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The Many Layers of a Gifted Book

Layer one: it was a surprise. I live in a town with a post office, and pick up my mail once or twice a week, usually around bill time. This time, amid the flyers was a parcel card, and I hadn’t ordered anything. The box came out, return address from a dear friend. Woo hoo! Considerable weight for a little box. Layer two: felt like books.

Gifts are magical in many ways. Planned or spontaneous, objects or experiences, casual or intimate, gifts take many forms and are given and received with many intentions, and when done in the spirit of sharing joy, always bring a moment of light into the world. But to me, a book as a gift is all of that and then some. Layered as the pages within it, the sentimentality, the message, the energy shared in the gifting of a book.

So, back to the  small box holding great promise on a rainy Monday morning. Coat off, bags stowed, I stand at my table and tear in. Sure enough, books.

Layer Three: all gifts of books are honoured and deeply appreciated. Whether I read them or not, would choose them or not, I hold in my hand evidence that someone took the time to share something they thought would be of interest to me, would bring me joy, and perhaps something that intrigued, delighted, or even annoyed them but you might see something I didn’t. The start of a conversation across the miles, their experience inviting mine.

I spread my gifts on the table. Three books. Curious choices. Clearly used. I read the note, and felt the warm wave of grateful tears. These were not just books. These were her books, ‘a piece of my history’, she shared in her letter.

Layer Four: a gift of the sacred, nothing to do with the content of the books, everything to do with what those books represented to a dear friend, where they went with her, where they took her. If those books could talk … and in a sense, they do. Her letter describes the two books she discovered in the aftermath of her beloved husband’s sudden death, which 20 years later still brings her to tears. Those books, paperback, thick with guidance on finding joy and caring for self with humour and ‘spunk’, as she called it, were read in warm bubble baths, perused with a glass (or more) of wine, have the warping and markings of splashes, spills, and no doubt teardrops as well. She is ready to move on, and chose me to witness and share in her journey for whatever it may offer me.

Book three is fairly pristine, barely read once … a book she found interesting in parts but overall a challenge to connect with, written by someone with more money and resulting options than most of us will ever know. What will I read it in? She invites me to learn for myself.

And there is the final layer in my surprise gift of the week: what will I do with my gift, through my gift? That is a question I ask myself daily about my gift that is writing itself. Do I sit on it and do nothing? Do I stack these books with the others for reading ‘sometime’, just as I stack words and ideas deep in my brain and body for ‘sometime’ when the tasks I deem important are not as pressing? Or, do I honour these books as the invitation they are to dive in, explore new parts of myself, make new connections that feed a more expansive life, honour the words captured and shared as the divine energy they are? And will I allow myself to see the metaphor that explains why I have so many words to share and so little time to share them?

The answer is always Yes … and on days that I forget to ask the questions, I have enlightened people in my life to remind me.

Used books. Divine invitations. In my infinite world, they are all the same, and more. So much more. Just like each of us.

Only a book can do that. A book written. A book read. A book shared. Why I do what I do, and sometimes, don’t do it enough. In a world starving for connection while drowning in content, our presence as writers and readers, whole in ourselves and sharing in community, invites energy flow into darkness in ways that cannot be duplicated.

And yet another layer, from gifts I have given and received in the form of new books, especially those written and produced where I live. A book purchased from a local author, publisher or bookstore adds financial energy to the unique perspectives and heartfelt offerings that we in the book biz dish up daily, seeing and feeling and describing things in our own unique ways, inviting you to do the same.

So write, read, share, and know that every moment spent in the presence of your words, or another’s shared, is a moment of grace. Just like moments shared with friends, with loved ones, with self. Enjoy it all, and spill a little wine or coffee, or splash some bubbles in the process.

Thanks for reading, and writing 🙂

  • Jennifer

Want to learn more?

As writer and 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.

I 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.

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

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

Posted on

From Winter to Spring

Seasons of Patterns and Permission

It is March Break in many local school districts this week, and I am struck by how I still hold that as an invitation to do things differently, to do that writing/cooking/reading/crafting I’ve been meaning to do all winter.
My youngest graduated from high school three years ago and my oldest, in fact, is on March Break but as a teacher (and he was far more excited about his break this week than he ever was as a student!)

Yet for me, the pattern of kids’ school schedules is ingrained. This past winter, at the sound of snow on the windows and snowplows on the road, I’d grab my phone and gleefully read those beloved words from the radio website: School Cancelled. I mean, seriously, I work from home and set my own hours … I can always get to ‘the office’ , and I can have my own snow day anytime I want. But still, I crave that notification from ‘out there.’ Curious …

Snow Day and March Break: in a house with three children in three schools, those patterns ruled the lives of everyone living there, especially me as mom coordinating it all.  Now that I live alone, that pattern no longer serves, yet I keep running it. Why?

The other ‘P’ word: Permission.

Something in an institution declaring ‘this is a day off’ giving me permission to ‘have fun’, to ‘take time for me’, to be on ‘vacation.’

To hold and do things ‘the way I want.’

A choice I always have, and was choosing to give it over to an ‘authority’, like the school board, rather than claim it for myself. Huh.

The joy and the challenge of living from our divinity is the constant invitation to learn, explore, choose and create each moment we are in. Metaphors are a massive clue to patterns we run unseen, or choose not to see. A snow day is not about a snow day. It is about me continuing to rely on an external institution to give me permission to do things differently, or hold things in joy rather than in obligation.

Permission is mine to give myself, to live fully in the moment from my divine self, my impulse.  Do I allow myself that choice? Do I give myself that permission? A small thing like a nap, a large thing like a trip, it doesn’t matter the content. What matters is claiming the choice, and choosing from authentic self, rather than from habits, obligations, beliefs, or external forces seeking something from rather than for me.

How often do we deny ourselves permission to feel, to know, to express our truth? We push back tears when we hear of something that breaks our hearts, so we don’t make others uncomfortable. We grit our teeth and endure the presence of someone whose opinions violate our own, because we want to ‘keep the peace.’ We formulate our day by the calendar and clock when we long to just breathe and be, unstructured. Life is a series of moments created with a higher intention leading to our ultimate purpose. Sometimes those moments require us to schedule our time, complete tasks not to our liking, put some desires on pause. When these tasks all map to our intention and our purpose, however, energy flows, life flows, we as our authentic divine selves are in flow.

When these tasks map to external expectations, or beliefs and patterns that run separate from or counter to our intention and purpose, flow is constricted or blocked. Over time there may be irritation, exhaustion, or worse, no sensation at all because we have ceased to notice. And when we cease to notice, to remember who we are, we become a vessel serving past patterns and/or the interests of others, rather than living from and for our divine purpose.

So what does that look like?

For me it’s not highly dramatic. In this moment it is me at my desk. I once called it work, some moments it is 🙂, increasingly it is simply a part of my life that I choose to engage fuelled by curiosity and joy in what I will discover and create. It is an ease that was always available to me, and only when I gave myself permission would I allow it. And I could only give permission when I noticed my pattern of giving that choice away.

It can be as easy as that 30-second pause and deep, slow breath.

Have a great week, whatever that means for you,

  • Jennifer

Want to learn more?

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

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

 

Posted on

Write Into Spring!

Whispers from Within™

Write into Spring

A 10-day exploration for evolution via one-on-one email exchanges

Two Spots Available: March 11-20, 2025

Whispers from Within™ uses the power of the written word and Quantum TLC™ to unlock and explore: ‘Who Am I’ and ‘Who Am I Capable of Becoming?’

Each day, spend a minimum of 30 minutes writing about what presents and comes up, how you feel, where you’re at … free of judgment, editing, and doubt. What you write will be perfect in the moment. Click send. I will read your offering and respond with what I see and feel in myself. We repeat the process for 10 days, no breaks, no days off. The consistent writing and time with ourselves enables our written conversation to penetrate deeper within, inviting forth stories that may be deeply buried, forgotten or avoided … stories that could be keeping you separate from the life you want to lead.

How It Works

You Receive:

An introductory email at time of registration, daily email responses for the 10-day experience, and a followup email of gratitude on Day 11. Your email partner is me, Jennifer Hatt, author and CODE Model Coach™, a writer and fellow explorer in the journey of my own evolution.

You Provide:

A commitment to the 10-Day process, sending an email each day. It can be at any time during the day prior to 9 pm (Atlantic time), and does not have to be the same time each day: just every day.

SPRING SPECIAL! Payment of $195.00 plus tax at time of registration to confirm your spot. There are two spots available March 11-20 leading up to the First Day of Spring.

Questions? Ready to Sign Up?

Get in touch: jenniferhatt@gmail.com. And let’s get writing!

Whispers from Within™, Quantum TLC™ and CODE Model Coach™ are registered trademarks of Louise LeBrun, founder of the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge
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Season of Shoulds

It has occurred to me that I struggle with the transition of the seasons ‘out there’ because I carry within the unrelenting Season of Shoulds … and every season brings inevitable grief that all the Shoulds remain unfulfilled.

It’s a stark and unforgiving landscape, this season of Shoulds: scorched and drowned and dusty and foggy. Every change out there is embraced as the potential of change within. Yet every solstice and equinox brings the hard truth that nothing changes at all, except the weather. The damning grief, frustration, hopelessness … continues on.

It doesn’t have to. I choose this dank and clenching space. It’s a pattern of the past, from when I knew no other way to live.

Years ago I discovered a new way to move through the world, and a new way to live and discover more of me, that is as infinite and relentless as I choose it. Creation Out of Deep Energy, or CODE Model ™, defining me as a divine signal in a body for the human experience, of and from the Source and always connected to the infinity that is, rather than simply the body alone. The body, then, a miraculous processor of all energy I encounter:  food and drink, emotions and thoughts, memories and experiences, all transformed and integrated into the infinity that is me as I create my world and align with my reason for being here. Yet for much of my life I lived a very different way, trained and patterned by the generations before me and the world around me to live and be judged by others’ creations and purposes, in exclusion of mine. When life is kept small and unchallenging, deeply patterned and protected, all seems well. In that smallness, however, is no room for resilience, for curiosity, for flow of ideas or energy of any kind. There is no capacity for change.

Ironically, I live in a part of the world that is blessed with four distinct seasons. Change is literally in the air, nearly all of the time as each season emerges, peaks, and ebbs into the next. In a world fixated on external referencing and isolation of self, ‘the weather’ has been reduced to the wee conversations we allow ourselves with strangers and sadly, with those we care about as well. Meanwhile, in my paradigm of all ‘out there’ mirroring our states within, the seasons evoke powerful motivations, inspirations, and desires. What I have discovered, however, is as I brace against the inevitable change, my joy at emergence soon dims to grief at what will be. In the icy depth of winter, I long for the warmth of sun on my face and scent of early garden flowers, yet as the snowbanks recede and days lengthen, I grieve that I haven’t spent winter’s cocoon writing my book, building my business, cleaning my closet. As spring flowers nod in May showers I long for the heat of summer, for days floating in salt water and feeling the vibration of the waves through the warm sand on shore, yet in the midst of summer I can already see the leaves changing colour, feel the cool sting of autumn in the air, and I panic. Summer is so short, goes the story, when it is exactly the same length as the other seasons. How I hold summer, however, is disproportionate, fighting the inevitable equinox that will bring cooler nights, crisp apples and a world slowly preparing for hibernation. But that’s okay, I tell myself, I will have lots of time in the winter to read, to write, to knit … And then it’s winter, and then it’s spring, and what have I done, except wish it away and feel the shame of failure.

Why do I do this? First, it’s the how I do it. Simple, really. Our point of power is the moment we’re in. The past is done and unchangeable. The future hasn’t happened yet and hinges on the present. If there is no action in the present, then patterns of the past run unchecked or hopes for the future swirl unresolved. To look out the window at a crisp winter day and think about spring moves me from my point of power to ‘should’, or ‘could’, or ‘maybe’. The only thing created in any of those states is a conversation are empty promises and biting criticism … why don’t you, why haven’t you … in the words of a very wise woman, blah blah blah. To look out the window at a crisp winter day and own how I use weather to distract myself, to give myself permission to avoid things, is a step toward releasing the blah blah blah and staying in the moment where I can choose to do what I want. I haven’t been in school in decades, and my children are all living on their own, yet I still check the cancellation list during snowstorms seeking those magic words: ‘school cancelled.’ I work from home, and I set my own schedule, yet in a deeply held pattern still crave permission to take a day off, goof around in my pajamas, break the routine, even though any routine I have is one I have created. See the crazy? I do now, but I don’t always until I feel the pangs of grief, the clenching of fear, then stop and listen until the ‘should’ story is revealed. I should be writing. I should be more profitable. I should, I would, I could, I will … while I AM stirs and shifts, overlooked by the patterns that run so quickly and easily when attentions are directed elsewhere.

At the first of this week I opened my curtains to a picture postcard of blue sky and a world coated in the marshmallow glove of fluffy mounded snow. Today I watch as snowbanks shrink in a light steady rain, tufts of grass appearing here and there in optimism. All week, I have welcoming the warming weather while grieving the end of winter … which in truth, was the end of excuses. No more storms to ‘knock me off my schedule’, no more cold to keep me snuggled inside, or deep darkness to shorten my workday and invite early bed. What I set out to do this winter, has not all been completed. I have, however, accomplished things of which I had not imagined. I was on the road more, immersed in stunning vistas and rich conversations. I learned what pipes freeze when and how to fix them. And I wrote, but not in the way I’m used to, by chapter and word count and deadline. I wrote instead by impulse and instinct, which in my old world looks messy and frivolous. In my infinite paradigm, it’s authentic and easy when I drop my shoulds and coulds and simply let go. Like life itself.

We have been taught to live a linear life in a world that runs in cycles. The seasons. The moon. Daylight and darkness. We as humans need the constant flow of air and blood to survive; we need the infinite flow of energy and creation to live. I live in a place that outside my window reminds me daily of the change, shift and flow that is a rich and abundant life. This approaching end of February is no end to winter, it is an end to my season of shoulds. The patterns in me grieve and rattle in the sudden chill of new space. The I AM Is enjoying the moment. I look forward to spring, as I look forward to this moment and embrace the invitation of change, of the ‘out there’ to stay in my moment within where power, choice, action all live. Easy as watching snow melt, when you know to pause, breathe, and let go.

—

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

Want to learn more?

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

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

Contact me

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. I 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

From a Spark to a Wave

Transformation From A Word Shared

Writers are good storytellers … and if we had a dollar for every story we told ourselves that kept us from writing, we’d be billionaires.

Instead, we place our value on those stories and spend hour after hour, week after week carrying the desire to write, and pushing it down with fear: Is my writing any good? Is it worth my time? Am I getting it right? We take courses and programs, read books about writing and join groups to discuss writing. Meanwhile, the desire churns, and our pages stay blank.

There is no replacement or workaround for just doing it: for simply sitting down, writing something, and sharing it. There is no power in the world like it. Think your writing doesn’t matter? I beg to differ. Here’s why.

Words are energy into physical form. Your words are sparks from the energy that is you, your unique vibration into the wider world. That vibration has impact in more ways than one.

Case in point: yesterday I had the privilege of witnessing massive transformation – and being transformed – because one woman wrote and shared her truth on her blog. This inspired another woman to finally set up that blog she’s been longing for, write, and hit publish. Then another woman wrote her story and shared it. Then another let out the words she had been holding back and made them public. In the span of a few hours, sparks flew and danced into waves of fire that lit up the universe and transformed everything in its path. One word, like a drop in a molten ocean, its effects spreading and multiplying, inviting all who would join, whether in writing or in intention. For words as energy flow in many directions and when mindfully shared, transform both writer and reader. Words written solo then offered up for reading become a shared playground. There is the power of the content, the resonance of a story and word choice. There is the power of intention from the writer. There is the power of invitation within the reader who opens to Be-Do-Have for their own journey from the energy felt in what they have read.  There is the power for those in the awarenesses and lives of those engaged, not writing themselves but feeling the difference in energy and actions. And there is the power landing on everyone and everything, aware and unaware, yet like the proverbial tree in the isolated forest, still descending with a bang.

I felt the waves from yesterday’s rapid-fire emergences long before I knew the content, and I chose to stay in my own conversation to own all that was moving, and not.   I even created a brilliant metaphor for my resistance. Overnight the water lines froze to my kitchen sink, as did the cold water line to my shower. Flow frozen, specific and insistent. In a hurry, I filled my kettle from the bathroom sink for morning coffee and then took a blistering hot shower … more like brief blasts of water until my skin was about to peel, then turning it off and letting it cool before repeating until I could get a decent amount of soap rinsed off. Stop and start. Hot and cold. And, in the absence of attention, no change or movement within. Temperature rose outside,  no effect inside until  I paused, noticed, and chose to engage. After mindfully directing some warm air at a few key spots, my water flow returned in minutes. How often have I withheld my fire from my writing, frozen my ideas in place with stories or distraction? There was a whole playground of enquiry for me, without even reading the messages lighting up my phone.

Flash forward 24 hours. I share my playground here, and the waves continue to move in my world within and my world out there. The words of these courageous women  who shared their words will continue to invite and awaken others, and their own transformations as well as mine continue to move through us and into the world we all share. The spark that began in a mindfully chosen community was not a ‘writers’ group’ or a program: it was a collective of women in a safe space journeying for their own evolution, exploring through a body of knowledge that reframed their safety from external to internal  and awakened them to who they are and are choosing to be. Writing in yesterday’s pivotal moment was a perfect means of expression from one person, through their being, and into the world – doing – and opening them to have more of themselves, while inviting everyone else to engage and journey as is meaningful for them.

A billion dollars cannot buy the experience of yesterday, or purchase the power of individual and collective transformation. Only awareness and choice can do that, something we all have … when we know and own that all we are and all we have in this moment is enough, is worth it, and is awesome … and that there is always more …

So, back to your writing and how you hold it in your life … is it any good, is it worth the time, will anyone read it, will I do it right? Consider answering your own questions with a fresh approach: trusting you as a divine being of energy in a body for the human experience, here to create and have an impact on the wider world. There is no right or wrong, only your unique vibration, your voice, your choice. It is not easy to choose to be seen in a world that teaches us safety lies in being quiet and ‘behind the scenes.’ The fact you want to write is a sign that it’s time to change the narrative, for you and from you.

Feel like something is missing? For me, the missing piece was … and still is … myself, when I forget who I am as a divine creator, and slip into the pattern of trained body. The process leading me to remember and reclaim myself is contained in the WEL-Systems ®  body of knowledge. When I first encountered this body of knowledge, I had the inkling that there would be a benefit to my writing as well as my life. When I chose to journey through the body of knowledge, and allow it to evolve through me, the connections and choice points became clear, layer by layer, moment by moment.

And it remains a continuous process, evolving through writing, for writing, from writing … allowing my writing to become me and my guide, a trusted part of me rather than simply a tool for hire and a means of income. That evolution began because I chose to share, and continues as I keep choosing to share, trusting the terror I feel at ‘getting it wrong’ and the resistance I feel at putting myself out there for others to comment on, disagree with, or ignore are patterns of safety from the past, a world that no longer holds any power for me or over me. I know there is impact for me in what I write. I share freely to see what happens, what’s next, to have whatever comes.

Thanks for reading!
Now, about our writing …  🙂

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 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

The Joy Is In the Mess

Every year, my social feeds are flooded with any number of companies and candidates offering to help you fulfill your New Year’s Resolution to write that book in 30 days/90 days/ this year. Just have your credit card ready and let them guide you to your finished product. Now to be clear, there is no right or wrong approach to writing and by all means, invest in anything you feel will be helpful. If strict time management or writing prompts or whatever those systems offer work for you, then go for it.

My experience is that a struggle to write has little to do with outlines and organizational skills and literary gymnastics; it has everything to do with the space we allow ourselves, the identity we allow ourselves as creators, of a manuscript, of our own lives.

How do you hold creating from a blank page: exhilarating or terrifying? Making a mess? Spending an entire day writing a paragraph, then deleting it? Do any of those scenarios feel frustrating or overwhelming? Too much energy or a waste of time? Then creation may not be a safe and happy place. If that’s the case, no writing prompt or egg timer will change your outcome. Prompts and timers may lead to some effective strategies around the angst, but the angst won’t leave because it is a part of you … a part of you pressing for attention. Deal with that, learn from that, choose differently from that, and you’re on your way to writing more freely, and more importantly, living more aligned.

Creation of anything requires space, movement, and flow. Our inner space is way cluttered with experiences from our ancestors, patterns and habits we were taught, and beliefs we hold … so cluttered it can be hard to find let alone hear our authentic selves amongst it all. Brilliant artists, the mystics and authors and painters and sculpters and musicians and all those who share their expressions with the world who so deeply touch us, are creating from their authentic selves, owning they see the world differently and deeply and in those unique expressions invite us to see our world differently. Each creator finds, embraces, and hones a life designed for that full expression. The hard work is often not the art, but clearing the clutter that interferes with it.

A resolution can push through a certain amount of clutter, but does not resolve anything without a clear intention to focus on the root of the symptom.

Want effective change? Hold an intention, a promise to self that guides and encourages, and also embraces the flexibility needed as space opens, movement ramps up, and flow is engaged.

If a timer works for you, set it for, say, 15 minutes and simply sit in front of your computer/journal/paper and breathe. Inhale and exhale, mind on your breath, body relaxed. Envision what you want to write. Listen to the stories as they come up. Words. Memories. Scenes. Whatever presents itself. Notice everything, as you have not noticed before. Does the time pass slowly or quickly? Is your body relaxed or clenched? Pressure in your chest? Breath catching in your throat? Those are signs of stories angling to be heard, beliefs exerting themselves. Waste of time. I can’t write. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need help. This is a crazy idea. Those are what come up for me. And yes, I’ve written books, published books. Stories do not go away until the root from where they come is touched, owned, processed, and released. We are of infinite layers, which means there are always stories, patterns, and limiting beliefs. Our power of creation is in being okay with who we are, and open to who we can become. It is being okay with sitting to write and not writing a word, simply being with yourself for a dedicated period of time, with no expectation, no judgement. It is being okay with sitting to write and churning out something that will never see the light of day, but was important to release to get to the layer you’re called to share.

Writing can be transformative for both writer and reader, which is why we are drawn to write and fear it at the same time.

This start-stop creates pressure in the body and stories in the mind as it seeks to explain why we can’t possibly write here and now. Programs and systems can be of use, but will bump against the concrete of your entrenched patterns and beliefs and wither unless you choose to open to the writing process, and own the power of you as creator to bloom in the infinite space of the unknown. Breathe into that sentence, and feel the space open. Now, choose your next step, be it write a sentence, read a book, buy a program … and instead of trying to get it right, get curious instead, about what you write, how you hold writing, who you are. That is the ultimate story we all want to know more about.

In my journey as a writer, the CODE Model ™ provided an invitation and an outlet for my curiosity, to learn more of my limiting beliefs and my authentic self. With those awarenesses, choices become easier and more aligned, and my writing is beginning to shift from a job and a chore to a process of playful exploration and expression.

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

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.

 

Posted on

Struggling with Words?

Check Your Privacy Settings …

Privacy is desired, protected, and promised … but do you know what it is for you, and what it means in your life? In my search to ease the flow of words in my life –  those I speak, those I write and ultimately those I share – I have come to learn a few things about how I hold privacy and how it holds me hostage in my own life.

Really? Can a construct like privacy influence my life when, as the awesome Louise LeBrun often says, you can’t put a pound of privacy (or relationship or money or whatever else image we hold as real ) in the trunk of your car? Indeed it can. Just like the privacy settings on your social media or web browser controls access and use of your data, privacy settings are wired into your body from before you were conceived and are absorbed like a sponge by your nervous system, especially in your first few years of life. Those settings are from your parents’ past, and their parents’ past, and so on, and become yours as you grow and move through the world. These settings are so deeply wired and rarely if ever discussed, they run on default underneath all we say and do, or don’t say and do,  while we forge on, completely unaware. The fascinating thing about working in words, especially writing, is that it reveals a deep double bind: a calling to write that at once lights up the system and brings up a deep resistance, you know the jokes, writers drinking, writers living on coffee, writers with the cleanest houses as deadlines loom. Folks unaware of this constant start-stop sensation don’t get it: how hard can it be to just sit down and type, especially when you say you want to do it? Note I say ‘unaware’ rather than ‘without’ … any human I’ve met has at least one kind of double bind running, often more. To the unaware, I ask this: how easy is it to drive a car pressing the gas and the brake at the same time? That’s a body locked in a double bind. The irony is that the very thing that can release the double bind – touching the story, writing it down, and choosing from mindful awareness – is the very thing that triggers the lockdown.

Is there a way out of this vicious loop? The answer is always yes.
What I discovered: I was confusing privacy with secrecy.

In that confusion, my ‘privacy settings’ were set so stringently that there was barely room for anything to get in or out, including myself. Words were compressed and stuffed into crevices and corners until pressure built to where they would erupt in a jumbled, erratic stream, spewing bits and pieces here and there. In the rare moment I allowed myself to sit down and write, out came chunks of three different books, a few short story sentences and some days, a grocery list, all words so tightly held their flow was squeezed into a concentrated ache of frustration. So, who chooses that? I did, day after day, year after year, for as long as I can remember. Now, after years of literally relearning everything, from how to breathe to how to work with my body rather than against it, I’m integrating things I’ve known all along but ‘wouldn’t go there’ or couldn’t bear to admit because … yep … my ‘privacy settings’ steered me off with the story of keeping me safe. The thing is, the only safety to be had in this world is internal alignment, knowing clearly who you are and choosing from that inner knowledge you often hear but too often dismiss in favour of thing ‘out there’ we have been taught to trust as smarter than us.  For the past decade, I’ve been relearning, releasing, reconnecting, and creating new at the same time within myself. To share what I’ve come to know, to share my journey in the moment, to share my words … well, that remains a journey in itself. Akin to a computer running slow or crashing during searches and projects, my body continued to resist sharing. A key to my evolution here has been to revisit how I hold ‘privacy’ … and that’s when the revelation came that I was holding privacy as secrecy, when they now appear to me as two very different things.

Here is my experience now:

Privacy is a boundary, clear and mindfully chosen. Just like clicking the boxes in my online privacy settings, I choose: what is meaningful for me to share, what is meaningful for me to keep to myself, or to share specifically with a person or people? I then engage with respect to those boundaries and in my engagement, my boundaries are clear with others who can then engage according to their boundaries. Information shared confidentially is kept confidential through mutual respect. Information shared to the wider world is done with an aligned desire to offer my view in the moment and the knowledge that the power is in the sharing. Reactions of others cannot be controlled. I, however, can choose my reaction to those reactions, and as easily as settings are changed, so are tools engaged to act on my choice.

Secrecy, however, is a whole other construct, a strategy for avoidance that encapsulates within shame and fear an action or memory held as too disruptive, unacceptable, or terrifying to face. Under the guise of safety a secret is swallowed like a bitter pill in an attempt to protect, control, or otherwise make the information within disappear.  In its protective coating of habit and shame, however, it persists in the memory of the body, generation after generation, accumulating and running patterns even though I may have no recollection of the secret … in fact, I may not even have been born when the original whatever-it-was took place. Nor does my body care what or when. It could have been me stealing a quarter from my brother’s piggy bank when I was six. It could be a great-great-grandfather having stolen money from his employer and his wife and children coerced into covering up the crime. All the body knows is the pattern of avoidance and it keeps running unless the body is rewired to stop.  In my body, secrecy weighs heavily in the lower back and abdomen, between where my safety sits and my power centre to engage on my own behalf. The mantra ‘what happens in this house stays in this house …’ was the overriding call to action in childhood.  I was raised on the cusp of the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ era … to share ‘secrets’, to repeat things overheard, to offer opinions, resulted in joking dismissal, a ‘go to your room’, or out-and-out punishment. Nothing was more important than keeping secrets. ‘It’s none of their business’ was the explanation. Being ‘private’ and being ‘secretive’ in my child brain became the same thing, and violating that ‘privacy’ became wired with danger and shame. The thing is, as a child, I had little experience to sort out what needed to be ‘private’ and what could be safely shared.  ‘Oh, what a pretty sweater,’ offered as a compliment set off a fireworks of patterns in my body.  Impulse would be to share I liked it, too, but was that a secret because it’s what I felt inside? Or who gave it to me, that might be okay but wait, would it be okay to name them, or say where they bought it? Wait, I might slip and say how much it cost and that’s not appropriate … in the end, managing a ‘thank you’, if the conversation hadn’t moved on by then. It was a polite response, externally acceptable, but not my entirety of expression and the shame of self-betrayal added to the fireworks of stress my nervous system was now absorbing and rewiring to match. It felt safer over time to simply not share anything.

Jump ahead several decades, and deep within, those patterns still fire off except this time, it’s in conversation with a blank screen, words pressing and churning inside, emerging as a sodden shell of what unfolds behind my eyes. And it is just recently, in sitting with that sensation, icky as it was, that I could feel congruently the presence of ‘secrecy’ in my body. It was not just the sensations of shame and danger deep in my lower body, ‘keeper of secrets’ was also high in my third eye, the region around the middle of my forehead where identity lives, the deeply-embedded belief of who I am that influences all that I do. Secrecy had become part of my identity, the good girl who never told, the one who protected everything she knew from anyone who might see it. And protection of identity sets off a fierce battle in the body between the divine energy that is me and the intellect that has been trained to match the needs and wants of the external world. I came into the world with words as my superpower – the fuel of my existence – and over the years, outside of my conscious awareness, had crafted not only strategies to contain and control that superpower, but instituted that control as part of who I am. To violate that ‘secrecy’ was to violate my very being … or so the pattern went.  To hold everything I am, all I create as a secret, well, THAT was the violation. And I get to choose: keep running the default or step into the now that I know. That is the power of awareness and mindful choice. Becoming aware is like a mountaintop view of my life, able to rise up and look down on everything running, see the patterns, see the outcomes, and choose: let them keep running, or make some changes?

I choose change, and in that choice is the awareness that everything from beliefs to my nervous system are energy in flow, can be adapted, altered, rewired to align with my divine energy within rather than someone else’s landscape.

Easy? Absolutely not. It takes mindful action to back up that mindful choice, moment by moment, day by day, filling my days with words of others that encourage and enlighten my journey through books and blogs, audio files and conversations, then allowing space for my own words to flow, unjudged and welcomed as they are. I have chosen to relearn how to write, to engage from and for myself rather than engage solely for others. I have chosen to allow that after decades earning a living as a professional writer  I HAD to relearn how to write to be fully myself. Dropping the ‘stupid’ label and embracing the ‘infinite journey’ invitation has gotten me here, to where I can choose to see ‘secrecy’ in my identity and choose that it no longer belongs there. I am safe without it now, and I am constrained by it now in who I am. I could have – and was tempted through the years – to engage in time management, productivity training, confidence-building, and the myriad of other strategy programs designed to help you ‘write that book’ or ‘break that writer’s block’. For me, the resistance, the struggle, were signs of a need for me to learn about me, which no strategy can touch.

What does this mean? Let’s just say there are no floodgates in this moment. There are no fireworks, no grand AHA. There is space to breathe. There is ease in writing this. There is alignment. There is joy. For me in this moment, those are constructs that still won’t fill my trunk, but are definitely filling my life with purpose and the hunger for more. I know and value my privacy, and respect the privacy of those with whom I engage. Secrets? To me there is no more insidious poison in my life or in the world. To secrets I say no thank you. I carry way to many of them now, and as my journey of clarity and choice continues my invitation to self is to touch each one like a dusty ornament and decide what’s next.

In this crazy world, I am grateful for this emerging awareness, and for my words – and yours – to guide me.

 

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.

Thanks for reading and for showing up!

Jennifer

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