Join me this week as I share the BTS of deciding to take a pause on the pod.
I share:
- The WHY behind the decision
- How I’m handling being in this unknown-inbetween stage
- What I’ve learned from being here before
- Why I wish other Creators would share when they’re ‘in it’, not just on the other side
Resources
- Check out the *BEST OF* episodes: listener favorites, most downloads, + my favorite episodes HERE
- In today’s episode, I mention the Daily Writing Prompts that I created – they can help you establish a daily writing practice that is easeful and fun. They are an amazing way to discover what you believe deep down, and befriend yourself along the way. Learn more HERE
- Tap into your intuition before making creative work. Sign up for my newsletter and receive my Intuitive Journaling Prompts – four questions to connect with your intuition before making art. Sign up HERE
If you enjoy listening, please subscribe, rate and review, and forward this episode to a friend who would benefit from it too.
Let’s become a generation of creative women who are examples for the people in our lives of what it looks like to prioritize our work (AND recognize our impact).
x, Jen
Full episode transcript below:
Welcome to today's episode, Taking a Pause. Today, I'm sharing the final episode in season one with you as I follow a calling I've been feeling for a while to get really quiet. Even quieter than I've been. I feel that I'm entering a cocoon phase though, I also feel like I've been in one, so I'm starting to think that maybe we are in multiple cocoon phases at once. I've always thought of cocoon phases as a yes, I'm in one or no, I'm not, but I actually think it's a gray area. And that it's totally possible to be in one in one area of your life, and not in a cocoon phase in another area of your life. And as you probably know, I always try to follow my inner callings, even when I don't totally understand the why behind them yet. I often feel the pull to get quiet while I also have this sense that something new wants to emerge. And in the past, I've allowed this process to unfold internally while mostly keeping up external workloads and appearances, like on social media or here on the podcast. This past year has been a major life overhaul, most of which I haven't shared publicly yet as I am still very much in it. And this podcast has been a huge presence in my life over the past 14 months. And it's gone from being about teaching to sharing pretty personally. I've come to see this podcast as what my friend, Becky called it, my creative devotional. I've started to share in real time as I navigate what it looks like to live a fully expressed life, as I like to think of it, as a fully creative because I believe that life is inherently creative. My intention has become to tell you everything I wish I could tell you in person. If we were on an extra long tea date or if I could download things directly into your brain. It's everything that I feel like I've learned over the past 10, 12 years of experimenting and exploring with the goal to really be to become more of myself. And also my work ethos has evolved as I have shed perfectionism and achievement for achievement sake. I don't create or offer anything from force or performance or self hatred, which I think that many of us know very well. And I think that a lot of us come to middle life or, you know, I guess the age really varies person, but you get to a point in your life where you have achieved and created from that place and you realize that it is not aligned for you, and it's not very meaningful to you. At least that's what I've realized. This past year has been intensely humbling for me. I have shared some of what has happened, and some of it will remain private, but every challenge has led me back to myself. And what I feel my purpose here is: being an example of what living and intuitively guided life looks like. I really no longer care about, or strive for, external achievements or metrics. And I wish I could explain how to do this in an xyz equation. But here's how it for me. I pushed myself too hard for too long to achieve things I didn't actually care about deep down, and then I was told to push myself harder. And my naturally contrarian nature piped up and said no more. The desire to achieve and perform for others broke. And it's been nearly a year now, and I couldn't find that desire inside of myself again if I tried, and I have tried. I don't recommend going about it this way. It took years and years of pushing myself, and evading myself, to get here. But I also think that each of our paths is unique and this was mine. And it was a perfectly expected outcome considering my background and conditioning. I also could not get here, to the place that I am now where this achievement and striving pattern broke, I couldn't get here until I got here. Like any learning process I needed to go through it. What I care most about, which I think life challenges show us very clearly what we really care about is: befriending myself, living life as a creative expression, and expressing what I am here to express before I die. I know, thinking and talking about dying feels harsh, but it's real. We will all die and I do not want to leave before I feel like I have done what I am here to do. And part of fulfilling that is getting quiet when I need to, in order to hear what is calling to me. I did not expect to do this podcast in seasons, but here I am. It feels right to close this body of work here, tune in and listen, and see where life is guiding me next. What I do know is that I'm immensely proud of what I've created. If you listen to podcasts regularly, as I do, the best thing you can do for creators is appreciate all of the work that goes into making them. Podcasts are a ton of work. Like way more than I expected. I had the desire to have a podcast for years and I waited until I felt very clear on what I wanted to share. And now following that same gut instinct, it's time to get quiet as I tune in for the next curve on my path. Please stay subscribed as I intend to be back. I may share episodes periodically as I feel inspired or return for a season in the future. I truly do not know and I feel more open than ever to see where life takes me. Thank you for being here. I know that some of you listen every week and I take that as the highest compliment. I've been told that it feels like we have seen each other or met up recently, because you listen to this podcast, and that just makes my heart sing. My intention from the beginning was to share openly and speak as if we were friends. Knowing that some of you listen every week also led me to keep going a bit longer than I felt called to, which you might've noticed some weeks when I haven't published an episode. And that's because I didn't want to let you down. And I had to go through that on my own. I still feel this, but I also know that I need to heed my inner calling. That is the best thing I can do for everyone, myself included. While I'm on hiatus from the pod, I'm also mostly quiet on social media, but I do post Instagram stories occasionally. Usually some deep thoughts that are shared spur of the moment. And if you really enjoy the thought provoking offerings from this podcast, I now offer Daily Writing P rompts. A simple thought provoking prompt that arrives in your email while you sleep. I've been told that people love to write to them, but they also look forward to opening their email and seeing the prompt and using it as a discussion with a loved one or even a question to meditate on. Links to both my Instagram and the Daily Writing Prompts will be under the Resources in the show notes of this episode. I'm also going to post a best of pod episodes post on my Instagram. Like listener favorites, my favorites, most downloads, most feedback I've gotten. I haven't made it yet, but that's what I'm thinking right now topic wise. So that'll be there for you as a resource. There are so many good episodes so if there are some you haven't listened to yet, they are here for you when you're ready. Thank you again for listening today. And I just want to say that I'm excited to see where this next liminal space I'm entering takes me. And of course I will end up sharing it. I think, as a side note that these liminal spaces, when something new is emerging can be pretty nerve wracking. That's our nature is to feel a little apprehensive around them. And by sharing this, like behind the scenes with you today, I want to show that I do have some of that apprehension. I don't quite exactly know what is unfolding next. But it also feels very meaningful and important. And I'm carving out space for that to come through and I'm going to allow at the time that it takes. And I actually think that's one of the most important things that I can model if I'm following this being an example of an intuitively guided life because very often, we don't know what is calling to us next. We just kind of get a hunch of something or a sense of something. And the work is to just follow it and kind of, if you see it as a knot, you start to untangle it, or a path that you're laying the bricks as you're walking it, if either of those analogies resonate for you. And that is what it's like to create an intuitively guided life. It's almost never clear. It's full of liminal spaces where your old self or your old life or an old role or pattern or job or something no longer fits you. And you go into a liminal space, which is an in-between space where the old isn't a good fit anymore and the new isn't clear to you yet. And our human brains have a lot of opinions about being in liminal spaces. You know, our brains would rather us stay with what we know, but I think as humans we're called to grow and evolve, and that means entering these liminal spaces. Entering into the unknowns. And using all of the tools and resources that you have amassed, which you have, to navigate it while you sit in some unknown, some known. And information comes through and then you experiment with it and get more information and then see how things unfold. That's how we literally create anything. So I'm excited to see where this liminal space I'm entering takes me. And it feels like a big one. And I always wish that other creators would share when they're in these in-between spaces. I think that we are naturally all very curious about these transitions and most people tend to share when they're on the other side of it. So I hope what you're hearing in today's episode is what it is like to be in it. In the middle. In this liminal space. And also from someone who's been through this many, many times. So I, I have a level of trust and openness because I have been willing to go through this so many times. Sometimes I've been forced through it and sometimes I've chosen it. And at this point, when I feel the calling for one, it's kind of like I guess the best analogy I can think of right now is when you're standing in the ocean and when you start to feel a wave get pulled back, you know, so it's already come and crusted over you or around you or past you. And then that feeling of force that is being, pulling the water back into the ocean. To me, that's kind of what it feels like to be called into the next iteration of yourself, into a liminal space, into the unknown. It's a feeling of being pulled towards something, but you don't really know what it is yet. And you're kind of feel like you're being guided there. And you can try to control it and resist it. And if we think about the ocean, we all know how that would go, right, that is an exhausting way of moving with water. Or, with practice, you can learn to feel that pull and kind of submit to it. Say like, okay, yeah, I'm willing to go here. Maybe there's some stuff I need to do to like clear out or clean up or get ready but I feel that pull and I'm going to start working towards opening towards it in my life. That's what it feels like to me to be in this in-between space. And like I said, I. I think we're all curious about it and I wish more creators would share about it because I think that demystifying this unknown and the fact that no one really knows, when they're in it, and that means you're in the right place at the right time is to feel the unknown and to feel maybe some apprehension about it. That just means that it's normal. That's a normal part of entering into a new phase, into a new growth edge, into a liminal space, into whatever is next for you. I'm really excited to see where this next curve and my path takes me. That's how I like to think about it. And of course I will share it with you, and I'm excited to share it with you. I am so glad that you are here and that we get to walk our paths together. See your next time. Bye for now.
