02 Oct How intentionally are you living?

How much effort are you giving your craft? The craft of creating a life that feels like it’s your own? A life you’re proud of. A life that, when you look back on it, you’ve left nothing behind.

You’ve used your gifts and talents to the best of your abilities. You invested time in what mattered to you. Relationships. Meaningful work, paid or unpaid. You found the freedom to explore what lit you up, filled you with meaning and felt exquisitely rich,.

You lived. Really and truly lived. Out loud. Fully alive. Outrageously you.

This all sounds great, but how realistic is this? I don’t live in a land of fairies and pixie dust. I have work to do. I have deadlines and a business to run and revenue to generate.

I looked down at my watch this morning and saw my daily writing appointment. I dismissed it as I had done for many days prior. Ignoring a book that I had written over the last few years. 60,000 words collecting dust.

I was exhausted. I don’t like the word “overwhelmed,” but if I’d given myself permission to be overwhelmed, I would have fully owned it.

I have a stubborn Dutch part of me that smacks me gently on the back and, with a thick Dutch accent, says, “Hey, we don’t do overwhelmed. You’re fine. Keep moving.”

I was hustling for my worth.

I started with clients at 7 a.m. because I wanted to be as convenient as possible for people in the Eastern time zone, even though I’m in Mountain time. I used to make myself available at 6:30 a.m., so 7:00 felt like a reasonable compromise.

I was writing a book. Except I had no time to write, because my creativity was gone by the end of the day. So, to say I was writing a book would have been more in the past tense. More accurately, I was not actually writing a book. It was festering in the dungeon of my computer.

I felt resentful that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me and just write with the 30 minutes I had given myself.

By starting my day at 7:00 a.m. instead of 6:30, I thought I had created space.

Now, to you, that may not sound like grace. But for a staunch rule-abider and a very disciplined person, that seemed like plenty of time to devote to a daily writing practice.

Only, hardly anything gets accomplished in 30 minutes, especially when you’re the one mentally whipping yourself into that space.

You don’t need an intro to psych course to realize this is not going to work.

Creativity requires space, ease, coffee, and a candle, if you’re anything like me.

And I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn’t fix, because I was also walking alongside my husband and my best friend on their cancer journeys and even though I seemed and felt fine, I was swimming in a swampy soup of emotions I hadn’t given myself space to feel.

I made a bold move (for me) -I moved my schedule so I don’t see clients until 8 and I set aside Friday mornings to write.

Today, when I looked at my watch, my daily writing appointment, I felt joy. I am choosing to live more intentionally. Being a writer is part of that.

Now I’m doing it every day. I write.

Before this, I felt like a scream in my throat.

I needed space. I needed ease. I needed grace.

Perhaps as you read this, you think of the space you’ve been aching for.

Maybe there’s something you want to be more intentional about.

What would you love to have more space for?

What do you need in order to make more intentional time? Space? Permission? Or a calendar invite?

What’s one thing you will do to be more intentional about that?

Even a small move in that direction may shift something.

Give yourself that permission.