My Recipe for Getting Started on a Magnificent Creative Project

I have a Magnificent Project in the works. This project is big and demands my devotion and commitment. I started six weeks ago, and know that this will take me the rest of the year to complete.

It will shape my days and weeks through its demands and requirements. But I also know that it will return buckets of expansion, delight and satisfaction in exchange for my dedication to it.

Because of this project, I’ve been asking around to see how many other people have an Inspired Idea or Magnificent Project. Sadly, way too many say something like this, “Yes, but I don’t have time for it right now.” Or, “I don’t know how to get started. Maybe when I retire, or when the kids leave home, I’ll do my thing.”

This makes me sad. Yes, my Magnificent Project is taking some doing, but it’s already enriching my life in ways I never would have imagined. I believe the world, especially now, needs more of us engaged in things that thrill, delight and excite us. I believe that personal projects like this (unique to you, of course!) is part of what will heal the global stress epidemic.

I thought it might be helpful if I shared my recipe for getting started — just in case your own Inspired Idea has been flapping in circles around your head just waiting for you to embark on something similarly spectacular.

My Recipe for Starting a Magnificent Creative Project.

Ingredients

• 1 Inspired Idea

• Conscious Time in the Schedule

• 2 parts Awareness

• 4 parts Awe

• 5 parts Trust

• Daily Practice

• 1 Stupendous Coach (or Mentorship Group)

• Good snacks

• A place for lovely walks

• 1 Box of Nervous System Nourishment

• Time for a System Check In

Method

1. Allow for 1 Inspired Idea to land. This is your seedling.

2. Shake your schedule, just a little. Make space for this project. Even if it’s only 10 or 15 minutes a day. This is your pot.

3. Mix 2 parts Awareness, 4 parts Awe and 5 parts Trust. This is your soil

4. Water your seedling through your daily practice.

5. Hire a stupendous coach, or find a mentorship group, to guide you and keep you from setting off in the wrong direction, wasting your energy, or falling into any pitfalls of procrastination or despair. You will want a coach or mentor, especially if you have never before undertaken a project like this. Your coach holds the fertiliser you need to grow robustly strong and healthy.

6. Make a good snack drawer. Have this on hand for when the going gets rough or the body gets hungry.

7. Know where you will go for lovely walks to stretch your mind, loosen your body and set your imagination free.

8. Fill a box with lots of different nervous system nourishment. Use something from it every day. Stepping into the Land of Never Before (which you always do when you do something you have never before done!) will stretch your system. You want to be able to hold that stretch with ease by feeding your nervous system as regularly as you do your Inspired Idea.

9. Shake up your schedule again. Make time for a regular system check in. At the moment, I’m doing this weekly. Eventually, I think this will happen monthly.

   This is what I ask myself during a check in: What’s working? What’s not? Do I need a different time of day to work on my project? Do I need more walks or more snacks? Or more sleep? How about the admin? After a few weeks of creation, is my workspace getting a bit messy? Do I need to stop for an hour to organise everything so that it all has a home? I don’t want to worry about where to put things, or how to find the thing I created last Saturday.

Progress Update

For the most part, things have been moving along. Yes, as with everything human, some days are smoother than others. Some feel very flow-y. Others like sludge. But I’m making progress and am more excited than ever to share this creation with you, once it starts to take shape.

I won’t tell you exactly what my project is until after this initial gestation period. For right now, I think it’s important that I honour some quiet time for just My Idea and me. Eventually, I’ll let in the rest of the world. But not just yet.

I triggered a systems check this morning. I found I needed to spend an hour on admin and organisation. I’m creating this Magnificent Thing in various ways and through various mediums. I have a couple of journals, and my laptop. I have lists and photographs and sticky notes. Things were starting to feel like a very messy war room with one too many flow charts. As my project grows, it needs more support and structure. I gave it that this morning.

And now, I get to return to the creating, set free by my new system, supported and fertilised by my coach, and even more deeply rooted in awe, trust and inspiration.

This is as much of a recipe as I have now. I’m sure I’ll be updating it as the year goes on.

I wish you much happy creating.

COME WITH ME TO WINDSOR

Have you ever been to Windsor? Have you ever spent time in the Great park, walking the paths across the fields? Or stood under the canopy of the great ancient oaks?

Today, I thought I wanted to write to you about something serious, like the power of presence, or dispelling shared loneliness, or stress and its impact on leadership.

But as my fingers move over the keyboard, I find that I simply want to bring you here — to the fields that I have walked for 19 years. I want to give you a little bit of what these acres regularly give to me.

I think of you reading this from your desk in one of the big cities, wishing for less concrete, more green, and a slightly less soggy sandwich. Or maybe you sit with tea, in your home, in a small town with a romantic-sounding name, like Beacon, or Aurora. Or perhaps — as my imagination gallops off with itself — you live in a villa, with a view of the sand dunes of the Sahara, or on the edge of a rainforest in Thailand, near the elephants.

No matter where you live, the news, today, is full of war, and bombs, and sunken ships. There is a serrated edge to the alertness in the atmosphere. Sleep is being disturbed. Even in the rainforest, and in Aurora.

Please, then, come with me to Windsor.

This week, little by little, the thick-woven winter’s grey is being drawn back from the fields. There is an expanse of blue that feels bigger, and wider, and clearer than I remember. Perhaps, simply, because we haven’t seen it much in the last several months. The birds determinedly try to pull everyone’s gaze upward with their delighted swooping, as they search for bits and twigs to build this year’s homestead.

I know that it’s important to write about peace and presence, and how to connect with your own authentic leadership.

Those will be topics for another time.

Today, you get to be here with me. With the ancient oaks, who have been standing in these fields for 500 - 1000 years. They have been through all of it — the wars and the peace treaties; the astounding discoveries, the miracles and the most radical of human mistakes.

I would love for you to feel held by the majesty and strength of these oaks. Each of them is unique with their branches patterns, like fingerprints.

This is your invitation to place your hand on the thick, buckled bark of the oak that calls to you.

Close your eyes. Raise your face to the sunshine. Fill your ears with the birds. Let the oaks welcome you, even as your feet sink slightly in the soft, muddy earth.

I want you to be delighted to discover two, chocolate-brown mushrooms in the grass at your feet. I would like for you to see the way the Spring-strengthened sunlight is caught, and split, into streaming beams by the winter-bare branches.

Feel the slowing down. In your breath. In your cells.

This morning, the fog was so thick, it made the world a smaller place. Once the sun rose, the smallness disappeared into a clearness that calls the bees to the blossoms in the hedgerows.

Ask what you need most as you unplug. From all of it.

There will be an answer, if you listen.

Return to yourself. Move from your head to your heart.

You have time before you need to pick up the next thing in your day.

You are, for now, in a place protected.

Feel what the oaks feel. You are safe.

This is a place where the double rainbows choose to shine.

Beaver Dams, Tadpoles and Stress

When I was ten, my class went on a field trip to a beaver dam. I remember all I wanted to see was the beavers. Instead I found myself staring at a jumbled pile of trees, twigs and mud and a pond behind it. Those beavers were smart enough to high-tailed it into hiding as soon as they heard the excited sound of twenty-eight chattering children.

In compensation for the lack of wildlife presence, my teacher equipped us with little nets and jars to gather the frog spawn clumped along the edges of the pond created by the beavers. Over the next few weeks, we hatched this spawn into tadpoles which, I believe (I hope!) my teacher liberated back into the wild to grow happily into frogs.

On that day I saw what beavers can do to a creek.

It’s much like what stress does to us.

In the beginning, a creek flows unimpeded, making its way from source to sea. The water winds its way along the stream bed, sometimes bumping up against a fallen tree, or over a large rock. But ultimately, the water moves, glinting and glimmering to its far away destination.

We are like the creek, flowing in our bodies, thoughts, feelings and creations.

Our lives are meant to be like watery currents, meeting obstacles,

yet moving around them with ease.

When the beavers choose a prime piece of real estate for their new home, everything changes quickly. It takes only a few days to a few weeks for the dam to be constructed. In the beginning, the initial debris impacts the flow of water, but doesn’t stop it. If the wood were to be removed at this juncture, the creek would resume its former path.

Eventually as the beavers build up the mud, wattle and wood, the creek’s flow diminishes. The water begins to build up on itself, creating a backwash of motion. This swirls in eddies and whirlpools.

On the outside, it looks and feels like the creek is motion. But the water goes nowhere. It is only looping back on itself. Eventually, the water rises, the flow slows, the energy stills and it becomes stagnant. The stream is now a pond, or a wetland. The ecosystem and habitat change from what it once was.

This is much like us in stress.

In stress, we contract: in our body, our fascia tightens to activate our force output. This is the force, we need to survive the enemy. We might fight, make a speedy escape or stay frozen in the face of danger. To survive, we also contract in our mind. Our thoughts and ideas narrow to keep us on track, on target and alive. This narrowing means we see the world, and the options available to us in a certain way.

We become like the water, believing we are in motion, but actually only swirling and looping back on ourselves. We work hard but end up experiencing the same results, no matter how much we try. Eventually, we find ourselves well and truly stuck.

We stagnate in our living without the movement and flow

needed to go in the direction of our dreams.

At first, it seems the obvious solution is to simply remove the dam. It might take humans twelve hours to deconstruct a beaver dam. The beavers will rebuild it in only a couple hours.

Like stress in our lives, the problem isn’t the dam. It’s how we relate to ourselves and the dam. When you know how to work with the beavers, more life becomes more possible.

Here are just a few cool eco-facts:

• Beaver dams help to trap silt and improve the quality of the water.

• Dams create wetlands. The wetlands create more biodiversity.

• Frogs prefer ponds for breeding and their tadpoles are a bit of nature’s magic.

• Tadpoles are able to adapt their metamorphosis timeline based on the food and living conditions in the pond. They can stay tadpoles longer, if they want.

• Like starfish, tadpoles can regrow lost limbs.

• Even in their not-quite frog larvae states, tadpoles have the ability to communicate with each other. (Apparently, the first known example of underwater larvae using sound for communication.)

So from stagnation, there is movement again.

The flow happens in a different way, through live force vitality and interspecies thriving.

Just as we, with the right support, practices and understanding, can transform how we move with and through ongoing stress in our lives.

One Absolutely Ridiculous Belief We Tolerate Everyday

I’m really rather cross right now. My annoyance only grows as I type. So please, forgive my directness.

Since when did we get OK living stressed?

And since when did we fall so deeply into lethargy that we accept there is no way out? Of the anxiety? Or the pressure? Or the constant overwhelm of being too busy that leads to exhaustion?

How did we come to believe that in order to be successful as an entrepreneur, a leader and a parent, we HAVE to live in a way that costs us?

Where we constantly strive and push ourselves beyond what feels good in our bodies? To live in a way that doesn’t actually fulfil us but only deepens our stress?

I’ve spoken before about the high tax we pay through our health, our relationships, our peace and our enjoyment of life itself.

I think, part of my crossness comes from the fact that, just like you, I spent more than three decades paying this tax.

Today, I know it doesn’t have to be this way. I very much would like to make sure you don’t have to pay as high a price as I have done in my life.

Let me slow this down and explain where this is coming from.

Yesterday, I attended my monthly women’s networking meeting. The room was full of women who have courage, talent and who have built successful careers and businesses while loving their families.

During the meeting, one of the women said, “Stress is just such a big part of normal life.” Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.

That was when my crossness began. I’ve only become more and more ornery ever since.

Yesterday, I felt like picking up my laptop and shaking it in the same way I shake a snow globe to get the flakes moving around.

Except I didn’t want to shake snow into a scene. I wanted to shake away the lethargy and acceptance surrounding that statement.

Yesterday, I stayed polite. I didn’t nod. But I also didn’t protest. I’m doing that now.

Let’s break this down for you in your life. I invite you to sit with each of these questions:

Here is the statement again: “Stress is just such a big part of normal life.”

Do you agree?

Have you built your life on this belief?

Do you parent from this perspective?

Do you run your business/career in constant or nearly constant stress?

Do you accept stress as just the way things are?

Do you pay the price of stress in your body? Your life? Your relationships? Your peace and happiness?

Are you OK with this?

Yes, it’s true, modern living will create stress. We carry stress-making devices in our pockets that beep all day long. Instead of living in a way that naturally dissolves stress, we have evolved our habits into ways of being that produce stress. Our systems can’t keep up with the automatic daily download. And that’s before the big life events of birth, death, and significant challenge and change.

Stress may very well be a fact of life for so many people. But you don’t have to accept it as normal.

For a moment, I imagine you standing in front of me. I picture my hands on your shoulders as I ask, “Is this really how you want to live?”

Even before you speak, I know I’ll see your answer written clearly in your eyes. I know that deep down, you believe life is worth more than living stressed.

I also imagine that you don’t believe you have the time or resources to change your life. (Not just manage it. Truly transform it!)

But that’s why I do what I do. With all of my clients.

And then, I imagine giving you a hug — one of the ten-second-long ones — because those are the hugs that have half a chance of breaking through our fight-flight defences to lower our levels of stress and anxiety.

When you no longer want to stress to be a normal part of your life, you know where I am.

And I have two 12-month private mentorship spaces currently available. Let’s talk.

I am in love with the Oaks

This year, I have fallen in love.

Not with a man. But with the trees. More specifically, I have fallen in love with the ancient and veteran oaks that live in large numbers, in the Windsor Great Park, near my home.

As I write, I feel some of you rolling your eyes at this idea of being in love with the trees. At one time, I might have done the same.

After all, how can you compare loving a tree with loving a human, especially one that stands by you through the significant challenges and joys of life? With a human, you can share conversation and common experiences. You can raise children together, or travel to exotic places. You can build a home or sit by each other’s sides when needed. You can put your arms around each other. Or hold hands as you walk along a beach.

None of this is possible with a tree. At least in the way humans do things.

I know that thus far in my life, I have been less than successful in my attempts to create a partnership, or marriage.

But just as I know that I have fallen in love with the oaks, I also understand WHY I have failed in human love. (Except, of course, for my daughter. She has a huge piece of my heart and always will.)

Over the years, as I learned more about the nervous system and the effects of chronic stress, I came to understand that we cannot love fully, completely and open-heartedly when we are chronically stressed. As much as I wanted loving partnerships in my life, I lived 30+ years chronically stressed, fighting against life, and love.

Stress is where we go when something inside us believes there is something to fear. Stress is where we go when our brains believe that some part of our current life is unsafe. When we are unsafe, we feel fear. The opposite of love is fear. I have lived the opposite of love for so long.

Living the opposite of love literally shapes us and our hearts. When we fear, our hearts shut down and retreat. They hide away in the fortification of the ribcage, blanketed deep within the lungs. Our fear shapes us so that we lead from our heads, not our hearts.

Over the last many years, I did the work that I call Moving Well. (The work that I offer to my clients.) The more I did the work, the more I eased myself out of my own perpetually stressed existence. I moved into a way of living that felt more peaceful, joyful and present.

As I shed my patterns, my heart moved out of its hiding place. It took up residence front and centre, just behind the top of my breastbone. Slowly, I learned to stand available in life. I learned to lead myself from my open and vulnerable heart — safe enough within myself not to need the old defences.

For many years, as I walked in the fields, the oak trees have been sentinels for my living. Now that my heart is free, they have come to claim it.

I find myself enchanted by these trees and all that they offer and represent. I am learning tree facts and fables. I am spending time with individual oaks — Getting to know them as friends and listening to the wisdom they have to share. For they do have wisdom. And they do want to share it.

So this Valentine’s day, I am in love.

It is a love that won’t be offended if I don’t bring roses, or prepare a meal.

Instead, all it wants is for me to offer my presence and time.

How lucky am I?

The How Are You Distinction Story

Welcome to the How Are You distinction.

I invite you to listen to this as if this is you and your life. See what reveals itself to you in this story.

And at the end, I’ll also share The MOST powerful way to answer this question any time, any where…no matter what is going on in your life.

How many times a day do you ask or answer the question how are you? I’m sure it’s a lot.

We open conversations with “How are you?”. We use it in lieu of “Hello”. We get asked it and we ask it back. Over, and over, and over.

The one thing I know for sure is this:

How I’m able to answer “How are You?” is hugely dependant on my stress levels.

My answer is based on my nervous system’s capacity to navigate what’s present and real for me in the moment.

I remember when I was working 80 hours a week in technology. My standard response to “How Are You?” always was some variation of “I’m so busy. It’s crazy this week!”

My stress was literally my response. (And because EVERYONE was stressed, this was the expected and acceptable answer.)

I remember in the early stress-filled years after my daughter was diagnosed. My answer to this question would always reflect something medical and the strain of being in the situation, as well as the huge energy and effort that I was pouring into the fight to re-establish wellbeing in her.

My answer always leaked my feelings all over the other person.

After my father passed, I remember the micro-seconds after that question was floated toward me. I was always tempted to hide the fact that I was walking through a grief portal by saying that I was great or even just fine — all in an effort to not make the other person uncomfortable.

For a millisecond, it seemed right to keep both of us safe instead of honouring and standing in my truth that I was indeed, walking through a period of grief.

Then, there were in those moments when my life or my business seemed to be crumbling around me. I remember the urge to paint on a smile and throw out a falsely optimistic response to prove something about how strong, or skilled, or capable I was.

Here’s the thing.

Answering from stress only adds to stress.

It doesn’t matter if you’re leaking your feelings, or trying to create safety, or a false sense of capability, each of these answers are beacons to the brain that only deepen the signal that “No, you’re Not Safe.”

As a result, your unconscious brain will alway trigger your fight-flight-freeze-collapse response, as it does in times of danger or perceived danger.

By answering from stress, you will be eroding your ability to create genuine connection with the person asking, and adding to the weight you carry in your nervous system.

So how DO you answer “How Are You?” Powerfully, honestly and in a way that doesn’t add to your stress?

Simple.

You stay present.

You answer from the present.

Here’s the other thing we know.

When you are feeling stressed, you’re operating from the past, or an assumed future. Things weren’t OK back then, or they are not going to be ok in the future. Thus your stress defences go up.

The more appropriately present you can be, the more you open a window for your nervous system to be accurately in the moment.

The most powerful answer:

How am I?

Right now, in this moment, I’m so pleased to see you. How are you??

Dissolving Stress: The 3-Sided Commitment You don’t Know How to Make.

I talk to people about stress. Everyday.

I think about stress and how it forcefully shapes our lives.

I’m always learning about how stress restricts us on all levels of our humanity. I study how to work with our body, mind, emotions and energy to increase our capacity to hold stress and have more resiliency as we navigate it.

I create, and share, accessible trainings and practices that reduce the toll stress exacts on my life — and the lives of those in my spaces.

So believe me when I say: Stress is costing you and me.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Stress comes with a cost. A huge one.

And most of us are paying the price of chronic stress — whether we know it or not.

(Yes, I’ve met many people who are deeply stressed but unaware of it. Perhaps this is the topic for another day.)

• There’s the toll it takes on our current and long term health & wellbeing.

• There’s the destruction it brings to our relationships. (40-50% of marriages end in divorce or separation in the US & UK.)

• And there’s the impact it has on our business success. (Yes, it is possible to build businesses out of stress, overwork, overwhelm and ‘push energy’, but eventually these foundations will crumble.)

We pay the stress tax with the currency of our joy, connection, freedom and longevity.

We can’t go over, around or under stress. Only through it. Learning how to do this will change your life.

Life is stressful.

Unless you can retreat to a private oasis, in the wilderness, to live off-grid, with an abundance of resources, and a community around you, you are going to have to walk through stress too.

There are two ways you can move.

You can go through stress, stressed and stuck.

Or you can move through stress without being pulled off-kilter.

In order to move successfully from stuckness to Moving Well, it takes a 3-part commitment. One that most of us don’t know we need to make.

The components of this commitment are: Money, Time and Energy.

And the catch-22 is that the very thing we are committing to change is the thing that will sabotage us.

This catch-22 shows up as procrastination, hesitation and a failure to launch (even though, deep within, we feel the call to take this step.)

Let’s explore how and why this happens.

The 3-way commitment we don’t know to make.

Money.

We’re used to spending it to fix our problems. The roof is leaking. We call the roofer. The car is broken. We buy another. Or pay someone to fix it.

In a way. This is easy. Because we’re used to spending.

Except that, if our intention is to create a significant structural change in how we move through stress that transforms its impact on us, we’re not talking about spending.

We’re talking about investing. Investing in ourselves. In our lives. In our businesses. In our joy, happiness & freedom.

The hurdle for some —especially when we’ve been chronically stressed — is that we don’t believe we deserve to invest in ourselves.

We put everyone else first. We put us last.

And actually, the most loving thing we can do for ourselves, and those we love and serve, is to invest in us. With intention. With commitment and with the deep knowing that this investment will have a cascade effect on ourselves and everyone in our life.

The barrier is not a money issue. It’s a self worth issue. See this for what it is. Reclaim your self worth. Invest in you.

Time

This piece of the commitment is a little more challenging. We are so used to living time-poor in a state of overwhelm. We see this as an incontrovertible fact of life.

When actually, time-lack is merely a symptom of our chronic stress.

Stress creates us as feeling busy, without enough time in the present.

This activates us into constant motion. As a fast moving object we are safer than being a sitting-duck.

We constantly reinforce this busy-ness with the words we toss around.

“It’s my busy season.” “I’m so busy.”

Then we future-cast that even if I invest in me, I won’t have the time to use the resource I’ve purchased. We believe won’t have time in the future.

However, time is not the issue here. Your commitment is.

Either you’ve over-committed and taken on a marathon when a 2-mile run would be more beneficial. (Also a symptom of stress!)

Or you’ve failed to commit some of your time with the financial investment you’re making in you.

(This is the reason I make all practices and trainings in my Taster space less than 10 minutes. Easy. Bite-sized. Doable.)

Time is a resource, as is your money. We all have the same amount of time to spend each week. How you spend it is up to you.

So committing to invest your time in you is also essential.

Even while recognising that your chronic stress pattern will do everything it can to convince you that There’s Not Enough time to go around.

And finally, Energy.

By this I mean, how you do the thing that you do. How you approach it. This comes down to your identity.

It’s what moves you from the “Have to” to the “Get to” state.

I have to make dinner. I get to make dinner.

Same act. Different energy. Different presence.

Being in the “have to” energy fosters reluctance leading to stuckness. (Yes, a part of stress!)

Being in the “get to” energy engenders enthusiasm leading to flow. (Not stress!)

So the barrier is not an issue with the thing - the training or the practice. It’s an identity issue.

Who you are choosing to be as you do the thing. Claiming the identity of enthusiasm will support how you move.

Now for The Catch 22

Your stress patterns are there to keep you safe in midst of stress. They will make you hesitate.

And firmly believe that you don’t have enough money, time or energy to do the very thing that will dissolve them.

After all, there is a part of your unconscious brain that is setting you up to fail in your commitment to change your stress.

You’ve been chronically stressed for so long that your very being associates your stressed state as the safest, most familiar place to be.

Consciously, you want to make the shift.

Unconsciously, you don’t.

Thus the stuckness.

So how do you move?

Like this.

1. Ask the question: Am I done living like this? Constantly in fight/flight/freeze, collapsing at the end of the day into something —anything!— that will make me feel better. It might be Netflix. Or alcohol. Or scrolling. Or gambling. Or running a marathon (Years ago, that was mine, by the way!) or…the list goes on. Am I done paying the cost of stress in how I live, lead and love?

1. If the answer is “no”keep living in stress. If the answer is “yes,” notice the hesitation and all the ways the pattern of There’s Not Enough appears in your thoughts. Notice you’ll want to continue to try to solve this yourself. But since you’ve just identified that you, yourself, are conflicted between your conscious (I want to (this is your inner knowing guiding you)) and your unconscious (I don’t want to (this is the stress talking)), find yourself a coach, a mentor, a program, a membership. Find yourself a resource that will support you, give you a gentle structure and help you get to where you want to go faster.

As an aside, I spent nearly 2 decades trying to get somewhere on my own. This is why, today, I invest in a coach who holds a safe space and reflects my hidden patterns back to me, even as I do the same in my spaces. This is how you actually create transformation and motion forward.

1. Notice when you waver and fall into procrastination. Because in the beginning you will. There are several places along the 3-stage journey my clients take where I know they will want to quit. Again, this procrastination isn’t them. It’s their unconscious operating from stress.

1. Once you have this awareness. Recommit. Re-promise your time, energy and money to yourself as an investment in you, your life, your loved ones and your business. In essence, recommit based on your “why.”

1. Return to the work. To the practice and teachings that your coach, mentor, guide offers to you. And repeat. Again and again. One small, gentle step at a time.

Because life is too short to live it stressed.

And you don’t deserve to live in contraction, paying tax on stress with your joy, your peace or your happiness.

How Procrastination Becomes an Identity — and How to Pivot the Game

I’m really good at procrastinating. Perhaps you are too? I majored in it at university. And I’ve used it ever since

How Procrastination became my Go-To

Once, in my freshman year, I decided I was done with procrastination stress. I decided to write my essay a week before it was due.

After all, I would gladly ditch the caffeine-fuelled all-nighter. There would be no more bleary, handwritten sentences. Who needed the pressure of tapping them into the typewriter, rushing to beat the deadline of my 8am class, as dawn crept in? (It was always an 8am class!)

As an English major, I had a lot of essays to write. In those days, we typed, double-spaced, on manual typewriters. We stocked up on spare typewriter ribbons and little jars of white-out to cover our mistakes.

Our pages were stapled together in the upper righthand corner, and each essay had its own heft.

Our words had actual weight.It made no difference if we were erudite or nonsensical. We published every page and then we handed them in.

For a week, I thought I had Procrastination beat. I was smugly proud.

However, that ended when my professor (whose name I no longer remember) handed my essay back to me. Instead of the A I expected, my paper boasted a D. In scrawling red letters, it said, “Do better!”

From that day, I stopped trying to get work done early. I allowed my Procrastination to gallop freely over the weeks of each semester. I tackled each assignment at the very last minute.

The stress and pressure of a deadline released my words in a cascade of adrenaline-fuelled analysis that hung together and made sense. Procrastination pressure earned me straight A’s.

Procrastination Galloped Freely through the Decades

I learned that to procrastinate was safe and very effective. Over the decades, I deployed this technique like a pro: Zipping my suitcase as the taxi rounded the corner of my street. Submitting my taxes on the last possible day. Making excuses for posting on social media. Putting off that difficult conversation. Creating presentations on the night before the big business meeting. Never mind the jet lag, or my slightly red eyes, as I attempted to speak persuasively and lead compellingly.

The urge to procrastinate was firmly embedded in my cells. It was my defence against anything I needed to get done. I believed that it actually made me more productive and more effective. What I failed to realise at the time, was that my under-performing essay may have been lacklustre, not because I wrote it days in advance, but because I just didn’t grasp the concepts in that particular literary masterpiece.

Running from Shame and Not Good Enough

That one experience slotted itself into my identity and impacted me most of my life. Every time, I put something off to the following day, I was running from the shame of that failed essay. From the fear of being Not Good Enough.

In reality, I was creating my life, my work and my relationships from stress, out of stress.

This gave me a forced focus but limited the possibilities I could see. It shut down my ability to own my own self worth. It changed my energy. It pigeon-holed my leadership style. And, worst of all, it was costing me my wellbeing (I once stress-worked myself into 3 weeks of doctor-prescribed bed rest.)

There is another way.

Even for the most practiced of us Procrastinators.

It’s possible to create from ease.

It’s possible to work with your nervous system patterns and step into a new identity

It looks something like this:

1. See my friend as she comes up the drive: Ah look! It’s Procrastination coming to pay me a visit wearing a purple dress and some enviable boots!

2. Greet her politely: Hello old friend. You think you’re needed. Thank you for showing up. But all is well today. I am safe. Thanks; but move along.

3. Offer myself snacks: I know that Procrastination is birthed by my nervous system pulling a pattern from my past to make sure that I’m safe. It’s through small movement snacks or regular sensory snacks, that I can communicate present-moment safety to my innermost being.

4. Stay out of push. Claim and reclaim the identity of ease: Procrastination is no longer who I am. The stress of it is unnecessary. I no longer play in that sandbox. Through I might feel the old urge to Put Off Until Tomorrow, I do something…even if it’s a little thing toward my task. Then, I have another snack. This tiny ping pong game works surprisingly well to pivot Procrastination on her back foot and send her down the drive to elsewhere.

5. Over time, I notice that the frequency of Procrastination’s visits have diminished. I’m shifting the pattern, slowly, gently and permanently.

I know that, when life gets full or the stakes seem high, I may have to dance and pivot with Procrastination again.

This doesn’t mean I’ve lost.

The biggest shift is that I will see her coming and I know her for who she is. I understand her quirks and foibles.

But from here forward, I will be able to be a gracious host to her cousin, Easeful Creative Productivity.

Why Sharing Your Voice Feels So Hard (and What to Do About It)

Moving through self-doubt, perfectionism, and the fear of being seen.

For most of this year, I toyed with the idea of publishing on Substack.

The thought would float through my mind in odd moments — during a windy walk, when soaking in the bath. And even once, while in midst of food shopping.

Why? I craved the opportunity to share my voice, and my work, somewhere that didn’t foster the endless social media scroll.

I already had a daily writing habit. (I write and create myself daily each morning.) But each time the thought appeared, I hesitated.

Two weeks ago, a good friend gave me a bit of a shove. “You need to host a podcast,” she said. “Your voice is powerful and healing. Your work is unique. Stop dithering!”

With this, I committed: I would be on Substack. And, I would publish at least once weekly.

For a few moments, I felt the thrill of my decision. I was stepping into new territory!

A new way of being. This was going to be fun!

But then, it began. My very own inner revolution, rising to the hectic beat of a very foreboding drum.

First came the Need for More Information.

After all, how does Substack authorship work? What’s the best time to post? Are there things I should be doing besides curating thoughts and ideas for you?? Should I illustrate my posts? Or provide video? Or…Or…??? Should I offer content for free? Or offer a subscription? How do you do this? And what would I put where?

Then Self Doubt tiptoed in.

What if life gets busy, as it often does? Especially this time of year? What if I start and can’t maintain this commitment because I don’t have time? What if I can’t do this AND take care of all the other Important Things in my life. Like, getting my taxes done. (My taxes are already complete, in case you’re wondering.) Won’t I look foolish?

Stomping behind, taller and bigger than everyone else, was Fear.

Fear strode into my brain space and snorted mockingly, Ha! Who are you to provide meaningful content for anyone, week after week? You’re not a Published Author. Your writing process is often clunky at the best of times. Creating a good newsletter is a slow process. It takes time and skill and wisdom. Everyone says this is hard. And it takes a long time to build a community of subscribers. You’re just wasting your energy and effort for nothing. Besides, you’re not good enough anyway.

Suddenly, my very exciting, sparkly, new intention was starting to look a little bit jaded and faded.

My glorious commitment no longer felt glorious in the face of Not Enough Information, Doubt and Fear.

It was only 10am. I had the sudden urge to make myself a hot chocolate. It seemed a much better idea to curl up on the sofa under a blanket with my mug and a good film while ignoring the world for a while.

After all, no one knows I committed to launching something new.

And then, The Most Dangerous Thought of All:

There’s no need to tell anyone. Nobody knows but me. It’ll be alright.

And right there, what started as a cascade of limiting beliefs became an eroding tidal wave. My stress-based hormone rush attacked my self confidence, making it even less likely that I would ever step onto Substack, much less author my first book in 2026.

All of this because my unconscious brain told me that writing on Substack MIGHT not be safe. Promising you that I would show up regularly DEFINITELY wouldn’t be safe.

These risky thoughts birthed the entire family of Core Limiting Beliefs. I’m not safe, There’s Not Enough and I’m Not Good Enough were gathered at my dining table waiting for me to serve the hot chocolate.

These demons dissolved my brilliant commitment to move my energy and my voice to a platform that is less invasive and more supportive for you, Dear Reader.

I began with the intention of offering something that is of MORE value. And I’ve ended up on my knees in a cold, mud puddle, feeling deflated and useless.

And so it always goes.

The perfect recipe for procrastination and avoidance:

• One inspirational thought.

• A little dash of daring to be new.

• A sudden landing in limitation and fear.

• The over-riding desire to retreat into lethargy and fatigue.

• And a whirlpool of: It’s all too much. I don’t have time. More study is needed. More something needed. Because, let’s face it, I’m not good enough.

Except. NONE OF THIS WAS TRUE.

It was just my unconscious brain keeping me safe. My nervous system, deep in stress, spawning old thoughts and emotions that perpetually make me move in limited ways.

I know you’ve experienced this too.

• Maybe you also want to get your voice out into the world in a new way.

• Or maybe you want to improve your health, diet or fitness.

• Or maybe you want to grow your business, or speak on stages.

• Or start a relationship, or move house.

Whatever your dream is.

If it’s outside the realm of where you are today, you can be sure your very own family of Limiting Beliefs will be waiting eagerly in the wings.

What’s to be done?

I know that neither Netflix, nor endless information seeking, will support me with my sparkly intention and commitment.

It’s tempting to think that it’s possible to think my way through the stuckness. Or to action my way through (Just do it doesn’t really do it!)

Pushing through the fear doesn’t work. Not long term.

The only effective way to create permanent transformation is more foundational than that.

It requires deep nervous system healing married with identity and mindset work.

1. I work with my brain and body to support my nervous system. I heal my historical stress patterns and learn how to meet day to day stress events without getting stuck.

2. Then I claim the identity that I need in order to be who I am becoming.

My body is the fastest, least-defended way into my unconscious and nervous system work. (This is part of the work that I share with my community.)

So, I build a lifestyle and a daily practice that supports my nervous system regulation and capacity to hold things that feel just a little bit scary. (Like stepping into something new.)

Only from this regulated place can I claim the identity of being a brilliant and compelling author with a vibrant and valuable Substack community.

(And no, contrary to popular belief, lying to yourself with affirmations won’t cut it either. It will only irritate your nervous system and create more issues in the future.)

From the outside, the moves I make have nothing to do with authoring a newsletter for Substack. Feeling my feet on the Earth or sensing my ribcage look completely unrelated to writing.

But from the inside they have everything to do with writing. Because this makes it safer for me to write. And to hit that publish button.

Which is exactly what I did.

This is Moving Well.

I’m off to do my sensing practice again.

See you in a few days for the next post.