Hi friend,
How is your February going?
I’ve been doing some soul-searching in regards to my work lately. As someone who thinks and talks about boundaries often, it’s been interesting to observe how quickly and easily I say yes to things and I’m slowly learning how to say no to projects that don’t light me up. This is not always easy. Those of you who work as solo entrepreneurs know that there is nothing more scary, time-consuming, frustrating, liberating and exhilarating. The both/and feelings are so real. It never ceases to amaze me how running a business is essentially an excuse to work on yourself and that process inevitably brings up moments of scarcity and lack. There is not right answer to how to balance your time, create offerings, make money and connect to your audience.
One of the things that I’ve been hearing from my clients lately is that they want to work less. They would rather turn their attention to the things that feel sustaining rather than depleting. This resonates with me deeply. Perhaps because I’m ensconced in midlife, I find myself less invested in my good-girl conditioning and my deep desire to please. This work is on-going and I don’t always get it right, but I’m learning to tune in to what my mind, body, heart and spirit are telling me in ways that I never have before. This often means trusting my intuition and tuning out all the noise around me telling me what I “should” be doing. Lately my intuition has been telling me that I need to find community because working alone can be isolating. While I rarely miss the monotony and obligations that came with my 9-5 office job, I do miss being able to bounce ideas off a colleague and those moments of chit-chat, so I’m trying to figure out how to bring some of that back into my day-to-day. I’m also looking trying to figure out how to scale my business in a way that is gentle and sustainable. It’s not lost on me that these are all nice problems to have and I feel lucky to be in a place professionally where I can contemplate the future.
I love this quote from Victoria Erickson which I find encapsulates the work that we’re all called to do : “If you inherently long for something, become it first. If you want gardens, become the gardener. If you want love, embody love. If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation. If you want peace, exude calmness. If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint. If you want to be valued, respect your own time. If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself. This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch.”
I’d love to hear from you, how are you embodying what you’re called to create these days?
All my love,
Vesna
The love list:
Watching: Rick Rubin on how to stop overthinking
Reading: This essay in the New Yorker about imposter syndrome
Listening: Bad Bunny Un Verano Sin Ti