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The Courage of a Different Conversation

 

This past week, six of my co-workers, each a courageous and awesome woman in her own right, stepped in with me to co-create an exploration that breathes life into print, that shifts my creation from energy to physical existence.  A pathway to connect, engage, evolve … for to have a different conversation with others,  we must first and always have it with ourselves.

Turning the lens inward can be shocking and confusing after decades of training to look upward and elsewhere for help and answers, separate from ourselves. Guided by divinity, trust and openness to the Mystery of it all we spent about 40 hours together over two nights, immersing in process and content and our own good company that will continue to percolate over the coming days and weeks.

The magic for me had begun a year or so before.  A passing comment about ‘just a conversation‘ grated against a whole lot of things I hold to be true. How dare they!  As a writer and CODE Model Coach™ I live and witness daily how conversations connect us, expand us,  bear witness for our own evolution and hold space for the evolution of those around us. As a Roman Catholic and diocesan communicator, I experienced the potential of transformation from the past three years of Synod conversations invited by Pope Francis in communities worldwide. ‘Just a conversation‘ ? When the fiery wall of indignation moved through and my body settled, I could see the person had a point. The conversations in which we are typically engaged are quite often to live out patterns of politeness or fill spaces we have come to hold as awkward … uncomfortable because – at least for me – I feel the pull to dive in and learn more about the amazing human in front of me, and by the time my impulse feeds through several decades of patterning ..Don’t be nosy, It’s rude to ask about such things, You ask too many questions, Stop bothering them, Don’t embarrass yourself, Don’t embarrass them … what finally squeaks out are the so-called ‘safe’ topics: Hot out today, isn’t it? (Or cold, or wet, or sunny … so beautifully adaptable in a blink). Or sports. Or food. Or, with more of us preferring the company of pets to humans, ‘What a cute dog!’  Even among family and friends, endless chatter about past events, memories, who did what to whom, passing the time and filling the silence. Keeping the peace. Keeping things the same. Minimal impact, no evolution. Not good or bad. But for me for as long as I can remember, not aligned.

What if there was more? And what if I allowed myself to go there?

The comment I perceived as a dismissal … I did that to invite that wall of flame to move … welcome to life as a quantum being! That wave of fire re-ignited my curiosity of What Else could a conversation become? Who would we become if we were invited to engage in A Different Conversation?

I asked the question of myself, felt the obstacles that at first I made about my reality ‘out there.’  In sitting with A Different Conversation, I felt a foot in two different paradigms: my Roman Catholicism, and my ongoing CODE Model™ explorations. Create something new from them both? How dare I !

And, the answer is always yes. To get there, I had to own how I live my life as separate pieces within a whole, rather than an entity in flow. Holding pieces as separate keeps things from moving ‘too fast’, minimizes disruption, keeps me ‘in my place’ … patterns set for survival of childhood and, left unattended on autopilot keep running with the outdated directive to ‘keep me safe.’  My call to A Different Conversation was not only a creation for others. It was first and foremost a conversation I was aching to have with myself, to own all aspects I was running separately and welcome them home into my chosen, created life. To own the divinity that was me and the creator that I was in my own life. A metaphor of my perception of God: the great infinity from which I came and to which I will return, all aspects as one.

I allowed the separation to drop and my idea to emerge. My CODE Model™ conversations enabled me to see, own, and choose whether to keep patterns running, or release them.  In doing that, I discovered these conversations were drawing me closer and deeper in understanding, desire and curiosity for my faith teachings and practices. Both Louise LeBrun who created the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge, and the bishop who employs me gave generously of their time, their wisdom, and their creations supporting my journey as I set down ideas to paper. My vision was not offensive or dangerous. It was time.

And so this past week here we were, a courageous group of seven in a lakeside cottage, with an expansive view of water and woods, and laden with bags and bags of food … so much food (and strategic drink as well … we were at least an hour from any kind of store, and we had two nights to fill … ) Creating physical abundance in the face of the unknown. Metaphors everywhere. That we were drawn to a lake is no surprise: the human body is 90% water, and all that goes on in our external world is a metaphor for something going on in our internal landscape. We came to explore A Different Conversation and in that, we craved space, movement, and flow, in a place distanced from the distracting ‘noise’ from the past, present, and predicted. We were immersed in space, movement, and flow of the fundamental kind: waves on the shore, wind in the trees, clouds across an expansive sky, lake extending beyond what our human eyes could see but what WE as divine beings knew before we arrived.

And as we relaxed into that space, movement, and flow in our perfect cottage we slowly replicated all in our internal landscapes. Conversation ebbed and flowed as new awareness emerged. Beliefs and patterns popped up like rocks in the lake, barely visible and charting the course of flow, dangerous until seen and presenting a choice point on where to go next.  Our gathering conversation that first evening had the feel of the first day of school: attentive and respectful listening, occasional offerings, and then, break time and with the peal of laughter racing to the kitchen for recess, chatter of the familiar flowing freely in the  comfort of good food and the abundance of everything, external and internal, we were creating moment by moment.

Allow it all as perfect, I breathed as my own rocky patterns popped up. What should this look like? Am I doing enough? Am I doing anything at all? 

In each hour of conversation, shift in energy was palpable: a little deeper, a little less formal, a bit more revealed, a melting divide between ‘in conversation’ and conversations themselves.

I knew it would happen. To be sure, like breadcrumbs from my all-knowing self to my doubting intellect, I brought to our cottage a bouquet of flowers from a local farm, and to put them in, a vase of red. First chakra, colour of safety, of grounding. The flowers were lilies. One was fully in bloom, the other blossoms were tightly  closed.  By the next morning, two others had begun to open. By the time of our checkout conversation the final morning, four blooms were wide open, others just starting. Not judging them for being lilies instead of roses. Not forcing open the blooms. Simply giving them space and encouragement – clean air and water, sturdy table, room to spread out – inviting them to emerge in their own good time. I didn’t see the metaphor until our second day. Trust the impulse, in the ‘I don’t know I know.’ 

True for all of us. Each different, each awakening and evolving in our own journey, with encouragement seen and unseen to guide us, if we trust and allow it.

What did we learn in our 40 or so hours together?

We learned that we on some level know a great deal of what think we do not know.  We are each divinity in a body for a unique human experience. We are perfect in the moment we are in. We have all we need to create that which we seek. These are not messages reinforced by the wider world in which we live. There is layered and relentless patterning and messaging to keep us confused, overwhelmed, and reliant on others for knowledge and choices that belong to us. Reminders and invitations in a safe space encouraged permission for each of us to relax into it all, know what we know, and choose our truth from who we are as the divine beings we are, rather than what we have been taught or conditioned to believe.

The body does not just house or transport our divine selves: the body is a miraculous and masterful processor of all energy we encounter and ingest. This energy comes from food and drink, and also experiences, knowledge, emotions, memories, and history. The body digests shame, for example, as it digests toast and coffee. Food digested provides physical nutrients and can then be eliminated from the body. Energy digested provides awareness and information,  and can then be released. As it needs to be fed breakfast to digest it, the body also needs to be fed the shame if it is to be digested. Our intellects, trying to be helpful, keeps us from remembering painful or embarrassing events … ‘just forget about them’… ‘sticks and stones‘ … but the body doesn’t forget. The energy attached to the memory remains embedded in the cells, even as conscious memory moves on. Over time, that embedded energy festers into pain, disease, or continued stories that drip with shame and keep us silent. Conversations, with ourselves in the presence of others, can help us retrieve and feed those festering memories, stories, or beliefs to our bodies for digestion and release.

Seeing and hearing information in new ways, in visual models, printed words and discussions provide various pathways to awakening, awareness and action … if those pathways feed an aligned higher intention and purpose. And to do that, we need to stay in that different conversation with ourselves, and in the company of others seeking that same awareness: connected both to the world ‘out there’ and their internal landscape. A Different Conversation is not about discarding the old and replacing it with ‘new’. It is about reframing our knowledge, beliefs, and choices to live from the divinity that we are and reflect our higher purpose and intention. Aligned, we each can be the full expression of ourselves: ease in the life we choose to create, extending into a calm and unstoppable creation as our evolution -our purpose for being here – unfolds.

A day after our lakeside creation, the flowers continue to open. Awareness continues to emerge. ‘What next’ continues to percolate. Life in flow with every mindful breath. ‘Just a conversation’ changed my world, and keeps changing my world.

What else can ‘just a conversation’ be for you?

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

 

Want to learn more?

As a CODE Model Coach™, I engage Quantum TLC ™ for my own discoveries and can guide you in learning how to engage it for yourself.

CODE Model™ or Creation Out of Deep Energy™,  and Quantum TLC ™ are part of the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge developed by Louise LeBrun.

Visit
https://wel-systems.com/self-directed-evolution/

This new space for exploration includes articles, audio files, and referrals to CODE Model Coaches™ who can support and guide your journey.

Contact me

I can offer:

  • 1 on 1 conversations/explorations/coaching to discuss your writing and the story behind the story of not writing
  • Whispers from Within ™, a 10-day email exchange that delves into limiting beliefs through daily writing and written conversation
  • Small group conversations, in person or virtual, among those of us called to explore what lights us up and what challenges us in living a fully authentic life.

If any of these options resonate or pique your curiosity, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat.

 

Posted on

New Book Rising:

A Full Moon/Summer Solstice Weekend Leads to Production of a Book 25 Years in the Making

“There Goes Six Bucks.”

It had me at the first read.

So much said in so few words, just like the man who uttered it: Arnold MacMillan, “the stoic lobster fisherman who doesn’t think holding the same job for 60 years is any big deal” and who would no doubt think it foolish that he’s mentioned in a book.

I kept reading. ‘There Goes Six Bucks’ was not only a brilliant phrase. It was also a reflection of the entire story to follow. So much said in succinct well-chosen words.  The proverbial apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Arnold is not the main character in this story. His nephew, Lorne Matheson, is. Lorne wrote this story in 1999 as a series of daily emails to family, friends and colleagues about his adventures in leaving the ‘big city’ for a four-month sabbatical on an island in the middle of the Northumberland Strait in eastern Canada. Lorne’s mother Nina was born on Pictou Island, and in the 1960s they returned each summer for family vacations. In 1998, Lorne purchased the family land with the plan to build a vacation getaway from his corporate Toronto life. Does life go according to plan? Not for Lorne, who at age 40 and with a supporting cast – Uncle Arnold and assorted other colourful relatives, neighbours and friends – schooling him in new ways of life, those four months took on a life of their own. In 1999, Arnold MacMillan was known by many on the mainland as the lobster fisherman from Pictou Island. In 2024, Lorne Matheson is known as the ‘guy with the Wooden Tents.’ Who knew he was a writer as well?

Turns out I did. In fact, I thought that’s what he did for a living, and why he was living on Pictou Island. Your own slice of island life, off grid and online with nature, every direction offering stunning views and waves to lull your senses … a perfect place for a writer.

I had encountered Lorne years before at a library writer’s group. Our paths crossed again years later as the parents of daughters in the same friends group at school.  On a parallel track, I felt the intrigue of Pictou Island for years, and slotted it into ‘I should go there sometime.’ Sometime. The proverbial circular file of great ideas. I have lived within minutes of the Pictou Island ferry for more than three decades, but it wasn’t until a random Facebook post in early June of this year that the plan firmly clicked. A weekend special at the Wooden Tents: two nights ‘glamping’ and a lobster dinner, all at a great price in honour of the summer solstice and full moon. Cosmic alignment, and at 9 am on the Friday morning of the first day of summer, I set foot on Pictou Island and was greeted by Lorne the Wooden Tent guy to officially escort me to my new home for two nights at One Wharf Road.

Each tent was named for a relative. I didn’t know the significance of the tent I selected until after the visit

Fast forward to Saturday night, when Lorne and his partner Wendy opened their home to us tent folk for a fabulous lobster feast and island hospitality. As we sat digesting Wendy’s fantastic cooking the conversation shifted to ‘so, what does everyone do when not hanging out on Pictou Island?’ Medical technology. Counselling. Yoga instructing. Students. And then me. “Well, I’m a writer by trade … I’ve written some books and published some for other authors,” and then another click, this time from Lorne. “That’s how I know your name!” he said. “When you signed up I knew there was a reason I should know you … I was told to talk to you about my book.”

The next morning, I sat in Lorne’s lush little vineyard as he thinned vines and shared his story. This year was the 25th anniversary of his arrival on his piece of the island, at the time a few lobster shanties, overgrown bushes and downed trees. He had kept the original emails and video from those first four months. Could we create a book by the end of the summer? I offered to take a look. A day after I arrived back on the mainland, a file arrived in my inbox. I started reading, and didn’t stop.

By the end of it I felt like Arnold and his other relatives were family. I relived the summer of ’99 through a completely different lens,

one stunning in its detail and energy and in some cases, irreverence. Lorne is clear on who he is and what he knows. When the world works well, it is magical. When the world makes no sense, he says so. And all of it, shared in the moment 25 years ago, brings a unique awareness into this current state of land and humanity.

“There Goes Six Bucks.” Arnold uttered this as he watched his nephew, lobster fishing for the first time,  lose out to a lobster intent on escape. As it squirmed out of Lorne’s grip and splashed to freedom over the side, Arnold made the wry comment and kept on with his work. Actions have consequences. You can’t win them all. The best you can do is keep doing, and keep doing better. These are among the many lessons Lorne learned that summer of ’99, and that we can learn by reading his play-by-play account in the fall of 2024, or the summer of 2025, or whenever. Some of the characters in this story are no longer alive on the Island. Their essence and wisdom live on in the memories of those who knew them, and in the story Lorne carefully guarded all these years, for use somehow, sometime.

Our chance meeting, of course, was not by chance at all. Our respective ‘sometimes’ were kicking some proverbial butt and nudging us both to share what we knew and create anew. The tangible result: “There Goes Six Bucks.” It’s a smooth read, and not too long. The story and the characters bringing it to life, well, they’re in for the long haul. As Lorne says in his book: “When my two-day-old chainsaw was giving my 40-year-old muscles an unmistakable message, Arnold said “some day you’re going to look at your road and say ‘I cleared that’.” Simple.”

Lorne didn’t set out to be an author 25 years ago any more than he set out to become an Islander and ‘the Wooden Tent guy.’ He’s now all of those things, and more, and good at them, good for us.

This project reminds me of the joy and power of books … reading them, and creating them.

“There Goes Six Bucks” is now available for sale, from the author, or in Our Bookstore. 

Thanks for reading.

  • Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is a professional writer, author, consultant and CODE Model Coach™ connecting personal evolution to the writing experience.  She is owner of Marechal Media Inc., a publisher and publishing services company in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada.

 

Posted on

The Magic and Myth of Creative Flow

I have written in the Tuscan mountains, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, under palm trees and beside Christmas trees. All were deeply moving experiences, in words and in energy. And in all cases I missed the point.

For the writing I long to create, writing space was not about the place ‘out there’; it is all about the space within.

As divine energy in a body for the human experience, I am aware of my ability to create my reality, moment by moment. I was waking up in the morning asking myself ‘What do I want to do today?’ Increasingly, though, the answer was fuzzy, too faint to discern, or too loud to comprehend … nothing would come to mind, or so many things would come I struggled to choose and for relief slipped into default … binge streaming or napping to tune out rather than tune in. Then I awakened to a brilliant metaphor, my inner landscape as a reflection of my home. Many rooms, all mine, all part of a single entity, yet each room with a different purpose. I don’t literally live and use all of my home all of the time. Consider the crazy that would come from trying.

Boundaries for relationships. Intentions for interactions. These define the energetic ‘rooms’ as the walls of house.

There are different areas of focus inside of me for different things I choose to do … unique areas for intensive conversations, for deep dives, for fun, for tasks, for rest, for discovery, each a varying combination of spirit and intellect and body. Yet, in the absence of awareness, I was trying to engage everything all the time, racing from idea to idea, multitasking like leapfrog from project to project, cycling frantically from ‘what now’ to ‘what next.’ I was carrying the myth of ‘freedom’ from obligations. What I lacked was boundaries and intentions, which was exhausting and made me perpetually ungrounded, unfocused and unconnected. So asking the question ‘What do I want to do?’ yielded ‘nothing’ or ‘I don’t know’ or an overwhelming feeling of numbness or paralysis as my mind searched for a finite answer in an infinite data stream until tiring out and giving up.

I called Stop on it all. Decoupled ‘boundary’ and ‘intention’ from ‘obligation’. Embraced ‘boundary’ and ‘intention’ as the means to focus my energy on the life I choose.

And I changed my question.

No longer is it about ‘doing.’ Now, I ask: ‘Where do I want to go?’

And my world lights up, inside and out. I know exactly where. And off I go.

In the moment, and in my life.

Realizing I have many spaces in my inner landscape as I do in my outer landscape for many things is gamechanging. Holding my outer landscape as a mirror to within and invitation to be mindful within, that’s magic. Like the beaches and mountains of exotic locales, lighting up unique spaces within myself.  Like my home, everything is me and mine, all is loved and all is perfect. I just can’t sleep in the kitchen sink or do my laundry in the oven, and welcome guests into my living room but not into my shower. Same as me on the inside … a space from which I pay my bills and do my taxes, a space from which I share wine and gossip with friends, a space from which I play music, a space from which I write.

I awoke this morning and asked ‘Where do I want to go?’

Here I am at my desk, on my laptop, watching the trees ripple in a breeze as the eye of a rainstorm brings momentary calm. I want to write, and it’s not just ‘get my butt in the seat’ … it’s aligned with the clear message of ‘it’s time’ and ‘I’m in the right place.’ Awareness in an instant, and that easy.

Until the next layer. Where was I going within when I wanted to write, and words wouldn’t come? Stay tuned ….

Thanks for reading and for showing up!

Jennifer

Jennifer Hatt is an author, communications consultant, publishing doula and CODE Model Coach™ .
ownyourstorynow.com

 

Want to learn more?

As a CODE Model Coach™, I engage Quantum TLC ™ for my own discoveries and can guide you in learning how to engage it for yourself.

CODE Model™ or Creation Out of Deep Energy™,  and Quantum TLC ™ are part of the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge developed by Louise LeBrun.

Visit
https://wel-systems.com/self-directed-evolution/

This new space for exploration includes articles, audio files, and referrals to CODE Model Coaches™ who can support and guide your journey.

Contact me

I can offer:

  • 1 on 1 conversations/explorations/coaching to discuss your writing and the story behind the story of not writing
  • Whispers from Within ™, a 10-day email exchange that delves into writing and limiting beliefs through daily writing and written conversation
  • Small group conversations, in person or virtual, among those of us called to write, exploring what lights us up in writing and what challenges us.

If any of these options resonate or pique your curiosity, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat.