was anything but comfortable. The shock of the cold water screamed against my skin, every neuron firing a warning sign in my brain telling me to stop. Swimming naked from Alcatraz was not a good idea. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t easy, and it certainly wasn’t comfortable.

Pushing past your boundaries into scary, new, difficult–and certainly uncomfortable–places is one of the key rules to unleashing your potential.

I’m inside of another book this week, reading the last pages of Todd Henry’s latest book, Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day. The book is a minefield for great ideas on building a life (and body of work) that you’re proud of. From shaping the decisions you make (and recognizing that decisions are powerful, albeit painful), to understanding why mediocrity is so rampant, to listening to your emotions and jealousy as information on areas to improve–it’s taken me a long time to read this book because each of the ideas is sifting and settling in my mind as I try to incorporate them into my life.

What does it take to get uncomfortable?

“To make a valuable contribution, you have to get uncomfortable and embrace lifelong growth and skill development.” –Todd Henry, Die Empty.

You don’t need to strip off all your clothes and jump into a freezing body of murky water to get uncomfortable–although doing so certainly helped a tribe of friends and family pull together $32,398 for charity: water. In your own life, however, getting uncomfortable is critical for growth. For stretching, building, clarifying, and growing.

In “Step Out of Your Comfort Zone,” Todd looks at what he calls “dark rooms” that we like to avoid–places its easier not to go into, because we feel safer outside.

We protect ourselves in the following ways:

  • We’re afraid of harm — and we take big steps to stay out of harm’s way, but then inadvertently miss all of the good stuff of life
  • We protect our identity — we want to “live with the illusion of invulnerability” instead of ever risking failure.
  • We love stability — and “the more there is to protect, the less people are willing to try new things.” We risk losing out on all of the future good by holding on too tightly to what’s around us. (This is why good is often the enemy of the great).
  • Our ego wants control — and so even when we’ve made poor choices, we want to stand by our ego and our decision for fear of being wrong.

Why should we bother getting uncomfortable? Because growth is messy and uncomfortable.

“Growth is painful, messy, and very uncomfortable, and occurs only when we are willing to stretch ourselves in order to accept new challenges.” — Todd Henry.

Back in the open water, the salty cold bay water bit into my mind and the chill seared my body in places that were normally protected by fabric. I was crazy to be doing this, wasn’t I?

I pushed my arms the way I’d trained for decades, and stroked to the edge of the island. I touched it, standing, nude, shivering in the early morning fog. I splashed quickly back in the water and put my face down. Great stories aren’t made sitting on the sidelines, or curling up on the couch.

It was time to swim.

Jumping is terrifying. Or, behind the scenes of the last few months: Life. Mind Work. Change. Here. Now. Hello. Breathe…

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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I wake up in a panic, nerves sending a fear signal up and down my trembling arms. Adrenaline pours into my veins, shooting up my skin like a shock to my system. My brain races, full of questions and doubts and fears. I can’t sleep again, even though it’s dark. The light from the streetlamp outside my window glares at me, accusingly. I get up, I start pacing.

I wonder if what I’ve done is the right thing. If what I’m doing is the right thing. I feel like I’m jumping out of an airplane, a rug pulled out beneath my feet to reveal that I’m far too high up in the sky and gravity’s tugging on me. I don’t know if I have a parachute. I’m not sure what a parachute would even look like. I’ll need to figure it out later, but probably fairly soon.

Sometimes I’m soaring with the incredible high of experimentation, and other times my mind wonders if it knows just exactly what I’ve gotten myself into. I cling to my practices of yoga, journaling and other meditative daily walks, but they don’t fully temper the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing. My mind is a scramble. I can’t understand the illogical things I’ve put it through. It’s probably for the best that I don’t understand.

Trust.

There’s no easy way to jump other than to put both feet out and trust the world around you. Trust that you’ll land, that you might fly, that it’s okay to fall, or that some other iteration you can’t predict will come to fruition. Unlike the time I went zip-lining with my sister, where my jump off the platform was so timid that I smacked my butt against the wooden platform below as I launched, I need to lean, and lean so hard that it feels like falling.

I’m falling. This is falling.

While it’s been quiet around these parts lately, that’s just an illusion–a set of unwritten essays and the silence that is days passing a surface skin for a mind and a life that’s been in flux for much of this summer and this year. I look back at my writings for August, noticing that I’ve only scrawled two posts this month; those posts are just a scant glimpse into life behind the scenes and what I’ve been up to. For those familiar with astrology, the world’s been ablaze with the recent Grand Trine, the idea of a shift so large and a planetary arrangement so powerful that people will feel huge changes, up-endings, and fluxes in their life; that dreams become reality; that things get messy; that things resolve — and I don’t just read this, I feel this, I know this, I am living this.

Hello, world. Shall we dance?

Sometimes I struggle with what to write about on this blog—is it a diary? Is it a travel trope of my own adventures? Is it strictly related to writing and communications? It’s not always clear; I share my personal stories and lessons as a window into how I’ve practiced (and continue to practice) the philosophies and principals that underline most of my work, scratching out and re-writing as I go, editing as I learn. I don’t profess to write about myself because that’s the topic at hand; I do love telling the stories I live as a means for sharing bigger ideas and stories. But when I leave myself out of all of the writing and start to write just about rules or teachings or hollow lists, it starts to feel a bit empty.

Like I’ve forgotten to tell you something. Like I’ve left part of myself out.

The past six months have been a whirlwind, to the point that it feels as though I’ve been hiding something. The past year has been a challenge, and I’m not always comfortable talking about all of it. Some of the hands-down-best-things in my life have happened in recent months, but so have some of the scariest and hardest. It wasn’t shiny and glorious; much of it came in a package that felt like I was being thrown repeatedly against a wall like a rag doll and left in a crumpled heap to stand up and fight a bit more. The great moments came with adrenal fatigue, medical problems, extensive biopsies and visits to the doctor. Moments at conferences after months at home, working all day and late nights, and having to look at someone else and not quite share. Not quite tell. These months and moments have been filled with Doubt. Insecurity. Changes. Lives beginning. Lives ending. Leaving my job, starting a new one. Selling my car (finally). Meeting incredible people. Shifting careers, changing tack.

You, too, are probably noticing something in your own life and in the lives of others around you. As I talk with friends and clients and colleagues, I notice that these big shifts aren’t happening in isolation. We’re all experiencing it, the universe seemingly sending the earth into the spin cycle a few extra times, the players and movers jolted into new realities of their own doing–or as a surprise. The economy has been moving and un-sticking; opportunities are opening while entire industry verticals are left career wastelands; some generations are in huge loss while other people are starting to move around much more in jobs and vocations and practices.

I hear stories of daring and adventure, of incredible romance, of deep pain and loss, of glimmers of beauty within the deepest tragedies. Sometimes the suddenness with which you realize a dream can be incredibly unnerving, pressing you forward into a new sense of self, a new definition, a new story before you felt like you committed to the wanting of your dream. And yet the universe sends you out the door and through three new ones, pressing you to discover your readiness through action, not thinking. And other times it seems unfairly agonizing to wait, years of debt and doubt and pain layered into the pursuit of freedom, a tantalizing notion that seems just out of grasp. Change is rattling. Waiting is painful. I’ve watched people get all that they’ve said they wanted, and fall apart. I’ve watched people try for everything they’ve dreamed of and crumble, stall, wander into places they’d never wish to be. They’re surviving. The universe is doing something.

Change is not easy.

… I’m not sure there are many people who say that it is.

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Welcome to solo-preneurship*, to adventure, to freedom, to creation.

In my world, a big shift happened a few weeks ago. At the end of July, I parted ways with my wonderful and dear company, SWA Group, the place that has been my home for the last five years. Along the way, we created a number of digital and print communications initiatives — sharing the perspective of landscape architecture and describing how the built world works through books, magazines, blogs, and stories. My colleagues are some of the most talented physical and spatial designers I’ve ever met, and they challenged me constantly to learn how to create physical, built spaces within the tricky world of patterns, codes, rules and regulations–learning how to engineer and design places for human enjoyment. Understanding urban patterns and landscape systems is immensely appealing to me, and something I’ve focused on for a long time.

And yet, I leapt.

It’s exciting–and terrifying.

Transitioning from a wonderful job and a space with colleagues who have been extremely supportive of my adventures and experiments was not an easy choice, and it took several weeks and months to iron out the details and to wrap up my final projects and head out. Out into the world of clients and projects and writing and self-employment. Also the asterisk in the title is a note of caution–I’m not headed straight into “solo-preneurship,” because it’s never truly “solo”-preneurship, like Tara Gentile so aptly reminds us. “Business doesn’t happen in a bubble,” she writes; rather, it happens with teams and clients and support and evolution. And markets. And needs. Further, solo-preneurship is not about late nights hustling indefinitely; while hustling is a part of the journey, it doesn’t need to become the entire journey.

And then, I was here.

Shoved out the door and onto the sidewalk, suitcase in hand. I’m taking all the knowledge and chops I’ve got and doing the best I can.

Starting yesterday.

When did this happen? 

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”– Pema Chödrön

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But Sarah, what are you working on? How will you spend your time?

I’ve been avoiding conversations that pull up that dreaded question, that accusatory, “so, what are you doing?” statement, the question that permeates what seems to be nearly every conversation. The rush to fill time—or worse, to apply a story or a definition to how we will spend time—is a national disease we all have, one that requires us to chase productivity and results over holistic being and space for mental clarity. It’s no wonder Time Magazine features a different cover for Americans than the rest of the world when we’re a market more obsessed with our own job performance (and resultant anxiety) than the civil unrest happening in the Middle East. Prayers to Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and all of the countries in need of deep healing. Including our own.

“The rush to fill time—or worse, to apply a story or a definition to how we will spend time—is a national disease we all have, one that requires us to chase productivity and results over holistic being and space for mental clarity.”

We ask each other what we do before we ask how we’re doing, a quick question that rolls off the tongue faster than you can truly hug someone and look into their eyes, wondering how they actually are. When you’re in transition (and transition is not a temporary state but perhaps an always-state, as Pema Chödrön has gently reminded me in her book, When Things Fall Apart), it’s much harder to answer that question definitively. I have an answer that sounds good, I have an answer that’s short and sweet, I have the answer that helps my parents worry less about my finances (So… how are you supporting yourself?), and I have a few ways to broach the conversation with friends.

The short answer is that I’m writing. And teaching. And learning. And living. The shift, if you put a definition on it, is that I’m no longer working full time with a single employer; I’m working in freelance mode with several clients and project across the country and around the world. Part journalist, part documentarian, part strategist and mostly writer, I’m building a new set of tools and skills and building a new business plan for myself. It’s liberating. It’s thrilling. It brings up every uncertainty I’ve ever had and puts them flat on the kitchen table and stares me square in the face.

It’s full-on accountability.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

One of my first projects was a press campaign for a Y-Combinator company in San Francisco dedicated to helping aging seniors live gracefully. I joined Y-Combinator team True Link Financial, a tech start-up tackling the challenge of fraud target aging seniors. Seniors are increasingly vulnerable to misleading marketing and scams; the company’s cofounders Kai Stinchcombe and Claire McDonnell developed a new credit card with a customizable fraud-blocker that helps prevent your parents’ and grandparents’ money from being irreversibly stolen in the time in their life when they need it most.

Aging is an issue that’s fascinated me throughout my studies of cities and people, and with my grandparents aging and later leaving us, I wonder who will take care of them if we all don’t step in and take care of them. A society with no age diversity should alarm you: we need older people to be thriving within our ecosystems, visibly, or we should be concerned for our own future health. It won’t be long until we’re all old (hopefully–that’s the goal, right?). I wonder who will take care of me when I’m 70, 80, or 90.

“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

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My second assignment as an independent journalist this summer was joining 1for3.org as a documentarian and writer on a recent trip to Aida Camp, a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. I joined an exceptionally talented team of designers and human rights activists dedicated to making change in a part of the world that needs a lot of love. We traveled to Israel over the summer and spent time in several of the world’s oldest cities, and then focused on the problem of inadequate water access within a camp that serves 6,000 residents. A design and landscape-based challenge, the team built a variety of options to capture stormwater and rainwater, cleanse it, and re-distribute it as potable or recycled water for irrigation and play. While the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is long and complex (see this history of the conflict in maps), the challenge of capturing rainwater on a single site is something that can be implemented in real time. As a documentarian, I wrote 2,500 to 3,000 words per day, and we’re working on pieces for publication this Fall. Nothing in this paragraph suffices to capture what the trip was–I’m struggling for words. It was. I will write more.

And lastly, this Fall I’ll also be teaching again in the Writer’s Workshop, a private group for people who want to build a practice and a community around writing. Writing unlocks our minds and helps us clarify who we are, how we think, and how we connect with others. Last Spring, I opened up the first writing workshop to a group of twenty-five people from around the world and was blown away by the talent, enthusiasm, and dedication of each of the people in the class. I’ve updated and modified the program to make it into a four-week program that focuses on storytelling, imagination, creativity and persuasion–helping writers and aspiring writers of all fields learn how to add more detail, color, and story to their blog posts, essays, and other daily communications.

Writing well is critical to great living. It’s one of my core beliefs, as I dig into understanding the whys behind what I do: writing helps us clarify who we are, what we believe, and serves as an introspective tool for a journey into your own mind. Good writing also helps us get better at explaining ourselves, our ideas, our projects, our thought processes, and our deepest wants and desires. If you want to get better at any job, relationship, or project–get better at writing. Improving your writing makes nearly everything better. If you’ve been to one of my courses or live events before, come join us. ‘ll be sharing more information on the writing class over the next few weeks, and posting details here: http://dev.sarahkpeck.com/writers-workshop/.

SF-reflections Bay Bridge at night

And in addition to leaving my Day job, I’ve left San Francisco for a while. 

The distance a country puts between your old life and a new, unprepared, different life–a life now navigated within the corridors of unfamiliar yet strangely reassuring streets–makes me see my old self with more contrast, more clarity. Distance gives perspective. Change shows your edges. Challenges reveal where we have more work to do.

I left San Francisco, heading to Brooklyn, New York for the Fall to build my own writing, teaching, and consulting practice. My client roster was overwhelming my ability to stay sane and get sleep while working full time, and so–I jumped. I leaned, and I leaned hard, arms spinning, free-falling in the the glorious disruption that is change. After long conversations with close friends, my own coaches, and my mentors both at my company and in my life, I wrapped up my time with my employer and I’m in a bit of a free space right now. It’s wonderful, it’s open, it’s strange, it’s new–and it’s now. It’s here. I’m in it.

It’s less of a jolt and disruption, in some ways, because I believe that the old employer–employee relationship is antiquated, and the job that’s perfect for you three years ago is not the same job (and nor are you the same person) today. Everything shifts and is in flux, and the jobs (employers, clients, projects) that stick around longest are ones that match you and your evolving human talents and needs the best. This shift, then, at least for me, is one towards more project-based work; a move that I believe is more in alignment with how corporate and employment relationships should work.

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But the truth is, I’m avoiding the heart matter, the real reason I’m changing tracks, the deeper stories woven into this framework of self-employment and time management. It’s easier to talk about jobs and locations and moving, because those are things I can point to. These are the things that feel safer to talk about, for some reason. Yet one of the beautiful, albeit less publicly prominent, stories in my life has has been simply and glossily covered over with the use of words like “life opportunities,” and “strategic choices” and “changes,” and “new directions.” These words mask the beauty of a burgeoning and deepening and marvelous love story I can’t even fully grasp that I’m a part of (me? this is me? how is this happening!?) — and my heart is cracking open with this new adventure. My partner. In life. I can’t wait to write about it, too, whenever the time is right.

In short, I’m stunned by how much my life has changed over the last few years. I bow in deep prayer to the universe and to spirits and to energy flows with thanks and gratitude for the gifts in my life.

We can’t wait until later to work on developing beautiful relationships, to starting new adventures, to leaning, to jumping. It’s always time to practice and to push. It’s an adventure, and you’ve only got a few opportunities to live it.

Breathe. 

But let’s dig a little deeper. Even beneath the shift in my relationships and the work that I’m doing is even deeper heart work. Life work. Body work. The thing is, I’m doing some mind work. I’ve been running at full steam for nearly a decade, and in a grasp towards more consciousness and deliberate creation, I’ve slowed down the project roll and I’m consciously practicing choices that make space in my life for essential philosophies and practices I want to devote more time to. I’m continuing to practice saying no to opportunities that don’t quite fit right; no to clients that aren’t a fabulous fit; and no to things that make me tired, cranky, and uncomfortable–like sitting still all day.

And as this moves forward, I’m creating space–ample space–for projects I’ve long put on the back burner.

My critics–largely internal–tell me this is silly, self indulgent, a waste of time. They sit on my shoulders and grumble, moaning about the work I’d better be doing, about the nonsensical things my brain tries to write, cackling in the backdrop. Occasionally I meet a real critic–someone who voices what I’ve been spinning up in my head–and the conversation usually ends with a decent explanation of why I’m doing what I’m doing, surprising even myself.

It can be easy.

It can be now.

My new apartment has a blank wall on it, in a room we’ve devoted to art and creation and the expansive, contemplative work my partner and I are devoted too, and even though we’re not moving in for another week or so, I’ve already scribbled across multiple sheets of paper with ideas, brainstorms, and plans. I’m pinning them up in the invisible wall in my mind. The marked shift is not one of dreaming that I put movement and writing first in my life, but a life in which I actually do it, and continue to align my life according to my values and principles.

Mind work, body work, spirit work.

We are more than the work we create and the products we produce. We are more than the money we earn and the statuses we post. We are humans, to the core, with moving, living, breathing bodies. We are connected, in communities and networks and relationships, and all of the pieces and parts need to be nurtured and allowed; cultivated and fed.

The next few months–nay, longer, please–are about mind work; about spirit work; about body work. We create a career and chase financial gains for consumer-based tendencies; in an effort to challenge these assumptions, the next few months of my life are deliberately about experimentation. I want to push myself (or yield, or soften) into experiments with mind and body. With doing more movement, and less computer work. With changing routines to learn what suits me best. With spirituality first and mental work first. With practices that develop the mind, body and soul. I’ve opened up space in this new life, this new day, for more writing and more movement. More teaching and more learning. More being.

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This means its messy, it’s different. There are a lot of late nights (or early nights) with tears. I’m not good at this; I’m not good at being composed and balanced at all times. I don’t expect myself to be, either. I get really stressed out and I want to throw things against walls and I make hyperactive sets of lists and then I feel like a complete failure when I’ve only done one or two things on my list. I put the list down. I listen to waves of anxiety roll across my body, and I practice trying to observe it—not critique it. I spend months in places that don’t feel right and only when it really really doesn’t feel good to I finally leave; and I learn that next time, I’ll listen to my intuition a little more closely. I shift, I dance, I fall.

Finding calm in the midst of chaos is not easy. Today is a day just like any other, and there is no arrival. Pema Chödrön’s “When Things Fall Apart,” has been a close reminder that the idea of chasing a completeness or an arrival–that feeling of having arrived is a false premise. We are not arriving, we are always arriving. We are always moving. Life is more often a state of chaos than calm; the fleeting satisfaction of completion erodes, too, as time passes and we seek more challenges, learning, opportunities.

The entire process—this ongoing, transitory adventure, this journey—provides fodder for stories and writing and ongoing exploration and journey. The more I grow and learn, the less I feel as though I have any answers at all. I document to track my brain’s inner workings, to train my mind, to place markers in the ground, to discover myself. I write because it’s such a gift to my soul and a beautiful way to connect with others. I teach writing because I hope to share the journey and discovery with like-minded individuals; I learn as much from the talented people I work with as I hope to share.

Thank you for joining me on this journey, and for listening. I’ve created beautiful friendships from this blog and I am grateful to be able to share with each of you.

To living life, to mind work, to creating space.

XOXO

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Tell me what you’ve been working on: I’d love to hear about it in the comments. How has your life shifted and changed over the past year? What’s become clear to you, and what are you working to prioritize? How do you deal with change and transition? 

How much should you share with the internet, anyways?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Chelsea, New York City, June 2013 (Photo by Sarah Peck)

This is the third in a series of posts about building your voice on the internet and making work that sees the light of day for people who have been wanting to blog, create, make, or write. I host a quarterly writing workshop for people interested in learning more about storytelling and writing. The class will re-open for summer enrollment soon–I’m  currently updating the program and hard at work behind the scenes for the next class, which should be live in July. But first: when you do make something, how do you know if you should share it? 

How do you know if it’s okay to share your personal stories with the big wide internet?

Many of us have stories that are hard to tell to our friends, let alone the public. When is it right to share a story, and when could it get you in trouble? When building an online space or a brand related to you, how do you know if it’s okay to tell your story? If you have dreams and visions for the future that don’t align with your current direction with your employer, how transparent can you be about it?

One problem with writing so much personal stuff is wondering when and how to share it.

When I write, I often wonder whether of not I can share this immediately with other people. Knowing when to take your writing public (and when it’s still something you need to work through in community) is a difficult thing to gauge. When is your story worthy of other people being granted permission to see it?

I often share only about a quarter of the things I’ve written, if not much less, and I make it a rule to only share things that I’m nearly done processing or when I’ve found (or nearly found) resolution to a particular idea. While I write as a means to figure things out, I rarely share things as I’m going through the turmoil itself, for many reasons.

My mind is a fickle, raw and tender place, and I’m not always ready to put that space out into the world for judgment–nor is this beneficial to me as a person. I often need to discover my own thoughts and ideas before I can bring them to light with a larger audience.

When I’m working through an idea or a problem that’s raw and tender to me, I guard it closely and give it only to trusted people who I think can cradle my idea (and my heart) with enough tender kindness to assist my in my journey of discovery; each added circle is an extended level of intimacy that is granted permission to care about my heart as much as I do.

I don’t share the things that feel too scary or uncomfortable or too present; those I keep only within an inner circle of close companions and friends, expanding the circle as I get feedback and confidence and resolution in the particular process. Brene Brown articulates her thoughts around this beautifully, and I adhere to similar philosophies. As Brene Brown writes:

“Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them.” 

As we circle into the places of darkness and respect the struggles that make us human, remember these boundaries, excerpted from “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown:

“I don’t tell stories or share vulnerabilities with the public until I’ve worked through them with the people I love. I have my own boundaries around what I share and what I don’t share and I stay mindful of my intentions.”

“First, I only share stories or experiences that I’ve worked through and feel that I can share from solid ground. I don’t share what I call “intimate” stories and I don’t share stories that are fresh wounds. [Second], I follow the rule that I learned in my graduate social work training. Sharing yourself to teach or move a process forward can be healthy and effective, but disclosing information as a way to work through your personal stuff is inappropriate and unethical. Last, I only share when I have no unmet needs that I’m trying to fill.”

Learning these boundaries and rules can be difficult as a new writer, especially in the age of the internet where everything is recorded and visible by anyone. I’ve had my moments when I have essays up in public forums, presentations to give to large audiences, and a professional demeanor to uphold—and while the public world churns along (or dissects my teenage and past angst), I maintain a separation between the events of past and the current events that might dominate my emotional landscape.

Several years ago, during the worst of my breakup with my ex-fiance, I would come home late at night after work, let go of the armor that got me through the day, and quite literally crawl in through the garage to curl up on the carpet alone to the temporary bed I was sleeping on. The shaggy carpet smelled of stale cat and the room shook with the heat of the dryer adjacent to my tiny room. I would lie stone flat on the ground, staring up at the ceiling in such pain that I thought I could never eat again. I had a total of four outfits I could bear wearing, and I slept for days in the same outfit. I couldn’t find a way to eat, think, or cry, and I called my sister just to hear her talk to me on the other end of the line. I didn’t know what to do; and still, despite an inclination that wanted to paint the story across the social web and internet world, I knew that I couldn’t. I didn’t talk about much of this for well over a year, until I’d sobbed my way through my sister’s Kleenex boxes and worked closely with a therapist to help move through the hurt.

I remember the day that I finally shared the story, talked about and opened up to what I’d been through—and I found deep connection and soul-sisters across the internet who reached out and said, “I know. I’ve been there. And thank you, for sharing.” It was only after I’d found the ways to heal that I was able to share my story and learn from it. And like many of the painful moments we each go through, I know (now, at least), how much of my resilience and growth came through these experiences.

Writing is first about creating a relationship with yourself and then about sharing the stories. I use writing to discover and work through my emotions—capturing and recording the raw states of being, storing them in a place to revisit and reconnect with later—but the stories I publish related to emotional wounds are often long healed or well on the way towards healing.

A good rule of thumb to ask is “does this make me feel anything still?” If you’re still feeling pain or angst, or hoping for a response from others, consider keeping it in a smaller circle for now, or holding on to it until later. Likewise, if there’s a response that might be hurtful—and by this I mean if someone could read this and do something that would hurt your feelings—also consider that you might not be ready to share the piece just yet. Protect yourself, and take care of your heart. You always come first, no matter what. Sharing is second, and can be metered out to those closest to us and only later to larger audiences.

In the name of vulnerability, sharing is important. But in the world of the internet, it’s also good to be cautious about where you share and what you share, and keep it close to yourself at first.

Writing is first a journey into your own mind, and remembering to respect yourself and your soul is critical. Share everything with yourself. Put your words down, write your heart out, and keep that journal flush with ideas. This is your place, your soul, yourself. Part one of the week on persuasion is developing an authentic relationship with yourself. Learn how to listen to your ideas, how to applaud them, how to shape them, how to let them take the form that they want—as stubborn as they may seem at times.

First drafts are okay. You are not the Messiah, and your message is not going to be perfect. You can write first drafts, second drafts, and third drafts. This can be a work in progress. You are allowed to edit–in fact, you are allowed to change your mind! You can write later, “I wrote this a while back, and now I think this.”

Make mistakes. (And you can ask for forgiveness). If you make a mistake, you can take action to fix it. Don’t hold back from something because you’re worried about outcomes that are not yet real. Dive into them and make a lot of mistakes. (That’s actually the better outcome).

Start small. If you write a post and no one shows up, it’s because you didn’t invite them to the party. Write something and then share it with a couple of people that you think would actually be a good audience for it. Write them a personal message and say that you wrote something. (“Hey Susan! I wrote this essay and I’m wondering if you have time to read it and tell me what you think! Ideas, comments, general feedback is perfect. I’m new to this and just starting to share my ideas. Thank you!”). 

What about if you over-share? Remember, we live and learn. Don’t admonish yourself too harshly for oversharing. We can ask for permission (if you let the cat out of the bag about your future dreams and your employer lets you go, perhaps the universe was giving you a gentle shove). You can recover from most things and ask for forgiveness in places of error.

But my general rule is to write it out in my journals first, develop stories that are publicly share-able (usually a fraction of the writing that I do) and then tell the stories that help the message when the time is right. Much of the writing is for me (discovering, learning, processing), and many of the experiences become useful stories later.

What rules do you have for sharing yourself with the internet world? Have you ever been afraid to share something, and if so, what is the number one thing that’s holding you back?

AND–if you’d like, share a piece of your work in the comments below! There are lovely people who read this blog. Share away!

With love as always,

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What’s On Your Mind?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

“We’re not here, for that long, anyway. But to spend almost half our time lost in thought, and for the most part unhappy at that–well that’s pretty tragic, isn’t it?”

— Andy Puddicombe

How does your mind work? What brought you here? What patterns occupy your thoughts and recur, repeatedly?

Andy Puddicombe talks about the power of meditation and how beneficial it is for each of us to stop for ten minutes each day  and simply to look at how our mind is working. (The link takes you to a 9-minute TED talk).

When you stop and look at your thoughts, he asks, do you notice–

  • That you’re dwelling and ruminating on one particular, circling, repeating thought?
  • That you’re reinforcing certain story lines and patterns of mind?
  • That your mind is restless and agitated?
  • That your mind is dull, boring, or mechanical?
  • That you have a nagging thought that comes around and around?

How does your mind work, anyways?

The point of mindfulness isn’t judgment or instantaneous change, but rather, an awareness of what is actually happening in your mind, without judgment. It’s familiarity with the present moment, and an awareness of how, in fact, your mind is working.

Sometimes in order to know what’s on your mind, you have to slow down and take a look at that very mind. What’s in it?

Enjoy,

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