Leonie Dawson's Blog, page 72

Big Announcement: Academy Closing Down & SALE!

Hi treasures,

Big news to share.

I’ll share the major news now, and then share the details.

I am closing my Academy. For the month of September, I am holding a Closing Down Sale so you can buy my Academy courses at 80% off.

(You can find sale here.)

A request: please take the time to read through before writing in questions as I will likely answer it below.

After eight glorious, precious, wonderful years and thousands of members, it’s time to close my Shining Biz + Life Academy. 

This has been a huge and difficult decision that I’ve been sitting with for a long time, but I know without a doubt it is the right move to make. I feel like something new is coming, but I need to clear the space first for it to be birthed through.

The Academy has been an incredible gift in my life for so long. It’s been one of my biggest income earners, sure, but it’s brought me a huge amount of joy to see my members lives and businesses grow. I’ve met some of my dearest friends through the Academy. So many members have been in there since the day it began… I feel humbled by the loyalty and love, grateful that it’s been a worthy investment for them. I’ve met so many of them in real life, at the Shining Academy conference, and over coaching calls and our mastermind forum. It’s been a tremendous gift.

It’s been a joy to have a vessel to pour my work, insights and ideas over the years. To have a central place for my life’s work, to have supporters who wanted my next course. It allowed me to create at an unparalleled rate – at least 12 courses a year, totalling over 140+ courses all together.

The Academy was born not long after my first child was born, in 2010. As I held her, breastfeeding in the middle of the night, wondering how on earth I would make enough money to not have to go back to my public service career, I had a huge divine download from my angels. I saw the vision of the Academy, and how many it would serve, and I scrawled it on the paper. It was for the first few years called the Goddess Circle, and had name changes as I evolved.

It’s felt like such a sacred thing to me – to have received that guidance from my angels, to have followed through on it and seen such extraordinary blessings in my life from it. And now that my angels are nudging me to close and complete this cycle, I feel it would be disingenuous of me to keep going just for the money. It wouldn’t honour the sacred gift of it all. It started with divine guidance, and so it ends with divine guidance.

Academy closing down sale

And so, to release my life’s catalogue of work, I am running an Academy bundle closing sale for the month of September. It’s your last chance to get any of my work before they are released into the great creative void from where they came (i.e. gone gone goneskis).

What you’ll receive:

100+ courses
Access to the Academy membership site for 12 months until 1 October 2019.

What this bundle sale does NOT include:

Access to the Academy mastermind – it is now closed to anyone but existing Academy members.
My Academy group coaching calls for the next year – again, closed to anyone but existing Academy members.
One new course a month released for the next year – again, closed to anyone but existing Academy members.

The reason I’ve done it this way is because I wanted to create a win-win-win situation for everyone involved. Provide a cut price for courses for anyone who wanted them before they were gone, while honouring and cherishing my current Academy members.

If you are already a current Academy member:

I shared this news via email and in our mastermind two months ago, and cancelled all payments so I could gift all of you up to 14 months free Academy membership in thanks for your loyal support.
As a current Academy member you’ll also receive 14 exclusive new courses (free) that will not be available to people in the sale.
As a current Academy member you’ll also receive 14 group coaching calls (free) that are not available to people in this sale.

Frequently Asked Questions:
Are you shutting down your businesses? Are you closing down? WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEXT?

No, I’ll still be “in business”.

The Academy is one of three income streams I have – my Shining Year workbooks is one, and my latest “I’m bored” side project was to break the world record to build to the highest rank in doTERRA.

I just signed a multi-year book deal with BenBella publishing to take the workbooks to an even bigger audience and into bookstores. I’m so bloody excited, it feels like a new lease on life for those babies!

So in terms of cashycashola, we’re totally fine with going down to just two income streams again for a while. I’m also a cheapskate financially, so have a shit tonne of savings. I don’t plan on using those savings at all however.

I don’t make business decisions lightly – I’m the sole breadwinner of my family and have been for 8 years. I’ve got enough runs on the board now for me and my husband to have the confidence to remove an income stream.

And then I’ll create another income stream. In terms of what next, I’m not sure. I’m leaving the space for whatever wants to come through. I suspect it will be either books or courses.

Are you shutting down the Academy because it doesn’t make money anymore?

LOLZ. NOPE. It’s been hugely financially successful. I’m just ready for something new.

Is a membership model redundant now?

Nope, it’s just something I feel like I’ve mastered for now, and I’m ready for something new.

Did you consider selling it off?

LOLZ NOPE. I’ve yet to meet another Leonie. The connection between me and my members is far too intimate to try and surrogate them onto another person/company. Is that a failure of this personality-based business model? Sure. But it’s also brought me a lot of success, and I don’t want to run a faceless business. Being front and centre of my business feels like the best way for me to do it.

Can I buy any of the Academy courses individually?

Sorry, no. Bundle only.

Will you be selling any of these courses after this sale?

No, they are retiring permanently. Being put out to pasture like the glorious donkeys they have been.

Are the courses printed materials or digital?

Defo digital! You’ll receive access to the Academy membership site with all the courses there.

Are the courses downloadable?

Yes!

Will you still be selling the yearly goals workbooks?

100% yes!!!

These are a separate business to the Academy.

I’ve signed a major publishing deal with BenBella in the US to release these in 2019 and 2020!

Most of all: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Academy has been a delicious, joyful ride for so many years.

I feel so blessed to have been able to share my work in this way and connect with so many of you.

I also honour the Academy and its members for being able to fund so many wonderful philanthropic efforts to including:

building a library in Vietnam through Room to Read
helping build a 6 room library in West Ghana through Pencils of Promise
being in the top 1% of Kiva lenders internationally
supporting many more charities including World Vision, Red Cross, WWF and Doctors Without Borders.

The Academy was born in love, and it ends in love too.

Thank you as always… just for being you.

Let me know if you have any questions – email support@leoniedawson.com and I’ll answer personally. Because I’ve missed doing that kind of stuff, and need to be able to hear ya’ll better. Probably isn’t sustainable long-term to do it like that, but it’s what is needed for right now. Be patient with me… I’ll respond as soon as I can, but not before I tend to my nest and family first.

To beautiful endings, and new beginnings too.

Bright love,

On Arriving

This is in some ways, a series. Part One, Two and Three here. This is the final chapter, in some ways. But of course, it’s just the beginning too.

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I came with very few hopes and expectations.

Those have been dashed long ago on the cliffs of other years, other places, other dreams.

I just wanted to be pragmatic:

If this place was okay for us, we might stay. If it didn’t work out, that’s fine too, and we’d have another adventure. At least I wouldn’t feel stuck anymore.

I had to, otherwise the vice grip of Needing To Make The Right Decision For The Rest Of My Life would have held me hostage.

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It was a Saturday afternoon by the time we drove down from the green leaved hinterlands towards the sea.

We cut through swathes of sugar cane peppered with palm trees: the foliage of my childhood.

The air is sweet, the mountains those old volcanic mounds, now plump with life. All of it so deeply familiar.

The incessant, vivid relief. This land that is my not my birth place, but so very close in all the ways I adore.

I didn’t know how much I needed this, until I went grey and lifeless without it.

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Through the sugar cane, and out onto the coastal plains loaded with gums and wattles. Down a dirt track to the AirBnB bush cottage we are staying in while we wait for our furniture to arrive.

It is rainforested, just like our old acreage in Kuranda used to be. That acreage had been our dream come true, but it was in the wrong place for us. And we’d had to give it up, let it go, and wrestle with the loss of it since.

And here we were, back again, on a rainforested acreage, pulling up at the sweetest wooden shack. A scrub turkey runs in front of us and we shriek TURKEY DURKEY! We have missed them so dearly, our odd, ridiculous, glorious friends. Our acreage had come with free pets – scrub turkeys and pademelons and Ulysses butterflies as big as my hand and guinea fowl and lace monitor lizards and all the birds in the world, the kookaburras and the catbirds and the curlews and the kingfishers and the fruit doves and that one strange bird that flew to my husband’s shoulder and refused to leave. It had been painfully hard to leave them, to leave those friends. It was a wild life, glorious in its wildness, and we’ve struggled with its loss ever since. But here was one rediscovered friend, and I’ve never been more excited to see that extraordinary fan of a tail.

We tumbled out, and settled in, barefoot of course.

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We had been worrying about her before then. Worried that she was losing her joy, her spark, her light. She began sighing, and telling us she felt glum.

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My husband and I both were raised in childhoods full of wild. He spent his tramping around army camps, cracking frozen rivers in Tasmania and hiking up boulder-soaked mountains in the Hunter Valley. I’d spent mine on a cattle farm in the Whitsundays, riding horses bareback in rivers, befriending wild cats, building elaborate mud constructions in the lake. It was our connection to nature that saved us in many ways when our childhoods were painful, confusing, sad, broken. That deeply, mystical love of earth has sustained us through our lives, the thread so strong it carries on.

And we wanted the same for our kids.

We wanted our children to have wild lives. With a deep, close connection with nature, an abiding love of Mother Earth that would carry them through for the rest of their life.

We’d experienced that kind of wildness before when we had our acreage, and noticed the shift in our kids and in US when we moved to the colder city. We became insular, enclosed, cut off, cautious, miserable. We started living in our heads instead of our bodies and hearts.

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What’s more, we worried about both of our girls. Our bush kids were becoming city kids. They didn’t want to play in the backyard, they were becoming increasingly afraid of nature. It was a constant struggle to get them outside for even the smallest amounts of times. We feared they were losing their inner wild child, afraid they would grow up bereft of that wild spirit. And of course so many can thrive and connect with Earth in places like that. But we couldn’t and we didn’t need to.

It was bloody hard to make the decision to move again, and I judged and doubted myself fiercely. But the longing was too much. We had to leap again. And so we did.

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Here we are.

We took them to the ocean, they were timid and locked up. They stayed beside us tightly, had freak outs walking through the dune scrub. My youngest at first refused the whole experience, declaring that she hated the beach. They tentatively splashed, and both of them cried because they got water in their eyes. My kids had become city kids, and they were fish out of water.

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I looked at my husband with worried eyes and he said “Don’t worry, give it time.”

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We move into our new house. We bought a little suburban house as a hub to find our feet, our little nook along the coast. Eventually we might buy an acreage again.

We begin the process of settling in, finding ourselves, and our way, and our place in this place.

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It’s been two months.

How are we settling in?

Here’s my notes:

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First up: homeschooling.

I’ll be honest with you. I was starting to lose my joy for it before. I felt too isolated, too much like I had to do it all on my own. I tried connecting in with other homeschoolers in Canberra. There were some lovely peeps, but it didn’t feel like enough.

Once we arrived, I started connecting in with other homeschoolers. And discovering just how much magic there was here, how vivid and wide and HUGE the homeschool community is here.

There are homeschool classes and meetups and co-ops out the wazoo. We could be triply booked every hour of every day and still have more things to do. There’s Forest School and Beach School and Garden School and all the educational possibilities under the sun. Equine therapy, art, music, gymnastics, yoga, science, robotics, drones… not to mention all the run of the mill classes. We do more classes/meetups here in a week than we did in 18 months in Canberra.

It’s fascinating because population-wise, Canberra and Sunshine Coast have a similar population (the Coast just has the population more spread out), but the homeschooling community would be at least 5x larger. And it is active as fuck (that’s the scientific term for it I believe). And the homeschooling community follow the same educational ethos as we do of eclectic, project-based, vaguely unschoolish learning (not strict curriculum followers or overtly religious). And the peeps are similar to us… hippy-ish types who aren’t into drugs. It’s bloody easy to make friends (both for mamas and kids!)

Take this week for example:

We went out to an acreage in the rainforest for a Book Week-themed homeschool co-op. The kids played in this incredible play area with all the other homeschooler kids of all ages. We traipsed down to let the ducks out and collect and examine duck eggs, and ate wild raspberries and peaches from the orchard, and the orchard owner taught us about the varieties of plants they grow and how they grow best. I read books rambunctiously in a stupid cardboard hat that I loved and the kids loved. Afterwards, the kids went and wrote and illustrated their own books. And then they made tents and lean-tos with bamboo. And all this incredible learning happened across all “school subjects” and it was so much damn fun for all of us.

Then we’re off to a homeschooling co-op where we drop them off for a few hours, and they do English and Geography and Science and Art explorations in a big garden with more friends.

We went to the beach (always the best place for P.E., geography and biology learning!)

My kids also had a private swim class with one of their co-op tutors.

And today we had an awesome family day where we went to The Ginger Factory, and went on this amazing themed boat ride that takes you around the world through puppets and it was the best Geography lesson I’ve ever taken. Came home, decorated our own gingerbread women and the kids decided to do a scavenger hunt with binoculars to see what wildlife they can find in their backyard. Then some worksheets and both the kids wanted to do twice the amount I asked them to do. And now they are doing some gaming with their Padre (they learned some Spanish and decided that’s what they call their Daddy-o now and it’s hilarious and we are going with it).

All in all, weeks are full and glorious and I feel totally saturated with love for this homeschooling community and its connections and possibilities.

Can you tell I’m excited? FUCK I AM EXCITED.

Can you tell I’m relieved? FUCK I AM RELIEVED.

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Honestly, I was struggling with homeschooling by the end of last year. I felt isolated, and alone. We were so close to going back to Canberra’s Steiner school, but decided not to as that particular school no longer felt like the right fit for us anymore. I started looking around at other schools in Canberra, but none of them felt like they were the right fit either. We started feeling really bloody stuck.

By moving here, we wanted to give ourselves all the educational possibilities under the sun. We knew the homeschooling community was more active here, and we figured we’d try it out here for a while, and if we needed to do a return to school, there were loads of schooling options here in terms of alternative and independent schools.

Now that we’re here, I realise that this was a huge piece of the homeschooling puzzle that was missing for us. We have so many friends and activities now. My husband said to me a few weeks ago: “I don’t even know if the kids could go back to school now… they are too busy!”

It feels incredibly scrumptious. I am so grateful that we’ve found such a glorious nook for homeschoolers. I knew it would be more active, but I had no idea just how glorious it would be.

And I don’t know how I could leave now… I think I would be hard pressed finding a homeschooling community like this one in Australia.

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So that’s homeschooling. What else?

Oh yes.

The weather.

We left an alpine city that spends about 8 months of the year in Winter.

Now we are in the sub-tropics, where even in the depths of Winter, my kids can rum amok in the backyard with water pistols and togs on. (Togs, by the way, is Queenslander language for swimming costumes. TOGS! It’s short, it’s useful, it feels great to say, it gets the job done. TOGS! Take it, use it, spread it! TOGS!)

Me and my husband are both tropics-loving creatures, so the relief we feel is IMMENSE.

Sunlight! On my shoulders! Makes me happy! Like I should be!

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The colours.

I didn’t realise how much I needed this, how deficit my eyes were, craving colour.

I didn’t know how much I needed the tropics, how much I was hungry for those deep blue skies and vivid greens bursting with chlorophyll. All I knew was that I was starting to fade into grey, that my husband looked at me kindly and said “you’ve been losing your spark more and more, and I don’t know what to do without that spark of yours, so I think I need to take you home.”

And home isn’t a place we’ve lived before but it’s a state and it’s an ocean and sugar cane and farms and wide swathes of land. And mostly it’s these colours, the turquoise and lime, an earth radiating with energy and life.

And I got here, and my eyes are full, and my heart is filling up too. And all the beauty comes into me and wants to come out as art and the watercolours and ink got dusted off. I didn’t know my joy and my art was so intrinsically tied to these colours of the land, to the ocean, to this sunlight.

But now I do know. I’m going to hold onto that knowing so tightly. The knowledge of what I need to thrive.

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Some stories of days I’ve had here.

Magic days, so full of life and love and beauty they have filled my dusty, bare cup.

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Me + Jodles, instant basket weaving BFFs

The first: one of those magical days of synchronicity and instant friendship clicking into place.

We went to a basket weaving workshop this morning, as we hippies are apt to do.

We pulled up in the carpark beside another car. I smiled and said hello to the other mother, and she did a double take and asked me if I was Leonie. She’s been reading my blog for ten years (!!!!) and I liked the cut of her jib so I declared us instant BFFs. We shared pregnancies with both our kids and spent the rest of the morning gasbagging and discovering all our other synchronicities while our kids ran wild in the amazing garden.

Fuck all basket weaving was done, but the weaving of connection and community and conversation.

We didn’t want the day to end so we convoyed over to an outdoor cafe to eat while the children roamed and played and adopted another kid into their merry band.

We didn’t get home until the end of the day, all of us muddy and smile-strewn.

What a happy, full heart I have. It’s been too long since a day like that happened. I’m so glad the rain has arrived and is drenching my life with such succulence.

The second: where adventure flows into the next.

Go to the park and beach with my dearest darling Kel who was visiting from Kuranda. She was my closest friend while I was there, and was also one of my biggest supports while I had hyperemesis gravidarum and was even there as my acupuncturist/doula for Beth’s birth. I adore her sage counsel, her hilarious humour, her huge heart and how she lives her life. Our daughters were sweet friends during that time, and it was pure magic to see them reconnect again, romping in the sand and sea and sun like the wild blooming homeschoolers they are. 

And then we were off to a homeschool photos day held on a magic farm nearby, with the most incredible handcrafted building. 

On the way home I realised we were driving past my lovely friend Nadine’s place so we pulled over to say hello and help feed the horses and alpacas their dinner.

Then we drove home into the night, moon brimming and sugar cane fires burning, the air smelling so very sweet.

Gladness soaking my very bones.

I feel so very, very lucky.

The third: we drive down to visit our basket weaving BFFs.

Spoiler alert: the hastily-declared BFF prophecy is coming true.

We are thick as thieves, and our identically-aged/looking children are too.

The kids make art and LEGO and do science experiments and show each other their favourite books and play in the sun and make all manner of plans. And we drink tea and have chocolate cake and there’s a million moments I’m healed as a homeschooling mama and a heart in those conversations. We go for a walk around a warm sea lake, and clamber out onto a fallen tree. And I’m standing out there, watching my kids so alive and bright in the mud and the salt and the eucalypt, and all the beauty around me.

And I realise this:

I know why I was so sad before now. I was missing this life.

Somehow my heart knew this life was out here, this alternate reality. And my heart was wrung with grief at its loss.

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I had given up hope

of things ever being good again.

This?

How good this is, how perfectly it fits us?

This is the sweetest, most delightful surprise.

Better than my highest hopes.

What a miracle.

This morning we went to the beach. It’s been two months since we arrived. The difference was profound. Our children, bare foot, whooping and running through the dunes. No longer timing. No longer holding back. Brave crested salt children leaping in the waves with glad hearts. Sandy and alive and at home. Wild children in the making, their spirits and bodies blooming.

So glad I didn’t give up on this need and value of mine for my children to grow up wild. So glad to have made the hard choice, the one that feels so very easy now.

Thank you for sharing this winding, wonderful journey with me.

I am so very grateful and blessed.

With love and turquoise turquoise turquoise everywhere,

P.S. I’m sitting in a little wooden cafe by the beach as I type this. They are playing my soul music: James Taylor and Paul Simon… even an independent album from some friends of friends in Canberra that I’ve always loved and have never heard in public, ever ever. They have tea in chipped cups and delicious lemon, coconut, meringue pie. I’m looking out over the trees. There is a labrador wandering around outside, greeting customers, being patted by the waitress. I think he’s the cafe dog.

This morning I found a journal entry from February. I was cold with fury, desolate with desperation.

I will never find the right place for us. I will never feel at home again. I have to give up on my dreams. I don’t know how I got so far off my path. I feel like I’ve made the biggest mistakes in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever feel happy with my life and where I live again.

I read it out to my husband as we sat outside, under a vivid blue sky, children running wild and free again amongst luminous green. Our life, so easy and joyous again.

And we laughed at how little we knew then, at how THIS was waiting for us.

I don’t know how we got so lost. But we’ve made it back.

And our pockets are full to brimming with even more lessons, and love.

We venture forward with all those things.

It was hard, but it was needed.

P.P.S. I’m never fucking leaving the tropics again. Ha!

If ya need me, I’ll be right here. Nestled in the blues and greens with these ones I love the most.

From Here To There

Dearests,

Where were we, my loves?

I’d fallen from a cliff into depression, and spent over two years fretting over where to live.

Finally, we made a decision, turned the car north and left the city.

This is the story that comes after.

Of the journey between here and there.

Of the space after the leap before we land.

Of Leonie pretending she’s Paul Theroux or Bill Bryson, travel writer for the day.

Of the insights that emerged from a road trip across inland Australia.

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We pointed the car’s nose north and headed out of Canberra for the second momentous time in our lives.

The children were hungry before we even got out of the suburbs (of course).

When you are going on a long trip, it feels like the time spent trying to get out of your own city seems infuriatingly long. SET ME FREE DAMNEST CITY, I LONG FOR THE OPEN ROAD!

At last, onto the highway. North to Yass, Boorowa, Cowra and beyond.

We drive up along the alpine ridges through platypus country, take unexpected backroads down tiny country roads, watch the morning light sprite over frosted gum trees.

I imagine myself living in every house we pass, wondering what life would be like if this was home.

Who lives here? How did they end up here? Are they happy?

Could I live here? Would I be happy here?

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We begin playing a game in the car, a game we will come to rue the moment it fizzed into my overexcitable brain:

KIDS! EVERY TIME YOU SEE AN ANIMAL, YOU MUST SHOUT WHAT SOUND IT MAKES!

It was glorious fun for quite a long while there.

It was a car that echoed with 80% BAAAAS, 15% MOOOOOOS, 3% NEEEEEEEEEEEEIGHS and 2% WOOOOF, BOING BOING BOING (kangaroos and rabbits) and MEEEEEEH (goat).

I guess that gives you a fairly good indication of the country we drove through.

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It’s a long ass journey, from there to here. Australia, the land of the great expanse, long stretches of road with no one in sight.

The first night, we drive off the alpine ridge and descend down into the western plains. Here, there’s a big country town that I’ve dismissed for years. We’d stopped here 16 years ago, right at the beginning of adulthood and life, on our trek to move to Canberra for the first time. We were young and broke back then, so we stayed at the cheapest hotel on the cheapest street. It was littered with trucks and fuel stations and fast food joints. That’s all I saw, and it left a dusty aftertaste in my mouth, so for years afterwards I called it f: Dubbo, The Overgrown Truckstop.

My husband likes to tease me for my snap judgments, so for the past 16 years, his first response to questions about where he’d like to holiday or move to has always been a deadpan: Why, Dubbo of course. And I would respond in furious tones: NEVER! FUCK DUBBO! GRUMBLE TRUCKSTOP GRUMBLE!  And we would both laugh wildly. (I should mention that we’re at that phase in our relationship that our inside jokes are so inside they are inbred and barely comprehensible even to us. This does not make them any less funny however – the ridiculousness of just how recycled and worn they are make them even better. Like fine wine, our repertoire of old couple jokes.)

So my husband was so excited to AT LAST be staying in our favourite joke town that he suggested we stay for TWO NIGHTS and really live it up. And hey, why don’t we finally go to the zoo there too?

Now, from the outside, it would look like I would be the opinionated driving force in the relationship: in public, I’m extroverted, loud, obnoxious, frequently inappropriate, flamboyantly ambitious. My husband is the gentle, quiet quintessential introvert who appears to be mildly amused by my behaviour. Behind the scenes in life though, our roles reverse. He likes to talk more, I prefer to have my head jammed firmly in a book. He wants to discuss feelings, I want to watch TV. He makes most decisions on what we do on a day-to-day basis, I don’t really care either way. I’d rather just sit and read, thanks, so he’s going to need to decide if we leave the house and where we are going. This may also be due to the fact he’s a Rebel, I’m an Obliger and we’re in a quintessential Rebel-Obliger relationship (as coined by the ever fabulous Gretchen Rubin).

All of that, of course is a very long way of saying: Chris wanted to do something, so I went along with it as I usually do. I don’t know why I didn’t say that to begin with, or why it even needs saying, but there it is. I’m a writer. It’s what I do. If I’m ever erring on whether I should include more details or not, I’ll take more details for 600, thanks Alex.

So that’s how we ended up staying in Dubbo for two nights. Because of a joke and a zoo. We aren’t broke anymore, so we rented a sweet little cottage in a sweet part of town. It also meant our absurd white fluffy dog could stay with us so she could continue her decade-long obsession with staring at my husband. I don’t blame her, it’s my obsession too. Here’s the cottage, incase you ever find yourself there because of a joke and a zoo too. We bunkered down for the night, ordering Hogs Breath dinner to be delivered (OH THE DELIGHT!!!!!!) and I washed my kids in the little old tub at the bottom of the shower.

The next day we went to the Holy Grail: DUBBO ZOOOOO. And immediately shelled out to hire a golf cart to tour the zoo because FUCK YES GOLF CARTS. Dubbo Zoo is a big ass zoo that stretches for kilometres. You can walk, bicycle, take your car or hire a zoo golf cart. HIRE THE FUCKING GOLF CART FOR THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE GUYZZZZ. NO OTHER OPTION IS WORTH LIVING FOR. The golf cart was honestly at least 80% of our zoo excitement as a conservative estimate. Sure, there were animals, but GODDAMN A ZEBRA PRINTED GOLF CART WITH 4WD WHEELS. I’m trying to think of other notable memories from the zoo and the below is the sum total of our day beyond those golf carts:

Meerkats are terrified of planes as they believe it is a bird of prey.

“Honey, have we ever seen an elephant before IRL? I can’t remember?”

“Ummm… YES! Don’t you remember like… ALL OF INDIA? And all the elephant-related traffic jams?”

“Oh! Yes! There’s that!”

(I’m the forgetful one.)

We studied hippopotamus (hippopotamusses? hippopotami?) for a long time. In particular, their pooping habits. This stems from our family obsession of this video clip. (LINK) My kids are also at the stage where butts and farts and poops are pretty much the funniest thing in existence, so they were chanting “OOOH YEAH! JUICY JUICY HIPPO BUTT! HIPPO’S GOT A JUICY BUTT BUTT” and taking extremely zoomed in photos of said juicy hippo butt butt. I duly noted down in my homeschooling mother’s journal the important lesson that had taken place in animal biology that day.

And then we toddled back to that sweet little cottage to ponder how early we could order Hog’s Breath to be delivered again.

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The next day we take more Google Maps-instigated back roads and wonder what sound we are supposed to shriek when we see EMUS!

I’d like to take this opportunity to provide an important pronunciation lesson for all Americans.

Emu is NOT pronounced E-moooo.

It’s pronounced E-mew.

It’s our bird, so I reckon we get pronunciation rights on it.

Anyways, we saw ’em.

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We drive through the largest nature reserve in Australia, all red dirt and black-barked trees.

There are slices of excitement when we see wild goats and a wilder pig.

Mostly I just let the sun wash over me and feel gladness:

for a new road, a new view, for land I haven’t seen with these eyes before.

I’m no longer stuck in indecision, I’m free and moving forward.

This is a grand adventure, no longer the sunken regret of my life.

The relief is immense.

It grows warmer as we travel north and I start to peel off winter layers.

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My husband’s Pepsi explodes in the car somewhere between Dubbo and Moree, soaking all four of us, our seats, the car ceiling, our confused dog.

We can barely breathe for laughing so hard. We pull over to find towels to mop us all up and to get new clothes for thoroughly drenched me. We drive off again, slightly sticky skin for the rest of the day.

I roll up my sleeves, let the light seep in.

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The trees and mountains begin to thin until we realise they have thinned so much they are non-existent. We are in flat-as-a-tack cotton country. There is nothing here. Nothing but flat lands, and cotton. We marvel at how you can stare for miles until the mirages make your eyes wobble.

I text one of my dearests who grew up here and left as an adult.

Fuck me mate, your joint is thrill-a-minute. So much to see!

I take a photo of the void as evidence. There’s three things to see in every direction you face: land that stretches unchanged in colour, texture or flora, horizon, parched blue sky. There’s less here than in the desert.

She messages me back:

I used to dream of what it would be like one day to see a mountain.

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That thought sticks with me.

Her, as a little girl, hearing about mountains, wondering what those magical things must be like. It seems to me we are all raised with those blind spots, of the things that weren’t visible in our reality, until one day they suddenly were. I wonder what soul lessons must be born from living in this kind of sparse triptych painting, what it would feel like to walk the landscape as the tallest vertical around. Would you feel more alive to the blunt, bare, naked truth of it all: that we are spinning on a ball in space, only just barely held down by gravity?

These are the kinds of things I think of.

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The cotton trucks leave wafts in their wake, and the cotton balls cling to the sides of the road. It looks like it is snowing, it looks like rabbits have had their tails caught in a weed, it looks like the truck drivers have been weeping and thrown their spent tissues as they went.

My children marvel at it out the window, and I smugly tell my husband this is the best geography class our kids could ever take.

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Just when I think I can’t bear the bare anymore, vegetation begins to re-emerge again, as does such anomalies as mounds of grass! Trees! Rivers! Oh look! A hill! A mountain range off in the distance!

My palette has been washed anew and my eyes can not be more excited to have more things to fixate on.

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CACTUS! I SEE A CACTUS!

First one, then another. We crow and crane to search for more. My children haven’t seen wild cacti before, and each new sighting is a miracle. Within an hour, the far and few between sightings begin to cluster until cacti is our new normal.

The sunlight slants golden red by afternoon. It’s not sunset, but there’s a fire somewhere, sending up great gobs of smoke, choking all other colours out.

We keep driving as the land grows greener and the temperature raises higher celcius by gradual celcius.

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We cross the Queensland border, stop at a motel at at the river town of Goondiwindi.

My eldest daughter gets out of the car.

It’s been four years since we left Queensland. She’d spent her first four years there and was used to living barefoot, or in thongs if shoes were essential. So much so that when we’d moved to Tasmania and suddenly rediscovered the need for shoes, we’d had a bloody hard time finding footwear she could tolerate.

“Mum, please! These are so uncomfortable! I don’t want to wear shoes! They feel so bad around my feet! I don’t like it!”

It took months of experimenting and buying different styles of shoes before she didn’t complain. And then she’d adapted, and we didn’t hear anything more about her hatred of shoes.

Until we crossed the border back into Queensland, four years later.

Unannounced, my daughter discards her shoes and informs me:

“I won’t be wearing shoes ever again, I’ve decided. We are in Barefoot Country and I’m going to be the Barefoot Kid again!”

My husband and I blink and stare at her, then each other.

We shrug and say:

“Okay. Sounds good honey.”

We had no idea it had still been weighing so heavily on her soul/sole.

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The motel owner comes over to give us milk, and stays with us, talking for a long time. She kneels on the ground, pats our dog, talks to our kids. She asks us questions about our life and tells us about hers and is all round the most friendly person we’ve met in years.

My husband and I turn to each other, weary, blinking.

We’d forgotten how friendly people can be out of the city. We’d forgotten how much we’d missed this.

Is this why we’d grown so sad?

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My barefoot children decide that since they are officially in the semi-tropical north again, they need to make use of the hotel pool. It may be dead of winter, but the temperature is 20 degrees – something we hadn’t felt in months in Canberra, and it would have been months more before we felt it again.

I let them wade, see the puffer-jacketed Queenslanders oggle at us.

I know what they are thinking:

Bloody Southerners.

It’s what we used to think when we were here and saw Victorians sunbaking in Airlie Beach in July.

I laugh. This winter, we are the crazy Southerners feasting on 20 degrees.

Next winter, we will return to our Queenslander ways of shivering under 25.

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The next morning my barefoot children clamber in the backseat, restless for landing.

Today is the day we turn east – glad east – and slip off the ranges into the coast, to greens and blues, to our new home.

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I don’t know what we were expecting on this trip following the Queensland border towards the sea.

It’s land we haven’t traversed before which continues to make me giddy.

We thought it would gradually grow busier, denser with people and population.

Instead we drive for hours through shrub. The only signs of people are the tiny dirt roads every so often with a wooden sign denoting the property name. I don’t know what they farm here: cows? Sheep?

We see nothing, and can only assume they are farming dirt and trees.

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Still, there’s a sweet relief in my bones when I see the tell-tale signs of my home state:

The palm trees. A sky that is saturated cornflower blue.

The wooden Queenslander houses in all their verandah-ed glory.

I didn’t know how attached I was.

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Finally the great expanse of dust and tree farming ends and becomes the greens of horse studs instead. We manoeuvre through the industrial expanse of Toowoomba before suddenly hurtling down the range. It is steep – far steeper than we expected, and our car begins to shriek in resistance.

My husband and I give each other Looks, and hold our breaths until we can finally pull off.

I picture the rest of the day being swallowed with mechanics and maybe a new car. We test and check, and by we, I mean my husband. Once he’s satisfied it was an anomaly, we saddle up and carry on east. (Spoiler alert: it ended up shitting its pants a couple months later.)

East and the inland becomes hinterland as we swarm closer to the sea. The greens become greener, the blue becomes bluer. We drive through rainforest, past wildly shaped mountains, remnants of volcano lava cores now lush with trees. Villages are sprinkled through here: fudge stores and antique shops, all the kinds of things that are generally fucking useless to locals but fabulous for tourists.

Under a motorway, then up a highway, past the stories of my husband’s youth.

This is near where my friend died, he tells me.

And we are silent because even though it is new land for me, it is old for him, and it comes with its own stories both glad and hard.

And I am grateful because he’s said yes to this, yes to me yet again, yes to finding what our family needs together. Despite all his reservations, he’s taken the leap with hand in mine.

And I am full of love for him, grateful for his grace.

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The sign points to our new suburb on the Sunshine Coast.

We indicate and turn towards it.

At some point, between the gums and the gullies and that great golden light flickering, I turn to Chris and say:

You know, all this talk and soul searching about where home is, and I’ve been thinking of something.

People always ask me why we don’t move overseas. We can live anywhere, so why wouldn’t we live in France, or Japan? But I’ve never even toyed with the idea, it’s never once tempted me, and I don’t think you’ve ever wanted to either.

And I’ve been thinking about why that is, and I think for me it’s because I would become so homesick for this land. Remember when we spent a month in India and Singapore, and when we got home, I just sank down on the ground outside of the bus stop? I missed the Australian dirt so very much.

I think at the very heart of it all, Australia is my home. And it hasn’t been one town or one place for me to call home, it’s been all of Australia. I just love her, all of her.

And I feel so very lucky that I’ve been able to love so much of her.

All this time I’ve been looking for home and I’ve been inside her all along.

And he smiles, and he nods. He loves her just like I do. And we turn and watch her great beauty unfolding beneath our wheels.

(To be continued… as ever…)

 

On Leaving…

I came back because of them.

Them, the women who have known and loved me for years.

Loved me long before I was a mother, long before I was The Leonie Dawson.

There’s the one who loved me when I was a teenager, greeting me on my first day of boarding school. I was mildly terrified at what this new world of boxes would bear, but I saw her open face and kind eyes and wide open smile, and knew I was safe with her.

There’s the one who had purple hair when I first met her, who talked loudly about her womb in an elevator filled with stiff public servants. I saw her and knew I wanted to be just like her. She was the one who led me by hand into my first women’s circle, to that moment I knew I was home, to that knowing I’d been walking to a women’s circle for all the moments before.

There’s the tiny, wild haired woman who was sitting in that circle, loving openly with her big brave heart. We’ve walked kindred journeys into motherhood and that tough, knee-skinning initiation. She is grace and courage and warmth.

There’s the one who I sat beside at cubicle desks for 7 years. She was apparently my boss, but most of all she was my comrade, my sister, my co-conspirator in mischief and glee. A mutual friend once remarked: “You two were the most unlikely love story on Level 11. Complete opposites who fit together like puzzle pieces.” She, the fastidious, elegantly dressed Virgo who willingly talks about her discomfort about all things hippy and spiritual, and her love of all things shallow. Me, the wild haired messy Scorpio who is a 24/7 channel for hippy, spiritual and deep. Together: unconditional love and mutual adoration.

These are the women I came back for.

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I’ve had many glorious adventures in the past eight years. Trolloped all over the country. Two years in the Whitsundays in a tiny old wooden cottage my grandmother had lived in, spending our days by the beach, watching eagles in the backyard, listening to the sounds of the sugar mill heaving at the end of our street. A few months in Cairns, in that wild hot tropics, living in that treehouse, marvelling at the magic and the mould, visiting every white-sanded beach around. A couple of years on an acreage in the rainforest that I had hoped would be our forever home, but was too wild and unsettled for us. I still miss that timber home with vaulted ceilings and pademelons out the back and kookaburras that flew through our lounge room. That hippy village with its markets weaving down the hills and rainforest. Six months in Tasmania, that isolated island at the bottom of isolated island of Australia. Daily walks on a cold, brilliant blue beach, gazing up at the great snow-capped mountain each day. Being woken by him, as excited as a boy, at 5am. Get up, get up, it’s fucking SNOWING! It fulfilled my husband’s teenage wish to return there. My husband said six months there was worth thousands of dollars in therapy sessions.

And then one night after I’d fallen and hurt my foot badly, an injury that would take another 18 months to recover from, I was overcome with homesickness for my Canberra people. My foot was swollen and I couldn’t sleep. The Antartic wind hurtled around our house on the hill at midnight. I was tired of feeling alone, tired of being the new girl in town, tired of feeling like we had no one to call on.

I was faced with a sliding doors moment.

I knew if I woke my husband and told him, he would agree to move.

If I didn’t, we would stay, on that out of the way island that was at equal turns fiercely cold and stunningly beautiful.

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In a moment that I would come to regret more than any other decision I’ve made in my life, I woke him.

Five days later, we had bought a nice suburban house online, and one month later we were landing back in Canberra.

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At first I was giddy to feel so comfortable, so at ease, so at home.

I adored seeing my old friends so dearly. It felt deliciously safe to have them just around the corner from me.

It was a gift to have that time to be together, to see our own kids become friends too.

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But within a few months, I was begging Chris to let me remake that decision, to go back to that midnight moment. The alpine suburban life felt like the saddest, beigest outcome after all our dreams of wild adventures and acreages. We felt like rainbow rainforest parrots caged, colours fading fast.

I was afraid of leaving too: I didn’t want to make the wrong decision. Didn’t want to find myself lonely again. Scared of losing the support I had outside my husband and kids.

To our excruciating surprise, it took almost two and a half more years to leave. We kept trying in earnest, and feeling utterly trapped and stuck. We’d discuss for months a new place we could move to, only to visit and feel repelled, uneasy.

I flew across the country by myself to visit a stunningly beautiful hippy town that is adored the world over, one with sky high mortgages and celebrities aplenty… a place that on paper looked perfect for us… only to feel instantly and profoundly repelled on landing and actually experiencing it. I returned home feeling like I’d just walked through energetic dog shit, and we crossed that one firmly off the list too.

We couldn’t go back to places we’d been before for various reasons: my Tasmania-loving husband didn’t want to be off the mainland again so he could be more available for his ageing parents. The other places we’d lived were beautiful in their own ways, but were shoes that didn’t quite fit.

Again and again, I tried to give up on my dreams.

Tried to contain myself to the life, the house, the land that didn’t fit.

I wondered if I was too greedy. Why I couldn’t just settle already, dammit. Why everyone else seemed so happy, so content, so unquestioning with their lives. I became convinced I was fucking up everything. I was sure I’d never find the right place for us, that we would be doomed to be restless, bereft of a sense of home. I began to worship at the altar of Nothing Will Ever Be Okay Ever Again.

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This story is intrinsically woven with my cliff fall into depression.

Where the wanderlust worries became a crisis of chemistry. They are tied together, and it is hard to tell them apart, except that the worry was painful, the depression was seismic.

Still, it woke me and my husband up in a way we needed.

After it was over, and I was no longer comatose with sadness, my husband sat me down and said:

I need to tell you something. I couldn’t tell you when you were lost in depression. I just needed to be there for you. But I need you to know when you were down so far, I was worried. I worried that you might be broken, and I wasn’t sure how to fix you. And I knew I needed to look after you, and look after the kids. And so I decided I needed to take you home. The thing is, since we left the tropics, you’ve been losing your spark, the thing that you’ve always had, the thing that makes you Leonie. And the depression felt like you’d lost it all together.

So I need to take you back home, because you’re alive there, and your spark is so bright. I think we need to move to the Sunshine Coast. It’s not your home town, but it’s your home state, and it’s got the things we need there: the beach and the warmth and educational options for the kids. And you can see your Dad more often, and we can visit those places if we want to. But mostly, I just need to take you to the ocean and be in the sun again so you can get your spark back.

And I sobbed.

I felt so deeply seen.

I responded simply:

Yes. Please.

It all became so abundantly, searingly clear.

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More cautious than ever, we decided to send me on a scouting mission.

Send the sensitive canary down the mine, see if she steps in energetic dog shit.

I called him that afternoon, hair curling in the humidity, barefoot and sandy.

I think I might like this quite a bit, I tell him. The air is so very sweet here. I can smell the ocean and the trees.

The next day I call him again, watching children ride through the village, joyous and free.

I think we might be happy here.

The next day I call him late at night. I’d just spent the day on a friend-bender visiting mates I’d met in every other place we’d lived who’d all moved here. I’d played with horses and alpacas by the mountain with one friend, waded through an ocean lake with another, laughed in a rainforest acreage with another, had dinner by the crashing surf with another. Just give me land and animals and outside wilderness, and I’m happy as a pig in fucking mud.

This has been the best day I’ve had in a long, long time.

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In order to say yes again, I had to let go.

I had to let go of judging myself so deeply about all the moving we’ve done, all the choices we’ve made and unmade. I had to let go of that stranglehold of a need to get THIS decision right.

Instead, I had to become gentle and fluid, graceful and forgiving of myself. I decided to choose a grateful heart instead of a festering one.

I’m so glad we’ve had all these adventures. We are so very lucky. We’ve learned and experienced so much from each place. And even if this one isn’t the right place forever, that’s okay too. I can choose, and choose again. It’s okay if other people think I’m crazy, it’s okay if my friends won’t understand. I know myself and I know why we are doing this.

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And we chose to move again. Put half our old house into storage. Find a smaller house near the sea that we could use as a hub to explore this gold blue green coastline, maybe find an acreage eventually.

Find some wings again after feeling stuck for so very long.

Stuck is our nemesis, our kryptonite. Have to keep moving forward, evolving, choosing what is right for us next.

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I don’t know what I thought my dear friends would say when I told them we were leaving. I was so sad to be leaving them, but I couldn’t remain. I didn’t know how I could explain it without sounding ungrateful, crazy, a loose cannon.

I didn’t expect to be met with so much understanding.

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We were sitting in a gravel car park at sunset. It was my final night out with my dear sisterfriends.

I’m so sorry I’m leaving, I tell her.

Oh honey, it’s okay. I knew we couldn’t keep you here. You’re a mermaid out of water, you need to be back by the sea. We didn’t think you’d even last this long! We will come visit.

I squeeze back the tears. Oh to be so understood. That she knew all along. That she still loved me anyway.

We walk down the path in the darkening air. There is a labyrinth by the lake, one I have visited and walked so many times over the years. We meet another friend there, and we begin walking it silently, one by one.

It is icily cold, and I shrug my hands deep into my pockets. Around and around, goes the labyrinth. This way, then a sharp turn that way. The trail is long, confusing, hard to follow. Just as you think you are getting closer to the centre, you curl back out. The labyrinth is life, of course. The path takes you every fucking direction under the sun. You question whether you are on the right path and doing the right thing often. And just when you can barely stay with it any longer, you emerge into the blessed centre.

In the centre of this particular labyrinth is a gnarled old tree that hold prayers and offerings. Beside it is a large slab of ancient rock from the desert of Australia, so powerful you can touch it and find yourself connected to the beginning of this land. One of my dearests is sitting on the rock already. The wind blows colder, and like a heat-seeking missile, I sit down and press my back against her.

We sit there for a long while, meditating alone together. It struck me how perfect it was: this one has always had my back. The bell tower, for the first time I’ve experienced it, is in full song. Melodies ripple out from it across the lake, bells singing together. I don’t know why, but it is a miracle I tuck into my pocket.

I look up, watch the bare wavering tree limbs over us. Squint my eyes, the stars are jewelstrewn across evening’s velvet blouse now. I smile as I watch one friend still making her labyrinth journey. Smile as the warmth from my back buddy seeps into my jacket. Smile as I think of our other friends joining us later at the restaurant.

Suddenly, a wave washes over me, and I hear the words:

You are loved. You are infinitely loveable. This has all been a gift to teach you this.

Tears well in my eyes. I had no idea I was holding onto any idea that I was unlovable, unadored.

But there it was, and it had just been healed.

I soak in the warm wash of love.

If I had to go through all of this just to know this, that’s okay. I can carry this love with me wherever I go.

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And I do go.

Go to the restaurant, and laugh, and tell stories, and listen. Look around at the faces of these women who love me just as I am.

Go home and kiss my husband and my children, give thanks for that cosy nest of love we’re building together, stick by stick, moss mound by moss mound. Our family is our home, no matter what state we’re in.

Finish loading the car, drive out of Canberra early one morning.

Point our car’s nose north, and head off towards the sun.

Love,

Falling Off the Cliff of Depression

I fell off a cliff a while ago.

It took me by surprise, but maybe the signs had been there for a while.

I’d been off medication for six months, my anxiety levels managed.

And of course, in doing so, had removed that invisible protection against depression.

The one miraculous pill does two things, simultaneously:

Stills the flighty anxiety flitters,

Lightens the heavy depression of scraping river bottom.

Anxiety has been my mental health challenge of choice since having children 8 years ago.

I’d forgotten that sometimes, just sometimes, a great grey whale arises from the depths, takes me in its mouth, and descends once more.

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I should have remembered where I come from.

I come from strong stock, physically.

The family tree filled with ancestors who stride about in timber limbs until they near their hundredth year.

Ashy white hair, milk blue eyes.

Living large long after their contemporaries leave.

Chip beneath the bark however, and the timber reveals our ancestral marking:

The termites of mental health burrowing deep, a panoply of conditions.

Anxiety, depression, bipolar, suicide attempts, personality disorders, incest, pedophilia.

Health professionals look at my family tree + say:

That’s a profoundly high rate of mental health. You are genetically pre-disposed.

I joke regularly:

It’s a gift that I only scored one of them!

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I forgot that it was two.

The grey whale came for me one Sunday morning during an ordinary day, an ordinary conversation.

My husband and I, talking about different options together.

Confronted with a decision, my brain synapses froze.

I excused myself, went for a shower, and howled.

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Maybe the grey whale had already had me for a while, I just hadn’t known yet.

Looking back I see the flashes of silver beginning to entwine.

How often I’d started crying. How much optimism I started losing. How much harder I found decisions.

But those were relatively easy to ignore.

Just keep feeling your feelings, Leonie. It’s good for you, I’d think.

I wondered if I would ever progress from those feelings and find hope, healing, clarity.

Until then, intermittent bursts of tears.

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And then the tap broke, and the tears did not stop.

I remember the moment at the bottom of the shower.

Plummeting head first into the darkness of misery and hopelessness.

Wild with sadness.

This is it,

I remember thinking.

This is my life now.

I am completely, and utterly fucked. I will never, ever be happy again.

I crawled out of the shower, lay naked on the floor of our bedroom, in a sharp beam of sunlight.

Still it did not ease.

I can’t remember the last time I’d felt this utterly fucked.

I throbbed with the pain of living.

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It was over nothing, the conversation that had sparked this.

The whale came to get me for very little reason or logic, just a worm in the blood.

Maybe I was worn out from making decisions. Maybe I was tired and burnt out. Maybe I had neglected having time to myself since starting homeschooling. Maybe I’m just genetically predisposed to it.

No matter what had caused it, here I was, 20,000 leagues under the sea, and no way up.

My brain synapses had snapped and there was no repair.

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The sobbing and the pain and the all-encompassing dark did not let up.

Not in an hour, not in two, not in twenty, not in days, not in weeks.

The grey whale had me,

and I was lost to the world.

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And so it continued.

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Mornings.

The anxiety would begin before I even opened my eyes.

My heart pumped filled with adrenaline, terror unfurling in my veins.

I’d be thumped into reality and wake up afraid, quaking, devastated to be awake.

I’d sit on the couch across from Chris, shaking and rocking and sobbing.

I couldn’t make eye contact, I could barely move apart from the uncontrollable.

As tightly wound up as a caterpillar under threat of a hungry bird.

My husband would spend the morning lovingly, patiently, coaxingly massaging my soul’s limbs back out again.

Tell me what’s on your mind this morning, honey.

It’s nothing, it’s dumb, I’d mutter, not making eye contact.

It doesn’t matter. It’s worrying you. Just tell me anyway.

And so I would.

I’d spill the litany of whatever was eating me alive that day. An odd assortment of ridiculous thoughts and #firstworldproblems that had begun to terrorise me obsessively.

I’ve failed completely as a Mother. I have totally fucked it all.

Why’s that, honey?

The kids can’t ride their bikes properly WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS yet. I’ve absolutely fucked everything, I can’t get the simplest thing right.

Thinking back on it, this seems patently ridiculous. We’re not a bike-riding family for one, and my eldest is a risk-adverse gentle being who would prefer to be poodling about with a sketchbook than anything which may cause adrenaline. But that’s reason, and I was in no mood for reason. I was CONVINCED by these thoughts that I was both fucked and had fucked it. The amount of pain I had even speaking those words was unbearable.

Chris, to his shining, brilliant credit, did not laugh or tell me to lighten up or look at me like I was bonkers.

He listened. And nodded. And empathised. And reassured. And gave me empirical evidence that I hadn’t completely fucked it, and that in fact, everything was fine.

It’s okay honey. I know you love our kids. It’s normal to worry as a parent! I know I worry a lot too. But I want you to know it’s okay. Our kids will learn how to ride without training wheels. I didn’t really start riding bikes until I was older. Ostara doesn’t really love bikes, otherwise she would be more interested and wanting to ride! You care so much about these kids honey. They are great, they are happy, you are doing a good job.

I’d listen, unable to even look in his eyes. I’d still remain convinced that I had fucked it, as that’s what my thoughts were telling me. But he’d let the pressure out of my tyres just enough for me to not implode.

And so it went every day for weeks. I’d wake up pulsating from the shrill adrenaline in my veins. My brain would whirr into life, fixating and obsessing on all the ways I had thoroughly fucked my life. I’d be overcome with shame and pain.

I became afraid of my own brain, how fast it ran into terrible conclusions, how it wiped away all other realities but this: you are fucked. you have fucked it all.

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I’m known by my mates for having a joyously high self-esteem.

I don’t spend time in self-doubt.

I rarely spend time in self-flagellation.

I do my best. I try to rest. I make mistakes occasionally, apologise fairly easily, look at what I could tend to and mend so I don’t make the mistake again, and carry on skipping.

I don’t have an inner critic, I have an inner cheerleader that has chanted for as long as I can remember:

You can do this. You’ve got this. You can do this. You’ve got this.

I don’t know how or why, really.

It just is what it is.

I feel like I’d lucked out on missing some part of the human experience for not having low self-esteem, but I didn’t spend much time questioning.

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And then it was gone.

Second-guessing myself, triple-guessing, over and over.

Sure that this was the reality of it. That I’d finally woken up to see what a colossal fuckwit I was.

Inner critic had made its late arrival, and was vicious, blood-thirty, louder than all else.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Is this what it’s like for everyone else? This is horrific. How do people go on? How does anything get created at all? How do we even walk through this world?

The voice crippled me.

I was a crumpled piece of paper.

+

Evenings.

As the day turns into twilight, then night, I become more anxious again, agitated, limbs flashing as the tide of anxiety comes riding back in.

What’s happening, honey? Chris asks.

I’m scared of the night, I tell him.

What happens in the night? he asks.

Night is dark and all I can hear are my thoughts.

We go to sleep. Well, he does. I lay beside him, and watch the cavalcade of obsessive thoughts start up once more, bending back into the tightly wound caterpillar.

Then I’d wake Chris up when I couldn’t bear it any longer.

Tell him sobbing, heartbroken about the next catastrophe I envisioned.

Honey, I need to talk to you! Ostara is 8! EIGHT! In ten more years, she will be EIGHTEEN. And one day, she will move out. Just imagine that! GONE! FOREVER! NEVER TO SLEEP IN THE BEDROOM NEXT TO US AGAIN. And I will be DEVASTATED. I will be HEART BROKEN. I can’t bear it.

Again, he would listen, and reassure me, tell me we would make it through together. Tell me to gently wind down and try to get some rest.

I’d listen, and try my best, but the panic attacks would roll through the night, waking me, waking him.

+

I stopped eating, barely drank.

I couldn’t. It was too much work. My system was already working overtime.

Mouth already dry with fear, stomach swarming.

All I could do was shake and cry and rock.

I wondered when I should admit myself to a mental institution.

I seemed broken beyond belief.

+

I shut away from friends.

I was convinced I would infect them, that my feelings were contagious.

I didn’t, couldn’t do anything but what was absolutely required.

Groceries stores meant crying soundlessly behind dark sunglasses, pretending to be normal.

+

It took some long, painful weeks before I realised I needed to take action and get help.

I’m surprised I didn’t think of it, surprised my husband didn’t think of it.

Both of us are well-versed enough in mental health and psychology, both of us cheerful proponents of therapy and medication.

I can only assume we were both too busy to think laterally:

I was too busy in the pit of misery, Chris was too busy trying to reach me.

I booked an appointment at my doctor. Sat in the waiting room, crying behind dark sunglasses once more.

+

How can I help you today?

he asks.

He is gentle, kind, diminutive.

He doesn’t know.

I start crying even harder.

I’m not okay,

I tell him.

+

It’s the hardest thing in the world to say those words.

But they are the words that save us.

+

My doctor listens, asks questions.

Are you feeling suicidal? 

No, I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.

Do you think you would ever try to suicide?

No. My brain doesn’t go that direction. I just want to sleep.

I realised at that point how lucky I was that my brain doesn’t fall in that direction. How hard that must be to fight. I was at the mercy of my brain, and I was already cowering beneath its furious You are fucked, everything is fucked, you are a fucking idiot chatterings.

+

He asks more questions:

Are you eating? Sleeping? Drinking?

No. No. No. I can’t. It’s too much.

+

He asks:

I know you are married. How is your husband about this?

Even in my fucked mind, this strikes me as a curious question. I don’t know what to answer.

He gets it. He’s good.

But… does he really understand? Is he supportive?

And finally, I click. I understand why he’s asking now.

Not everybody has this. Not everybody has someone in their corner, much less one who understands mental health and empathy and therapy.

I think of all the hours my husband spent uncurling his wound up caterpillar wife. How the walls to my house were falling to pieces, but he was the roof. I’m lucky, even in the complete fuckery of this.

+

I wonder at how on fucking earth we all get through this life.

+

The doctor prescribes me medication.

A little of the old stuff. Some new stuff for a few weeks to get me out the otherside.

(Lexapro and Valium, for those playing at home.)

I exit, and I cry behind sunglasses at the chemist while I wait for the medication.

+

I want to say here:

Counselling and therapy can play a HUGE PART in mental health. I was already having sessions, thus why my doctor didn’t prescribe that to me!

And: I might be a hippy but DAMN do I love me some Western medicine when it works.

I have absolutely zero fucking issues with taking it.

My mental health is a biological, hereditary function just like everything else.

If some chemicals in a pill can resolve the chemical issues in my body that make me go bonkers, I will GOBBLE DEM UP.

+

Gobble them up I did. In the prescribed amount, and the prescribed time of course.

Taking Valium was like being in an induced feelings coma. It was lovely to not feel so crashingly awful, to be able to eat and sleep and not fear the night (or the day) anymore. To stop the shrill panic in my brain.

I took them while waiting for the Sertraline to build up to a therapeutic level in my system. After a couple of weeks, it wasn’t where it needed to be. So I went back to the doctor and increased its dose. After another week or so, it was up enough for me to start to wean off Valium.

(I share this because I talk about what works for me. You work with your Doctor about what works for you.)

+

As I waited for the Sertraline to work, I got the courage to tell a couple of friends what was happening.

Oh! Goodie! said one.

I’ve never met Depressed Leonie before! You’re always so blastardly cheerful! I’m really low at the moment too.

Can I take Depressed Leonie out for dinner? It will be so nice just to bitch and moan with you.

My friends share my completely bent sense of inappropriate humour, obviously.

I consented to be taken out. I knew I would be safe. That I could be all of myself with her.

It was an evening of the darkest kind of humour and Italian food.

I might be in a hole, but I knew I would be able to get out.

+

Over the weeks, life returned into me.

The crying lessened. The panic attacks ebbed. The brain slowed and began to make sense again.

It was less bad, and then much less bad.

The voice that heralded all that was fucked got softer and softer and then was gone.

Finally pinpricks of joy began to pierce into me again.

The whale had released me.

I was floating to the surface.

It was the most blessed relief to become myself again.

+

I was myself again, but changed too.

I’d been through one of the most painful breakdowns of my life.

My eyes were bared at how bad it could be.

My heart was awash with compassion at the human condition.

How much mental health and brain chemistry and pure life can profoundly affect us.

If someone ever tells me they had a breakdown, I’ll understand it more now.

+

I think that’s the gift of it all.

Even the most painful of the painful.

It comes, and it leaves.

And I think:

I will understand other people so much more now.

No matter how painful, I’m glad I experienced it.

It feels like this whole journey of life is to experience so we can understand each other that much more deeply, love each other that much more gently.

+

It’s been a few months now since the whale took me into that underworld.

I began writing this back then, finished it now.

It’s bloody beautiful out here, in the sunlight, on the otherside.

+

Years ago, me and my husband had a carpool buddy we called Mr P.

He was a mythical sage elf, hilarious and wise in equal turns.

Some days we would drive to work wheezing with laughter.

Some days we would drive to work in silence.

Some days our conversations would be deep and prophetic.

One particular day, it was both.

We drove along in silence this morning, and as we drove through an underpass, he turned from the window and said:

You know, people call breakdown by the wrong name.

So often we call it a breakdown, when really it is a breakthrough.

Then he turned back to look out the window and said nothing more.

+

That sentence echoed through my mind this year.

The whale took me, and it showed me the truth.

It showed me the truth of human suffering and empathy.

But it also gave both myself and my husband the answer to a question we had been asking for years.

And it’s a story for another day.

But the breakdown was most definitely a breakthrough.

+

If you’re struggling, I want you to know:

I love you. I know. I get it.

Please get yourself whatever help you need.

There is light and gladness on the other side.

I promise you this, and I promise it to you as a person who didn’t believe that could be true a few short months ago.

Sometimes our brains are capable of incredible, wise, miraculous things. And sometimes our brains tell us really fucking deadshit stuff. When it tells us we are fucked, everything is fucked, it will always be fucked, it’s time to get the help we need to fuck that voice off.

I promise the gladness will come. I promise the pinpricks of joy and light will return.

Love,

The Woman Who Was Swallowed By A Whale

 

I Just Signed A Publishing Deal!

Treasures,

I’m sitting here, on the floor, typing as removalists take all the boxes out of our house, loading it into orange trucks, readying to head up the country to our new beach house.

That I get to write this today is perfect. New beginnings aplenty.

I’m beyond delighted to announce that today, I’ve signed a multi-year book deal with a US publishing house, BenBella.

BenBella will be publishing my yearly goals workbooks for life and business from 2019 editions onwards.

We will start with the life and business goals workbooks first and potentially extend the product range from there.

I’ve been incredibly successful with self-publishing since 2009 which I am so grateful for, but knew the next step was to partner with a publishing house for various reasons.

I’ll share them here incase you are interested in the behind-the-scenes!

I’ve wanted to be an author in like for-fucking-ever.

When I was 4, I knew I wanted to write and make art for a living. That dream never changed.

When I was 21, and learned about dreamboards, I immediately included a multi-book publishing deal on it.

I started coming up with book proposals and sending them out, but got no interest. To be honest, I was shithouse at rejection as well at that point, and didn’t put myself out there as much as I could have. I was SO SURE that I was going to be a teacher and an author, and I didn’t know why it hadn’t happen already!

Instead, I decided to create my own empire, and just start choosing myself.

I started blogging in 2004 when I was 21, and running workshops and retreats at 23, and I eventually started creating e-courses at 25.

I created the Life goals workbook in 2009, pregnant with my first baby. I had just started the habit of setting goals, and wanted to create something for the coming year, but all the options out there were bland, black and white, uninspiring. So over the course of a few days, I wrote and painted up pages with questions for myself to answer. When I was done, I thought it looked pretty cute, so I decided to scan it in and pop it up online. I thought if I could sell it to 10 people for $9.95, that would be pretty exciting!

I released it Boxing Day, and in the next month, went on to sell 1000 copies. At the time there was absolutely nothing like it in the market. Over the years copycat products have emerged, but back then it seemed like a lightning bolt of new.

Each year I released updated versions, and the sales numbers doubled or tripled each time.

A couple of years later, I had enough people asking for a business goals version as well, so I produced that.

By 2014, enough people were asking for a printed version that I decided to offer printed versions through Amazon’s Createspace which is a print-on-demand service.

That was great, but I hit limitations in terms of what they could produce (they can only do trade paperback), that I couldn’t set a constant price on Amazon, and everybody had to order through the US. I felt like the next step was to fund a self-published version with spiral binding, printed in China, and distributed through 3 shipping houses in the US, UK and Australia. That way as well I could extend the product range to include a diary/planner, wall planner and to do list pad.

The sales numbers continued to explode which was absolutely amazing and absolutely huge to cope with all at once. Dealing with getting 80,000 products out in a 3 month period is an enormous blessing and challenge.

#naive

I honestly was super naive in terms of the difficulty and complexities of printing, shipping, customs, distribution houses, shopping carts and managing the customer service needs of tens of thousands of individual customers. I thought it would be relatively easy. LOLZ NOPE.

For the years that I self-published and printed in China, I learned a LOT about business, and navigated some fucking crazy business situations. I’ve had books held to ransom by a crazy distribution house owner who was extorting my company. I’ve hired contractors to rescue the books and drive them across America in the snow to a distribution house who could help us. I’ve dealt with the surprise additional $10,000 bills from Customs and the major shipping port delays. I’ve dealt with tech staff unable to deliver a shopping cart on time, and releasing a buggy system. I’ve dealt with key staff quitting days before the launch of the workbooks. I’ve dealt with staff who made major mistakes in their printing decisions that I’ve discovered too late. I’ve dealt with managing a whole team of customer service staff to respond to hundreds of customer service requests. I dealt with managing the huge team I had to have in order to deal with the business growth… and discovered that managing staff and their dramas is my worst nightmare, the thing that kills my magic and mojo the most. I dealt with a workload which meant I was editing the next year’s workbooks before I was finished marketing last year’s ones. I found that 99% of my time was spent in managing the logistics and team… and not in what I originally wanted to do… which was to create and write. I was now a CEO, not an author and creative.

I wrote about this crossroads early last year.  I totally resonated with Emily McDowell’s sharing about a similar change she was experiencing. 

When I talked about it to my accountant in tears, he said:

“Leonie, you’re a high growth company. It was going to happen in the end. Business growth is a great problem, but it’s still a problem to solve. Businesses who reach that point either have to insource and hire the team like you did, or outsource and work with another company. Both have challenges, but there is usually one option that works better for each individual company. And you have to try them both out to discover which one is best for you.”

I knew I couldn’t keep going with what I was doing. I was burning out. It was putting stress on my family, as me and my husband had to spend vast parts of each day trying to fix and problem solve the latest drama. My beautiful dream come true was fast becoming something I hated doing. When people asked me what book or product I was going to create next, my internal response was: Never in a million fucking YEARS. I don’t want to add anything to my workload, or to the complexity of the printing processes! It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when an author refuses to write anything more because they don’t want to deal with the print processes of it!

Plus, I had a real, deep vision and knowing of what was needed next for the workbooks. And I couldn’t do it alone.

So, here’s the vision… the vision I have seen for YEARS.

Every year, from November through January, the workbooks are on the New York Times bestseller list. They are in bookstores and newsagencies throughout the world on a big, bright, beautifully designed stand all of their own with their companion products. In every town throughout the world, there are groups of people meeting to do their workbooks TOGETHER. And all these amazing souls start dreaming up what they want to create, and start achieving their goals, and changing their lives… and I really believe the world will change from this. All these conscious creators empowered!

And I knew that I couldn’t do that on my own. Yes, self-publishers often CAN get into bookstores. But it was going to take more staff and expertise and even MORE logistics. And I couldn’t bear to add that to my workload. I was getting firmly out of my zone of genius.

And so I decided the time was right and bright to find a publisher to partner with. They could take care of all the logistics and printing and bookstores. THEY could have the huge team to deal with it. And I could just do what I’ve always wanted to do: create.

The journey to finding a publisher took WAY FUCKING LONGER than I expected.

Again: I was probably naive. I figured: I have books that sell more than bestsellers. I’m handing over a licence to print money here. I already have a large audience and a proven product. I’d already done the hard work. I thought publishers would CLAMOUR over it.

But instead, I experienced a fascinating indictment into why the publishing industry is fucked. (I LOVE you publishing industry. Please keep making books! I like to read! But for the LOVE OF GOD PLEASE INNOVATE!)

I wrote to every literary agent in Australia and got rejected/ignored by EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

I wrote to every publishing company in Australia and major in the US and got rejected by EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

I got knocked back because: my books were spiral bound (even though I told them I was open to them being a different kind of binding). Because my books were full colour and illustrated, and they only wanted to do black and white text. Because they were seasonal. Or they would only take them on if I wrote another book instead (even though I already had best-selling books to print! I’m too tired to write another one right now dammit! Just take the bestsellers!). Because ONE person on a committee of 12 on the buying team didn’t “get” them, even though everyone else did. Because they didn’t have “fuck” or “girl” in the title (those are the popular hot words for titles in publishing right now. I AM NOT FUCKING KIDDING YOU GIRL. See what I did there? Because they were a little bit outside of what they were looking for.

In my brain I just kept thinking:

I HAVE BOOKS. THEY SELL A LOT. DO YOU NOT LIKE SELLING BOOKS? DO YOU NOT LIKE MAKING MONEY, PUBLISHING INDUSTRY???????? WHY ARE YOU SO ADVERSE TO THIS?????

Apparently not.

So it’s taken me 18 months to finallllly finalllllllly for the looooooove of fuckinnnnnnnng goddddddddddddd someone publishhhh my booooooks goddamit I ammm famousssssss on the innnnnnnternetttttt and theyyyyy selllllll a lotttttttttttttt GET A PUBLISHING BOOK DEAL.

Hahahahahahahah!

Here’s how it ended up happening:

After being rejected so many times ON MY BEST SELLING FUCKING BOOKS, I got pissy and did a call out on my blog and social media.

PLEASE FOR THE LUCK OF FUCKING GOD SOMEONE BUY MY BEST SELLING BOOKS.

I had a bunch of publishing houses and literary agents get tagged in it. I spoke to all the publishing houses, and they rejected them for the same dumb reasons as I’ve outlined above. (Can you tell I am graceful, compassionate and understanding about it? I AM NOT. BAHAHAHAHA)

I talked to a couple of literary agents, and ended up working with a literary agent Anjanette Fennell.

She was already a fan of the workbooks and used them herself in her business, so it felt like a good fit.

She went to a bunch of publishing houses she had contacts with, and we got rejected for the same reasons as before.

This has been going on for about 18 months.

And then, a month or so ago, she had an intuitive hit to reach out to an innovative publishing house called BenBella in the US.

Within a week or so, I had a call with the CEO, Glenn Yeffeth.

I was impressed by how smart and entrepreneurial and marketing-loving he was (a dude after my own beating business heart!)

And totally dug how differently they do publishing. You can read about it here.

Basically: Glenn’s background is in start-up environments. So he has applied similar concepts to publishing.

Instead of taking on hundreds of titles and throwing them all at the wall to see what sticks, they carefully hand choose about 40 titles a year. They have 20 staff, and they pour all their energy into producing fantastic books and marketing the absolute shit out of them. They also have a partnership approach with authors, so we get more creative control. Important to me as the art and design is mine, and integral to the workbooks and my brand. Plus their royalties model is different: they give zero to tiny advances and instead give a much higher percentage for royalties.

That might not work for every author. For me though, that’s a great fit. Even a $100k advance isn’t of much interest to me as I can earn more from self-publishing. But a profit share model? Woot to the woot. That just motivates me to sell even more books and get them out into the world!

Will publishing make me more money than self-publishing?

Probably not. But it DOES mean:

I will not perish from burnout
I can stop hating the business model I was in and start solely focussing on creating again
I am actually inspired about the possibility of writing more books now I don’t have to actually print and distribute the fuckers myself!
The books can go out into the world to achieve that big, beautiful vision… of finding all the people they are meant to help… people who likely won’t know or care who I am (WOO HOO!)

And those things are worth more to me.

So, is this information useful to you as an end user? Probably not. But a whole bunch of you are either creatives, business owners or stickybeaks (I am all of these!) so I thought I’d share the in depth behind the scenes with you.

What it’s going to look like going ahead:

BenBella will be publishing 2019 Life and Biz goals workbooks, and they will be available for sale later this year (will let you know dates later on!)

This year is a SUPER fast turnaround, so they will only be available for purchase online.

For 2020 workbooks, they will be rolled out into bookstores. We will start just with the workbooks and potentially add further products/workbooks down the line.

BenBella also has first options for any future books I want to create which I’m muchos excited about. Now that the impediments to publishing are off, let’s see if anything wants to be birthed through me!

Hooray!

I am beyond ecstatic and delighted that I’ve finally achieved that big goal for myself… my 4 year old self and my 21 year old self and all my selves in between are celebrating out the wazoo right now.

Big big heartfelt thanks to Anjanette and BenBella for partnering with me on this.

Big love and gratitude to Hiro Boga and Kerry Rowett, my mentors/coaches, for their wisdom, belief and magic.

Thank you to my dear friends who’ve heard me bitch for years about how long this goal was taking to come true.

I can’t thank YOU ALL enough… for loving these workbooks as much as I do… for making them the shining success they are… for helping them get out into the world to help even MORE PEOPLE! SO.MUCH.LOVE.

And most of all… to my husband. My right arm, my life partner. He has believed that this day would come just as steadfastly as I have. He knew it was in my destiny and my stars just as I did. And he’s walked the path with me to make it happen. It might be my name on the books, but this was a co-creation.

Finally, I wanted to say for any creatives out there:

If you have something to say, don’t wait for someone to pick you. Pick yourself. Publish it yourself. Start sharing it with the world. You can get a book deal later, or you might just find self-publishing continues to be perfect for you. Choose you. Your voice is needed in this world.

Let’s go make miracles happen!

Xo

L

What I’ve Been Teaching In My Academy

Hi possums!

It’s been a long while since I updated you on the courses I’ve created for my Academy members. Latest update was back in November!

Even though I’ve been relatively absent from blogging + social media, I’ve been full steam ahead with my magical Shining Biz + Life Academy, doing monthly coaching calls + releasing new courses each month!

Here’s some of the goodies I’ve created lately:

SPIRITED PARENTING

It’s been 8 years since my parenting initiation, and I’m still learning every.single.day.

I’m by no means a parenting expert (HAHAHAHAHAHA OH GOD). But I do have stories to share about what’s helped me on my journey to being a calm, happy mama.

In this workshop I’ll be sharing:

my warts-and-all parenting story
the best advice I’ve been given
what’s helped us have a tantrum-free household
the things that have worked for me and my family
loving permission for you to find a parenting flow that works for you.

 

BUSINESS FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

Get your business finances managed so you can increase your profit!

Wrapping your head around managing your business finances and meeting tax obligations can be one of the most stressful parts of being an entrepreneur.

Never fear though – I promise it can be a simple, straightforward system for you that doesn’t cost you a huge amount of time or stress.

In this powerful, concise one hour workshop I’ll be sharing with you:

Common misconceptions about managing your business finance
How to create a simple system to manage your business financials without driving you bonkerdoodles
Financial reporting that drives business growth
Ways to reduce expenses and increase profits

It’s time to increase our financial literacy and become incredible custodians of abundance!

 

EMOTIONAL SELF HELP

Do you want to feel less angry or stressed? Stop feeling overrun and overcome with emotions that you’re not sure what to do with? Do you want to develop more emotional resilience and awareness?

Maybe you feel like your reactions may be damaging your relationships with your kids, partner or more. Or that you are numbing your feelings with addictions or other unhealthy behaviour.

Or maybe you’d like to just feel less bonkers on a day-to-day-basis.

Let’s do a deep dive into the transformational process that can help: Emotional Self Help.

This is a 3-part process that can help you handle the waves of life with more grace and ease, find the golden insights that emerge from your feelings, and help you process and heal.

 

WEBSITES THAT SELL

Fact: right now, you are leaving money on the table. People are coming to your website and then… leaving without buying anything.

This can feel heartbreaking. You’ve got gifts! To share with the world! You want to help people! You want your art/magic/spirit to be out in the world touching the people it’s meant to be touching!

Here’s the good news: You can change this situation.

You can change your website so it is helping people learn about you, start building trust with you, getting inspired by you… and (of course) buying from you. Because isn’t that what your website is for?

In this workshop I’m going to give you:

the template for a good website that sells
examples of other websites using this template well
the mojo + wisdom you need to start seeing more sales coming in every.single.day.

Watch now + start applying the changes today to see the difference it makes to your sales.

 

PRODUCTIVITY BOOTCAMP!

The Secrets To Getting More Done In Less Time

Productivity… it’s the thing that can make or break your business.

This isn’t about waking up at 5am to get more things done. It’s not about becoming a relentless 24/7 work bunny. It’s not about sacrificing your health, family or sanity to be a productivity supermachine.

This is about getting the mission-critical things done as quickly, effectively and efficiently as possible… so you can get back to enjoying your big, beautiful life.

I’m bloody excited to be sharing this workshop with you… I’m such a proponent of having strong productivity habits, and have been teaching about them for years now, so it’s great to have one comprehensive workshop to cover them all!

In this workshop, you’ll learn:

8 principals to increase your productivity exponentially
4 ways to kill off your to do list
The exact productivity system I’ve used to build successful companies working part-time hours.

 

2018 LIFE + BIZ GOALS WORKBOOKS

And as always, my Academy members received digital Life + Biz goals workbooks.

Want to get all these workshops + more?

Join my Shining Biz + Life Academy and you’ll receive the above workshops AND:

130+ courses
Monthly group coaching calls
More life, biz, marketing + creativity courses released every month!

Click here to learn more + join.

Love,

 

Essential Oils For Libido + Bonky-Bonk Times

Possums!

Well, this was a bit of a laugh and giggle snort to produce this webinar.

For peeps wanting more bonky bonk feelings + times, these tips are for you.

 

I hope they bring you MUCH joy.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE

Love,

What was it like taking a year off social media?

Hi possums,

As you’ve no doubt noticed, I’ve taken much of the last year off social media + blogging.

My intention originally was to just take a month off because I felt so burnt out, but by the end of the month, I realised it was feeling too good and sweet and right to let go of.

What followed was a year of diving deep into homeschooling, family time and getting to know myself outside of social media rhythms.

I made you a wee video to share about my experiences:

Not a complete transcript by any means, but some notes, if you are video-adverse!

It was nourishing and lovely in all kinds of ways.
Freed up a LOT of time + brain space – time I devoted to my kids and homeschooling instead which was a brilliant decision, and I’m so glad I did it.
I experienced much less anxiety – I didn’t go to sleep or waking up worrying about dealing with the latest internet drama llama.
I realised how grateful I was I’ve created businesses that do not rely on social media presence + instead can generate a sustainable income because of my mailing list and recurring income.
I discovered that I want to share a lot less about my family and respect their privacy more.
I enjoyed creating a business behind the scenes… it felt great to experience not being so public facing.
And I also missed blogging! I missed sharing and connecting especially.
I feel the energy of creativity returning again, and wishing to share more. Now I can create again, on my own terms and doing it all my own way.
Social media isn’t going away, but we can choose our relationship to it and how it works for YOU.

Hope this is useful to you.

With love and gentleness,

On Racism

Loves,

I’ve been thinking of how/what to share about this for a long while, rolling formats and ideas and words around in my head again and again to see what was right to share.

I’ve been in active research mode for over 18 months, and have been so reticent to speak because I don’t know shit, and didn’t want to create harm by misspeaking. Until I got that not speaking was harmful as well.

So I still don’t know shit, but I’m learning everyday, and the least I can do is point you to people who DO KNOW and can teach about this.

Which is a long ass intro to saying:

I think it’s important for us all to look at the way we may be contributing to racism and cultural appropriation, especially if we identify as white, liberal hippies.

Which can feel really shocking… we are definitely the least likely to even consider we are. Cue: “But! I’m the least racist person on earth!”

I definitely felt kicked on my ass when I first realised I didn’t have a fucking clue about racism. I had to reconsider my own identity: I thought as a leftie highly educated hippy who didn’t identify as racist, I was immune to engaging in racism. I thought by studying Australian indigenous history and issues in university and adoring learning from spiritual traditions from around the world, I was immune. I thought by being an active and passionate philanthropist, I was immune.

Spoiler alert: I wasn’t. And by being oblivious to racism, I was engaging in it.

I totally don’t feel like I’ve dealt with it well publicly before. I’m so sorry. I wish I knew more, sooner. I wish I’d understood more, sooner.

I know this is something I’ll be learning about for the rest of my life. I’ll never master it.

But I’m grateful for all the people who are teaching about this, and all the lessons and wisdom I have learned from them.

And I’d love to point you in their direction to learn from.

Gutsy Girl’s Reading + Resources for Activists
List of Resources for white people growing equity literacy and justice consciousnesses towards solidarity
Layla Saad: White Feminism, White Supremacy + The Silencing of Black Women
I Need To Talk To Spiritual White Women About White Supremacy (Part One + Two)
Dismantling White Dominance in Women’s Entrepreneurship
Hard Conversations Book Club
Non-white spiritual teachers, mentors + guides
Shenee Howard
Desiree Adaway
L’Erin Alta
Leesa Renee Hall
Glennon Doyle
Your Black Friend: Ben Passmore
You Can’t Touch My Hair + Other Things I Still Have To Explain: Phoebe Robinson
March: John Lewis

I’ll share more resources + books as I discover them.

I’ll be learning right along with you.

Love,