Creative resets
Social media breaks, trusting ideas to come, and the earning potential of silence
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I am in a season where I can’t remember what my hobbies are, what I like to do, or balance my social efforts with my hermit needs. This time often comes in winter, when I am called into hibernation but still long for connection. I over do it at every crossroad, overcommitting to tasks and events and coffee dates.
We might call this burn out, being at 0%, resistance to the natural current of where I should be and what I should do. The shoulds really should me all the way to needing to hide in someone else’s house because I didn’t go back to mine when I knew in my body that was what I needed.
I come face to face with time scarcity - if I don’t say yes to this thing or this person right now, I may never have an opportunity to say yes again. My year of unpartnered solitude seems to not have reaped it’s investment, and I forget that I can meet my own needs, grasping and reaching and suffocating all that is good.
The great returning is with me again and I think of my own book, Getting to Center. I consider all of the pathways back to myself and I pick them up one by one. Therapy today, a speaker tape, morning pages. Calling people back has become almost impossible in this state and so I stick to the basics and sit in the discomfort of yet another should. I should call so and so back, I should be able to finish this thing on time, I should I should I should.
I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert on
and Martha Beck’s podcast and she talks about this need for widdling down the list to five friends or so, and if certain people didn’t understand her need for less communication or less spending time together - they had to go. Listening to her have such a fierce protection of her time and energy reminded me I am not doing this and know I need to. I often think I am healed of a lot of my people pleasing, but in these seasons - often the January and February time in the North, it comes creeping in.So I asked god for help and I received some messages, specifically ones to integrate while I am hosting and participating in Flexible Office, my experimental digital co-working space. There are three big ones, and I look forward to keeping it simple but perhaps adding others, a creative reset of the mind and body.
Log off social media for the duration of co-working Feb 7 - April 9
No shopping for the duration of co-working Feb 7 - April 9
No ice cream for the duration of co-working Feb 7 - April 9
When I receive these types of messages for breaks, for pulling away, for restarting - I do my best not to argue. My time and attention - to my own life and my creative practice, are of utmost importance, and they are frayed beyond measure.
I find myself pulled a million directions, distracted, lethargic, filling the god sized hole with endless scrolling but learning nothing. Shopping beyond my means and unhappy with my objects. A pile to be mended, projects ready to be started and finished, staring back at me while I stretch myself in directions I don’t actually want to go. When the world is burning this is not a place I want to be. I want my capacity to be one where I can show up to the page, and more importantly - release the guilt and suffering that comes with my desire to be so deeply alone and unbothered.
The warp of social media is that without it we can not earn, reach who we need to reach, find what we need to find. I am called to trust that in the silence, amidst less noise, my job will remain. My earning potential will grow, or at least stay the same. And my quality of life will become more of what I dream it to be - easeful, joyful, and free of unnecessary strain.
May the earning potential of silence grow steadily, may the breaks we long for come to us when we are willing, may willingness come before we are ready
FLEXIBLE OFFICE WINTER/SPRING SESSION
THE GREAT ANYWHERE OFFICE : JOIN ME TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS STARTING FEB 7 THROUGH APRIL 6!
ADMIN TUESDAYS + DEEP WORK THURSDAYS
WITH A SPECIAL VISIONING HOUR ON SUNDAY FEB 5
This session will be recorded if you cannot make it LIVE!
Also - you don’t have to attend every co-working session, or even half! Come as many times as you’d like, the benefits measure far beyond the cost of all 18 sessions
I look forward to having three specific things I will be removing during this time that slow me down and bring me farther away from myself. In that removing I look forward to seeing what is filled. If you are looking for accountability or have been waiting for a sign to log off social media for two months, join me!
Want to finish your novel? This is a great place to do it!
Want to start a newsletter? Come to Flexible Office!
We open mail, we do our taxes, we make doctors appointments, we fold our laundry, we invent entire workshops and classes, we write books, we pet our dogs, we do morning pages, we make coffee, we call people back, we build self esteem! For the greater good! The goodness of our own lives!
Flexible Office is sliding scale and there are a handful of scholarships, email info@marleegrace.space xo
Simone Forti crawling slowly calms me
Watching Tyre Nichols’, who was murdered by Memphis police earlier this month, beautiful skate video
If you need any refreshers on abolition and why we want it now and not later, why we say ACAB and not some cops, why we say no to reform but yes to abolition now : take a read
I watched Chelsea start making this book six years ago in the back of Have Company, and seeing it EXIST and be available for pre-orders brings me great delight, we all need this book
The Petrichor Market is a very cool store in Grand Rapids who hosted my Creative Mornings talk last week and I highly recommend you go! Also if you need a perfect worn in Carhartt coat go to Better Aged
From my Creative Mornings talk
Press Press’ SANCTUARY MANIFESTO and banner
I like this song
winter mood
A Quilt is Something Human students and alumni inspire me so much!
Tessa Layzelle’s quilts
A portion of January’s paid subscriptions goes towards The Loveland Foundation’s therapy fund which provides therapy for Black Women and Girls
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Read the newest installment of Yes Yes my monthly advice column : the comment section is really special, grateful to the readers for their thoughtful reflections