Hi friend,
We've made it to midsummer, and I am hot and tired and just about full up on deep simmering rage [see also: climate change, data centers, US foreign and domestic policy].
I am also full up on deep gratitude for the gift of tending my own land and witnessing its changes through the seasons. Every day this week when I have too many feelings, I close my laptop and go outside for a few minutes to worship our patch of coneflowers that are in full bloom. Eastern tiger swallowtails and wild honeybees are my fellow parishioners.
Almost every client session I have had so far this month has traversed the territory of a permission slip. Permission to rest, permission to tinker, permission to focus, permission to grieve, permission to let it simmer.
Sometimes we really need someone to witness our current struggle and give us permission to let it be easier.
In my own life, I am giving myself permission to let tending be joyful. My internalized capitalism and Capricorn North Node want everything done right and right now, which often feels like immense pressure to arrive at an end product. It's easy to spot how that focus on product, productivity, and production shows up in business because I have a lot of practice with looking for it.
If I'm not careful, I will apply the pressure of production to everything else in my life too, including but not limited to the dishes in the sink, the gallery wall waiting to be hung, my physical body, the plants in the garden, and my orientation to burnout.
These processes don't require productivity and in fact they are begging for me to settle into joyful tending instead. This joyful tending is a slower method and one that allows me to take pride in what I am creating while I am creating it.
It's putting on music I love and letting myself get distracted by reorganizing a cabinet while I am in the middle of doing dishes.
It's carefully collecting art from all my local creative friends, and allowing the gallery wall to unfold in its own timing from my treasures.
It's giving myself mini breaks to wander and get curious outside instead of forcing myself to Take A Walk.
It's watering by hand at sunset, collecting seed heads in a rain shower, and speaking softly to my non-aesthetic zinnias.
It's accepting that there is no arrival to a post-burnout state; my burnout and I are engaging in some parallel play at the moment.
This re-orientation from production to tending is simple, but it's not easy.
If you, too, are hot and tired and overwhelmed by all the shitty, algorithmic faux-urgent but feels in your body like real-urgent business advice telling you that you *must* *do* *this*, perhaps you might find comfort in this permission slip for July:
You're allowed to let the tending of your life, your business, your body, your home, your hobbies, and your people be joyful. You're allowed to play with the idea of releasing internal or external pressure to be productive, bit by bit. You're allowed to grow slow or grow fast or grow something in between. You're allowed to redesign the systems of your life to meet you where you are today. You're allowed to have a little fun in the messy middle of a project even (especially) in a hot and hurting world β€οΈ
Cool People Doing Cool Things:
- My friend Andie is growing a really cool community for healers of all kinds, called the Spiral Collective. I was on their podcast Spiral Tending this week yapping about my winding path of entrepreneurship and working through grief. If you like hearing the personal story of a multi-passionate and/or you have experienced the grief of losing a close family member [or you're just a curious podcast girlie] that episode might resonate with you!
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- My friend Amanda is offering a free session on business metrics next week, called Metrics Make Us Feel Things: Stop Guessing, Start Growing. I'll be tuning in, and maybe you want to as well? JOIN HERE.β
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What I've Been Wrangling This Month:
A peek behind the scenes aka nourishment for the curious, nosey, and those with Gemini placements ππ»ββοΈ
π Hosted a number of beta sessions for my forthcoming offer, which is a combo of Human Design Reading & Strategy Session. It is SO FUN to look for clues on how to design a comfy business in someone's human design chart.
π Helped a yoga teacher plan her new website around both her current and future revenue streams.
π Consulted on how to rework a digital community to feel more fun and less hard.
π Planned out several months of in person workshops + found the right Shopify app for them with the founder of a community arts space.
π Brainstormed a content creation plan with a photographer to keep her out of the comparison trap & scrolling vortex + created a roadmap for delegating to her VA.
π Created client portals in Notion for a high-ticket, low-volume consultant who really needs to have everything in ONE PLACE for mental peace.
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π Tired of trying to make someone else's plan fit your unique small business? Let's design your world to fit you β Book a Wβorld Building Sessionβ
π΄ Think you might be ready to Wrangle Your Work but not quite sure? β Let's chat.β
P.S. I leave in my em dashes because I refuse to change my writing style to prove I'm not a robot, but an LLM was nowhere near this email. Real thoughts from my real head, typos and all!