Hi friend—
I was on a coffee walk with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, and we were talking about work, and being productive, and putting yourself out there, and self-promotion, and the AI of it all, and she fired off this banger:
"I think I'm starting to sound like everyone else."
She said out loud what I sense has been in the ether for a while. The subtext underneath the frantic Substack notes, the existential dread lurking in the background of that TikTok video — a deep fear of losing your You-i-ness.
And here's the brutal part: you did everything right! [DAMMIT!]
You optimized.
You niched down.
You batched, systematized, prompt-engineered.
You essentialized your message until it fit a pinned tweet.
You did what every guru, algorithm, and $47 masterclass told you to do —
— and the result is that your work got smooth. On-brand and beige. The same hooks everyone in your corner of the internet is using, because we're all drinking from the same three frameworks and performing for the same algorithms.
Meanwhile an LLM can generate a passable version of your niche's entire content calendar before your coffee's done brewing, and there's a 3am voice asking the question underneath all the other questions: if my work sounds like everyone's, what exactly is left that's mine?
Big yikes.
This ^^^ plus a whole host of other side-effects included but not limited to overwhelm, burnout, general malaise and ennui, existential dread, and feelings of not-enoughness are certain signs of disenchantment — the thing we've been circling all summer here in the Twelfth House.
All that optimizing for clicks, views, and the algorithm's approval has been slowly sanding off your craggly edges… but your edges were never the problem, my little pony <3
Chasing strange obsessions, following your own creative impulses, trusting your “illogical” desire to research a “random” topic until 2a “for no reason” (only to be inspired by that research jaunt to create a new solution, product, post, whatever a few weeks down the line): those intuitions are your moat! That was what made your ideal people find you instead of the seventeen people selling the adjacent thing.
Optimization made you lose touch with your inner freak. But embracing your inner Weird Girl is what makes you absolutely magnetic.
That's exactly why I created LEVITATION PRACTICE — a dedicated container for nurturing your you-i-ness back to life.
I've been developing it since December 2023, and teaching LP since September 2024. It does one thing: takes your focus off optimization and re-enchants / re-weirds your work.
The point of LEVITATION PRACTICE is to carve out a dedicated psychic vortex space for you to deeply investigate, explore, experiment, and evolve your creative emerging ideas in an innovative and non-linear way.
Over the six-week live course you'll dig into a concept you're drawn to but haven't had dedicated time to explore on your own. You'll make weekly progress towards a thesis through a connected web of creative prompts, media, case studies, and group conversations.
And here's the thing — I'm actually running LEVITATION PRACTICE inside our private membership community, the North Node. So if you choose to join us for LEVITATION PRACTICE, you'll also get complimentary access to the entire North Node library (where I host class) for the rest of the quarter.
You can't do this wrong. There's room for your concept to evolve or even "fail" as part of the process. (Imagine how that type of approach could change everything)
This is not a business class :) It's an insight-oriented space where I'll provide structure, guidance, and support through a process that is ultimately your own.
[That being said, I truly believe that spending time with non-work concepts and projects is a paradoxical move for success. I've found when I turn my attention to a developing creative project, a magical side door / shortcut appears to help me level up my "main" business.]
You'll find a creative idea that's actually yours, research it the unhurried way, and ship one finished creative thing into the world — essay, zine, video, mixed-media whatever. Not a product to sell. The thing that gets your spark back and reconnects you to your own intuitive genius (the unreplicable kind — no training data on you exists).
When you join, you get Levitation Practice plus full access to everything in the North Node (every class I've ever taught for the last six years!) for three months. One price, one season, the whole thing: $299.
Doors close Wednesday, July 15. Your access runs July 15 through October 15 — the exact arc of the LP quarter — and we start live Thursday the 16th.
Consider this your wink from the universe.
xo,
Michelle
