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One from the archives for today for everyone who can relate, now with a video.
I imagine writing these letters to you when you are on the brink of taking a creative, courageous leap—an initiation that has been calling you to say yes to this life in greater ways, with plenty of room for your sensitivity and doubts.
I imagine writing these letters when you’re on your last try at something very dear to your heart.
I imagine writing these letters to you when you find yourself feeling totally stuck: stuck in a difficult pattern, stuck in efforting without much return, stuck in waiting for fear to lessen so that you can move forward.
If you are stuck in a fog, stuck in a rut, stuck in spinning your wheels—I write to you! Stuck but still here. I hope that Gentle Musings helps you to locate what’s working, what’s inherently changing, and what small moments of choice can create major shifts.
I imagine writing these letters when you sense that you are waiting for life to click, for something to fall together.
If you’ve been feeling discouraged, disheartened, alone in your efforts, and at a threshold of ‘something has gotta give’, consider going to your desktop and making a Keep Going folder for yourself (with whatever name feels best).
Like right now!
Wherever you are at with whatever you are trying to do, your efforts are not lost. Collect whatever evidence you have (nothing is too small) that your creative work matters.
I’m telling you now: your creative desires matter, probably more than you give them credit. Your creative gifts offer transformations on all scales.
Your creative voice is inimitable… and it is needed.
Step by step, with lots of creative gumption, please keep going.
For every person that has sent a kind note and shared how transformative their experience was in Pivoting Toward Wholeness (the studio’s signature course), our private work together, or in a Community Discovery Writing Gathering, it’s in this folder. I cherish these notes, like:
“I feel safe, welcome, heard, encouraged, and motivated to remove shackles and armor and instead embrace the spinning nature of being human and the playful possibilities of a life.”
“I felt seen and stimulated and comforted and challenged…”
“…a safe and welcoming space and has attracted people who are also safe and welcoming.”
“Every time I walk away from a conversation with Maggy, I feel a weight lifted from my shoulders.”
“…it was deeply life-affirming/healing to be in such a humane, compassionate space (particularly at this historical moment, particularly in the US)”
“I’m watching my fears subside and starting to realize that my writing actually makes a difference for people and that perhaps my voice is worth putting out there.”
Every kind email and encouraging note that someone has shared how much they needed to read what I wrote, how it was timely and comforting and shifted something in their perspective… it’s in my Keep Going folder.
Every rejected anything that I’ve cast out into the world is also in this little folder.
These “failures” are mine to love. (There are many).
As a hermit-leaning person with a lot to share, here’s what I know for sure: We learn how much our creativity and our presence matters through being received and understood in community.
Being with people who get it, who get you, and who can hold some trust around what you’re here to create is vital.
In case you need to hear this: if you’ve worked up the courage to actually take concerted action on your creative desires, distinct gifts, and your highest visions (including long-dormant desires and visions for yourself and your life that require constant faith), and then you find yourself confronted with a swirl of deep grief, frustration, hopelessness, isolation, and even shame (oh, the shame!!), it comes with the territory. It doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong way.
If you want an extra boost of support, here is what I can offer immediately:
Share where you’re feeling creatively stuck, doubtful, or frenzied as a comment below. We can micro-workshop your situation together—I’ll offer a question, a poem, a resource that might spark a new direction for you. I realize in writing this that some challenges are too big for a comment (and I might be missing some major context because of that!). For more in-depth challenges related to living a life that prioritizes your creative essence, please feel free to email me at maggy@regardingdew.com.
Give yourself some acknowledgement around where you are embodying your wholeness as a comment below. I’d love to witness and celebrate you and create the opportunity for others to do the same.
Join us for a Pivoting Toward Wholeness, you get access to Regarding Dew’s fall and winter workshop line-up as a bonus :)
Register for the final Community Discovery Writing Gatherings offered online through Regarding Dew—one is this Saturday! This is a sweet space to root into curiosity and connect through spontaneous creativity. Learn more here.
Check out the Gentle Musings podcast if you haven’t already. There are deep shares on the creative process and lots of golden nuggets on: shame resilience, creative fear, creative vulnerability, recovering the creative self, living an introspective and beautiful life, building self trust, and lots more. This is an area to keep an eye on.
Think about the artists, writers, actors, musicians, activists, teachers, friends, neighbors, etc. who have been way-showers to you. Consider their depths of uncertainty and how much their perseverance has created new possibilities in your life.
Make yourself a Keep Going folder, a collage, a poem, a dance that reminds you of what feels most true.
Thank you for keeping going <3
XO
Maggy
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