On Book Writing, Tarot Reading, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Ten years ago, I gave birth to a daughter. Now, on another gold-blue October day a decade later, I am in the midst of another long labor. This time, I am birthing a book. 

The book isn’t here yet - the release date for The Sovereignty Knot: A Woman’s Way to Freedom, Power, Love, and Magic is set for February, 2020 - but today is the day I must say, “It’s done.” I’m going over the proofreader’s changes and, in just a few hours, I will declare an end to years of writing, rewriting, editing, and polishing. No more additions or subtractions. These two hundred pages of prose must tell the entire story. (Until the next book!)

I feel both empty and full. All emptied by exhaustion and filled by hope. Such a combination of love and depletion has a way of making you feel so heavy and so flimsy at the same time - especially when you realize you have so much more to give.

There is still much to do (both as a mom and writer!), but now that the latest big project is complete, I am left to wonder: where my mind is meant to wander?

This is my moment to breathe before I dive into the book promotion and marketing, which will be its own tremendous emotional and creative undertaking. This is also my moment to contemplate motherhood before I need to prep the gifts, the cupcakes, and the candles.

And so, I give myself permission to do exactly what I invite my Sovereign Writers to do when I see myself at a creative and emotional crossroads.

I sit down to write.

The Writing Coach Gets Writer’s Block, Too

But where do I begin now that the project that has occupied my attention for so long is finally finished? What requires or deserves my attention?

Should I try to recapture the emotions of the day I birthed my first growing girl? Is it important to review the decade that stretches back to that stunning moment of her arrival? Should I fill a page with tales of my daughter’s power and potential, weaving prayers that her courage will blaze more brightly than her fear and that her sense of Sovereignty with outmatch the bastards who will inevitably try to get her down?

Or, can I just watch the falling leaves litter the page and savor the sweetness as a ladybug alights on my moving pen? Can I just let the day mother me as I trust that my creations, both human and literary, can make their way through this day without my worry nor intervention? 

Can I just be in this moment, tired and proud, overflowing with gratitude and apprehension? Can I put aside my worries for just a little while and meet myself on the page during this perfect October afternoon? 

The Medicine I Take When the Words Won’t Flow

And this is when I realize that, even though I know writing is the best medicine, sometimes it requires a big old spoonful of sugar first.

You need to get centered and refocus your inner vision before you can just dive in and meet yourself on a blank page.

When this happens to me, I do something that I’ve been doing since long before I became a mother or an author… I look to the cards. 

This might be my first child’s tenth birthday, but it’s almost my tarot deck’s twentieth. In 1999, I was an American college student living in Galway, Ireland. On Samhain - that’s probably “Halloween” to you - I bought Caitlin Matthew’s Celtic Wisdom Tarot at the Hawkins House Bookshop. I’ve called on these cards for guidance and assurance ever since.

I never cease to be surprised and gratified by the messages that come through when I take the time to consult the cards. (And I never stop saying, “You can’t make this shit up!”) As I saw the cards arrayed before me on this particular autumn afternoon, part of me sighed “of course” and part of me gasped “thank you.”

The cards that come up for my daughter and my book offered layers of blessings and hope. The card that represents me showed me how much I am struggling to accept all the goodness and all the possibility being lavished upon us right now.

Inside My “What Needs My Attention Now?” Tarot Reading

I came to the cards knowing that I both my daughter’s milestone birthday and the birthing of my book were competing for my attention. I also knew that I was confused about how to hold myself in the midst of all this creative magic.

Though I didn’t know what to write about in my journal, I knew just what to do with the cards. Intuitively, I laid two cards for my daughter, and two cards for my book. I placed one card for myself at the center.

Of course, the first card to represent my daughter is a 10. The 10 of Art (the suit of Cups in a more traditional deck) is a sign of joy, harmony with the earth, and lasting happiness. The other card is the 1 of Knowledge (the Ace of Pentacles), which indicates Sovereignty and “the touchstone of self-realization.” It’s a perfect way to describe her own next decade, the one in which she will begin to make her own choices and learn how to work with the princess within so she can crown herself queen of her own life.

As for my book, the first card is The Fool. In the Celtic Wisdom deck, it’s called The Soul. The wide-open wanderer is just starting out on the great quest. This card is followed by the 1 of Skill (or the Ace of Wands) and is another potent symbol of beginnings, enterprise, and creative initiatives. I know I am meant to understand that the publication of this book is just the start of the adventure.

Finally, there is the card that represents me at the center of my two most vivid concerns, motherhood and authorship.

The 6 of Art (again, that’s the suit of Cups) is the only card that is out of sync with all these 10s, 1s, and 0s. It depicts a student poet in one of Ireland’s ancient bardic academies lying with eyes closed in “the house of memory.” This is where the storytellers would go to compose poetry and commit to memory the great sagas that preserved and connected the culture.

I smile because I am a storyteller and I love this card. It is the only card in the spread that is reversed, however. When a card is upside down, I understand that to mean that its energy is available to me, but it’s blocked or impeded in some way. I want to be the bard, but I’ve been so caught up in wanting it that I couldn’t see that I already am.

Finding a Way to the Page

Seeing my own story re-told before me through a series of symbols and myths loosened my grip on “can I? and “should I?” and released me from all that self-imposed stress. I was able to soak up the sunlight and simply be with the big moments that are ten years of motherhood and the birthing of a book.

Thanks to the cards, I was able to get to the page to tell this story, a story that matters to me as a mom and an author who wants to recall this important moment of becoming. I was able to perform what I call the Alchemy of Story and take my own wonder, worry, and experience and use it to tell a story that just might help a reader like you.

There are so many ways to access the stories within you. I have a feeling that the cards can help you as they’ve helped me.

Whether you’re a writer hoping to get clarity on your next creative project of your simply someone who finds herself asking “what needs my attention now?” I would love to share the cards with you.

Learn more about how a Tarot and Intuitive Healing Session can help you live and tell a more powerful story. (Book a session by October 31 and save $50!)

Insights for Healers Who Write and for Writers Who Heal

When you do something seventeen times, you start to know what to expect. When your work is creative, intuitive, and interactive, you know it’s not going to be just like the last time, but you trust the rhythm.

But still, even after leading seventeen writing coaching and story healing sessions in the Sovereign Writers Circle over the last year and a half, I always get butterflies before we begin.

Our group sessions are a totally unscripted ninety minutes, but I know the nerves don’t come from lack of preparation.

By nature, I thrive on improvisation. I’ve spent years  all offering healing to writers and writing for healers, so I trust I can hold the space and respond to the questions that come up. Plus, getting to spend time with my closest circle of clients is always a highlight of my week.

I feel all the feelings in my belly because I’m anticipating how I’m going to be surprised. My only fear is that we won’t stretch in a totally new direction during our hour and a half together.

But something magical and unexpected always happens. Every. Blessed. Time.

How Do Support Someone Else’s Creativity? How Do You Support Your Own?

Last week’s Sovereign Writers Circle writing coaching and story session was special from the very beginning.

We started with a question about how to support someone else’s creative process. (This isn’t necessarily shocking in a group of healers, coaches, and therapists, of course. It’s such a valuable question for all creatives to ask.)

One member’s partner was thinking about writing a book. Because this particular individual is a psychotherapist who is brilliant at framing at questions, she didn’t ask “how should I help them?”

Instead, she asked her sisters in the group: “what kind of support do you need to make your own creative intentions a reality?”

What helps you consistently show up to the page, the canvas, or the crafting table? (Yes, we’re a writing group, but this is a multi-passionate collection of transformation professionals who express their creative energy in many ways.)

Damn, that was a good question. And it was all the richer because I, the group facilitator, didn’t ask it.

Free and fresh to the idea, we explored the fragile nature of our creative lives.

As I look back, the entire conversation was about how to build resilience and commitment into the creative process. (Quick answer: consciously plan out and protect your creative time, but practice compassion when you cannot make it happen.)

When One Voice Articulates the Collective Wisdom

Another member of our circle, Dawn, was unusually quiet, but I could see she was deeply engaged and taking notes. I asked her where she was wandering as we spoke. It turns out she was outlining her own creative process of a Sovereign Writer.

And it was perfect.

As Dawn described it, she was pulling together the group’s answers to: “what do you need and want when it comes to how to support your creativity?”

This is what healer who writes and a writer who heals needs to know

It was veritable symphony of influences crafted by countless creative beings. Her own lived experience. The wisdom of the collective. A few phrases that I know I have offered from time to time in my coaching and teaching. The practical knowledge that comes from years of writing, exploring, making, and sharing.

The Sovereign Writer’s Creative Process

1) Get clear on the why of your writing

Ask yourself: “Why am I writing or doing whatever creative thing I am doing? What does it do for me?”

Here are three powerful reasons to pick up the pen

• To heal

• To explore who I was, who I am now, and who I hope to be

• To share with a wider audience at some point

When you know what motivates and inspires your writing, you move on to the next essential question…

2) Decide what you actually want to write

Follow Dawn’s lead and ask yourself, “What form does my creativity want to take? Does it want to be a bit of poetry or a story? It might be that I am going back to the writing I started with one of our prompts from last week or starting something new. ”

I’d add that other Sovereign writers are also deciding between blog posts, website copy, and book chapters.

3) Once clear on the why and the what, set small, simple goals for yourself each week

Again, credit to the SWC’s Dawn: “I tend to overwhelm myself and nothing gets done, so I set something doable, like come back to the writing I started during our last writing practice call.”

You don’t add “write a book” to your to do list. You don’t add “create content every week” either. Instead, you set initial goals related to simply sitting down and meeting yourself on the page.

4) Plan tomorrow’s writing time the night before

“I try look at the next day and find the pockets of time I do have to write. I make a list of the creative projects I have and decide what I would like to make progress on and where I can plug those in.”

This is so important… It can be hard to stick to daily writing dates at the same time each day, especially when you’re an entrepreneur who wants to be available for client sessions. Instead, look for white space on your calendar and fill in your creative time twenty-four hours before.

And then, thought she didn’t say this in these exact words, she offered us a fifth element that’s really the most important…

5) Practice permission and forgiveness

“I’d like to be making greater progress,” Dawn said, “but what if I just write a paragraph this week and that’s good enough right now?”

If you want to write a book or blog regularly, a consistent one paragraph-a-week habit isn’t going to work for you, but if it happens now and again all you can do is forgive yourself and give yourself permission to try again next week.

And there’s one more element that came through as she credited the group for helping her come up with this list...

6) Stay connected to community

“It was through everyone’s sharing that I was able to map that out for myself. It’s so beautiful because we all created this together. It feels like we’re all at the same place together, not just with our writing, but with our creativity. How do we support ourselves and the people we love and each other in our creativity. As each one of you spoke you were like a voice inside of me…”

We’re welcoming new members to the Sovereign Writers Circle through the first week of June.

Writing Prompts for Creative Warriors

Every Wednesday at noon ET the members of the Sovereign Writers Circle gather to write. There’s something magical that happens when you sit down to the silence of a blank page while knowing you’re supported by a community of like-minded, like-hearted creative from around the country.

We come together to write into the two fresh writing prompts I create for the group each week. They’re designed to get everyone to go deep on a personal level and also potentially develop professional content too.

Just about all of the Sovereign Writers Circle members are “transformation professionals” - therapists, coaches, healers, teachers. They know that diving deep and really understanding and healing their own stories helps them become stronger healers themselves. And the stuff they write in our group can become the blog posts, course material, and book chapters that really build their vision, brand, and business.

Here’s a special sneak peek into this week’s Sovereign Writers Circle prompts!

Writing Practice 19, May 22

Prompt 1: Carry On, Warrior

There are two ways to carry a sword. You can hold it before you, ready to fight and defend. Or, you can strap it to your back, lining it up against your spine to remember to stand tall and stay firm.

When we look at the sword this way, we realize that we all have the option to be warriors. Even when we know ourselves to be pacificists, even when experience shows us we tend to run away from a fight.

Write into your relationship with being a warrior, to showing up for battle, to learning how to handle a sword.

Prompt 2: It Wasn’t Supposed To Go Down That Way

Sometimes, endings just don’t satisfy. The relationship that just dissolves. The vacation that never takes you somewhere new. The book or television series that just ends in “meh” or “how dare they???” Sometimes you end up feeling hollow after such dissatisfying conclusions. And sometimes you feel angry.

Write into the feelings around an ending that didn’t go the way you wanted or that didn’t leave you feeling fulfilled. And if you need to explore your feelings around the finale of Game of Thrones, permission granted.

I’d love to know what came up for you in these prompts. Please tell me about your warrior story and your thoughts about unsatisfying endings in the comment.

Learn more about the Sovereign Writers Circle Summer of Session.

We’re welcoming new writers to join us for June, July, and August when we most need the community, accountability, and structure to stay committed to the writing and the creative process.

Sovereignty In the Midst of the Chaos

I have been up since 4:15 am.

It wasn't because I've set an ambitious writing schedule or that I'm into sunrise meditation. No, I was escorting a five year old to the potty and then sharing my pillow with her. As is so often the way these day, she woke up with "a scary dream." And - happy spring - there's no chance she'll fall sleep once she hears the first bird announce the dawn.

And so here I am, utterly exhausted on another Monday. The details of my sleep deprivation story only differ only slightly from any other I've told over the last decade of motherhood.

But here's what's different: I am waking up today to tell a story of sovereignty.

In the past, my Monday story has often been about pushing through the exhaustion to be a nice enough mom, turn in decent work for clients, and try to serve something other than frozen pizza for dinner.

But this Monday, I realized I can do it differently. My responsibilities as a mama, partner, and entrepreneur look fairly similar from the outside, but there's a shift in me.

It's a shift toward stillness, toward sitting with what is rather than the way it "should be." In part, that's because I've developed a daily meditation habit (just not at sunrise!). In part, it's because I have spent enough time reading and writing about sovereignty that I have actually made it part of my life and way of being.

To be sovereign is to acknowledge reality with all of its disruptions and injustice, with all of its loss and inconsistencies, and to still remain rooted in who you are.

To be sovereign is to be able to respond to the day, not matter when it starts.

When you embody your own sovereignty you're going to have a very different experience than when you're in reactivity mode, lost in the details and tossed about by the craziness around you.

Today, I look like someone's tired mom, a weary woman making extra coffee and snarling about the noise and making it quite clear her patience is at a premium.

But I am also know myself to be the quiet, confident ruler of my own life who can find herself on the other side of a short, frustrating night. I know myself to be sovereign in this reality of mine, despite the chaos.

Because of the chaos.

What about you? What threw you off your rhythm last night and today? What practices help you root back into your own power and presence?

Perhaps you'd like to get to know your own sovereign self a bit better so you can handle the next round of chaos that life will inevitably throw your way. Join us for Your Sovereign Awakening, the program that inspires you to awaken your own magic, your own self-worth, and your own power.

We begin on Monday, May 13. Get the details here: 

Forget Your Deadlines, We're On Sovereign Time

Time.

It is what it is, right? Relentless and uncaring. Immutable and inevitable.

We can lose ourselves in time travel fantasies. (Who else is an Outlander fan?)

We can agree that time flies when you’re having fun and that it crawls when you’re stuck with a task that you dislike. 

But really, we just have twenty four hours in a day and the calendar pages will constantly flip and we’ll all be another year older when May 2 comes around once again.

And yet… Is this all there is? Could there be an alternative? What if we didn’t need to buy into the relentless progression of time and those killer deadlines we live (and die) by?

Our Life-and-Death (Mis)Understanding of Time

Funny that we’ve all signed on to honor our deadlines - especially since none of us were soldiers in the American Civil War.

What was a deadline exactly?  “A line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.”

The folks at Merriam Webster are certain of the 19th century bloody origins of “deadline,” but they’re pretty vague about how, over the next one hundred years, we collectively agreed that this term was about time management rather than inmate management. The dictionary doesn't say much about why we went on to co-opt this dire word to describe all sorts of mundane tasks either.

But then it makes perfect sense that “deadline” emerges from the language of war. We’re constantly in a battle with time, right?

Let's End Our Punishing Relationship With Time

Presumably, the men in those prison camps who were hellbent on survival would do everything they could to distance themselves from that line in the turf, but here we are, planning our lives around deadlines every damn day.  

Honestly, what is up with that?

There really is another way.

I recently rediscovered a French philosopher I studied in grad school named Julia Kristeva. She coined the term “Women’s Time.” It's a powerful, viable alternative to the relentless linear nature of time that rules our culture has completely capture my attention. In Kristeva's essay, Women's Time is about syncing ourselves to the cycles of nature and the sweep of eternity. 

I agree. And, for me, I take Women's Time further into being about creativity, flexibility, and giving ourselves permission to grow and connect in a way that's nurturing, not punishing. I want time to be about the moments we spend living, not a countdown for dying.

Let’s think about what it means to move according to Sovereign Time

These ideas are magical. And they're tricky too. We still want to live and serve in the real world, we still want to make commitments that count and be there to support those who need us. And yet we want the freedom to breathe and dream and let things unfold naturally. 

I'm dancing with all this. I'm weaving the contradictions into my book-in-progress, The Sovereignty Knot, every time I sit down to write.

And - here's what's even more exciting right now: these ideas about Women's Time and Sovereign Time are already influencing the way that I work, coach, and teach.

Last month, I conceived and launched a brand new program based on my forthcoming book. I did it in record time because it just seemed right. (At the time.)

But then I realized that my rush to plan and promote and launch wasn’t necessarily divinely inspired. Instead, it was inspired by the stuff of deadlines and chronic overcommitment.

The good news? I didn’t need to cancel the whole thing and call it a huge, embarrassing mistake. Instead, I just needed to pause and breathe and give the project and the people who are excited to join it a little bit of space.

I’ve given us all the gift of time. I’ve pushed the start date for Your Sovereign Awakening back to May 13.

Why did I make the change? Because Women's Time. Because Sovereign Time. Because the "deadline" I set was too tight both for me and for the women who needed to work out childcare and move evening meetings to be there. Because we don't have to always live and die according the calendar. Because it's ok to be vulnerable and admit the initial timing wasn't right.

You Still Have Time to Join Your Sovereign Awakening

The program empowers you to free the princess, crown the queen, embrace the wise woman, and establish a totally new relationship with time. We'll meet on five Monday evenings from 7 - 9 PM beginning May 13. 

Can you shape your time and your schedule and be there with us?