Meditating on the beach during autumn, Bournemouth, UK
“You are the creator of yourself, honey. ”
This month, my guiding word is PLENTY.
Rather than asking myself and my writers to do yet another gratitude practice, I’m instead offering an exploration into the shadow side of the harvest season:
Where are we hoarding, cluttering, over-indulging?
What’s clogging up our creative drains?
How are we hustling for our worth instead of resting in the fact that we are already enough, just as we are?
(Any Bridget Jones fans giggling?)
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in a purging mood lately. A lot of women I know have been telling me the same. Yes, there’s a seasonal change and yes we’re all stuck in the house more than ever before, but I think it’s more than that. I think we’re seeing the ways in which clutter—physical and digital—is keeping us from our best work as creatives.
I often think back to when I was leading my annual retreat at Highlights (insert very big sad face re: COVID) and how one of the chefs there, a German woman, would stand behind this incredible buffet of food—a veritable cornucopia—and tell us not to eat too much. I loved that. While she acknowledged we were there to nourish and treat ourselves, she reminded us that when you’re overstuffed, your creativity suffers. She’s right: It’s not often I get up from a heavy meal (with wine, no less) and go write an amazing scene. This reminds me of the best practices in Zen, where you’re encouraged to only eat until you’re 80% full: again, to keep that mind clear and sharp.
I won’t go on a rant about capitalism here or ask you to go figuring out what sparks joy.
Instead, I’m going to encourage you to get very quiet. To sit in some silence. To whisper to yourself, I am enough. I have enough.
I’m going to ask you to look at your scarcity complex—and to work on banishing it.
Mindfulness For Writers
Mindfulness for us writers is the same for everyone else—paying attention in the present moment, really showing up for our lives. But it’s also essential because we can’t afford to get all muddled and cluttered.
We can’t afford for two months out of every year to be one of manic frazzled holiday insanity, where we run ourselves ragged trying to be festive. (Raise your hand, fellow introverts, if you would be totally okay with all holiday parties being cancelled in a post-COVID world too).
The more cluttered our lives, the more this will show up on the page and the more it will absolutely trigger our Inner Critics.
De-Cluttering for Creative Boosts
Below are a couple of ideas to de-clutter your digital space, which—especially these days—is probably affecting your creative wellness more than anything:
Unsubscribe Like It’s 1999. Even if it’s my newsletter. Get off any lists that don’t add to your life in ways you know are healthy.
Turn notifications off on your phone, especially social media. (This will change your life).
Delete Facebook. I just did and it felt freaking great. You’re an artist. Your bandwidth is everything. I’ve yet to meet a writer who feels like Facebook fills their well and is a place of great artistic insight and joy.
Delete any emails that you’ve been meaning to get to for the past six months. You’re not going to email those people back or do that thing and all it’s doing is taking up bandwidth. If this makes you anxious, you can create a folder titled SOMEDAY or whatever and stick them in there. I did that and never looked in it and nothing bad happened to me.
Now, you’ve got a little extra time to be quiet and contemplative and do some of that all-important inner work, as well as get a breather if the hustle-and-bustle of the holidays and NaNo is ever-present for you…
Meditation is a great way to begin.
Inner Stillness
Ursula K. LeGuin says, "To hear, one must be silent." Join me in a meditation on sound in order to access your inner stillness to hear your characters, your muse, your stories. This is a relaxing meditation to help increase flow, creativity, and focus in your writing practice.
Here’s to a season of PLENTY-
