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Posts from the ‘Miranda’ Category

Jul 12

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Six Months and Counting: Where Are You?

journey of intentions, pathway

Amazingly, we’re just past the halfway mark of 2012. This is a great time to review the plans or resolutions you made at the beginning of the year. Are you on course? Do you need to make a few adjustments? If you didn’t start 2012 with a plan, why not decide on what you’d like to get done before the next six months have passed? Let’s make sure that you feel satisfied and pleased when you raise a glass to ring in 2013.

At the beginning of this year, I published two posts encompassing my New Year’s review and planning process. The first is 2011-2012: Review, Celebrate, Plan; the second is 2012 Year Plan: Practice and Intentions.

I described my plan for 2012 as a “folio of intentions.” When I look at my list today, I see that I’m not as far along by this point as I would have predicted back in January. I crossed one item off of my list entirely after deciding not to do it. I also did a handful of things that weren’t on my list that I consider to be relevant milestones, but mostly I find it humbling — and inspiring — to review these priorities. I have some course corrections to make. Here is my original list, with the six-month update in green. New items are also in green.

2012 Intentions

Deepen presence in family time

  • Consciously strengthen relationships with each child [yes]
  • Continually add to “block time” card stack (activities/project deck with seasonal focus) [yes, but not as much as I’d hoped]
  • Do at least one art project each week with Aidan and Liam — Thursdays [have not managed to do this weekly yet]
  • Schedule weekly or bi-weekly date with husband [no — we’ve only had a handful]
  • Spend one-on-one time with second oldest son before he leaves for college
  • Spend one-on-one time with oldest son before  he goes back to college
  • Spend one-on-one time with daughter

Continually solidify creative practice

  • Submit five pieces for publication [behind pace]
  • Blog at least once per week @ Studio Mothers [yes]
  • Maintain Project Life binder all year [I’m a few months behind]
  • Read 50 books [I’m on pace with this one]
  • Create regular time for blog & magazine reading [still only ad hoc, not regular]
  • Establish regular time slot for daily writing practice

Focus on self and spiritual practice

  • Continually strive for daily meditation practice [yes — not 100%, but strong]
  • Prepare for new role as peer leader at sangha [I decided to decline the offer to become a peer leader as I felt I was worrying too much about being a “good” leader, and that the ego-driven thoughts were actually distracting from my practice — in addition to not having sufficient time in my schedule for the responsibility]
  • Daily journaling [yes — about 90%]
  • Continue to strengthen morning centering practice

Build coaching business

  • Add Right-Brain Business Plan benchmarks to planning calendar for year [no — this is one thing I want to get to sooner rather than later — adding it to my current action list]
  • Develop and enact marketing plan [yes, but need more time on this one]
  • Build envelope of private clients [yes]
  • Foster private coaching circle [yes]

Build Open Studio

  • Create new workshops for each quarter [yes]
  • Attract increasing number of attendees for Creative Community hours [yes — quite successful]
  • Establish working collaborations with local creative organizations, resources, and people [yes — measurable success on this front]

Up the ante on commitment to good health

  • 100% vegan, gluten-free from January 2012 through June 2012 (longer if still working) [I only managed about three months of strictly vegan diet — went back to eating eggs and dairy. I could write a 3,000-word blog post on this topic if I thought anyone would want to read it]
  • Consume 2 green protein smoothies each week [I’ve had a few lulls, but for the most part, yes]
  • Take vitamins, minerals, supplements, and iron every day [yes — almost 100% — I take about 16 pills every day!]
  • Exercise at least 3x per week [yes]
  • Meet benchmark of being able to rapidly do 10 full-on “boy” pushups by end of year (I can barely do 5 right now) [progress here, thanks to working with an excellent personal trainer, but I have a lot more work to do]

Improve financial stability

  • Reduce debt by 25% [sadly, not on pace for this one — and with two kids in college this year plus one still in preschool, this may not have been the most realistic intention]
  • Set up automatic savings system [see comment above!]

Where are you on your intentions for 2012?

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If you’re an artist or writer with little ones, The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is the essential survival guide written just for you. Concrete strategies for becoming more creative without adding stress and guilt. Filled with the wisdom of 13 insightful creative mothers; written by a certified creativity coach and mother of five. 35 pages/$5.99. Available for download here.

Jul 5

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New e-book short! The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years

I’m just a wee bit excited to unveil my new e-book short, The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years. This e-book is the culmination of many years of work, research, and personal interviews. I am so pleased to share this project with you!

When a creative woman has a child, her universe shifts. How to maintain — or begin — a creative practice while caring for a little one? Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is your indispensable guide to navigating the early years of motherhood.

  • Written by a certified creativity coach and mother of five
  • Filled with the first-hand experience and wisdom of 13 artists and writers
  • Specific, concrete strategies for being more creative without adding more guilt and “shoulds” to your already overflowing plate

When you have young children, what you don’t have is time. This 35-page e-book short gives you the information and tools that you need, quickly. Six Creative Practices for the Early Years is a resource that you’ll refer to for inspiration and support again and again. It might be the best tool you download this year! It will certainly the best value you’ll get out of $11.98. Click here to order and download. You can also check out a free sample page here.

Thirteen generous, talented creative mothers share their experience and tested strategies:

A few words of praise:

“Miranda Hersey explains how you can keep your creative life vibrant while you parent your young children. Your creativity doesn’t have to be sacrificed while you parent! Miranda tells you exactly what you need to know to keep your creative life alive. Highly recommended.” ~Eric Maisel, Author of Coaching the Artist Within and Fearless Creating

“Becoming a mother can feel as if you have lost yourself deep under nurturing others and meeting their needs. If you’ve also lost view of the way to creative expression, the place you were most yourself, real grief may temper the joy of falling in love with a baby and raising children. When Miranda Hersey encountered that particular reality of motherhood, she asked other writers and artists, women for whom creativity is food, how they managed. She distilled their wise and practical answers into six do-able practices that restore your creative life and make space amid the toys and laundry for you. Those conversations and Miranda’s own experience as a writer and mother of five reveal the best secret of all: when creativity can be merged with mothering, they enhance and expand each other in wonderful, unexpected ways.” ~Gale Pryor, Author, Nursing Mother, Working Mother: The Essential Guide for Staying Close to Your Baby After Returning to Work

“In Six Creative Practices for the Early Years, Miranda Herseyrallies her readers into a band of sisters, united by the challenges we share. Drawing on her own experiences, and the wisdom of 13 practicing artists and writers, Hersey invites us to embrace motherhood and creativity as related, cross-pollinating endeavors. Simple, proven practices lay out a formula for success, encouraging us to reexamine our creativity with openness and generosity. With engaging, frequently humorous, narration, Hersey is the voice in our ear, the friend by our side, nudging us to discover those hidden pockets of time and inspiration and the courage to use them to sustain our creative lives. The lessons in this marvelous volume will be with me for years to come!”  ~Susan Edwards Richmond, Poet

“When my twins were babies, I relied on a stack of dog-eared parenting books, flipping through them whenever I needed encouragement, and concrete advice. As a mother who needed to create in order to feel truly alive, I would have added The Creative Mother’s Guide: Six Creative Practices for the Early Years to that library in a heartbeat. Miranda Hersey understands the realities of parenting young children, but gently challenges the reader to tap into the rich creative possibility that exists nonetheless. This is a book that creative mothers will return to again and again for reassurance, inspiration, and genuinely helpful practices.”  ~Ellen Olson-Brown, Author

Click here for a free sample page, and to order and download! And of course, if you like what you read, I’d be delighted if you could let your friends know about Six Creative Practices for the Early Years. Thank you!

Jun 27

16 Comments

How to Use Compassion to Your Creative Advantage

We’ve had a thrill here in blogland: The Studio Mothers blog post Four Simple Ways to Create More and Worry Less just spent five days on the WordPress “Freshly Pressed” page. Many thousands of new readers have found this endeavor of ours, and many hundreds have become subscribers. To all of our new friends and supporters, thank you, and welcome!

I’d like to pick up on a theme that I touched on in the aforementioned blog post. One of the four strategies I outline is to “Get comfy with crotchety Aunt Zelda.” What this strategy entails is embracing your inner critic/self-doubter/lizard/purveyor-of-all-things-negative by serving her a cup of tea and leaving her to sit comfortably on the sofa while you return to your creative work. Why should you serve your creative nemesis a cup of tea, rather than bashing her on the head with the nearest heavy object and then heaving her carcass out the door? Here’s why.

The first reason is the most obvious: Aunt Zelda is, unfortunately, a zombie. There’s nothing you can do to truly kill her; she’s going to keep coming back. Just when you think she’s finally buried for good, there she is again, dragging herself through your front door in that one-size-too-small purple blazer and matching skirt. Aunt Zelda is an inevitable part of the creative process. You’re going to have moments of self-doubt. You’re going to have moments when the project you’ve devoted yourself to for six months with excitement suddenly seems like total crap. You’re going to have moments when you’d rather clean the bathroom with a Q-Tip than actually get your butt in the chair and do your work. This is how it is. So forget trying to remove Aunt Zelda to a faraway island inhabited solely by flesh-eating ants.

The second reason is this: Compassion is a deeply powerful way to dissolve conflict. Like gratitude, compassion is incompatible with resentment, anger, anxiety, and ill-will. When you genuinely feel compassion for someone, you let go of judgment, disappointment, and thoughts of revenge. And in that space, you are able to experience freedom from the many traps we set for ourselves.

The first person you might practice compassion on is yourself. Stop for a minute. Are you carrying around regrets? Are you punishing yourself for things that you did or didn’t do in the past? Try to see yourself as you were in those moments and allow yourself to truly experience compassion for that person — you, the hot mess that you might have once been, or perhaps still are. Seriously, was there ever a point in your life when you said, “I know, I’m going to do X. It’s true that Y would be a much better option, but I’m going to stick with X even though it will only bring me unhappiness and disappointment.” Uhm, no. At any point in your life, you have only ever done the best that you could do. Given whatever circumstances you were dealing with, you made the choices that you thought best at the time. Maybe those choices ended up hurting you or someone else. That’s how it is. This doesn’t mean that you don’t apologize for doing things to other people that you now consider wrong; it means that you apologize and then set down the heavy boulder you’re carrying around. Giving yourself compassion doesn’t mean letting yourself off the hook. There is no hook. There’s just this crazy journey that we’re on, all doing the best that we can do. We wake up today, and we start over again. Every day. So the first place to practice compassion is with yourself. Go gently, and allow all that energy and background noise to feed your creative bandwidth instead.

Let’s turn back to Aunt Zelda. When she shows up with her negative comments and irritating personality, look at her for who she is: a nasty old bag who has nothing better to do than try to smash your creative intentions into smithereens. Gosh, it must be awful to be like that. She must’ve had a pretty rough childhood! There’s no point in trying to argue with her — she’s too stuck and stubborn to hear reason. “Thanks, but no,” is all you need to say in response to her unpleasant zingers. And when you smile at her with empathy, she shrinks back into the pillows. She deflates. By serving her a dose of compassion and even amusement along with that slice of lemon cake, you utterly disarm her. Compassion is incompatible with resentment, anger, anxiety, and ill-will. And not just for the person on the receiving end, but for the person who is giving.

So while you’re making a cup of tea for Aunt Zelda, make one for yourself, too. Then, while Aunt Zelda fusses with her napkin, let your creative expression rip.

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Jun 14

Universal Canvas: Your Creative Community

Creativity is about using your self—your hands, your body, your mind, your heart—to make something that wouldn’t otherwise exist. The thing you create is in some small way an expression of your deepest experience. At its best, this expression speaks to others on the universal plane of human understanding. And when your work resonates with someone else, that spark gives birth to community. Since you’re reading this post, I need hardly point out that building community is one of the internet’s most powerful capabilities: connecting us as we stumble toward enlightenment, becoming more intentional in our work and more compassionate with each other.

The Creative Flock
Relationships are part of how we define ourselves and understand what we’re doing. We know that infants and children who are deprived of social and physical contact fail to thrive and can even die. People really do need people. As artists, writers, and other creative practitioners, community is vital to inspiration and validation. Sharing ideas, talking shop, and simply rubbing elbows with other creative souls goes a very long way in keeping your artful self at the forefront. Increasing your creative social connectivity is one of the easiest ways to develop and maintain your creative identity—especially when you’re struggling with self-doubt and the logistics of making art happen. (And who among us doesn’t struggle with those things at least on occasion?)

The people you’re involved with, in person or online, inspire you. They’re doing things. You want to do things too. They’re enjoying successes, large and small. You want those things as well. Your creative social network reminds you of who you are when you’re so adrift in domestic/work life that your artist self is only a shadowy glimmer. When you can barely recall the feeling of clay under your fingernails, surround yourself with other creative people wherever possible. Immerse yourself in the world of your art. It’s not unlike the suggestion that when you want to lose weight, you should imagine yourself as a thin person and act like a thin person might act. Playing the part helps turn it into reality. Fake it till you make it.

Building Your Creative Community
Assess your resources. What and whom do you currently rely on for creative energy? Which online resources, in addition to this one, do you regularly enjoy? What else could you do to participate in your creative network more regularly—or what could you do to create one? Make a list. A few ideas for starters:

  • Reach out. Send e-mails or make phone calls to creative friends and associates from the past and find out what they’re up to. Facebook stalk them if necessary. (In the nice way, not the creeper way.) If anything resonates, develop the relationship.
  • Even if your home base isn’t an urban area, don’t prematurely decide that your networking options are limited. Many smaller towns have a local gallery or an artisans’ gift shop. Stop in and find out if there’s a consortium of artists you can join.
  • The Sun Magazine’s website offers connections to local readers’ and writers’ groups across the country: http://www.thesunmagazine.org/get_involved/discussion_and_writing_groups.
  • Pick up a few of those freebie arts publications that are often stacked by the door at stores and restaurants. Peruse to see if there’s anything going on nearby that you’d like to attend.
  • Yahoo Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com) and Google Groups (http://groups.google.com) exist on nearly any topic imaginable. Some are highly populated and post dozens of messages every day; others are quieter. Visit and search for your area of creative interest.
  • One of my favorite Yahoo Groups is an homage to Danny Gregory’s book Everyday Matters: http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/everydaymatters. With a focus on art (drawing in particular) this Yahoo Group is extremely active—and inspiring to visual artists as well as those who are not.
  • Craig’s List offers discussion groups on writing and the arts. Visit www.craigslist.org to find the Craig’s List website closest to you. Many locals use their local discussion list to form groups that meet in person.
  • If you have a favorite artist, writer, movement—or even a phrase!—that you’d like to keep tabs on, create a Google alert for that name or sequence of words. Whenever a new web page or blog is created with that string, you’ll receive an e-mail alert. This is a great way to explore the blogosphere. Visit www.google.com/alerts for details.
  • Join the Monday Post right here at Studio Mothers for accountability and support!

What else works for you in connecting with creative community?

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A version of the piece above originally appeared as a guest post at the fabulous Bliss Habits.

Jun 8

320 Comments

Four Simple Ways to Create More and Worry Less

Sometimes creative angst gets the better of us. How often do you find yourself thinking “I don’t have enough time,” or “My work’s not good enough,” or “I’ll never reach my creative goals”? Here are four simple ways to avoid those minefields and stay focused on what really matters: your creative work.

1. Turn rejection into affirmation. With practice, you can reframe rejection so that it actually affirms your creativity, rather than causes injury. Here’s how. Simply put, you can’t get rejected if you haven’t had the courage to send your work out into the world. And you can’t send your work out into the world if you haven’t reached a level of completion and polish that makes you believe your work has legs. And your work can’t have legs if you haven’t put yourself at your desk or easel or studio bench and actually done the work, for however many hours it took. So at its most basic level, each rejection is evidence that you have done your work and sent it out into the world. This is something to celebrate. Rejections simply mean: Yes! I’m doing my work. I was brave enough to send it out into the world, and this “rejection” is simply an affirmation that I am a working artist. I celebrate that fact, and now I turn back to my work in progress.

If this sounds like a tall order, just try it. Over time, you’ll be amazed by how easy it becomes — to the point that you accept rejection as simply part of the process.

2. Move the goalpost into your sphere of influence. Shift your focus away from things you can’t control and onto the things you can. You might decide that you’re going to get your novel published next year. But instead of putting your focus entirely on something that you can’t ultimately control, move the goalposts into a domain that is solidly within your circle of influence. For example: Instead of deciding that you will get your novel accepted for publication next year (which may or may not happen, regardless of your best work, killer query letter, and an introduction to your cousin’s agent), decide that your goal will be to query 50 agents and 30 publishers from the pool of publishers who accept unagented manuscripts. You might start with those who accept simultaneous submissions so that it doesn’t take five years to hit your quota. Keep careful track of your submissions — via your own spreadsheet system or an online submission tracking tool — and when you hit your quotas, celebrate. The only two things you can really control are:

a)   Creating your best work.

b)   Playing the numbers game to get your work in front of as many sets of eyes as it takes.

If you feel discouraged by this process, go back and read #1 above.

3. Establish a regular creative practice. If you’re not already doing your creative work every day, or nearly every day, now’s the time to start. Think it’s impossible to find at least 30 minutes for your creative work on a regular basis? If that’s true—unless you’ve just had a baby or are dealing with a major illness or life event—consider keeping a time log for a few days in order to see where your time is really going. It’s more than likely that there’s something you can pare down on (TV, Facebook, sleep) in order to fit in a regular practice window. If your schedule is so hairy that you can’t commit to a set time every day (which would be ideal, as schedule creates habit and habit breeds productivity) at least commit to a set amount of time every day. When “life happens” and you have to skip practice, don’t beat yourself up about it—just show up tomorrow.

Working regularly may be the most beneficial thing you can do for your creative bandwidth. When you work every day, you learn to show up for creative practice even when you don’t feel like it—even when the muse is off in Bermuda, the house is a mess, the bills need to be paid, and your best friend wants to take you out to lunch. Just show up at your appointed time and do the work. Creative practice is a sacred commitment for those who make meaning through art. If something brilliant comes out along the way, so much the better. But brilliance isn’t the point; showing up is the point. Making meaning through your creative practice is the point. A regular creative practice helps you stay focused on process, rather than outcome.

4. Get comfy with crotchety Aunt Zelda. Our anxiety about creative fear is often more paralyzing than the fear itself. If you can accept that fear and self-doubt are inevitable parts of the process—and are things that even wildly successful writers, artists, and performers grapple with—you will diminish the negative power of insecurity. Try to develop a mantra to use when doubts arise. “Oh, it’s you again, Aunt Zelda. I see you’ve come back for another visit. Sit down and have a cup of tea over here while I carry on with my creative practice.” By acknowledging the fearsome inner critic of Aunt Zelda, and not resisting her arrival, you are free to move ahead. You might even be able to summon up a bit of empathy for Aunt Zelda, who has nothing better to do than drive all over town in her ancient Oldsmobile, just looking for the next person she can inject with fear, doubt, and perhaps even a wholesale existential crisis. Just say, “Thanks, but no,” to Aunt Zelda and stay focused on your creative process. Remember: Just because Aunt Zelda shows up doesn’t mean you have to get into her aging Oldsmobile and go for a ride.

The piece above originally appeared as a guest post at the fabulous Bliss Habits.

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Jun 5

2 Comments

Studio Mothers: Live on the interwebs with Creative Mojo!

I’m delighted to let you know that I’ll be interviewed by Mark Lipinski for his live internet radio show, Creative Mojo — this Wednesday afternoon!

Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski was chosen  by Digg.com as one of the Internet’s five most motivational webcasts and was a featured podcast on iTunes.com. The premise of the show is to spotlight creativity and the creative process and has a following of roughly 40,000-plus listeners. “Infused with Mark’s off-the-cuff  and no-holds-barred humor and love of the creative spirit, the show boldly encourages listeners to discover and harness their own creative spirit by living creatively everyday.”

We’ll be discussing Studio Mothers and a few other things related to creativity and awesomeness, this Wednesday, June 6. The show runs from 3:00 to 5:00 pm eastern time. I’ll be on just after 4:00 for about 25 minutes.

Visit http://toginet.com/shows/creativemojo to listen live and/or subscribe to the Creative Mojo podcast at iTunes. I look forward to hearing your feedback!

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May 16

2 Comments

What are we doing, anyway?

Inspired beauty from Suzi Banks Baum of Laundry Line Divine. Thank you, Suzi!

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May 11

18 Comments

Everything and Nothing: A Day in the Life

Yesterday was one of those days filled with everything and nothing. I bet you can relate. It started in the wee hours:

12:30 am My three oldest (Russell, Matthew, and Emma) return home from a Dear Hunter concert; I am only vaguely aware of noises downstairs in the kitchen as someone prepares a midnight snack.

4:00 am Matthew, a high-school senior, is picked up by his girlfriend and her dad. They head to school for the band and chorus road trip to Cleveland. I have left a good-bye note for Matthew; I stay in bed.

6:00 am Up for the day — late. Abbreviated morning practice. Make tea. Husband departs.

6:20 am I plan the day and drink my tea. The three cats are acting somewhat frantic. One of them, Finn, is scheduled for surgery today so no one has had access to food or water since last night. Sasha tries to eat a houseplant.

6:35 am I carefully read through the thick recital packet from Emma’s dance school, decide that I’m not going to volunteer as a chaperone, and calculate our ticket purchase. Emma is still in bed; I go upstairs to confirm that she wants to stay home today on account of last night’s late concert. She does. So I don’t need to make her breakfast or lunch. Bonus!

6:50 am Liam, who just turned four years old this week, gets up (unusually late). We snuggle and eat breakfast.

7:20 am After settling Liam on the couch watching Tom & Jerry, I go upstairs to shower and dress.

7:40 am Seven-year-old Aidan is still asleep. I wake him up, hurriedly get him some cereal, make lunches for both boys, and dress Liam. I put Finn in the kitty carry bag and make it out to the garage.

8:10 am We drive down the hill. The school bus rolls up and Aidan departs. Liam, Finn, and I set off for the vet’s office. Finn howls all the while, trying to claw his way out of the carry bag. Perhaps he knows that he’ll be leaving the vet’s office with a little less than he’s bringing in. Each time Finn howls, Liam screeches in delight.

8:30 am At the vet’s office. I fill out Finn’s paperwork and Liam kisses Finn goodbye through the carry-bag’s mesh.

9:00 am We arrive at Liam’s school. Liam hates his school, and informs me of this repeatedly, as he always does, clinging to my leg as I try to leave. I extract myself remorsefully, telling myself that Liam’s acceptance letter to his new Montessori school is surely imminent.

9:25 am Back in the car, I listen to an installment of The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, which is lovely. En route to the studio, I pick up a cappuccino at my favorite local café.

10:00 am At Open Studio for the monthly meeting of my nonfiction writers’ group. (I am a member of this group, rather than the facilitator.) I love these women. Great feedback and encouragement on my e-book project, which is nearly finished.

12:20 pm Check e-mail from the studio, respond to a few client messages, take my turns at Words With Friends via iPhone, and plan the rest of the day before heading out. The vet calls to say that Finn did great; he’s still seeing double but I can pick him up anytime after 2:00.

12:40 pm Heading for home. On the way, I drop off two bags of shirts at the dry cleaner’s and stop at the pharmacy to pick up an rx.

1:15 pm At home. Eat lunch. Check in with daughter, who is enjoying her day off. More e-mail triage. Let dog out. Register Emma up for a creative fashion camp.

1:45 pm 30-minute phone call with student from my Wednesday writers’ workshop who missed class yesterday due to illness.

2:15 pm Brief chat with my oldest, Russell, about last night’s concert. Russ just returned home from college yesterday and I haven’t had much chance to see him yet. I also spend some time mapping out the choreography for the afternoon, as Matthew, who normally drives Emma to her voice and dance lessons, is en route to Cleveland and there is a lot to juggle being down my Thursday afternoon chauffeur. Russell is on deadline with five papers that are due tomorrow so I can’t assign him any driving.

2:55 pm Depart for Emma’s voice lesson. Emma, who has her learner’s permit, does the driving. I practice my deep breathing as Emma hesitates in the middle of an intersection, nearly causing a five-car pileup. But she’s doing great.

3:20 pm Arrive music school, late. Emma goes in for her lesson. I get into the driver’s seat and head to Liam’s school. More of The Forgotten Garden.

3:30 pm I retrieve Liam, who is always deliriously happy to see me. I have brought him some leftover candy from his birthday piñata, which he munches intently as we drive back to the music school to get Emma.

3:45 pm Depart music school with Emma and Liam. Emma is driving again. Getting to the dance school two towns over requires several highway stints. More deep breathing. Meanwhile, Russell, who is at home working on his papers, will meet Aidan when he gets off the bus.

4:10 pm Park outside the dance school. Emma goes inside for class. I check in with husband via text to be sure that he’ll be home by 6:00 in order to take Aidan to soccer practice. Everything seems to be on target. I have promised Liam a treat at the bakery next door (the piñata candy hasn’t made a dent in this child’s appetite for sugar and even though I try not to eat the stuff myself, apparently I have no problem feeding it to my children); we attempt to enter the bakery but they’re closed. Liam bursts into tears. I assure him that there’s another option a short walk away. He cheers immediately and we have a nice walk in the sun. He ends up with a brownie and apple juice. Happy.

4:40 pm Back in the car, we still have over an hour left to wait out Emma’s 90-minute class. I allow Liam the rare delight of watching a DVD in the car. I queue up Monsters Inc. With Liam plugged into the electronic babysitter as he happily strews brownie crumbs all over the car, I sit in the passenger seat and prepare to do some work on my laptop. I realize that a studio document I need is only available online, and I have no wifi access here. Instead of doing client work, I opt to make edits to my e-book based on feedback from the morning’s writers’ group. Nothing like creating in the middle of things. I make excellent progress punctuated by intermittent conversation with Liam.

5:40 pm I hear an unfamiliar beeping noise and suddenly realize what I’ve done. In my frantic attempt to jump out of the car and run around to the driver’s side, I get caught in the strap of my messenger bag and nearly wipe out in the parking lot. By the time I make it to the driver’s seat, it’s too late. The car battery is dead. I’ve been playing a DVD for nearly an hour without running the engine.

5:45 pm Call husband, who is nearly home. We decide that I’ll use the roadside service deal that comes with our car lease. I call and make arrangements for a jump. They tell me it will be about an hour. This is going to be a very long hour. Emma asks me if the battery will recharge itself just by sitting there. No, I tell her. That’s not how it works.

6:00 pm Liam is hot, as he’s sitting in the sun, and Emma is cold, as the windows are open and she’s sitting in the shade. I’m on Liam’s sunny side, and I’m pretty sure my left ear is getting burned off in the late afternoon soon. I’m unable to address any of these climate control issues, seeing as the car is dead. I tell Liam to climb into the shady side of the car. I check in with my husband, who has arrived home to take Aidan to soccer, but Aidan isn’t ready. (I neglected to ask Russell to tell Aidan to get his soccer kit on.) Aidan will be late for practice. I inform my husband, in case it isn’t readily apparent, that I will not be making dinner.

6:30 pm We’re getting hungry, and I really have to pee. Meanwhile, the vet closes at 8:00, and someone needs to get there in time to fetch Finn. The tow guy calls to tell me he’s on his way. He’s leaving from Newton, which is at least 45 minutes away. Seriously? Time for action. I decide that Liam and I will walk over to the pizza place around the corner while Emma stays with the car. As Liam opens his door, the interior light flicks on. How can the light go on if the battery is totally dead? I turn the key in the ignition. The car roars to life. Apparently that is how it works, I note for Emma’s benefit. It’s been a while since I experienced this level of gratitude for the combustion engine. We set off for the vet’s as I call to cancel the jump.

7:05 pm We make it to the vet. Liam, ever curious, comes in with me. $210 later, we come out to the car with Finn in his carry bag, which I hand to Emma. At which point we discover that it’s soaking wet. Apparently Finn, in his post-surgical state, relieved himself upon being installed in his bag. (At this point I can relate to his sense of urgency.) Given that Emma doesn’t want to hold the wet bag on her lap and Finn is meowing his head off, it’s an interesting drive home.

7:20 pm We’re home and I make a run for the bathroom. Emma takes Finn upstairs in the pee-bag and the boys sit down to eat the veggie corn dogs that my husband has set out for them. I scrounge up some dinner for myself. Aidan, recounting the day’s events at school, bursts into explaining that when he was out at recess, a second-grader named Tommy gleefully pulled a worm in half, brushing aside Aidan’s protests. Aidan, haunted by the image, is devastated, sobbing uncontrollably. I stifle the urge to do to Tommy what Tommy did to the worm.

7:40 pm My husband takes Liam upstairs for a bath. Aidan is still too emotional for bathing. We talk.

7:50 pm Partially recovered, Aidan heads upstairs to brush his teeth. I clean the kitchen.

8:30 pm It’s way past bedtime for the boys. I go upstairs to tuck Liam in and read to Aidan. We’re in the middle of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Aidan and I very much look forward to our nightly reading ritual.

8:50 pm I tuck Aidan in and go downstairs to start a load of laundry.

9:00 pm At my desk. As he has requested, I edit two of Russell’s final papers.

10:00 pm More e-mail triage. I set up a water delivery for the studio. I design a flier for an upcoming author event and post it to our facebook page.

10:45 pm Russell brings his laptop into my office and shares a few funnies from the interwebs. Emma makes an appearance and laughs with us. I advance the laundry.

11:05 pm Upstairs, I say goodnight to Emma and get ready for bed. I check my pedometer and see that I’m 100 steps short of my 5,000-step daily minimum. So I run downstairs to grab my prescription. By the time I get back, I’ve hit my quota. My husband has long since turned out the lights. I’m too tired to read my book, even though book group is on Saturday night and I’m only halfway through. Sleep awaits.

If you’re reading this line, you are the only person in the world to get this far, and I hug you for keeping me company all the way to the end.

Despite the day’s adventures, I’m pleased that I managed to create in the middle of things, and that I kept my cool rather than succumbing to stress. I know that by this time next year — heck, this time next month — I won’t remember this day at all. And yes, tomorrow is another day.

Apr 27

4 Comments

Tele-Call: Living in the Moment while Working Toward the Future

I’d love for you to join me for Transformational Tuesday, a free tele-call hosted by the Creativity Coaching Association on Tuesday, May 8 at 11:00 am eastern.

This live call is a conversation between Bev Down, CEO of the Creativity Coaching Association, and me, with Q&A from the audience (you, I hope!) on a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: Living in the moment while working toward the future. Here’s the gist:

Goals are an essential part of turning dreams into reality. In order to avoid the pitfall of “Aim at nothing, and you’ll hit it every time,” we’re advised to get clear on what we want and visualize the ideal outcome. SMART goals (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based) help us develop our passions and accomplish what feels important. But we also know that living in the moment — being present and surrendering to right now — is key to reducing stress and finding peace. Sometimes our plans for reaching our goals seem incompatible with what shows up in the present. How do we navigate this apparent conflict?

While I’m preparing my thoughts for this tele-call, I’d love to hear about your experience navigating this issue. Do you feel caught between wanting to be where you are — and wanting to arrive at a future point? As a creative mother, you’re continually faced with putting your own goals on hold in the name of taking care of someone else. Are you able to stay in the moment and go with the flow even when obstacles seem to pile up, and the distance between you and your goal seems to widen? Whether this is something you grapple with or something you don’t, I’d love to work your experience into my program. Please comment on this blog post to share your perspective in advance.

May 8, 2012 @ 11:00 AM, Eastern Time
Dial-in Number: 1-218-936-4141
Participant Access Code: 8673879#

I hope to “see” you there!

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Apr 12

6 Comments

The Morning Centering Practice

Recently, I’ve been thinking about why some days are focused and productive, and others are just “busy” and unsatisfying. It’s the difference between driving the cart and having the cart push you along from behind. One feels way better than the other.

In working with clients and in examining my own life, I’m gaining new clarity on the importance of a morning centering practice. When I do my morning centering practice, I’m in touch with what’s important, what I want to accomplish that day, and the frame of mind I’d like to maintain. I plan the day, allot durations to each activity, and then work from my list. When I don’t do the morning practice, I jump right into “doing” — and am thereafter shadowed by a nagging feeling of being “off,” regardless of how much I get done. On those days, I tend to work in a state of reactivity, rather than proactivity.

What does a morning centering practice involve?

Here’s what my morning centering practice looks like, in an ideal world. In total, it takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

  • 5:00: out of bed
  • meditate for 20 minutes
  • make tea
  • record last nights dream(s) in my dream journal, if I remember anything
  • choose an Osho Zen Card for the day
  • read the day’s entry in Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening
  • review my list of personal goals and intentions for the year
  • creative visualization (Shakti Gawain exercises)
  • intention journaling
  • plan the day (in planner, assigning a time and a duration for each task, or adding them to the “batch task” block)

This might seem like a cumbersome list, but it flows naturally — each step building on the last, ensuring that the things I put in the day’s to-do list (the last step) are grounded in my larger intentions and values.

To create your own morning centering practice, brainstorm the materials and resources that help restore you to who you are. Whether or not you consider yourself a Buddhist, I strongly recommend a daily meditation practice. Meditation helps you remember that all of those thoughts in your head — the thoughts that stress you out, make you feel bad, or tell you what to do — are just the monkey mind. You can let them come and go without falling for the little snares they leave in their wake. The best (and cheapest) therapy going.

Making it happen

How does a mama get an hour or more to herself in the morning? At my house, she gets up at 5:00. There’s no other way to slice it. Sometimes (usually) at least one of my younger boys is up well before 6:00. But so long as I’ve completed the meditation portion of the morning routine, I can do the other parts with company. It’s not ideal, but better to do the practice than not. Much, much better to do the practice than not.

There are two important things that fuel the morning centering practice. The first is habit. If you get up every day at the same time and do your practice, it becomes routine within weeks. It’s just what you do. The second is going to bed on time. I’m naturally an early riser, but if I go to bed at 11:00 or later, it’s painful to get up at 5:00 — and too easy turn my phone alarm off and go back to sleep. I need to be vigilant about bedtime.

When I look back on the periods in recent years when I’ve been “in the zone” — when doing what I want to do has been less of a struggle — it’s been when I’ve maintained my morning centering practice. I can feel its value, like an inner compass, throughout the day.

Springboard to creativity

Following your morning centering practice with a window of creative work is an excellent strategy. You’ll have clarity and inspiration. If you have to take a break in there to get kids ready and off to school, that’s OK. But get a block of creative work done as soon as possible. If you can get your creative work done before any “day job” tasks on your plate, so much the better. All day long, you’ll feel great about having done your creative work first thing.

How about you? Do you have a morning centering practice of one kind or another? What works best?

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Apr 6

33 Comments

Miranda: When the Truth Hurts

Sometimes we hold onto an idea, an ideal, an intention for so long that it takes on the patina of something holy. We clutch onto this ideal with complete conviction, confident that any conflicting ideas are wrong, implausible, outrageous. Over many years, pressure accumulates underneath that ideal. And then one day, the ideal cracks open and reveals something more useful: the truth.

So it is for me in my navigation of motherhood and work. For all of my 21 years of being a mother, I’ve held onto the ideal of being at home with my children as much as possible. Early on, I had many fulfilling years of being at home with my kids fulltime. Slowly I built a freelance business that took off after my three oldest were in grade school. But then two more children came along, during years that were full of intensifying work stress and all that goes with being a creative entrepreneur. Still, it was essential to me that I be at home with my kids as much as I could. I somehow thought less of women who worked fulltime “by choice.” I relied on at-home babysitters and then part-time preschool to cover the bulk of my working time — except that there never was enough time. This meant long periods of working nights and sporadically on weekends in order to make it all happen. And while it’s hard to admit, there were too many times that I relied on the electronic babysitter to buy me some more time just so that I could get “a little more” work done. Working at home, and always being at home, seemed to mean that any time could be work time. I never managed to create the boundaries that I thought would reduce my stress level and help me be more present.

Figuring out how to work less, do less, and parent more has long been my struggle. I’ve written at this blog about the vortex of caring for young children, the difficult transition back to parenting after the work day, wanting to do less, enjoying the successes, and then adding more to my plate — things that I’m deeply passionate about, like becoming a creativity coach and opening a studio for all things related to creativity, well-being, and life design. With three different businesses to tend to, pushing the envelope took on a whole new meaning.

While I continued to heap ever more items onto the “things I’m doing” pile, my perennial plan was to be more active and engaged on the motherhood front. I wanted to have a weekly family project routine — but never managed to make it weekly. I’d get excited about a project and my youngest would get bored in five minutes and that would be that. I dreamed of being a mother like this one — more than dreamed; I intended it, for years — and that intention never materialized. I’ve been busy doing lots of other things. And yet I keep intending, as if somehow that intention could shield me from the reality that I was choosing something else.

So when do intentions turn into untruths? Stuck somewhere between “It’s the thought that counts” and “The road to hell is paved with with good intentions,” I refused to believe there was anything different I could aspire to. But isn’t the truth found in my actions, collected over the years, rather than my to-do lists?

Today, my kids are all in elementary school, high school, and college, aside from my very youngest, who turns four next month. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Liam goes to preschool until 3:30. He’s home with me every Monday and Friday. On those two days we do errands and go to Liam’s gym class and sometimes see friends. I try to spend some amount of time doing whatever it is Liam wants to do, rooms away from my laptop and iPhone. But it’s not a lot — not even the majority of the day. Most of the day, I’m working. Liam doesn’t mind in the least; he’s happy to watch his favorite programs or play Star Wars Lego for two hours — or more (ouch). He likes to be at home, and he doesn’t like to go to school. So I’ve told myself that this arrangement is for the best. A young child needs to be with his mother, even if she’s sitting at the table working. I bristled at my husband’s suggestion that we consider putting Liam in school five days a week. How dare he suggest such a thing? I’m not the kind of mother who would stick her four-year-old in school five days a week when it wasn’t necessary. It wouldn’t be good for him. Obviously!

Unless, of course, it would be good for him. During the past two weeks I have come to acknowledge the truth — I am not the mother of my dreams. Keeping Liam at home on Mondays and Fridays is not necessarily good for him. And it’s not necessarily good for me.

I can see how this might sound like a little thing. Two more days of school? Millions of four-year-olds go to school five days a week. What’s the big deal? Of course Liam will be fine. But it is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. The remains of the mother I’d intended to be is wrapped up in those two days. A mother who puts her children in front of her work. A mother who puts her children’s best interests ahead of her own. A mother who, after 21 years of mothering, wouldn’t shortchange her youngest child.

The truth is that I’m deeply passionate about my work. I want to do my work. I don’t want to do less, and I can’t shoehorn three businesses into mother’s hours three days a week. If I were able to find a school where Liam was happy, I wouldn’t feel quite so guilty about five days a week. In seeing this truth, in accepting what is, I’m facing what is real and true and me, instead of bowing under the weight of my own shoulds and shouldn’ts.

Aligning with truth rather than intention feels very much like cracking open. It isn’t a good feeling, yet — but I know that allowing the truth to unfold is the only path to an authentic life. And if I want to live authentically, fessing up to my self is surely the best place to start.

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Mar 1

8 Comments

No Laughing Matter

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In her terrific book The Joy Diet: 10 Practices for a Happier Life, life coach and well-being guru Martha Beck instructs readers to laugh on a daily basis. And not just a couple of guffaws; Beck prescribes a minimum of thirty laughs a day. Clicked off on a pocket counter, if necessary.

So, maybe I won’t ever be ready to join a laughter club, but I have to confess — I’m not laughing anywhere close to thirty times a day. It’s time to up the ante on the funny. And what do I find funny? My children’s antics. Monty Python. Anything John Cleese. Will Ferrell. Seinfeld, of course. The Daily Show. Stephen Colbert. William Shatner. Zach Galifianakis. Jack Black. Sometimes stand-up comedy can get me: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Lewis Black, Eddie Izzard. The Princess Bride. Airplane. Napoleon Dynamite. Writers often make me laugh out loud: Anne Lamott, Shirley Jackson, Armistead Maupin. Old (as in, from decades ago) Garfield comics. Without fail, every time I watch J-T and Andy Samberg’s Dick in a Box and Motherlover I can’t help myself. I should really watch those two every day.

In whatever form it comes, I definitely need to start laughing more. How about you? What makes you laugh?

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