Embracing messy humanity is the answer

Your creative spark and critical thinking are precious and worth protecting, especially now

I opened up enrollment for my next round of Bloom this week (more below if you're interested) and it gave me a chance to make updates to the agreements I ask everyone to acknowledge in my group spaces.

Many of these agreements are pretty standard to the kind of space I want to hold and to human interaction in general: Consent, kindness, respect of privacy, self-responsibility, no sharing anything from the space anywhere beyond it.

But I've added a new one, which says:

GenAI-free space. No GenAI is used in producing, ideating, or outlining content for these programs: Everything you see here came directly from my brain: As part of this space, you agree to not use GenAI to craft your responses in our group Slack, to share any GenAI content in the space, or feed anything from the resources or our course spaces into GenAI (doing so gets you the boot immediately).

Our goal, in part, is to meet and deepen our relationship to creativity and our messy, beautiful humanity, to appreciate the process of creating (not just the product), and to recognize that creativity is as much about learning and doing as having done something.

In my ongoing work to hold spaces that center creativity, I see how outsourcing creativity and critical thinking runs counter to those outcomes.

The more we can deepen our relationship to creativity, to trusting ourselves and our inner wisdom, to leaning into process, and letting each of our creative worlds unfold in their unique way, the more we have access to the unique gifts each of us have to share and to our senses of discernment and interconnection, which are more important than ever.

I don't usually put such a long explanation in each part of our group agreement (most are 1 sentence, 2 tops), but since our relationships to this technology are evolving, and the idea of using GenAI relatively new (at least at any scale), some explanation felt needed.

I have plenty of reasons for why I personally never use it, some environmental, some social justice-oriented, some dealing with my relationship to creativity itself (not to mention that I don't appreciate my work being plagiarized, as it has been with these models, without compensation or mention).

But in the realm of my work with others, who may or may not share those views, I still keep GenAI out of the picture because part of support creative thinking and expansion is, well, being messy humans who create things.

So how do we cherish and protect our messy humanity?

Here are a few ideas I've been working with. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Keep some areas of our lives either screens-free OR non-networked in some way. Think journaling or doing brainstorming and outlining on paper instead of on your laptop.

Keep time for unstructured creativity in your days: You might have goals or specific projects you want to focus on, but here is a chance to treat your creative time like a path you walk and see where it leads, rather than like a sidewalk from your car to the front door of an expected and familiar destination.

Seek out serendipity and novelty: Novelty supports neuroplasticity and creative thinking, both of which lead to a richer and more deeply textured life experience, helps you generate new ideas, and also just makes life more fun (that's why it's woven into the core of Symbiosis).

Opt out of AI summaries and outsourced thinking whenever possible: Using "-ai" in search queries works sometimes (or, use DuckDuckGo and turn off AI entirely, like I do), but given the environmental damage from, and often inaccurate results by GenAI, I'm a fan of opting out wherever I can.

Remember the process is the point: Related to the above, there seems to be almost an allergic reaction by more and more folks around doing their own research or coming up with their own ideas (case in point, the number of unsolicited "I asked AI and..." replies on social media posts). All tools have their place (AI is great for doing a cursory sort of massive datasets, for example), but as the saying goes "if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail."

That's not how thinking, creativity, or being a human in the world work, and when we turn to one tool for every problem, we lose our innate ability to process and to enjoy the process.

Most things we encounter in life are less about the solution as the be all and end all, and just as much (or more) about the process of coming to that solution. A process that leaves us more resourced to problem solve in future, and with all the other learning, experience, and pleasure that comes with engaging in the process of doing the work ourselves.

Think critically, and use your critical thinking skills often. I wrote this about using our critical thinking to assess resources in one specific area (food preserving) but the concepts apply more generally. Especially now, being able to discern truth from digital hallucinations and general junk is so important, and regularly asking questions about sources rather than just accepting what you read or watch as fact is a big part of that.

Do you have questions about critically evaluating information, about seeking trustworthy information sources, or anything else related to information literacy or critical thinking?

Please ask me (I have a PhD in Library and Information Science, let me use it to help you!), or ask your local librarian.

Digital boundaries are more important than ever: I'm not saying throw your phone into the sea, but set aside time to create without being glued to it (this article that I share with my clients has some helpful suggestions). Set your phone in another room, put it on Do Not Disturb and on silent, whatever you need to do to get some breathing room.

I also turn wifi off on my laptop when I end work for the day, and put the document I want to work on first thing front and center on the screen before I close the lid. When I start the next day, I have everything I need in front of me, and can't just automatically drift over to email (if there's something I need to look up online while I'm working, I just make a note and do that later).

Give yourself permission to feel alive, feel pleasure, and to trust your creative intuition. It's really easy to just dissociate right now, and being human and alive can also feel vulnerable and scary.

But the more deeply you let yourself feel, trust, play, and feel pleasure, the more deeply you're connected to yourself and better resourced to weather storms and to continue your own transformative journey.

I often think about the close relationship between the sensations of anxiety and excitement, and how when I feel anxious, I have an opportunity to tap into that physical sensation and ask myself what about the moment has me feeling excited (even if nervous, uncertain, etc. at the same time). Do I have the ability to turn my focus a bit more in that direction?

Most importantly, prioritize visioning, generative creative thinking, and imagining. Now is the time to REALLY let yourself imagine and dream big. To spend time daydreaming. To think about possibilities that seem impossible and to pull out a giant sheet of blank paper and just start writing down the connections between them.

Computers can re-cobble what's there and use the available data to suggest new combinations and solutions based on existing problems. But YOU can generate new ideas, see the connections between those ideas and the existing world, and generate novel solutions in a way that's purely human.

Your generative, creative energy and those wild ideas that fill your notebooks and phone notes the backs of receipts crammed into your wallet are your messy humanity.

They're what make you alive and human in this world: And in a moment where many people are opting out of experiencing messy humanness in favor of turning their brains off and plugging in to solutions that seemingly make life easier but less rich and deeply joyful, your messy humanness is critical. Non-optional. Needed more than ever.

That's why I have made my spaces all about supporting you in the exciting, sometimes challenging deep inner work of being a creative spirit in a changing world. Because the technologies we encounter will change, but we can't build better, new tools, or build the world we want to see (whatever tech is popular at the moment) without our messy, human spirits and our creativity and critical thinking intact.

It's also why I am continuously doing this work myself, calling on my own support network of coaches, energy workers, etc. to help me live my deepest, most expansive, most pleasurable, and most unapologetically aligned-to-me creative life so I can use what I learn to help others.

Work with me this summer and fall

I have a TON of really exciting workshops and other goodies on the horizon.

For any of these, use the code CREATE for 20% off!
(Paid subscribers, scroll down for 40% off)

First things first: I'm offering one more round of Radical Creators this fall, and I'm offering it to all Roots + Branches program alumni for FREE: Because we all need some anchoring back into our creative inner truth before we settle in to stillness and rest with winter.

That means if you've taken Bloom before, or worked with me as a private client, or have otherwise been part of one of my live group or private programs since I launched Roots + Branches, you can come get a top-up and some deep creative nourishment for free.

Just reply to this email and let me know you want to join.

If you haven't been part of a group or 1:1 program before, you can still join Radical Creators (it's just $21): A 7 day creative expansion challenge that involves a daily guided meditation and reflection.

It always gives clients some really powerful insights and next steps on their journeys, and is a great way to dip your toes into my world of work without a huge investment. The next round starts September 21st!

Another way to get a taste of my work without a large investment is exploring my self-paced classes: Everything from a masterclass on boundary setting for creatives (so helpful!) or your guidebook to writing your next book, to courses on weaving pleasure into your work or tapping into your unique creative rhythms: All of which are designed to give you useful and inspiring ideas and tools you can start working with right away.

I am always adding more of these, so if there's something you'd like to focus on that you don't see here, please send me your suggestions!

Bloom, my 8-week program for writers at all experience levels looking to build a lifelong, sustainable writing practice, is back for another round. This is the container where I've met and supported some of my favorite clients who have gone on to do some really incredible things, and it combines a weekly focus on practical skills (like boundaries) along with coaching support and tools for shifting our mindsets and finding our voices, plus guest experts from the publishing world, all in a supportive, collaborative space.

This one starts September 29th!

I'm taking more clients for my fully customized day-long private sessions, and I've got spaces open this month and beyond. These full-day sessions are for people who want to recalibrate to their creative energy in a deep and authentic way, and who are dedicated to their work and ready to implement what we begin in our sessions.

These days are powerful stuff, and combine practical planning (think breaking down that giant creative project into bite sized goals), energetic work, mindset work, and more, and are entirely customized to your needs, right now.

I'm absolutely stunned at the transformation I see not just in how folks feel less overwhelmed or burnt out by their work, but by their relationship to creativity in general, after private coaching sessions.

This program is for creatives from any discipline who are serious about and committed to their work, and ready to chart a path forward that's completely tailored to them and their needs. I have dates available in July and beyond, and am always happy to answer questions: Just shoot me an email.

I also have started offering subscription discounts for creatives who want quarterly full-day sessions with me, plus bulk discounts for group packages along with my regular private client work. This is a powerful way to invest deeply in yourself, your work, and your creativity and to maintain and deepen those connections over time.

If you or your crew (or your company) could benefit from customized private or group sessions, read case studies, testimonials, and see everything I offer here.

My messy humanity has taken me on a number of creative paths. Here’s a retirement gift I made for one of my mentors in 2010, a combo of calligraphy and line drawing of one of his favorite Carnegie library buildings