Posted on

What your parents may be doing to your writing

Struggling to find time to write? To find the words? To click ‘send’ or ‘share’ on that blog or short story for fear of what people will think or find wrong with it?

The struggle may be a symptom of stories running deep from our ancestry and upbringing. Agreed, as mature and enlightened adults the ‘it’s my parents’ fault’ rings hollow. There is no fault and blame in a world where creation and evolution are infinite, moment by moment. What can be gamechanging in our writing habits and outcomes, however, is an awareness of the stories we run within ourselves, sometimes so deeply that we are unaware they exist, or have no sense of life without them. These stories, patterns, and habits may be clawing back on the desire to write without us realizing it, a hidden brake while we push harder on the accelerator and wish we could move easier and faster.

Sounds weird and wonderful? Then we’re in the right place.

Our nervous systems are genius and intricate electrical systems, biological networks transmitting and receiving the energy that is our essence, animating our cells and sharing impulses with our brains that result in action. Ideas to words, words to paper, all fuelled by our divine selves. Words are literal sparks of our energy committed to physical form. We choose the words based on the impact we want to have. And whether we are writing a blog, novel, screenplay or social media post, the power of our words is not only our word choice, but our presence and clear intention when selecting the words, order, and form.

As writers and creators of our own worlds, we evolve unique habits and patterns. An hour before sunrise. Weekend binge writing. Careful outlines. Hours writing whatever comes up and sorting it all out later. Again, no right or wrong in the writing process, as long as it works for whoever is creating it.  There are many of us … and yes, I’m a gold star member of this club … who spend vast quantities of time anticipating, considering, or otherwise planning and plotting  for when we might have a moment to write, calling it ‘preparation’ or ‘contemplation’ or ‘waiting for the right moment’ instead of calling it what it is: avoidance and distraction. We claim to want to write, and find oh so many reasons why not today, not now, maybe later … needing more pens, or a rainy day, or more time … and in fact, we are creating the greatest and the most devastating work of fiction: that of fooling ourselves into slowing down or even stifling the writing impulse which is essentially our own energy wanting to move and be seen. We are born to create and we feel the gift that writing is, yet sometimes we are equally determined to do anything but write.

Crazy, huh? Crazy as in genius.

The world into which we were born, and continue to navigate, has made a champion out of struggle. Consider messages and role models from your childhood. Your parents, and their parents before them, and ancestors before them, were raised in the religion of hard work producing tangible results. Hands on tools, money in pocket, food on table. Their devotion ensured survival in very tough conditions, and many hoped their hard work would translate into better lives for those that came after them.

Here we are, in a different world than the generations before. Work has shifted from physical to mental; we are living in an ease our ancestors could not imagine.  Mindset today, however, remains locked in ‘survival’ and ‘struggle’, both tied to self-worth. Our nervous systems, wired into these patterns, seek energy to fuel these embedded beliefs and our intellects are ready with things we were taught and told until we came to believe them ourselves. Get a real job. Who do you think you are, sitting around writing when there is laundry to do and the environment to save? Why waste time at something no one will read anyway? Even if we’ve chosen to write something, these inner stories running unchecked will give the energetic feeling of wading through quicksand to get words down. Did our parents mean to get in the way? Every relationship, like every writing process, is unique but in my experience, even the most supportive families have unseen stories running: fear of being seen as lazy or inept, no tolerance for failure, and dismissal of those who don’t conform.

So, what to do? Do what writers always do … get curious, and ask questions. Take pen and hand and with no pressure to perform, have a conversation with yourself. You want to write but can’t possibly do it today. Why not? Breathe deeply, relax, and list all the things that come up. Again, no right or wrong, just write. When it feels like time to pause, read the list, and see what you see.
If self-conversation doesn’t work for you, consider conversation with a fellow writer or trusted person … ask your questions and discuss what comes next.

And look, in the process, you are writing. It might not be that award-winning novel you have in your dreams, not yet, anyway. It is a seed of something from you, for you, and now, you can choose what to do with it. It is also an invitation for your nervous system to adapt, to shed the ‘survival’ story and expand into a new world of creative abundance.

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.

Thanks for reading, and writing 🙂

  • Jennifer
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

Party of One: Going Solo Into The New Year

Tonight we on the Gregorian calendar say farewell to 2023 and hello 2024 … a welcome often given with much food, drink, sparkle and noise. This year, I may do all of these things. The difference will be that I’ll be doing them solo, my first time in 57 New Year’s Eves that I will be by myself.

Why? Curiosity, first and foremost, and behind that, a desire to reclaim and reframe that whole notion of what it means to ‘be alone.’

New Year’s Eve as a kid was the celebration I leaped into with an undercurrent of dread. It meant staying up late, lots of food, sometimes lots of people in the house with talking and music and so much energy … the next morning, it meant cleanup, taking down the tree, and bracing for back to school. The giant letdown after the Christmas season. With university and then my own place, New Year’s became the not-miss celebration with Boyfriend and friends. Then the celebration as newlyweds, and as new parents. On the eve of Y2K my husband and I spent New Year’s Eve watching our year-old son sleep in his crib, ready for whatever the world would sling at us as long as we were together. We spent New Year’s Day watching a Star Trek marathon on the Space Channel (Original series of course), our son taking his meals in his high chair in front of the TV while Captain Kirk saved the universe and wooed assorted lovely aliens all without spilling his coffee. Then, as our brood grew in number and age, New Year’s become a ‘get out of the house’ night for adult company at a restaurant with cloth napkins and no chicken nuggets anywhere on the menu. As the brood left for their own schools and nests, New Year’s again took on the mantle of sadness, heralding an end to the Christmas togetherness, a creeping silence as one by one the rooms emptied and the tree stood bare. Time for another marathon, this time the Annual New Year’s Day Movie Musical Marathon. Starting at 8 am, a stellar lineup of musicals new and vintage, always ending 9-midnight with The Sound of Music. For four years, bleary-eyed, brood and I rose early and gathered upstairs for musicals, while the Die Hard marathon ran in the basement for those drawn to both to float between. Good times, fond memories, creations I am now conscious of evolved to escape, slow down time until a new year beckoned my beloved children back to their own lives and left me to mine and perpetual unanswered questions. Who am I? Who am I choosing to become?

Books. Characters. Stories. Sentences. All layers of creation. What feeds those layers? Space. Movement. Flow of energy as ideas, motivation, inspiration, knowledge. An infinite playground made as small, exclusive, or confining as we choose. This year, in my cottage that is now my home, New Year’s Eve emerged on a choice point: choose down, mourn the fact that my children will all be in their own homes and with their own partners/friends this year, label myself a loser for being alone in a world that conditions me to believe I’m undesireable or otherwise incomplete without a man/woman/intimate partner. No date for the prom. No date for New Year’s. Would be sad if my life was a Hallmark movie. What feels sad to me is the number of people who numb themselves to the pain of their lives created at the denial of themselves to match the conditions, attain the ideal laid out by screenwriters and romance novelists and corporations making money from self-improvement, self-help, and retail therapy. What breaks my heart in this moment are the number of awesome, inspiring people who I would love to spend time with locked in their own stories, their playground now narrow and too small for anyone but those who can perpetuate their illusion of life, playing by the rules that life is something to give over to others’ beliefs and rules, to get through, to sacrifice.

In the past decade of conversing with awesome aware women, of expanding my playground to invite humans like me who know little and feel a lot to rediscover who we are, why we’re here, and what we’re listening to: the voices of others or our own divine voice, I’ve come to realize that the world’s belief of being incomplete without an intimate partner is not wrong … it’s just not the whole truth. Needing a date/boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/significant other or whatever term is preferred to be complete is pitched as that person being a separate individual. In fact, the statement is true when we see that the intimate partner we need and desire is OURSELVES. Intimacy with self: often mentioned right before the pitch to sell this book or that course or this set of inspirational cards with bonus candle. In fact, intimacy with self is both the easiest and toughest thing I have encountered. Try to understand it and my brain ties in knots. Let go and float into the emptiness that is I Don’t Know, that is the fallow field ready for creation, then it is the most powerful place in my universe.

And that is why tonight I am spending the last day of 2023 in my own good company. As I bid farewell to this year of peaks and valleys and challenges and joys, I bid farewell to the voices and stories that keep me cycling down into the past. As the clock strikes midnight I raise my glass in a warm welcome to a new moment where I live, create, and know I am, and am more than I know. Mourning the past, fearing the future, is no fun, and not a way I can live any longer. Being in the present, feeling my feet on the ground, the warmth on my face, the tingles that is me moving through the body that carries me and senses my world … that is what I will be doing tonight, tomorrow, and the day after that.

In performance, solos are the sought-after position, the opportunity to share in your own way, with the backing of your peers in the choir and orchestra. in life, ‘soloists’ draw hissed whispers of being selfish, arrogant showoffs; those living alone are pitied, viewed as victims of circumstance or in need of matchmaking and sadly, too many of us single folk begin to hum along to the tune of victimhood until it becomes familiar. We cling to loss as a trophy, treat space as a prison … accept a date or stay with someone who invites only a small piece of yourself, who you use to deny your full expression of self, because it’s better than being alone. I’ve learned that there is no lonelier place than that where I am separate from myself … my body living a life not of my choosing, while the essence that is me is buried under the static of others’ expectations and beliefs that no longer serve me.

Am I stepping into tonight fearlessly? Hell no … I have no idea what the next moment will bring, or how I will feel when darkness begins to fall, or when I awaken next morning, still solo and my home still quiet. What I know is in the moment I feel me, I feel space, and I cannot get this wrong.

Happy New Year! For all of you I have journeyed with these past months, years and decades: thank you. Your presence continues to enrich my life and the world. For all of you and those I have yet to meet … what awesome experiences might we co-create in 2024? There’s a perpetual question I don’t mind sitting with.

Thank you, for being here, for being you.

Jennifer

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

To learn more about Decloaking and Living Authentically and other offerings in the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge,
visit https://wel-systems.com/
the brilliant website of its founder, Louise LeBrun, https://louiselebrun.ca/)
and the powerful offerings of CODE Model Coaches™ Stela Murrizi, https://sparkingthesacred.com/
and Sheila Winter Wallace, http://bodygateways.com/

Posted on

Inviting Light Through Wordplay

Ah .. November, month of Remembrance and growing darkness, an end to Daylight Savings and the final march to the shortest day of winter solstice. It invites hibernation in fuzzy sweaters under cozy quilts with steaming mugs of spiced whatevers. It’s also the perfect month to play.

November in the writing world is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, the annual invitation to write a minimum of 50,000 words (about 1,700 words a day): rough draft, selected scenes, whatever, as long as it’s your original writing, written during the month. It’s self-directed and self-monitored, so the only one hurt by your cheating is you. The idea is to get you writing, butt in the seat, words on the page, through incentives like virtual badges, online forums, opportunities for in-person write-ins in your community and, of course, bragging rights if you hit the target. It’s a virtual community shouting Woo Hoo, You Got This! As the year grinds to an end and darkness descends, working alone and facing another year without that book started can be more depressing than usual. NaNoWriMo is that virtual community shouting Woo Hoo! You Got This!  

The power of community is infinite, just as each of us stepping into it is infinite. Writing can help us rediscover that, especially in the darkness.

Speaking of community, a writing retreat I was privileged to be part of this past summer has evolved into a monthly online gathering where with a monthly prompt we each craft a piece of our choice to share and discuss with the group.  October’s prompt was working moms. Wow, the scenario that unleashed for me! I dove in with the enthusiasm of a cooped-up grade schooler released into the fresh air of a new playground. Here is the result: part fiction, part memoir, all me. Enjoy!

–

I remember the first time I was asked: ‘Are you a working mom?’

It was a school committee meeting. Annual fundraiser, the first meeting of the year, my first with a school-aged child. Assignment sheets are circulating, ground rules are being laid down by those more experienced members of the group, moms of fourth and fifth graders. As the sheet rounded the turn toward me, the question.

‘Are you a working mom?’

Then the silence, waiting my response.

“Is there any other kind? I replied, genuinely puzzled.

Polite laughter, strained over the growing seeds of impatience. The question is reworded.

“I mean, do you work outside the home?”

And there is was. The battle line. Was I a mother who held a career, earned a paycheque, and otherwise fulfilled herself by having others raise her children during office hours?

Or, was I a mother engaged in daily routines of carpools, domestic duties, crafts after school, homemade dessert every night and volunteering as her ultimate lot in life, grasped as fiercely as the schedule for hall monitor and key to the costume closet for the annual school play?

Today’s me would have sighed, set down my pen, cleared my throat, and replied evenly …

For the love of God, can we as women STOP it already? I mean seriously, can we press pause on the consistent teardown of each other and just work together respecting each of us for the awesome beings we are? Why does it matter where I work, if I get paid, and what I do with my day? I chose to be here …  and granted, in this moment, not one of my best choices but hey, we’re all human, right? Now what is it I can help with? Or can I best help by getting the hell out of your way and letting your little hate fest continue unabated?-

However, today’s me at this juncture of my life was more deeply buried than the Oak Island treasure. In fact, in the moment I was asked, I didn’t know what to say. I did both. I was a full-time freelance writer, at times earning as much take-home pay as my government-employed husband,  working with clients from coast to coast. At the same time, I never left the house, phone cradled to my ear with one or more younglings clustered about awaiting snacks or facewashing or buttons done up.  I fit the world’s definition of a working mom. I was also an at-home mom. Straddlng the line. A stupid line at that.

But the then me also straddled the line of independence and fitting in. Knowing who I was and what I wanted, but not wanting to stand out. You know what happens to the tall poppy, some well-meaning person whispered to me once. It gets picked first.

So I shrugged and said, I work from home … letting my voice trail off hoping this was enough to satisfy the waiting panel.

“What we mean is, do you bake? Or do you get storebought? We understand some people just do not have the time or talent to bake, and we try to balance out the bake sale table with both.”

Of course. I should have known. “I do bake,’ I offered, hesitant on the brink of a realm unknown. Could I measure up to what was clearly impeccable standards?”

‘Wonderful! Came the reply. Smarties or sprinkles?’

Pardon me?

“Smarties or sprinkles? It’s nice to have a variety. What do you use to decorate your cupcakes?”

The world went black.

From the moment the line on my pee stick turned blue, I embraced the realm of motherhood and the choices that came with it. Breast or bottle, cloth or disposable, TV or no, solids sooner or later … I bobbed and weaved between what the experts claimed, what my baby demanded, and what I felt was right. I soon learned there was a fourth expectation to meet: that of the women collective who built their kingdoms upon the judgement of others, creating intricate mazes of decisions and options that left most in pits of condemnation while they ruled, smiling, from on high.

You bottle fed? So sad. Work outside the home? Must be so stressful for you and for your child.

Meanwhile, in another castle, being at home with your child is sniffed at as letting go, giving in, giving up … and what DO you do all day? Straddling the line, I absorbed all the criticism while consciously pursuing the ideal that we can do it all. Homemade treats for the bake sale! You got it. Client meeting at noon and deadline by the end of the day? Sure. Do handcrafted Valentine cards after school with eldest child while baby and toddler nap? Was going to scrub the bathroom then but no worries, will do that after they all go to bed.

Smarties or sprinkles, though, were the proverbial straw. The condemnation, the demands, the nitpicking were infinite, would never stop, unless I claimed the infinity that was me and allowed my inner truth to surface, unapologetically, and unfuckwithable.

When the blackness lifted and my vision cleared, the conversation had resumed without me. Maybe a second or two had gone by. The assignment sheet was still in front of me. I looked at the pen, then reached for my phone. “So sorry,” I murmured, fake texting my dead aunt’s number, “I have a work emergency.” Half the table nodded. “And my kombucha needs bottling … you know what happens when you miss the window …” The other half of the table murmured assent.

I drove first to the liquor store, then home, where in the silence of a house with a child in school, two in daycare and a ‘vacation day’ notice on my email I popped the cork on a glorious red. Raising my glass as a middle finger to every judgement on the planet, I owned my place … belonging nowhere in a battlefield full of lines … completely at home in a world of my creation, where my children were thriving … whether because of my choices or despite them, well, that they can explore with Oprah when they’re older and I’m dead. For now, I choose life and a good Chianti and savour every second.

That night, I dreamed I was back in the school library, huddled around the committee table, eyes on me as I contemplated … Smarties or sprinkles? In my dream I rise slowly, survey my inquisitors demurely, reply calmly…

Who gives a fuck?

Then I wrap myself in my cape and glide to the door, off to meet my fellow witchy bitchy moms for caffeine and sugar and a good laugh under the light of our awareness and a rare full moon.

I mean, really, Smarties or sprinkles? It would be gummy worms, all the way.

—

May this November invite you to a rediscovery of play, in words or whatever play feels like to you in the moment. Who knows what awaits?

Thanks for reading,

  • Jennifer

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

To learn more about Decloaking and Living Authentically and other offerings in the WEL-Systems® body of knowledge,
visit https://wel-systems.com/
the brilliant website of its founder, Louise LeBrun, https://louiselebrun.ca/)
and the powerful offerings of CODE Model Coaches™ Stela Murrizi, https://sparkingthesacred.com/
and Sheila Winter Wallace, http://bodygateways.com/

Posted on

When ‘it’s too soon’ becomes “it’s time”

My labour this long weekend was in my basil patch, surrounded by my most favourite aroma in the world harvesting glossy emerald leaves for pesto and fresh basil lemonade. In the moment there was glorious peace and flow of creation.

Just behind it, though, was the energy straining to move, that would not be denied despite my best efforts to avoid it.  Back to school, back to work, back to autumn …  such sadness it evokes, yet to be grieving, angry, hopeless on such an abundant day seems wrong.  ‘Back to …’anything feels constricting, counterintuitive to me, to anyone knowing they were born to evolve, yet there is a sense of comfort, an image of safety, in returning to what was, even if only in the mind. An avoidance of loss, of danger of death.

And there it is. The pressure in my body, telling me it’s exactly the right time to pause, breathe, and dive straight in to how I hold death.

Labour Day weekend this year doesn’t just bring up my perennial grief at the end of a summer gone too soon. It also marks the 10th anniversary of our purchase of the cottage, a family play space with the ulterior motive of serving as a second address, heralding the slow dissolution of our marriage about to begin. It’s the first weekend of this ‘second address’ being mine, and an ongoing reminder that the card games and beach walks and rainy days spent building Lego are gone in a flurry of children evolving into young adults, with university and careers and their own relationships to play in. Who am I if I am not the mom with a houseful of kids, or even a house?

It’s also been a week of grieving other people’s children, sudden deaths of young adults in their 20s and 30s. There was a time when I would have felt the sadness just enough to fuel a prayer and condolences and a slight curiosity as to how these things happen. Now I find myself on a teeter totter of energy intense and active, on one side grief and fury that rages against a world claiming evolution yet killing our children before it is time, on the other the complete absence of feeling, numb and mutely watching all going on around me as a movie, not engaging, separate from it all.

It’s a choice point of separation that exists only in my mind, that my body says ‘no more.’

Who am I, and who do I become when I get off the teeter totter, the merry-go-round, out of the hellish playground altogether and own all that I feel, everything, nothing, and all in between, to drop the labels and live from what I know rather than what I ‘should’ do, or what is the norm?

I become someone comfortable with death as a part of life, life as a part of death, knowing that life, death and everything in between are labels for the experiences we as divine energy have in human bodies. I become someone who sees life and death becoming currency in the hands of those wanting our trust and our cash for their own selfish uses, terrifying us with stories to sell us products to defy aging, protect us from evil, or earn us a place in eternal life. We come from infinite energy into a human body for an experience on Earth, we return to infinite energy when time on Earth is done. Who would each of us become, what would our world become, if we owned and trusted that there is nothing to earn, no space to buy, no need to measure up, no fears to push down? All we have and all we need is breath, awareness, and the moment we are in to choose, create, and own our creation.

Death is all around us, when I choose to see it. My basil plants, harvested of their leaves, will die, their stalks and roots and the soil that sustained them composted back to the earth. My children will leave this Earth someday. For generations we have been taught how wrong it is, how devastating that children die before their parents. Absolutely it is. But at what age and what stage does loss of a loved one from Earth feel okay? My grandmother was 96 when she died; her death did not feel easy because ‘she lived a good long life’ and it was the ‘natural order of things.’ I miss her keenly, memories slicing like the edge of a knife, until I choose to open to another way to hold death. Not loss, but transition. Her essence returned to the infinity of the divine, still with me and a part of me, as energy rather than her voice and body tangible in front of me. So comforting, soothing as one of her crocheted blankets.

Who wouldn’t choose a blanket to curl up with rather than a knife? Or the scent of basil?

When I forget who I am, a divine signal able to create safety within myself, the only safety there is, I choose the knife, keeping the hurts fresh and the rage on standby. I tell myself stories and cling to memories for fear of allowing energy to move, light to shine, joy to enter, life to expand, for expansion brings me closer to my signal, myself, something I and generations before me was taught to hide, lest we behave dangerously, destroy something or be destroyed.

In the sunshine of awareness, grounded in the moment we’re in, the choice is clear.

Our power is in the moment, in ourselves, lived in the choices we make. I choose to allow the moments of sadness, the moments of fear, knowing that they cannot hurt me, and allowing them to move will free me. I choose to set down the knife and allow the world to shift, to change around me. To smell the basil and smile, not because it grew, but because of what I learn in the letting go.

Posted on

Tap Dancing in the Minefield of the Heart

It’s a conversation that’s been a long time coming.  On the outside things look fine; on the inside something is missing, feels off, irritates or just plain hurts. For years, explaining things away, rationalizing that things are great, good enough, okay, as much as we deserve since others have it a lot worse. Until either the body gives out or refuses to carry the lies any more. We have been taught to tell the truth, that the truth will set you free. We have also been taught that the truth can topple carefully-constructed lives and cause pain and chaos, that some truths are better kept as secrets. How others feel, keeping their secrets and lies, is more important than our own health and well-being.  That betrayal of self is okay, celebrated, even, in the preservation of a system, institution, or life crafted to maintain or control rather than evolve and grow.

Well, in plain language, time to call bullshit on all of that.

Be yourself and tell the truth. How simple and rich an existence would we each have, how powerful and awesome the lives we would create,  adhering to that clear and natural law of engagement.  Never has this been more obvious and more unsettling. Knowing clearly who we are, owning clearly our truth, enables us to weather storms of confusion and create our path to the life we want for us and for the people we love. It begins with honouring our own knowledge and instincts, listening and learning when something feels off or catches our attention. It begins with choosing different for yourself, choosing authenticity every time, even when it hurts.

It means examining what we consider healthy relationships, and owning how we may sell ourselves – and by extension those we care about – short, claiming to be honest when we are hiding secrets and spinning stories to ‘keep the peace’ or to remain okay with ‘good enough.’

It means having that conversation that’s been a long time coming.

Many people will refuse to believe in their own power to transform the world because their own created world is ‘okay the way it is.’ Everything is a choice, and I get this one. I lived this way for years, until it was time that I couldn’t any more. Years after I awakened to new possibilities, I fought like hell to keep everything balanced and smooth, the world I had created based on what I learned as a child and young adult, and the new emerging world that I knew in my cells was my present and future. The thing is, the two worlds were in direct opposition. What I created I based on what I knew, my history, my need to be productive according to the standards of others and protected from the outside, a protection that manifested as isolation and that really never works. My emerging world is based on who I am, the divine signal here on Earth with a purpose, emerging choice by choice and moment by moment, safety  and referencing internal, being and living my authentic self and giving space for that to change as I learn more and choose differently, a constant flow of energy within and without, creating rather than replicating, evolving rather than protecting. Running both scenarios is akin to driving while stomping the gas and the brake at the same time. It’s a choice that seems safe in the moment, but will kill you over time, and it very nearly did, a couple of times. If disease or body wear doesn’t get you, the suppressed rage does.

The more I awaken the more I know that an inauthentic life will kill me, that spinning stories based on beliefs of others that hold little meaning or sense for me will only keep me churning in circles and detached from my life, and from those in it. Keeping secrets and telling lies, especially to myself, keeps no peace – it creates a barrier to a deeper more fulfilling relationship, creates an illusion that can never grow or be enjoyed. When is the last time an illusion hugged you warmly, wrapping you in scent and heartbeats and the soft warmness of someone you love? Those choosing illusion may not know what they choose, or that there is another way, but the body knows when the warmth it feels is authentic and when it is a story spun by a mind too invested in control to allow the truth.

Then there is the R word: risk. Better to have an illusion than nothing at all. Better to have ‘okay’ than zero. How long, though, can an awakening evolving infinite spirit survive on ‘okay’? When you love someone, feel the depth of connection, know there is so much more to experience and create and live, how long can ‘okay’ sustain the excitement, the promise, the joy?

Exactly. Which is why I chose to have a conversation, the toughest I have had to date, to look into those trusting blue eyes and speak my truth, which was to own that I was  being lied to because he was lying to himself, and that was no longer okay with me. I know his stories, I know they lie in wait as his source of protection against a world that has demonstrated over and over his heart and feelings are not safe unless he hides and controls the arena where they are revealed in tiny glimpses. For years I skirted the mines as my way of loving him, protecting him, conveniently protecting my stories and strategies as well. Getting close but not too close. Controlling access through clever wordplay. But skirting the mines gradually reduced my playing field to a space too small, no room for words or imagination or hope. I was lying to myself and my world of expansion was in limbo. I had to stand up for me, stop playing the victim in my own story and the peacemaker in his. It hurt. It was frustrating to feel him in the moment choosing strategy over truth. It felt, well, shitty, which makes sense. I was calling bullshit on stories that have run for decades, his and mine. Of course there is pushback, denial, defence. From both of us.

There is also promise and space that didn’t exist before. When the stench of manure drifted away, we were still standing, still talking, his eyes still held mine and were still that gorgeous shade of blue which told me I was seeing him – not his stories or that arrogant veneer of a soldier that runs the minefield – but his authentic self. A separate and equally powerful godforce that deserves space and time to own and make his choices, the space and time granted to me over the years by my awesome tribe of enlightened women who ensure I don’t have to navigate my minefield alone. It is time for me to be that presence for another, without expectation or demand. A few of my mines have just disappeared.

Conversations are like potato chips – you can’t have just one.  Reclamation is in layers, evolution is ongoing. My conversation was like removing the topsoil from the minefield.  We see the stories now. We can avoid them. We can take agonizing painstaking hours to diffuse them. Or we can simply choose in the moment to let go of the story and the mine disappears. Choice by choice. Conversation by conversation. Each authentic to self, creating something authentic and awesome when combined. That’s the life that creates, that we were born to lead. In my world, anyway.

—

The unique and comprehensive WEL-Systems® body of knowledge offers a powerful new context for personal evolution and change, including articles and audio clips available free of charge to pique your curiosity and invite your exploration of self.

Decloaking and Living Authentically is a conversation that will take you into the much deeper dive of who you are, as the thinker behind it all.
Listen to a free sample here.

As a CODE Model Coach™ I welcome your comments, inquiries and conversations: contact me for an introductory chat

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

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

 

Posted on

Decloaking the Emperor

Decloaking The Emperor

The Emperor’s New Clothes: you know the fable … an emperor in a far-off land pays a handsome sum to a travelling tailor promising to make the monarch the most beautiful clothing in the world. After much anticipation the emperor dons his new duds and parades through his kingdom, dressed in what he is told by the gleeful (and now rich) tailor that he looks wonderful. He also looks naked, because he is naked.His ‘new clothes’ are in fact non-existent but deep in his story that wealth can buy anything and no one would dare con an emperor, he sees nothing but his own imagination and the adoring faces of his subjects who not wanting to upset the Emperor buy into his narrative, push down their own truth for the sake of external safety, yes, sir, beautiful clothing, sir …

Ridiculous, eh? And just a fairy tale from long ago.
Or is it?

How many times have we nodded and smiled as someone parades in front of us in the most hideous outfit/haircut/makeup job and we say you go, girl, you look great even though we see a woman pretending to be something she’s not. How many times have we looked in the mirror and refused to see what is really looking back at us, focusing on things we deem ugly, not seeing the beauty of our existence. How many times have we watched friends move in together or get married knowing the relationship is a disaster waiting to happen, yet saying nothing because you don’t want to upset them or ‘be a downer.’ How many times have you watched an employee consistently muddle through their tasks and then in their performance evaluation give a smile and thumbs up to avoid hard feelings and potential action from human resources? How many times have you stalked away or unfriended a person who told you what they believed you needed to hear, and they were right, you just don’t want to go there?

To lie to yourself is the greatest inauthenticity there is, the deepest betrayal.
When we feel betrayed by the words or actions of another, often it is our own betrayal of self that is at the root of our rage, and at the root of that, shame at having created or at least allowed the betrayal to happen.

What did the emperor’s subjects do?

They agreed to not disagree. Keep the peace. Protecting the emperor’s ridiculous hold on his version of reality while his very essence swung unprotected in the breeze, while protecting themselves from his wrath at hearing what he didn’t want to know. Not a healthy environment for anyone, on any level.  Everyone asleep while life drifted toward an inevitable crash when the emperor eventually realized he had been, well, had and everyone around him allowed it to continue.

It took a child to speak the truth: the emperor hadn’t a stitch on. The tailor robbed him, literally bamboozled him out of the shirt on his back.

We are each that child. We as our authentic selves know the truth and are not afraid of speaking it. We know inherently that we need that authenticity, we deserve it … it is life.

Dr. Gabor Mate has said science proves humans need two fundamental things to survive: attachment and authenticity. Attachment is something most of us struggled with to some degree: even the most caring of parents ‘back in the day’ were taught to train their children rather than heed their cues, to not cuddle or console their crying child to avoid spoiling them, to work hard for money to give them all they need and want rather than simply spend time with them ….  And that’s not counting those of us who grow up without one or either of our parents, or cared for by institutions, or exposed to horrific emotional and physical abuse. The result we have attached to our ideals, to people who mirror what we wanted as children … people who remind us of our parents, who promise to care for and protect us. The thing is, a mirror reflects all and inevitably as we are drawn to what we want we attract what we know, and that is someone who promises what we want then falls short. We feel their betrayal of us when in fact what hurts is the awareness that we have already betrayed ourselves.

To that we should say NO … no more betrayal, no more ‘agreeing to not disagreeing’, no more keeping the peace and maintaining a lie for the benefit of others staying asleep in their lives.

There needs to also be YES … learning to say YES to our authentic voice, to our truth, to the moment as it presents, to the next moment we create, to being awake, to staying awake, to keeping our child self close and trusted, to remind us when we are drifting off into habitual programming rather than engaging fully awake and aware.

It may be as simple as ‘you know what, you’re naked.’

It may be as layered as ‘I feel our relationship is shrinking our world rather than expanding it … could we have a conversation about that?’ Either way, say YES to speaking up, and NO to keeping the peace. The Emperor may sputter and swear but in the end, if he’s human at all, he’ll be grateful for the heads up about his bare behind. I know I would.

Be yourself and tell the truth. How many bare butts and embarrassing moments and illnesses and agonies would be we spared as a result? That’s the world I want to live in and am choosing to create. You can, too. Be awake, be aware, and be honest and if you struggle with that, reach out to someone who mirrors your struggle unapologetically and listen, even if it makes you squirm. Relax into the chaos and allow yourself to learn what you’ve been carrying deeply for years, generations. Reach inward and invite forward the child you, when you knew what you knew and didn’t care who heard it. These are your allies. It takes a community to build a world.

Choose your community mindfully, authentically, honestly, and a new world will emerge as you emerge more fully yourself. Once you have made this choice, know there are people and resources to support you on your journey.

The unique and comprehensive WEL-Systems® body of knowledge offers a powerful new context for personal evolution and change, including articles and audio clips available free of charge to pique your curiosity and invite your exploration of self.

Decloaking and Living Authentically is a conversation that will take you into the much deeper dive of who you are, as the thinker behind it all.
Listen to a free sample here.

As a CODE Model Coach™ I welcome your comments, inquiries and conversations: contact me for an introductory chat

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

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