Blog
A Why Bother Interview From Lauren Fleshman
I’ve been reaching out to people I admire to share their why bother stories - the times in their lives they felt stuck or lost or despairing - big or and small - and what turned things around. Today’s story is from the fabulous Lauren Fleshman. Can you tell me...
A Why Bother Interview From Tara Mohr
I’ve been reaching out to people I admire to share their why bother stories - the times in their lives they felt stuck or lost or despairing - big or and small - and what turned things around. Today’s story is from the incredible Tara Mohr. I recently was stuck...
A Why Bother Interview From Chrissy King
I’ve been reaching out to people I admire to share their why bother stories - the times in their lives they felt stuck or lost or despairing - big or and small - and what turned things around. Today’s story is from the beautiful Chrissy King. Early on when I...
A Why Bother Interview From Anna Guest-Jelley
I’ve been reaching out to people I admire to share their why bother stories - the times in their lives they felt stuck or lost or despairing - big or and small - and what turned things around. Today’s story is from the wonderful Anna Guest-Jelley. I struggle...
A Why Bother Interview From Hiro Boga
I’ve been reaching out to people I admire to share their why bother stories - the times in their lives they felt stuck or lost or despairing - big or and small - and what turned things around. Today’s story is from the phenomenal Hiro Boga… Jen, I’d never really...
Creating the Women’s Retreat of Your Dreams
In the 2003 second edition of The Woman’s Retreat Book, I wrote: Retreats. The word has an almost mystical power for me, a feeling of coming home to my deepest truth. Rabbi David Cooper in Silence, Simplicity and Solitude writes, “All of us have a deep reservoir of...
The Spiritual Work of Creative Amnesia
Doing your creative work means you have to be willing to do your spiritual work. Right. Deep breath. So, once again I’m showing up to say I write and teach what I need to learn. Wait, no, this is more accurate. I write and I teach what I keep forgetting. I used to be...
Here’s How to Know What You Want When Life Feels Like a Grind
I don’t think most of us understand the cost of ignoring, judging, denying, or putting off enjoying our desires. If you’re like most people, you don’t even know how to know what you want. That’s because we don’t know--or perhaps believe--that giving space and...
We Grow Dull for Lack of Desire
A desireless life is one that has lost its luster, one that feels like no life at all. “I’ve been trying to understand desire for decades. I’ve denied it, short-changed it, ignored it, but I’ve learned that without desire, there is no life. There are simulations,...
Should you really learn something new in 2020?
I’ve learned to be intentional about what I want to learn and with whom I want to study. To spend time reflecting on what I am curious about. What would help me do my work better? What is my soul needing? What is my mind craving? I no longer set out to learn something...
Trust Yourself More in 2020
What I want in 2020 is for you to trust yourself more. It has taken me many years to learn to show up when I’m afraid, to make offers consistently, to ask for support, to do the work, and to share it with you. To be a brave creative who picks herself up and keeps...
What Do You Want To Do and Create Next?
Here’s a simple process to get clear on what you want to create next. What do you want to do? It is the opposite of all the hyper planning stuff that starts to bite and snarl at you this time of year. Like my Power & Love pack, there’s a gentler and more humane...
Self-Care During The Holidays Checklist
Holidays bearing down on your sense of enoughness? Is stress mounting? Is loneliness pressing on you? Self-care during the holidays too often goes last on our list. How about a little self-care during the holidays checklist to ground you? Check every item that...
Tips On Finishing What You Start
Finishing what you start is not always simple. I get this question all the time: “How do I know when I’m finished?” We yearn to know with clarity when we’ve crossed the finish line; to know we have done our best and that we can rest. But finishing what you start...
Holiday Book Gift Guide
Like many book lovers, I buy books as gifts and I’m always looking for book recommendations and book gift guides. When I have to buy a gift for someone that doesn’t read, I’m genuinely stumped. Then I go buy myself a book or two to fortify myself for non-book...
How to Forgive Yourself for the Holidays: You Can’t Rewrite History
The holidays used to trigger all sorts of self-recriminations in me. I used to wonder how to forgive yourself, forgive myself, for mistakes from seasons past. Awful toxic stuff. I would castigate myself for all the ways I wasn’t grateful enough; for all the ways I...
Embracing Anti-Productivity and Living Your Human-Scaled Life
I coined the term “human-scaled life” when I was making a weekly Oasis audio a few years ago, as an antidote to our endless drive to be productive or an anti-productivity hack. I coined it in response to the insane pressure many of us experience around being...
How to Become the Person You Want to Be
I often say when teaching or coaching, “You become the person who can do the thing you want to do by doing it.” You become the person you want to be. By which I mean you aren’t that person when you start your project, but you grow into being that person through the...
Does your Procrastination Need Discernment?
I made you a procrastination discernment flow chart, because we all procrastinate for different reasons. We need to know why we are procrastinating to know what to do differently. Start at the beginning. What to do if you selected YES! or Yes, but... Yes, you want to...
What Pleasure Has To Do With Productivity
Here’s a statement I hear pretty darn regularly, “I know I want to _______ (finish my book, start dating again, clean out the art studio, go back to school), but instead I do a million other things that I don’t really want to do and then I veg on the couch. I rebel...
Feeling Despair? You Know, You Can Begin Again Any Time
Have you ever had a feeling of despair sneak up on you? I scared myself last week. I won’t bore you with all the details, but after forty-five minutes stuck in a morning snowstorm on the highway, I got home and was so exhausted, I went back to bed. For most of the...
Need Help Getting Started
Making Your Thing?
Grab the stunningly intuitive & effective:
Make Your Thing guide
I’m not one of those creepy people who make it hard to unsubscribe or email you again nine years after you’ve unsubscribed. Giving me your email is like a coffee date, not a marriage proposal.