by jlouden | Nov 25, 2015 | Creativity, Self-Care & Comfort
There is a famous story in the writing world that I often tell at my retreats. It goes like this: the poet Bill Stafford was known for being prolific. The poet Robert Bly once asked him, “Bill, how do you manage to write so much?” According to writerly...
by jlouden | Nov 18, 2015 | Creativity, Self-Care & Comfort
After the attacks in Lebanon and Paris, all the other violence the world experienced in the last week, and all the various reactions and counter reactions, amongst all that, I did not despair. Because I saw people everywhere responding to the horror in their own noble...
by jlouden | Nov 11, 2015 | Creativity, Self-Care & Comfort
Last week I wrote about the power of staying with something and that made me think of one of my favorite columns I wrote for Body & Soul years ago—on quitting. It came to mind because nothing is black-and-white: sometimes we need to stay, sometimes we need to wake...
by jlouden | Nov 4, 2015 | Creativity, Self-Care & Comfort
Have you ever heard something like this inside your head: “This writing project / spiritual practice / __________ is taking too long!” Followed by… “So it must not be working.” I am intimate with this line of “reasoning,” which can sound something like,...
by jlouden | Oct 21, 2015 | Creativity, Self-Care & Comfort
Earlier this year, I attended a meditation retreat and the retreat opened me to a new way of being. Yes, like all retreats, the exquisite nectar of the experience faded over time… yet with this retreat, something stayed different, if you will forgive me that...
by jlouden | Oct 7, 2015 | Creativity, Self-Care & Comfort
The boxes are unpacked. The diploma awarded. The laughter from the retirement party has faded away. You are on the other side. Now what? We spend so much time, it seems to me, talking about transition: being in one, approaching one, or trying to avoid one, we perhaps...
