I’m still out here enjoying the Autumnal sun and stretching out my birthday month right to the very very sweet end.
September has been pretty pivotal with progress made in practical ways which has leant itself to a loosening all round. My throat chakra feels like it has been lubricated similarly to how a creaky door sighs with relief when its hinges are liberally doused in WD40. My own hinges are finding less need to contract and so are opening up to allow flow and creativity in. I can feel myself coming home to myself.
Since I last wrote to you I've felt my Insta mojo coming back, considering I posted on the Instagram grid a grand total of 12 times this year so far, it gives you some insight as to where I've been. And whilst its not where I intend to build the home for my voice (that will be Substack and the new podcast), I’m enjoying using it as a practice playground for experimenting with increased visibility and gently stepping out.
My dear friend Tamu Thomas sent me a TikTok earlier this week. The headline was around ‘Your peace is expensive’. The impact of it has been gratefully reverberating around my mind and spirit ever since.
It gave me a renewed appreciation for my most recent life challenge and if I’m honest whole lot of ‘don’t give a fuck energy’.
A whole body knowing that the peace I’m now dipping my toes into experiencing came at a price. It was expensive in every.which.way and because of that my appreciation of it is sky high and I’m not willing to waste a drop.
There's a deep, fiery, passionate and very present remembering that ‘I didn’t come this far to just come this far’ and neither did the beautiful souls I get to be in community with. Yes, I’m talking to you.
The studies/qualifications/certifications, the work wisdom gained in the years you’ve clocked up in your respective industry (or likely industries!), the lived experiences, the knowledge, the learnings, the tears and the triumphs.
You didn’t do all of that to:
a) feel unfulfilled
b) constantly exhausted by life
c) watch others doing what you wish (and know) you could or
d) sitting on your creativity and contribution.
So what is it? What is that you wish to create in your life and in your work? Maybe you want to take that one to your journal. There’s also an invitation to hit reply and share with me.
I had a client session this week where I asked, ‘At the end of your days, what story is it that you want to tell?’ Its something I come back to often in helping me make decisions on not only the what but the how. So maybe you want to take this prompt too and use it to help you get to what you wish to create.
This week I also facilitated a session on ‘Harnessing Your Authentic Self at Work’ for a global music label. I’ve run this workshop for them twice before but this time it was a part of an annual event they run specifically for women which gave it a whole different energy.
My coaching approach as well as being values-led and compassion centered, has a systems-lens and solutions focus. So as you can imagine a room of 20 women and a workshop on authenticity, we were able to candidly get into real upon the real. The variety of nuanced identities in the room, the intersections we share and don’t share and the universal themes. I also got in some neuroscience teaching, giving them knowledge about how their brains work so they can start to work with themselves rather than against. Everything about this gig, from the content, delivery, people and brand truly feels like my calling.
The theme of confidence to be authentic came up repeatedly, its like they are cousins. The confidence to be authentic with others and the ability to live a life that feels authentic to us. Whilst its personal pursuit of what authenticity means to us, when done in community with the support of another we make bigger strides forward.
Support really is one of our biggest assets and so cultivating it wherever possible is key.
On Monday, I’ll be opening up the enrolment for ROOTED. Its a coaching subscription for busy big-hearted creatives and its a way of you being supported in a different way to find more ease, intention and joy in your life and work.
See you then.
Nicola X x
