just jill, writer.
I have a confession. It’s a tough one to swallow but this is about stripping all-the-things bare.
See, I would rather throw the baby out with the bathwater than try to figure out how to unravel what I receive as a mess.
Even if that mess is simply to change the water, my go-to way of showing up is to toss it all—the good and the bad.
“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” is a German idiomatic expression dating back to 1512 and the meaning behind the most graphic phrase is “don’t discard something valuable along with something undesirable.”
And yes, even though I do not have one, I find babies desirable and would never truly toss one.
However, my baby of a website that became a mammoth beast of an unruly thing . . .
Toss it, I say.
Which some may think is a bit insane.
What one might find foolish and down right insane, I find quite natural, normal and a needed part of my untangling of self.
But it does come with a cost.
I often feel the need to nix something and start again (only to stuff my face).
Habit. Pattern. Waste of precious time, resources and energy.
Because when this is one’s way of being
about something external,
like a book half done,
a website spun too big,
a cottage under construction way past its expiration date,
that same way of being can also apply internally.
And lead to a tossing of self.
For some it’s a self-deprecation humor,
a proverbial tossing of oneself under the bus,
a conscious no to self care.
The negating of all the good within
by focusing and saying good-bye to all there is
simply because there is also bad.
And I must admit this is a most painful way to be, but in all transparency, this is me.
See I have always been a bit of a spider playing at creating the most intricate of webs.
And currently, here I am with a book in Formatting Land,
my amazing editor busy reviewing pages,
a release date just two weeks away,
a list a mile and a half long,
a desire to get my first-look readers on board and informed . . .
and yet the itch to strip bare is there.
Taking over. Almost all consuming in it’s Now, because it’s literally time I fully do this thing my way.
Just as I am doing a new book my way.
This is me spinning a new web with intention. Not tossing the baby, but pulling the drain plug that needs to be undone so that I can rebuild . . .
with the whisper of less is more in my head.
Stripping back to the words, not the design.
Shedding what doesn’t fit this new Just Jill, Writer version of me.
I am Just Jill, Writer.
And so much more that it’s finally time to fully let go.
Letting go of the part of me who is a Jill (sorry Jack) of all trades and saying no more
to over designed pages,
to much time in Canva (gosh-darn, love that space)
and instead focusing on my zone of me—
words.
So while nobody puts this baby in a corner (but me), I am saying no to that way of being while also learning I can change my mind.
I can make a change and not toss myself when the need to expand into less grows within me.
Just Jill, Writer. Stripping bare for all to see.
It won’t always be pretty, definitely never curated, but it will be fully, honestly, totally me.
💜
[ If you like this message, you’ll probably go gaga over my new book. ]