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Welcome to the Create Your Story Podcast

October 29, 2021

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Welcome to the first episode of the Create Your Story Podcast!

In this episode, I share about myself and about what to expect in the podcast.

You can listen above or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

An introduction to me and my work.
How the podcast came about.
The signature elements of my work as a coach and author focused on transition.
Three signature elements: Creativity, Self-leadership, Personality
How insights from these areas can help in navigating chance.
The difference between change and transition
Why having a transition mindset is so powerful.
The value of community when going through times of transition.
Upcoming episodes and what to expect.

Transcript of podcast

Hello, I’m Terri Connellan, your host for the Create Your Story Podcast. And welcome to Episode One of the podcast. Today, I’ll be sharing why I’ve created the podcast and what you can expect in future episodes and conversations here. Firstly, I’m so excited to be kicking off the Create Your Story Podcast and sharing conversations on creativity, self-leadership and personality to inspire your wholehearted life and transitions.

So just a little about me, I’m an author, creative transition coach and personality type practitioner. I work through my business, Quiet Writing, and I’ve been on a major five-year transition journey from leader and teacher in the adult vocational education sector in Australia, since 2016. I’ve learnt so much during this time. And I’ve made significant mindset shifts as I’ve totally reshaped my life and crafted my coaching business and offerings, as well as writing two books, Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition and the Wholehearted Companion Workbook. And this was all in my late fifties. I turned 60, not too long ago as I record this first episode in mid-October 2021.

With all of that life change, I’ve also connected with so many fabulous people, having the most incredible and inspiring conversations. And that’s what I want to share more publicly with you here on the Create Your Story Podcast. So why Create Your Story, you might be wondering? I have a piece of paper on my wall here as I speak to you with a mind map of all that I wanted to create and what I’m still manifesting over time in my business.

And at the centre, are the words Create Your Story. It was created some time ago at the beginning of my transition journey. And it’s been a guiding light in all aspects of this journey and creative projects. What that means to me is being an active player in your life story, being the author of your journey, not being a passive participant or bystander, or feeling that you can’t influence events or circumstances in your life.

It reminds me that we’re capable of change at any time in our life, we’re capable of pivoting, shifting, recalibrating, re-evaluating and making sure that we have the tools and practices around us to be able to do this. It’s also important that we don’t leave critical pieces of ourselves behind on this journey.

My book Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition shares my personal experiences of how I’ve created and recreated my story over time during my transition. I share my experiences, feelings, and the strategies that helped me to make a positive shift as well as the challenges along the way and how I dealt with them.

Wholehearted self -leadership and create your story are really one and the same concept, slightly different language, but they’re both about that same mindset of being the active creator, author of your most fulfilling life. There are four key elements to creating your story, to wholehearted self-leadership and to my Quiet Writing business.

And you will see these concepts woven together as strands in all that I do in my writing, in my body of work and in the conversations in this podcast. So I thought I’d walk you through those four key elements today. So they are firstly Creativity, secondly, Self-leadership, thirdly, Personality, and fourthly Transition.

So let’s have a walk through each of those briefly as an introduction to my work in the world and to what you might expect on this podcast. So firstly, creativity. Creativity is the number one value in my life and it relates to self-expression. So I express this in many ways through my writing, my creative business and finding creative and innovative solutions to meet client needs, to problems in my life and also to how, people, myself, and others transition to what they desire.

We can all live creatively and strengthen the role creativity plays in our life, whether it’s finding flexible solutions to problems; bringing together our passions and unique strengths in new ways; engaging in creativity to stretch our minds and insights through reading, writing, and art. Many of the conversations on the Create Your Story Podcast, feature people who are creative in how they make a living and how they find solutions to be the active author of their life.

Secondly, self-leadership. I shared in my Wholehearted book how self-leadership developed from my leadership roles and experience as I went through my transition journey and changed my life. It’s about being self-directed and it’s about having choice. Self-leadership takes concepts from leadership, but it applies them first of all, to ourselves. It’s about being active and engaged in practices and insights that help us take conscious leadership of ourselves. And it rests on self-awareness and bringing what is unconscious or less conscious into the light more so we can see it and work with it.

It also means taking responsibility for ourselves. It’s so easy to blame ourselves or circumstances for not feeling like we can make change. And we might often find ourselves saying, “when this happens”, whatever that is, “when I get more time”, “when I reach this milestone” I’ll begin that change or take that action, but often there’s much more we can do to initiate or further the changes we desire to shape in our lives at any point in her life.

And often these are small steps, small tweaks that we can take that can make a huge difference. In Wholehearted, I share 15 self-leadership tools, practices, and mindsets honed from my experiences that can support you when you’re in transition or contemplating life changes. These are frameworks and anchors to support you through the uncertainty that a change of identity or circumstances often brings.

So thirdly, personality. A big part of self-leadership is knowing ourselves well. Personality relates to self knowledge and self awareness, and it’s about how much we are consciously aware of our natural preferences, our strengths and gifts, and also how much we understand our less preferred areas. The more, we can be consciously aware of how we’re naturally wired and how we’re naturally wired also interacts with, how we’re brought up, what we experienced through life, but how we’re naturally wired has a huge impact. The more we can recognize and play with our strengths c an be a really key part of this learning. Understanding and respecting our uniqueness helps us to honor our own ways of working. And therefore we engage less in comparisonitis and envy, and we do that wonderful thing, which is swim in our lane. This helps to recognize a particular brand of saboteurs or self sabotaging mechanisms that we might see happening again and again in our life, and to have strategies for countering them is the most important thing.

As we shift into midlife, we often find ourselves stretching into our opposites and our more unconscious areas as we develop. And this is a really powerful source of growth. But it can also make us feel quite off kilter at times, because it’s not where we feel skilled or where we feel adept. It can also make us think about what we’ve done in the past and whether it was the right thing. So we can feel a bit lost. Personality frameworks can help us make sense of what’s happening. And I’ve found Jungian psychological type frameworks incredibly helpful personally. And that’s why I’ve chosen to focus on this in the work that I do with my coaching clients.

I offer a Personality Stories coaching program that provides both an introduction to psychological type and also insights into your personal, psychological type frameworks. And that can help you with guiding your growth and development. I also weave this knowledge into everything I do, including this podcast and coaching. So I hope you’ll find concepts of personality really helpful for you as we go on this podcast journey..

And the fourth area is Transition. And this is a really important area because it’s where the rubber hits the road. So we have these great practices of creativity, of personality, of self-leadership, but how we use them when we’re negotiating change is where I think we have powerful tools to help.

So an important distinction is that change is external. It’s what happens to us. We might initiate it, but it’s still something that’s external to us, but transition is internal. It’s a psychological process that occurs on the personal level. So you might see it as change is the facts or what’s happening. And then the transition is the how, how we move through that process. How we adjust, how we shift and how we make sense of what’s happening. So using the three tools and insights, from creativity/self-expression, self-leadership/ self-direction and thirdly, personality, which is self knowledge. We can work consciously at these points of change to manage uncertainty and to plot a new path with confidence.

There’s so much we can influence in creating our story. Especially when we’re creating a new story at times of transition, having the framework of these three areas helps immensely to see where we can focus. It helps us to develop practices and anchors we can use each day to keep us on track and moving positively towards our design, goals and intentions. And this is the case, even when the times are tough and when there’s lots of ebbs and flows in our experience. And from my experience, that’s exactly what happens at times of change. It’s rarely a smooth path. So getting these three areas working well together means we have a strong toolkit of practices and mindset that we can call on at any time to support and strengthen us, and also to make sense of what’s happening and to be more conscious about our story and journey, rather than feeling like a passive bystander or participant in our own lives.

And all of this is about making a transition to a more wholehearted life where we feel fulfilled. And when we’re not feeling half-hearted or like we’re in a soul sapping situation, or like we’re living an unlived life. It’s been a dream for, four plus years now to host a podcast, talking about all the ways we can create a wholehearted story going through transition, managing challenges and uncertainty, making decisions at key points, writing books, making art, learning new skills, shaping creative projects and lives and how we thrive and grow through it all and connect with others. Community is so important. So some of the things we’ll be covering as we go through are things like the self-awareness and self-leadership journey and process, learning along the way, what I’ve learned along the way, what people particularly women have learnt along the way, tools, strategies, and tips, how we work with our personality strengths and develop our less preferred areas, realizing how we self-sabotage and what we do about it and community, what we can share with others to inspire their stories, journeys, and creations, so we all don’t feel so alone. And so we can learn from each other and not have to reinvent the wheel every time we’re going through such situations. We can learn so much from real stories from ordinary people, shaping extraordinary lives, honed and crafted from the moments of every day.

So that’s what Create Your Story is all about. I’ll be hosting conversations with writers, editors, publishers, teachers, coaches, coaching clients, creatives, personality type practitioners, psychologists, artists, bloggers, and others interested in creating and shaping their stories in the richest of ways.

I’ll share my insights as author, as creative transition coach, as psychological type practitioner and as midlife woman in transition. I don’t think we hear enough about the lives of women, especially from the perspectives of midlife and beyond and the wisdom learned from the life story journey. We’ll explore all that we’ve learnt along the way and are still learning because connecting with each other through the transitions we make helps to shape our deepest story and is so powerful.

It’s life enhancing, sparking more connections and inspiration, and it helps us not feel so alone. So I hope you will enjoy me in creating your story, listening to the podcast and sharing it with others. Leave a review to help others find it and share it with your networks too so we can encourage others to create their most inspired and fulfilling story.

I see this as a community journey. It’s certainly something I’ve learned through my work that every story that’s told, every blog post that’s written, every podcast that’s shared has the opportunity to have a huge impact on others. So I just encourage you to engage with that community spirit, with Create Your Story.

The next episodes feature conversations from the virtual launch of my books, Wholehearted, and the Companion Workbook, as well as with women, who’ve been pivotal connections on the writing and publishing journey and in my Quiet Writing business. I hope that you’ll enjoy listening. Thank you so much for being here and may these insights and conversations support you in shaping your most fulfilling and wholehearted life story.

Links to explore:

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

https://www.quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Other free resources: https://www.quietwriting.com/free-resources/

My books and book club:

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition

Wholehearted Companion Workbook

Wholehearted Self-leadership Book Club

My coaching:

Work with me

Personality Stories Coaching

Connect on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/writingquietly/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writingquietly

Twitter: https://twitter.com/writingquietly

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/

Books writing

Cognitive Science Writing Tips from Anne Janzer’s The Writer’s Process

August 16, 2021

You hone the craft of writing through practice; it does not arise from understanding the mind alone. But the practice is easier and more enjoyable when you approach it in a way that complements your mind’s behavior.

Anne Janzer, The Writer’s Process

My friend and writing buddy Beth Cregan recommended Anne Janzer’s The Writer’s Process, so I downloaded the audiobook and listened on my travels. I loved it! Then I bought the ebook and worked through it again closely for a presentation on personality and writing. Recently the beautiful hard copy arrived because I want this book close by to inspire me as I write and so I can read it again and again.

As it has inspired me so much, I share a few insights from the book here and encourage you to read it!

I’ve read MANY books about writing over the years. What I love about The Writer’s Process is that it looks at the cognitive aspects of writing. Drawing on research from cognitive science, Anne Janzer helps us understand how the brain works in the writer’s process. With that insight, we can work more consciously in partnership with our brain in our creative processes. We can craft our own writer’s process and actively guide our creativity in a more informed and self-aware way.

The more mysterious aspects of writing, the numinous, the inspiration, the moments when the blood flows and the writing is white hot are exciting. But that is just one part of the process to be combined with other more structural and pragmatic elements. Working in a metacognitive way with our brain through all steps of the writer’s process is a practical way to create what we desire to shape.

Here are a few key tips from The Writer’s Process – but read the book in its entirety! It’s a gift of insight from Anne Janzer to writers and creatives.

Know and use your inner gears

Janzer explains two key inner gears in the writer’s process: the Scribe and the Muse.

If you’ve worked through a long-haul writing journey, as I have with my book Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition, you will know the parts that make up the writer’s process feel very different. Some steps like crafting those first creative insights are more aligned to the Muse. Other steps like editing and proofreading are more the work of the Scribe.

Getting clear on these two different perspectives and their associated writing skills has helped immensely. Here is Anne Janzer’s succinct summation:

Within each of us, the Scribe summons our verbal skills to find the right words, assembles them in grammatically correct sentences, and creates sensible structures. The Scribe manages deadlines and gets the work done.
But writer also access intuition, creativity, and empathy. These processes are the domain of the Muse.
The Writer’s Process page 17

This is something we intuitively know and, as a teacher of writing, I was aware of and taught these unique skills. But the framework of the Scribe and the Muse provides a way to move practically with awareness through the steps of the writing process. Critically, they have different kinds of attention:

SCRIBE: focused attention eg research, outlining, revision, proof-reading
MUSE: creative, wide-ranging attention, including periods of rest, incubation

When we are drafting, ideally the Muse and Scribe work together in a state of flow.

Understanding these different skill-sets and types of attention means we can harness them. We can draw on the interplay between them in our creative process. Janzer’s practical tips for leading ourselves help us negotiate through the ebb and flow of the demanding cognitive task of writing, especially when working on a longer project.

Laptop computer on a desk with an open book and pen and a cup of coffee. It looks like research is in progress.

Understand the 7 steps of the writing process

Anne Janzer provides a very useful 7 step model of the writing process using the analogy of bread-making. She aligns these writing (and baking) steps with the inner gears of the writing process.

Getting clearer on this writing process, one we often cycle back and forth through, has been incredibly useful. I like to have a map, compass or framework for anything I am doing. This overall flow of the writing process and being more cognisant of the inner gears at work has supported me as I’ve moved through writing my book:

1 Research (Scribe)

2 Let the ideas incubate (Muse)

3 Structure the piece (Scribe)

4 Write the first draft (Scribe + Muse)

5 Rest before revision (Scribe rests; Muse may choose to return)

6 Revise and proofread (Scribe leads; occasional Muse input)

7 Publish (Scribe)

It’s powerful to see the process in this way and where the Muse and Scribe fit, especially the role of incubation. We often think we are procrastinating or delaying if we are not always in forward movement with writing. Through the analogy of writing with bread-making, Janzer highlights the importance of letting ideas or drafts rest. Just as bread needs time for the ingredients to activate and integrate, so we need to allow time to reflect on what we have written.

Sometimes, we need to stop writing so more things can come to light in our life. In writing Wholehearted, there was a long period of incubation before the deeper editing process, including reaching out for support. It felt uncomfortable, but now I can see the work required it to be integrated and complete. Knowing this is part of the cognitive and creative process of writing assists us in making sense of the uncertainty and confusion as we let our work rest and ideas incubate.

Ingredients and equipment for bread-making - eggs, milk and a rolling pin alongside a fresh cut loaf of bread.

Apply cognitive science for personal writing productivity

Here are a few further insights for The Writer’s Process that helped in my personal writing productivity and process and in coaching work with others:

Managing multiple writing projects with awareness

The idea of having different cognitive processes at work and tasks has helped with my creative productivity and planning. Janzer encourages us to use the insights from the inner gears and the writing process to stagger our work. It’s challenging to work on the same type of cognitive tasks across different projects at the same time. So look at it another way!

Instead, stagger the start times so the projects are in different phases: research, drafting, incubation, revision. Create the right work environment conditions for each type of work. If you are freshest mentally in the morning, do the drafting first thing. Schedule research and revision for other parts of the day, and remember to leave unstructured time to ponder what you’re learning in the research.
The Writer’s Process page 142

This insight was gold! Now I think about how I structure and schedule my writing in terms of the phases of various writing projects and the processes involved. I’m considering how and when my brain works best and have more self-mastery by choosing the gears and timing. Having multiple writing projects on the go is demanding, but this framework helps us work with more ease and insight. Projects can influence each other. We choose what we work on depending on the project phase, processes and our personality preferences. We can work on the research for one project, the draft for another and the editing of a third, and build a writing schedule around this. Life-changing!

Reflecting on how cognitive science writing insights link with psychological type

I have also reflected on the insights from cognitive science in The Writer’s Process and the link with psychological type. I presented a session on ‘What 100 Years of Type can Teach us About Writing’ for the British Association of Psychological Type in April this year. Reviewing the field of personality and writing over the years was fascinating and yielded insights into how we go about the writer’s process in different ways as individuals. Our preferences influence how we draft, for example. Some of us would never speak to another person when we draft and work out what to write. It’s a totally introverted and internal journey. Others enjoy a conversation or brainstorming session with others to get ideas and inspiration to write.

It’s valuable to think about how we can bring together the cognitive aspects and our personal cognitive preferences to navigate and flex through the writing process. Insights from the two fields together yield practical tips to help us move through the writing process successfully, especially when we are in it for the long haul!

We might look at:

What is our natural way of writing through the writing process?
What happens when that doesn’t work or we feel blocked?
How can we use knowledge of the gears, the steps and our own preferences to more strongly lead ourselves through the writing process?
How can we get to know our unique writer’s process – that mesh of psychological preferences, process and what we desire to craft?

These reflections can lead to more productive and enjoyable creative experiences and journeys.

Writing is intensely personal. Productive writers develop strategies that suit their individual personalities and environments.
The writer’s Process, p1.

Woman writing in a notebook with a few other notebooks beside her and a cup of coffee she is drinking as she writes.

Next steps and thank you

Anne Janzer’s book and my further exploration promoted exciting insights I’m applying and sharing with others in my coaching. Join me and my friend and writing partner, Beth Cregan on The Writing Road Trip in 2022.

Join me in Personality Stories Coaching to get deeper insight into your personality preferences for creativity, writing and all aspects of life. This includes how to honour and work with your strengths and stretch into your less preferred areas to grow.

I’m grateful to Anne Janzer for so many fascinating and supportive insights about the writer’s process. It’s a valuable read with many complex cognitive science ideas clearly articulated. The frameworks are practical for writing more consciously and moving through the writer’s process with clarity.

I encourage you to read The Writer’s Process to inspire and support your writing process. And please share your insights and thoughts in the comments!

Images by others used with thanks to the creators: [ID in Alt text]

Computer and notebook – Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Bread-making – Photo by Hector Farahani on Unsplash

Woman writing – Photo by Kat Stokes on Unsplash

wholehearted stories writing

Writing the way through – a wholehearted story

September 27, 2019

In this guest post, Sally Morgan shares her experience of writing the way through cycles and seasons to a wholehearted life.

This is the 22nd guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

Quiet Writing celebrates self-leadership in wholehearted living and writing, career and creativity. This community of voices, each of us telling our own story of what wholehearted living means, is a valuable and central part of this space. In this way, we can all feel connected on our various journeys and not feel so alone. Whilst there will always be unique differences, there are commonalities that we can all learn from and share to support each other.

I’m delighted to have Sally Morgan as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Sally and I met via Instagram and shared interests in creativity and writing. In this story, Sally shares how her writing practice has been a tool, process, support and safe place for stepping into wholehearted living. Read on!

Moving into writing

It’s a late-summer morning, still early, and I’m sitting on my patio writing. There’s a comforting weight to my journal, open on my lap, and my pen moves quickly across the page. I’m lost in the writing. This is how I start most days, with Morning Pages, writing at least three pages in longhand. It’s a process I’ve come to trust and value, a meditation of sorts.

It’s still cool on the patio this morning. There’s a hint of a breeze and a faint scent of the ocean. But the sky is a deep blue and the sun, when it filters through the trees, is already warm. I write it all down. The deep green of the cedars lit by early-morning sun. The rich aroma of my morning coffee. The tok-tok-tok of a raven watching me somewhere in the trees. This noticing grounds me, helps me move fully into the writing.

Reminders of cycles

It’s lush out in my backyard, still green, despite the lack of rain. The cedars and firs tower overhead, shading salal and sword ferns and an almost accidental patch of lawn. It’s a wild and unruly space, a perfect place for writing. As I write, I notice that the ferns are a deeper, duskier shade now; they’ve lost their springtime sheen and brightness. Behind them, the creamy blooms of the ocean spray bushes have dried to deep golden, dying away for another year. And now, all around me, I see descent. Dying off. The inevitability of fall. This reminder of cycles.

There was a time when I was less attuned to these subtle signs, when the weeks dropped away until suddenly the holidays were over and it was September. But my writing practice has given me a deeper sensing of the seasons. I watch for the first pale sword-fern stems poking up in spring, the clutched spirals slowly unfurling into bright green fronds. I notice as the fronds take on that darker, dustier hue as summer progresses, how the outer fronds brown and then die off into September. It’s one small way I’m more deeply attuned to the seasons and to the cyclical nature of our lives.

Being aware of seasons

As I write this, I am nearing the end of a short season of rest after a long, full season of houseguests and parties and important celebrations. I’ve become more aware of these seasons and of how I can best embrace each one. During the season of houseguests, I was able to throw myself fully into the fray, into visiting and day trips and shocking quantities of wine. I knew there would be time for rest when our company was gone. There would be time to slow down and step away, time again to drink water. When I am journalling, I am in tune with these cycles in my life, and I can give myself permission to fully embrace what is.

I’ve also come to understand that there are other, overlapping kinds of seasons. After three years of writing nearly non-stop and under deadline at work, I’m not writing much for myself at the moment. There was a time when I would have felt panicked by this, but not now. Now I recognize the bigger patterns, the pushing and then the need for rest. The immersion and the need for time away.

Writing as a safe place

I haven’t always written Morning Pages. I came first to a journalling practice more than twelve years ago, as a way to save myself. In June of that year, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In September, my then-husband announced he was leaving our marriage. I had to write. I was compelled to write, and in that time period, I wrote as if my life depended on it. I hadn’t read Julia Cameron at that point, and I suspect that The Artist’s Way was not the book I needed in that season. But I knew Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within and I followed the rules she laid out in the book: Keep your hand moving. Lose control. Go for the jugular. They were rules that served me well as my life spiralled out of control.

In that season I fell apart. I clung to my friends and to my three little boys like a woman drowning. My journals were filled with disbelief and grief and anger. But in those journals, I found a safe place to descend into despair, a place where I could immerse myself and fully experience my sadness. It was a painful and necessary period in my life. A descent and a dying.

Healing and inner wisdom

And then in late spring, I began to notice the first pale stems of healing. The slow unfurling of hope. The first tentative steps as I began putting myself back together. It was a slow process, and cyclical, one that has taken many years. In that spring, I began to see the learning I needed to take from my experience. I began to see the possibility on the other side of divorce, and to craft a new vision for myself and my little family. For the first time, I sensed freedom and felt hope. There was still much to face – the legal separation, my father’s impending death – but I was beginning to trust my strength and my resilience.

And I was beginning to trust my inner wisdom. By that point, I’d filled a number of journals, and somewhere along the way, a calm, loving voice had appeared in my writing, a voice far wiser than mine. You’re going to be okay, it told me. Your boys are going to be okay. As I wrote, I began listening for that voice, actually asking for guidance. What am I meant to be learning here? What do I need to remember as I move forward? Will I really be okay?

Writing the way through

Just about the time that I was getting back on my feet after the separation, my dad died. In many ways, this was a greater loss for me than my marriage and I expected that my journal would once again be my refuge. But I was shocked to find that I couldn’t write about my dad. I wrote about my concerns for my boys and for my mum, and about all sorts of other tangential things, but my sadness was too deep. Suddenly though, poems began flowing out of me. I’d never really written poetry before in my life, but I think that because I’d been writing so consistently, I was able to connect with an intuitive, deeply emotional part of myself in a period when there was no logical way to approach or express my grief. Again I cycled into descent, and again, I wrote my way out.

In the years since, I’ve fully committed to the practice of journalling, recognizing that it is the most effective way for me make meaning of my experience and – eventually – to grow from it. I’ve written through further heartbreak, through further challenges, and through the many transitions and seasons of my life. Journalling has also helped me to trust my writing voice enough to follow other creative urges, and I’ve continued to write poetry, as well as a couple of unpublished novels, a blog, and a self-published memoir.

Trusting in writing practice

The greatest gift of my journalling practice, though, came during a three-year period when I lost my speaking voice. During that time, I could only talk in a breathless, squeaky little whisper, making most of my daily interactions difficult if not impossible. In that frightening time, as I underwent scores of tests to figure out what was wrong with me, my journal was the place where, if I listened to my wisest self, I could write myself off the edge. It was also the place where I figured out the self-care practices and boundaries I needed in my life to prevent this from happening again. And, of course, it was the one place in my life where I could trust in my voice. Even though my speaking voice was unreliable, I could trust in my writing and in my writing practice.

Over the years, my faith in this practice has deepened to a place where beginning a new journal is a sacred act. I use the first few pages to record gentle reminders about what I need to be my healthiest self, things like stillness, solitude, and self-compassion. I also have a list of what matters most, because for me it’s easy to overcommit. Finally, I include quotes to guide me and reminders from the previous journal. In my current journal, I’ve written, I can trust in my knowing and my inner wisdom. I do not need to seek every answer outside myself.

Writing into a new season

My practice has also evolved. I no longer worry about keeping my pen moving. I write more slowly and thoughtfully, and I make time every day for gratitude and for that wise, loving voice that is always there if I listen for it. But I still write nearly every day, trusting that this practice is one of the great gifts in my life.

I’m heading into a new season now, one that will be both busy and marked by a significant transition, as my middle son embarks on a months-long overseas adventure. I know that I will have moments (maybe days) of sadness and fear and uncertainty. But I also know that I will find solace in my journal. And so, while the weather holds, I’ll find my way out to the patio, journal and coffee in hand. I’ll notice the air as it cools, listen for the first of the autumn birds, and watch for the other small markers of fall. I’ll write into the fall, through the descent into winter. I’ll write about my dark moments and the light, trusting by now that I can write my way through practically anything.

Key book companions along the way

The Light of the World: A Memoir – Elizabeth Alexander

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times – Pema Chodron

The Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems – Lorna Crozier

Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir – Natalie Goldberg

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within – Natalie Goldberg

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage – Ann Patchett

Journal of a Solitude – May Sarton

Still Writing: The Pleasures and Perils of a Creative Life – Dani Shapiro

About Sally Morgan

Sally is a writer, teacher and mama. She’s on a journey to live a less driven and over-committed life, and to invite more contentment, grace and beauty into her everyday. She’s currently preoccupied with voice, purpose and slowing down.

In her forties, Sally spent a couple of years speed-dating her way through half the men in Victoria, BC. Her memoir, An Alphabet of Men: Dating My Way from Adam to Zak recounts that time in her life. Occasionally she posts to her blog, at www.trustingthejourney.ca. You can connect with Sally on Instagram

Photographs by Sally Morgan, used with permission and thanks.

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Writing my first blog post – my recollections

June 20, 2019

Do you remember the feeling you had writing your first blog post? I do. It’s such a strong memory still even though it is now just over nine years since I first pushed ‘publish’ on WordPress. If you are thinking of starting a blog, you might wonder how it feels to put out that first post.

When I went to Kerstin Pilz’s writing and yoga retreat in Hoi An, Vietnam last September, we worked on a writing prompt on ‘firsts’. We wrote a list of firsts and then chose one to write about. I chose ‘My first blog post’. As often happens with writing of this type, I stepped straight back into that time as if I was there. All the feelings and memories flooded back as if I was in the moment.

So here is my piece from that session. I’d love to hear what it brings up for you! And if you’d like help with your blog or other writing, see below too for ways I can help you.

My first blog post

It had been a long time coming, setting the framework for placing my voice into the world. Danielle LaPorte calls it her “digital temple“. That captures the sacred creative feeling that the word “blog” misses. It’s a space, digital and precious, all at once. I adorn it, I shape it, I frame it. I create the scaffold, the name, the brand.

I call my first blog ‘Transcending’ because that’s what brought me here. The turiyamani moments from my yoga teacher coming forward to crystallise in real life. The name he gave me meaning “transcendental jewel“. I’m learning to sparkle like a jewel, transcending from the deepest grief. I’ve cried miles through the national park as I’ve driven alone time after time. I’ve found all the drafts of every poem I’ve ever written over more than thirty years and put them into draft order, alphabetical order. Structuring my creativity as a way of finding some sort of order to make a new life in the wake of tragedy.

I’ve learnt how to make a website, a blog, create a cathedral for my feelings and thoughts, a sacred container I can hold and use as a way to share emotions and writing. I’m not a person who is used to this. I write behind closed doors. I still find the idea of a writer something that I can’t entirely understand. Rarefied.

So I listen to others, follow their path, learn how to be vulnerable like them online in the wide open world. I see that them going first helps me to see what is possible. Ink on My Fingers is one blog title. Attracted to it, I learn how to also be more daring with my ink reaching the outside world.

I’m ready. That day feels like a threshold, stepping into something so wide open My voice, suddenly reaching out beyond the room, beyond the page, beyond paper and pen to I don’t know where.

I announce myself like a bride, carrying myself through the door of my creativity with some kind of virginal white all around me. It’s all about what I intend to do, what I stand for, how I am writing to transcend, living transcending and I feel like I’m howling into the wind.

All those words crafted slowly and with such care hurled into space, published with the press of a moment. And I’m howling like a wolf, loud and quiet all at the same time, wondering what I’ve done. It’s all intent. All vulnerable. But I know it’s the right thing to do.

I sit and wait for a response as if someone reading might save me. Hands folded as if in prayer, intent on arriving into the next phase of my life, transcending through writing this first blog post, this first initiation into the sacred temple of my creative life.

There’s a morning-after feeling, all that pent up thought out there. I could take it back but I don’t want to. It’s somehow delicious, like a coming together, and I follow the tracks of arriving there into the distance looking out.

Thought pieces

You might like to read my first blog post and another early one where I write about feeling like I’m howling into the wind!

My first blog post – published 2 May 2010

The value of howling like the wind – published 23 May 2010

They are from my first blog Transcending which I have kept intact inside Quiet Writing for now. I love seeing the progress over time. That’s what my early blogging felt like to me – you might relate!

Love to hear what blogging felt like to you when you started or what it feels like to you now. Or what you’d like to achieve by starting a blog.

Support for blogging, writing and creativity

And if you’d like some creative support with blogging and writing, I’m here to help. Pop over to my Work With Me page. A free 30-minute Discovery Call is often a great place to start. You can book a call here. I have worked with many clients around blogging, writing and other creative endeavours and I’d love to help you with your vision and the practical steps to achieve it.

Creativity and writing can be lonely so you could also join in the Sacred Creative Collective focused on creativity, writing, blogging and community support.

So sign up to Quiet Writing to keep in touch and you will also receive your free Reading Wisdom Guide for inspiration. Keep in touch via social media too. More on this below.

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

You might also enjoy my free ‘Reading Wisdom Guide for Creatives, Coaches and Writers‘ with a summary of 45 wholehearted books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below.

You will receive access to the Wholehearted Library which includes the Reading Wisdom Guide and so much more! Plus you’ll receive monthly Beach Notes with updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes writing, personality type, coaching, creativity, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

inspiration & influence wholehearted stories

Learning to live on the slow path and love the little things that light me up

June 10, 2019

This guest post from Kamsin Kaneko looks at learning to live on the slow path and shifting focus to creativity and the little things in shaping a wholehearted life.

This is the 19th guest post in our Wholehearted Stories series on Quiet Writing! I invited readers to consider submitting a guest post on their wholehearted story. You can read more here – and I’m still keen for more contributors!

I’m delighted to have Kamsin Kaneko as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Kamsin and I met via Instagram and shared interests in creativity, writing and gentle business. In this story, Kamsin shares how her focus has shifted to living in a slower, more focused, creative and wholehearted way in a different cultural environment. Read on!

Living life in the ordinary everyday moments

“Let’s eat out on the balcony,” my husband suggests. We are in the wine section of our local supermarket. It is a warm Sunday afternoon, and we’ve come to buy ingredients to cook dinner as a family.

“Sure. Sounds like a good idea,” I reply. One reason we bought our apartment was the spacious balcony. But we rarely sit out there to eat or use it for anything other than hanging washing out to dry.

This small act of cooking together and eating at home is one of the many small lifestyle changes we’ve been making. We’ve always wanted to do things like this, especially since we have a little boy who just turned five. But we haven’t always made the space in our lives.

We had got into the habit of going to the local sushi place on Sunday evening, which isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds in the context of urban Japan. You can wait 45+ minutes to be seated, it’s a popular family choice at the weekend. It’s cheap and easy, even if the quality of the food isn’t the best.

Nothing is better than a home cooked meal

We are home from the supermarket. There’s homemade pizza cooking in the oven, and the wine has been poured. We decide to move the dining table outside. As we’re doing so, our neighbour is taking in her washing. She laughs when she sees us.

The sun is starting to set over the trees and mountains behind our balcony and beyond; the light is perfect, and it is pleasantly warm. The inflatable paddling pool my boy was playing in earlier is still full of water. Alfresco dining by the pool, I quip.

A short while later and the food is on the table. My little boy closes his eyes, puts his hands together, and declares “Itadakimasu” (I gratefully receive this food), with energy and enthusiasm. My husband lifts his wine glass and smiles.

“I’m so happy,” he says.

Shifting focus

If I focus my attention on the thick, ugly pillars that support the balconies, I remember this is still in urban Japan. Power cables criss-cross the sky everywhere you look, and people crowd around us on every side. I grew up in the countryside, at times I miss the wide-open spaces which are so hard to come by in Japan.

So, I focus instead on the food, the table, my family. With my attention focused on the things I love, we are nowhere but right here and right now. Exactly where we want to be. We have created space in our day, and in our lives, to enjoy the little things which had felt so distant in our busy urban lives just a year or so earlier.

Until recently, I felt like I was always making compromises. I didn’t want sushi or a “family restaurant” every week. It meant being stuck in traffic, having to wait to be seated, and a noisy eating environment and unexciting food choices. It wasn’t lighting me up inside.

Our eating choices weren’t the only area we were making compromises. But food is so fundamental to a well-lived life as a family. So why had we been living like that? And how did we get from there to here?

Looking for the answers right here not over there

I grew up attending church and evangelical Christian groups. I no longer believe the fundamental doctrines that they taught me. But I experienced something of the divine, and I wanted more.

I can remember singing songs about loving God with all my heart, all my soul and all my mind. But I felt that there were parts of my heart that were locked away and I didn’t have the key. How could I love God with my whole heart if I didn’t know how to access what was inside?

Over the years, my understanding of faith crumbled and evolved. I am less concerned with trying to name or understand what those early spiritual experiences were. At the current stage of my life, I am more interested in learning to trust and believe in the divine within myself.

Gratitude and moving on

I remain grateful for the community and the guidance and the love of people in those groups. But I no longer believe that God can only be encountered through a specific understanding of Christianity.

Perhaps I thought that I would find God somewhere “over there” in the setting of religious groups and Sunday services. But God was never there. S/he was always here in the space between our intertwined lives. We had to learn to slow down before I could even see that.

I stayed a part of the church even though it had long since stopped meeting my spiritual or emotional needs. We stopped going about a year ago because my heart was longing for more space and more slow simple Sundays. And my husband wasn’t feeling the same connection to the church anymore.

Learning to listen to the longings of my own heart

In the last four years, I have been learning to listen more carefully to the whispers of my heart and act on what I hear. I’d got out of practice in doing that somehow. Through writing, journaling and mindfulness meditation, I started to find an answer to the question of how to access the locked places in my heart.

I was no longer going to give my time to anything which didn’t help my heart to keep expanding. I had wanted to spend more time with my husband and young son. I wanted the rhythm of Sunday as a day of rest.

The irony that by attending church, I wasn’t getting this wasn’t lost on me. But I thought because we lived in Japan, I would never have the slow Sundays I remembered from my childhood in England. Besides, times have changed, maybe no one lives like that anymore.

But we were living on autopilot rather than making conscious choices about how to spend our time. Now we often spend Sundays in our neighbourhood playing outside without any particular plans. We cook a homemade meal together and our little family has never been closer or happier.

Our slow and simple Sundays are one example of the ways that listening to what I want and need has led me into a more wholehearted life. Slowing down and believing that the longings of my heart can be achieved if I approach them with an open mind wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Learning to believe in the possibility of a wholehearted life

The first step was learning to notice the places in my life where my behaviour did not align with the things I said I wanted. I had to learn to do that with self-compassion and let go of any judgment.

I was tied up in a long list of “shoulds” and “ought to’s” all of which caused my heart to be locked up tighter than ever before. But I started to believe that I had choices about how I spent my time. I could say no to what I didn’t want and yes to what I did.

I had to find processes to gently allow me to listen and believe I could act on what I heard. Journaling and meditation and carefully chosen books, podcasts, and safe spaces online are showing me how to do that.

I had spent too long allowing other voices to drown out the voice of my own heart. It takes time to learn to tune in and act on what you hear.

How writing and early motherhood changed everything

When I was in my early twenties, there were three things I wanted to achieve in my life. One was to travel and live abroad. I’ve lived in China, Japan, Bosnia, and then Japan again. When I married a Japanese man, Japan became my home.

The second was to become a mother. I’d given up on this idea for a long time, but it happened five years ago when I was thirty-eight. It wasn’t an easy process through miscarriage, medical error, and 2.5 years of trying to get pregnant. But my son is the most delightful little person on the planet.

The third was to be a writer. And it was that final goal which has proved to be the hardest. I took my first writing class as an undergraduate back in the mid-’90s and others on and off over the following twenty years. But it was only after my son was born that I began to unpick the places in my heart which had been standing in my way.

Motherhood in Japan was the key to unlocking my heart

As a new mother in Japan, I was stressed out and struggling so far from home. I felt like I was drowning in cultural norms and expectations, which I was never going to live up to. But I wasn’t about to settle for a slow descent into bitterness and resentment, which seemed to be where I was heading. I wanted to enjoy my little boy and life as a mother. But I needed help.

I began to meditate through the Headspace App. And when someone gave away their copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way I began to keep a journal. Something I hadn’t done consistently for years.

Through these two activities, I found the key to access the locked up places in my heart. I’d felt that wholehearted wasn’t something I would ever achieve all those years ago singing about loving God with all my heart. But over time, all the things which had been leaving me feeling overwhelmed, including unhealed trauma from childhood started to feel more manageable.

Writing is leading to radical transformation: that’s why it’s so hard

The more I wrote, the more I understood that I’d neglected the craft of being a writer and I had a lot to learn. Through online writing classes and working with tutors and writing coaches, I started to understand how to create a scene and a character.

I had a background in academic writing. But to tap into my neglected creativity, I had to bring my writing into the world of sensory detail. I had to connect the emotions and the details that ground a story and bring it alive to a reader.

And that is that process of getting out of my head and into the sensory details of everyday life that is allowing me to unlock my heart. In powerful writing, it is often the little details which bring the most magic to the page. The same is true in our everyday lives.

Writing through the dark to find the light

But I didn’t want to feel the painful things. I tried to go straight to being grateful and finding positive affirmations to help me overcome writers’ block and self-sabotaging habits. I didn’t want to feel the painful things that had been locked up inside of me. But the only way out was to go through.

Thank God the Universe provided me with gifted teachers in the process. This time last year I took an online writing course by Martha Beck; there were guest lectures from Elizabeth Gilbert, one of my favourite writers, and it was completely transformative. Hard work and painful but amazing.

The course comprised the most incredible set of lectures which blew everything I thought I knew out of the water. The writing exercises were designed to take you into the hell of your worst moments and keep writing until you brought everything out into the light.

As I wrote, I kept finding feelings of being unworthy, and crippling fears of never being good enough. A numbing fear that if I spoke my truth, I would be judged, criticised, and rejected. I was so good at avoiding those feelings I’d been unaware of how much they were driving self-sabotaging behaviours like procrastination and perfectionism.

I could only learn to be wholehearted by looking at those feelings of shaky self-worth in the eye. And writing through them to find the validation I need within myself. Perhaps I will never believe that I am good enough to be a “real writer.”

But I have learnt to trust the voice inside of me that says I need to write. And if all I ever achieve is to heal the fractured places in my own heart, it will be enough. I pray also that I can gift my readers a tiny bit of courage to continue on their own wholehearted journey.

Key book companions along the way

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

Martha Beck – Finding Your Way in a Wild New World

Loving What Is – Byron Katie

And the poetry of Mary Oliver

About Kamsin Kaneko

Kamsin Kaneko is a writer, mum, teacher, and traveller, not necessarily in that order. She writes about living a wholehearted life of depth and meaning. You can find her on Instagram most days capturing small moments of beauty in the urban sprawl of her home in Japan. Get your free gift: I Believe in the Magic of Everyday Moments. Kamsin Kaneko’s website The Slow Path can be found here.

Photographs #1, #2, #3 + bio image by Kamsin Kaneko, used with permission and thanks.

Photograph #4 of pen on page by Debby Hudson on Unsplash used with permission and thanks.

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love, loss & longing wholehearted stories

Year of Magic, Year of Sadness – A Wholehearted Story

May 6, 2019

This guest post from Lisa Dunford looks at how her year of magic and change was also one of sadness, the two coming together to weave a wholehearted story.

I’m thrilled to have Lisa Dunford as a ‘Wholehearted Stories’ contributor. Lisa and I met via Instagram and share interests in creativity, coaching and travel. In this story, Lisa shares how her year of magic also incorporated times of immense sadness. How often do these two elements come together in life especially when we make major changes? So often. Lisa shares how magic and sadness have become key compasses on her journey. Read on!

Year of magic and sadness

The year 2016 was a magical one. I’d stepped back from writing travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet full-time to pursue a more personal growth-oriented path – both in my writing and in my life. It took a few years of stops and starts, but by 2016, I finally felt like things were beginning to flow. Along much of this incredible journey, the inspirational talks and writings of Martha Beck kept me company. I found the book Finding Your Way in A Wild New World particularly influential. I’d always been good at following my gut for big decisions. But Wild New World opened me to the idea of everyday connection and magic.

The more I read Martha’s books and essays, the more I wanted to learn. I took online workshops and listened to her lectures. I branched out to workshops and lessons taught by Martha Beck Institute (MBI)-trained life coaches. I hired a coach myself, and before I knew it, I’d become fast friends with a number of other MBI coaches.

Walking the walk

In spring, with just one month’s notice, I committed to walking the last 100km of the Camino de Santiago in Spain organized by three MBI coaches. Saying yes was a big deal. I’d fallen completely out of shape while living in two car-oriented, pancake-flat places. And I didn’t usually take on anything I might fail at. But a series of serendipities urged me on – Paulo Coelho’s book The Pilgrimage falling off the shelf as I considered, a friend asking me to edit an essay, that turned out to be… about her Camino trip. I embraced my willingness to fail, my willingness to be wrong about failing. Taking even the first step was a win. When I managed to walk every one of the 100 kilometres without getting in the support van, I knew I hadn’t done it alone.

It’s not like the trek was easy. Every morning I had my blister-covered toes sewn up, and I popped pain relievers like candy. But the Divine was there every step of the way: in the unusually unwavering support from my spouse, the unexpected inspiration from nature and faith, and the very practical advice and assistance that arrived from friends and co-walkers exactly when needed. I had accomplished what in my mind was impossible. It began to be hard to say what I couldn’t do.

Being led

“Ok, so if you could do anything, what would it be?” asked a life coach friend. That was easy – go to Africa, I answered. It had always seemed like too big of a dream: too much money, too much distance. I continued writing, I went to retreats, I followed my path. Four months later, out of the blue, another coach asked if I wanted to take her discounted place on a South African safari she’d already paid for, she couldn’t go. Um, let me think about that… YES.

I realized I wanted to learn more of the tools taught in the MBI training, go deeper into self-discovery, into self-belief. In September 2016 I began my own life coaching nine-month training. I’d gone in thinking I was doing it for myself. I planned to use the techniques to inform my life, to help with my writing. Much to my surprise, I really loved coaching. It felt as if I was following magic breadcrumbs to a life I loved.

Things happen

And then halfway through the training, my mom died – suddenly, at the very young, very healthy-seeming age of 71. She collapsed in my father’s arms and was dead three hours later. They’d just gotten back from mom’s first – her last – post-retirement, cross-country driving trip. I was home for an extended visit from where I lived abroad. She and I talked for a long time the night before she died. She went into the tiniest detail about her trip. We made lunch plans for the following week. The next day I left for California and my MBI life coach training meet and greet.

I walked onto the LA car rental lot and discovered they’d assigned me a white Ford Crown Victoria. I was not really feeling the old school, cop car vibe. When I asked to change, the rental guy was more chipper than most. “No problem, I get it,” he said. How would I like a cherry red Mustang convertible for the same price instead? Um, sure. At the time I didn’t think about how much the car looked like the little red Mazda convertible Mom used to drive.

Feeling connected

Some nice lot attendant came out of nowhere to help me as I struggled with the seats and the top. “No, no, no,” he said. I couldn’t possibly take the freeway at this time of day. He was insistent, I had to take the Pacific Coast Highway. “Ok, ok,” I said. I agreed and he sent me on my way with a “Have a Blessed Day.”

As I inched up the coast in traffic, the late afternoon sun sparkled off the ocean waves. I alternated between watching the dancing light show on the water to my right and the orange and blue and yellow wildflowers dotting the hillside to my left. Mom would have loved it. She was the big driver, not me. I was almost to San Luis Obispo when I got the call.

I couldn’t quite process the information. After the heart attack, Mom had been life-flighted to a nearby hospital. We’d figure it out, I told my dad. In the background, I heard the alarms and shouting that meant Mom was coding – again and again. I didn’t understand. I said I would come back right away, we’d take care of her. We patched my sister into the call. We were all together, in a way, when the doctor told dad the news. She’d never regained consciousness. I did the math. She’d been with me on the drive after all.

Going deeper

I’d meant to go deeper with life coach training, but I hadn’t really known what that meant. In the aftermath of Mom’s death, things I thought I’d understood suddenly became clear. I felt everything more deeply. I cried not only for the amazing and infuriating and incredible mother I’d lost but for everything, everyone’s pain. Though I’d never had children, I could better imagine the depth of my friend’s loss as she sent her son off to college (and for mom’s when I first went away). I could imagine the incalculable pain of someone’s miscarriage (of which mom had had three). But I also saw beauty and felt gratitude more deeply. When I returned to Africa the next year, I was more – and less – of myself.

Mom had been fierce and fun-loving, but she had also been an anxious person. After her death, I had the strong sense that she was immediately free of all that. And that if she could be free in one minute, I could be. She would want me to be. So I doubled down on the life coach training. We all have thoughts, habits and patterns that are no longer serving us. I became very aware of how important this work was – freeing myself, so I could help free others. Even if I only helped my sister or my nieces break the chain, it would all be worth it.

The next steps

I would love to say that within six months after mom died, I finished my life coach training and established a thriving writing-coaching-creating business. But that’s not always how things work. And that’s ok. I took time to grieve. I was committed to feeling my feelings, to allowing intense gratitude and sadness to sit side by side. We had other setbacks in my husband’s family, a hurricane that targeted our town in Texas. We had more loss in my mom’s family.

But there’s a big difference now. I have tools to use and a community to turn to. I’m much less hard on myself. I’m not panicked that I haven’t accomplished as much as I think I “should”. I had other things to do, other things to learn. I’m still writing, still using my coaching. I’ve continued to study tools and techniques to help others as a coach. I’ve begun to build my business and a website to reflect that. And I’m still doing my own inner work because it’s a process.

I’m immensely grateful for so much from the past few years – the lessons I’ve learned, the friends I’ve made, the experiences I’ve had. But mostly I’m grateful for an amazing mom, a woman who inspires me every day to dig deeper and do more, be more, help more.

Key book companions along the way

The Pilgrimage – Paulo Coelho

Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino – Joyce Rupp

Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want – Martha Beck

The Joy Diet – Martha Beck

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live – Martha Beck

Born to Freak: A Salty Primer for Irrepressible Humans – Sarah Seidelmann

About Lisa Dunford

Lisa is a traveler, a writer, a creator and a life coach. Her house lives on a river east of Houston, Texas, her husband works in a desert west of Abu Dhabi, UAE. She alternates between the two. Before becoming a life coach, Lisa roamed the globe for 12 years as a travel writer. She’s lived in six countries and seven states. More than anything Lisa believes that so much more is possible in this life than we tend to think. Follow her travels @lisadtraveler and her attempts at learning to draw, learning to paint and learning to live @lisadlifeartist on Instagram.

Photographs and artwork by Lisa Dunford, used with permission and thanks.

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You hone the craft of writing through practice; it does not arise from understanding the mind alone. But the practice is easier and more enjoyable when you approach it in a way that complements your mind’s behavior.

Know and use your inner gears

Understand the 7 steps of the writing process

Apply cognitive science for personal writing productivity

Managing multiple writing projects with awareness

Reflecting on how cognitive science writing insights link with psychological type

Next steps and thank you

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Moving into writing

Reminders of cycles

Being aware of seasons

Writing as a safe place

Healing and inner wisdom

Writing the way through

Trusting in writing practice

Writing into a new season

Key book companions along the way

About Sally Morgan

Read more Wholehearted Stories

Keep in touch

Share this:

Like this:

My first blog post

Thought pieces

Support for blogging, writing and creativity

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

Share this:

Like this:

Living life in the ordinary everyday moments

Nothing is better than a home cooked meal

Shifting focus

Looking for the answers right here not over there

Gratitude and moving on

Learning to listen to the longings of my own heart

Learning to believe in the possibility of a wholehearted life

How writing and early motherhood changed everything

Motherhood in Japan was the key to unlocking my heart

Writing is leading to radical transformation: that’s why it’s so hard

Writing through the dark to find the light

Key book companions along the way

About Kamsin Kaneko

Read more Wholehearted Stories

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

Share this:

Like this:

Year of magic and sadness

Walking the walk

Being led

Things happen

Feeling connected

Going deeper

The next steps

Key book companions along the way

About Lisa Dunford

Read more Wholehearted Stories

Keep in touch + free Reading Wisdom Guide

Share this:

Like this:

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