It's because I write

The art you do for fun is more important than you think

Feb 04, 2024

When I think about how I came to work in a way that feels truly, deeply fulfilling, work that exists in that space between real joy, ease, excitement and the necessary level of difficultly and struggle to keep me on my toes, I think of two things, in particular.

The first is that I just keep going.

That’s really it.

It’s not particularly interesting to write about because the whole story is there.

You want to quit. You feel embarrassed it’s not working. You wonder if there is any point. You reflect and do your best not to shame yourself. You have some good highs and some pretty shitty lows. You change course. You take another step. You feel afraid. You wonder why everyone else is so far ahead. You wonder if everyone else is this scared. You wonder, often, if you’re actually just insane. You start over and remember that you’re still building on what you’ve learnt, even when the page is blank again.

And repeat.

The second is because I write.

I know many (most) of the paid subscribers of this substack are also writers.

Even if you feel uncomfortable with the label.

Even if referring to yourself as a writer makes you squirm, brings up feelings of guilt or shame because you haven’t finished anything in a while or struggle to know what to say.

Writing, like most art forms, I’m sure, is a mostly weird and awkward, lonely and vulnerable task.

It’s also deeply therapeutic.

Not in a hot and fragrant magnesium bath on a cold winter’s evening way, but a getting your ass handed to you on a plate kinda way.

It’s also one of the most valuable skills in the world.

When I think back over the course of my life (at first I wrote career here, but this word I personally find very difficult to relate to) the one advantage I’ve always had in regards to work is my ability to write. That is, the hours I’ve poured into the written word.

It gifted me an edge I otherwise didn’t have.

It’s the thing that pulled me along the current more than anything else.

In many years of floating between various interests (some might call them obsessions) from music to fashion to poetry to yoga and the spiritual world, there was a thread that held taut the entire time.

Writing was present through it all.

Writing was the one thing that helped me get ahead when I had no skills, experience and certainly no confidence to speak of.

The first time I remember this happening was a highly competitive role in my early twenties that many young, wellness interested, women were clamouring for (we shouldn’t have been, it was truly terrible). The reason why I was selected (or so they told me) was the fact that I had an active blog (the blog had not a single comment or anything that could prove anyone other than my mother had ever read it) and an instagram account in which I posted daily poetry on pastel backgrounds alongside digital illustrations by my then boyfriend.

The role was a mix of admin, social media and very surface level research. It was in no way related to anything else I wrote about (for example, I was vegan at the time and I had to lie about the fact I was drinking soy milk in my coffee to avoid being shamed) but the fact that I had continued to finish pieces of writing and publish them to the world was deeply impressive to them, and so they hired me (unfortunately).

Then there was my first job managing a yoga studio (which I was wildly under-qualified for). My boss could see my clear obsession with yoga and how eager I was (to please and) to learn. I’m a terrible writer, she said, I would love for our newsletters and instgram to have more stories, so you’ll be perfect for the job.

In my early days teaching yoga I was not focused on making it a business, at all.

I hoped and dreamed that it could sustain me, that I could turn it into a full time job, but for a long time thinking of it as a business didn’t really cross my mind at all.

I often taught for very little or for free. Writing continued to come in handy. I’d trade my participation in yoga teacher trainings I couldn’t afford by covering extra classes and writing newsletters for a couple of the studios I taught for. A cafe in Bondi hired me to do their social media for a few hours a week. I’d be paid $50 for publishing a poem every few months or so.

By the time I started to feel stifled by the surprisingly inflexible schedule of being a full time yoga teacher and thought about making teaching yoga an actual business, what I realise now, on reflection, is that I was already good to go.

But as it often happens, I was unable see all the value I had already created by showing up, for years, sharing my writing online.

Instead of pouring more time and focus into what I was already doing, learning to channel that, to get better at it, I started by investing into online business programs and a coach (not bad things, but these particular ones weren’t correct for me) and changing the way I wrote and shared for the purpose of ‘building a business’ and ‘attracting my ideal clients’.

Which of course, did not work at all.

At the time I was extremely hard on myself, both for ‘wasting’ time and money on something that I didn’t actually use (but of course, in the end, it was far from wasteful, because I learnt SO much and it was this experience that was the foundation of a lot of the Soft Business work I do today) and also because it simply wasn’t working for me at all.

I was so deeply frustrated by doing all the right things and it feeling so wrong.

Often, we might write for a purpose, for a specific focus or result. There’s nothing wrong with this. A lot of people do this incredibly well.

In my own personal experience however, I do sometimes feel that (exclusively) creating and writing in this way might be a distraction.

If we exist only here, I feel like it’s possible to miss the point, our point, completely.

Sometimes I feel like the process of writing is just solving some great mystery, coming to an understanding my brain could not possibly reach on it’s own.

Sometimes I feel like writing for the purpose of gathering a following or promoting our work can keep our very best words forever stuck in our throat.

We miss the incredible potential writing has: to lead us to unexpected places and people who feel like home.

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When a beautiful TDR member and reader of this newsletter (hiii!) wrote this comment recently:

“TDR really feels much like a poem in which the art of living a beautiful life is taken seriously.”

I felt quite emotional.

Not only because I took it as a very high level compliment, but because I felt so deeply seen by her words.

It made me realise, years before the studio existed, before I even knew what restorative yoga was, this is what always wanted to pour out of me. Below, a poem I had published back in 2014 (complete with a final editing note).

Six years later, and another two before TDR studio shimmered into existence I wrote the below.

It was the first post I ever shared online that went semi ‘viral’. I remember seeing it all over instagram (and pintrest) on accounts of people I admired with sometimes up to thousands of comments — and no link back to me because I didn’t even think to put my name on it at the time.

author

Emmie Rae on Instagram: “a 2020 reminder 🕊”

February 4, 2024

I had a lot of feelings, watching that post swirl around so far from home. I was touched that my words, after so long, seemed finally to be reaching and connecting with so many people. I also felt annoyed at myself for not including my handle, and then embarrassed for craving the recognition at all.

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What I love about these two pieces is that in many ways they are the work I do today. In TDR studio, 1:1 sessions, courses, retreats, all of it. To acknowledge both the difficulty and the beauty of life. To take care of ourselves. To take seriously our dreams, our creative practices, our desire to live a life that feels like ours. To me, this type of writing sums it all up better than any ‘content description’ or website copy possibly can.

The business has been writing itself into existence for years.

I’m so fucking glad I got out of the way.

The moment I stopped trying to figure it out, make it make sense, explain myself to the world and just let it unfold was when it everything finally began to open up and bloom.

Slowly, but surely.

It wasn’t that it became easy. But it became what was true for me.

All those hours I spent working with editors on poetry for obscure journals, all those nights I spent hosting and reading at poetry nights for people who hate poetry, all those afternoons I spent writing song lyrics and fashion blogs and Japan travel tips were hours that directly built the business (and the lifestyle) I have today.

No matter how many times I gave up on one project and started another.

Not matter how many times I berated myself for not being able to stick to one thing.

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What I’m trying to say is mostly this:

Your art is always worth it.

Your writing is always worth it.

Your writing and your art will always pull your people toward you.

I don’t just mean in a social media / business sense but in general.

The most incredible friendships. Romance of all flavours. Strangers who you were destined to cross paths with when you need that little reminder it’s all going to be okay.

You know those moments?

Those moments that remind us of how sweet it is to be alive?

So keep writing.

Keep reading.

Keep paying attention to all the ways you’re trying to write like someone else.

Take your training wheels off and let it get wobbly.

Write about the unhinged, the mundane and everything in between.

Write about what feels obvious.

Don’t write for the reader.

Write for yourself.

Take a step back and let the words take you to places unknown.

And like,