At the intersection of productivity & peace...

Hey,

I just wrapped up a full week of teaching my Luminous Life Design annual planning challenge. It was rich and dynamic, with plenty of great discussion around this paradox…

We are invested and committed to slowing the hustle, to resisting the paradigm of stress, striving and over-efforting, and to move at our own authentic pace rather than squeezing ourselves into a cultural box that feels suffocating and depleting.

AND…

We are also invested and committed to showing up wholeheartedly, with bells on, soul on fire for our mission, as we learn to be both prolific and productive in our work and our creative lives.

At a glance, these two are irreconcilable with one another.

But on closer inspection, here’s what I see.

We are learning to embrace both simultaneously.

We are learning how to balance our “sun” and our “moon” energy.

We are learning how to dance with both masculine and feminine polarities of the energetic spectrum.

We are learning how to walk the path of the Tao, the middle way.

We are learning how to find our center, our balance.

Last fall, I created my first ever Summit, called Multifaceted. It was all about how to be a multi passionate entrepreneur and successfully bring all your skills, gifts and modalities into one cohesive body of work.

In my first interview, I spoke with my friend Anna Brones, who said something profound. She used the metaphor of yoga practice, and tree pose. Upon a crude glance, we think “balance” poses are when we strike a pose and hold still there. In truth, as Anna pointed out, these balancing poses are not still at all, but are composed of many tiny micro adjustments happening in our muscles, bones and joints throughout the length of time we hold the posture. 

This feels like a poignant moment to bring forward this reminder for us.

Finding the middle ground between productivity and peace isn’t a “one and done” affair. Instead, it is a series of ongoing micro adjustments. 

It’s a process of continuous and constant course correction— which might sound exhausting, except remember that these are micro adjustments!

The next time you feel like you’re “failing” to meet your own high standards of both dismantling the patriarchy and also getting shit done, please meet yourself with some compassion.

Revolution takes time. Resilience takes time. 

And balance is an ongoing dance that you’ll continue to hone, refine and play with.

Stay tuned, because I have another important and useful query coming your way about how your personal definition of success will create more ease and impact in every area of your life.

To a year of micro adjustments,

For fun: as I was writing about Tree pose, I remembered this image of myself I shared on IG many years ago... I had to go hunt it down! A hot day in Altadena, holding tree pose on a diving board. Classic social media sharing during my yoga teaching training days. Micro adjustments in progress.