Are You Phosphorescent?

by Heather Doyle Fraser

Every quarter I contribute an essay to Elan Vitae Magazine. For Spring 2024, I wrote an essay entitled “Phosphorescent,” which was inspired by my March 2024 blog. (If you are curious, you can read that HERE.)

Every issue has a theme, and the Spring 2024 theme is Light. I love to create some contstraint when writing—these guardrails give you a place to start—but when I first thought about Light as a starting place, it confounded me. There were so many ways I could go with this essay—not much constraint there! 

I started thinking of all the ways light makes its way into my life, and I got a little lost. I thought about the obvious first: sunrises and sunsets, pin-pricks of stars, and the glaring light of my head-lamp on a night walk. Then I started thinking of the less obvious— the luminescence of a baby’s skin and the light that brings warmth in a patch of sunlight by the window. Then I found myself hyperfocusing on and marveling at—and this is the absolute truth—the phosphorescent quality of the skin at the inside corner of my daughter’s eyes! (You notice these things when you are a woman in mid-life.) But ultimately, most of these explorations did not make it into this essay (one did, though).

Here’s a short excerpt:

“It’s still cold outside, but I notice the burgeoning of spring every day on my walks. Shoots burst through the soil, defying the snow melt that still covers the grass in my yard. The greening of the grass comes later, but I see hints of it even now. The birdsong has begun to change as more birds come back from their southern migrations. I hear the familiar calls that I have missed in the past few months.

The thing is, even with these outward changes happening around me every day, I still feel like I am in a season of Wintering. This full-body experience craves cocooning and a gentleness as I cuddle into safeness, reconnect with myself, and redefine who I am. And, along with the redefining there is a remembering element as well.

Remembering what feeds and nurtures me.

Remembering what ignites my passion.

Remembering what lightness has the power to do.”

You can read the full essay HERE.

All of this explanation around my process of writing this essay is simply to remind you (and me) that the writing path isn’t a straight one. It requires not only a willingness to explore but also the fierceness to let something go—even if it feels brilliant—when it doesn’t fit the piece. 

This is hard to do sometimes because words are important and precious to us as writers. It’s a practice to compassionately hold all of these competing thoughts and emotions within you when you are writing. But it’s also somewhat of a puzzle, and I am a curious person: puzzles suit me. I’m betting they suit you, too, if you find yourself on the writing path.  When you are working with a puzzle, though, you need some light. (Ahh…full circle.) Light can be elusive when we are searching for it outside of ourselves. What if we turned inward, though? What if we could recognize the light within us to show the way? What if we were phosphorescent?

With that message, I will close today, but I look forward to exploring what a compassionate writing path looks like with you this Spring and Summer. The ComPASSIONATE Writer Spring Cohort will be starting again on May 14. (You can read more about that HERE.) I’m glad you are here to explore this path with me.

Cultivating a Space that Is Safe When It Comes to Creativity

by Heather Doyle Fraser

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced the idea of creating a safe space for writing or other purpose-driven endeavors. And now, let’s dive into how we can create a process that will help us do just that.

First, we need to look at our creation time as something that is both a sacred and an everyday event – I know, it’s a paradox! There is so much about creativity and inspiration that occurs as a paradox. To do that, we need to show up to the event, and events have a BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER. What will we do BEFORE to prepare ourselves? What will we do DURING to help support ourselves? What will we do AFTER?

I see three internal and external landscapes couched within BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER. These are the landscapes we need to account for when we are cultivating sacred and everyday space for our creativity: physical landscape, cognitive/mind landscape, and time landscape. Our physical landscape consists of – you guessed it – our physical environment and surroundings but also our physical body. Our cognitive/mind landscape consists of the content we are creating and also the thoughts that show up while we are creating in this tricky brain of ours. Our time landscape is the time we give ourselves to create during each session of creativity but also our expectations around how much time it “should” take us to create our masterpiece (whatever that is).

As always, I will use writing as an example because the voice is my context for creation, but as you move through this example, substitute any mode of creativity that suits you!

How BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER Might Show Up

BEFORE

Physical Landscape 

Close your eyes. Imagine a place where you feel safe and creative. Imagine a place where you feel safe to express yourself and share your voice. Where are you? What lives in this space? What kind of lighting do you see? Is there a candle? Soft or bright light? Sunlight streaming in through a window? Are you sitting in a comfy chair or at a desk? Are you in a corner of a favorite room? Do you have a beverage nearby (water, tea, coffee, etc.)? Is there a blanket tucked around your legs and over your lap or is there a pillow behind your back?

If your creative space is outside, think about how you might bring some of the outside elements into your space – with a plant or nature sounds playing while you create if you can’t open a window.

Now let’s move to your physical body. When we are preparing to create our bodies must feel comfortable. Think about what you are wearing – if tags irritate you, make sure the tags on your clothes are removed. If you don’t like the feeling of your jeans on your body when you sit down, wear soft pants instead or something else that suits you. If you tend to get cold make sure you have a layer nearby to throw on. If you are cold you will start to feel your shoulders creeping up to your ears and this in turn will send a message to your brain that you are uncomfortable and that is a cue that you may be unsafe. This can all impact your writing and creation time! Conversely, if you tend to get hot, make sure you have a fan or a cool drink available at your side.

Cognitive/Mind Landscape 

Serendipity favors the prepared mind. Before you begin writing, set your intention for the session. How do you need to show up during this session? What do you need to bring to the page? Boldness, courage, confidence, ease, compassion? 

In addition, draft a short outline of what you want to write for this session. This can be as simple as some bullet points and it doesn’t need to be set in stone. This is your moveable feast! Let’s set the menu before we begin. If something comes up that wasn’t on your menu and you want to include it, you will know where it needs to fall – is it an appetizer, main dish, or dessert? When you have a plan it’s easy to see where something fits. When you don’t have a plan you set yourself up for uncertainty and sometimes confusion.

Time Landscape

If you notice that you find inspiration when you take a walk or meditate or do another type of soothing practice, then make sure to schedule your writing time after you do this activity. Make sure to give yourself enough time to prepare your body and your mind.

Often when we think of time, we just think of the amount of time we need to write, but there is a pre-time that we need to think about. Pre-writing can happen in the mind – ideas percolate there before they make their way to the page. Allow for this time before you sit down to write a specific piece. If you haven’t had enough percolation time before you sit down to write this may appear as procrastination, but it isn’t. It’s process – you just aren’t ready to write that particular piece yet.

Writing is interesting in other ways when it comes to time. Think about the time of day when you feel you are most creative and also how that overlaps with the constructs of your day. For instance, scheduling your writing time when you will most likely have interruptions – kids coming home from school, client emergencies, etc. – will often result in disappointment when it comes to writing. It’s difficult to be creative when you are expecting or suspecting you may be interrupted. 

DURING

Physical Landscape 

The BEFORE work you did will set you up perfectly for your DURING time. While you are writing, pay attention to your physical body and its needs. If you notice tension starting to build up in your body, breathe into that space. If your shoulders start to creep up to your ears, take a deep breath and a moment to roll your shoulders back and forward. If you notice tightness in your hips, breathe and take a moment to stand, roll your hips, walk around for a couple of minutes. Honor your body and its needs. Distractions from your physical body may come up while you are writing. We can work with this, give ourselves comfort, and then come back to the page. This is part of the process.

Cognitive/Mind Landscape

If you did not create an outline of some kind in your BEFORE time, give yourself the compassionate gift of creating that at the beginning of your DURING time. This outline is your best friend. Nurture this relationship. Allow it to support you. Come back to it and tend it. Let it grow and change as it needs to, but give yourself a solid foundation at the beginning. You can use an outline for the smallest of projects – think about it as your Big Idea List rather than an outline if that creates a sense of calm and expansion. What Big Ideas do you want to cover?

If you notice your mind wandering during your writing time, allow your distraction rather than resisting it. Make friends with it. “I see you distraction. What information do you have for me? Is this something I need to attend to now? Is it something that has to do with this piece I am writing? If yes, let’s explore that. If no, then I promise I will come back to this later. I will write it down so I don’t forget.”

As a side note, remember to turn off notifications on your laptop or phone when you are creating. Our mind is excellent at vigilantly keeping us safe and an alert may occur (whether we realize it or not) as something “very important that I need to attend to NOW!” Turn them off for your DURING time.

Time Landscape

A temptation for writers is to plan large blocks of uninterrupted time in which to create. The only problem with this is that it’s hard to find large blocks of time during our schedules and unless you have cultivated a regular writing practice in which you are building the muscle of sustained writing, it will be difficult to maintain your stamina. Yes, stamina. Writing (and other creative endeavors) is like any other practice. It takes time to build your muscles and it is hard! You can’t go from not writing to writing for one or two hours or more at a time. It would be as if you had never run a mile before and you are suddenly asking yourself to run a 10k or a half-marathon. 

Start small with small increments in your writing time. If you allow for the BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER, you will be surprised at how much you can write in 20-30 minutes. And if you need to start with 10-15 minutes, do that! Start small and increase your number of minutes over time. Process always leads to the outcome. 

AFTER

Physical Landscape

When you finish your writing session, take a look around your physical space. Set it up for your next session so that it will be ready for you. Your BEFORE time will thank you.

Next, honor your physical body. What does it need right now after your writing time? Thank it for showing up and show it some tender loving kindness by tending to your physical body. Maybe you need to stretch. Maybe you need to go for a walk. Maybe you need to give yourself some food or hydration. Whatever it needs, take the time to provide it.

Cognitive/Mind Landscape

You have accomplished a lot in this creative session. Acknowledge that. Remember the intention you set for yourself in the BEFORE time? Go back to that and give yourself a pat on the back. You said you would write and you did that. Bravo. 

Give yourself the compassionate gift while your thoughts are still fresh to create a little bulleted list of Big Idea content for your next writing session. At the end of a writing session, we always know where we want to go next and it feels SO PROFOUND that we tell ourselves we would never forget where the path is leading. However, we are human and sometimes we forget, so jot down some notes for yourself and your next session.

Time Landscape

Give yourself a buffer for your AFTER time. Acknowledge that sometimes, creation time requires more of us. Sometimes we need extra time to gently come back to our day. What is a soother for you? If you are creating something that brings up uncomfortable emotions and thoughts, give yourself extra time on the back end of creating for a little self-care.

Let’s Give Ourselves Space for Safeness in Our Creation

I can hear the eye-rolls from some skeptics in the audience. Their voices are added to the voice of my inner critic: “This all seems way too structured! I can only create when I feel inspired! This feels like too much work!”

Here’s the thing about inspiration and creativity: inspiration and creativity can only truly occur when we feel safe. Emotions, thoughts, doubts, and uncertainty will show up. There will be days of hard and days of soft caress and days of exuberant effervescence that we can barely contain in our creative practice. Through it all, we feel safe when we can support ourselves by compassionately allowing for our humanity and navigating the process and our expectations with intention. We know what soothes our nervous system and what ignites our threat responses. Give yourself the gift of cultivating a safe space for your creations and your creativity to thrive whether you are writing or participating in any other creative endeavor.

Again, for those in the back, serendipity favors the prepared mind. When you create a safe space and show up regularly, the magic you crave happens.

How Do You Create a Sense of Safeness for Yourself?

By Heather Doyle Fraser

My Spring season has been filled with a constant coming back to my commitment of comfort – I wrote about this during March and how I would like to commit to being in my comfort zone. And no, that doesn’t mean that I’m comfortable all of the time; rather, it means that I am cultivating a landscape for myself – both internal and external – that supports me and helps me navigate the space in which I find myself. When we have an internal felt sense of safety or safeness, we are able to tolerate distress and discomfort and move beyond what we thought was possible. 

When we feel safe enough, we are able to create with abandon – in whatever form that takes. For me, that is writing, but also other creative practices: art-making, coaching, singing, or anything else where I am leaning on my creativity – you pick your preferred mode of creation! If we don’t feel safe or comfortable enough, we find ourselves using all of our energy just to survive. Survival gets you through the most difficult times, but it doesn’t provide a jumping-off place for creativity and creation. You can’t access the profound expanse of your imagination when you are in a place of fear, threat, and deep uncertainty. Inevitably fear, threat, and uncertainty are our companions in this life because we are human, and they never go away. But there are things we can do to help alleviate or even prevent some of those fears so that we can stand firmly in our comfort zone while stretching into a place of creation. 

What if – just like I committed to my comfort zone during the Spring season – I built upon my comfort to step into creation during this season of my life? It’s a question I ponder often because I am a writer, and I help people to write books and compassionately navigate their discomfort while doing so. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and experimenting with how we can cultivate a safe space – a haven – in which to create. Because we are human, emotions, feelings, difficult thoughts, and body sensations are going to come up when you are creating something that is meaningful and purpose-driven. If the space in which you create feels safe, though, you are much more likely to be able to maintain and sustain your creativity to the completion of your project. 

How do you create a sense of safeness for yourself when you are writing or engaging in another creative practice? In my next blog, I will share with you what I do to create a safe space to create.

My Grandmother as My Perfect Nurturer

by Heather Doyle Fraser

Perfect nurturer...

You rest quietly, inside,

Beckoning, come forth.

I think about my grandmother all of the time these days. I still have the vanity dresser that she gave to me when I was 13 years old. It’s a focal point in my adult bedroom, just as it was in my teenage bedroom. It’s part of the set that my grandfather bought for them when they were first married in 1927. 

I remember when it was in their house on Clinton Heights and it lived in the “green room” — that’s what we called the room with the two twin beds and the double bed, which was of course, green. Oh, that room! That’s where we cousins were jumping one afternoon from bed-to-bed-to-bed-to-loveseat-to-hopechest-back-to-the-bed-again and where, on one of those fateful leaps, I fell and broke my arm… but that’s another story. The vanity dresser sat in the dormer alcove of that room and it was the perfect little space for it. There was good light from the window and you felt nestled in and protected.

My sister and I never slept in that room when we spent the night at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house on the weekends. She could have had us sleep upstairs. There were two perfectly good bedrooms up there and four beds between them, but instead she made me a bed on the couch (or davenport as she called it) and put my sister on a cot next to me. She left the hurricane lamp on for us that sat on a side table at the end of the room. It wasn’t easier for her to make-up these make-shift beds for us, but she knew that we felt scared to be “so far away from her” upstairs. 

Sometimes, though, when I got a little older, I would go upstairs and I would sit at that vanity and write in my journal. I would open the drawers and explore. There were small boxes of buttons — I remember that — and thread, but I don’t remember what else was in those four drawers. I remember writing in my journal there — I actually probably called it a diary at the time, now that I think about it. I confessed my preteen angst and I’m sure, some fear and uncertainty, too. I also remember self-consciously glancing into the mirror every now and then while I was writing. I remember wondering what Grandma did as she sat at this vanity and looked at herself in the mirror when it was in her bedroom. 

It’s funny, because even now when I look in that mirror and sit at that vanity I still wonder — daily — what she thought and how she felt. Now, I keep my makeup in one of the drawers and hair brushes and hair dryer and flat iron in the others. I have her photo, my perfume, and sometimes some fresh flowers from my garden on the vanity. I look at her sometimes — so young in that picture — as I’m getting ready. Sometimes I am just preparing for a work-at-home day (every day these days) on Zoom calls. Other times I am getting ready to perform at a show with the band (this hasn’t happened in a while). In either case, I look at her photo and it gives me strength.

When I look at that photo, particularly recently, I think about the fact that she had nearly her whole life in front of her when that picture was taken. She was just 18 years old, and yet, it was 1923 so she had lived through so much already. World War I was over. The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920 was a memory. She would have been in school when that was happening, just like my daughter Eva is now. There would have been mask mandates — did she wear one? I think often about how strong she was to have seen and experienced so many hardships in her lifetime. Shortly after she married, the stock market crashed, the country spiraled into the Great Depression and then was catapulted into World War II. During that time she also gave birth to seven children and experienced so many wonderful things as well. 

She may not have realized it when she was in the midst of raising those seven children and being a partner to her husband — or maybe she did, I don’t know — but she was running a business like me. Her business, though, was her family. I think about all of the cooking and cleaning and managing of the household she must have done with seven children and a husband who had his ran his own dental practice out of their home. I would venture to guess that most times when she sat at this vanity she was tired. But she rarely let that show, at least not to my knowledge. She was almost always doing something. I think the only times I saw her sitting were when she was eating, or sewing, or watching The Love Boat with me and my sister on Saturday nights. Even when she was “doing” she knew how to “BE” with the ones she loved, though. You could feel her fierce love for her family in everything she did. This is something I think about as I navigate my life on a daily basis and her presence still brings me comfort. She was an example for me at a very young age of what alignment of values, words, and actions looks like in practice. Oh, and something else, compassion. 

My memories are filled with what I recognize now as acts of compassion, love, kindness, and determination. When she died, I was just 13. I never knew her as an adult or even a late teen. Just the same, though, my memories are plentiful and vivid because she gave to me with a freeness that only comes with knowing who you are at your center. She knew who she was at her core and so she was able to give without fear or insecurity to the people she loved. This is why she always comes to my heart and my mind when I need that comfort that she gave me as a child. She provided that love, but also that exemplar of a person in integrity, and that nurtures me. Some things I think about when I think of my grandmother:

• Cooking a meal from scratch is a way to show love to the people you love. Food is nourishing and delicious and can be something that brings family and people together.

• It feels good to help others and do for others.

• Do what you love and if you can serve others while you are doing that, then you’ve hit the jackpot. Grandma was a talented seamstress, very creative, and perseverance in motion. She loved to sew, but didn’t find a need for new clothes for herself all of the time, so to meet that need to create and make something beautiful, she would make all of her grandchildren (26) Halloween costumes. My favorite costume that she made me was a cross between Glinda the Good Witch and a Princess. She used an old pink quilted bathrobe of hers and embellished it with so many beads, baubles, taffeta, and tulle. It was so beautiful. Oh and there was a gypsy costume she made for me — she used an old dress of hers and added fringe and buttons and beads and scarves — it was perfect!

• Red raspberries taste like summer. Every time I eat one, I close my eyes and think of the bushes at the back of her yard on Clinton Heights. Some days I would go back there and look for the super red, ripe ones. They were in a hedge that sat a bit away from the back edge of her yard so I could sit down there, nestled in this safe, quiet spot. Unseen from the house, I would gingerly pick one and quickly pop it in my mouth, over and over, savoring the sweet taste and feeling the sun on my face.

• It’s really handy to have an apple tree in your backyard, especially when you bake pies and make apple butter. Has anyone ever made a mini-pie just for you with your first initial etched into the top crust? Thinking about this little pie coming out of her oven brings me back to her kitchen and puts the taste of tart and sweet apples with that flaky, buttery crust into my mouth. 

• When your street is newly paved it is the PERFECT time to get out your roller skates — the kind that tie onto your shoes are just FINE -- and glide down the street to the stop sign. (Okay — I’ll be honest — in my mind I glided, but those tie-on roller skates sometimes came untied and there was no gliding happening when your feet accidentally jumped out of those beauties.)

• She would have loved the messaging of Reduce — Reuse — Recycle! Living through The Great Depression and raising a large family she was ALL ABOUT THIS! For instance, there are so many uses for everyday household items that you might accidentally throw away. Here are some examples:  1) Rubber bands -- There are so many uses for rubber bands! I don’t know all of these uses, but one of the uses is to create a huge rubber band ball that you can bounce around the kitchen. 2) Twist ties -- There aren’t as many twist ties these days, but I do have a collection of bread tags in my kitchen drawer as an homage to Grandma. They are surprisingly handy when you are washing dishes — great scrapers for stuck on food! 3) Bread bags -- I know you might be tempted to put leftovers in old bread bags. No. The best use for old bread bags happens right after a rain shower. First,  put one bag inside your shoe and then put another bag over top of your shoe. Double protection! Sure, the ones on the outside become pulverized as you run around, but your feet don’t get wet from the rain or the puddles. They will be really sweaty, though. (This makes me laugh every time I think about it!)

• Ice cream is the perfect dessert on nights when you don’t feel like making sour cream cookies (you haven’t lived until you’ve eaten these, trust me), pie, or pineapple upside down cake. “Ice cream just fills in all the cracks! You are never too full for ice cream.” This is a direct quote from Grandma, and I think, words to live by.

• Front porch swings are the most wonderful inventions. I loved sitting on her front porch swing in the summer, especially at night. Sometimes she would come out and talk with me there, and I felt understood and seen. She was 67 years older than me, and yet she still talked with me, person to person, not at me like someone else might. We would talk about books sometimes (my favorite subject) and she leant me books from her girlhood. The two that I remember most, gingerly reading them and turning their yellowed pages were Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin published in 1903 and Moods by Louisa May Alcott published in 1864. It’s not lost on me that she gave me these books to read -- her personal girlhood copies — when I was a girl and both of these books were written by women. At that time when these books were written, that was remarkable and I’m sure it sent me a subtle message that I could be a published author someday, too.

This list could go on and on for a long time. In fact, each thing on this list is probably a story in itself. For now, though, I will just leave it here. Whenever I think of her and all of these memories, I am acutely aware that she is still with me. This is how I have always felt. My grandmother was small in stature, but as you can see, so big in my mind and my heart. She was fierce and compassionate, generous and kind, thoughtful, and action-oriented. And, I know she was human so she was also a lot more. Everyone has duality, but when you know who you are and what you stand for, your actions come easily, and this is what I always felt when I was with her. This is what I feel when I think of her now. 

And even though I do have her vanity and use it daily, all I have to do is look down at my own hands to feel close to her. I see her hands in my hands. They are small but strong. I remember the first time I noticed this was when I was living in Boston after graduating from college. I had moved there about six months after I graduated and even though there were things that I really liked about living there, it was hard. One day I was riding home from work on the train and I was feeling particularly down and weary. I looked down in my lap at my hands and I realized that my hands looked just like my grandmother’s hands. It filled me with relief and comfort at the time and still does. When I got home to my apartment that night I wrote this poem:

IN THIS CITY (1996)

I saw her hands today — Grandma’s.

They were on the train...

Hands that were loving and kind, here

On a train that is crowded and stuffy-rude.

They don’t fit in this city.

Her hands live on Clinton Heights,

In Ohio’s apple pies, and

Homemade Halloween costumes…

They are hands of hugs and

Squeezes and tender-safe goodnights,

Calm and mothering.

They are not hands of city

Subways and faceless crowds,

But they are here,

Maybe to tell me that I am

Not alone.

Words = Meaning + Intention

by Heather Doyle Fraser

As I’ve been enjoying the haiku lately, here’s one to start us off:

Words are important—

Their meanings and intentions.

I will uphold them.

A few weeks ago, I set up a meeting with someone who specializes in marketing authors, particularly those who self-publish. I sent an email asking for a conversation because I was curious about what he does and how he does it. We work with the same people and I thought perhaps we might have some common ground and maybe it would be fertile for a collaboration of some kind. I was excited at the prospect because collaborating with like-minded people is one of my favorite things… right up there with raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens!

In my email, I gave him insight into my background and experience in both publishing and coaching, and I also filled him in on what drives me and how I infuse compassion into my work with my clients. I was thoughtful with my words, and I crafted that email with clear intentions and explicit language regarding the possibility of collaborating together.

Fast forward a few days and we have a call lined up. We jump on, and I can sense from the first few minutes that this isn’t going to be the collaborative call I had envisioned. He was selling to me, not interested in collaborating with me. He asked me about the books I have written, and I showed him copies (we were on a video call) and briefly described each one. I also told him about the work I do with my clients and what they write about for the most part. I shared my screen to show him my website. He saw the word compassion and presumably heard me talking about it. Then, he had an aha moment, “Really what we do is compassionate marketing!”

I will admit, I was intrigued.

“Tell me more about that,” I entreated.

He proceeded to describe funnel marketing. I was trying to figure out where the compassionate part came in, and then he said it, “We create these quizzes that really highlight their pain. Then we send them emails that are targeted to that pain, which of course leads them to all of the products -- and that’s where we up-sell them.”

Hmmm… compassionate marketing… Do you know the meaning of the word COMPASSION?

At that moment, all things stopped for me. I heard the metaphorical record scratch and the music of this dance we were engaged in abruptly stopped. You see, I am operating under the following definition of compassion:

“A standard definition of compassion is, a sensitivity to the suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it." 

~ Dr. Paul Gilbert, founder of Compassion Focused Therapy

What this person was describing was not compassion. Not by a very long shot. Compassion is fierce and requires the motivation and commitment to help alleviate or prevent someone’s suffering. As he talked, his motivation was clearly not this. His intention was not this. He wanted to exploit—not alleviate—pain to build lists and sell products.

And let’s be clear— I know everyone has a job to do, and each job is different. But let’s not use a word—ignoring its meaning—in order to manipulate. He knew the word compassion was important to me, so he grabbed it and appropriated it, hoping that I would in turn grab at the chance to work and collaborate with someone else who talked about compassion.

Nope.

I don’t know what compassionate marketing is— if there is such a thing— or what it looks like, but I know that it isn’t the picture that this person painted for me. I’m willing to keep looking for someone who can help me find that. 

I’m building a network of people who know the meaning of compassion and it is at the core of what and how they do everything. It’s layered into their essence and being. I don’t want to collaborate with someone who is exploiting and up-selling people’s pain. When I engage with someone it will be to create something wonderful in their lives. And if that something is a book, the process of writing will be intentional. It will build on their strengths and joy. And while I hold space for those strengths and that joy, I will also tenderly hold space for their suffering and their challenges. We will bring them in together to create meaningful beauty.

I want everyone who comes to the Compassionate Mind Collaborative to know that no matter who they engage with, they will be met with compassion, caring, and commitment. And that’s why I won’t be collaborating with people who don’t hold these same values. There’s too much of that in the world and I am drawing a line in the sand.

Intention and meaning are important. They make a difference when speaking. They make a difference in writing. They are worth fighting for in my eyes because they define who we are and how we operate in this life.