Hello and happy Venus day and welcome to a new substack series, where I answer your questions in more space than a single IG slide :)
I’m so excited about this!
What is your favourite way to set yourself up to write from the heart? Your writing is magic.
Thank you! Like everything, it’s a combination of the boring and the mystical.
Sometimes, it is about setting the mood and tempting out the ~creative muse.~
For me, this looks like a clean space and an early start, usually 5-6am, lighting a candle and incense, making a warm drink, putting on the perfect playlist and setting myself up to write for 2-3 hours at least. But very often, it is not as glamorous as this.
The best writing, in my opinion, usually comes from the patience and perseverance to finish something I (almost always) want to give up on multiple times along the way.
It comes from making a habit of taking notes and forever writing things down. It comes from paying attention to the world. From making space to write even when it doesn’t work out. From committing to sharing, even when no one seems to care. For making it ‘real’ even when it feels like it’s not.
Writing is a strange thing.
Every time I finish a piece on substack I feel like I’ve run a marathon.
Every time I finish a piece on substack I feel like I’ve traversed through multiple crises, and come through the other side with a deeper appreciation and gratitude for my life, and understanding of myself.
When I finally decide a piece is done (and it could always, always be better, but you have to draw the line or you’ll actually lose your mind) I usually close the laptop with my eyes fuzzy and my shoulders tense, my brain fried and my body screaming out for a break. It’s not at all a picture of sweetness and romance and total ease, but an exhaustion that feels deeply satisfying. It’s an exhaustion that feels good.
My rest and meditation practice (/everything in TDR studio) is essential for my writing practice. In fact it was my Rest practice that first brought me back to writing poetry after I had taken a break from it to focus on my business. Ironically, sharing my poetry again was a huge part of what ended up making my business take off. As much as setting up a writing routine or space can helpful, I personally find that if I’m not moving my body and spending time in stillness and silence, I genuinely have nothing to write about.
Writing has been the one constant in my life for as long as I can remember. From writing song lyrics for my high school band, to lovesick poetry residencies in literary journals and travel blogs, to wasting years studying it at university (if you know, you know) being the social media voice of an Australian celebrity and cafes and yoga studios… (I could go on)… if there’s one thing I know intimately: it is the written word.
I know it’s as much a therapy as it is a creative process. Both for the writer and the reader. In a world of instant results and virality, I also know how easy it is to give up on this practice, to wonder if there is even a point to it anymore, but I believe deeply it’s more important now than ever before.
I’ve been putting together a writing workshop / short course for some time now. If you want to be the first to know about it, you can sign up to the waitlist below. Also — If there’s anything you would like to see included in this course, please do let me know.
In HD I’m inconsistent and can feel guilty for not having a routine - I used to be rigid - advice?
One of my favourite topics to talk about in terms of yoga practice, business and life is consistency - or a total lack of.
Firstly, if you’re new to Human Design, what is meant by inconsistent in this question is the top, left arrow of the Human Design Chart, shown on the image in the pink square below. If you have the arrow in the pink square pointing to the right like in this photo, then you are what we would call ‘inconsistent'.
BUT.
I believe very strongly the chart cannot be dissected so simply. There is so much going on in a Human Design chart, in a human life and human body that I honestly no longer believe in pointing at a part of our energetic make up and saying, you have X and so, you are, by default, Y.
It’s just not that simple. Nothing is.
This is why I no longer post about Human Design on social media, because I cannot even bring myself to generalise words or advice, even for the energy types.
It just depends.
It all depends.
This is, again, where lived experiences and stories of the chart in action, in real life, are everything.
Anyway.
What I want to address here is inconsistency, letting go of routines and guilt, generally.
Even if you have that arrow pointing to the left, you may find that you resonate with this deeply, and trust that, if you do. There could be a million things in your chart that make it true for you.
For me personally, embracing my inherent inconsistency has been a game changer, in every area of my life. Inconsistency is a theme woven deeply into my chart, and yet, so is discipline. So is wanting approval. So is an abrasive desire to over-achieve and base my entire sense of self worth upon it. And so, I spent most of my life not only being extremely disciplined and consistent, but receiving an ungodly amount of praise for being this way.
Allowing myself to drop the rigidity and the hyper discipline was a journey of many years - because I believed it made me a ‘good’ person. Because I believed if I dropped the routines I was lazy, and nothing would ever work out. Because at the time no one was talking about it, and it all felt so very wrong. Now that I’m well and truly through the other side, no longer living the every day has to look the same mentality, this departure has allowed me to fall SO much deeper in love with my practice, my work and my creativity. But even more importantly: it has allowed me to develop an unwavering self trust and be WAY more consistent over time, because I trust my energy, rather than attempt to force and control it. To tick something off a list instead of actually live it.
Now of course: if you want to feel the benefits of a meditation practice, if you want to write a book, grow a social media following, learn a new language, get fit, whatever it is, then yes, you have to do it more than once or twice a year. Yes you need to come back to it again and again and again. And yes, a sad reality is that for almost all of us, we need to have both awareness and tools in place to not invest all of our spare time, which most of us have very little of, into mindlessly scrolling on our phones.
So it does usually take the conscious setting up of containers in our day, our week and our lives to spend our time doing the things we actually want. This might look like having the first hour of your day phone free. This might look like meditating every other morning. This might look like starting your day with a walk for a week or three and then replacing it with writing when you feel the call. This might look like scheduling in 30 minutes of exercise or study into your day and treating it with as much importance as you would a meeting with your dream client or high level work call.
For some of us, enforcing a rigid routine like: I meditate twenty minutes at the exact sane time every morning, or I post on instagram every second day at 5pm brings a feeling of calm, of solidity: it might be the only way we get things done. For others, it causes us to listen to the rules we have created with the mind, instead of the body. It can cause us to feel frustrated, annoyed or stuck. Like we are ‘doing all the right things’ and yet, everything feels off. So we throw our rigid routine away, get weighed down in a blanket of guilt and shame until we create a new one, ready for the cycle to repeat, again and again and again.
Developing the self trust to create your own structures and rhythms and let them shift, change, release and grow is not always an easy process, but it is one that is SO worth it. I always recommend bringing this up in Human Design readings and to be very open and curious around what actually works for you. Not what some guy with 1 million instagram followers, or a yoga guru from the 70s says is true.
Go Deeper:
This class on the energetics of the days of the week is one of the most watched workshops in TDR Studio and many people have shared how helpful it was in releasing the guilt around not having a consistent schedule when it comes to work and exercise.
If you’re struggling with embracing your own rhythm, or releasing the guilt and shame that comes with departing from the way the rest of the world works, Amanda and I are teaching a Creative Business Edition of Inner World / Outer World (for all the energy types) on November 25th/26th where we will go deep into the layers of the Human Design chart and how it all relates to creativity, work, business and generally - living an alive and fulfilling life.
How do you create a sense of home when you’re travelling so often?
A question very close to my heart, as someone who has been without a permanent home for most of 2023.
I want to start by telling a few background stories no one asked for:
:)
I am someone who spent the first eighteen years of her life living in the same house. A tiny one, in a small town, where nothing much ever changed or happened except the direction from which the wind blew over the headlands, the tides, and the different types of birds that made their home in our backyard.
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