Nurturing visions. Merging iterations. Seeking rogue ecstasy.
I am not bohemian but bone and feather and braid and patchouli dance on me.
I am not sick but I can't breathe.
I am not writer but every word I catch.
I am not my iphone but I cannot put it down.
I am not anger but I am pissed that I am here.
I am not quenched but my lips won't invite the water in.
I am not storyteller but I won't stop talking.
I am not colorful but I shine golden.
I am not desire but every cell of my spirit and skin burn with feeling.
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.
It is crazy swirling magic here. I came a few days early to give myself time to slowly transform the space, unpack groceries, sit by the lake and really feel the beauty of what is about to happen.
On Wednesday, 25 women from the 2014 Magic Making Circle will have their retreat on the most stunning Maine lake I have ever seen. It is a lot to hold. The planning has been for months, though I am much more of a last minute person, retreats leave just tiny bits of space for all the last minute. I've gathered surprises and secrets for months waiting for this week.
I have an incredible team who will join me on Tuesday for the pre-retreat prep. When they walk in I will have created just enough magic and made quite a few lists and then I leave it in their capable hands while I flutter around making sure we stay hydrated and happy.
The details to me are the most important part. S'more stations and altars and spirit guides and sheepskin. Homemade tomato soup and chia pudding. Meditations and quotes, yoga and beads.
This is my third time circling with my Magic Makers, a new group each time. I am hooked. Addicted. In complete love.
We were meant to be here on this lake, I can feel the truths and change that will come from settling ourselves on her docks and tucking inside her cabins. I am already new from a few hours in the sun and listening to the water play around with time.
Twinkle lights and faith change everything.
Sharing today's prompt from A Woman's Thirst. Day 24.
We all ache and long and want. Often that is labeled as a negative, to want, to deserve, to desire.
Today name a longing inside of you.
A roadtrip. A tattoo. A kiss. A home. A friend.
To lose the weight that was put on to protect from that which no longer harms you. To grow your hair down to your knees. To get the certification. To jump naked into the next dream. To visit every state. To make love under the stars listening to the waves. To be cherished. To align it. To make-out with time. To make a baby. To let your baby grow up. To love again. To be free.
What do you long for? Give it a name. Will you share with us in the comments one longing of today?
Today with an overwhelmingly full heart, I officially closed my Magic Making Circle with a Sunday Blessing. Sunday blessings have been part of my circles for almost 2 years now and have become one of my favorite pieces of writing and sharing with my circles.
I made a video for them and want to share it with all of you too. You are magic.
Will there be another round of Magic Making Circle? Yes. There will. Registration will open in January of 2015 and you can add your name to a list to be one of the first to know about it. (Spaces are limited.)
In November, December, January and February I will be leading a Business Magic Making Circle with 20 alumni of the past circles. I love to create just what the women need for what we call "Phase Two" of the circle. It is always more intense and focused. This year I had this crazy idea to co-create the content of the Business Circle with the women. I am so nervous and joyful about how this will come together, I promise to share more as it unfolds.
On Saturday I will be packing up the mini-van to drive to Maine and start setting up the celebration retreat for 25 of the women from Magic Making Circle, one woman coming all the way from Scotland. There will be cabins in the woods, a lake with kayaks and canoes, fire pits, twinkle lights and all the little magic that myself and my team have been preparing. And tomato soup. Have I mentioned I am making homemade tomato soup for 25 with freshly roasted tomatoes? I am pretty sure my whole food budget went into that soup pot!
It is always the details that make the magic. The details that take hours preparing are the fairy dust sprinkled, transforming a gathering into a soul-changing experience.
I will be spending this week in details, it is my love language.
I want to say thank you to my circle of 60 women who have journeyed together for half a year. We are a mixture of sad to say good-bye and blissful at the changes happening within each of us. I will be asking some of the women to share some words and photos here on my blog in the coming months. I want to capture their faces and joys for you because they are the greatest inspiration I know.
Happy Sunday. Sat Nam.
Today we bless what we shall be, what we will vibrate with and what we choose each morning. Our blessings come from us, they start with us. We are blessings of magic and joy. Today I bless our circle, our time together, our soulwork and all that is becoming.
~ Abraham
Photo by Catherine Just
There is a place inside of each of us that longs for forgiveness.
For the fight last night. For yelling at the kids when they spilled the cereal all over the floor. For saying no when he reached over to touch you. For swearing at the guy who cut you off and almost made you smash into him. For pulling yourself further and further away from that person because he/she hurts your heart. For wanting to leave. For wanting to stay. For using formula instead of your boobs. For talking too much. For forgetting her birthday and what it meant to her. For telling yourself every morning that you are fat and unlovable. For the pain of not being a fortune teller of your future. For being late every time. For wishing you could love him more, today. For fantasizing over another. For wanting to step into her life. For the pregnancy you didn't have. For the one who couldn't be there. For the book that you refuse to write. For the fear that has held you from movement. For the love of another. For the lust of crumbs. And then more crumbs. For not signing up to go. For becoming more like her than you ever thought you would. For wishing that five years ago, ten years ago you had... For letting the house become a shit show. For waking up without gratitude.
Those places need only one thing. Your forgiveness. Ask. Ask them for forgiveness.
Then keep going. Keep living so gorgeously and let forgiveness be part of that life.
Bless your past. Forgive. Now move. Move from what was and into the depth of what forgiveness allows, which is peace in your now.
Today we bless what has come before. We allow the choices of our past to be released into the beauty of all that has created our now. We take time to find the places that feel stuck because they long for our own forgiveness. We ask. We forgive. And so it is.
.......
There is a place inside of us that longs for forgiveness ::
For...
Let's hold it together, as a magical circle, and forgive with full compassion for us.
The first idea came as I was walking the dog thinking about my weekly newsletter, Making Space, and my heart was overflowing with the gratitude for the responses I get from this gorgeous community each time I send one out. I thought, this is community grace. It feels like a long table under the stars, set with water glasses and wine goblets, bowls flowing with salads and soups and community gathering around in truth and harmony. Being together, sharing a common goal (that beautiful meal and conversation).
To me community grace is each of our hands showing the deep truth of who we are and what we desire. Our hands painting or cooking or writing or praying or holding or sewing or touching or planting or smoothing the table cloth on the long wooden table as we prepare for our meal.
They always have a story, each program I create. If my memory was better I would remember what the idea for this program first was. It wasn't as it looks now. It grew and expanded, it shape shifted into Community Grace.
The idea settled in and started to talk to me, as they all do. They almost create themselves as I witness what they want to become. My community without knowing it helps each program become what it needs to be.
I want to guide you towards creating your own community grace. I want you to see that creating community can be as simple as holding out your hands in trust and truth and asking others to walk with you.
Hannah taught us how to find and envision the grace that is within, to honor it and express it. Even better, we came together as a community that was loving and supportive." ~ Loran Hills
"This program came into my life at the exact moment I needed it. I was craving direction in my new business and blog, and Hannah gave us such a gift with helping us discover our voices. I found my way to connect to my tribe through my writing, and at the same time, dive deeper into my true self and embracing my vulnerability. I made life long friends with the other women who joined. This program expanded my business and my world. I am so grateful for my experience." ~Jessica DeFeo
"The catalysts for my biggest a-ha moments during the program were pieces of your story and the stories of our Joy sisters - the reflection of self and possibility, connecting us all as one."
"I’m a writer who believes ARDENTLY in the power of community. I thrive when I’m connected to other writers who can just hold space for my work and share what it’s like to be living the writers life. The community you’ve created, Hannah, is so unique and so special. I think we’re all called to connect with others when we need it most– and I really believe the communities we find are the exact ones we need at that point in our lives."
"I am missing Hannah's daily emails, it had become part of my morning ritual. I would read them on my cell phone before getting out of bed every morning."
"Thank you all so much for your unconditional love, support, laughs and tears. Love being a part of this amazing group."
"I did not have any expectations going in and I learned this: to allow my creative side to gets its groove back, slow my roll and enJOY more of the *now* and gobble up all the inspiring stories of your daily letters and the fantastically beautiful, strong women in this group."
Is this a writing course? No, I won't be critiquing your writing but I will be giving you prompts to explore using your words to gather the strength of community and connection around your writing. I know awesome writing coaches if you need a reference.
Will the prompts help me with blogging? I hope so! We will play and you will explore your words in different ways. My hope is that you'd get some great posts written inspired by writing for connecting and community building.
In 30 days will I have increased my community? If you connect with just one person in these 30 days the answer to this will be yes! And I will be asking you to connect.
Will you be telling stories of how you built your community and made such awesome connections? Why of course, thanks for asking, I love to tell stories! I will be sharing through stories written and some videos during the 30 days.
Is this about making more money with my blog? Nope, not during these 30 days. Eventually, yes. Our focus is not on money but on building connection and community around your blog or business. The money making bit is that next layer on top of the community. But if you don't have a community to sell to, you aren't making any money.
Do I need to be active on the Facebook group? Yes. This is where we will explore and discuss together. Not everyone will be as prolific as others on the group but to fully get the experience of the course (which is all about connection and community) you need to show up. If Facebook has never been your thing, let me convince you that this group is magical, but you have to show up and give me the chance to sway you!
What if I'm not playful in the online world? Then go ahead and sign up, I'll help you with that! We will play and I hope that at the end of these days you will view social media and marketing with new eyes.
The days we feel whole and beautiful are gifts.
Today is amazing.
Did you hear?
Tuck that knowing in the pockets of your sexy clothes that you drape on your skin today and go on. Move through the day.
Just for today, no other day matters right now, you are the most beautiful creature walking this earth. You glow. You are light. You are love.
You are amazing.
All the information and input and vibrations out there say only that.
The vibrations of your amazingness are drops of water, thirst quenchers, desire makers.
You are amazing and each glance that comes your way today is all about that knowing.
The waves of your sex, your touch, your beauty, your crazy intuitive knowing are amazing.
You can try to sabotage your amazing today. But it won't work. The Universe is too strong in her knowing about this day.
I know you'll still try to mess with it, shape shift it out of amazing. The amazing will win. Just so we are clear on that.
The stories of the truths of what you want, of what makes you high, of the things that call you in your longings... these are all amazing, not broken or wrong.
I can't wait to see you today, to glance the way you move in your knowing.
The surprises will wash over you today.
The Universe will wink.
Today is amazing.
Thirst is sensual, alive, raw, moving. It is our moon and waves and blood and the element of spiritual regeneration. It is psychic and love.
I avoided water on my skin and inside of me for years. I didn’t like showering until I was in the shower, once every 3-ish days. I loved being at the ocean edge but not jumping into the waves.
I held myself back from water and became so thirsty. Sad. Closed down.
My intuition, my love, my flow was being drawn out and replaced only in the smallest amounts.
One day I started to run, intuitively. I drank more water, touched water, craved water. I watched my body start to shift, change, become fit and strong.
Hydrated. Not just in my cells but my heart and spirit.
I found a love for my hunger, my thirst, my needs.
None of it was complicated. I don't do complicated.
.......
A Woman's Thirst is an adventure into simple challenges to feel alive, sensual, pulsing with the moon and the tides. It is an invitation to stretch our edges together and take risks.
We may not complete all the days adventures. Some may scare us. Some will pump us with a feeling of joy and aliveness and hydration that we haven't felt in years.
You don't need anything special for the 40 days. Each day is a simple challenge coming to you through your email.
We will connect as a group through photos on Instagram using #awomansthirst to collect the pictures of our adventuring.
It is my hope that each day the prompt/challenge will allow you to know yourself in a deeper way. To connect to the love that flows through us like waves.
I spent the weeks before the photo shoot running a lot.
The last year my body had changed in dramatic ways, matching the drama I was feeling in my life I suppose.
My cycle had changed as I welcomed a child into a young woman under my roof, her cycle holding the more powerful force, clearly.
My body wasn't fitting its clothes anymore and I felt like poop. Poop emoticon used many a time.
My metabolism, already slowed, came to a screeching halt, as happens to many my age who also find themselves slowing down their pace, no longer chasing after toddlers and working more on the computer. Read :: sitting on the bum.
I need motivation, deadlines, a reason. I am self motivated for sure in my work, so matching my body feeling good up to my work became a tiny secret weapon.
Photo shoot with Catherine Just in Portland, Oregon in July. Bam. Deadline. Motivation. Put a chunk of cash down and know that it will be real soon.
The running had already become part of my deep desire for quenching my thirst. But now I had a way to challenge myself and see if I could change into a high functioning, beautiful feeling, filled with light and energy body. I had tried before and failed. Being no stranger to failure, I knew I hadn't stumbled on the right 'formula' for myself yet.
One day I realized that there was this huge mental block that had been stopping me from shifting my body into a more sensual feeling/looking place, and it stopped me with shivers.
For the last few years I had been living trying not to diet. Not dieting equated with not losing weight. So I gained weight and refused to allow myself to lose any.
BIG! What???
Learning to live as a person who does not severely restrict their food creates this huge pendulum swing for many of us. We want to rid ourselves of disordered eating but it can go so far to the other side. Then we are stuck on the opposite end in refusal to make any move to change our body, for fear that we will fall right down the hole into our disorder.
I had to sit with myself and ask if I would be able to handle to emotional component of losing weight. Would I be able to lose weight and feel proud, strong and beautiful? In control but not controlling?
The past two years I have felt myself falling deeper in love with my skin, my body, who I am. I have been on a path to heal pieces that had been shoved down deep, to layers where I could only feel them in my physical body, but not my heart and spirit.
I felt so flipping ready.
So I ran. Ate intuitively. Let myself experience hunger when I felt sad and alone rather than filling the hunger with constant feedings that my body no longer needed.
Feeling hungry gave myself space to realize how thirsty I was and to drink glass after glass of water to quench this deep thirst I had been holding onto for so many years.
I became waves as I ran, drank my water and let some pains become mirrors for my physical body.
This was not controlling my pain with control, it was controlling the slow ease back into feeling it all, quieted and dehydrated for so long as way to keep time with choices and changes.
You remember being a kid and you would say, "I'm hungry!!!" And you would hear the soft words back... you might be thirsty, have some water first.
I tried it. Turns out those soft words are usually right. You might be thirsty but hunger is so familiar to us, so comfortable almost. We know how to feed, and feed and feed, repeat.
Thirst is sensual, alive, raw, moving. It is our moon and waves and blood and the element of spiritual regeneration. It is psychic and love.
I avoided water on my skin and inside of me. I don't like showering until I am in the shower, once every 3-ish days. I love being at the ocean edge but not jumping into the waves.
I held myself back from water and became so fucking thirsty.
My intuition, my love, my flow was being drawn out and replaced only in the smallest amounts.
So I ran. Drank. Peed a hell of a lot. Figured out what I needed. And watched my body start to shift, change, become fit and strong.
I found a love for my hunger, my thirst, my needs.
Soup is my favorite way to feed myself. Some protein, veggies, broth, salt.
I went to Portland for my photo shoot and held a bravery in my body that came from holding myself, my layers, my joys, my pains, my deep desires to know my intuition and choices belong to me.
Catherine is permission behind her camera. She already sees you as brilliant and beautiful and coaxes it out towards her lens.
She returns the investments you have put into yourself through photo.
Photos that will redesign how you see you.
Those weeks before the photo shoot so much happened. All the stories won't be poured out onto this page.
Look at the photos, the stories lay inside of them, words not needed to show the journey of who I was becoming as I stood (or laid) for Catherine's camera.
......
I am blessed for the rain falling on my braids.
I am blessed with the darkest chocolate brownie that melts as I take bites all through the day.
I am blessed to see the color blue that makes my breath quicken with a yes.
I am blessed with women who can be naked in front of you, physically and otherwise.
I am blessed when I find mirrors hiding in little corners.
I am blessed to fall in love with a life growing inside one who I love like mad.
I am blessed along side horses who feel the same as I about the rain.
I am blessed with sips of nectar and bubbles with the spirit sister who can talk to me for hours.
I am blessed munching pomme frites, always the pomme frites.
I am blessed by the sight of the pigs tiptoeing towards me for a little affection.
I am blessed with messages from the island reminding me that as intense as it all feels in this moment, the journey has only just started, each morning.
I am blessed standing on boats on waters that transport me into the first vacation in forever.
I am blessed to let my crabby sadness ebb and flow with the waves, finding giggles, refusing tears, stumbling through pains mixed with joys mixed with loneliness mixed with connection.
I am blessed by the rain falling on braids, not subtle in its shove to sip the coffee, hug my sweater and hear their words which become love notes to carry in my pocket, waiting for the sun to return.
Your door closed, music loud, heart lost. Praying somewhere deep inside that you would be found by the one who held you in her womb if only she could see you.
The one who held you in her womb was birthing truth and disappearing while your music played. A truth no one could know or see. A body swollen from choices that would bleed.
All of her disappearing. Her sex, impulses, youth, secrets.
The call to sacred self, to words, for sisters to appear so for now she wouldn't have to.
When it feels like disappearing turn the music down and pull your face to the sky.
When it feels like disappearing send a blessing on a star.
When if feels like disappearing show me your heart.
A woman's thirst calls in the waves of movement and risk that are creating her next becoming.
A woman's thirst is her desire to fill her cells and spirit with joy and lust and beauty.
A woman's thirst is a visionary's self forgiveness brought forth by each sip.
A woman's thirst brings her to the awakening of adventure, held deep in her blood and bones.
A woman's thirst allows her to water her future self with the love of a wild woman.
The months leading up to turning 39 (#epic39) sent me into a spin inside my Universe.
It was a feeling that came from knowing this was the last time my age would ever start with a number 3. I held a mix of wild excitement, brave confidence and a total crazy fear of letting go that I was not ready to sink into. So I grabbed 39 by both of it's numbers and I let it roll over me and through me and around me.
I decided that I would celebrate with an abandon of riches, risks and failures.
The night of my birthday I asked 6 friends to join me on a scavenger hunt around the city of Providence, RI. It was the first time I had ever stepped into celebrating myself this fully. My heart was blown open by the amount of love and support and crazy adventure that happened that night and the months to follow.
We had 39 challenges to complete.
Find someone on a first date and ask them how it was going. Check. Give away 7 white balloons. Check (One went to the first date couple.) Perform rap. Check. Get a bartender to let you go behind bar and pour a beer. Check. Get someone to buy you a drink. Check. Have someone show you a hidden tattoo. Check. Make public art. Check. Take picture with skull. Check. Kidnap someone and take them on adventure. Nope. (But this one couple showed up at the dance club we went to from the previous restaurant we were at, and we had tried to kidnap them, so, kind of...)
We didn't make it through the 39 challenges, maybe 29 of them.By 2am everything was closing and we were ready to fall onto our pillows.
We didn't need to make it through all of them. We didn't need to finish, to cross them all off, we just needed to do it, be in it. We even needed to fail big at some of the challenges.
It was a freedom and happiness that still breathes inside of me.
39 has been a year of so much unknowing and expansion and a pace that I have barely found myself able to keep up with.
I have been raw and alive. This can happen at any age. For me it was 39. My awakening. My peeling. My layers. My freedom. My truth.
I let go of the need to know the answers to all the big questions I thought my impending 40th year self should know.
And then...
I got thirsty. Thirsty in my skin, on my lips, inside my soul. My dehydrated female body had a thirst that wouldn't be quieted.
At first it was a thirst for water. As my cells started to fill with the power of that water I could feel my soul, my spirit start to open, as though I was the ocean, the waves, the current.
In these waves inside of me I wanted to become movement. To sweat. To cycle my waves, my sweat, with the moon that guides me. I craved the wisdom that was buried inside of me that could only release when I started to know and quench my thirst.
And I danced with failure. It is the attempt, the trying that changes our lives. So during this challenge we will fail sometimes because we made the attempt.
This year I invite you to join a group of women all over the world who seek to push their edges at all ages. Who will hydrate and move and risk failure in the doing.
“Hannah walks her talk, follows the path so that it is illuminated for the souls she guides. She has her finger on the pulse of the universe, and embodies the sacred feminine.”
Another email, I don't hit reply and you are important, crazy so.The kid's haircuts, forgot. The middle one can't see past his bangs. The exit, drove past it, dreaming of fantasies in my belly. Piles of dishes that would devastate me if you walked in the kitchen and saw.
The stuck takes over the impulsive woman who runs her business and family on her desires and whimsy. .......
You run out of gas but decide not to put any gas in so you can just sit there, in the middle of the open road that stuck took you towards and be the eyes of witnessing.
You watch the other cars drive by and hold the power to join them, but you want only to sit inside of the truck with your windows rolled down, naked and longing and feeling the warm air soothe the bits of you that try to infuse the guilt.
The guilt will flow through and the child who grew into the words that defined her life become a pulse of story that plays on with new words and so she sits and watches.
And this is what we say to her...
Hey sweet love.
It is time now. It is time.
Get out and place your feet on the warm ground.
Feel it, let the heat go from pavement into soles.
Lift your head up to the sky and thank the Goddesses who hold you who know you who become you.
Now without thinking love, start to move.
Dance or run or skip or fly or devour another, but move.
Go.
It is time now. It is time.
Don't worry how. I will show you why.
As soon as you move.
.......
From Thursday morning love letters, dropped like feathers into your inbox before your coffee starts to brew.
The basics of the vision book are a blank book, scissors, glue stick, magazines and some beautifully carved out time.
I love this Moleskine.
And I named my book fully tonight. So pleased and excited about where this is going.
Join us for the 30 day online course?
On becoming a runner. At 39.
First you must run. It may only be 25 or 30 paces. Then you walk. Catch your breath. Run again.
If you are carrying more weight than your body is used to, you can think of it as a weighted vest that you will be shedding over the months. Weighted vests make you stronger.
You will hear that everyone felt like you when they started, huffing and puffing and mostly walking. You may not believe them. Especially when they tell you now they can run 5 miles rather effortlessly. Yes, that's when you won't believe them.
There is a good chance you'll do a ton of things wrong. Or not. But if you do, it is the way we learn. Watch a little babe learn to walk. They figure it out by trying, failing, going back.
The first time feeling the runner's high will change your life. This is not an exaggeration.
You will receive a shit ton of advice. Listen to it but don't take carry it all. Take what you need, excuse the rest. This is your journey.
Find shoes that feel like joy.
Get an app on your phone to track your distance and pace. Let it talk to you each mile and encourage you. (You may still not believe you'll run a mile or more, but you will. No need to believe me yet.)
Track your progress and workouts with that app so you can find the trends that work for you. A running plan is a guide, find yourself inside of it.
Rest days. Once you've felt the high you won't want them but they change the game.
Things will hurt. This is how they get stronger. Let your body heal and be challenged in safety and love.
Don't run on the sidewalk, stay in the streets or on the paths. Your knees will thank you.
Buy a few running clothes that make you feel gorgeous. Everything you do can be done gorgeously. Even, especially, sweating.
Running and yoga clothes come with cute little zippered pockets now to hold keys and phones. Those will become your favorite.
Don't just run. Have a yoga day. Do planks after your runs. Devote one day to core. Lift. Lots of pigeon pose. Rest.
Notice the days when you are running away from yourself. They will hurt. You will feel pain. These are the days that you are pushing.
Notice the days when you find home, which is you, inside of your run. They will feel like joy. These are the days that you are in your body. And this is gratitude.
Drink water. After your run add a little sea salt and lemon and hydrate.
To become a runner you must run. There is no other way.
Since starting to run 6 weeks ago I have become a runner. After 14 days of running extremely little, mostly walking, I was left useless with pain in both knees. I could barely walk down stairs. I waited for my knees to heal and spent the following 3 weeks doing kettle bell swings so I wouldn't lose my momentum.
I felt like a failure. I kept my patience and let myself heal. Then I began to run again. I followed those bits of advice that I had collected and I have no knee pain.
My longest run is almost 3 miles at about a 12 minute pace.
6 weeks ago I would have laughed if you told me after a few weeks of running I would be able to run 3 miles. I would have said, "But I am not a runner."
I was just asked to join a half marathon for my 40th year. I just might.
My whole life I longed to be a runner. I watched my father run as though it was his religion. I always felt so jealous, not of his time running, but of the way it made him feel, like it was moving prayer aligning his brain and body. I seem to share a similar brain and yes, it is moving prayer.
I have watched my Instagram feed fill up with women starting to or returning to becoming runners. It overwhelms my heart. To feel my movement become sacred inside of another's movement feels so good.
When my knees had to stop I had women telling me that they were inspired to run again and that they would run for me while I couldn't. I believed them. I felt it. I was there too.
I run because it brings me back to me, back into my body.
I am a runner. At 39.
"The tension is here Between who you are and who you could be Between how it is and how it should be"
I Dare You to Move, Switchfoot
(Please note this is simply a story about my last few weeks learning to run. It is in no way a running plan or fitness advice. Again, this is my story.)
"Who are you writing your newsletter to?"
"To me. I write to myself."
I hadn't realized this truth until a crazy smart woman asked me a couple of years ago.
"And it is my favorite thing I write. It's a love letter. First to myself, then to my circle. It is fully my voice, my heart, my stories."
Every single week I don't want to write it. I talk myself out of it. I play games. I make up stories about how I have nothing left to say, I'm dry, barren in the word department.
Every single week I wait all day, all day, then I finally sit down during the kid's tech time (5-6pm every night, oh yes) and I pour a glass of wine and open my screen.
I pull up a blank newsletter. I sip. All day thoughts about what I will write have been dancing inside of me and they all suck. Because it isn't about the idea, it's about the voice of me, sitting down and talking to myself.
It is the texts from friends, my sanity. It is the run or the memory or the way I try to pretend I don't do that thing, that thing that makes me crazy.
Today it is the stories. The ones I create, based not in reality, if I even wanted to look at reality. It is the ones I create out of false safety based on only the pieces I choose to include and the ones I make up and the ones that have come before (most of those not even mine).
The stories that trap. The stories that hold the heart hostage. The stories that fuck up the path into vulnerability because vulnerability only speaks the language of full truth because of that place where you move through fear.
So I listen. I ask. I cut through the crap of my own exposition and rants and expectations so I can find the questions.
Then I feel my heart flutter like it will fly out of my chest.
I practice hearing the words that I receive without placing my own story on them. Holy shit, I don't have to create a fantasy?
I can just listen. Hear. Receive the words. Let them have their feelings and observe myself having mine and come clean about all the stories, all the stories that I hold onto because holding them means I don't have to let go.
I want you to be different. I want this to change. Here, I wrote the script, it's in my head, could you memorize it please? Could you play this character just a little bit longer so I don't have to evolve, let go, move on? Please, just one more line, one more pretend story in my head?
Just. One. More. Time.
The addiction of the story, the fantasy.
I don't want to write my newsletter. I don't want to hear my voice, which then I give to you.
It is only the promise that it will become your voice that allows the words to find their way to the page.
I sip. I hold. I let go. I hit save. And so it is.
.......
From Thursday morning love letters, dropped like feathers into your inbox before your coffee starts to brew.
the sand crept up beneath her thigh and between her fingers
she lifted to the sky as though a lover from a past that needed to be inside her to free his head
and she counted the stars that spun around her skin
never having seen an existence filled with milky ways and truth
she wanted the stars to tease her skin, mouth, pussy, goddess spirit
breasts swollen from the moments she had grown into a woman because now she was
and her sex was alive as the ocean sounds traced her body then became the moon she couldn't see
so she wrapped and the ocean spilled out of her while the moon persuaded her touch
i am wild she mouthed to her universe
i claim this piece of me
stop leaving me over and again
i am wild, she said in vibration with the moon
i am thirsty
i am wild
i am energy bringer
i am becoming
i am my lust
i am characters i play
i am missing you
i am you
i am dust of stars
i am dreams
i am fucking beautiful
i am rebirthed
i am moist
i am magical
i am soul's message
i am fierce in my wander
i am stories made from living
i am wrapped around the moon
i am wild she showed her universe
her feet never touched the water and her eyes never saw the moon
so she became faith in intuition and cycles and space and the quiet that can bring chaos
lifting her skin now bare with raw truth she is open to receive contracts of the heart that manifest in release
and the fantasy of the penetration as a wild soul's longing
she whispers once more
i am wild
They came with presents that smelled of lavender and chocolate and fresh flowers. It was their weekend, showing up as almost strangers who held an already deep love for each.
They come in threes.
Three is my magic number, for their prompts and their lifting, in all the ways I want them to discover themselves. Three.
Each came to be lifted, women hearing one another, listening with parts of them that have been surrounded by noise. They came to be seen and in their becoming be witness to the others as they moved into places that opened them while allowing the letting go of stories clung so tightly to, no matter how difficult it seemed. The old stories no longer their safety.
Our time was magazines being ripped and cut to make way for dreams and longings, it was sitting in the white thrown of a chair with the fuzzy brown pillow nestled behind them as they spoke and let a few tears roll down. Our time was about being nurtured, wine poured, soup warmed and served with fresh basil, white crisp sheets to hold the work of the body and the sense that in peacefulness they could both do the beautiful hard work and release all together, as one.
When they leave I feel my energy shift deep into myself. I take the bits that I have carried with them and of them and I allow the work and the knowings and the flutters of what I can so clearly see coming for them move through my nervous system and integrate. I am a space holder. This means I know when to do very little, just enough or nothing at all. That is my set of three.
I am a guide, they are my anchors.
We listened. We lifted. We circled in the way that only almost strangers full of love can circle together.
Before the first sip, I am intoxicated by the smell of red clinging to the sides of glass as I tell myself to wait for seconds before the taste.
Before your touch, in my mind I feel the pleasure and the memories and the lives lived before, I am tempted to remain there.
Before the plane my insides are tangled waiting for adventure but longing for the safety of every item to squeeze in the bags and give me promise of belonging.
Before the iteration begins anew I am the Universe as she surrenders in prayer for our name.
Before fresh ink the uncertainty of forever and the illusion that control is a player.
Before I bite into the stew that simmered for hours I am the ritual of love and the promises that nurturing souls desire.
Before the clothes are on there is only naked, searching for the eyes that see what I see and the deception that it can be held in memory.
Before the reach of what is coming I need to move, force my legs to walk from the hold of knowing I loved you before.
~Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall
