99% In Is A B*TCH (Being Visible)

If you are 99% in,
you might as well be out! 

Being visible sucks.
Until it doesn’t. 
For me.

It’s like all new things.
Things we say we want,
perhaps,
Yet, because they are uncomfortable, 
We don’t sink fully in. 

Maybe we hem
We haw
We step two feet in
Then hurriedly back the heck up 
and out.

Peace.

Yet, not feeling the least bit peaceful.
More like depressed, 
Disappointed, 
Angry,
Frustrated even. 
And so very alone. 

Sound familiar? 

I know it does for so many. 
Sound like a pattern you may know 
Better than a pair of cozy socks
Or that comforter you cuddle on a cold, damp day. 

It’s so very painful to always be in and out. 
To be only 99% committed 
As someone remarkable once told me.

You’d think 99% in, awesome, right? 

Wrong!
Because that 1% of you
That’s out,
That’s the b*tch. 

That’s the push pull.
The itch that you constantly scratch.
The disconnect. 
The turmoil.
The lack of forward progress.

The succeed 
Then fail
Pattern of you.

Yes, there is something to be said for focus. 
Yes, there is much to be said about alignment 
With your purpose, 
Your passion. 

Yes, it’s about making an impact. 

However, when you’re in one day and out the next,
How much impact are you truly generating?
Where is your focus?
Alignment? Come on now!

This has been my way of being,
In the past.

A colossal nightmare of 
Hide and seek.
With no “found” shouted in a game 
That never flipping ends. 

Until I decide to end it. 

And I’ve been here before. 
Ready to step all in. 
And I’ve retreated before. 

Sound familiar to you.
Perhaps you’ve done this with being visible, 
Like I have. 

Or with your weight,
Like I have.

Or with debt, money or knowing your own value.
Perhaps with relationships
Or even knowing what you want. 

Or name any commitment
that you can see
became a seesaw of 
to and fro, 
back and forth, 
in and out, 
up and down. 

It’s so dang uncomfortable
To be in that place of stepping out, 
Being visible (or whatever is your thing to step into)
And yet, even more painful,
The retreat.
The sense of failure.

The those
What’s wrong with me 
thoughts.

The nasty voice that starts to play on repeat in your head.

Yet, what if the work is about leaning in, 
fully, completely, utterly
and especially in that moment where something in you screams
no
no
no!

And so wants to retreat.
But the work is in
Not pulling away, 
but sinking fully into the mire
that is the ick of discomfort.
The unfamiliar,
The itch
that so makes you want to run, ignore, hide?

What if the work is in the pause
When that need to retreat hits.

Not doing anything but sitting with all those feels.
Just for a bit.
A tepid bath of you in all your glorious unease.
For not to do this creates dis-ease
in you.

What if the shift happens
When you stay
Step forward anyway
And not back. 

But when you literally,
unequivocally,
sink into the discomfort of it all. 

Running from the discomfort 
of being visible, 
Or whatever causes that twitch or itch for you,
Is the true crime, is it not? 

For you can’t truly run from it, 
From you,
Ever. 

That’s just another lie we tell ourselves
That leaves us feeling
Empty
Alone
Lost
Disconnected 
And back at square one. 

So lean in today, 
When discomfort hits
And take another step all in. 

And that’s the razor's edge. 
Sinking into the discomfort
As it comes.  

I am.
And it sucks. 

I’m stepping out
With my words
With my face
With my voice
With my all
And really all I want to do is 
Retreat.

I see now why Cortés
Ordered burn the boats! 

So there would be no 
Retreat
Retreat
Retreat
When the going got tough 
for his army. 

When the discomfort of battle,
Of possible death
Set in.

And here’s the good news.
I will not die
By being visible. 

And more good news, 
I will die, 
Slowly day by day, 
The longer I CHOOSE
to play into the fear of 
Retreat 
Retreat 
Retreat.

So adiós, old amigo. 
For yes, that part of me that retreated is like a long-lost friend.
But one I need to thank, honor, and release for good. 

And so that work begins. 
The only difference is
I’m showing up 100% committed
To this new visible me… 

No more 1% out, as that b*tch ain’t for me.

Please meet the new me.
An author of many words,
A curator of JOY,
A creator of what you see below.

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Photo Credit: Toa Heftiba @heftiba

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99% In Is A B*Tch, Being Visible

Being visible sucks.
Until it doesn’t.

It’s like all new things.
Things we say we want,
perhaps,
Yet, because they are uncomfortable,
We don’t sink fully in.

Sound familiar?

It’s like all new things.
Things we say we want,
perhaps,
Yet, because they are uncomfortable, 
We don’t sink fully in…

---

Sorry To Interrupt, Fabulous…

As It Was Just Warming Into Delicious…

I want to keep this short and sweet as I know you were about to get your read on with my words. And I appreciate that, your time and your interest, which is why I have to press pause for a second. 

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If, In 2019, You Told Me…

I’d suddenly be writing, as me, after hiding my skills behind ghost-projects, collaborations and numerous pseudonyms, I would have snort-laughed (in your face) and walked away. 

Not because I’m that rude, but simply because to write, as me, has been so far out of my reality of what is possible that it would never have even computed.

See, I’ve spent a good 30 years perfecting the art of hiding in plain sight and I share this because maybe you can relate. 

Maybe you too have not stepped fully into your own slice of sunlight, taken complete control of penning your own life-design, perhaps done what others have expected and you’ve landed here seeking something. 

Answers… Clarity… More JOY…
Or simply to be entertained by some uplifting words.

Whatever brought you here, thank you for taking the time.

I want you to read my words. All of them... and that’s a new feeling for me.
And dare I say uncomfortable. 

Yet, when we are uncomfortable, we grow…
When we find JOY, we expand…
When we laugh, we absorb… 

Which leads me to why I’m interrupting your read just when you were sinking into your flow.

Hey there, I’m Jill

And Words Are My SuperPower

I didn’t learn to read words till I was nine… And once I did, and found something delicious to sink into, it was on…

When I discovered my first purple pen… And that I could write words, create stories and share anything I desired…

Well, it was so on that I wrote my first 100-page story in 6th grade, making the teacher wait until I finished the very last line of that very-last-page.

Her words, when she handed the pile of pages back to me a week later… “Never stop.”

Some people say I’m woo woo. Other people say my words changed their life. Read on and decide for yourself.

But hey, don’t take me too seriously…

The Only Question Is
Are You Ready
To Receive More JOY In Your Life?

If The Answer Is Yes,
Join The JOY-Family Right Now. 

And when you do, please leave me a comment below so I can say hello!

Joining Takes Less Than 90 Seconds

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Imagine A Project In A Day, Going From Offline To Online

Right now you know the importance of getting your business online.

And you’ve perhaps always known but you waited, negated that need, out of what 
Fear
Doubt
Indecision
Busyness
Dread

I get it. Technology can be a bear. 

Yet, technology is what’s going to be your lifeline right now
if you are feeling the slow squeeze,
the steady drip
or the firehose drain
on your livelihood, your income, your very being. 

I know you…
Or someone amazing, phenomenal just like you…

You’ve graced stages. 
You’ve given grand talks. 
Or held small, intimate spaces in the palm of your hand...

You’ve written,
Published,
Taught,
Or shown your work,
Perhaps…

You’re a creative, 
an artist, 
an author, 
a visionary… 
you’re a person of impact. 
Of influence.

You’re successful. 

You’ve done the things.
You’re Aligned.
Brilliant. 
And off-line until now...

See you’ve always done it,
this thing,
your gift,
face-to-face,
have you not?

And now, you’re sitting back,
not yet freaking out,
But you’ve waited…
To get yourself online.

And now,
A forced holiday and thought…
No worries, 
This too shall pass
Yet, are you still waiting?

It’s not in your nature to wait, is it?

Yet, now… maybe there’s a slight twinge of hmmm
A nervous flutter
Not yet a panic,
but a knowing that you must act. 
Now. 

Or perhaps, you’re ready to pull out your hair… 
Thinking and now what?

No judgement. 
I get it. 
I too wasn’t online. 
I too lived under the online radar.

And what I see so clearly for you, is that now is not the time to WAIT 
for man, 
for country, 
for nation, 
for the world 
to get it together. 

You didn’t get where you are 
successful,
aligned,
focused,
profitable,
by relying on the words or promises of others. 

You listened to your own knowing, did you not?

And right now there is a voice within demanding that you listen… 

Yet, perhaps your skills don’t jive with what you need to do to reinvent yourself from a world suddenly incapable of platform speaking, boardroom conferences or hotel ballroom events. 

In fact, you might be wondering how to go about those once in-person retreats, intimate masterminds and suddenly wish you’d taken the time to integrate all that is you — online.

But you didn’t and it’s not too late. 
And blame, shame are a waste of time.
As you already know...

See as you read this message, 
which you found because you were supposed to, 
you are going to find yourself stepping into all that is now possible for you 
when you move your platform online. 

You are going to get excited by the thought that in one day, 
you could go from not aligned with these new times, 
to holy-smokes, we’re web-a-fied!

Instead of watching your assets dwindle 
as you wait for a new world to regroup, 
you are, after one day, 
already going to be able to step back into creating change, 
making an impact 
and opening that flow of abundance back to you. 

And it doesn’t have to be hard. 
There is enough that is difficult in the world at this moment. 

Many people are struggling right now.
People you could impact. 

And you may be hurting too, yet you no longer have to. 
There is a path to getting your message online, so you can serve now… 

Because what’s the cost of waiting?
Of sinking into your lack of an online presence, 
when instead you could be bringing your passion and purpose 
to an even larger audience 
to create a more global impact. 

When you’re ready to step out of your own struggle,
like my clients have, '
you’re going to love the new doors,
opportunities and profits that open for you.  

My name is Jill and I’ve lived in the shadow, off-line, too. 
As a ghost author… 
A collaborator… 
A writer of words for others… 
A coach in someone else’s group...
A quiet, empowering speaker on another’s stage… 

And never bothered to invest in my online real estate. 
Until recently. 
And I’m so dang glad I got out of my own way.

See, for years… 
I knew I should.
I knew I could. 

However, I delayed, 
I procrastinated… 
I hemmed and hawed.

And I excelled at what I did - without being in that arena
And then the proverbial sh*t hit the fan.

For me, that moment was poor health… 
For you, it might be the current climate…
And I see that in so many of my clients’ lives and businesses
before they work with me. 

A shift in life circumstances,
A change in priorities.
A new global norm…

The unexpected.

But this isn’t going to be about anything other than you… 

See, I’m a bit of a Jill-of-all-Trades…
if you will… 

With an artist's eye and a flare for words.
Plus, a strange love of tech and an ability to tap into my analytical mind
And build out systems, funnels, sequences to offer amazing clarity to people like you. 

After you’ve experienced clarity like this, and seen what can be done in a day to get you back on track to serving those you are meant to, you’re going to want to work with me again and again and, yep… again. 

Most people struggle prior to working with me.
And I get it…  

So when you’re ready to let that go, 
To let it be easy…

When you’re ready to be even more successful than ‘before’
Whatever your ‘before’ is…

Send me a message and let’s get started on 
One of two paths… 

A Clarity Call Power Hour,

Where we get sh*t done in 60-seconds that will simply amaze you,
As it has my other elite clients.

Or maybe you want my most talked about offer.. 

My Words Your Day® - A VIP Experience intensive.

An experience in massive implementation, messaging and results....

You will never know just what’s possible for you until you reach out…
Or if you already know… 

Simply invest in you, your future and book me now while I have availability like Joe
did recently. You can read his story here and how he chose to dive in.

If you have a project, a word-need…
I’ve got your back with an hour or a day…
A project…
You choose.

Your time is now. 
Allow me to impact you,
Bring your message online,
So you can get back to doing the work you are here to do.

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Photo Credit: Avi Richards @avirichards

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One Hour Does Have The Power To
Open Doors & Transform Your Life

Conflicted To Aligned

I’ve been conflicted most of my life and as I write these words,

maybe you can relate. 

It’s as if a part of me has wanted one thing 
and the other part, desired the opposite, 
for as long as I can remember. 

Step out and shine. 
NO! 
Retreat. Retreat. Retreat. 

It was as if a voice within was literally saying, on a loop,
Go into that self-imposed cave,
I mean home,
and write. 

Now, maybe your conflicted moments don’t have actual dialogue 
(mind-of-a-writer here)
But on some level, I have a feeling you get me. 

You hear what I’m saying, as you are still reading, are you not? 

See, I have so many talents. But who am I to offer them? 
I have so many gifts. But who am I to share them? 
I have so much love in my heart for others. But who even cares? 

Especially, when I didn’t have love in my heart for me. 

And that’s the bottom line of my former-conflicted-self. 

Lack of love for me. 
Lack of confidence in me.
Lack of proof that I am enough…

To just do all-the-things. 
To just do anything at all. 

To live my life for me. 
To say the hell with what others think.

To say I am magic, watch me wave my wand and create all I want…
To invite people on this journey with me… 
To impact others and get out of my own head, my own way....

Yet, when I didn’t love me, it was hard to know what I even wanted.

So-much-conflict, I was like my very own never-ending soap-opera until I put All My Children to bed after 43 years.

Damn, but the numbers don’t lie… living conflicted for four decades. 

Just why?

Yet, when you know no other way, it’s easy to stay in the mire of all that self-turmoil, self-criticism, self-analysis and think, 
There is so much noise in the world, why even speak up? Why add more crap….

So instead I did nothing, 
Or next to nothing, 
And called it a day...
As I moaned about the victim that was me.

Instead, I’d get courageous and take two steps forward only to take ten steps back. 

And then ask that never-ending Q of why?
Why me?
The question that begs another and another and yep, another. 

Until I got sick of my own self and really heard the voice within. 
The one that was nasty.

The one that was full of such doubt, such pain, such hatred…
Of me.

The one that had spent all these decades asking the ‘wrong’ questions…
Questions based in lack. 
Questions that kept me in the spin — 
Of conflict. 

Who am I to do that thing? 
Who am I to share those words, that idea, anything? 
Who even cares? 
What if I’m not enough?

When I pressed pause on these questions and started asking myself, less
questions...
And when I did, question — asking better ones…
The world tilted under me and this magical thing happened. 
Alignment. 

So I bring this idea to you today…

When a Q pops into your head that’s based in doubt, in lack, in criticism of you, simply flip it.

It looks like this and may just make you smile… 

When you’re mind says “Who am I to do that thing?” flip that sh*t to…
Who am I NOT to do that thing? 
Who am I NOT to share those words, that idea, anything? 

When that voice wants to ask “What if I’m not enough?” you’re immediate comeback is…
What if I AM enough?

When you think no one cares what you do or have to say you’ll be changing that tune from Who even cares? 
to
Even if no one cares, do I care enough to…?
Or even better if you’re feeling sassy… Do I even give two-f*cks?!

When I stepped fully into loving me, all changed. 

So if I can offer you one thing in this love-note from me to you, it’s this…

To Be Conflicted Is A Choice. 

When I chose to love me instead, the conflict that was me melted away. 

I didn’t do all this on my own… but I did show up, for me, each and every day.

I had a mentor and a coach as my guide this last year, and it’s made all the difference in the world. 

Sometimes we need another to point out that which we can’t ourselves see and she is that for me. 

I’ll be sharing more about her in a coming post and revealing something crazy-cool that may just fill you with as much JOY as it does me…

If you subscribe to my Wednesday Words, you’ll be receiving an email all about it…you can get on that word-train with me right here and never miss a JOYful moment again.

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One Hour Does Have The Power To
Open Doors & Transform Your Life

Clarity & Alignment Equal Powerful Messaging: Joe's Story [Part 3]

Joe’s story has captured minds, hearts and caused a flood of DMs I was not expecting, yet feel so blessed by. 

I also love the comments left and encourage you to share your thoughts after this and each of the three parts of this Joe-Focused series. 

It proves the power of story and that we love to see another succeed but even more importantly, reading about Joe allows others to see just what’s possible for them. 

So if you missed any of this story-time action, catch Part 1 here and the follow up Part 2. This is the wrap to Joe — for now. 

I won’t spoil it in the event you haven’t read all the deets, so go back to the beginning… 

And if you have already gotten your read on… grab that mug of tea, cup of Joe (ha!) and sit back to sink into just what comes to be when you live from 100% possible, 100% of the time. 

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Bringing Clarity To Joe

In the last words of the previous read, I shared a statement that is worth repeating here to refresh your memory and get you too excited by possibility. 

Imagine What Would Be Possible
If You Went From Nada
To Clear Messaging In One Day

Can I give you the answer to this non-question statement?
Yes? Good.
E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.

See with clear messaging people can find you, people can fall in love with you, people can buy what it is you sell. 

With clear messaging you become the solution that fills the need someone has. 

But if they can’t find you, well — Everyone loses, do they not? 

Joe had no messaging online. 

For most of my life, I have had little to no messaging online. And what messaging I did have was disjointed, convoluted and simply not clear. 

For Joe, it was a matter of an established referral-based business and, until recently, lack of a need for something different. 

For me, it was a bit of the same. I’ve created two businesses all based on a model of referrals. One in writing/coaching work and the other in education. But for me, the issue went a bit deeper than it did for Joe.

I was a hider. 

One foot in. 
Three feet out — even when I only have two. 

And I see both myself and Joe represented in the clients I coach. Some are artists, writers, creatives simply into their craft and not sure how to navigate a word of being known. 

Others simply don’t think they are worthy. 

Both of those fit my bill. 

And others still simply didn’t know how to get their messaging across. It’s one thing to write a novel or a non-fiction piece, but to write one’s own words — own messaging — can be challenging. 

Now for Joe, his need is not new, but in our current times, it’s definitely a hot-button where as once it was simply an over sight. 

See Joe was comfortable in how he showed up in the world. 

He traveled less than half a dozen times a month. He spoke in other people’s meeting rooms, conferences and small stages. 

He received a fee and sold those in the room on a path to working more intimately with him.

He was well-received, well-paid and well-referred. 

And none of it online.

And it worked. 
Until it didn’t. 
Until travel came to a stand-still. 
Until meeting in groups became a concern. 
Until he realized it was time for a new approach. 

But for Joe, he thought that new approach was finally writing that novel he’d been dreaming of for a decade. 

Until things got back to normal. 
And then, he’d see. 

Well, as you read, Joe realized waiting for normal was a broken strategy. 
Much like no longer having an online platform wasn’t a smart choice. 
At least not for him. 

And he helped me see the light was well. As it wasn’t a working strategy for me anymore as well. 

And because I stepped out into the world — aligned — Joe was able to see just what was possible for him. 

Where In Your Life Could You Step Out? 

Where In Life Could Clarity Impact How You Show Up And Serve? 

Where In Life Are You Not Aligned? 

And this last is a powerful question, my friend. So impactful in fact, that I want to share just what happens when one steps into alignment. 

You may remember from Part 2 that Joe booked his My Words Your Day® VIP Experience, a one day intensive, less than 24-hours after I rolled it out on my very own site. 

Now Joe, he’s taking it a step further, as he’d like to go from zero to clear messaging in one day, with a virtual real estate home for all to reside on, created in a second day.

Did I mention Joe is ambitious?

And that’s where the creative in me gets excited! Because there is an artistic side of me that is a Jill-of-all-trades.

He saw this in me because when he asked who had done my new site, I could not tell a lie. I did. 

And could I do all that for him? For others? 

Perhaps…

And then I circle back to that one word — alignment.

For now, Joe and I are focused on my words, which are my SuperPower, for his scheduled day and we’ll see where that leads. 

Clarity and focus should be considered best friends, if not soulmates. 

And I speak from experience when I say not having clarity leads to running after all-the-things. Which then leads to an utter lack of focus and that’s a killer. 

Perhaps you can relate..?

Thankfully, Joe got this message loud and clear. He’s focused on first things first — his messaging. And that’s what we will create absolute clarity on — first — during our day together because that is his true need once the excitement of all-the-things wears off.  

And as Joe is preparing for his day with me, I want to share what else is happening. 

It’s as if the floodgates opened and people came out of the woodwork. 

It’s as if interested individuals were simply waiting around virtual corners for me to get my own messaging out there. 

And it’s absolutely delicious… and I refuse to step into an old pattern of being uncomfortable about the sudden attention. 

See, I am receiving messages about my Schedule A Clarity Call Coaching work right and left.

I am being asked questions now about My Words Your Day®, VIP Experience. 

I am seeing interest… excitement and a desire for what I have to offer. 

This, Friend, Is The Power Of Alignment.

To have had a dozen people reach out in just five days. Interested individuals asking if it’s right for them.

And three didn’t wait for an answer but simply booked.

Again, the power of alignment.

Here’s what I know

If you feel called to someone, that’s your inner guidance, listen.

If you feel it’s right, stop all the doubting, questioning and lean in.

If you’re questioning, hit pause on your thoughts and get quiet.

I can’t tell you if a Clarity Coaching Call is right for you, just as who was I to say Joe didn’t need a My Words Your Day® VIP Experience.

No One Can Tell You What’s Best For You

So when you’re ready for your own dip into alignment, start asking yourself what it is you need, desire, want and then go all-in with that.

Because that right there is the magic of being aligned.

That right there is what comes with a deep-dive into clarity.

And it only comes when you listen to the voice within.

So I’m getting quiet with all of Joe’s wants and needs. And first things first, the focus is on putting My Words to his messaging needs.

And the rest will unfold as it should, either by referring him to others or by diving in if it feels right.

I’m going to document the process with Joe and with all my clients and begin to honor them and the work I do by sharing more of it so that it can inspire, just as my site, my messaging inspired Joe to take action.

Perhaps Joe’s story will inspire you.

I’ve spent a lifetime intentionally working on projects where I could not contractually step into my slice of sunlight to shine and that stops now.

Not to say I won’t still ghost write or collaborate on hush-hush projects. Not at all. I love serving in this way.

But from now on, I’ll step out and shine as me. Aligned.

And offer all that I do with full transparency, as that now feels so aligned, and so very right.

And Joe already sees what’s possible for him, now that I stepped up and into the spotlight of my talents. 

Just by looking at the alignment, I gave a home to...as me, on my site. 

And that is proof right there that alignment is everything.

So this message is two parts.

Joe’s Story And The Message Underlying His As It Relates To You.

Maybe you're like Joe and don’t even realize there’s another way.

I’m here to say there is and it starts with My Words Your Day® VIP Experience or by Scheduling a Clarity Call.

And perhaps you're just like Joe and will desire even more.

Or perhaps you are waiting for the right time to put yourself out there.
To make an impact.
To serve.

To be the you that can reach one or one thousand.

Just like the former version of me.

If you’re waiting for permission.
Hold up.
Give it to yourself.

If you’re waiting for the steps.
Stop.
They’ve already been given. 

If you’re waiting for alignment.
Press Pause.
It’s within you already.

And it’s so incredibly delicious!

If you're desiring clarity, there is a path.

Schedule a Clarity Call and let’s allow the aligned you out to play.

Your time is now. 

Join Joe, an amazing man, and total go-getter, and soon hundreds of others on a new way for working… My Words Your Day® VIP Experience, a one day intensive where my purple pen writes for you.

Or start by Scheduling A Clarity Call.

The choice is yours.

But imagine for a moment, words written for you that connect the dots of your passion and purpose so you can start being of greater impact.

Provided in one day.

Powerful, just the thought, is it not?

When you do, connect those dots, abundance naturally flows and your profits will too. 

This will happen for Joe. Very very soon.

This is already happening for me. Because I listened. Finally.

This can happen for you, too. 

Now is your time to become crystal clear and shine, is it not? 

Thank you for reading all of Joe’s story from his perspective and mine. 

Thank you for being on this journey with me. 

A journey I feel so very blessed to finally be completely, utterly aligned with. And I desire that for you.

If this share impacted you, please give this post a 💜 and leave a comment below with your biggest clarity moment. 

Finally, I’d request that you consider sharing this post or Part 1 on your own social channel. You never know who may be impacted by these words. 

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One Hour Does Have The Power To
Open Doors & Transform Your Life

My Words Your Day: Joe’s Story (Part 2)

Yesterday, I shared Joe’s story in Part 1. You may want to start there to get the full impact of this story-time share.

As today, I want to dive into my perspective on Joe and share what came next.

In case you missed it, this story is all about being in FLOW, being in ALIGNMENT, which is the word that took root in my life this month. Big time.

And it all starts with the post on July 1st - I Make A Difference.

You may want to swing back to that post and the one that came next — I Am Aligned — as this way of being makes all the difference in the world.

I am living proof of that as you will read in the continuation of Joe’s story below.

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My Story Of Joe…

Joe became one of my Clarity Coaching clients recently after obtaining my details from his friend, Teddy, also a client of mine.

That’s how I’ve always coached and wrote, until very recently, via referrals. More on that to come another day.

We had a powerful call that was productive, ambitious and extremely clarifying for Joe.

He wanted to talk writing like many, but not all, of my clients.

A newbie, wanna-be writer, a secret sci-fi lover, Joe had a wealth of ideas and a passion that jumped out of our virtual meeting to embrace me.

To say Joe was fun-loving would be an understatement.

He radiated happiness and while he didn’t know where to begin with this new idea, he was on the call with the purpose of gaining direction and clarity.

Never did he doubt he could.

And I loved that in him immediately.

That Knowing You Can Do Anything
If You Say You Can.

Joe ended his Clarity Call with a rough outline, a starting point, and booked a second call 15 days out — to hold himself accountable.

This is a man who made decisions look easy. 

For our second call, he came with three completed chapters to share, discuss and receive critical feedback on. He was cute, braced for my impact, and after relaxing a bit, I had to share with him the truth.

Because that’s what I offer my writing clients. All my clients. Truth, as I see it.

And I must say, his words were good.

For a first draft, first go — real good. And I don’t just say that… I never just say that. 

But when Joe turned around and critiqued me, it gave me a moment of pause.

I’ve been coaching a long time, just quietly, so I know I add value. I know I bring intuitive clarity to the table for writers, for artists, for creatives, for visionaries...

It’s simply what I do.

But when he started in on me at the end of our second call with, “Why are you hiding what you offer people like me?” I had to frigging laugh.

And I admit, it came out as a snort-laugh. Yep, for real!

Not. Even. Embarrassed.

Joe’s wife Missy, heard my less-than-lady-like, whatever that even means, snort, and with the cutest-ever giggle, she joined the last five minutes of the call. Perched on her husband’s lap.

I watched as Joe thanked his wife for his tea and then turned back to me with a firm, pointed stare.

Yikes.

“Jill, you need to make it easier for people to find you."

And Missy chimed it with “— And easier to book a call.”

I had to laugh and the coach in me felt duty-bound to hold the mirror up to my client, as we were still on the clock of his time, and this wasn’t about me.

Joe is a well-known speaker, in his area of expertise, and yet had no online presence himself. He received all his work via referrals.

We were two peas in the same pod — apparently.

The need to step out, to own what I did, publicly was something I’d become increasingly aware of over the last year or so.

For me, there was so much resistance. And that’s a story worth sharing — one day.

I mean, I was online, half-heartedly and with mixed messages about JOY and an old brand in education and random social media posts. Mostly about my rescue goats, of all things, and my new, unexpected, crazy island life.

Nowhere in that mix was a way to book me really, except via a contact form on my prolific, but chaotic, unfocused website. Or as a referral, through word-of-mouth.

The one I just launched under my real name in November of last year. The very thing I’d fought doing my entire life.

Going public.

When I say resistance, I mean knock-down-drag-out, two-steps forward and ten-steps back, resistance. For decades. For a lifetime.

I was a hider. I liked the shadows of ghostwriting and not being seen.

And yet, it had become increasingly clear to me that it was way-past-time to own my worth, as a coach of more than two decades, and a writer for more than 30 years.

Gasp! I started young. Don’t judge! Actually, judge away as I no longer care. George Micheal is singing Freedom somewhere right about now!

It was way past time to love myself enough to step fully into being me.

It was way past time to own my slice of sunlight and impact more people.

I mean literally, who was I to be so selfish and hide all the gifts I’d been given.

Joe booked a third Clarity Coaching Call with me while Missy gently read me the riot act for not allowing it to be easy. She reminded me of the wisdom my own coach and woman I am honored to call friend, had been sharing for the last year or so.

I heard the message loud and clear. Again.

And for some reason, this month, this moment in time, it all simply clicked for me.

Complete And Utter Alignment

I implemented all I know and like a MoFo, and created what is now visible for all to see.

And I’m so okay with it.

No more doubt.
No more angst.
No more two steps in and ten steps back.
No more hiding who I am and what I offer the world.

Instead, I created my own slice of online real estate that brings together my passion, my purpose which has always blessed me with profit.

What you have now is my online, completely me, totally aligned home. 

What I share on my site is 100% in alignment with who I am being, who I serve and how I show up in the world.

What I offer people like Joe. Perhaps someone like you.

And therein lies the shocking — to me — surprise.

My first ‘client’ within 24-hours of going live — completely and utterly aligned — was Joe.

See Joe, the public speaker with no online presence, who’d already had two clarity coaching calls with me about his book idea, saw my new site, and along with his wife, devoured it. [He later confessed.]

He had no idea I wrote words outside of fiction.
He had no idea I offered Clarity Coaching to people other than those like him — writers.
Why?
Because he was being coached on writing. And his college buddy, Teddy, had worked with me on fiction writing.

And now Joe realized he could refer me to a much wider scope of people than writers and those whose chosen genre was fiction.

And Joe could see just how much more I could help him!

Joe Later Shared How I Was Like A High-End, One-Plate Restaurant Whose Full, Decadent Menu Was Reserved For Those Who Thought To Ask For It.

And when he put it like that, in terms of food, I got his point. Clearly.

When he reached out and shared he and Missy had read every word, on each of the pages, three times and were floored.
Because just wow was his exact words.

And annoyed.
Because Joe had no idea I offered all that I did.
How could they when I didn’t say? Didn’t share? How could anyone..?

And ecstatic.
Because he saw how I could help him on a new level.

Which is what my fabulous coach, Lisa Carpenter, recently shared with me — Jill, people know you write, but beyond that, they really don’t know much or how successful you truly are. And that’s a shame.

I paraphrase her words, but that was the gist of her message to me.

But back to Joe. After feeling-all-the-emotions, Joe said he became excited by what was possible.

See my, new-to-him offer of My Words Your Day® VIP Experience, a one day intensive, was something he could really, seriously use.

Those were his words!

And my first thought was, No way! Who knew?

Gives new meaning to “leaving money on the table”, does it not?

But for me, the real hit-home-moment was not about the money left on the table, but the realization that

I Have Been Robbing People,
My Clients And Others
An Opportunity To Work With Me
On A More Intimate Level
Simply Because I Did Not Share Me
And All That I Do.

I had to take a look at my own mirror and see just how selfish I was being.

And chose to make a change.

So back to Joe and Missy. Like most, perhaps like you, until now, they didn’t know just what I did.

I mean, writing words and spending a day was just something I did for some people, some times, in the past.

No Big Deal. 

They went nuts.

And I Had A Second Wake Up Call
About How Often I Look At The Work I Do And Don’t Honor It, Celebrate It And
Brush It Off As No Big Deal.

I actually see that way of being in many of my clients… maybe you can relate.

But to Joe, this was a huge deal, my newly revealed offer of My Words Your Day® VIP Experience, and he was a bit peeved that I had been hiding it.

Which made me, at first, roll my eyes.

Not in disrespect, but in a what’s-the-big-deal way. As in, you don’t need that, so, no-harm no-foul.

But the email he sent me in the middle of his night, less than 24-hours after I put my new site, brand, and offers live, gave me and my habit of judging another’s needs — oops! — pause.

And made me laugh.

Joe’s opening line was “As my seven year old grandson would say…

‘You Suck.’”

And, well-done, as he got my attention.

The gist of his message — do for me what you did for you. But I’ll share some of his words with you.

“Jill, can you take this day and do that for me? Put me online? With your incredible, clear words that speak to just what I have to offer, as well as my wife’s soul. (And if I’m humble, mine too).

What you created for you, would you create for me?

Put me online. On the map. So I can serve a wider audience from the comfort of the lake house.

After, of course, I finish the rough draft of the book. It’s coming along, by the way.

And yes, I was up late writing! Caught me.”

As you can tell, Joe is a gem and he got me thinking about just what’s possible. For him and for others just like him.

I thought about it. 

Could I do for him what I had done for me? Yes.

I could certainly write all his words. That’s a no-brainer. A big fat yes.
As many words as I had on my site? Well, not in one day.
But I knew that wasn’t his ask.

And the time for true clarity on his needs would come, as that’s part of the My Words Your Day® VIP Experience.

A deep-dive Pre-Intensive Clarity Call, a bit of Pre-Work “homework” and a real coming-home-to-just-who-you-are-being as you show up in life, online and in your work.

This Is Where The Marriage Of A Person’s Passion And Purpose Lead To Massive Impact And Therefore, Naturally, Profits.

It’s happened for me — it’s happened for my clients.

Yet, before I could formulate a response for Joe, and narrow down his request, he booked!

Catch This, Friend,
Less Than 24-Hours After Being
Fully Aligned With My Messaging, My Brand, My Impact And How I Serve Others,
I Sold My First Offer Online.

And it’s not cheap. I’m not cheap.

And I must admit, I got excited by all the possibilities. All of Joe’s possibilities.

Because it made me wonder, who else, like Joe, was out there without a clear path to impact?

Without an online presence that spoke to who they were showing up being in the world and how they were here to serve.

Given our sudden new-world way of living, I’d imagine Joe — and even my former self — are not the only professionals without an online home that allows them to shine, serve and be seen.

All without the need to travel, stand on a stage or be in large or small groups of people to impact and earn a living.

Who else was out there has needed to know what I do, that I could honor and serve and impact with my rich skill sets?

My gut tells me there are so many, just like Joe, maybe just like you. 

Well, I just found out Missy pressed the purchase button and his words to me were, “She has faith in you, Jill. I have faith in you.”

So, here we are…

About to embark on his My Words Your Day® VIP Experience, a day-long intensive and get him the starting place for an online home.

A mix of My Words and My Eye for Design, along with my marketing know-how and we’re going to see what we can create for him, that he can then take online, in one day. 

Imagine What Would Be Possible
If You Went From Nada
To Clear Messaging In One Day

Can I give you the answer to this non-question statement?

Yes? Good.

E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.

If you liked reading this section of the tale, give it a 💜 and leave a comment.

It’s not over yet. Joe’s tale.

Tomorrow I’ll release Part 3 but first…

If this story-time impacted you, please consider sharing it with someone who might enjoy it.

Or someone who may need to hear the message, be looking for some clarity of their own or simply get a kick out of Joe.

Share this on your social channels and allow others to read these words and be impacted just as you have been.

And then schedule you time for the wrap-up of this tale tomorrow. You won’t regret it, I guarantee it.

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Photo Credit: Jack Patrick @jack_patrick

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One Hour Does Have The Power To
Open Doors & Transform Your Life

Offline To Online, In A Day (Joe's Story)

Today is a story day. It comes to you in two parts, with Part 2 available tomorrow for all. No lockdown of a post involved. Even though this is a JOYful share. 

See, I am changing things up on this site, as you may have noticed from my new home page, new offers and the opening of a new store…

If you missed it, check out my home page here. Don’t worry, it will open in a new window.

Now this post is all about my new favorite word. Alignment. Or it will be after you dive into Part 2.

But if you missed it, you may wish to read two other posts either first or next, because they all relate. 

The first is I Am Aligned. 

The second is actually something I wrote as I was inspired by Joe, a non-fictional character who may just inspire you, as he has me.

See he’s taken the current global climate and used it as motivation to grow, evolve and shift his way of impacting in this new world many simply find themselves existing in. 

I don’t want to spoil the telling of the tale...

So, dive into Joe’s story here and now. 

Joe’s Side Of The Coin…

Joe knew he screwed up as soon as his last flight was cancelled and the lockdown took effect.

His travel suitcase was packed and at the ready by the front door. 

His button-down pressed for success hanging with his suit and green tie. He loved green. Always had.

And he had already been making plans on how to best serve those 50 new clients. The ones he simply knew he’d close on Friday, as three-quarters of the room was his norm. 

He was that good. 

Powerful, impactful. His message was clear. His intention, solely to be of service because he knew from his nearly 60 years on this earth, that he was taken care of when he did just that. 

Serve. With heart.

Another reason he was asked to speak on the stages at other people’s events. 

But on this day, as he took a seat on the sofa overlooking the high-rises, thinking of the lake house he’d just put a downpayment on, he knew something was off. 

He felt it in his bones. 

No connecting.
No touching. 
No flying.
Wild. 

Next step, lockdown. 

And that came a few days later, as he sat with his wife over morning coffee, wondering about his next steps. 

A forced holiday. 
A pause. 
Lean in. 

He knew better than to fight what he could not win. Why waste the energy?

Yet, still a moment of dis-ease tickled his spine and as he smiled at his wife who chewed the cap of his pen - he knew by the color green it was his - and he had to smile. 
She wasn’t fretting.
She wasn’t worried.
She wasn’t stressed out… 
Like so many wives of so many of his friends. 

He chose to let go of the thought he’d screwed up by not having a back-up plan to all the travel and speaking he did throughout the year.
This life had always worked for him — for them.
And he shook off the sudden doubt that he’d somehow chosen wrong.

They had a nest-egg and, an almost-theirs, lake house retreat. A ten-year dream in the making and nearly their reality.
The condo was spacious and even had a private patio. Fresh veggies were in the fridge and plenty of books he’d yet to enjoy on his must-read shelf. 

He refused digital reading for his guilty pleasure — sci-fi novels. Just as he knew one day he’d write one. 
Maybe now, as the story had been stewing, brewing within him for a decade. 

Hmm, he mused as he watched his wife have a lightbulb moment and scribble down her crossword puzzle answer, what better time than now. 

He picked up his phone to scroll contacts when his wife tsked him without raising her eyes from the folded newsprint. 

She was a puzzle junkie and couldn’t put it down till it was done. And at 50, she was still his precious high school sweetheart. 

And he’d almost broken the rule… no tech, ever, during coffee time. 

He smiled and placed his phone just out of reach, upside down, as was their way. And watched the dimple appear in her right check, the one he could see.
Gosh, she was so beautiful…
Complete with laugh lines he’d been privileged to watch appear and grace that porcelain skin, over shared giggles and stolen moments. 

He’d contact Teddy, his college roommate and friend, now a pro athlete, later. After coffee time.
When he could focus and ask him about that writer, a woman, whom he’d said, wrote his last two, or was it three, books with him.

Dang, hadn’t he done half of Teddy’s literature paper for him in college? The only one he’d received an A on the entire semester!

Shaking his head, Joe took the final sip of his coffee and pushed the thought away for now.

There was plenty of time to contact that writer to see if she offered book coaching...or could help him get started. 

What better time than now. 

Locked down and locked in with the love of his life. 

“Another cup, Missy?”

She looked up and cocked one eyebrow at him, her brilliant green-grey eyes twinkling just as he knew they would. “Like you have to ask, handsome.” 

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head upon standing and taking both cups in hand walked to the elegant kitchen, that was totally his domain, and the nifty machine his wife had insisted they buy that made coffee via pods.

Hmm, pods. Definitely time to write that book, he thought with a chuckle. 

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Joe’s a character and I know you’ll fall in love with him as much as I have since we started working together.

Well, again, don’t want to spoil the story, so stay tuned for Part 2.

But before you go, if you liked this story-time share, give it a 💜 and leave a comment below.

Enough comments and I’ll share more of these tales.

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Photo Credit: Oleg Kukharuk @olegkukharuk

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One Hour Does Have The Power To
Open Doors & Transform Your Life

I Am Aligned

I’m a word-nerd so I’m going to type and let what flows — flow.

Read this over a mug of tea or revitalizing smoothie… just whatever you do, GET THIS MESSAGE… as it’s for YOU.

After you do, you’ll see just why YOU being here, reading my words, at this time, is so very special and the path to THE ALL you seek…

See….
I’M F*CKING ALIGNED. Full Stop.
Just is.

I could add FINALLY to the end of that, but that’s a judgement, is it not? 
I could say I’M SUDDENLY… but that’s another story missed in, is it not.

So I won’t, I'll simply repeat myself (hear me ROAR with JOY)

I AM F*CKING ALIGNED!

And the feeling so bloody divine, I can’t keep the smile off my face or the twinkle from my eyes.

Even the goats have shut the hell up to let me celebrate.

I have a Drama Q and his name is B… Hmm, guess he made himself Queen B, Haaaaayyyyy! — snap.
Just saying!  

Yet, this post isn’t about goats and it’s not even about me, because as you sink into this flipping message, you will find yourself realizing just what’s possible for you INSIDE these virtual walls…

→ When you slow down

→ Absorb the message laid out for you

→ Let go of the need to be 100% perfect at anything, even the learning part, even the getting it part and especially the alignment part!

→ Stop asking for permission or what to do next

→ Cancel your ticket to ExcuseVille and

→ Calendar in your growth time.

As that’s what this is… soul development and growth mixed with all things self love.

When you remember that… and that you are supported in all things but something greater than you…

That when you love you, you tolerate less,
When you love you, you stop the bullsh*t stories… 
When you love you, you take full responsibility for where you are in this moment
When you love yourself, you know 100% possible, 100% of the time is your new norm…

AND KNOW IN YOUR BONES that you too WILL be fully-completely-utterly ALIGNED when you so choose to be.

If you SO choose.
And it doesn’t have to take a year or even 6 months…
It can happen in an instant.
Now or 6 months from now…
Or whenever you ALLOW.

So sink in…
With GRACE…
Stop pushing on the pull door of life, as I often say ....
And write.

Thanks to all that is,
I now FLOW… 
And I desire that for you.

Thanks to a newfound peace, I turned off all-the-other voices.
I learned to turn into MY inner voice.
And find my knowing.

Thanks to my instincts and my leaning in, my business is rocking, my profits are up 33% from last year, in a time of COVID19-yo!

(There are more thanks to give but I’ll keep this short and YOU focused!)

See my happiness, JOY and peace are a state I CHOOSE to sink into deeply...on the daily.
Thanks to all the learning and growth,
letting go,
doing less better
and BEINGNESS,
My SELF WORTH ACCOUNT is overflowing and larger than my multiple bank accounts.

What this last year, and my mentor and coach have taught me, is that you will never be ALIGNED until you sink into LOVING you.

What I have now is a set of DELICIOUS know that all is possible when I reside in peace, joy and the take moment for the pause…

The key here for me…
That I pass like a flaming torch to you…
Meaning comes from a place of BEING!

You will never go wrong when you step into more peace, JOY and absolute love of yourself.

And when you bring THAT beingness into your work, your relationship, your health… That is when ALIGNMENT presents itself to you like the best-gift-ever.

Because everything is energy!
I come to you today to share, confess, honor my NEW ALIGNMENT. 
I am a badass writer, author, published wordsmith and have been for 30 years. 
I am worth ALL-THE-PENNIES (okay, thousands) I charge and OWN that, FINALLY, PUBLICLY for the first-time-ever...
Because I love myself. 

I have been coaching creatives intuitively, successfully, quietly, for two decades… 

And now am able to proclaim, offer that and step fully into the IMPACT I have.
Because I love myself. 
And it took some time for me to get there. 
Here.
ALIGNED. 
And that’s okay. 

Many of us want to be aligned, talk about being aligned but few actually put in the time, the silence, the pause UNTIL their back meets the wall or they get hit upside the head with a two-by-four. 

Allow THIS message to be the wake up call you need…(don’t wait for that 2x4).

Because I know you are already seeing just what more JOY by reading my words can do for you.
And THIS is just the beginning.
When you get out of your own way…

Have you not yet realized how blessed you are..?

Sink into gratitude for all that is - that is the golden key I’ll leave you with… 

Because being grateful for my new alignment and KNOWING It IS allowed me to register my FIRST new client under my new offer, new branding, new stepping-out-as-me self in just 24-hours! 

How about them apples?!?
Can I get a BOOM!?!

Wanna know what I’m talking about? Dive into my new homepage and follow the trail where it leads you…

I write these words as they hold the power to not only show you what’s possible but inspire, motivate and get you implementing in PERSONAL ALIGNMENT.

A place, space, and a way of BEING unique to you.

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Photo Credit: Chansereypich Seng @sereypich27

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What’s More JOY Worth To You?

For Less Than 191 Pennies A Week
Access All My JOYful Words

For the detailed soul, click here for more.

I Make A Difference

This month has been impactful, powerful and centered around one simple, profound word for me.

Alignment

See, alignment is everything.

Alignment is what allows the service, impact or work I do to flow with ease.

Alignment allows the stars to align for you and propels you even when you feel as though you are standing still.

For this stillness is a new way of being called peace.

This stillness is no longer indecisiveness, indecision or (gasp) ignorance.

This stillness is a sudden awareness that you are aligned with that which is your passion, your purpose and all simply aligns to shower you with the abundance you once fought for, constantly struggled for, and have strived to achieve your entire life.

Alignment

To be aligned. This is my month of such clarity, such aligned action that I’d love to share the ins and outs of it all with you.

So if you’re willing, give this ditty a read and lean in this month to all my words.

See all has changed.

Including how I show up in the world.

How I show up here.

Read and dive into this amazing word — alignment — with me…

Because it’s due to my new alignment that these words flowed out of me and I sink into them as though they are part of me on a cellular level.

For they are.

And as you read, lean in, for these words are yours to own, to feel, to embody when you become aligned, too.

Enjoy.

I Make A Difference

I make a difference.
I matter.
I impact the lives of others.
When I get out of my own selfish way.

When I stop overthinking.
When I stop spinning excuses and what ifs.
When I stop sinking into doubt, fear, worry.
And sink into serving.

Now is the time for you to make a difference. 

Now is the time to own the simply yet profound fact that
You Matter.

Now is the time to realize that you impact lives
With your BRILLIANCE
Your JOY
Your LOVE
Your SOUL
Your PASSION...

Or with your nothingness.
Your ego driven-worry
Your mindless procrastination
Your fear of failure
Your attachment to outcomes
Your blah blah blah….

All you do, plays a role in the world.
All you are, affects all that is.

Truth? Yes.
Harsh? Maybe.

Suck it up, Buttercup...
Because
All you CHOOSE to be, matters.

When will you see—
Possibility
Over all, you say, limits you.

Today, I step into truly KNOWING
I make a difference,
I matter,
I impact.

Not because ten
Twenty
One hundred
More
Told me so.

Not because one
Says it is so.

Because I say so.
And so it is.

Allow today
to be your moment
to KNOW
the same. 

💜 

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What’s More JOY Worth To You?

For Less Than 191 Pennies A Week
Access All My JOYful Words

For the detailed soul, click here for more.

---

Post Photo Credit: Jordan McDonald @jordanmcdonald

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On Being Enough

What would be possible if you knew you were enough?

When you can sink into the fact that you are more than enough, that you are not broken, that you do not need to be fixed, all will transform in your life.

Are you ready to lean into who you were born to be?

It’s time to realize you are amazing just as you are and when you do life becomes delicious…

Dive in with me now.

This work,
of living this life,
is about being 
free, 
transparent, 
vulnerable, 
real. 

Real with who you are and 
Who you wish to be. 

Real about the stories you tell yourself
And keep fighting for. 

Real about the need to speak, 
To be heard.

You have passed through life feeling
Unheard —  
Up till now. 

When you can hit pause
On the stories of old
And pen a new tale

Of empowerment
Of impact
Of service
Of love.

You will be heard.
You will be seen.
You will be free.

When you write a new story…
A new tale of stepping into KNOWING
— At your core —
Who you are meant to be...
Who you have always been...
And that you are enough...

All. Will. Shift.
All will become clear. 
All will forever change. 
All will be available for you. 

I want this for you. 
But my wanting it
Matters not. 

Do you want it for you? 

Do you want to TRULY sink into knowing 
You Are Enough?

Do you feel me?
We are all
ONE.

Connected. 
You feel this —
Off and on,
do you not?

We are all ONE… 
Feeding off the love.

Or left to stew in a pot of 
Not enough.

Would you ever doubt the universe is enough? 

That’s what you do —
When you doubt you… 
When you negate you… 
When you live in the past.

When you 
Fear the future...
Cling to those false beliefs of
Safety
Security…

When you have proof
Those ways of being
Are nothing but 
Illusions. 

When you believe,
Think, 
Feel, 
You are not enough. 

So, 
(which I now know I say a LOT)
And it’s okay… 

I want to share a vulnerable,
Cosmic
Truth. 

You.
Are.
Enough.
And to believe otherwise is a lie. 

You. 
Are.
Love.
And to believe otherwise is a b*tch-slap to the universe.

You.
Are.
Infinite.
Possibility.

To know this is to come home. 
To know this is 
Freedom,
Peace
And so much F-ing JOY
You create your own energetic grid.

And then the true work can begin.
The healing of the ALL.
The loving of the ALL.
The enJOYment of ALL. 

Be more than your circumstances. 
When you’re ready. 
Be more than your stories. 
When you choose. 
Be more than your interpretations. 
When you allow. 
Be. 

When you simply BE
You are enough.

💜

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Photo Credit: Gabrielle Henderson @gabriellehenderson

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Becoming Your Alter Ego

Perhaps I took the whole alter ego thing a bit too far. 

My Frenchman has always said I tend to rock extremes and I was like — nah. But, it’s hmm-worthy when I press pause and look at my life. 

I have a great life. Which you can read more on right here.

Two years ago I didn’t feel that way. I thought my life sucked, even though from the outside, looking in, there wasn’t much wrong. 

What was wrong was my depressed state, my unhappiness in the face of so many blessings and an inability to figure out why I felt so off.

When I realized why wasn’t the best question to ask and started to shift my attention elsewhere, the dark clouds of my mind were able to part just enough that a sliver of sunlight peeked through. 

The journey back to my natural state of JOY was rather quick, considering I’d been locked up in despair-land for several years. 

My turn-around had much to do with finding the ‘right’ mentor and guide who all but told me to STOP IT and so much...less.

Hmm, food for thought with that last word, am I right? 
Nope, it’s not a typo, my lovely perfectionist friend. 

I put the word ‘right’ in quotes because now I know that there is no right and no wrong, yet there is the old saying that when the student is ready the teacher will arrive. 

And that’s what was just right about this path I found, actually stalked…

But I digress…for I want to share with you the importance an alter ego can play in one’s life and how, perhaps, taking it to extremes the way I implemented my alter egos, yep plural, served me and at the same time held me back.

First, one may wish to understand the purpose of an alter ego. 

Creating an alter ego can be a way to get from who you are now (version 1.0) to your new 2.0 version of yourself and who you want to become. 

It can be about wrapping yourself in a persona now that allows you to be this new being you say you wish to be. 

For others, like Beyonce and her alter ego, Sasha Fierce, and most in the spotlight, it can be a separation of who one is in everyday life, and who they become on a very public stage of life. 

There is something powerful in the creation of an alter ego and my friend, colleague and coach, Lisa Carpenter, goes into it in this episode of her weekly podcast.

For me, the creation of an alter ego started young and it was a way to separate myself, protect myself and create a way to freely express myself. 

And it was a way to hide 
from attention, 
from praise, 
from judgement. 
From all. 

My first alter ego was a pen name I created, that shall not be revealed, so no emails demanding to know please. 

It was under this alter ego that I published my first article in a leading men’s magazine. I was 17 and yes, I said men’s mag. 

Get your mind out of the gutter! Hmm, okay, you may dip a toe in. 

I readily admit, I lied, and said I was 18 years old, as you had to be 18, at that time, to publish. 

I never understood these arbitrary rules of 16 to open a checking account, with parental permission of course, 18 to vote, 21 to drink, yet 16 to drive a car, which without care, was a bit dangerous. 

To me this justified my little white lie, but I still felt guilty about it for years — okay, decades! 

But I digress, as that’s what the mind of a writer tends to do. 

And I knew I was a writer at age 11, when my third 5th grade teacher that year, as I moved from Florida to Washington State to New Hampshire by January — long story — took me by the hand when I entered his classroom for the very first time. 

He led me to his desk, pointed to his seat and when I was comfy, though terrified, thinking I was already in trouble, said, “Tell me your story.”

I can still feel the frown, deeply etched on my face, but I was a “good” girl so opened my mouth to say something when he again pointed. 

This time my eyes landed on the stack of lined paper and the pencil placed neatly before me on his desk.

“Write your story.”

How he knew to say those words to me, I’ll never know. But, hmm, that’s proof of magic, because those words literally changed the course of my life. Forever. 

As did writing my first 100-page story in 6th grade which you can read about here. 

Yet, as me, I lacked confidence. 
As me, I lacked a deep knowing that I was good enough. 
As me, I didn’t comprehend that I was lovable. 

And without that solid foundation, without the ability to believe in me at that time, I knew somehow to protect my words at all costs. 

I knew somehow that to write anything other than school papers and the occasional journal post in my private diary was a no-go.

Meaning, I’d be crushed at the feedback, both good and bad. 

Meaning, I knew deeply that my words were greater than me, more powerful than I and needed to be released into the world. 

But, I was not ready for my slice of the spotlight. 

(And that is a topic for another time, but one I find a lot of people can relate to.) 

So I hid my talents behind characters I created, much like the fictional characters, within my mind, who came to life on the pages of my stories. 

I used these creations, which I now see as alter egos, to propel me to greatness even as they protected, my then, fragile self. 

And that’s what an alter ego is meant to do.

An alter ego boosts us, empowers us, shows up as a light on a hill that we can march toward and embody pieces of today. 

For me, I became entangled in my alter egos, which is a bit of a different story… but in reality the creation of an alter ego is seeing the next version of you.

Imagine writing out this character that embodies qualities you love, desire, admire and aspire to become. 

Imagine sinking into vivid detail on the way this person, this creation of you, shows up in the world… 

Who this person is being?
How they — you — act..?
What you tolerate and no longer choose to accept…
How you stand in your power...
Perhaps physical traits...Like amazing health and strength…

Perhaps the ability to attract abundance in all areas of life
From wealth
To health
To relationships

Imagine sinking into the creation of a version of you, one you would love to embody…in the very near future. 

90 days from now...
One year from now...

And enjoying the process of creating this future you.  

Imagine sitting down a year from now, reading over this new version of you only to find — hot damn, it’s the you of today! And, even better, the you of now is so much more. 

Why more? Because the you of now is aligned with your values.

Imagine having completed this alter ego exercise for yourself and then filing it away… 

Never once looking at it again for those 365 days… 

If you want to know just how to create an alter ego and become her... 

That right there is the secret magical way to ensure that YOU step fully into embodying, embracing and becoming your alter ego. 

The act of letting go, trusting the process, being the one you wrote about in every cell of your body… That is the work. 

That is the magical way of being. 

It leads to a Holy Shit That’s Now Me moment. 

That’s the power of you designing an alter ego you literally step into over-time. 

It might be stepping into your alter ego daily, with purpose, like Lady Gaga does, as that’s not her real name, yo! 

Or it may be when taking the stage like Beyonce literally becomes Sasha Fierce for a performance. 

Or it could be doing tasks like publishing words, a podcast or creating your art in some other manner and releasing it under that alter ego or pseudonym…as I did.

Like Manifestation Babe…(@manifestionbabe) have you heard of her? 

She’s smart as a whip and has built a multi-million dollar brand in a seriously short time, under what some would consider an alter ego. However, I’ve yet to ask her if she sees it like that. Others would consider that her brand. 

What if it is both? A brand and an alter ego.  

This last was my path for most of my life. 

Showing up as an alter ego. 
With words… absolutely. 

With Education Lady, a brand I created to provide myself some distance, while teaching and going online for the first time, acted more as a brand but also as a role — an alter ego who was more professional than my JOYful, fun-loving, sometimes foul-mouthed self. 

And both served me. And others, as you can see here in an example of a universal alter ego.

I’ve also recently created an alter ego for this new public me, Jill R. Stevens, and the purpose of this site. Hmm, and that, my friend, is reserved for my inner circle!

This is the next version of me, who is stepping into the sunlight, more publicly than ever before, comfortable in her own skin and here to make an impact through leading her way. 

My way.

Creating my alter ego self to step out as me for the first time is so very powerful.

And I’d like to show you just how powerful and quickly the words of my alter ego have come to be the new version of me… 

And how they are a-changing…as you will soon see on this site…

Because as we become that alter ego, we get to play and create a new version.

Interested?

If you’d like a behind the scenes tour at how I create my alter ego and make her jump-off-the page powerfully, you’ll want to become a JOY-Subscriber. 

[Already are, login now.]

See my JOY-Subscribers have access to my Alter Ego Masterclass (coming July 1st) where I dive into just how I created my pseudonyms, the names under which I write, and the alter ego I am stepping into embodying now, as a leader in my own slice of sunlight.  

Plus, in this Alter Ego Masterclass, I dive into the steps you can take, the same ones I have used successfully over and over again.

And the magical ways you can lock in your powerful transformation to becoming her...(or him)…rather quickly, if you so choose.

See JOY-Subscribers as I like to call them, get access to all my words… including special editions, exercises and my processes for creating… 

So right now you can become a JOY-Founder, one of my first members, and step inside to enjoy even more perks. 

Your time is now. 

Whether with me, or on your own, now is your time to pull out a sheet of paper or sit down with that open document and type out just who you desire to be… 

While the creation of an alter ego is so much more than that, that’s a perfect place to start… 

And starting TODAY is key. Imagine where your life will be 365 days from today — this moment — if you simply start. 

Lean in and then lean hard, because what you create on paper will soon become the YOU whom you see in the mirror…  

And that’s some JOYful fun I want for you… 

Because creating your alter ego is literally a blank canvas of you and designing who you become with childlike abandon and a loss of all restraints. 

Hmm, join me on the inside with your JOY-Subscription or join me for the Masterclass alone, as creating an Alter Ego is PLAYFUL FUN in motion and worth taking the time. 

Leave a comment below and let me know you’re in! And share whether or not you’ve created your Alter Ego today… 

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Photo Credit: Ryoji Iwata @ryoji__iwata

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Raise A Ruckus

A bonus read for all
as we all need
a bit more JOY in our lives

Hen’s celebrate each time they lay an egg.

Did you not know this? I did not. Not until recently…

They raise a ruckus, squawking and sometimes flapping their wings, ruffling their feathers and getting ALL THE OTHER HENS to join in the celebration… of them. 

Why is this important? 

It’s about learning to celebrate ourselves. 

What we love, we take a moment to recognize, to celebrate and to honor. 

I Encourage You To Celebrate Your Wins Today. 

What have you noticed, big or small, since you started sinking into knowing yourself better, loving yourself more that you can CLUCK about in this safe space? 

Learning to celebrate you is a GIFT. 
Learning to sing your praises is a COMING HOME.
Learning to celebrate yourself is the DEEPEST FORM OF LOVE.

Love of self.
Love of who you are BEing. 
Love of how you are showing up.

AND a letting go of even more stories and bullsh*t that you perhaps absorbed like I did. 

It’s “bad” to celebrate yourself.
It’s “selfish” to be happy for yourself.
It’s “wrong” to pat yourself on the back.
It’s “ego-driven” to acknowledge your wins. 

Well, I say it’s “bad”, “selfish”, “wrong” and “ego-driven” to NOT love yourself. 

To not STEP into your slice of sunlight…
To not raise your arms, tilt your face to that spotlight and SHINE...
To not dance and twirl and FEEL that celebration in every F-ING CELL of your body. 

Life IS a Celebration.
Of moments.
THIS moment. 

When you tap down, turn off and refuse to celebrate yourself,
you rob others of the opportunity to KNOW you,
to CELEBRATE you,
to experience your JOY… 

I have spent 30+ years never celebrating my wins… 
Did you catch that? 
Never.
Publicly.
Celebrating.

My accomplishments — never spoken of.
My books published — never shared. 
My work with “stars” — never spoken of.
My words, now sung, — never known. 

Why? 

Because I had a story that celebrating ME…
Putting myself out THERE publicly…
Would result in pain…
Was “wrong”...

So I perfected HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT. 

I created a life to support my stories, my beliefs...
And limited myself the natural right to celebrate.

If you can relate, what’s it costing you?

My time going inward has shown me I can shed that sh*t story that
Celebrating Me Equals Selfish as a lie I was told by a well-meaning adult. 

Did it serve me? Yep.
Does it now? Nope.
Stepping out. 
Stepping up. 
Stepping in...
Letting go.

Celebrating me FEELS SO F*CKING orgasmic.

Why not try it on today..?
What’s the worst that could happen..? Seriously! 

If a hen knows INSTINCTIVELY to celebrate her accomplishment — Yes, laying a flipping egg is an accomplishment! — allow that instinct to return to you today. 

All it takes is a willingness to show up
As you.
Full Stop.
100% real.

When you’re worth it
When you know you are enough
You will show up for you 
And love you
And celebrate you.

Step into the power of celebrating yourself, 
of fully loving you, 
of totally honoring you... 
not for the external praise, 
but simply because you KNOW you matter.

Allow your flock-of-choice family to flap a collective wing with YOU today…
What do you CHOOSE to celebrate?

Share below. I’d like to know.

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Reacting Versus Sinking Into Awareness

What Follows Are Some Of My Thoughts About Last Week, When The American Topics Of Police Brutality And Racism Took A World Stage.

The intention behind all these words is a sinking into awareness.
There may be a desire to react.
There may be a moment of unease.
There may be a new profound shift toward understanding…

Should you care to read and deepen your own knowing about the topic that has not only the States but the world spinning, please sit back with a mug of your favorite beverage and dive in with me…

…with JOY.

I Admit I Was
Triggered For A Moment.

Then went inward.
Then searched for understanding.
Then chose to go within again.

Some of us are on the front lines and some of us are not.

Some are holders of signs. Some march. A few become powerful voices heard throughout the microphones of society.

And some change the world more quietly, one smile, one interaction, at a time.

I am not an activist, however, I am an empath.
I am not a reactive person (any more). And yet react, I did.
I am not a racist person, and yet I saw how my ignorance made me so.

I wrote words.
Many many words
To process the feels.

Some words
In reaction.
Other words
To vent.

And even more
Out of ego.

When I took a beat and saw that I was reacting and not coming from a place of JOYful awareness, I shelved those words.

I pressed pause on JOY within the virtual walls of this site for the week.
I took a raincheck on daily tasks and dove headfirst into unlearning some rather f-ed up ways I thought.

Things I didn’t even realize, had no awareness of, but now, thankfully I do.

I could have hit publish.
I could have reacted.
I could have added to the feeding frenzy… 

Which yes, in my opinion, it did become. 

As that’s how shame, blame, drama most often goes down. 

However, I am about JOY.
I am about LOVE. 
I am about discovering,
uncovering,
sinking in
and that happens
in the space
in between. 

When I get quiet. 

And share.
From love.

Because how I speak, how I write, how I choose to share matters.

The intention behind my words is everything.

So, out of some 10,000 words written, these are the few I have edited down and now am able to share with you… 

They come from my heart… with the intention to empower all. 

And with that, I leave you be and honor your journey with respect on this topic… to read my words or to not.

Who am I to write words of JOY right now? 
Who am I not to?

Who am I to run a business when the world feels like it’s coming apart at the seams? 
Who am I not to?

Who am I to judge what is happening? 
Who am I to pretend to understand? 

Who Am I To Get Involved?

Who Am I Not To… Get Involved?

Who am I to ignore the pain?

Who am I to ignore the injustice? 

Who am I to worry about offending someone, saying the wrong thing?

Who am I to make it all about me? 

The time has passed for not knowing what to say, fearing you’ll say the wrong thing, worried about angering this group or that group. 

There are many groups, movements, people, opinions and this isn’t about pleasing anyone.

Life isn’t about pleasing anyone. 

Living your life is about living your truth. Do you even know it? 

To me, life is about showing up with a desire to listen, to hear, to learn, to ask questions, to comprehend, to work toward understanding, to dialogue... 

And even going so far as to unlearn a lot of the stories we believe.

And to get over ourselves, our labels, our groups, our biases, our judgements and maybe, press pause on reacting. 

Say hell no to lashing out. 

Isn't it the lashing out that adds to the problem?

Isn’t it the calling out of those not showing up exactly like another, part of the issue here?

Isn’t It Time
We Press Pause
On Judgement,
On Shame,
On Ridicule,
On Condemnation
And Simply Be Present..?

Sink in, work to understand, if that’s one’s chosen path, and allow each person their own journey, at their own speed?

Isn’t it time for more respect?

Isn’t it lack of respecting individuality that got us to this place?  

Do correct me if I am “wrong”...

What If Now
Is Instead A Time
To Stand Together..? 

Not from a need to be heard yourself, but from a deep-seated space of desiring a better America.
A better world.
A better existence for all people.

The time has come to open, not just our hearts, but also our minds and our eyes. 

The time has come to stop putting people into camps, to refrain from a them versus us mentality, that is often used to control and manipulate people… 

The time has come to stop tolerating, stop accepting what is, stop hoping it will change, stop ignoring what is… 

In the hopes, it will all magically disappear. 

I am not an activist. 
I am not someone who watches the news. 
I am not someone who identified with being racist. 

I am someone who didn’t see color… or so I thought. 
I am someone who didn’t understand this term — white privilege. 
I am someone who didn’t bother to educate myself. 
I am who stood silent, but supportive, so I thought.

But I see now that in staying quiet, living in my self-imposed bubble, praying it will all get better, leaving it to those with vision and voice to stand tall and do something… 

That’s adding to what is…
what has been…
what can no longer be. 

The time has come for ALL people to shout from rooftops and mountains

THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY. 

Or Process In Their Own Quiet Way.

Because when the shouts burst forth in anger, in pent up rage, in frustration and pain is anyone even heard?

Or does that give us another reason not to listen, not to understand, not to hear the cries of generations in the voices of now?

Or does the conversation turn from the importance of this topic to a blame- shame game about riots and looting and not understanding “those” people? 

Which is the point, is it not?
Those people… 

This is what we do, as a society. We categorize, compartmentalize and we distance ourselves. 

Instead of sinking into the ick of it all and getting uncomfortable.
Because let’s be real. It’s f*cking uncomfortable right now, to be white. 

But hasn’t it been f*cking uncomfortable, even downright deadly, to be black or brown for generations — if not civilizations? 

I say we get cozy in the discomfort. We all cop-a-squat and stop pretending that singing Kumbaya and preaching peace, love and light will be the only thing that heals this Grand Canyon size issue. 

Please don’t misunderstand. 

I Think Coming From Love
Is The Best Thing
We Can All Do…

But It Takes An Awakened Soul
To Share This View,
To Know This…
Does It Not? 

And for one to have been beaten down for generations, to comprehend that love can heal all, well, that’s not a place many can sink into. Yet. 

But we do have examples of possibility. 
Nelson Mandela for one. 

It is an issue, a problem, and as much as it should not be, this is where we are. Where we have always been, simply in different shades of acceptance. 

This is where we find ourselves now. And now is what matters.

We live in a world of many injustices and inequalities. 
A world where we all have been conditioned to not know our own power. 
A world where we are enslaved to see all through a lens only a few control. 
The media is one example of that control. 

We also live in a world full of people capable of more. 
So much more.

We live in a world where our power comes when we unite together - not against someone but for something. 

We have done this in the past, have we not? 

9/11 is an example when this nation came together as one for a short time. 

Imagine If We
Came Together Daily,
As A Way Of Being. 

It starts now. And yes it should have started long ago, but we can bemoan what didn’t happen or stand together in much-needed-change and demand it be our now. 

A Great Question To Ask Yourself Today Is What Do You Stand For? 

This is not about you in any other way, shape or form. 

And that’s what I had to come to terms with. 

This is not about me being a good person.
This is not about me looking good. 
Sounding good. 
Doing good. 

This is not about you having been a good white person (if that is your skin tone), not a racist, not living your life seeing skin color, not having a problem with black or brown people. 

As I’ve just recently learned, that way of thinking IS part of the problem.

This is coming to terms with — what do you stand for? 
And I’m still learning just how to navigate this all-important question.
But aren’t we all?

So on this topic and in life, I’ve been pondering and you may wish to do the same.

What Do You Hold Dear, Value, And Make A Priority?

For me, it’s JOY. 
It’s being KIND. 
It’s coming from a place of LOVE. 
And yes, PEACE. 

But in order to come from LOVE, in order to honor a person from a place of KINDNESS, I must work to understand others. 

So I take a stand for educating myself. Always.

I take a stand for listening, not to speak my own words, but to truly hear the words, stories, and needs of another. 

I take a stand for being my best self, which is not a selfish thing at all, but the most honorable and hardest of tasks. 

When I Am My Best Self,
I Am Capable Of Changing The World. 

And so are you.

Wasn’t it Gandhi who said “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

While this quote is often used, there is so much truth in these ten small, impactful words. 

See, “control is an illusion” and something I learned from Jim Fortin, who is my mentor and a transformational thought leader. (@iamjimfortin on IG)

There is no controlling another’s thoughts, beliefs, actions or ways of being. 

The only thing within one’s control is him or herself. 

I Choose To Sink Into
Educating Myself And Unlearning
That Which No Longer Serves Me. 

I choose to sink into even more JOY as the world riots and protests. 

I choose to sink into even more LOVE as thought leaders and online personalities jumped to pit against one another in a shame-blame game. 

For what? More likes? More fame? Where is one’s intention and attention in that way of being..?

And I choose NOW to speak up, through my superpower of words…

We each have our own way of absorbing, feeling, leaning into what is.

For some, reacting is the way.
For some, sinking into awareness is the path.
For some, nothing has been their way of being.

And each person’s path is neither right nor wrong, it simply is.

Now that I have more knowledge, more understanding and more awareness around that which I can see I was ignorant of, I can share my words. 

Maya Angelou said, “People won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

I Want People To Feel JOY. All People. 

Oprah once said, “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always.”

There is power in that statement and in the words below.

“You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.” The wise Buddha spoke these words and I now see just how loudly they ring with truth. For me. 

See, I sunk into a new path toward understanding over the last 10 or so days. 
At times, it felt heavy, overwhelming, intense and emotional. 
At times, I admit, I wanted to stop and go back into my bubble. 
But I did not. 

And yes, I could bemoan that I didn’t do it sooner.
Educate myself.
Open the door to conversation, understanding and defining terms that I admit to never having fully understood — like white privilege.

I could feel guilt and shame over not educating myself before this day and the death of this one man, George Floyd, who represents hundreds upon hundreds upon thousands of black men in America and around the world. 

Or, I can sink into knowing that it’s best to “...concentrate the mind on the present moment” because…

“The Mind Is Everything. What You Think
You Become.”

Pause on that for a moment because knowing that, not understanding that, is everything. 

“What you think you become.”

Buddha, a being who went inward to solve what he saw in the external world, also said,

“When The Mind Is Pure,
Joy Follows Like A Shadow That Never Leaves.”

Allow those words to sink deeply in as they do for me on the daily. 

The only thing I have any control over are my thoughts. 
And how I choose to show up.

So no, I choose to not sink into shame, blame, guilt, pain over what was, but instead focus on being part of the needed change by educating myself in the now. 

But yes, acknowledging my ignorance and doing something about it by starting conversations, asking questions and spreading JOY in the process. 

So my focus is not on the past, as the past no longer is. Instead, my focus is on now and creating impact with my words. 

And yes, they remain words of JOY, even in a time such as now.

Especially in a time such as now.

I’d encourage you to find the JOY in the now and share it with me. Even in the darkest hours, there is still JOY to be seen, heard, felt and experienced.

To know this is to truly live.

Post a comment below, if you agree (or disagree), and keep the conversation going. When we share, without fear of judgement or ridicule or criticism, we can create a ripple of change that soon becomes a wave.

💜

You may wish to read a follow up to this post that’s more of a personal, raw and vulnerable share of the impact this week had on me. Login to access the post,
Coming Face-To-Face With My Own Ignorance, right now.

Not yet a JOY-Subscriber?
Find out how to add more JOY by accessing all my words and more.

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Photo Credit: Nkululeko Mayiyane @nkuleesparx

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What’s More JOY Worth To You?

For Less Than 191 Pennies A Week
Access All My JOYful Words

For the detailed soul, click here for more.

What Empowerment Looks Like

Today, I’m going poetic on you with something personal and powerful. 

It’s something that flowed out of me when I started to shift, to find myself, to step into my slice of sunlight back in February 2019. 

And well, it shifted something within me enough that when I came across the file, I knew it was worth sharing with you today… 

Dive into these words with JOY.

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Kicking Perfect

A Poem 

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Crap, 
I have cared 
about the opinions 
of others 
my entire life. 

I’ve censored myself. 

I’ve hidden 
behind perfectly curated 
words. 

I’ve lost 
a small piece 
of me 
each time I’ve lived —
unauthentically. 

Which has been 
most of my 
existence.

No wonder
I am 
shattered,
scattered. 

Flex of me 
spread out 
like a brilliant kaleidoscope 
of magnificent color.

It’s time 
I realized 
I, 
as a whole, 
am perfectly imperfect.

It’s time to call my pieces —
myself —
back home. 

It’s time 
to be stripped 
bare. 

It’s time 
to be —
me.

Warts 
or whatever 
your flaw 
and all. 

It’s time 
to share all 
of me.
Not the posh facade 
I present—ed
to the world.

Does that mean 
sharing myself 
fully?

Crap, 
that scares me. 

Sharing 
the true brilliance 
that is me…

Define fully?

Oversharing 
is caring 
‘bout other people’s opinions, 
no? 

So to overshare 
is a return 
to fragmentation 
of me. 

Oversharing 
is our 
current 
norm. 

Oversharing 
is ego
driven. 

Share
from a place of BEing 
of creating 
of intention 
of impact 
now. 

Doesn’t 
that 
feel 
like 
heaven. 

So, 
if I overthink 
I am headed toward 
The Ego’s Ledge. 

If I debate, 
I again
place value 
on what others
will think. 

If I hesitate, 
I return 
to living my life 
based on the opinions 
of those 
I probably 
don’t 
even 
know. 

Or
Like.

Those who certainly 
aren’t giving me a 
second 
or perhaps 
even a single 
thought. 

I will be judged. 
I am judging.

And the jury is still out. 

Will always be out. 
Because 
you 
are 
enough. 

Be IN the moment. 

That 
is the whisper 
of the ages.

Place importance 
in the impact 
you have as 
being 
fully 
you. 

Ah, 
the divineness 
of that sweet
lyrical
voice.

I hear you. 
I feel you. 
As a shiver. 
As a warmth. 

I know 
you 
are 
truth. 

Good,
then let me continue to speak
through the wind tossed leaves
and the musical chirping
of the frogs
playing
during your
tropical night. 

Don’t yet recognize 
who 
that 
is?  

You being fully you.  

It’s ok. 
It’s normal. 
You’ve had years 
of practice 
hiding 
your 
true 
self. 

Give yourself 
grace.

Focus 
on this moment. 

Live now,
present for you. 

The how 
will naturally 
flow. 

The how 
is actually 
none 
of 
your 
business. 

Kick your perfect
to the curb
and embrace
you.

You are
Perfectly Imperfect 
just 
as 
you
are.

💜

---

If you enjoyed this poem of empowerment, give it a heart and leave me a comment below.

My words are meant to touch hearts and open minds and lead you to more JOY.

---

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: Ava Sol @avasol

---

When You Are NOT JOYful

There are times, perhaps like today, when things don’t flow. 
Something breaks. 
You stub your big toe. 
You step in sh*t — literally. 
You spill your coffee. 
Maybe someone even dings your car or you leave your jacket on the train, bus or plane. 

It’s a day when
Your spouse (or boss or tenant or friend) disappoints you. 
You leave a window open and the rain pours in. 
You sit on a soggy seat only to look and feel like you peed your pants. 
You frown more than you smile. 

You feel — heavy. 
Angry even. 
Just plain pissed off and you think — WTF. 

It’s as if you woke up in an Alanis Morissette song — Isn’t It Ironic — and feel like the world is suddenly against you.

You allow doubt to creep in. 
You wonder if you’re on the right path. 
You may even want to stomp your foot and scream — WTF. 

And maybe that’s all you need. A good scream. Perhaps an ugly cry. Or just a moment alone to hyperventilate. 

Have you considered that? 

Have you paused for just one moment during those times in life where nothing works, flows, aligns or goes your way and thought —

I just need a good scream or maybe a good cry.

And no, don’t you dare say cookie, as that tends to come with what caused this build up to “bad” in the first place.

A stuffing of the feels. 

We habitually have spent our lives NOT feeling the feels, if you’re like most of the population. 

We stuff them down. 
Some medicate.
Others avoid.
Maybe you negate.

And then there’s one cookie, two cookie, three cookie — gone cookie. It’s that sudden awareness of an empty bag or box and feeling even worse than the first delicious, numbing bite, which you now can barely even remember. 

What happened to the moments of clarity, the transformation, the wins in the self-development merry-go-round you’ve been on?

And if you’re like me, you might even be staring at yourself in the mirror, hair going every-which-way, silently scream-asking — where did my f-ing peace go? 

You might even go so far as to offer a curse-prayer, as we human beings tend to do. Where is the God-Damn JOY!?

Well, when you put it like that it probably ran for the hills along with all the little creatures. 

So this is where we pause and stop scaring the children. (Said with a smile).

I’m here to say something incredibly wise. 

This backstep, into a bad mood, into a pissed-off-ness, is normal. It doesn’t make you broken, lacking, f-ed up or wrong. Instead, it seemly is a neon sign flashing a message of 

Welcome To Being Human!

So when you have these days — and you will — we all do.
Yes, me, too.
We can do one of two things. 

We can fight the day. Or we can sink in. 

We can resist and push against it. 
Or we can flow into all the chaos, drama and unrest. 

I choose to allow.
I choose to seek out specks of peace like a search for one rose-colored pebble in a sea of gray rocks. 

I choose to touch gratitude, speak gratitude and feel gratitude even as all hell breaks loose or technology may crash around me.

I choose to get quiet for a moment. 
To press pause.

Yes, even as the twin (goats) scream 
and the construction saw roars 
and the cell phone rings
and the house phone goes off with a shrill tone that normally doesn’t pierce my very soul 
and a text ding alerts me it’s way past time to turn off the bloody notifications and silence something. 

I choose to start by silencing my mind. 
Because I can…and you can too. 

It starts with a breath. 
Just one deep inhale 
— hold it — 
and an exhale of all that crap,
all the suffering,
all the unnamed, stuffed down, bottled up... 

Let. It. Go.

Another breath 
and a deepening awareness of the wind drifting through the open window to caress my face in gentle waves. 

Another breath 
to ground into the sound of little chicks and a clucking mama hen close by. 

Another breath 
to feel the cotton of my tee-shirt, the loose strands of hair on my neck.

Another breath 
to listen for my own heartbeat even as a car zooms by blasting a heady Jamaican beat. 

Another breath 
and I sway to my own music… and sigh. 

I choose to acknowledge that I am more than this moment. 
I choose to see that I am greater than a reaction.
I choose to know that this too shall pass. 

All is fine. 
All has always been fine. 
All will be fine again. 

When I simply pause,
take a breath, a beat,
and count
1-2-3.
And do it again.
I can recalibrate
To JOY. 

When I simply sink into the moment 
and stop running from it all, 
I can let the tear fall 
and feel the sad, 
the frustration, 
the angst, 
the disappointment, 
the frustration, 
the humanness of this moment…
and stop the need to judge it. 

For that is me. Human. 
That is all of us. 
Growing, learning, searching, seeking. Yes.
Evolving, sure. 
Transforming, always. 

Allowing… now that is an art that takes practice, does it not? 

 You. Got. This.

---

To Over Complicate: A Writer’s Secret Or Curse

I have a tendency to over-complicate. Maybe you can relate.

I am a creator. One who once was all about perfecting the craft. 

At one point, it was pencil drawing and then charcoal. 

I still have a sketch of a bad-ass woman in thigh-high boots, a childhood alter-ego perhaps, with swirling black hair to her waist…

It’s stored somewhere. Probably side-by-side with the sketch of a Calvin Klein brief-clad man showing off his muscles as he gripped a large ball, flexing for all he’s worth. 

Or was it a rock? Matters not. 

Both were a study in detail. In drawing the complex. From leather stitching and flowing silk to the contour work of defined muscle tone with intricate shading. These sketches were... complicated. 

Was I complicated? Hmmm...

Then my passion evolved into black and white photography. 

Back in the day of burning and dodging, surrounded by chemicals that this current health-conscious me would have freaked over.

Yet then, I stuck my fingertips in the developer to position the photo paper just right. Then swooshed that paper around with my thongs in utter, creative glee. Watching as my artistic-mind’s eye creation came into stark contrast within the ripples of liquid. 

I’d lean in and breathe the toxic fumes as I waited for just-the-right moment of light and dark, of detail to emerge before whipping the dripping page into the stop solution. 

My complex use of cropping and burning made my pieces one-of-a-kind, for sure, as without some serious note-taking during the process, the steps typically weren’t recreatable. 

And my work immediately won an award, so I moved on. There is something there to be said about my inability to receive, but we’ll leave that for another day, or a trip on a therapy’s couch. 

Just kidding, although I do have a coach and she’s flipping awesome. More to come on her, too. 

Then it was words. 

Well, it was always words. Words strung together to create stories and worlds. To build characters who seemed more real to me than those actually living and breathing in my life. 

And it’s funny, because recently, over dinner with a new-to-me-island-friend, I realized they — the characters — are… alive.

The people I have gone on to create with my words, my imagination, and all but breathe life into, have been brought to reality in such a fashion that they are intrinsically real for the reader. 

And that is the feedback most writers would all but die to receive. It’s gold. Better than a royalty check — almost.

My friend, to say she was consumed with a character in a series she was obsessed with, would have been an understatement. 

She went on and on about a man... discussing him at length as though he’d stepped into the open air restaurant with us, in all his black, silk shirt fineness…

Pure, masculine flesh and blood, oozing appeal right off the pages of a book she’d been listening to.

“Because I can listen faster than I can read and I must know more now!”  Was her response to my most obvious question about why listen when you can read? 

Anyone overhearing our chat, well, they would have assumed that the man, let’s call him R, was very, very real. 

And she was enthralled with him. Captivated. Hooked by his mannerisms. His characteristics. How he communicated with so and so.

And no, she wasn’t tipsy that night! She hadn’t had one beer nor a single swig of wine. 

I was the only one sipping my Pinot Grigio wondering about this book, this character and utterly fascinated by how involved she was in his — cough — life.

Or should I say fictional life.

To the point, she nearly cancelled our dinner night out because she wanted to keep listening to the series and discover how he’d received the news of…

And he was...is real in a series of fictional pages. 

R is complex and detailed and so alive that my girlfriend was all but drooling over this dark, brooding greatness.  

And it took just three details for it to finally click in my head. 

For me to go from entertained to realization. 
For my ears to peak up like an eager puppy...
For the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end… 
For my heart to pause only to start racing in time to the music tumbling out of her lips… 

See it was music. 

My music. 
My R. 
My fictional man. 

And her gossipy, fangirl praise was an unfamiliar tune to me. 

I don’t tend to share my work with others. 

I haven’t, until very recently, shared my words with anyone other than my agent, who kind-of became my lovingly-abusive friend. 

I say lovingly-abusive because she had to hound me for my words. Literally, that was our relationship for the first year. 

She’d ask nicely. 
I’d dodge. 

She’d demand firmly. 
I’d evade.

She finally got my attention with a snapshot of my check being stuffed in her mouth and a refusal to send me anything until she had access to all my words. 
Yep, blackmail complete with red lipstick.

Like I said — abusive!

And looking back with time, a bit of maturity and distance, I can now add hysterical. 

But that woman, she used to send me into panic attacks that I didn’t even recognize as a problem as they were simply so damn common.

Yet, at that moment in time with my bread and butter all but in her mouth, I was actually hungry — literally and figuratively. 

She caught me in a moment when I needed that money and was a bit desperate. See, as a gift to myself, I was bumming around Europe and didn’t have any cash left. 

I was writing one-off articles for travel magazines, which paid peanuts and penning a novel in all my free time between walking the streets of Paris and touring Ireland from the wrong side of the road. 

That last was not a paying gig (yet) and without my new friend might never have been. 

And Europe… 

It was either Hollywood three months pre-graduation for an awesome job or finishing that degree and figuring it out later. 

I chose figuring-it-out-later as my Hollywood encounter scared me sh*tless...but that too is a story for another time. 

While in Europe, I’d forgotten about all but being present — writing — and hadn’t paid attention to the little things, like budgeting! 

See, I met the woman who became my agent and later friend, through a professor, who behind my back, gave her a manuscript of my words. 

And if he hadn’t done this, and she hadn’t loved them and decided I was worth the hassle (my cray-cray), I’d still be writing heaps of stories and essays and everything in between.  

However, those words, they probably would still be stored in dusty, digital files — inaccessible to a single soul and never to see the light of day or line a bookshelf...even now, if I’m deadly honest. 

I’d likely be working a 9-5 JOB somewhere. But Nah…! That last is so not me.

So yeah, seeing as how she’d managed to sell those first words my professor had sent her, and I’d allowed it, as she had already seen them, read them, liked them… 

I was in a bind. 

She took my first check, for those very first words, out of her mouth and deposited it into my US account for me on one condition. 

I had to put all my words in one folder — which she labeled PAIN IN MY ASS. No joke. And she received full access to it. 

Of course, I could create folders upon folders upon folders within that one space, (as I’ve already mentioned I like to complicate things), but all my words had to go into the PAIN IN THE ASS folder. 

Not just my completed words. All of them. As they flowed out of me. Talk about panic.

If I hadn’t already been a soul with a tendency to complicate, I would have considered all those folders I created an evil plan to mess with her mind, time and life, yet now I know better. I didn’t leaned toward manipulative but it came from a desire, no a deep-rooted need, to hide. 

Just like my characters and stories, I complicated probably all things directly out of the womb. It was my way. And hiding had become second nature very early in life.

As a born and bred New Yorker, this woman has little patience and seriously lacked an ability to deal with being played with. 

But back to those files. She received full access. And not when my words, stories and work was done, finished, ready.

Hell-to-the-no. 

The broad didn’t trust me. Anything I was writing at any time, from drafts to outlines to notes to thoughts...she got access to. 

All but my journal went into the folder we shared. Or should I say she controlled.

We were frenemies for the first few years. 

Because she knew me, better than I knew myself apparently, as she went so far as to write up a contract that now makes me laugh. 

She actually inserted a clause that said… 

“You are responsible for getting your ass to a photocopy joint and scanning anything that you hand write. Don’t test me. Don’t trick me. It’s not possible. There are no cop-outs nor excuses as this copying of stuff you choose to write by hand is due in the PAIN IN THE ASS by the end of each month. Consider it like taxes. The only way out is to die.” 

She ended with the B-word but I’ll refrain from adding that here. 

Like I said, frenemies. 

But looking back, her way got me to the highway that is my life. A highway that led me to my childhood dream, an ocean view, a Fabulous Frenchman who’s part partner and completely best friend, plus a goat called Moo-Baah. 

Now, I have several examples of when my complex way of thinking, or should I say writing, or just plain being, worked. 

Maybe a decade back, okay more like fifteen years ago now, yikes, I was packing things up and having new furniture delivered. 

A friend was helping me and subtly making sure I was okay. I’d just suffered a major loss in my life, left my job as a teacher, and my therapy had been to go to a store I loved and buy just about everything in it. 

Even if I felt empty inside at least my house would feel full...or something like that. 

Man, a shrink would have a field day with me, right?!

Typically, no one went into my office, but I must have been dealing with the movers or a phone call… and well, I found her in there with [gasp] one of my books in her greedy, little hand! 

She didn’t know it was mine until she saw my face. 

No poker face here, Lady Gaga.

And then well, she all but shoved the book into her sweatpants so I couldn’t snatch it back, and ran out of my house. 

Great.Flipping.Friend.

Pissed, scared shitless of her reaction to my words, yet also numb inside from all my life had recently become, I waited. 

I knew a reaction was coming, and in utter dread, I probably ate my weight in chocolate that day. Thank God I’d already shed all those extra pounds a few years before!

Let’s call her J.J. Well, J.J. kept me in radio silence all day and into the next and then called me in the dead of night — sobbing.

And I, snapped awake by her distraught gasping for air, thinking something was terribly wrong, only to be put on notice with... “How could you..?” and “Why would you..?” and “Damn you..!” 

...before the click of the then receiver sounded in my ear. All in emotional angst over one of my characters. A fictional life I had dared to create and then...end.

So of course, I didn’t fall right back to sleep. 

Instead, I threw myself back onto the oversized pillows of my king sized bed, thankfully alone in that moment, and wide-awake with a manic smile, had myself a Julia Roberts ‘three thousand dollars’ Pretty Woman moment.

You know that scene… 

Where she flings herself up on the bed in utter glee to pound the mattress with long, flailing arms and legs as she screams “Three. Thousand. Dollars.”

Granted Richard Gere’s character could have afforded a heck-of-a-lot more, but for her, a bottom-barrel street-walker, that was huge money.

[Don’t know that movie? My forehead just met my laptop and that sh*t hurts. Please go rent it. For me.]

But back to my friend calling me, hysterical. That wake up call was priceless… 

It was confirmation that my complex creations of worlds and people and situations and drama, so much drama… 

Worked. 

And it wasn’t something I’d ever allowed myself to receive from others. 

Feedback. Acknowledgement. Connection. Bonding. Over my words. 

Except from, well, my frenemy, but that didn’t count as praise in my mind as she was downright rude. And I liked it. Preferred it even.

But sobbing — during a 2 AM wake-up call — that was new. And flipping awesome! 

So, my characters, are they complicated beings? Typically, yes. 

So that begs the question, is that what makes them so real? 

Is that what makes people demand the next chapter, installment, book in the series? 

To bemoan the completion of a book... 

To dread the turning of that last page and the sinking realization that the character’s story, while not a tragic end, is done as far as their ability to read on is concerned?

Is that what makes people interesting, too? 

The drama.

The stories. 

The complexity. 

See only a select few have ever read my words. I don’t share them publicly, as me. 

Well, at least until recently…

I have created a complex, intricate web of separation. 

I, Jill R. Stevens, have always been a complex person dodging and weaving through life from the shadows. 

Capable of stepping out and doing all the things from being on stage (not my fear), to being on camera (I’ve stepped in a time or two), to writing words that make people laugh out loud on the plane (witnessed it), to those who cry uncontrollably as though my creations are real (you heard about one such story)...

And yet, I chose to still hide. To create a maze of alter egos under which to publish. 

See, I’ve hidden my light behind pseudonyms, contracts and clauses. And now, now that I am stepping out… 

Now that I am sharing my words here… 

It’s like I’m a newborn…stripped bare of all those complexities. 

Left to wonder. 

Why did I so complicate? 

And maybe you can relate.

Where in your life have you made all so complex that seriously, if you simply sat for a moment, in utter silence, the truth, the answer would be so simple?

My truth. I write. 

Do I really need to complicate? 

Leave me a comment and share this post if any of these words hit home for you or made you smile. 

My goal is to spread JOY in this world. And my best bet is doing that through my words for they are my SuperPower. 

Next week I’ll bring you real talk on all those Alter Egos I created which allowed me to do so much and still hide. 

Oh yeah, there’s more than one… 

Get ready for a fun, bumpy ride. 

---

Photo Credit: MILKOVÍ @milkovi

---

A Single ‘Horse’ Leads To More Focus, JOY And Abundance

So I have always complicated things - until recently. 

I wrote stories in my mind first, then on paper, then digitally... with multiple characters and twisting plots, deep emotional connections and drama. 

Don’t forget the drama. 
Lots and lots of drama. 
But that drama spilled out into daily life as I tended to complicate life. 

There are two ways of being for me, for anyone, that are polar opposites. They are flow and force.

I lived the better part of my life forcing my way through each day, each decision, making everything so-damn-hard.

I'd have glimmers of another way... a tasting of ease, a heavy rush of simplicity, a breath of flow and yet, until recently never was able to make the connection that the way of beingness —

FLOW

— could be my default setting.

I think, perhaps, I came out of the womb "heavy"...

My mentor has a saying he received one day from his mentor of more than 25 years. "When you think too much you're heavy and when you're heavy you can't fly."

And damn was that me for more than 45 years.

Heavy.
Always thinking.
And therefore spinning and even more heavy.

You know how some children you can lift and they giggle, light as a feather. JOYful...
Happy...
Easy...

Well, that wasn't me...around people. That was me in the woods, with animals, or in my mind creating stories..light and free and easy.

Always laughing, smiling, skipping, dancing, face to the sun, light as a feather...

But around people, I was heavy.

Lift me, and I'd try to sink like a stone in a pond. 

Literally ppppushing down to the ground to make myself more dense.

Even when I was a tiny, little thing.

Even my language to describe myself was the opposite of flow, allowing for no lightness..."No, no. Don't pick me up. I'm too heavy."

Even before heavy was me, that was my way of being, of seeing myself, of speaking about myself.

Granted, I was a chubby baby with fat knees and pinch-able cheeks, which were cute, adorable even, until suddenly they were not.

Baby fat became my prison but it was my mind that made me heavy.

Let’s take this site as an example which was “born” in November of 2019. 

I hired a fab social media specialist to help me get my dang self out there, as me, and she said all you need is a basic home page, an about page and a contact page. 

She encouraged me to focus on writing 3 good quality posts to get started.
And voila — done. 

Easy, right? 

Hmm, until I complicated it.

Until I showed her!

25 pages of website content and at least 7 posts later… 

Yeah, complicated. 

I wrote up three offers, sales pages and designed them, published them even, two of which never even saw the light of day… 

Meaning, I never bothered to share them with anyone.

I simply loved creating them… more on that in a moment.

So much complexity, 
So much creativity. 
Untethered. 
Unleashed. 
Without structure. 

See I am a creator. A visionary. And I tended to be all over the place.

Until recently. 

Now, I’ve known this about myself, as I have digital files out the wazoo. 

And folders upon folders of files in too many locations. I’ve actually hired people (times two) to help me organize my files and well, that’s a mistake.

Because it’s not simple, easy or even possible for another to organize what isn’t understood.

Cue more chaos and now multiple copies of said files.

So, to say I have more content that I can shake a stick at or even promote in this lifetime would be an understatement.  

I write 2500 words each morning minimum, at least 5 days a week and typically 7. So let’s have a quickie math moment, shall we?

Don’t get so excited! So many of us have horrid math-stories, do we not?! I sure did...

As sometimes it’s hard to know what “a lot of content” represents until we start talking word count or pages written, let’s dive into the math.

2500 x 5 (let’s go low) is 12,500.

That’s 50 pages of content each week, if there are 250 words on a double-spaced typed page. That’s 2600 pages in a year. 

Let’s say I’ve been doing this now for 25 years, even though it’s closer to 30…but we’ll lowball it again. 

That’s 65,000 pages or 16,250,000 (that million) words. 

And this is just my morning pages… not counting rewrites, drafts, or things I write during the day… 

Some days I’ll write an additional 30 pages… To say I’ve got files upon files upon files would be an understatement.

Thankfully, I’ve developed a better naming system than the word “BOOK” followed by a date!

Oh yeah, it was nasty. Especially for me with no concept of time… when did I write that thing about that girl who did such and such with so and so.

There are days where finding something I think I might have written is like finding a faerie’s needle in a giant’s haystack. 

Oh and did I mention the journals?!

Ah, yeah… this brain. 

And because I have an agent who swoops into my files, literally, like a knight on a white horse, and takes what’s done or what she considers as done, or good enough for a first read, well, I’ve been able to function in the world. 

I’ve been able to focus on creating and creating and, yep, creating. 

But now, with this site, not under the control or supervision of Becks, my super agent...now I have been forced to grow and shift. 

And damn if it hasn’t been painful. 

But not uncommon. 

See, I did this complicating thing as a teacher and when I had a tutoring business and when I started EducationLady.com… 

I created and created and rarely did I release anything.
And when I wasn’t creating, I was learning. So. Much. Learning.
And so little implementing. Let’s be real. 
Are you feeling me? 

My fulfillment came, not through the praise or accomplishment of completing or sharing but the actual work itself.

I loved to work. I loved to create. I loved to envision and then bleed it all over the page with words and the creation of worksheets and scripts and even videos (that no one would ever see).

I loved to complicate things. I loved to create drama. 

What, after all, are stories, but drama and complication.

And I loved to speak to the drama of all I was doing yet where were all the people, why weren’t they just swooping in like Becks to magically take what I created.

Uh, spoiled much?

Yep.

I always thought of structure as limiting. 

Even in my writing. I would learn grammar rules (yuck) only to break them.

I am not a purist.

Yet recently, I've started to flow into a new way of being. 

A powerful way that has shown me that without structure, I have nothing but files and confusion. 

And a site full of words no one gets to see, if we return to the first example of this very online space.

Heck, I can even say that about Education Lady. About the awesome course I created and recreated, even though nothing was bloody wrong with it, that could have served so many in teaching them how to be rockstar tutors — if I’d only gotten out of my own way.

Complicating things is an addition.

Not sharing is a way to avoid rejection… judgement… living. 

Yet now, now I am a different version of me. And, I have a choice. 

I can share my SuperPower, my words, and get them out there for others to see, to read, to experience. 

Or I can keep writing, creating and building a castle in the sky that no one can see let alone visit with enJOYment. 

I can stay in my isolation of heavy.

Or I can flow into the lightness that is, was always been, within me. 

I found flow in letting it all go. 
I found flow in stepping back. 
I found flow in focusing on one thing. 
That one thing...
JOY. 

So logically, you might be asking what the heck does JOY have to do with anything?

It’s not tangible. It’s not a doing-thang… And yet, it is. 

JOY has everything to do with everything. 

See Abundance Follows JOY and JOY is one of my top values in life.

And I’ve decided that this space, this site will be a success. 

Not a hobby. 

But a success that will impact the masses and spread JOY. 

I stand corrected. 

This site IS a success and IS impacting millions of people by infecting them with JOY.

Did you catch the subtle difference there?

And that JOY unfolds for them, for me, in one main offer right now — The JOY-Subscription.

That’s called focus. 
That’s called simplicity. 
That’s called narrowing my hyper-productive, creative-cray-cray self down.
That’s called working within a structure…a framework that makes all possible.

Where I once boo-hoo-ed structure and thought simplicity was for the weak, I now welcome it.

Because in this space, there is ease. There is flow.

In “riding one horse”, as my mentor loves to say, minus the Texas twang, all becomes possible. 

My one horse is writing and then — drumroll please — actually inviting people to read my words, after writing them, of course. Some words are free and some are not.

One horse.

Not this and that, workshops and coaching, programs and more. 

Nope. Simple. 

• I write. 

• My words are available. 

• I share them. 

• 24-hours later most words are locked down in the JOY Vault. 

• Accessible by those in my Inner Circle of JOY. 

Those who invest in themselves, adding JOY to their lives and becoming a JOY-Subscriber. 

Talk about a narrow focus. For now.
Simple. 
Easy. 
And because it’s aligned with my values there is flow. 

I let go of all those pages of workshops, programs, offerings and such. They still exist on this site, somewhere, but now, now I offer one thing. 
JOY. 

When you head to my site, you’ll see it. 

The JOY-Meter Quiz®

A Way To Measure
Your Current Level Of JOY
And A Simple Path To Tap Into More 

I mean, come on now, who doesn’t want, no need, more JOY in their life!   

Am I right or am I write? 

Ha. Did you catch that? Hmm…Gotta be quick!

And JOYful. 

When you flow into simplifying, narrowing your focus and allowing flow into your life and business — things work. 

It’s not to say that we don’t do other things too, but to access flow the focus is on one. Because flow, is a way of beingness that is bigger than any doing activity.

And here’s how I know this shift works. How being in flow becomes natural.

I got the hit to create The Joy-Meter Quiz® on Sunday and so I did, with the amazing help of Michelle, my editor. 

By Sunday evening this quiz along with the results and all the ins and outs of a system went live, and except for some behind the scenes automation work, it was easy. It flowed. It was perfection.

And did you catch that little nugget? It was perfect at 70% done! Not fully. Not perfectly, but done enough to share, to impact, to change lives by spreading more JOY.

And because of this aligned flow...

On Monday, I had a message in my inbox about coaching from someone. 
On Tuesday, same thing. Another message about consulting/coaching. That evening, a potential writing project circled back around.

Powerful, is it not?

And that writing project, it’s one I am super excited about but not tied to. If it works out, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. This is how I live — now.

If it works out, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. This is how I live. 

Now you might be stumped here wondering, coaching and a writing project?

That’s not selling the JOY-Subscription and riding that one-horse.

Yet, actually it is. It's an utter allowance and the line I now live by.

Abundance Follows JOY.

My one thing is writing the JOY-Subscription and sharing that it exists. That’s my one “horse”, my focus. But all those other things that come my way, well, they revolve around my SuperPower of words. 

I coach people around words.
I write words for other people. 

So it’s about small steps with ONE focused thing because from that place now one can grow, expand, branch out like this most magnificent tree.

But that fifty foot red oak with it’s thick trunk, intricate root system and extended branches doesn’t grow from a little seed overnight. 

Nope. It takes time. And care. And focused attention on one thing. 

From seed
to sprout
to bush
to sapling
to tree. 

To massive reach, a canopy of intricate branches and lush leaves, providing shade and shelter…none of this happens overnight.

That tree has one focus… growing strong from one trunk… not two or three.

Who am I to say how abundance will show up in my life?
Who am I to question it?

Just as I’m sure that red oak tree doesn’t question the number of branches or the direction they take. Instead there is simply an allowing. A knowing that all is as it should be. A natural flow. Which leads to growth. 

I am the person I choose to show up being, talking about my one thing, the JOY-Subscription, and riding that one horse all that way into the sunset and through a lovely sunrise. Day after day after day…  

When I do that I am working from JOY. And what did I say the line is that I live by - Abundance Follows JOY…

Well, then this sudden interest in coaching with me, in a book project, is actually flow...is alignment, is it not? 

It’s not counter-intuitive when doing all the doing is from a place of Abundance Follows JOY. 

It’s not up to me to determine how abundance will show up nor judge the flow but simply to allow. 

To narrow my path to one stepping stone instead of hopscotching all over the joint and never getting anywhere. 

To focus on that one thing I do — write — and let go of all attachments to how it must look

To simplify all the doing that I do in my day and live from this aligned place that I KNOW in my cells, in my core, in my everything… 

That Abundance Follows JOY. 

So now I turn to you, curious to hear where you are on this path of flow.

Are you Focusing, Narrowing and Simplifying To Create Flow?

Or are you as I used to be

Complicating...
Over-Thinking...
Spinning...
Constantly Doing...

With nothing or little to show for it at the end of each day.

Depleting, is it not? Exhausting and frustrating and lonely too. 

But there is a better way… 

What can you focus on that brings you JOY?

What do you need to simplify in your life, your business to create that flow I speak of?

The kind of flow that leads you to more JOY in your life and to more abundance… naturally.

See everything is energy…

When your energy, when you are wrapped in JOY… all is possible.

Narrow your all to one thing, that one thing that brings you JOY and just watch, because expansion and abundance will flow to you.

Does this resonate with you? Are you stuck, thinking of how to even begin? 

I hear you... and I encourage you to get quiet…

All the answers are present in the pause. 

Leave me a comment below, heart this post and share it with someone you know needs these words — this message.

And, if you want more JOY, make it a date to hang with me each week when I release my free-to-all Wednesday Words. 

And if you or anyone you know wants more JOY, consider taking The JOY-Meter Quiz® and start the journey to access even more today.

My Mission In This Life, This World,
Is To Spread JOY Because
Abundance Follows JOY. 

Period.

If more people tuned into their own natural abundance, imagine what this world would look like for a moment.

We need that world now more than ever, do we not?

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Photo Credit: Mikael Kristenson @mikael_k

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What’s More JOY Worth To You?

For Less Than 191 Pennies A Week
Access All My JOYful Words

For the detailed soul, click here for more.

The Magic Is In…

Today — today is a personal share.

A page from my journal dated October 17, 2018. It’s a page I just randomly came across this week and sat down to read. By the way, I don’t believe in random… There is a reason for all.

And where in the past I used to dwell on that reason, try to worry it out, to understand it — now, now I simply allow.

Ah, sweet relief.

So back to that journal page, or two. Don’t worry, nothing x-rated about to go down here… just something magical you may wish to sink into for a quick dash of JOY.

Jill’s Journal: One Of Many
October 17, 2018

I did something that I will proclaim here and now, nearly one week in, as profound. 

I have enrolled in an online course (which the creator calls not-a-course) and the name [to be shared another time, so your focus isn’t split]. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, taking a course, for me, is nothing new. I mean seriously, I’m still paying for that, what is it?, second Master’s degree. 

And online courses, they are plentiful if you start to step into the ether-webs, which I did for the first time back in 2009 with my very first experience that was the-best-non-toxic-drug ever. 

And that first course, by Maria A— was the gateway drug to a guy who she had on as a bonus-call-guest. So of course, I enjoyed his talk so much I forked over the cash to take his latest and greatest just so I could learn even more. 

Never once stopping to think, do I really need to invest in more learning? 

All that learning led me to this moment, and that Q is one I really need to dive into, as while it’s led me here, the couple hundred grand spent — literally — in the online course taking world is worse than some people’s drug habits. 

And it really is an addiction. An addiction to learning, to gathering knowledge, to more-more-more and never implementing because the brain, well, when we learn, the brain thinks it’s being productive. Damn it. 

But something about [insert course name later] a decade (gasp) later, is slightly different. 

Yes, it’s still set up as modules. 
Yes, it still has lessons within those modules
And there are videos, PDFs, audio files to download for on-the-go learning, but just below the surface of all that glitters is, well, magic.

Yes, magic.

See, the creator, who I’m not going to bore you with right now, as if you’re anything like me, you’ll stop reading, Google his name, and hello, rabbit hole. 

No, instead I’m going to force you to be mindful. Sucker. (Said with love.)

Because quite simply that is part one of the magic I am finding not even a week into this course. 

To focus, mindfully. Intentionally.

Focus has become so f-ing hard even a goldfish can do it better than we homo sapiens. 9 whole seconds. 

Now this week has not been butterflies, puppy dog kisses and sunshine, although I did see a rainbow midweek, and butterflies are playfully fluttering about this paradise existence I call home. 

Amazing when other parts of the world are literally still freezing over and I enjoy watching butterflies! 

Hello, flip flops. Hello, I should be loving my life, damn it!

Back to the week. 

It’s been, well, enlightening and turbulent and honest and humiliating and a whack upside my head with a much needed two-by-four. 

That saying actually makes total sense now, as the board would hit the reptilian part of my brain. 

The one that is IN charge at just about all times whether we want it to be or not. 

It’s the brain we revert to, unconsciously, because its purpose has always been vital — to keep us alive. 

Yep, you heard of that right.

The three parts of the brain 
Prefrontal Cortex 
Mammalian Brain
Reptilian Brain 

This is what I learned about in Week 1 of this course, that I thought was going to help me design my best business... 

Well, friend, I’ve been chasing my proverbial tail, in my business and in my life, because my thoughts have been running my ass — forever.

My thoughts about failure.
My thoughts about success.
My thoughts about love.
My thoughts about money.
My thoughts about the story of my life.
My thoughts about others.
My thoughts about how others see me.

Wow. Just. My. Thoughts. So f-ing many of them!

So, this week I’m diving in, I started to work on my mind, mindset, and all things a little woo-woo for some. 

Personally, I love woo-woo. I embrace woo-woo. I gotta have me some woo-woo. And when I’m around non-woo-woo peeps for too long, I feel my creative soul draining like the neck of a freshly sucked vampire victim.

Dramatic? Ah yeah. Said the writer. 

But enough visuals about Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, if you went there. As I know I did. And who wouldn’t?! 

No clue what that reference is? Gosh darn it, grab some culture and rent the movie! 

Well, this last week was all about shifting my mindset, looking at my beliefs and seeing where I was whacked in my (turns out) reptilian head. 

And there were a lot of areas.

There was a lot of fear, judgement, shame, pain, and maybe even some anger. But what amazed me in the work I did was my physical reaction.

I got sick. Physically. S.I.C.K.

Have you ever had a migraine? 

Like a wave of pain that says “Oh sh*t, my gut contents feel like they might come up and I didn’t even eat!” and “Too-Much-Light. When did the world become so damn bright?”

Well, that was me on Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday.

After listening to a podcast not once, not twice, but three times the day before. 

The podcast [title to be provided after the need to Google it subsides] was an interview between the course creator [the not named course I am currently writing about, yes, after just one week in] and an awesome dude who’d studied under a shaman for the last 25 years. 

Whatever that means, you might be thinking, right? 

And yeah, I get it. 

All you need to know is one, it’s cool and two, it means he walks the walk that he talks. Something most people, I find, myself included, do not always do.

Then I pressed play. And had to press play again. 

And took a notebook full of notes and felt my mind literally being blown. In the best and worst ways. 

It was magic.

Suddenly, I could see clearly all the ways I’d held myself back, let myself down, let others down and agreed to ride this merry-go-round of, well, insanity.

I could see where I judged, where I blamed, where I thought I was committed but wasn’t in the least.

I could see the stories I told myself over and over to the point that those stories were my life, one year later, seven years later, twenty years later. 

I could quite literally see. In friggin technicolor. It was awesome and enlightening and horrifying and freeing.

I fell asleep amazed, after pressing play three-flipping-times, and awoke to a new reality. 

A reality where a migraine took over my head first, then my body, second, and forced me to stop EVERYTHING.

Forced me, for not just Friday, but all of Saturday, and most of Sunday as well, to simply stop.

To purge.
To rest.
To heal.
To be — still.

And wow, what a flipping powerful experience having that God-awful migraine was. A no pill-popping-to-take-the-edge-off happening here migraine experience that put me down and out for more than 36 hours. 

But at the same time, it was magic.

At the same time, it was a blessing.

It was a cleansing, a healing, a reboot to factory-settings — if you will — of my reptilian brain (perhaps).

Well, that’s what I like to think, because now there is simply clarity. 

Clarity that for anything in my life to happen, I must commit 110%. Not just when it’s convenient.

Clarity that my words mean something and if I say them, I must honor them.

Clarity that I can do [this]. This being anything I put my damn mind too.

Clarity that I need to shut the stories down from my past and keep to fictional ones on paper. 

Bring on the characters! [ Rubbing my palms together a little manically! ]

Clarity that I need more/better balance in my life and this will take practice and patience and forgiveness as I stumble. 

For I will — stumble — because there’s no growth without a few speed bumps to trip you up along the way, right?

Clarity that my time, the time, is now. Only now and not as linear as all those dang teachers, school bells and shrink sessions taught me. 

Clarity that my ego is not my best friend but more like an enemy I want to keep close yet not buy into the flirtatious temptation to believe her again.

Clarity that I can, I will, I am. 

And that, friend, is magic one week in. 

And the magic, the magic did not stop there, but expanded upon itself. See that was October 2018 and just from that one podcast, I knew I had to learn from this man, this guest, who’d spent more than two decades learning from a shaman.

I didn’t even comprehend what a shaman was… 

And didn’t care. I was sold. I was in. In what I had no clue. 

And it was that lust for more knowledge that led me to exactly where I needed to be.

It was that desire for more learning that brought me to the edge of extraordinary come January 2019.

It was that crack-like-addiction to the next shiny course, program or thing that had me FINDING a way in where there was no offering, no way to learn but to keep searching for more podcasts this dude had been a guest on. 

At that time, he didn’t have a podcast. 

At that time, his website was basic and I thought — crap. [Sorry, Tom. It just didn’t have a way IN!]

At that time, I was so lost, I thought I could fix that for him, if he’d just open his damn door and let me in now. 

But nope, like everyone else, I had to wait until the doors to his program opened again and that was in mid-January 2019. 

And I had no clue what his program even was.

But what I did in the meantime, I pressed pause on all things.

No more courses.
No more shiny buys.
No more nada. 

Even the magical course I’d written about in my journal on October 17, 2018 after experiencing that devastating migraine...even that I pressed pause on.  

I’m not one for headaches and migraines, that was a first for me. 

And a doozie, but what it showed me, was that I needed to dive into this work and I needed to step back from all the spinning I’d been doing before. 

Because man-oh-man was I ever the perfectionist, plate spinner with poor health and an unhappy life, struggling to keep it all together, as I worked on my business thinking that more money was the solution... back then. 

And now, now I know such peace, such JOY. 

Well, heck, I created a website, as myself, based on JOY… and a paid membership option to all my words called the JOY-Subscription.

Seriously, can’t get much better than that, now can it?

I don’t know where you are right now, as you read these words, but if something calls to you… listen to that. 

Does it sound woo woo for me to say that? Abso-f-ing-lutely. But hey, if you’re like I was — constantly seeking, forever searching, never finding that thing that’s just out of reach…

Well, isn’t it time you tuned into the knowing you instinctively, naturally, intuitively have. 

Leave me a comment if you are interested in knowing what it is I have come to know deeply that has transformed my life from one of struggle to one of pure JOY…

I’ll share more about that podcast that changed all for me… including a link when you heart this message, leave a comment and share it with someone you believe might need to read these words.

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Photo Credit: Garidy Sanders @garidy

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