settling into silence to listen

years ago, i realized i had gotten lost. too much input from the world. too much consumption of information and too little of whatever not consuming was. i found a silent retreat and felt called to try it.

loved it.

silent retreating became my personal creative pilgrimage twice a year. once, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and in late winter around my birthday. the weight on my shoulders lightened each time i drove down the windy coastal highway to Big Sur and navigated the switchbacks up to the cliffside hermitage.

while the physical distance was important, i should mention that at this particular monastery, the location made it impossible to call out. no internet. no cell phone reception.

if i told you i had a blissful weekend of gorgeous silence, that i savored each full moment of solitude or got lost in meditation, i would be lying.

i did it often enough that i recognized my personal patterns and over time, accepted them: panic two days before. drive carefully to make it in time to check in but arrive before dark. unpack. walk back down the switchbacks to stretch my legs. collect my meal from the communal kitchen and eat. set up my desk for writing and whatever creative activity i had packed in the car.

cue the unknowns: hours, sometimes a full day, i would struggle. a lot. couldn’t focus, couldn’t write. agitated. shouldn’t i be enjoying this? what a privilege to be able to take time to nurture myself!

eventually, the inner voices protesting, panicking and criticizing would quiet. i eased into a tentative friendship with solitude and silence. i could be present to what was happening. i didn’t need to worry about other people, or taking care of other people. i let myself choose how i would spend my time without external pressures and let myself trust this renewed connection as a safe place to be.

and yes, each time i had a fully restorative experience. i might not have meditated on the mountain, but i could let myself dive deeply into that time: on my creative practice, walking as meditation, listen to nature…things which bring joy to…me, Joy.

#gardeningismytherapy

i’ve been a gardener most of my adult life after college. i confess i have always chosen where i lived based on the garden potential. i’d walk straight through the house into the backyard.

my father transformed our San Diego backyard from a hard-packed clay hillside into a lush, terraced year-round food garden. bittermelons, Asian greens, summer and winter squashes hanging from our old swing set and ethernet cables he repurposed. he mulched and composted long before it came into vogue. as he got older, the annual vegetables evolved into a fruit tree orchard with varieties of avocado, bananas, sapote, cherimoya, citrus, loquat and persimmon. their friends would regularly visit to pick up bags of produce to take home.

i let my gardens languish as i got busy with my career, probably a symptom of when i start to feel more lost in my life. when my father became ill, i took time to be with my family, completely neglecting my own garden. my mother, sister and i tended to him.

when he passed away, i reconnected with gardening. i’d applied to become a local master gardener before he became ill and returned home just in time to take the classes.

i threw myself into gardening, keenly aware it was part grief therapy, part staying in connection with my father. from afar, i’d instruct my sister and mother to do certain tasks in my father’s garden. it was a new personal practice and creative pilgrimage, except i didn’t need to drive anywhere. i found solace in the solitude and silence in my own home.

marketing as a creative & spiritual practice

i primarily grow food, but have incorporated native plants, flowers and herbs into my garden. i keep experimenting. i never stop learning. i work with nature in my garden, rather than forcing it.

but sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate and you get peach leaf curl on your stone fruit trees or your tomatoes get blight. or you find a banana slug on your Napa cabbage! or the irrigation system gets blocked and your tender seedlings die.

things happen.

i’ve found my two practices of regular silence and daily gardening are useful metaphors i use to keep perspective in the marketing work i do. if i’m not nourishing myself, if i get worked up and distracted, i stop hearing my own truth and wisdom.

then doubt creeps in and i listen to others more than what my inner voice is saying, or override what i know to be true about the way i operate in the world, i’ll struggle more than i need to.

when i work with clients, we both feel when we’ve hit a boundary that they are not ready to cross. AND THAT IS OK. i don’t push. we flow like water around the obstacle rather than spin in the eddy behind it.

you don’t have to change who you are. work with who you are, with what you have right now. that’s enough. we’re fortunate to have access to tools and platforms we didn’t have even a few years ago. you can find an authentic way to market your business in a way that works for you.

i don’t expect anyone truly exploring their entrepreneurial path will have a joyful-meditation-on-a-cliffside-monastery-overlooking-the-Pacific experience.

if you’re stuck with your marketing, try a different approach: develop listening practices: one for your inner voice and another with your audience.

listen when you feel that “hard stop” boundary emerging and be curious. honor who you are right now.

marketing tools and strategies can be learned. if you practice listening, i promise you can market your business like a badass.

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My Story

I’ve always had mojo. At least I thought I did in my own mind. I never wanted to blend in. But I didn’t exactly want to stand out either. That’s what they call a conundrum! I did small things like wear weird ‘bicycle jeans’ when everyone else was wearing Levis. Or listen to “I’m a  Hog for Ya Baby” by the Siegel Schwall Band when others were listening to “Spiders and Snakes.”What a rebel!

But I chose practicality over my own essential self when I entered college and chose to attend business school. My parents didn’t push me either way – although I’m sure I heard a sigh of relief when I chose business courses.  But then came Dr. Reed, my Psych professor.  He called me on it when he wrote three little words on a paper.

So, do it!

I was minding my own business, studying business – accounting actually – and he pulled out of my paper a something I’d not even realized I’d written. I said I wished I’d pursued dance instead of business. This wasn’t something I’d been mulling over. Just something that flowed from my subconscious into Dr. Reed’s paper.

And he said “SO, DO IT!

Wow! Really?  Could I actually do that?  Well. OK. So, I did!  I walked across campus that day. Enrolled in Eddie Gasper’s “Dance for Stage” class and it changed my life. I auditioned for his new company and never looked back.

That decision seriously rebooted my mojo. I took a right turn into “the creative economy” – a world of performance, theatre, dance and loved it. I wasn’t drawn by the LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION of it all, but the creative process. The artists.  The imagination. The stories.

after working in several different jobs in “the industry” I eventually landed at the Film and Television Board. I was in my element! Creating community.  Advocating for creatives and commerce.  It was fabulous…But‚ wait! I forgot to get married! I forgot to have kids!

Screeching Halt.

So in 1995 I gave all that up married. I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I gave up my mojo and my essential self in the process.

(Now one BIG lesson learned is that there are amazing things that happen in these side trips.  I became a step mom to two fabulous kids. And a “sister mom” to their mom.  We created a community – an extended family that was very cool… but…)

Flash forward 10 years, 40 pounds, lots of depression & much poorer and in 2005 I found myself divorced and in the process of reinvention. I know I’m not alone in having experienced a “ring of fire” (Martha Beck’s term). A painful, growth-ful, never-want-to-go-through-it-again time of my life.  It’s something we all experience in some form or another. And these experiences are how we get to our right life..

And then one day…

Then one day, a couple of significant things happened.

I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do.  Interviewing for a J.O.B. which I knew was not for me when they told me they required all women to wear panty hose (!) NOOOO!

So I slinked away and, like a good digital nomad, I found a bookstore where I could work, drink coffee, and wander the aisles for inspiration. Perusing the fiction section, art books, business books, architectural books, spiritual books.  I love books.

My first nudge came when a phrase on the cover of an O Magazine popped out at me. It said  ‘We Should All Work Like Dogs, All the Time.’ The article was by Martha Beck whom I’d never heard of.  Her Rule #2 was to “do as dogs do.”

“…we should do what comes most naturally, reflexively, effortlessly‚… my first and last sales principle is this: Love sells better than hate. Find a way to package what you can’t stop doing‚…Use the work-like-a-dog principle to make your career and time-budgeting decisions. Should you? Only if it makes you salivate with desire.”  – Martha Beck O The Oprah Magazine

Great advice!

The next nudge was when I found THE CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR.

Again, it jumped out at me. The spine of the book is orange and purple and the title combined the words ‘creative’ with ‘entrepreneur’ WOW!  The author’s methods for planning your business involved visual journaling. This is something I’ve been doing since I was sixteen. I’ve always kept journals. I have dozens of them.

In this book, author Lisa Sonora uses visual journaling and mixed media and other creative means as tools to plan your business.  Now that doesn’t sound like work, that sounds like play!

This started me thinking‚ visual journaling makes me “salivate with desire” – maybe there’s something to this.

I bought the book and O Magazine. I went home with my mind percolating.

How can I incorporate everything I love about the careers I’ve had and serve both myself and the world?

(Did I mention that I was in the middle of trying to sell my house? Yeah, it was 2008.)

So, as I was packing to move and percolating on what I’d  read, I found a folder “1998 Personal Coaching”  10 years ago!  Hmmm? What is that?

Google here I come, and guess who pops up as “the best life coach in America” and also has a training program starting in a month?? MARTHA BECK!!

OK, Universe! I’m listening!

I signed up for Martha’s next session and I was off.

And, Lisa Sonora was doing something called teaching “online” (whatever that meant!) So I started taking courses from her too.

12 Years Later.

Flash forward 12 years, I’m now a certified Martha Beck Coach and Lisa Sonora is a good friend.  (the photo below is my workspace at her creativity retreat just before the aha moment when I knew my calling was all about re-booting mojo.

So there you go!

Thanks, Martha! Thanks, Lisa! And thanks bookstores! Still my favorite place to go to percolate (my antonym for procrastinate!)”

• Link to Martha’s Article
• Lisa Sonora is a member of Athena Village!
  • Lisa on Creative Rhythms
  • Lisa on our Talk2ThinkTV
• Link to a video I did in 2010 on visual journaling

“I have reinvented myself several times in my lifetime. So I kind of feel like I could write the book on “getting my groove back.”

 

Rock and Roll

In the 1980s, I sang lead in a pop/rock cover band. We traveled all over the US before getting booked to work overseas for two stints for the Department of Defense. It was thrilling – all of it! From playing at venues in Iowa, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Colorado (to name just a few), and then entertaining the troops at US military bases in the Philippines, Okinawa, Japan, and Germany. Even when I think about it now, I have to pinch myself. I got to spend nearly 10 years traveling the world doing something that a lot of people only dream of, actually make a living, entertaining people every day.

Move to Minnesota

In 1992, after spending 3 years as the Marketing Manager for a company in Chicago, I met and married my husband and moved to Minneapolis. The move was difficult at first because I looove Chicago. However, 28 years later, you’d have a hard time budging me from this beautiful, “City of Lakes” in Minnesota. I also started a career here, working with a company that designed and built the trade show displays for 3M. I was again in a job that had me traveling all over the US, which I loved. One of the things I did during this time, was to develop a program that my clients desperately wanted, which helped them measure return on investment (ROI) for their shows. It was from my success with those programs, that when I was downsized in 2005, I started Brauer Consulting Group, working as an Independent Event Manager which, 15 years later, is still up and running.

Dabbling in Writing

During all this time, I dabbled in writing (some bad poetry, short stories, and started my business traveler blog (biztravelerworld.com) mostly for my own entertainment. However, at some point, I realized that I truly loved it and began to take writing classes to hone my skills. I began to think that maybe writing was something that I’d like to do more of. I also decided that my niche would be Travel Writing. This would combine my love of traveling the world, with telling stories about the places I’ve been and sharing ideas and tips with fellow wanderers.

So, Do It!

So, I took a deep breath and made Travel Writing my “It” during one “So Do It” 13- week session with Kelly Pratt and a wonderful group of women. By naming my passion and sharing it with our group, I found myself able to get more focused on what I needed to do to make this writing dream a reality. As it continues to become more exciting and real (I’ve had several small pieces published so far), I’ve actually rolled it into my business model. I have also added in-person travelogue presentations to the mix.

Writing Days

I couldn’t be happier! I love waking up on my “Writing Days.”  I get my cup of coffee, pour over photos and notes from some of my travels, and tap away on my keyboard, reveling in the process of getting my stories and art

icles to take shape and form.

I’m still working as an event manager and love my work, but having my writing become a more significant part of my life has truly helped me “Get My Groove Back!”

Susan

Images:

• Minneapolis City Lake
• Santiago, Chile
• English Garden (Cotswolds)
• Paris, France