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Welcome to the Drawing Board
“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper and re-imagines the world.
-Malcolm Gladwell
Happy New Year!
We did it. We crossed over the threshold of 2022, showing up for ourselves all along the way. The year of 2021 was challenging for me largely due to my battle with breast cancer, so launching into a brand new year feels especially poignant.
There’s such a temptation to bite off more than we can commit to when considering New Year’s resolutions. Like I’ve said before, I’m convinced humans choose extremes over balance more days than not. We go all in, sink or swim, only to wake up a week later in too deep and gasping for air.
So let’s ease into it. Let’s listen to the gentle rhythms of our desires, our longings, our needs. Let’s partner with ourselves from a place of self-compassion, like we would a loved one we believe in and want to support. Let’s speak to ourselves with kindness and curiosity, turning down that harsh inner critic that keeps us small and hustling for worthiness. Let’s breathe more—slower and deeper than usual. I’m convinced we could all use a return to breath and the body as a way of being present.
Let’s start there. And from that place of stillness and silence, we begin to etch out the tiny, two-degree shifts of growth and expansion that over time, create big breakthroughs. It’s often helpful to partner with a professional in order to gain greater support and accountability. If you’re looking to use the Enneagram as a part of your 2022 self-development, I’d love to help make that happen. You’re the expert at you and I’ve got a detailed roadmap to get you from where you feel stuck to where you long to be.
No matter what you want to create in your life this year, I hope you’ll continue to journey with me. I’ve got some exciting stuff coming your way that I can’t wait to share.
In the meantime, do a little dreaming…a little playing. It’s time to let your true self take the wheel. She’s ready!
Cheers! It's your time
“Where we think we need more self-discipline, we usually need more self-love.”
-Tara Mohr
One of my favorite pockets of time throughout the entire year is the week between Christmas and New Years. I try my damndest to carve out some “deep work” time as I call it—time to clear the space, reconnect to presence after all the going and indulging, and map out a vision for the coming year. My inner dreamer gets to dance around and color outside the lines a bit. If I’m lucky, I try to take a whole morning or afternoon to do so.
This year has been a no-go. It just isn’t happening—and that’s okay. I’m learning to give myself more grace and soften into life’s messy edges.
However, in the spirit of community, I’d like to do this deep work—this dreaming if you will—together and ease into the new year.
If you’ve been on this self-discovery journey with me for a while, you may know I’m a huge fan of rituals rather than resolutions. If you’re new to my blog and this glorious work of deepening self-awareness and transformation, welcome. You are right on time and I can’t wait to connect with you.
Here’s why I have a thing for ritual. I’m convinced, over time, practicing good habits creates this soft light in our lives that draws out potential, undergirds desire, and creates balance where there is imbalance. They are also built on loving connection with self as opposed to fear-based tactics.
Interestingly, I think humans find extremes far easier than balance. We like to react out of fear instead of responding out of desire. Marketing moguls exploit this behavior big time, and anyway you slice it, they’re clever. They know we go off the rails a bit over the holidays and tend to wake up today with a foggy head and a few extra pounds. Swooping in, they save the day with their slashed gym membership prices and programs promising a new you in just one month.
Listen, if you’ve just given Gwyneth Paltrow a run for her money and spent all of yours on the hottest new cleanse, that’s okay too. I get it. Been there and have all the tee shirts and half-used supplement boxes to prove it.
Yet with each passing year, as I show up for myself and my community, I’m learning something invaluable: what we really want is to create a feeling, not just a desired outcome. As a result, this is why we’re rarely satisfied with any level of success or accomplishment—the feeling fades. We want more.
Today, let’s lay some groundwork for the edits, habits, and goals you’d like to see crystallize in 2022. Here are four crucial questions to help you do so.
I hope you’ll join me and carve out some well-deserved time to journal about the picture you’d like to build in 2022. Come back to it over and over again. Realign with its truth or tweak it if your course requires a deviation.
Here we go:
What do you want to feel more of in 2022? (i.e. energized, awake, confident, accepted)
Where do you want to go in 2022? (This can be figurative or literal. i.e. I want to explore a new city, yoga class, or I want to go from full-time to part-time at work so I can spend more time writing)
What do you want to learn in 2022? (i.e. I want to learn to play drums or I want to learn to meditate)
What do you want to change in 2022? (Reminder: this is desire-driven, NOT fear-driven! Approach this from a place of worthiness rather than insecurity. i.e. I’d like to build in more margin for rest and play into my life.)
I can’t wait to hear your feedback from this exercise. When we give voice and ink to our desires, we take them from whim to intention. Let’s ease into the new year, listening, noticing, and responding to its inviting call to action. If you’d like some extra light for the journey ahead, I’m your girl.
I can’t wait to see all that 2022 has in store for you.
Cheers, indeed! It’s your time.
The Importance of Celebration
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is to celebrate in life.”
-Oprah
As we move into Christmas week and the final days of 2021, I’m reflecting on the importance of celebration. And not just from a fun, put on your party dress and dance mindset. I’m all for fun, yet I believe deep down that celebration is good for the soul and the mind.
Life is hard. I’ve learned this with a completely new context this year. And human beings tend to be “velcro for the negative and teflon for the positive” as I once heard it described. We come by this dynamic honestly. We as humans are wired for survival. Primal man was set on high alert, scanning for danger and foraging for food to score the daily meal.
The fight-flight-or freeze fear mechanism allowed our species to not only survive, but evolve throughout generations.
Today, our realities are much different. Hopefully we know where our next meal is coming from and aren’t running from a drooling beast donning a big appetite and sharp teeth.
And yet we haven’t necessarily outgrown this negative bias that’s carried us through to our current modern society. We tend to hope for the best and count on the worst in order to protect us from the vulnerability of joy made manifest in possible disappointment. Again, humans are wired for safety, not a risky celebration. I call this the Other Shoe Syndrome. What if you get your hopes up and then the other shoe drops? Brené Brown calls it foreboding joy. Instead of basking in joyful moments, we self-protect and beat vulnerability to the punch. This scarcity is part of our human biology and design.
Now, that’s NOT to say that we can’t work to soften this prickly edge. Neuroplasticity, or the brain’s ability to rewire, form and reorganize synaptic connections—basically to create new realities despite conditioning and genetics—proves we can change.
Do you know how we do this?
You guessed it…we celebrate. When we make it a point to consciously celebrate little victories, progress, togetherness, and people in our lives, we retrain our brains to override our brain’s natural negative bias. When we celebrate, we fire and wire new neural pathways that eventually help us create a more joyful, abundant life.
I don’t know about you, but I am here for abundance. I am here for deep and meaningful relationships. I am here for the joy that longs to be chosen as we bow down to gratitude over resentment. I’m here for the party.
So, Dear One, I pray this week you will give the precious gift of your time and attention to what IS good, true, and beautiful in your world. Find just one or two small things and celebrate like you mean it.
Palate Cleanser: Ready for Connection
Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.
Carrie Fisher
Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.
Carrie Fisher
Sushi
I hope this finds you healthy and hopeful for a beautiful year right around the corner. I’ve taken some time off the blog this week for several reasons, but most importantly, to rest, recharge, and connect with family and friends. I’m calling it a palate cleanser: like a cool, refreshing sliver of pickled ginger to prepare for the gorgeous spicy tuna roll ahead.
Thank you
That said, I miss you! I woke up this morning with a longing in my heart to say a quick thank you and communicate so much anticipation for 2017. As we wind down this quite quirky 2016, I’m struck by the encouragement and support I’ve gleaned through this weekly conversation with you. Your feedback and insight have been such a lovely gift, those I deeply treasure.
Fog
To be honest, the past week has been tough for me. I’ve heard news of so much loss and death on differing planes; some I know personally and others I grew up being entertained and shaped by. I’ve felt a weight of heaviness sweep over me and a fog of lingering confusion that just won’t seem to lift. I want to learn and grow from it, yet I also want to allow space and time for grief to take its inexplicable course.
Let it flow
Stillness and silence are attractive postures for my weary soul as I write this; I’m learning that’s okay. When we stuff and cloak the process of emotion that desperately needs to find voice, we end up self-sabotaging and suffering greatly as a result.
Heroes
As I ponder two childhood heroes who’ve left us prematurely this week, George Michael and Carrie Fisher, I ponder in my heart how impossible it must have been for them to stay true when the world kept heaping the burden of God-like fame on them no human should attempt to shoulder. Sure, they bought in hard and fast, it’d be hard to resist. Numbing that inner cry for connection would only seem a viable option, a necessary evil. I can’t help but wonder whose face they saw in the mirror as they desperately looked for hopeful answers and loving connection; an imposter of sorts perhaps. And aren’t we all on this same quest? I think so… yet with far less limelight and paparazzi.
Fuel
Today, I want to reiterate how crucial connection is every single day: connection with self, God/Higher Power, and those whom we share this gloriously messy journey with. I’m putting New Year’s resolutions aside this go around and prayerfully anticipating an abundance of life-giving connection in 2017 instead. That’s the fuel of life. Sure, vulnerability is scary– a risk for sure. Still, I’d rather be known and loved, as painful and often disappointing as it feels, than be safe and lonely in a vault of stale certainty. Let’s keep reaching out, friends.
Onward
I sincerely hope you’ll join me on the journey ahead. It’s going to be awesome and I’m thrilled about some new and exciting opportunities I’ve got tucked up my sleeve for you! Please stay tuned for updates in the new year. I’ll leave you with my go to saying, or blessing, from St. Julian of Norwich. It always brings me back to center.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Have a happy and safe New Year!
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
xoxo
Obsessed with Gratitude
Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.
-Rumi
Happy Thanksgiving, friends! This is by far my favorite Thursday of the year as well as one of my absolute favorite holidays. I savor the vibrant smells and tastes of seasonal comfort foods, the cozy roaring fire that cracks and burns in the fireplace, and I adore the fact that in this beautiful country of ours, we’ve managed to preserve the fourth Thursday of every November to remember, cherish, and give thanks.
Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.
-Rumi
Happy Thanksgiving, friends! This is by far my favorite Thursday of the year as well as one of my absolute favorite holidays. I savor the vibrant smells and tastes of seasonal comfort foods, the cozy roaring fire that cracks and burns in the fireplace, and I adore the fact that in this beautiful country of ours, we’ve managed to preserve the fourth Thursday of every November to remember, cherish, and give thanks.
Feast
Many of you are sitting down around a dinner table of some kind with loved ones about to enter into a food coma at it’s finest right about now. Perhaps you’re already there. I sincerely hope you enjoy every bite and minute of your day. Some of you are in places of painful or lonely transition and this Thursday looks much different then you’d hoped. That Norman Rockwell ideal has once again vaporized into a wishful mist. My heart knows the pain of similar loneliness and I pray you will find some light in the cracks of that thin space today.
Shift
Wherever you are on your journey, I want to give you something to take with you right now, whatever your situation may be. It can turn the darkest skies a paler grey, shift toxic, negative energy into grounded presence, and it’s available always in every blink, without fail. It’s completely free of cost. It is the most powerful force of breakthrough from emotional bleakness into hopeful wonder. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this—Gratitude.
Why
You’re smart. I know this because you seek out truth beyond yourself and you invest time and resources into personal development and progress. Here’s the catch though: smart people ask “why?” This is not all bad, mind you. It’s often crucial to know the why’s of our experience. However, we get stuck when we marinate in our analytical mind, bowing down to the perceived deity of certainty.
Mario Batali
I’m not going to tell you to stop asking “why?” That’s like asking Mario Batali to retire his orange crocks and go vegan. Not gonna happen. Intsead, I’m inviting you to become obsessed with gratitude. Buy a tiny journal and keep a running list each day of everything you are grateful for from clean water, to another day to explore, to the sound of a child’s innocent laughter off in the distance. Be specific. Be relentless. Be consistent. Go gangster with it. Set a timer on your phone several times a day and keep writing them down, the obvious ones and the more obscure ones. I’m a big fan of the physical act of writing as it sends a message not only to our brains but also our bodies that gratitude is indeed a holy moment, a sacred act of wholehearted living.
Wide open spaces
You are also self aware, thus will soon catch on to the remarkable shift this obsession with gratitude provides, away from the lack of scarcity and into the wide open spaces of graceful possibility. Your inner dialog will soften, your tired bones relax, and your heart will most definitely open up.
Remember
God did not bring you here to leave you. Love is much far more clever than that. God brought you here to lead you steadily, still, into a powerful redemption story. This, my lovely friends, is not the end of that story. Today as we look back and see how far we’ve come, a thankful heart will surely usher us into the forward momentum of that continued provision.
You
So I will start us off right here and now with my deep and stirring gratitude that wells up in my soul and overflows in my heart daily: I am grateful for you. I’m grateful for your courage on the journey that’s brought you, in all of your beautiful brokenness, exactly where you are today. I’m inspired by your uniqueness and blown away that you show up and meet the world’s deep need for gifts and talents that only you can bring. Thank you for being you, day after day. Thank you, thank you thank you…
Love,
katie
xoxo