by Heather Plett | Oct 26, 2009 | Uncategorized
I’m starting to like Mondays. Wierd, right? I don’t know why, but lately I’ve found myself to be quite productive and creative on Mondays (even though I often start off rather sleepy and grumpy). Maybe it’s because it’s the first day back into the routine after a couple of days off that gives my creative mind a little jolt. Maybe it’s just because I tend to be better at beginnings than middles or even ends.
In that light, I think I’m going to start a new practice on Mondays. Mindfulness Mondays – in which I try to be mindful of the things that have inspired me, the people who have comforted me, and the moments that have energized me over the past week.
Today I am mindful of:
- the delight in the eyes of my daughter and niece as they watched the fire jugglers last night at Boo at the Zoo
- the pleasure it gave me to facilitate a creativity workshop and watch people give themselves permission to create
- the delight it gives me each time I re-read the creation story and remember that the very first thing God asked of the people (s)he created was that they join in the act of creation – by naming the animals
- the fun of creating one-of-a-kind costumes with Julie and her friend
- the recognition of the struggle Julie was going through, trying to let her friend’s work be “good enough” even though it wasn’t quite as good as she knew she could do
- the happiness in Nikki’s face after spending time with a friend
- the feeling of gratitude that, so far, my daughters have chosen really good friends who are positive influences in their lives (especially after hearing the story of heartache of a father whose daughter has chosen otherwise)
- the glimpse of fire red leaves outside my kitchen window as I washed the dishes
- the relatively gentle weather we’ve been enjoying lately
- the comfort of a long hot bath after a day-long workshop
- the deep knowing that I am meant to create and engage people in creativity and I will have more chances to do both, soon
- the comfort of knowing that I have done the right thing by choosing this space (and a scaled-back online presence) over the other one.
What are you mindful of this Monday morning?
by Heather Plett | Oct 23, 2009 | Uncategorized
I have the great pleasure of facilitating a creativity workshop tomorrow. Oh the joy!
In preparation for this workshop, I went through the material I developed for an eight week creativity course several years ago and… OH MY GOSH! It brought back so many amazing memories! I was inspired all over again, thinking of the incredible discussions we had and the wonderful a-ha moments I had the pleasure of being part of, and reading the lovely, deeply personal thank you notes some of the participants gave me afterwards. I really, REALLY have to do this again. It was truly one of the greatest times of my life. I’m thinking I will try to find the time to do it again after Christmas.
In preparation for this class… what would you say was the greatest advice you ever received that helped foster your creativity? Or perhaps it was something non-verbal – something somebody modeled in their life or some way they supported you?
by Heather Plett | Oct 22, 2009 | Uncategorized
Once upon a time I had a blog. It was a friendly little blog that was happy being just the way it was with no great aspirations of one day growing up and hangin’ with the big blogs. I did what I wanted on that blog – wrote what I wanted, posted pictures that made me feel good, spilled random lists that flowed from my scattered brain – because I wasn’t too concerned about who showed up or how popular it became.
I started that blog nearly 6 years ago, when I was preparing for my first trip to Africa. Because the trip was so full of excitement, yet carried some old cultural and religious baggage that I wanted to deal with, I thought a blog might be a good way of working through some of that, as well as documenting parts of the trip for future walks down memory lane.
At first, I told no one of the blog, but then I discovered my sister and sister-in-law had secretly started blogs of their own, so we bravely shared URLs and started commenting. Soon some close personal friends started blogging, and before long, strangers started showing up for one reason or another. It was all very lovely and cosy and soon I felt like I had a nice little community of supportive friends surrounding me in cyberspace. The odd time weird things happened (like someone claiming one of my readers was a fraud), but those were pretty rare, since my blog wasn’t really drawing much attention to itself.
About six months ago, my life started feeling really restless, stuff at my day job started falling apart bit by bit, and it occurred to me that maybe I should revive my old dream of becoming a serious writer. Maybe I should start putting myself out there in cyberspace as some kind of “expert” with wisdom to share that people would eventually want to pay me to share. Maybe I should try to build a more “serious” blog.
So, with great love and care, I created a new space. It was all very exciting and gave me so much joy and pleasure to be creating something new and to have something positive to get energy from when other things in my life were feeling more like energy-sucking black holes.
People started showing up in larger numbers than they’d ever shown up at my other humble little blog and it was quite thrilling… at first.
But then, sadly, a few things started happening that began to taint that initial excitement.
1. It was beginning to feel like work to create an engaging, interesting space. I didn’t need more work – I was already up to my eyeballs in work. I needed pleasure and recreation, not strategy, marketing, and planning. Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with those things, it’s just that I’ve already got plenty of that stuff in my day job.
2. I began to miss my old blog and my old friends because I had little time to spend with them anymore. At the new place, I felt like I was trying too hard to attract “readers” rather than “friends” and what I really needed was friends.
3. Before I knew it, partly because I’d had so many discouragements at work and was feeling vulnerable, I began to let myself wrap my self-worth in the numbers game. When the numbers dropped (and, sadly, the highest stats were on my very first day – I never went back up to that number), I wondered why I wasn’t as interesting as the other blogs that were drawing big numbers.
4. I was pouring too much energy into this new entity (and Twitter), and other things in my life were suffering – my family, my day job, my home, and the freelance writing and workshops I used to do occasionally (and get paid for now and then).
5. In my efforts to follow this “dream”, I was reading way too many “10 easy steps to making a living as a blogger” or “10 easy steps to a more fulfilled, successful YOU!” and though some of them inspired me at first, in the end, they mostly depressed me. Self help stuff has a way of doing that to me. I can only take it in small doses.
6. Partly because of the self help “follow your dream” stuff, I was allowing myself to paint a more bleak picture of my day job than was fair. It’s a job I was once quite passionate about, and though there have been some rough spots, it didn’t deserve to be pushed into a corner and ignored so much. I’m working for justice for people who are hungry, after all. For various reasons, I need to stay in this job for the time being, so I just HAVE to find a way of committing myself to it, or I’m cheating the people I serve. (Ironically, I had to give myself the same talking to I once gave a staff member when she’d developed a bad attitude.)
So, after a few tears shed on top of my growing pile of laundry, I just quit. Cold turkey. I walked away from all of my online spaces. I re-engaged in real life. I read more books, I poured more energy into my job, and I tried to be more present for my family. I refused to care if I was committing “blog suicide” or “Twitter suicide” by my walking away, I just knew that silence was what I needed for awhile.
Yes I missed it, and many times I caught myself thinking “oh – that would make a great blog post”, but overall, it’s been such a good thing to take a break and focus on my priorities. Even though I still eventually want to make a career change, my job is giving me pleasure and passion again. I have some fun things to look forward to (a couple of workshops to facilitate), I’ve had some really wonderful lunch conversations with friends, I’m worrying less about other people’s opinion of me, and more than anything, I’ve found some contentment again.
I’m ready to gradually re-insert myself into cyberspace, but it will be a scaled back version, at least for now. I’ll be setting aside the new site, and just being content with my little unassuming blog in my corner of cyberspace where I can play to my heart’s content, show off my kids, wrestle with a few demons now and then, dance in the rain if it feels right, share fun stories about the wonderful adventures I get to go on from time to time, and just be the authentic me that I feel like putting out into cyberspace whenever I feel like it.
I’ll leave the big blogs, the marketing strategies, the SEOs, the self-promotion, the strategic networking, and the numbers games to someone else.
by Heather Plett | Oct 14, 2009 | Uncategorized
For reasons I can’t fully explain (not even to myself), I have decided that it’s time for a little self-imposed online silence. I need to focus on a few other things right now, and I need to spend some time just being quiet and not caught up in the clutter that is the internet.
At this point, I don’t know how long it will be, but I know that I will miss all of you so I expect that I will be back sooner or later.
(I’ll still be checking email – those who wish to contact me are welcome to do so.)
“To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace.“
– Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
by Heather Plett | Oct 9, 2009 | Uncategorized
1. If you live on the route where my daughters (and I) deliver flyers, PLEASE make sure your house number and mailbox are visible from the street. Come to think of it, do it anyway – even if you don’t live on our route. You’ll make some delivery person’s life a whole lot easier.
2. If you’re my dishwasher – smarten up already! We just fixed you in Spring – you don’t get to konk out twice in a year!
3. If you’re applying for a job and want to work for me, PLEASE don’t use fancy phrases on your cover letter to try to make yourself look smart. It almost always backfires and you look stupid. And because I can be a little mean sometimes (especially when I have to go through 100+ resumes for 3 jobs) I might just read your show-off sentence to somebody else in the office just for a chuckle. You don’t really want that, do you?
4. If you’re my friend – call, email, comment, whatever. I’ve been in a bit of a funk and feel a little lonely and dejected this week. Just sayin’.
5. If you’re one of the people who has been creating challenges for me lately – just stop it already! Trust me – kindness is WAY more fun than vindictiveness or passive aggression. I’ll try it if you’ll try it.
6. If you’re one of the people using a jack-hammer on the street – thank you for doing a necessary job so that those of us who are sensitive to excessive noise and vibration don’t have to do it.
7. If you’re the person who phoned me out of the blue just because I’ve been on your mind lately and you wanted to make sure I wasn’t too stressed out – you are awesome! You can’t possibly know how much that phone call (and similar ones you’ve made in the past, ‘cause you’re classy that way) meant to me.
8. If you’re the person on our flyer route that only sort-of knows me but has been to my house for a certain launch party – thank for that little exchange on the street! It was lovely and it made me think I should just happen to pass your house more often when you’re outside! Maybe my kids could babysit your kids and we can go paint the town red together!
9. If you’re the guys who replaced our furnace yesterday – thank you for being some of the easiest, most pleasant contractors I’ve had to deal with to date.
10. If you’re the person on our flyer route who has such amazing wood carvings on your lawn (including that incredible totem pole) and what looks like a magical studio in the back of your garage, can you just happen to be outside one day when I’m passing with my wagon full of flyers? I’m pretty sure you’re an interesting person and I’m curious to meet you.
11. If you’re my sister who is hosting BOTH families for Thanksgiving meals this weekend, you’re my hero. I wish I could be HALF the hostess you are.
12. If you’re my recently-hired assistant who bought me flowers out of the blue last week – you rock! You just set a new standard for “awesome ways to treat your boss”.
13. If you’re one of those gremlins in my head trying to tell me I’m failing, I’m not as interesting as other people, I shouldn’t bother trying – JUST SHUT UP ALREADY! You’re nasty and you don’t deserve such a comfy place in my head.
14. If you’re my oldest daughter – patience, my child. It will heal, I’m sure of it. And one day you’ll be running again.
15. If you’re my motivation – PLEASE show up already! I have work to do and you’re not helping.
16. If you’re reading this, go out and make somebody happy today even if it’s not me.
