inspiration Archives

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

September 14, 2018

Quiet Writing turns two today! And to celebrate I’m launching the #quietwriting hashtag as a way to increase our community connection.

Use the #quietwriting hashtag as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others!

Why use the #quietwriting hashtag?

Did you know on Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles? Launched in 2018, this is such a great way to connect with others and see content beyond those people you follow now. Plus it creates curated content around a theme to inspire and see what others on the same road or with similar interests are up to.

This idea came to me when I was working on the Instaretreat with Sara Tasker. I use the #quietwriting hashtag for all my posts on Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere. I hadn’t thought to encourage others to use it too – but it’s so obvious! Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.

You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up. Just as Wholehearted Stories enabled other voices to be heard and seen via Quiet Writing, let’s embrace more and different images and voices under the #quietwriting hashtag to inspire our creativity! So come on board and use #quietwriting to connect.

So what’s #quietwriting all about?

Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.

So often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are and whatever we are up to.

To celebrate and connect around the spirit of quiet writing online, here are some ideas for when you might use #quietwriting –

to share your writing locations – where you are writing, seeking inspiration, working on your craft
works in progress – behind the scenes snapshots, metrics, celebrations, challenges
the act and process of writing and other creativity – researching, drafting, editing, publishing
your creations – poems, novels, blog posts, artwork – the outcomes of quiet writing
how far you’ve come – celebrate, share your milestones, the starting point
writing practices – pomodoro, Morning Pages, free-writing, lists, brain-storming
blogging – practice and achievements
poetry – the art and process of the life poetic
quotes about writing quietly
books to inspire the writing and creative journey
writing retreats – and other creative inspiration
influences – who inspires you?
writing buddies – who are you writing with, who is supporting you?
wholehearted stories
writing over the life time – creativity for the long haul
being a healthy writer
book reviews on writing and what fosters creativity
your favourite tools and tips for the journey

Get on board with #quietwriting + hashtag challenge!

These are just some ideas and this will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; extraverts also need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

I’ll also feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook weekly so share your images for the chance to be featured!

And the week of 24 – 30 September, I’m hosting a #quietwriting Instagram Challenge to connect and inspire us all around specific prompts to get us going. Here are the prompts!

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online from your quiet spaces and lives!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for a September/October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Welcome to Quiet Writing (the first QW post from 13 September 2016)

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

6 inspiring podcasts for creatives and booklovers

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on doing what you love

Shining a quiet light – working the gifts of introversion

introversion planning & productivity

Reset time – with a touch of jet-lag, life-lag and rest

August 20, 2018

Home from a beautiful holiday and I’m feeling it’s time for a reset. But jet-lag and life-lag are teaching me that reset can mean rest as much as anything!

Home from a beautiful holiday overseas and I’m feeling it’s time for a reset. It was always my plan to come home after this break and get stuck into my writing, business, coaching and ecourses. I know where I want to go with it all and I have more open space to work. Yet I come home feeling that the jet-lag has morphed into a kind of life-lag. I can’t seem to quite get into synch with it all.

Do you ever have that feeling? Like your plans are known, but you can’t quite reach them or enact them? That you know the timing and can write the schedule but it keeps pushing out because you are not up to it? It feels like you are out of body and can’t quite connect the pieces to make them happen.

Life-lag seems to be the best way to describe it. Circumstances mean that you haven’t been able to keep up with yourself or your plans for some time, so you start to feel permanently in a state of lag. I’m thinking it’s all about needing to learn to rest as part of resetting, acknowledging that life-lag means you are still catching up with it all.

There’s really no need to push so hard. What is this pressure I put on myself? It’s something I need to consider and take into account.

Being away, coming home

Being away meant enjoying being in the moment and that was important and special. One thing about travel is that being away from your usual surrounds and commitments makes enjoying the moment much easier. I imagine that’s a reason why people seek the experience of travel at times. Your normal life circumstances are changed. You are more likely to eat out, for example, and not have to make plans for daily tasks like buying food and cooking. Everything is new and fresh and your senses are revitalised.

Coming home, I have felt really excited to make a new start. But as I said on Instagram recently for this image below, snapped looking out at the ocean I wanted to dive into but was too tired to get to, it does all feel a bit raw coming back home. It’s like a reset, a restart, which I’d anticipated and looked forward to after a break away. But I am having trouble getting to it in real life.

Symbols to reset for a new start

As I worked through this time, the Aces kept coming up in Tarot, signalling fresh starts of all kinds. I want to work on my business plan, realign priorities and time for that and life generally: family, friends, writing, coaching. Finish my book and see it out in the world. But yes, it does feel a little tender as you come home, stepping back, resetting, looking at things a little differently and imagining next steps. Reality hits and collides with the fresh start aspirations, along with jet-lag and it all starts to feel out of reach again.

A New Moon also aligned with our homecoming, throwing a focus on starting afresh. As my friend Jennifer Cockcroft reminded me on IG: “lots of r words”: reset, raw, restart, rejuvenate, refresh, reboot, recharge, realign.

So what to do with all these Aces and plans to reset? Maybe it is just the cosmic energies, Mercury Retrograde (just finished as I write!) causing havoc recently? Perhaps life-lag really is a thing and I need time to catch up with myself and rest before I launch ahead again.

I’m thinking my cat, Azzie, is really on to something!

Reset, jet-lag and life-lag, travel and rest

There’s no doubt that jet-lag is a thing. I don’t usually suffer too badly but my partner was also sick on our return home within a few days. We had sleepless nights from that. Suddenly we were on weird sleep cycles again and staring up at the ceiling for long hours during the night. Our reset suddenly became quite problematic.

And then it felt like all of life was lagging. A gap between my plans and where I wanted to be. Definitely a chasm between the energy I needed and what I had. I returned to swimming and yoga last week which both helped me feel more connected with my body. Sleep is returning now in more natural patterns which I am grateful for.

The life-lag is something I am learning from. Maybe it is too early to get out the door with all my plans just now. Even though I’d made this plan, it doesn’t mean it was a good one or the right one. After all the recent years of challenge, one thing after the other, it doesn’t mean one holiday renders you all ready to go, perfect in mind and body.

And travel itself, although wonderful and inspiring, can be tiring, especially for introverts with all that sensory and people input. I loved it all but my introvert soul needs to recharge again with time alone.

Perhaps this life-lag is all about balancing my personality needs and time alone, and rejuvenation, Four of Swords style, is what is needed. I had the best time, seeing so much, meeting so many online friends in real life and making many new friends. But all that extraverting sensing and interaction can take its toll and some quiet writing time is what I need, no pressure.

Four of Swords – letting it rest and synthesise

Speaking of the Four of Swords, it’s a card that has been on my mind. So I checked in with the Spolia Tarot to see what it has to say about this time of reset. A very wise deck, it reminds me that this time is about synthesis:

This is the creation of an intellectual foundation. For that, knowledge has to become almost unconscious, it has to move from remembering facts from your cramming session to an ease with handling the information. It requires synthesis.

We are reminded that we have done the work: the swords are on the wall. We can still be working intellectually, reshaping, crafting all the inputs we have gathered. All the work we have done can be honoured by resting and allowing it to connect and compost, without so much active engagement on our part.

What I’m thinking about: my wholehearted self-leadership questions

In the midst of all of this travel and homecoming, I have been thinking and reflecting a lot. I welcome any thoughts and input you might have in this reset phase.

I focus on wholehearted self-leadership in my business and personal focus. I’m always seeking input and connection via coaching, colleagues, online friends, books and courses. But I’m constantly also reflecting on my key questions at any time. Here’s a snapshot of this now in this reset phase.

The things that are composting for me right now include:

How can I find out what the Quiet Writing community needs and wants?
Perhaps a survey of readers and subscribers would be helpful for getting input?
How can I serve and provide value most effectively?
What would help better connection within our community?
Where does tarot fit with my life and business?
How do I share my tarot insights in a way that helps people and is balanced?
Where does tarot with my blogging schedule?
How can I finish my book draft now and edit it meaningfully myself before I seek outside help?
And then, how much outside help is needed?
How can I revamp my website so it’s more focused on my business as well as my blog and writing?

The questions can go round and round though at times and I am learning I need to rest more in this reset phase. Allowing answers to come through rest and recuperation, not pushing so hard, seems a valuable part of reset.

Rest not quitting as part of reset

Of course, feelings of giving up and hopelessness can come up too when we are not pushing as hard as we think we should. We don’t quite measure up to where we thought we would be. Thoughts like, “I’ll never finish writing that book! I’ll never see it out in the world!” for example, have started to run around my head. But as this post and quote reminded me today on LinkedIn via Andrew Johnson, rest and relaxation are a critical part of resilience:

If you get tired, learn to rest not to quit!

Banksy

A very valuable reminder. Reset is as much about resting and reflecting as anything. It doesn’t mean we are failing or need to quit!

And you?

Are you finding you need rest as part of your reset right now?

Has travel or holiday time left you strangely feeling in need of rest?

Does personality come into it for you with your need for rest?

Do you struggle with the need to keep going when rest is probably the best reset you can focus on?

Do rest and quitting get tangled up for you too sometimes?

Welcome your thoughts on these or any of my wholehearted self-leadership questions to guide me and others in our work. Just post in the comments or on social media posts on Facebook or Instagram.

Found this too while thinking about jet-lag and life-lag! You might enjoy it if you find the jet-lag/life-lag experience resonates with you: Jet-lag? More like life-lag

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Ancestral patterns, Tarot Numerology and breaking through: My wholehearted story

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

6 inspiring podcasts for creatives and booklovers

Strategy, patterns and the higher order of connections

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on doing what you love

Feature image via pexels.com

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creativity inspiration & influence

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

February 16, 2018

Joy is my word for the year for 2018. Here are 18 quotes about joy, spirit and soulful work sparking my year. I hope they inspire you too.

Choosing a word for the year is like deciding on a destination for how you want to feel but not knowing how it will play out. It’s like setting an intention for feeling the tone of the year with no plan for the details. Inviting the energy of a word into your life, you wait to see how it unfolds and manifests.

PASSION was my word for the year for 2017. It was such an inspiring way to get back to what I love as a guiding force in my life. I shared 17 quotes about passion about the driving energy of doing what you love. Last year was a challenging journey which took me back to the heart of what I love as the map and soul of its next steps.

I discovered passion was about feeling your authentic heart, in my case writing, and getting it into its rightful place in your life. It was about following my intuition more deeply and finding a vision that went beyond the everyday. Moreover, it was a guide for transition in a year of crossing over to a new place, sensing potential, seeing opportunity and knowing how to combine my skills in new ways. It was about learning to play bigger and weave all that has happened to me into a book, a new way of living, a new career, a creative life. In there also was an understanding of my uniqueness, the elements that combine as passions within me. As Meryl Streep reminds us:

What makes you different and weird, that’s your strength.

Finding joy

So in turning the corner into 2018 after a challenging time, joy was beckoning me. Sometimes you can take a while to work through your word for the year; other times it arrives, more obviously and insistently. And then there are synchronicities also, like the card my daughter gave me for Christmas. It was a beautifully crafted message of JOY made from handpainted Egyptian papyrus. This sealed the deal perfectly.

As often happens with your word of the year, you have a sense of its meaning but a deeper dive yields surprises and connections. And there is serendipity and further synchronicity too.

This week via an inspiring webinar on Energy Matters in Coaching with Meg Mann I was introduced to the work of David R Hawkins. In particular, we were shown his map of the scale of consciousness as we progress through achieving greater levels of consciousness. And my eye zeroed in on JOY sitting right up near the top described by way of self-view as “complete” and emotion as “serenity”.

David R Hawkins says of the energy of this phase:

As we move up towards this level, inner joy, quiet, and inner knowingness begin to take place. Within this energy field, we connect with something that is rocklike and ever present.

So this year’s focus is no lightweight endeavour but one that has enormous potential to calm and ground me. I knew choosing joy this year was always going to be a challenging task and this scale just helped highlight this.

Being unapologetically joyful

As part of a Goddess Roadtrip Sydney workshop recently on ‘being seen’, we were asked by Jade McKenzie to stand up and say to the group what we were unapologetically going to be this year. Given my focus for the year, I chose “joyful”, but when I stood up to say the words “This year I will be unapologetically joyful…”, I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I was so mired in grief after the very recent loss of my mother. Eventually, I did say the words with the support of a room of beautiful women who held space for me, quietly, as I got there. But in this moment, I realised the intensity and depth of exploration in this journey of learning about joy this year. In part, it’s about allowing the juxtaposition of grief and joy in my life, something that can seem an uncomfortable fit just now.

Quotes about joy

I love quotes. The distilled wisdom of others in the form of words we can hold, repeat, learn from and reflect on is a balm and portal for me.

I found the 17 quotes on PASSION last year were a place to start from, a way to begin to explore the terrain of what it meant. Frequently, I returned to those words as I did to the Pinterest page I created on PASSION. Both are great ways to unravel the multiple meanings and nuances of words as we seek to explore them in our lives.

So to commence my exploration of JOY in 2018, here are 18 quotes about JOY to begin to tease out its contours and character for this year’s journey. I hope you find some inspiration for your journey this year.

“We cannot cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy.” – Joseph Campbell

“If all you did was just look for things to appreciate, you would live a joyous, spectacular life.” – Abraham-Hicks

“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” – Lao Tzu

“The body heals with play, the mind heals with laughter and the spirit heals with joy.” – Proverb

“Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.” – Mooji

“Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.” – Brene Brown

“Joy is the best makeup. But a little lipstick is a close runner-up.” – Anne Lamott

“Strive not to get more done, but to have less to do.” – Francine Jay

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” – Rumi

“Your joy is where you locate your white hot Truth – your pure-burning is-ness, from where you have the creative power to turn thought into matter.” – Danielle LaPorte

“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” – Marianne Williamson

“You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” – C. S. Lewis

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page.” – Annie Proulx

“Don’t wait for everything to be perfect before you decide to enjoy your life.” – Joyce Meyer

“Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” – Oscar Wilde

“JOY is a meeting place, of deep intentionality and self forgetting, the bodily alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formally seemed outside, but is now neither, but become a living frontier, a voice speaking between us and the world: dance, laughter, affection, skin touching skin, singing in the car, music in the street, the quiet irreplaceable and companionable presence of a daughter: the sheer intoxicating beauty of the world inhabited as an edge between what we previously thought was us and what we thought was other than us.” – David Whyte

Do read the whole David Whyte’s beautiful meditation on JOY from which these words come. It is pure magic. They are such a balm for the soul. It seems like much of this work on joy is about spirit, inner stillness and soul, quiet writing perhaps. I welcome joy in as we venture forward together getting to know each other in a deeper way this year.

Share your thoughts

Which is your favourite quote from these ones? Or do you have another quote or thought on joy that inspires you? What does joy mean to you? Would love to hear – share your thoughts in the comments!

Keep in touch

Sign up + get your copy of my free ebook ’36 Books that Shaped my Story: Reading as Creative Influence’

Just pop your email in the box to the right or below and ’36 Books’ will be with you soon! It’s a 94-page reflection on the creative influence of what we read. It takes you on a journey through my own influences. Find out which 36 books influenced me and why!

You will also receive updates and opportunities from Quiet Writing. This includes coaching, personality type work, creativity and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. There are regular posts on tarot, intuition, influence, passion, creativity, productivity, writing, voice, introversion and personality type assessment.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How I plan to manifest energy, joy and intention to make the most of this year

The unique voice of what we love

Exploring magic as the heart of creative inspiration

Image of me above by David Kennedy photography with thanks.

creativity inspiration & influence

Secret superpowers for creative inspiration and energy

February 7, 2018

The creative practices in my tool-kit I plan to use to manifest energy and intention to make the most of this year – part 3. This week – secret superpowers!

We all need a magic tool-kit of practical tools, workbooks, teachers, coaches, connections and community. This helps us make the most of our desires, plans and intentions.

First, we need to reflect on where we’ve been and what we’ve learnt. Then we need to plan and set intentions. And then we need to make them happen with practical action steps.

And the magic web that surrounds all of this is the company we keep, the books we read and the tools we choose to help manifest energy and intention in the best way possible.

So here’s part 3 of my tool-kit for how I plan to manifest energy and intention to make the most of this year. This focuses on the secret superpower in my creative practices toolkit. I hope it inspires you to better recognise or build your own creative resources for this year. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Secret superpowers

Some creative practices are more obvious than others. Others are like secret superpowers, so secret sometimes we don’t even realise or acknowledge their power. These practices can be so natural and woven into our daily life that we fail to realise their influence on us. Stepping back though, we can see that these practices have a subtle yet powerful impact especially when we engage with them over time. Others might be areas we are learning about so their effect can be felt as a ripple gently flowing into and through our lives.

So here is my list of secret superpowers for this year:

Reading, reading, reading
Swimming – and other exercise
This year’s planner of choice
Working with crystals

And here is a bit more about why they are such powerful practices in my life now and heading into this year.

Reading, reading, reading

Reading is such a secret superpower and an everyday activity for many of us that we can take for granted. So important to me as a source of creative influence, I chose to focus on this for the free ebook gift for signing up to Quiet Writing. In my ‘36 Books that Shaped my Story‘ ebook, I take a deep dive into the books that have helped to shape my life because reading does this for us in a myriad of ways.

Every book we read teaches us something and influences us. It might be the comfort reading of a novel and appreciating the gift of this at a tough time. Perhaps it’s a non-fiction book that has a huge impact and helps us reorient our thinking as Tara Mohr’s ‘Playing Big’ did for me recently. Each book we engage with is a gift to value and the challenge is to harness this most magical of secret superpowers so we can make the most of it.

Making reading a priority instead of it being pushed aside by social media in this age of distraction is a powerful choice. Learning to read more efficiently, creatively and actively can help immensely with our growth and creative productivity. Enjoying reading and working its pleasures and practicalities as one of our secret superpowers has the most amazing return on the investment of our time. And with audiobook and ebook options, reading has never been so accessible or available. Harness its energies to help craft your story! And stay tuned for some Quiet Writing deeper dive inspiration into your reading history and legacy soon.

Swimming – and other exercise

I’ve written about how swimming was such a big shift in feeling stronger and fitter last year in my post, 10 amazing life lessons from swimming in the sea. This was one of the most popular posts on Quiet Writing last year so clearly this connected with people. The amazing life lessons are about the fact that swimming and any form of exercise is about so much more than the exercise itself.

Whether it’s the camaraderie or the solo effort, the building of resilience, the pushing of barriers, the learning from persisting or the physical feeling you get from the activity, the sum of the parts results in a secret superpower that’s hard to define.

Swimming has helped me to improve my breathing as an asthma sufferer and strengthen my arms and cardio performance. It helped me with self-care and sorting out many things in the gentle rhythm of stroke after stroke. It’s been a huge but subtle factor in keeping in movement in a challenging year.

I have two tips regarding exercise as one of the best secret superpowers.

Firstly, find a form of exercise that you love that works for you. And in working this out, go back to what you loved as a child. I went back to swimming as a result of coaching and reflecting on how I loved swimming as a child but didn’t like chlorine pools and doing laps. Soon after, I bumped into a friend in town who told me about the local swimming group that swims in the ocean three times a week. And so I now swim a kilometre in the sea three times a week and I love it. Who would have thought? Not me. But now if I don’t go, I miss it terribly.

Secondly, find a form of exercise that suits your personality type. Stephanie Stokes Oliver in ‘Seven Soulful Secrets’ suggests as examples:

fitness classes, team sport and one-on-one games for social types
walking, running, cycling, skating, swimming, skiing and weight training as solitary pursuits
rock-climbing or training for a marathon if you like adventure or challenging yourself.

This is so true! Swimming is the perfect exercise for introverts; you can still swim with a group or have coffee afterwards for the social side. But it’s head down and in your own world when you are swimming and that’s perfect for me. Find the exercise secret superpowers for your personality type or personal needs and this will be great motivation.

This year’s planner of choice

I don’t know about you but the planner I choose to accompany me through the year is always a big decision. Whilst we might have our digital calendars, many of choose to have a planner to help us with the big picture planning and the day to day work in bringing it to fruition. This is where we are really working creatively and manifesting energies to make the most of the year.

Lately, I seem to be changing my planners depending on my focus for the year. This year I have chosen to work with Nicole Cody’s ‘The Year of M.E. Planner‘ with M.E. standing for ‘Manifesting Energies’. As Nicole says of her planner:

The Year of ME Planner allows you to create your own map – to a life that is intuitive, intentional and purposeful. ME stands for Manifesting Energies, but it also stands for you. This is about YOU mindfully creating a life more aligned with your dreams.

This planner integrates intuitive practices such as crystals and tarot and oracle into its pages as well as month to month running sheets to capture actions. It’s only early February, but I think working with this intuitive planner will be one of the key secret superpowers for my year.

Working with crystals

Working with crystals is a newer practice for me, something I’ve dabbled in but not worked on consistently. It turns out Nicole Cody is also a crystal farmer – so I signed up for her crystal pack aligned with ‘The Year of Me’. This means I have a set of beautifully prepared and aligned crystals for working with this year’s energies. Each month, there are two crystals aligned to the energies of the month so it’s an opportunity to learn about crystals in practice as well as to integrate them into the year’s planning and intention setting.

This month’s crystals, for example, are Banded Agate and Sunstone. ‘The Year of Me Planner’ explains that:

Banded Agate creates a sense of safety, peace and belonging. It also helps to anchor change. Sunstone helps us to sit in a place of abundance thinking so that we can see blessings and possibilities in our life.

Working with these crystals in an integrated way has a sense of working with secret superpowers that I am still learning. I’ve always loved the solidity of rocks and geology and so it’s fascinating to connect with this grounded and spiritual energy at a time of change this year.

So that’s part 3 of how I plan to manifest energy, joy and intention this year. I look forward to learning about what these secret superpowers have to teach me as part of my toolkit and plan to manifest energy in 2018. Along with coaching, writing, personality, tarot and many other practical resources, I feel ready for making the most of this year’s potential!

How about you?

I’d love to hear about your secret superpowers and supports for how you plan to manifest energy in 2018! Share your tips and plans in the comments or via social media.

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can download my free 95-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below. You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How I plan to manifest energy, joy and intention to make the most of this year

Creative practices in my toolkit to make this most of this year’s energies

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

20 practical ways of showing up and being brave (and helpful)

Intuition, writing and work – eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

Images by me except for:

Feature image of me by the fabulous Lauren at Sol + Co

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personality and story planning & productivity

Self-leadership, feedback and marshalling resources for the best week

January 29, 2018

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Reverend Howard Thurman, in Dario Nardi’s ‘8 Keys to Self-Leadership’

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A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: self-leadership + marshalling resources

Theme for the week beginning 29 January

The theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards – 16. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

This is a lovely self-leadership card and reminds us to practice listening to our bodies, intuition and others. And then to input that into the cycle of what we are doing. Especially when negotiating challenging times, it’s important to notice when our body is telling us to rest or letting us know what it needs more or less of. It’s also about the wider environment and people in our world and what they are telling us.

When I read ‘feedback’, I immediately thought of negative feedback and listening to where I need to improve or change. This is valuable but as Lisa McLoughlin reminds us via the Life Designs Cards Guidebook for this card:

Consider that feedback is also about appreciation as well as what needs changing.

Keeping open and modulating, adjusting our sails, taking on board new perceptions and realising when we have it right or our ideas resonate – all are supportive ways to move through this week as positively and productively as we can.

It’s a good time for self-leadership and self-regulation, tuning in with our bodies and personality. Being aware of what others are saying can help to feed into the loop of our growth at this time.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 29 January

Tarot Narrative: Marshalling your resources

It’s a time for marshalling your resources and taking action. You’ve gathered skills, knowledge and resources over time. You’ve worked at pulling together the golden threads of you. Value this resource, this currency, this way of being and working. Make it work for you now, but also for others. Share generously, choose your focus, listen to feedback, make a difference.

Reading notes: Cards: King of Swords and Six of Coins from the Sakki Sakki Tarot and #38 To Be Fair in protection (reversed position) from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

Our lead process remains the captain of our ship no matter how much developing we do. We use it in the background even when using other processes. Lead and supporting processes develop first, and each experience we have of nonpreferred process is cause for celebration and a doorway to change.

Dario Nardi, 8 Keys to Self-Leadership (p22)

As part of my personality type work, I had the pleasure of attending two training workshops with neuroscientist Dr Dario Nardi last year. Using EEG technology, his work shows how Jungian insights about personality type and cognitive functions are supported by physical evidence.

You can actually observe the brain lighting up as it works on something that it loves (or doesn’t like) in line with patterns identified in Jungian/Myers-Briggs personality type preferences. Here is a picture of me in a workshop with Dario Nardi with the activity of my brain being mapped and regions lighting up as I do various cognitive activities.

Self-leadership and personality

This work reminds us that the self-leadership journey begins with knowing ourselves and the lead cognitive functions that are our natural way of being. From this, we can extend into less natural preferences to open our potential. Each time we venture into our weaker or less preferred domains, we open the doorways of change and potential. And we should acknowledge this in our self-leadership and cheer ourselves along!

Our lead cognitive preference is always directing traffic as we use it in the background. So marshalling our resources is about knowing our personality and our best ways of working. The King of Swords is a card that reminds us about being the master of our thought, knowledge and logic, achieving success through plans that can move us ahead. Our ability to marshal our own resources and loves is highlighted so we can act to create and put thoughts into action.

As an example, as an INTJ personality type, my preferred cognitive function is introverted Intuiting. I’ve learnt over time to value this as the lead to bring the pieces together – via work such as envisioning, strategising, tarot and oracle and intuitive writing. I can use these preferences as the lead and marshall the resources I have to help bring the pieces together across the gamut of my personality. Everyone can do this – although the lead will differ depending on personality type preference – and awareness is key.

Self-leadership and giving back

Another theme that popped up in this reading alongside self-leadership and knowing ourselves is generosity and giving back. When we are experiencing the harvest from our work and others, we often focus on our value and what we bring forth. We need to learn from that feedback, but we also need to be generous in how we share this work.

In our self-regulation and self-leadership, it’s a good time for thinking about how we are giving back. It might be to causes or others, making a difference for the highest good of all and not just for ourselves. This is especially the case if we have experienced good fortune or are receiving from others. It’s a time to think about how can we accept this and turn it back into the world in new ways.

So for this week, it’s a great time for recognising your strengths, knowing yourself and exercising self-leadership as you marshal your resources.

Listening to feedback – both positive and instructive – is highlighted. As is recognising when we are benefiting from a time of fruition, so we can put back to benefit others.

Notice when people say good things about the work that you do and see where it can take you! What clues does this provide you?

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to hear if you are feeling these energies around self-leadership, feedback, marshalling resources and generosity.

How might you practice self-leadership and self-regulation?
What resources are you marshalling?
What are the good things people are saying about you and the work that you do?
What does this tell you? Where could you take it further?
What are you feeling or hearing about what is not working for you?
What can you do step up your self-leadership in the coming week?

All best wishes for this week of exercising self-leadership and marshalling resources including giving back. And let me know what you think of this post and the idea of weekly Tarot Narratives!

? of me (top + bottom) by Lauren, Sol + Co

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Creative practices in my toolkit to make the most of this year’s energies

January 26, 2018

The creative practices in my tool-kit I plan to use to manifest energy and intention to make the most of this year – part 2.

We all need a magic tool-kit of practical tools, workbooks, teachers, coaches, connections and community. This helps us make the most of our desires, plans and intentions.

First, we need to reflect on where we’ve been and what we’ve learnt. Then we need to plan and set intentions. And then we need to make them happen with practical action steps.

And the magic web that surrounds all of this is the company we keep, the books we read and the tools we choose to help manifest energy and intention in the best way possible.

So here’s part 2 of my tool-kit for how I plan to manifest energy and intention to make the most of this year. This focuses on the creative practices in my tool-kit. I hope it inspires you to better recognise or build your own creative resources for this year. You can read part 1 here.

Becoming a life coach

Becoming a life coach through the fabulous Beautiful You Coaching Academy was a big focus in 2017 as I moved through a major life transition. I’m shifting from a 30+ year career in the government sector to a more self-driven creative business focus. It’s been an exciting shift, moving little by little in a challenging couple of years. But I’m ready now to launch more fully into my life coaching business focused on creativity and career coaching. And I can’t wait.

Becoming a life coach builds on my body of work over many years as a teacher, adult educator, leader in vocational education, online learning specialist and strategic policy adviser. In all of these roles, I focused on making a difference, creativity, innovation, mentoring others, leadership and self-leadership. I bring all of this experience into my coaching work to help women create a more fully-rounded, whole-hearted story and life, just as I have done.

You can work with me in 2018 – just send me an email at terri@quietwriting.com and I’ll send you further information.

Being coached yourself

Becoming a life coach also means working on yourself and your own development in an ongoing way. I’ve experienced the value of coaching myself over the past two years as I’ve made this transition. I realised I could no longer stay where I was. It was no longer serving me and my creative heart was calling me. Life coaching helped me make the plan for a new creative path.

Learning the value of being coached and putting it into practice has been a key platform of my creative living toolkit in the past few years. It helps keep the focus on your authentic desires, front and centre.

So to help me in this year, I’ve joined up with Caroline Donahue’s group coaching program, the Coffee Shop Writers Group, to make sure my writing gets done as the authentic heart of Quiet Writing. I can talk about writing all day but unless I am doing it, it’s all pretty hollow! Working with fellow writers in the context of an online, international support team and with an inspiring writing coach as our lead is a perfect way to get my priority work done. Sometimes we need to carve out the time and prioritise support for ourselves in this way. And life coaching in some way shape or form is always a fabulous investment in yourself, with an excellent return on that investment in so many ways.

Writing, writing, writing

Did I mention writing? Linked to the above, writing is the heart of Quiet Writing – my creative practice. It’s how I start my days via Morning Pages, writing to settle into the day, reflect and make plans. Then there’s blogging here regularly, guest blogging including at WorkSearch and Life Reaction, as well as drafting books, with one well on the way at 70K words at this point. I am so looking forward to taking my writing into the editing and self-publishing phase this year.

Personality type work

A key part of Quiet Writing is understanding yourself and your personality type and how it works as a guide to wholehearted self-leadership. Understanding my Jung/Myers-Briggs INTJ personality was a critical step for me in my life. Working through this with a certified personality type practitioner and coach enabled me to proceed with fuller self-knowledge. I embraced my strengths instead of seeing them as weaknesses and learnt to work them. It also helped me understand where I can be more well-rounded by working on my less preferred cognitive functions.

Because all of this made such a difference for me, I’ve skilled up in the area of personality type to become a certified practitioner and share this insight with others.

This knowledge of personality type as part of my creative practices tool-kit weaves its way into everything I do. I will be offering personality type assessment in a standalone offering with one hour’s intensive 1:1 coaching, as well as the option to work through personality type as a lead into a 6 session coaching series for a deeper dive. As with coaching, personality work is an ongoing journey of understanding yourself. I look forward to sharing my knowledge in this exciting area in creative and new ways this year.

Energy healing, channelling and spirituality

Activating my energy, healing and spirituality was a priority last year and continues into this year – and let’s face it, why not forever! I’ve been working with Amber Adrian, storyteller, writer, channeller and energy healer for nearly two years now. It’s the quiet backbone of my life as I seek a deeper spirituality and engage with guides, the sacred creative and energy healing.

It’s hard to describe the power of this connection in supporting me and unleashing magic and creativity. As Amber says in recent communication about magic:

Magic simply flows in, once you’ve given spirit (god, the universe, your angels, your higher self) a doorway. A window. Even a crack. Give them a bit of room and they’re on it.

Open up a new highway for them and they’ll work astonishing miracles with you and your life and your dreams. Because they want you to have everything you desire – everything you want to do, be, create, have, and experience in your life here.

You just need to give magic room to step in.

So part of my creative practices tool-kit is making space for magic. Because as I said in my last post via Roald Dahl:

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Being in rhythm and working with lunar cycles

Another key part of my creative practices tool-kit is working with the cycles of the moon. Dr Ezzie Spencer’s fabulous Lunar Abundance website and book ‘An Abundant Life’ provided rich input last year. It helped me be more aware of the cycles of the moon as part of my creative practices. I also worked with Ezzie as part of her group coaching Book Whispering project in 2017 to better connect with rhythms and cycles for creativity. This helped me get my book draft well underway as a lead into NaNoWriMo where I eventually wrote 50K words in one month.

Working with lunar cycles and the yin and yang phases is now a central part of my creative practices helping me to set and realise powerful intentions. I connect it with tarot for a fabulous intuitive deep dive at key times like the New Moon and Full Moon.

Working with intuition via tarot and oracle

Working with tarot and oracle cards as an intuitive tool for tapping into wisdom and insight is one of Quiet Writing’s core creative practices. I learnt about these areas more, developed my daily practice and then shared it publicly from June to December last year on Instagram. This was an excellent support and intuitive learning process that people valued. I learnt so much from it including about visual elements of my creative practices and social media work, but it was very time-consuming. And if I am going to get my business up, life-coaching sessions happening regularly, and write my book and see it published, I needed to work out a more sustainable way to approach this.

So I am sharing weekly Tarot Narrative readings on Quiet Writing here and also via Instagram and Facebook. This creative practice helps me focus my intentions and work with manifesting energies. And as with my daily readings, it’s a way of sharing intuitive guidance with others including key books, quotes and thoughts to support your creative practices. This week’s reading is about exploring magic.

I’m planning to gather up all my Tarot Narrative readings from 2017 into an ebook for each month for reference for readers. Even though they are an intuitive reading at a point in time, the thoughts and references are timeless and given the work and hours spent, it makes sense to share in this form. They will be part of the soon to come Wholehearted Inspiration Library and free to Quiet Writing subscribers. So do sign up to Quiet Writing (pop your email in the box to the right or below) so you will know when the free library is live – as well as other opportunities. Plus you’ll get my free 95-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – so lots of inspiration for your creative practices tool-kit.

So that’s part 2 of my creative practices tool-kit and how I plan to manifest energy, joy and intention this year. Next week, I’ll tell you about three special superpowers I’ll be tapping into this year for extra focus and input.

I’d love to hear what’s in your creative practices tool-kit! Share your tips and plans in the comments or via social media.

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How I plan to manifest energy, joy and intention to make the most of this year’s energies

Practical tools to increase writing productivity

The courage to show up

20 practical ways of showing up and being brave (and helpful)

Intuition, writing and work – eight ways intuition can guide your creativity

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Feature image of me by the fabulous Lauren at Sol + Co

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Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Reverend Howard Thurman, in Dario Nardi’s ‘8 Keys to Self-Leadership’

Theme for the week beginning 29 January

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 29 January

Self-leadership and personality

Self-leadership and giving back

Love to hear your thoughts!

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

Share this:

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Becoming a life coach

Being coached yourself

Writing, writing, writing

Personality type work

Energy healing, channelling and spirituality

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

Being in rhythm and working with lunar cycles

Working with intuition via tarot and oracle

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

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