This morning I’ve been working on the latest email for the e-course I originally called “A Path for Happy Wanderers”. Today’s email is all about how I’ve recently come to call myself an edge-walker and how claiming that name has been kind of revolutionary for me.
Ever since I started using that word, I have had quite a few people say “me too!” There seems to be a sense of relief and deep understanding in the people that I’ve talked to – I have named for them their restlessness, the sense that we don’t really fit in with the status quo, and the endless craving for more wisdom, more experiences, and more truth. (Is that the case for you as well?)
As I was working on the email, it occurred to me that a re-naming of the course might be in order. Instead of “A Path for Happy Wanderers” it is now called “A Path for Wanderers and Edge-walkers“. It’s a subtle change, but I think it’s important. I wanted to acknowledge that many of us who are wanderers are also edge-walkers, prophets, truth-tellers, artists, change-makers, and intuitive-thinkers. Wandering isn’t just something we do to kill time – our place at the edge offers us a unique perspective on the world that is vitally important. (By the way, you can sign up any time and start receiving the emails. It’s only $25 and there is a LOT of good content as well as interviews with some pretty amazing people.)
The interview that’s included in the latest email is with one of my favourite fellow-edge-walkers, Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints Studios. A few months ago, when I was working on the series that I’ve since put on hold (Let go of the Ground), I did a different interview with Connie about what it means for her to let go of the ground and surrender. Because the story she shared fits so well with the theme of wandering and edge-walking, I thought this was a good time to share it.
On an related note, I am delighted to be one of the artists in Connie Hozvicka’s art journaling course, 21 Secrets. Because of the big and beautiful response she received to this latest offering of art journaling secrets, she decided to keep it open for several more months. You can still register for the course and learn all kinds of delightful secrets that will fill your art journal with colour, depth, and some pretty profound truth. (In my workshop, I teach you to use paint to explore your relationship with your body.)
Today is another in a long series of grey, sometimes drizzly, sometimes windy days. This morning I feel like a caged animal, longing for the space beyond the clouds, beyond the grey.
I feel easily caged. It’s part of my nature. Put too many boundaries around me (office walls, too much structure, not enough time on my schedule to wander, too many rules or limitations), and I get so restless I could SCREAM. I pace the cage, I rail against the machine, I get really, really cranky.
I know this about myself, and yet I keep expecting something different. I keep thinking I should WANT to fit into the cages that seem to make other people happy, I should LIKE sitting still for awhile, I should be THANKFUL for the office walls and structures that box me in. Oh the “shoulds” I have dumped on my head! I’ve tried so hard to fit into the ordered worlds that seem to make other people happy. And yet I can’t. It just doesn’t work for me.
It’s the same way in the world of business. Even though I am thrilled that self-employment gives me more opportunity to wander, to sit in the middle of a labyrinth to do my work, or to choose the library, a coffee shop, or my tiny basement studio as my creative space for the day, I still find myself trying to force myself into some kind of box.
I should be able to fit my business into a box, shouldn’t I? All the business books tell us to be specific, to have a crisp clean elevator speech, to have a niche market, to KNOW what we offer the world and to be able to communicate it in simple clean language.
But every time I try one of those boxes, I start to get really, really restless and I want to bust out of the box. Every time I try to define myself as one thing – “writer, communications consultant, teacher, creative midwife, facilitator, leadership coach, transformation guide” – I start going a little crazy and my body fills with angst.
And then I do that thing I do when I assume everyone else is figuring it out except for me – I assume there must be something wrong with me. I beat myself up a bit, and I try a little harder to fit into a box.
But the boxes NEVER FIT!
Because I am a wanderer. An explorer. A scanner (in the words of Barbara Sher).
I am a creative thinker. A box-buster. A questioner. An outside-the-lines-colourer.
And you know what? I’m proud of that and I don’t want to beat myself up over it any more. I want to BE WHO I AM and build a business out of that instead of trying to find some model that doesn’t fit.
Because of that, two things will be happening in the coming weeks:
1.) Next week (on my birthday), I will be releasing a new product that I absolutely LOVE because it is so true to my heart. It is about the beauty of being a wanderer and I’m SO happy that other wanderers have agreed to help me with it. OH MY GOSH this is going to be fun! I’m celebrating what makes me a wanderer, sharing it with you, and hopefully helping you to celebrate your own box-busting, colouring-outside-the-lines, happy wanderer nature too.
2.) Within a month or so, I plan to migrate my blog over to my heatherplett.com url. I have loved Sophia Leadership, but it has begun to feel like another one of those boxes. Not nearly everything I want to write about or create or sell is about feminine wisdom or about leadership. It’s time to just brand MYSELF and release the products and services that emerge out of my gifts instead of trying to squeeze all of my energy and creativity into a brand that doesn’t fit. I’ll still write about leadership and feminine wisdom now and then, but that won’t be the whole she-bang. Being a WANDERER is part of my brand, and so I will celebrate my burning need to wander from one idea to the next.
I’d love to hear from you if you have any ideas. For example, let me know what your favourite things are about visiting my site. What would you like to see more of? What things would you buy from me if I created them? What e-courses would you like to see me teach?
The interview that’s included in the latest email is with one of my favourite fellow-edge-walkers, Connie Hozvicka of Dirty Footprints Studios. A few months ago, when I was working on the series that I’ve since put on hold (Let go of the Ground), I did a different interview with Connie about what it means for her to let go of the ground and surrender. Because the story she shared fits so well with the theme of wandering and edge-walking, I thought this was a good time to share it.