The urge and the practice.

I remember a time when blogging was my source of breath. Things didn't feel real until I put them onto a post and hit publish.

Even when I have to be cryptic, writing is my way of feeling into something.

When I started doing more writing for programs all my word juice flowed into my circles and courses. The priority became program prompts and weekly newsletters. My newsletter each Thursday morning is my heart on the page. It is current, always written the day or two before it sends out. It is my love note to myself that I hold as prayer that it reaches you in your heart space. We tend to vibrate in such similar places with moon cycles and awakenings and rawness.

Instagram has become my mini blog. I love Instagram, the way it has connected me and gifted me with friendships moved into real life. By far it is my favorite social media medium.

What would have been blog posts become tiny posts on Instagram. Something has changed in the blogging world. I used to get these hits of a blog and I couldn't not write them. I felt so connected to community in my blog space. The urge to write was my practice. The hit would come, I would grab the computer and bang it out.

I was an avid reader of blogs. Not so much anymore. There is so much out there. I find myself on overload. My morning used to start with some coffee and my favorite bloggers. These days it is a quick stroll through my Insta feed. Visual. Connected. Caffeinated.

I want to love my blog again. To breathe new life into it. I want a new way of connecting through that space.

What I know is that it has to change. To be new. Exciting or simple or raw or something...

It also has to become once again the thing I can't not do or else it no longer feels right in my spirit.

This is one of the practices I am exploring through this 2014 round of Community Grace. I am asking myself the questions around what, why and when and going back to the basics of why people started blogging so many years ago. I am trying to look beyond our now and see where the blog's becomings are. I am looking at the bloggers who still draw me forth and in and why.

I am wondering and dreaming about practices and challenges and giving things away with my new eyes. Eyes that I will share with you and ask you about inside of our crazy creative and loving Community Grace group.

If you feel called to join us we start on Monday. I am going back and reworking our prompts to bring us to 2014 and all that is new and has changed and also admiring the timelessness of so many of the prompts around building community. Just like a potluck, they never ever become dated, only made more beautiful.

I have never followed a business plan or believed in the 'do it this way because everyone else is' model. I tend to run from all of that. To know it can have ease and inspiration and a unique edge that each of us carries inside of us. I also believe in using the tools and trends to our advantage, in studying what is working and what is saturated.

For years when I started my business I listened to a lot of feedback that I didn't welcome. Typically it was around my charging to low or not having a fancier website. I would allow people to have their say, answering unasked questions (I am not one to ever ask for feedback) and then I would keep pricing intuitively and I let my website continue to be a cozy home that felt like a cup of tea and a head rub.

I focused on community building. It's what I do, what comes naturally to me. It is my every day desire. Connect. Build community. Be grace. Listen.

Since I was a young child I have been circling, holding space for connection.

This community building is something we must do if we are to create sustainable businesses for ourselves. Connecting is vital if we want someone on the other side of our blog, because we aren't writing it just for us, that is a journal tucked in your underwear drawer.

It isn't about money. In the beginning. As we build the community and have offerings that we now have people to serve and offer to, it slowly and with ease, flows into monetary abundance.

If you are willing to step in your own community grace.