creativity

Watch Your Breath to Boost Creativity & Heighten Your Intuition

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woman sitting on brown stone near green leaf trees at daytime

When it comes to enhancing your creativity or intuition—because the two work together synergistically—you don’t need elaborate rituals or fancy tools to tune into these natural abilities you have available to you.

Here’s all I want you to do to boost your creativity… Simply watch your breath.

Sounds silly or too simple, right?

Watch your breath. It’s such a natural body behavior that often we don’t stop to think about how we are breathing.

Did you know that your breath indicates what’s happening in your body?

When your breath is deep and flowing naturally, do you think your creativity and intuition might flow more easily to you? It most certainly does!

When we are stressed or scared, how we breathe directly reflects that—by showing up as rapid, shallow, or inconsistent—and also reinforces those feelings.

So, this practical action step is to stop and observe how you are breathing—to see how the flow of energy is coming to and through you.

So, I challenge you to set a reminder on your phone every 3-4 hours to check on the state of your breath. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly.

Silently observe and notice how each breath feels as it enters your nose or mouth, how it travels down your throat and into your chest and lungs, and how your body opens up to receive that life-giving oxygen. Feel every step of your breath through your body. How does it feel for you at that very moment?

And assess… How is your breathing?

  • Where does your breath go: into your belly, expanding your chest, or raising your shoulders?
  • Are you restricting your breath somewhere—not breathing as deeply or in short bursts?
  • Does your body feel stiff? Are you holding your belly in?
  • Do you find yourself actually holding your breath sometimes? I have!

Then, take a few deep breaths until your body relaxes into its natural breathing rhythm again.

Air, just like creativity and intuition, is energy. And it’s abundant and available to you.

Everything is energy. How you let it flow into you will directly reflect how you breathe. So, pay attention.

Return to your breath as often as you can. Simply bringing awareness to your breathing can help you develop more of an awareness of how your body feels throughout the day, how your intuition is speaking to you, and how your creativity wants to move through you.

When you remember to focus on the breath, you focus on the energy flow in and out of your body.

Now, imagine when you breathe in, you breathe in creativity and intuitive connection to the greater divine.

And that’s when your abilities open up more… Give this exercise a try and see how it opens up your capacity for creativity and intuition.

***

If you like this exercise, I have a gift for you! Get your free guidebook of 9 Ways to Romance Your Creative Muse here to amplify your self-care routines to court your creative muse into working with you more consistently.

What a Little Star Can Do

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flowers on opened book

When I tell you this blew my mind… It BLEW. My. MIND.

Now, before I sit down to edit any client’s book, I have a little ritual I partake in. Goes a little something like this…

I take a few deep breaths. Maybe I move my body around a little to release any stagnant energy. And I go to my crystal collection. I pick out whichever crystals feel supportive for the particular book I’m working on. Each time, my little crinoid fossil star wants to be included when I’m editing.

Every time.

Considering I’m a bit of a crystal junkie, I feel like I should have known the significance of this little star-shaped fossil, but I didn’t. I just liked that they were ancient fossils in the shape of stars and they were quite affordable, so I got a few.

Right before a recent book reading—not to be confused for reading a book, but an intuitive reading for someone’s book—this crystal was like, “Pick me!” Just like normal.

When I do the intuitive readings, I share which helpers (crystals, plants, songs, etc.) come along and what their properties are, and I realized I never actually looked up what these little crystals meant.

And when I looked it up, I found this:

“Fossils are thought to be a wonderful tool to assist you in moving from the old to the new and to be receptive to the fresh, innovative forces that are available to you. Fossils may assist you in your quest for transition, transformation, and personal growth, helping you to understand the process of change. They may also help you instill quality and excellence in your environment.” – Source

Um, WHAT? I didn’t even know this, and I love how supportive this little fossil is for the work I do—which is literally to take something and transform it into its best form. I take books and content from their previous form to a polished form while offering a fresh perspective on how to elevate their words and stories.

And me being me, I do my best to instill quality and excellence in everything I do, particularly when it comes to my work.

But how cool is that? That the stone I’ve been selecting for my editing work is perhaps one of the most perfect stones I could have found to support me in it. What a fun discovery about a little stone that’s been part of my work process for the past couple of years!

I also love that these crinoid star stems—which stem from ancient fossilized sea lilies—have also been known as fairy coins. I’d believe it. 😉

Are you a crystal junkie like me?
What crystals do you feel drawn to all the time?
And have you looked up their spiritual/metaphysical properties yet?

Fun little practice if you haven’t tried it yet…

Now & Then, Then & Now

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black and white typewriter on table

Have you ever paused to look back and see how far you’ve come?

If you haven’t, this is a practice I recommend at least once (or every 9, 10, or 12 years—those are a few life cycle period lengths). This could be through an old blog, journal, conversations with folks, or even just reflecting on what you knew then versus what you know now.

I think you might surprise yourself.

A few days ago, I found myself in a rabbit hole of my blogs from way back when (10-13 years ago), and I found myself laughing, face palming, and thinking, “Gosh, did I really have no shame in sharing this?”

Is it weird that I found Young Me quite hilarious? I hope I still have some of that humor hanging around because I don’t think I realized how funny I was—I was just having fun, sharing my performing, dating, and life antics.

However, I also found that Young Me still had some wisdom to share, like why I decided to break up with the scale because I realized weight is just a number and not an actual indicator of health, wanting to keep music in schools because creativity is essential for kids’ wellbeing, being honest with kids/teens about what protected sex actually is and means because the state I lived in had one of the highest numbers of teen pregnancy in the country, and a few other posts that had my eyebrows raised in surprise because I wasn’t sure I remembered writing them, but clearly I had.

Even though I’ve always felt relatively smart because I got good grades and was one of those weird kids who actually liked school, it’s always reaffirming to have something you said come back to you in a way that shows how wise you were, are, and can be.

This is helpful because oftentimes I don’t remember what I’ve said or written, which is why it helps for me to write things down for posterity.

One of the challenges of being a medium where you just channel energy through you constantly—you barely remember what you’ve said but others do!

Also, how fun is it to have that kind of archive or time capsule to show you how you were then so you can clearly see how you are now. How you’ve grown. How your interests or passions have shifted or deepened. How your view of the world has changed. How you choose what is no longer for public consumption (ahem, Young Me, we may need to have a talk, ha—I still have compassion for you, though!).

Because… We aren’t meant to stay the same. We are here to change, to shift, to adapt. We are meant to grow, to understand more of what we ultimately desire to experience in our lives. As we move through life, we are faced with choices, roadblocks, detours, pain, loss, newfound delights, and all kinds of relationship shenanigans… And all of it shapes us as we go along.

It’s like we can’t help but change one way or another. And there’s always something new to learn from our experiences as we go.

So, that also means it helps to have grace and compassion for who we used to be… Because if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be who we are now.

And that feels like a powerful thing to remember right now.

When I Felt the Biggest YES Ever

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Imagine your skin tingling from head to toe, your heart hammering on in a dancing rhythm, your breathing quickening in excitement, and your brain lighting up and expanding with possibilities…

I can count two times in my life when I got this excited about a job offer…

The first was for an internship for a local news broadcast station right out of college. I’d met a producer while working as a media intern for my university’s sports department. After helping him out in the TV production van for a televised basketball game, he invited me to apply for the internship for the news station. He thought I might like it.

I remember walking into the newsroom and feeling the buzz of everything—and immediately felt how excited I would be to work there. I remember when he said, “It’s safe to say you got the job!” And I felt like crying because it felt like such an exciting opportunity to grow into and learn from. I remember thinking, “This feels like Disneyland!”

Yep, that excited.

Ended up completing the internship, then was offered a part-time evening production assistant job a handful of months later. And I loved working there, I truly did. Every bit of it.

But then I realized, several months later, that I wanted a job with 9-5 work hours so I could still do theatre in the evenings—for what I felt was a balanced life where I could still be creative and have a steady job. So, I loved working in the newsroom, but my other creative passions were calling for my attention.

My Disneyland needed a shift.

Around that same time, I got another invitation for a full-time job from one of my other part-time gigs that sounded like a great fit for me. That job allowed me to stretch my wings as a baby magazine editor, which I loved. That was pretty lucky!

And the second tingles-inducing job offer came a couple of years into my New York adventure…

It was a secret desire. One I wasn’t sure I could do because my career trajectory thus far hadn’t necessarily or obviously pointed to a career in my desired field. But I had privately shared it with my intuitive coach at the time, and I had written it down in my Evernote as a potential business idea. But the niggle of the idea had always been an interest of mine…

A psychic even predicted it was coming. “Watch out for August. Editing work will come in then,” he said.

While not all of his predictions were correct, this one was.

At the end of August, a book editor—the one who had helped me edit my own book back when she was a budding book editor herself—reached out to me and said she wanted to expand her stable of editors for her business to provide a more thorough editing experience… She thought I might be interested.

Y’all… When she offered me a spot in her stable, I HAPPY DANCED MYSELF OUT. I’m pretty sure I cried. It came out of left field, and it felt like the perfect job for me. Came to discover I loved learning from her and working with her. I loved learning the process of book editing, and couldn’t wait to dive into more in-depth editing types for books. And I’m blessed that I still get to work with her from time to time!

A (literal) handful of books I’ve worked on. Delighted to have a section of my bookshelf dedicated to books I’ve helped to edit or proofread!

Book editing became my absolute favorite job. I get utterly lost in the work while editing—helping the narrative become clearer, polishing up the errors and mistakes, offering words of encouragement when desired, and providing constructive criticism. I still lose time in this work since I’m having so much fun. That could be why I started my own editing business… 😉

Never have I loved a job so much—which is saying something because I’ve been fortunate enough to have loved all of my jobs to some degree.

But it was those excited tingles, that sense of my whole body just buzzing as if I’d been hopped up on a dual coffee-sugar rush—only it didn’t have a crash. Only up and up from there!

That excitement felt like the biggest YES I could have felt when it came to my work.

Reminds me of that saying… If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.

Not that you can’t say yes to things that don’t spark the living daylights out of your veins… You can also feel at peace or a general contentment to know if a decision is right for you.

The trick is to notice what your unique yes/no feels like in your body, so you can make those aligned decisions for yourself.

My hope is that you can find something you feel excited to say YES to very soon.

Cheers!

***

Originally posted on magicwithmikael.substack.com

Message from the New Moon in Leo

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full moon during night time

“I left nothing unsaid.”

This is the phrase that came to me this week in a future-self meditation I did for the new moon in Leo.

Do you have any practices you like to engage in around times, seasons, or planetary markers to check in with yourself? I’d love to hear about it!

In this meditation, provided by the CHANI app, I saw myself on my last day on Earth, surrounded by books and loved ones. At first, I almost recoiled from the guided visualization when it suggested visiting your last day on earth since I have no interest in knowing when/where my last day will be. But then, I just let that go and let the experience take me on the journey anyway.

And before the prompt even came to ask what was most important to my future self… I heard, “I left nothing unsaid.”

Rang straight like a bell and has stuck with me ever since.

So, naturally, my curiosity started brewing…

What does this mean: to leave nothing unsaid?


And what does it mean for me, specifically?

I have some ideas.

In leaving nothing unsaid…

I finish all the books in my heart in this life.

I tell the people I love how much I love them and appreciate their presence in my life. Often.

I communicate my newfound boundaries clearly and kindly, knowing that my needs matter, too.

I know my voice has an impact—it’s safe and okay for me to speak up.

I speak from my heart when love wants to come through.

I trust that what’s on my heart to share is what’s perfect in that moment.

And I’m supposed to be a writer. Literally… That’s what I’m here for.

Anything else is just the cherry on top.

In this meditation, I was at peace. I was at peace with what I created. I knew I created and wrote and put to the page so many stories that help, heal, and entertain others. Reminding people of their potential, the light and inner child within, and the magic that can be found in the everyday.

I truly had the sense that I left nothing unsaid. I said everything I needed to. I told all the stories I needed to. I told all the stories in my heart and thumping in my womb (a healer told me that once). I helped to create stories that expanded beyond the page, even. My words healed, transformed, and inspired me as I created them—just as I hoped and trusted they would heal, transform, and inspire others as well.

I’m also willing to explore all the ways “to leave nothing unsaid” will show up in my experience.

I suppose this is the mantra to guide me right now… So, that’s where my priorities need to be.

To leave nothing unsaid.

Does this statement strike anything for you?

What would it mean to you if you were to “leave nothing unsaid”?

Does it mean to speak nothing but your truth for the rest of your days?

Does it mean to pen every story, song, poem, or other creation that deigns to cross your mind?

Does it mean speaking up when something is wrong, not right, or disrespect has been done?

Does it mean to speak your mind honestly when someone asks what you think? Or even when they don’t ask?

Does it mean to use your voice for others who can’t speak for themselves or those who could use a boost of additional voices?

Does it mean expressing your love and appreciation in more ways than just words?

And could it possibly mean, saying no more than you need to so you can also listen to what’s also being “unsaid” yet communicated anyway?

Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to ask yourself:

What is it I want to feel at the end of the day?

Is this something you’d like to explore with me? I invite you to chime in in the comments. <3

Discovering My Favorite Playing Field

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One place I know very well is the keyboard.

Not entirely sure what was driving me, but I just knew I wanted to be excellent at typing. All in all, I was a little obsessive with knowing the keyboard inside and out; it was my favorite class for that semester in middle school. It felt easy, but still like a challenge that I knew I could master. Something I knew I could be efficient in. (Do I sound like a projector yet?)

How funny is it that now I find such solace in closing my eyes and let my fingers fly over the keyboard, not having to look down. Knowing instinctually when I make a mistake, and my little right pinkie knows exactly where to pop out for the backspace button so I can keep going without missing a wink.

(Not to say I don’t make mistakes when I’m typing, but they are often minimal. Still proofreading this piece!)

The Bluetooth typewriter keyboard my love gifted me on my last birthday—one of the rare gifts that made me cry happy tears.

And I just realized… my playing field is the keyboard. I love to play here, whether or not I’m looking at it. I can watch the TV and keep typing without having to look at down. Or, like I said before, close my eyes and tune in and see what wants to come through them… My fingers know exactly where to sit so I can hit any key I need to from any point.

And being able to type without looking is so helpful for automatic, channeled writing (how this post started!)… That way I just let the words flow without having to worry about where the keys are on the keypads. I just know, my fingers know—it’s practically second nature to me. So, I’m really grateful to my younger self who found such passion and pleasure in mastering something that would serve her for her entire life…

Aside from choir and theater, my computer classes were my favorite. I loved creating things on computers: I loved writing, especially. I spent my free time writing books on my dads’ computers. Then I learned to and loved building websites. I loved coding. I loved making graphics.

Truthfully, I should change that to LOVE because I still love doing these things, and more—where knowing the keyboard landscape further serves me. And those I work with for that matter!

Somehow this is what’s magical to me right now.

And why is this playing field making itself known now?

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been watching a bit of Grey’s Anatomy this week as my recent obsession with Shonda Rhimes has taken root, and I wanted to see her work at work. Which has been very fun from a writer’s perspective.

And an epsiode I watched, one from the first season when Meredith is wondering if she’s cut out for the job as a surgeon… And she ends the episode talking about how she “loves the playing field”.

And it came to me… This is my playing field. Having a keyboard and a computer in front of my to fill the page with words, stories, pretty photos, or graphics. This is my playing field and I love it. And the thing is, it’s not my only playing field, because I also have my imagination as well…

But this is the playing field that helps me to concretize the playing field of my imagination into something real. Something I can save or print or share online. That’s pretty cool!

While I love writing long hand, especially for journaling… Something about typing on a computer keyboard just brings me peace. Doesn’t even matter what I’m writing.

Because it all feels like play to me. When I’m writing my novels, blogs, or even social posts for my business, something about writing on a keyboard is endlessly fun to me. It’s not so much about crafting the perfect sentence or using big or extravagant words… Just the act of putting words on the page through my fingers. I love it.

Maybe this is why the blank page never frightened me. One of the biggest blocks and fears for many writers is the blank page… but for me, I can look at that page and see possibilities instead, and my fingers itch above the keyboard just to add something to it.

When you know something that well… it’s easier to play in it—to explore and experiment. What a delight that is!

What is it you’ve mastered that’s changed or served your life in ways you couldn’t anticipate? What is your “field” for your work, and how can you see it more as a place of play than just a place to do the work?

No matter what work you do, if you can look at the work through a lens of play…

You win.

Lesson on Perspective From a Ladybug

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We had a strange visitor the other day. A visitor that made me immediately grab for a swatter.

It flew like nothing else we had seen in the apartment. We’ve had moths, mosquitos, flies… But this looked different. Like a small beetle or something. Since it decided to camp out so high on our wall, we couldn’t get a really good look at it.

And our evening quickly turned into a bug-watching night.

“I’ll grab the binoculars,” my love said before disappearing into the bedroom.

“Will we be able to see it since we are already so close?” I asked, glancing up at the little bug on the lime green wall above our LED upright lamp.

“One way to find out!”

After going back and forth, getting dust from the unused binoculars caught in my eyelashes, seeing wobbly views from shaking hands from trying to adjust the knobs and dials on the little seeing contraption, changing positions all over the room, my love announces from the couch that he can see it! I take the binoculars and continue to stand in the middle of the room.

All I can see is a blurry green wall and a fuzzy little brown dot. Still I couldn’t make out what the little bugger was. “Why can’t I see this thing?” I ask, needing to brush more dust from my eyelash, because I’m sure that wasn’t helping either.

Again, another back-and-forth dance resumed with my love and I continuing to change the dials and knobs until he says he can see the little thing crystal clear. I take a look through the binoculars, still to no avail.

I try to change my position, from across the little bug, from right beneath it at a funky angle so I can sit on the couch (but then subsequently tweak my neck), to lying down on the pillows next to me before I can see. Closing one eye, leaving the other open…. Just trying to see.

What my love hadn’t told me was that the dial only affected the right eye, so I started believing my astigmatism was at work and why I couldn’t see the critter clearly since the right lens is zoomed in about twice the size of the left.

(I felt like a real dork when I realized it was the binoculars doing that, and not my “everything-looks-bigger-over-here” astigmatism in my right eye.)

“Aha!” I finally yell, triumphant!

A lady bug! A little yellow lady bug was our unexpected guest. Still, it was hard to see her, and my massive hands were shaking around the tiny binoculars they dwarfed.

We even debated what color the lady bug looked like because it certainly wasn’t red. Yellow? Brown? Tan? We landed on yellow; I had thought it was a hornet at first since I had caught a flash of yellow when it flew away from the wall only to land two feet away from it’s original spot.

Want to know why I finally saw the lady bug clearly?

I had to sit in the exact position, in the same spot on the couch, that my love was sitting in. Any other position or perspective from the room could not provide the clarity of sight with the binoculars that that singular spot could.

Then, of course, I refused to move from that space as I observed the uncommonly colored lady bug as it perched on our wall for a while. We both decided to see what spiritual messages the yellow lady bug might carry (you can discover that here).

And, as I got to thinking—whilst trying to make a little spa for the lady bug to play in, have a drink or a fruity snack from—this was an incredible example of perspective and how no one will see things the way you do. They can wear your clothes, they can learn to move like you, work in a similar job as you…

But they cannot see what you see or the way that you see it.

Your perspective is uniquely your perspective. No one else will see the world as you do. No one else will experience the same things as you even if you’re doing the same activities. Because they are simply not you.

Your perspective is unique. Your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences, your upbringing, how you view things, what triggers you, what makes you smile… So many fractals that just make up pieces of you will effect your perspective.

And with that in mind…

With your perspective, you get to see the world through your own personal lens. And that means no one will communicate the things you yearn to express in the way you do (and will).

So, why (if you ever doubt yourself because other people might be doing what you desire to do) would you ever worry about not stepping into your light and sharing your perspective and being concerned about sounding like someone else? Because you won’t!

The entire make up of your life experiences make you you. Just like someone else’s experience will determine their own perspective.

Just like my upbringing in Utah in a very religious family-centric community colors my perspective, your own experiences will provide a certain type of lens for your perspective.

This is why your voice matters, why each voice matters. This is why your unique story matters. Only you can tell your story in a way that no one else can.

You may think other people have done it before, but they haven’t. They haven’t done it as only you could do it. Only you can.

We all have our own personalities, paths, and yes, perspectives, too.

And when you share your perspective—your voice and stories—then others can relate to and understand you better. It’s when you share the details that make you you that people can also see themselves. How we are alike. How we are different. And how our differences create the kaleidoscope that makes life so interesting and dynamic.

It’s when we share our perspectives that we can more easily step into each other’s shoes, even if just for a moment… For a little perspective. 😉

Now that’s quite the connection to make.

So, I challenge you to embrace your unique perspective, insights, and stories…

You never know what your light can do in this world when you express your unique perspective, or who you might inspire through the stories that only you can share.

Who knows… A lady bug, or other creature, might visit to share their wisdom with you too.

Have a wonderful week, lovely.

(The lady bug ended up staying for almost three days… I hope they liked the snack and water I left for them.)

Doing An Editing Business Differently

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I am here to do things differently. I feel like I have known that for a long time.

When it came to starting an editing business, I did a bit of research into what other editing and proofreading professionals were doing to promote their work—from their websites, to their social media, etc. I saw editors sharing their tips and tricks to catch errors as you write. Things they catch all the time as an editor/proofreader. Providing tools to help others edit or proofread their work better.

And as I looked around, I realized that’s not at all what I wanted to do with my editing business. I see the formula, and I don’t want to use it.

I believe through inspired actions on a new path, I can still find success with my editing business.

(In fact, that’s a common thread in my life… If I see one path, you can bet I’ll want to do it my way. And hopefully show you that you can do things your way too. )

I’m pulling back the curtain a bit on this since I want to be transparent.

My editing business is different.

I have no interest in teaching you how to write. Or how to proofread your work. At least, not at this point in time.

Of course, I could make resources for that, but that’s not the way I want my editing business to work or even how I want to promote it. (UPDATE: Now I have a Self-Revision Checklist & a mini-course email series, From First Draft to Publish Ready available for free!)

My goal is to inspire more creative flow & freedom.

To unlock the treasure trove of stories within you so they can pour out with fewer obstacles and challenges.

To encourage a healthy, harmonious relationship with your creativity.

To help you seek more joy, beauty, and nurturing in your life—to ultimately take care of yourself, and thus the insightful creative within you.

That way you can write what you’re meant to write from a more balanced and healthy space.

I care about the creator within, much more than trying to teach you how to edit your work.

I’m not knocking that as a valuable skill, because it most definitely is. (Ideally, you would revise your book before sending it off to an editor, for example.)

But I care more about you getting to tell your story. Period.

I want you to find the joyful flow that sparks your creativity and sends you flying down the path of writing the book and telling the stories you’ve always dreamed of sharing with the world.

I want the words to flow out of you with ease.

You have a voice, and you have a story to tell.

And I want to see you use it for the highest and best good.

I want you to find the balance in your life, so you’re not struggling to survive while also trying to sustain a creative routine. Because that’s not sustainable.

I’m a firm believer that when you take care of you, your creativity will come.

That’s what matters to me.

When you take care of you,
the creativity will come.

Editing and proofreading have been the heartbeat of my adult career.

And then, if you so choose, I can help you with the more technical editing know-how to help you clean it up, so it’s clear, easy to read and understand, and free from discrediting errors and mistakes. Because that’s another way of how I love to help support creatives and writers. Whether you hire me as your editor when you’re done getting your story onto the page, that’s up to you!

(Does this mean I’m turning into a creativity/book coach as well as a book editor? I don’t know, but I’m open to it. The downloads and inspired actions I’m getting for The Intuitive Editor are taking me in a direction I wasn’t expecting, and I’m loving the journey.)

So, while you may not find “can you find the mistake” posts on my Instagram page, my hope is that you will feel inspired to pick up that pen or get out your keyboard… And get writing. Get working on your creative dreams. Show up for them like they want to show up for you.

And do it for you first. Create what you want first.

And keep it fun. Try not to force it from a painful place.

My hope is that by enjoying your life more and engaging your creativity, you start to create a life you’ve dreamed of (or something even better!).

Just like I’m creating a business that feels good to me.

Let’s start to see creativity differently together.

Do Expectations Serve Your Creative Process?

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blank paper with pen and coffee cup on wood table


Did I tell you I’m writing a book?

It’s a story that’s been brewing within me since high school, but somehow now is the time that it feels right to get it all fleshed out. It’s taking directions I don’t think I was expecting when I first started envisioning it 15 years ago, and I find that exciting. I have a general map of where it’s going but also releasing the reins to see how the story wants to be told…

I’ve always loved writing. As a little kid, I was the kid sitting in the shadows of the big brick building, notebook in hand and just jotting down story ideas as they came to me. I can’t count how many stories I’ve written, but just writing stories alone has always felt natural—creating characters and new worlds to explore as I wrote them down.

It came as no surprise when a healer in NYC told me that my sacral chakra was thumping and bumping with stories that wanted to be born, like warriors yearning to burst through into the world. 

When the pandemic began, it felt important to return to my creative writing practice. As something to create, keep myself engaged, and to give myself permission to work on something I really wanted to work on.

My mermaid novel, the one I’m presently working on, practically danced onto the stage of my mind and said, “It’s my turn!” 

While I previously self-published my first novel in 2015, I cannot say I have any expectations for this mermaid book… Kind of like I have no expectations as for how the nitty-gritties of the storyline will work out, as I let the inspirations come as I go. I’m typically a pantser (writing by the seat of your pants, a NaNoWriMo term), not a plotter, though I do believe an outline can be helpful. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this book yet, how I want it to be published, if I want to go self-publishing again, or if I think I’d like to shop it to agents or to a traditional publishing house.

I’m finding that I love just being in the process of writing it, without any expectation of what will come of it once the book is fully written—though I can already tell it’s a book of epic proportions. Somehow, this book has been transforming into an epic environmentalist fantasy mermaid rescue tale (or tail?), and it’s quite a thrill of a ride to see how it all unfolds. 

Which leads me to what I’m musing on today… 

Expectations.

Where, how, and why we have them, and how they ultimately serve us and our creativity. Particularly in regards to our dreams or what we want to accomplish. 

This morning, in my reading time, I kept coming across the idea that God/the Universe/Source experiences life and itself through us as human beings. That expectations can get in the way of truly experiencing life to the fullest and essentially separates us from what IS by focusing on the future rather than the present. It does harken back to the whole “focus on the journey, not the end result” concept. How you can never truly know how something will work out and how expectations can set you up for disappointment, resentment, or even anger. (From Conversations with God, Vol. I)

The idea of releasing expectations to allow yourself to immerse into the experience you feel inspired to take, from my understanding, is how things can turn out even more magical than you plan for. Allowing yourself to do something for the joy and pleasure of it without having to think about the end result can open up universal possibilities to fill in the gaps and create something more than you imagine. 

Why not take a passionate step forward even if you can’t see the way ahead
or what’s at the end of the road?
Why not enjoy the journey toward something you want,
but also allow yourself to be open to something even greater if you take inspired action?

Life wants to be fulfilled through us. Life yearns to be experienced just as we as humans yearn to experience life. If we put expectations on everything that will happen to us or how things will turn out, we could cut ourselves off from the universal flow that wants to work with us. We cut ourselves off by focusing on the future outcomes rather than staying present in the moment to our needs and inspirations as they come.

By staying open, by releasing attachment to outcomes or results, we open the doors to be surprised by life, by the universe, by the greater power present in every creation in this world… 

So, I invite you to take a look at where you may be harboring expectations when it comes to your dreams, how you can release your hold on them, and how you can start taking inspired action just because that’s what feels right to you in the present moment.

Do something just to do it, because you love it. Not because it will get you something, somewhere, or someone. Focus on how it feels to do it in the moment so you can carry that feeling with you—because, ultimately, it’s the feeling of what we desire that we are chasing. 

Stay present. Take a breath. Release expectations for how it will go or end.

And go write that book.* Just to do it. 

***

* – Or any other activity you feel lit up by. 😉

As a writer, I’ve been through the editorial process with my own editor (and plan to again—even editors have editors). It’s not as scary as you might think! I credit my editor with helping my story to truly come out how it was meant to… And I want to help you do that too!

If you’re in the market for an editor who also knows what it’s like to be in the writer’s shoes (thus knows how to make it more fun and easeful), check out my editorial services here. I look forward to hearing from you!

Joy Challenge #4 ~ Unexpected Delights

by
surprised ethnic girl picking apples on tree

This week for your Joy Challenge, let’s keep it extremely simple…

surprised ethnic girl picking apples on tree

Unexpected Delights

I’d love for you to keep your eyes open for this Joy Challenge.

Set the intention before you leave the house to be delighted by what you see. Then, let yourself be delighted by what’s around you.

Let the unexpected things grab your attention. It could be an animal (or more!), an insect, a child, the shift of colors in the leaves, or a lovely exchange between strangers that you observe.

Be open to being delighted by the random happenings and nature around you!

How this challenge went for me…

I saw school of fish, flashing their silvery bodies as they crossed the Hudson on my usual visit to Riverbank State Park for my morning walk. I hadn’t seen that before! The Hudson usually has pretty cloudy waters, so to actually see the shape and form of the school topped with the flashing and splashing of their swim brought me a fresh joy.

Also, seeing a cute Pez dispenser at the store gave me a tickle of delight, so I had to pick that up too.

I’d be tickled to know what ends up delighting you in your observations this week! Leave a comment below and let me know!

Have a blessed week!

The true joy is starting to be present to your life.
Start to notice where you can pause and enjoy the moment more.
Because when you align with your joy through all of your senses,
you become more aligned with your core, your body, and your soul.
Then it becomes easier to listen to your intuition and to let it guide your creativity.

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Photo by Zen Chung on Pexels.com