Jen Knox's Blog, page 4
April 29, 2025
How to write an essay: riffing from the woods
Do research. Read to find inspiration.
Outline loosely. Be willing to change your mind.
Approach with curiosity, not dogma. Understand that whatever is revealed is going to be incomplete.
Tie things together through patterns, through similarities and dissimilarities alike.
Tie things together, but don't expect the bow to be too tight.
To write an essay, be vulnerable. To write a good essay, be incredibly vulnerable. To write the kind of essay that lingers in people's minds, get naked on the page. It's okay to put yourself out there if you let go.
Write about what you don't know. Explore it. Write from your perspective, because it's all you have. Explore that too.
Just write.
Shape the thing by examining the ending. Shape the thing by starting a little later.
Send the thing out into the world with no expectations. Write something new.
Essays are an opportunity to reflect, to meditate, to come back home.
I recorded this at the park by my house yesterday after work.
As I recorded, speaking into my phone, I navigated uneven roots beneath my feet and felt the internal heat of a spring afternoon. What I was trying to capture here was process, but I think what arrived was something more like a nudge or a remembrance.
It’s ironic to me that the process of writing can’t be captured in writing.
As much as we want to write about it, something remains elusive—that feeling of home that only belongs to us, that feeling of walking on roots in the woods while our body temperature rises and the words begin to come even before we make our way to paper. We must follow them.
Whatever your genre or medium, I hope this triggers some inspiration. Write something today, anything.
Photo by Catherine Kay Greenup The next AYTL post will drop on Friday (51/52).
Friends, our 52-week challenge is almost complete. Let’s connect to discuss all things writing, mindful living, and creative resilience. Join me Friday, May 23 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET; Saturday, June 21 at 9 a.m. PT /12 p.m. ET; or Friday, July 11 at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET for a community Zoom get-together. I want to keep these circles relatively small, so sign up today. To RSVP, go here.
April 23, 2025
On loving what you love & week 50 of 52
I’m not convinced that humans are the only species that thinks about death.
We’re probably the only species that thinks we can change it, or that ruminates over it. Anthropologist Ernest Becker disagreed. He wrote in Denial of Death that “the knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it.”
While I agree with him that no other animals embark on an experiment to reflect weekly on death merely to see if it will help them to better live, I can’t help but think animals do have some inherent knowledge and awareness around the time they have.
When an animal is dying, in my experience, there is a shift. Maybe it’s not contemplation, curiosity or rumination, but it is awareness.
My dog, Ahti, is not doing well.
She wheezes and pants after the shortest of walks. While we are managing her pain, and she does have many beautiful moments, there is water collecting around her lungs, and her joints are swollen. Her arthritis requires monthly shots, and if she gets too excited and tries to chase a kitty, she limps for three days after.
I wonder about her quality of life at some points, but she still lifts her chin against the spring breeze and barks heartily at squirrels and small children who dare to bike near our home. She adores our painfully slow walks to the park, which are rekindling my relationship with patience, and she smells every blade of grass with thorough attention.
At times, she stops, stares up at me, then side-dives into the lushest grass in our neighborhood and rolls around. While she’s moving slower and has moments of discomfort, she seems to fully love life.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
—Mary Oliver, from “Wild Geese”
Ahti has become my shadow, nestling up against me every time I lay out my yoga mat and scratching insistently on the door if Chris won’t let her into the garage to watch the neighborhood when he’s out there painting.
Her insistence is magnified, almost as though she is trying to inject each moment with more of what she loves.
If you know me and my dogs, you know that she’s getting what she wants.
Sometimes, we’ll take her off the leash and let her roam around the trees because we know she can no longer run and is easy to catch. She still tries to defy us, limp-running off and looking back playfully, only to stop and position one of her nostrils directly above a tiny stick, intaking its history with scientific rigor.
Ahti may or may not think about the fact that her life/time is almost up, but she does know that her space and time is precious, increasingly so.
It’s week 50 and my invitation to you is just that … Love what you love.
It’s your nature to live and love fully. To run rebelliously even if you know you’ll be caught, to drift toward what sustains you, ever more toward those things and people and places.
Let all the fear of death go, just for today, and be totally in your body. Write without apology or politeness. If you are afraid, talk to your fear. Tell it that everything might not be okay, that’s true, but you’re going to soar anyway.
April 20, 2025
A different way to see
that may become joys. A two-part meditation and writing practice. Feel free to pause as needed.
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” —Anais NinApril 17, 2025
On automatic writing, the subconscious & week 49 of 52
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” —Roald Dahl
We worry over finding the right words or waiting for the right time, but it’s often only when we are able to let go that right words find us.
Overthinking is often a sign of a well-intentioned person who doesn’t want to cause discomfort by voicing an opinion, a creative who wants to get everything right, or the result of a moral quandary. While we may see a barrage of thoughtless decisions being made by leadership in our lives, most of us are not so cavalier.
We take our time, we don’t trust every whim that strikes us or think we’re “chosen” to do things. But where’s the middle ground between radical and unwavering self-trust and analysis paralysis?
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." —Lao Zhu
For those of us who err on the side of overthinking, the idea of finding a method for truly letting go when practicing what we love means finding what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined as “flow,” a phenomenon wherein one forgets self and has a feeling of effortless absorption in an act (such as writing).
That’s not always easy when conditions are not optimal or, worse, repressive, and we feel at a loss for what informed step to next take.
Automatic writing, while not scientifically backed, refers to the process of channeling spirits or ancestors to write messages through the vessel of our human form. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sylvia Plath, and William Butler Yeats all claimed to have leveraged a process of channeling to write.
Victoria Woodhull used the practice of automatic writing, along with trance, to contact the spirit of Greek orator Demosthenes who told her she would do big things in the world. Woodhull, whose life circumstances had done anything but set her up for greatness, ended up being the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872. She, like many forward-thinking women of her time, found solace in Spiritualism.
Referred to as Fu-Ji (扶乩), a similar practice is associated with inviting wisdom to answer human quandaries in Chinese folk religions. Fu-ji is seen as a means of engaging with the spirit world, where priests used the technique to speak with celestial beings and ancestors to receive divine guidance.
If speaking to spirit isn’t your jam, here’s a reframe: Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung associated the practice of automatic writing with an ability to tap the collective unconscious and considered it a deep meditation.
There are many meditative processes, such as Natalie Goldberg’s famous and long-enduring advice to keep the pen on the page and moving, no matter what, until the writing itself takes over. She advises this as a way of pushing past the temptation to overthink.
Not making sense? No worries, keep the pen moving. Not sure what to say? Repeat the same word again and again until a new words comes.
I share all these examples to share the value of finding a perspective that works for you. The phenomenon of releasing one’s self to the work at hand seems to offer not only a release but also unexpected wisdom.
Biographer Barbara Goldsmith said women of Victoria Woodhull’s time relieved the burdens imposed upon their gender by finding solace in spirits. At the time, many at the forefront of women’s rights were Spiritualists and would seek guidance from what they couldn’t see because what was in front of them would not suffice. To lean on something unseen gave them strength.
Whether mining unexcavated parts of the mind in psychological self study or contacting spirits and guides, the practice itself shows up the same way. It means letting go of our precious egos and goals and identity, seeing what happens when we become one with the work, immersed and free.
What does the concept of “flow” means to you? Connect it to nature. Listen to the sound of waves, or sit near moving water and simply allow yourself to release into the sensation of steady and unhurried movement, allowing what comes through to come. Try one of the techniques above, either asking for guidance from the spirit world or simply keep the pen moving until your egoic filter seems to dissipate.
If this feels too impossible (fist bump to my fellow overthinkers), here are some other methods.
Option 1: Keep a dream journal this week. A notebook by the bed and a few lines before you get up.
Option 2: Do what clears your mind—meditation, dancing, walking, etc… then write without stopping. After a few minutes of writing (longhand ideally), close your eyes and keep writing. Don’t worry about whether it’s legible, but play. See what arrives.
April 12, 2025
On the last lecture & week 48 of 52
You’re on stage and not the least bit nervous. You take a deep breath and release, feeling your shoulders soften and cheeks lift. You zero in on a face in the crowd and see how eager this person is to hear what you are about to say.
Your message encompasses the essence of your deepest insight. It is the message that will best support others.
You begin to speak…
Photo by Denisse Leon One of my students recently wrote about The Last Lecture, a book by the late Carnegie Mellon professor, Randy Pausch. My student’s paper was moving (and relevant) enough to make me not only buy the book but also watch Randy’s last lecture. It was about how to lead your life in a way that feeds, rather than depletes, dreams.
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” — William ShakespeareThe concept of someone having a last lecture to deliver may be one that particularly appeals to professors and teachers, but I invite you to personalize this one.
Imagine: It’s your last story, your last book, your last meditation, your last words, your last conversation with a friend … your last lecture. What do you say?
This question sparked my creative inspiration after a short lull. The piece I’m working on now feels urgent and necessary. To answer for yourself, I recommend tapping a strategy I teach in my leadership courses: define your why and write it out—create a mantra.
These change over time, so I feel it’s always a valid exercise, even if it’s one you’ve done before. If you’d like an example, here’s mine (today).
To live, create and teach from a place of compassionate inquiry, finding ways to connect with and love others for who they are, always looking beyond the surface and pretense. I uncover new ways of seeing what I think I see. I explore on the page and share on the stage. I trust in the purpose of my life without needing to define or limit it. I have fun, and I share what works.
It’s your last lecture. What do you say? And why not share that message now?
April 4, 2025
On sensory gluts & week 47 of 52
A few folks have asked what will happen after I hit 52 weeks. If I step out of the experiment portal, and I’m still embodied, the answer is clear. I will go back to writing about writing with philosophy and leadership weaved in because, well, the writing life encompasses it all. That’s the beauty of it. And I will explore new ways of approaching the craft and the business of writing as the world changes. As we navigate these turbulent waters, I will also be candidly sharing the perils and joys of releasing what’s personal and vulnerable and revel in the delicious inefficiency of it all.
For now, let’s talk about distraction.
Photo by Nat OsipkoLately, I’ve been feeling like my mother’s cat, Winston. He has a habit of running back and forth, attacking plastic bags and fake mice only to skid to a halt with drama as though remembering the value of watching the mid-afternoon light dance on the wall.
He stares a while, then goes back to his frantic ways.
I write this on the heels of a meet-up with a new artist friend. I sat in a cluttered cafe and watched as indulgent brunch items were delivered, glancing down at my notebook to catch a thought here and there. When she arrived, I had ten thousand things, more or less, on my mind.
I was eager to get to know this new friend, a transplant from elsewhere in the Midwest and a powerhouse artist. As we sat with tiny pots of tea in between us, we spoke about writing experiences and aspirations. The moments were immersive.
But after about an hour of pleasant conversation, I lost my train of thought and went back to the internal race after plastic bags and fake mice. My to-do list loomed. It was a total blackout from the moment, even though it only lasted a short time. My new friend pulled me back by reminding me where I’d left off.
Where did I go in that instant?
Scattered is a loud symptom when we’re in a sensory glut so much of the time. The tricky thing is that hyperattention can sometimes feel like it, but it is not mindful attention. And it’s not creative attention. It’s more like trying to feel everything at once.
We are all in a mode of cognitive switching all the time—going from phone notification to social post to our endless to-do lists.
I will admit that I sometimes get smug and think this is everyone else—not me. I meditate, practice gratitude … I do all the things.
When I walk around campus and see student after student with heads down, fingers swiping content, passing each other with near misses (and sometimes collisions), I feel sorry for them. Sometimes it’s professors and staff. But, increasingly, I am noticing myself doing this.
This comes with practice. The more we practice, the more we notice our own patterns.
It’s easy to say, “Be mindful.” It’s easy to practice with intention on the meditation pillow. And I often say, “Make time to go deep into the creative process.” But to be part of the world and fully embodied means not having to meet every call for attention or having to entertain every piece of information thrust upon us. And it means facing that fact that it’s us, too.
Mindful creativity is not complex to understand. It simply means listening patiently to oneself and others. Patience is power right now. It’s also a gift. I realize, after some contemplation, that my little blackout moment was about pulling the same urgency and excess to in-person interactions that I feel online.
It was a simple clarifying reminder.
We cannot digest it all. We do not have to.I have not given myself time to slow and still. By not giving myself time, I have not been able to reset. So here’s what I’m going to do. Maybe, if you’ve felt this way yourself, we can do this together.
Stare at the wall, daydream, find boredom, find nothing at all, pet your dog, say hello to yourself, look in the mirror, look around, find something new, look at the backs of your eyelids, take a walk. No tech. No conversation. No stimulus other than you and the world. Practice stillness.
A student told me about this, and I just downloaded it. While it seems like another app would be a bad thing, using this one on your phone and planting a tree (the app does it) can actually help to hold you accountable.
Imagine a giant RESET button being pressed. Now answer this question in writing: How does the world move when I become truly still?
Let me know how this goes. Wishing you all good things.
March 27, 2025
On the church of art and story & week 46 of 52
Artist: Mark CarterAs a young kid, I drew my cat, Ouija (which I grossly misspelled), and gave it to my father’s good friend, Mark Carter. He later used it in this collage piece, which he gifted to my father. If you look at the upper left-hand corner, you can see my signature.
The fact that he kept this drawing of my perpetually annoyed cat speaks to the mind of a true artist.
Mark’s work can be found at the Thomas Dean Fine Art Gallery. He, like my father, is incredibly gifted and was a favorite of my parents’ friends because he was hilarious. He’d leave long voicemails in cartoon-like voices and make up telenovela-worthy stories about who he was and why he was leaving the message—all just to say, “Call me back.” I’d listen to them on repeat.
I grew up going to the church of Art & Story. My parents both read to me, and our bookshelves were full. We were not globe-trekking to museums with fancy art connoisseurs, but we had the stories and art at home. Our home smelled of old books and pencil dust. I loved holding my father’s large, bendable gray erasers to my nose and taking a deep inhale.
My sister and I helped my father collect old discarded mufflers and twisted tree branches for his sculptures. We found items on the side of the road, in the parks, and at a shuttered penitentiary where O. Henry wrote twisty fiction.
I saw artists revitalize the neighborhood I grew up in (before it was gentrified), and I read books that slowed my anxious mind enough to wrap me in a blanket of hope.
Nothing is more powerful than the distinct resilience of an artist or writers. Nothing.
And while I rebelled for a while, denying myself expression, art followed me. As I faced intense challenges (as we all do), I began to remember how powerful it can be to funnel pains and disappointments into words and stories, which appeared haphazardly, but mercifully, on the page.
Over time, they began to make sense. Over more time, they began to make some sense of the world.
“This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.” —Maria Popova
I am lucky. I saw how my father and other artists could take anguish and turn it into color and resonance and empathy through artistic expression. I saw my father’s untold stories released in stained glass and sculpture.
It feels as though we’re slipping into a Dark Age of suppression and conformity, driven by bullying, propaganda, and technology, but I believe it will be the artists and writers who save us.
We will save by combining efforts and remembering that, together, our narrative is stronger than any suppression.
AYTL Experiment #46: Collect any pain you feel. Use it. Funnel it all, all of it, into art this week.
Find a piece of art that is not in a museum or gallery. Find that drawing that someone left on a napkin in a diner or the graffiti near a creek. Find a child’s old drawing or a piece of a poem left unfinished, and write a homage to it. Or, repurpose it into the larger story of us, those who desire to connect with our words and expressions, to include and expand the meaning of what it is to be human.
Posted early to invite you to something … If you’re free, I’d love for you to join me on Saturday, March 29, for a moving meditation & intention-setting practice on Insight Timer.
On growing up in the church of art and story & week 46 of 52
Artist: Mark CarterAs a young kid, I drew my cat, Ouija (which I grossly misspelled), and gave it to my father’s good friend, Mark Carter. He later used it in this collage piece, which he gifted to my father. If you look at the upper left-hand corner, you can see my signature.
The fact that he kept this drawing of my perpetually annoyed cat speaks to the mind of a true artist.
Mark’s work can be found at the Thomas Dean Fine Art Gallery. He, like my father, is incredibly gifted and was a favorite of my parents’ friends because he was hilarious. He’d leave long voicemails in cartoon-like voices and make up telenovela-worthy stories about who he was and why he was leaving the message—all just to say, “Call me back.” I’d listen to them on repeat.
I grew up going to the church of Art & Story. My parents both read to me, and our bookshelves were full. We were not globe-trekking to museums with fancy art connoisseurs, but we had the stories and art at home. Our home smelled of old books and pencil dust. I loved holding my father’s large, bendable gray erasers to my nose and taking a deep inhale.
My sister and I helped my father collect old discarded mufflers and twisted tree branches for his sculptures. We found items on the side of the road, in the parks, and at a shuttered penitentiary where O. Henry wrote twisty fiction.
I saw artists revitalize the neighborhood I grew up in (before it was gentrified), and I read books that slowed my anxious mind enough to wrap me in a blanket of hope.
Nothing is more powerful than the distinct resilience of an artist or writers. Nothing.
And while I rebelled for a while, denying myself expression, art followed me. As I faced intense challenges (as we all do), I began to remember how powerful it can be to funnel pains and disappointments into words and stories, which appeared haphazardly, but mercifully, on the page.
Over time, they began to make sense. Over more time, they began to make some sense of the world.
“This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.” —Maria Popova
I am lucky. I saw how my father and other artists could take anguish and turn it into color and resonance and empathy through artistic expression. I saw my father’s untold stories released in stained glass and sculpture.
It feels as though we’re slipping into a Dark Age of suppression and conformity, driven by bullying, propaganda, and technology, but I believe it will be the artists and writers who save us.
We will save by combining efforts and remembering that, together, our narrative is stronger than any suppression.
AYTL Experiment #46: Collect any pain you feel. Use it. Funnel it all, all of it, into art this week.
Find a piece of art that is not in a museum or gallery. Find that drawing that someone left on a napkin in a diner or the graffiti near a creek. Find a child’s old drawing or a piece of a poem left unfinished, and write a homage to it. Or, repurpose it into the larger story of us, those who desire to connect with our words and expressions, to include and expand the meaning of what it is to be human.
Posted early to invite you to something … If you’re free, I’d love for you to join me on Saturday, March 29, for a moving meditation & intention-setting practice on Insight Timer.
On the church of art & story - week 46 of 52
Artist: Mark CarterAs a young kid, I drew my cat, Ouija (which I grossly misspelled), and gave it to my father’s good friend, Mark Carter. He later used it in this collage piece, which he gifted to my father. If you look at the upper left-hand corner, you can see my signature.
The fact that he kept this drawing of my perpetually annoyed cat speaks to the mind of a true artist.
Mark’s commercial work can be found at the Thomas Dean Fine Art Gallery. He, like my father, is incredibly gifted and was a favorite of my parents’ friends because he was hilarious. He’d leave long voicemails in cartoon-like voices and make up telenovela-worthy stories about who he was and why he was leaving the message—all just to say, “Call me back.” I’d listen to them on repeat.
I grew up going to the church of Art & Story. My parents both read to me, and our bookshelves were full. We were not globe-trekking to museums with fancy art connoisseurs, but we had the stories and art at home. Our home smelled of old books and pencil dust. I loved holding my father’s large, bendable gray erasers to my nose and taking a deep inhale.
My sister and I helped my father collect old discarded mufflers and twisted tree branches for his sculptures. We found items on the side of the road, in the parks, and at a shuttered penitentiary where O. Henry wrote twisty fiction.
I saw artists revitalize the neighborhood I grew up in (before it was gentrified), and I read books that slowed my anxious mind enough to wrap me in a blanket of hope.
Nothing is more powerful than the distinct resilience of an artist or writer’s mind. Nothing.And while I rebelled for a while, denying myself expression, art followed me. As I faced intense challenges (as we all do), I began to remember how powerful it can be to funnel pains and disappointments into words and stories, which appeared haphazardly, but mercifully, on the page.
Over time, they began to make sense. Over more time, they began to make some sense of the world.
“This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.” —Maria Popova
I am lucky. I saw how my father and other artists could take anguish and turn it into color and resonance and empathy through artistic expression. I saw my father’s untold stories released in stained glass and sculpture.
It feels as though we’re slipping into a Dark Age of suppression and conformity, driven by bullying, propaganda, and technology, but I believe it will be the artists and writers who save us.
We will save by combining efforts and remembering that, together, our narrative is stronger than any suppression.
AYTL Experiment #46: Collect any pain you feel. Use it. Funnel it all, all of it, into art this week.
Find a piece of art that is not in a museum or gallery. Find that drawing that someone left on a napkin in a diner or the graffiti near a creek. Find a child’s old drawing or a piece of a poem left unfinished, and write a homage to it. Or, repurpose it into the larger story of us, those who desire to connect with our words and expressions, to include and expand the meaning of what it is to be human.
Posted early to invite you to something … If you’re free, I’d love for you to join me on Saturday, March 29, for a moving meditation & intention-setting practice on Insight Timer.
March 26, 2025
Meditation: strength and confidence through stillness
This is part of a 3-part series on Insight Timer. Offering the first session to paid subscribers. Access the course here (or click the image).
