This is your PSA to keep creating. 

Create and create and create and create. 

And put it out there. Share it with the world. Every last chance you get. 

Fuck that fear of being seen. Fuck that worry that people will think you’re too much. Fuck the way your heart tremors and your limbs quake. To hell with the worries about sharing too often or sounding too full of yourself. Tell your demons or your asshole of a third-grade teacher or your snarky friend to shut the fuck up. 

You’re an artist. A creator. A writer. A dancer. A singer. A photographer. 

You are a maker of things. 

Beautiful things. Things that matter. Things that brighten days and make people think outside the box they’ve built around themselves. Things that shine a light into the darkness and pull the darkness into the light. Things that change lives––maybe even save them––even when you don’t have any hard proof that this is true, not for sure.

Maybe you just have an inkling or a whisper. Or a sense of purpose that you can deny. Maybe there’s a heartbeat just beneath the surface that keeps pushing you forward, that keeps you up at night, that keeps telling you that you’re here to make.

And so you make. My god, the things you make. 

Images and words and art. Bodies in form and voice lifting high. Even if what you make isn’t called art by the rest of the world, when you get honest you know it comes from the same place, somewhere between your heart and your gut––the place the flame was lit and somehow refuses to die. 

And maybe it feels like nobody is watching or reading or hearing. You’re making your art in the center of a void that threatens to suck you in. You get weary of sharing, you don’t want to bother people. You don’t want to be too much. And sometimes, that might even stop you from making––because fuck that space is hard on the heart. 

It’s not easy holding out your heart over and over and over again and asking people to be gentle with it. It’s not easy at all. And sometimes, it’s too tender to go there. Because right then you can’t handle the rejection one more time. 

But sooner or later the muse whispers. The words start swirling. The canvas calls or a note is sounded or your body starts to move to a beat nobody else can hear. 

You can’t stop creating forever, because if you did, you would cease to exist. That sounds awfully dramatic, but you know and I know that it is true. 

This is me, reminding you to continue. 

To make. 

To share. 

To not just shout into the void, but to reach into that relentless darkness with your art and to pull yourself (and everyone else willing to take your hand) out into the light. 

Because you never know who will stumble onto what you’ve made.

You never know who will find you when they most need it. 

You don’t know who will pass on that thing you made to someone on the darkest night or the brightest day. 

You have no idea the domino effect of influence that could begin. 

You don’t ever know when you are *this* close to the day that everything changes. 

You don’t. And I don’t either. 

And sometimes it’s really hard to keep pushing and to keep working. To keep battling demons and to come out of hiding, again and again, and again. To remember that there is always the possibility of becoming in every moment, in every act of art, in every outreach into the wide open world.

Do you hear me?

Every last thing you create and offer to the world––no matter how big or small––has the potential to be the one thing that changes everything. 

And the last two days have reminded me of that. The beginnings of some really good things are there, almost close enough to touch.

I want to hedge my bets and knock on wood and in the face of really exciting news say “yeah, but it may not really happen” and convince myself that humility built on fear will somehow protect me, even when the good thing is knocking on my door and asking to come inside––or, like right now, asking me to step out. 

It’s a struggle for me, most times, to believe in good things. 

The hint of those good things, they activate every last demon inside of me that wants me to hide. That cautions me against the wanting. That reminds me that I should prepare for disappointment so that I don’t get crushed when the inevitable let down occurs. 

It takes active work for me to celebrate. It’s a conscious decision to shush all those voices that urge caution, that don’t respond to wide open possibility with ‘yes, but’ and a list of all the reasons the good is unlikely to materialize. And it takes some serious effort to sink all the way into news that could be, might be, should be really fucking good. 

This is human. This is real. 

Day after day for years I’ve been making things and holding out my hands and asking if you want them. And still, when the world wants to offer me something back, it’s terrifying to admit how badly I want it. My first reaction? To hang my head demurely and to tuck my hands behind my back and say “It’s okay, I’m good. I don’t need/want/deserve that really big, really good thing”. 

Well, guess what?

I want it. 

I want it badly. 

And the last two days have delivered some pretty damn good confirmation that no matter how far away it feels, it might just be closer than I think.

And so right now, as tempting as it is to quiet down and go back to work, I’m going to tell you that no matter what––if you have that drive to create somewhere inside you, and you can squeeze even five minutes out of your day to make something. Do it. Do it and share it. Ask people to look. Tell them that you want to be seen. Ask them to share. 

Tag me. Let me see you.

Let the world know just how brave you are to do this. 

And you are. And it is. And so am I.

And right now I’m going to post this and I’m going to sit here for a minute and breathe in some really good news. And then I’m going to get up a dance, and I”m going to laugh a hell of an incredulous – ‘is this even fucking real?’ laugh, and I’m going to celebrate. 

Because no matter what––I made art, and someone saw. And maybe, just maybe, something magic will come from that.

No matter what you do. Never stop making. Never stop holding out your hands. Never stop trusting in the power of your art.

The post Never Stop Making Stuff (a PSA for the discouraged artist) appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Allow the frustrating nothingness to expand and deepen and become what it wants to become. To sit and play the sad songs or sink into the silence. To consciously and decisively leave the page blank. To trust that writing does not only happen with pen to page. Rather––that is only the final step and possibly the easiest one, for all its inherent difficulty. To sit with the knowing that if you are a writer (and I assure you that you are) you are somehow always writing, even on the nights you don’t record a single word. Breathe into the truth of that.

The second option? To write anyway.

Past the noise and the silence and the emptiness and the way too full. Past the deep well of feelings that lives in a space that words can’t touch. To light the candles and pour the whiskey. To lay down an offering to the muse and to let her know that you’d love for her to come and dance, but you’re going to write either way.

And then? Well then you sit with your good pen and your blank page and you begin. Without a plan. Without the need for the words to be anything but what they are. To get out of your own way and trust those words to take the lead. Trust the loops and swirls to become something, and to waste no time attempting to judge if they have any merit. Knowing there is value in every last word, no matter where they eventually lead.

And some nights it’s quite possible you’ll sit down with nothing at all to say. With the voices in your head screaming loudly that even if you did it wouldn’t be worth saying. And in spite of that, after a while, some words will appear in your head and you’ll decide to write about how it’s okay not to write. A little letter of permission, perhaps, for someone out there in the dark who is feeling just like you.

But then somehow you’ll write your way into writing about writing. And before you know it six pages of your journal will be covered. Then seven. Then eight. Covered in the messy black scrawl that means the words are tumbling out faster than even themselves, and your fingers will be stained black from the foundation pen you just filled with fresh ink before you had decided that there were no words.

And the candles will burn and the sad songs will play and you’ll realize that the demons inside will have calmed, just a bit. Just enough. And you can finally breathe.

Writing is the release valve.

No matter if you write with your pen or with your heart or without words at all.

No matter if you fill a hundred pages tonight or you don’t even pick up the pen.

Allow yourself to write.

Both ways are right
Neither is wrong.
Both are just different ways to let a story be born.

The post Ways To Let A Story Be Born appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Hey you.
You who writes.

You who keeps on writing.

You who pours out your hurt and your joy and your bliss and your ways of being and existing and understanding onto page and screen.

You who hits the submit button again and again. Even though you’ve papered an entire wall in rejection letters, because you know that somewhere there is a home for your words and if you keep trying you will find it.

You who writes in private, in secret, in the darkest back corner of your closet after everyone else has gone to sleep just so you can write the whole of you.

You who writes to follow the trail, to chart the course, to make your own map through the mystery.

You who writes the path to your own redemption, because you know that clawing your way back to forgiveness of self is the only way through.

You who writes in silence, in a whisper, in invisible ink.

You who writes with the risk of being dismissed, dishonored, ignored because the risks of not writing are even greater.

You who writes because nobody else is willing to tell the truth and the truth must be told.

You who writes to bring the perpetrator to justice.

You who writes to fuel the revolution, to feed the fire, to create the necessary unrest.

You who writes to bring the people into the streets.

You who writes so that your children and their children and their children will know.

You who writes until you are bleeding and then uses the words to staunch the flow.

You who writes to lift others even when you are writing through the thick haze of your own tears.

You who writes to shine a harsh and uncompromising light on what is unjust, on the wrong doing, on the abuse occuring in the shadows.

You who writes to unbreak your own heart.

To you who writes to weave the magical stories that lull the babies to sleep at night.

You who writes to make visible the ones who do the hard and lonely and dangerous work and who risk it all just to stay alive.

You who writes in gratitude and thanks that you are able to bring worlds to life on paper.

You who writes to give voice to the things nobody else is willing to say.

You who writes so that the invisible can be seen, the marginalized brought to center, the spotlight moved away from the stars and onto the ones in the background who make the show go on.

You who writes to make a thing real, to recreate the past, to return to yourself, to mark in ink the path of a new beginnings. 

You who writes the body. The heat and salt and sex of it.  The truth of blood and vein and the secrets the bones hold. The soft and wet and want. The body that winds and dances in the shadows. The body that heals trauma by naming and claiming her own pleasure.

You who writes to claim space, to name yourself, to create a new world you can stand to live in.

You who writes to own your history or accept your present or shift your future.

You who keeps writing love letters to the one long gone or the one not yet arrived or to fall in love with the miracle of your own being.

You who writes to make peace with the ghosts, to release the steam, as a substitute for the therapy you cannot afford.

You who writes because the world inside you is so magical and so real and even if nobody else believes you it must exist somehow, represented in concrete form.

You who writes because to not write would be like a form of death, and you’ve died too many times already.

You who writes to bring us all back to life.

You who writes to set the record straight, to hold the story, to alter the dominant narrative.

You who writes to bring hope to the hopeless and give voice the the voiceless, to share the stories of the ones nobody bothers to hear.

You who writes in the face of all that would silence you.

You who writes to craft beauty in the midst of devastation.

You who writes because the force of creation is what gets you out of bed each day.

You who writes to brighten hearts and lift spirits and to make the sun rise in the sky.

You who writes like the ocean, like waves crashing and crashing and crashing again against the shore of what is real.

You who writes the dance, the movement of clouds across the sky, the way the flowers blow in the breeze.

You who writes outside of the lines. Who ignores the rules. Who has no idea about grammar or punctuation or the correct way to spell things, but who writes anyway.

You who writes in an illegible scrawl on purpose to keep the stories safe from eyes unable to see the the beauty of your truth.

You who writes words that rise like smoke and fall like ashes, still alive from the fire.

You who writes to take the swirl of chaos and confusion and, waving pen like magic wand, makes the spinning stop and the truth rise to the surface, clear and true, like a fortune teller conjuring the future from her crystal ball.

You who writes only the necessary, who casts multitudes from scarcity, who takes the story of the entire universe and reduces it to the exact few words that say everything that has ever needed to be said.

You who writes even though they told you that you could not. That should should not. Who writes over the red pen marks and bad grades from teachers who thought writing had to follow the textbook.

You who writes the things that push people up against their own limitations, their prejudice, their hard edged bias, who forces us to see the things we would rather ignore. You who are willing to endure the discomfort of pushback in order to help us all grow.

You who writes the edges and pushes the boundaries and then calls the words back into the center.

You who writes the trauma. Writes the pain. Writes the ugly words that we don’t want to read but can’t turn away from, not because you want to, necessarily, but because you know we all we need to stay present with what is real.

You who writes the worst of the hurricanes and tornadoes of reality and then keeps writing all the way into the eye of the storm where everything is peaceful and beautiful and true.

You who writes the imaginary, the fantasy, the fiction, and in the writing you conjure a world that is deeply real and alive. 

To writes who writes with irrepressible joy bubbling up through your cells, giddy with the knowledge that only you could write this particular story.

You who writes in service to the cause, to the greater good.

You who writes the birth, the death, the honest everyday mundanities of our humanity. The messy and the boring and the deeply human.

You who writes to honor who has come before, to uplift the wisdom of your ancestors and the truth of those who walked the lands long before we were here.

You who writes in the stolen moments, on the grocery store receipts, who scribbles poems on the inside curve of your elbow, inking skin with novels that wash away in the shower but that mark you forever.

You who writes to create a truth that is more true than reality that you are living. 

You who writes under a name not your own in order to write the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You who writes to understand what you already know and to learn what you need to understand and embrace the unknowing of all that exists beyond comprehension.  

You who writes to remember the details your brain will not hold.

You who writes your way into your own wide open life.

You who writes. Period.

To heal the world. To right the wrongs.  To save a life. 

Because you couldn’t stop, even if you tried.

It is a brave and beautiful thing to create stories in the face of all that would stop you.

You do that. And it is everything.

The post For the ones who write appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Listen to the audio reading:

Don’t think too much. As a matter of fact, don’t think too much at all. This is not one of those exercises that requires much forethought or preparation. You can’t back your way into this one, all neat and tidy buttoned up.

There’s no clean way to do this. Not this time.

This is one you’ve got to blast your way through – close your eyes and jump, light the match and burn on the way down, get pummeled by the waves, upside down and spitting water, freight train your way all your way through to the other side.

And by all those overused, layered metaphors what I really mean is this:

You’ve got to fucking write.

Not think.

Just write.

Get a sheet of blank paper.

Write the truth of yourself. As you know it. Right now. In this exact moment and only this moment.

Limit yourself to one page.

Fill that page. Pour it out. Do not edit or reduce or backtrack. Do not worry about being succinct or understood. Just write. Just writeandwriteandwriteandwriteandfuckingwrite.

Now scratch it out. Marker it up. Cut it. Burn it. Obliterate it.

Gone.

Get a new page.

Write the truth of yourself. As you know it. Right now. In this exact moment and only this moment.

Limit yourself to one paragraph.

Make this single paragraph sing with the hope of you, with the want of you, with the very blood and bones and guts of you. Select the lines that speak your heart. Your sex. Your sacred. Spill yourself into this paragraph as if lives depend on it. Because your lives – every last one? They do.

Now scratch it out. Marker it up. Cut it. Burn it. Obliterate it.

Gone.

Get a new page.

Write the truth of yourself. As you know it. Right now. In this exact moment and only this moment.

Limit yourself to one line.

Choose carefully the words that define you. Choose them with exquisite care. Just one line that is the truth of you and nothing but the truth of you in this living and breathing and beating moment.

One line. Only one line.

Do you have it?

Good.

Now scratch it out. Marker it up. Cut it. Burn it. Obliterate it.

Gone.

Get a new page.

Write the truth of yourself. As you know it. Right now. In this exact moment and only this moment.

Limit yourself to one word.

One pounding, pulsing, bleeding word. One word that flies or explodes or burns it all down. One words that is quiet whisper or the living manifestation of insistent howl of your bones. One word that glows white hot or grounds you into the dark blue-black of the deepest night.

One word.

Just one.

Does that scare you? Good – it should. This isn’t child’s play here.

Now scratch it out. Marker it up. Cut it. Burn it. Obliterate it.

Gone.

Are you shaking yet? Is your heart pounding? Do you feel what we are doing here?

We’re not done yet.

Now – now that that is done. Close your eyes. Take the deepest breath you could possibly take. Fill your lungs with all those words and all those truth and all that emptiness and all that fullness and the love-loss-ache-bliss of all that carried story.

Now empty your lungs. All the way out. As your breath goes, watch all those words go too. Watch them float away on the air around you. Watch them turn to smoke and get caught in the breeze and dissipate, just like that.

Feel how damn good empty can feel when you choose it.

Now get a new page. A blank page. Purest white and completely pristine.

This is all yours. This page. It doesn’t contain any of the shit they told you was true. It doesn’t contain any of the shit YOU told you was true. Right now, it contains the only truth there is.

This story is always yours for the telling.

This has always been yours. You can expand to fill it all or take up the smallest corner. You can write in invisible ink. You can tell your story in red wine stains and spilled ink and bite marks. You can only write in pencil so it can always be erased. You can write in layers, and turn the page and write sideways. You can spin spiral and make your words dance.

You can ink it on the surface of your skin or x-ray vision the story onto the blank canvas of your bones. You can write a novel and then let the whole thing dissolve in the waves. You can write the truth and bury it in the ground, throw it in the fire, fold it into paper airplanes and watch it fly, roll it into a note in a bottle and toss it in the ocean and let it find its own way home.

Or, you share it with the whole fucking world.

You can care and not care and care-not-care all at once.

But you get to write. And you get to choose the story you tell.

And there’s no freedom bigger or bolder or braver than that.

Download the audio, motivational poster and printable PDF

The post get writing: write the truth of yourself appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

“It’s been a year and I still don’t feel like I’m any farther ahead. I need to write more, create more, but I’m so often paralyzed by the fear and the blocks – all the voices that tell me I shouldn’t bother, I won’t make it. I know that this is my purpose, and some days I feel so clear and so brave and so on course. The problem is it never lasts. I can’t seem to feel wise or like I know anything for more than a day or so – and then the doubt returns. And the doubt, it blocks me from the creativity that feeds my soul. It keeps me still and small. How do I find the words to tell the true stories in the face of so much fear?”

I know some days it feels like you will never have your shit together. Some days it feels like life is a never ending battle between the laundry and the bills and your ability to give a damn. Some days you look at the other woman out there with her tribe and her books and her beautiful art and you can feel a heavy weight sinking down into your chest. I’m telling you – that lump? It’s your art. It is calling out to you, begging to free. Maybe you can’t pull yourself from the fog right now. Maybe you’re simply surviving and you don’t even notice the lump in your chest because you’re too focused on the water up to your neck, but soon you’re going to feel just a little bit better. And then you’ll feel a little bit more bold and maybe a little bit more brave.

No more longing. No more planning. Create now.

Art without action is art that will die inside your body, and art that dies inside the body is a living trauma.Winona Grey

Art without action is art that will die inside your body. When art dies inside the body, the body stiffens, the heart locks down, the mind becomes bitter, life turns gray. Art that dies inside the body is a living trauma that you carry with you. Your soul becomes colorless – haunted by the ghost of what you should have made. The ghost of your art is that lump – that sickening, sinking, dreadful feeling. You are grieving over your lost art even now and I’m not sure you even know it.

Please don’t wait any longer. Please begin the work.

Walk your body through the motions if you have to. Throw yourself into the art. Pick up the pen, the torch, the brush. What are you waiting for? Get out of bed. Light a candle. Pick up the nearest fucking tool you can find and start now.

Warm up first, then catch fire.

Let it burn through your body.

Burn down the dam, let the waters rush forth, let the wind pick up, and run alongside the art holding onto it like a kite.

Then, release it.

Breathe.

Watch it soar high above you. Peace will fill the body with every breath in. Joy will wrap itself around your bones.

Please, start now.

If you want to join me for a live call about Creative Resistance – where we’ll talk about all the ways we avoid our creative calling, imposter syndrome, money blocks and the audacity of creative entrepreneurship – I’ll be live on Zoom (with Winona as one of my guests) on Tuesday, April 11th, 2017 at 2pm PST.  If you’re not able to make the call – make sure you subscribe to my email list and I’ll send out a recording once the call is complete.

To join the call:
Join from:

• PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/2862682980
• iPhone one-tap (US Toll): +14086380968,2862682980# or +16465588656,2862682980#
• Telephone: Dial: +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) or +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll) Meeting ID: 286 268 2980
• International numbers available: https://zoom.us/zoomconference?m=m3d6sR3854QSkQKZj3ItQyrfc1ExPtq6

Winona Grey was a sad little girl haunted by traumatic memories until she found a camera and learned to tell the truth through self portraiture. Then, for ten years, she was a resolute and quiet young woman learning to survive with a mental illness until she found the words and began to write. Now she teaches the path to self love through self portraiture as sacred ritual and writes in the voice of the brave woman she has become.  Follow Winona on Instagram | Join the Sacred Self Portrait

Uncommon Sense is an ongoing series where I respond to comments and questions that stir my heart. They arrive by email, by text, by comment. They speak to something universal in me, and my response comes quick and sure. If you have something stirring in your heart and would like me to respond– please send me your message. I cannot respond publicly to all messages, but I do promise – with everything that I have –  that I will honor it and keep it safe.

The post Uncommon Sense: Create like there is no time to waste. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

I was in a space that held both deep doubt and fierce faith. It was down to the wire, again, and I finally decided to show up for myself.  The words came pouring out of me in a wild rush, and I sent it because I had a a deep need to not feel alone in this.  I KNEW I couldn’t be alone in this.

I was right. When I woke the next morning over 20 messages were waiting in my inbox- and over the next few days the emails continued to come. Deep emails, soul-revealing emails, brave and bold messages of truth that cracked me wide open. In all my years of writing online and sending posts to my subscribers, I have never received a response like this.

When something I write elicits that much feedback, I know I’m on to something. I know that I’ve somehow touched a collective experience – something universal within the creative journey. And this is always my indicator that there is more to write, more to create, more work to do.  And so – I am sharing that email here, and I am excited to continue this discussion.

Hello Dearest,

I’m writing you this from my newly found co-working space. I’ve been a self-employed and fully self-supported single mama for a year and a quarter now, working from my dining room table and haunting local coffee shops for more hours than the baristas would likely prefer.

What a hell of a ride it has been. I made it this far – which I know is far more than many. Truth be told though, It’s been down to the wire more times than I want to admit.

Down to the wire like deadlines looming and people waiting and non-sufficient funds charges from the bank and steadily increasing credit card debt. Down to the wire like the mad rush from school to cheer practice and hockey tournaments and take out pizza for dinner.

I’ve vacillated between mad hustle, and hard core run and hide. Bounced between fierce determination and even stronger resistance. I’ve been living on and in purpose and doing exactly what I’m meant to be doing, and also lived fully inside of the ‘holy-fuck-i’m-running-out-of-money-i-need-to-make-a-new-thing-now-and-pray-they-want-to-buy-it’.

Most of the time I feel like it’s all riding on a wing and a prayer.

Yes – I’m an artist – a multi-passionate creative, a writer and a photographer and a storyteller. But I never wanted to be a walking cliche. Yet here I am, feeling like another starving artist.

It’s not that I dislike the business end of things. Truth be told (and much to my surprise) I love business and marketing. I geek out on it. Ask me to help someone else and I light up. I believe in the magic that happens when we take our passions and offer them to the world in a way that fully supports our lives and the people we love. When it is for someone else, it feels like a scared sort of service.

But when I’m doing it for me – the merging of my own art with the necessity of commerce has been fucking messy. And the more anxiety I feel about making it work – the less I actually create. The requirement that the things I make must make money often shuts down the well of words that I thought would never fail me.

I’ve surrounded myself with walls of my own making – walls that separate me from the work and the gifts which are meant to fuel and sustain me.

I’ve been making it for a year, on the power of words alone. Correction – *almost* making it.

Almost, but not quite.

Though there is always more to know, I have the knowledge and the wisdom to do this. I’ve logged enough years in small business ownership and education, digital and content marketing and automation, and had the opportunity to work with and learn from some seriously incredibly people. I know what I should be doing most of the time, and when I don’t I’ve got a tribe of experts surrounding me that I can call on.

I’ve got angels upon angels (you know who you are) who come through with both love and concrete help and support, over and over again. I’ve got a community of brave and wise and deeply intuitive souls who trust me to guide them into the world of words and story. I’ve got all of you, honoring me by granting me precious space in your inbox and in your day. For all of this I am truly and eternally grateful.

In the end, this isn’t a battle to master online marketing, or sales emails or content creation or social media platforms. In the end, this is a journey – as are all journeys, really – deep into myself.

This is about coming face to face with all of my fears and all of my resistance. All of my issues of worthiness and visibility. All of my blocks to money and my inability – thus far – to step fully into the vastness of what could be. My hesitation to not just step onto the stage but to stay there, and not run back into my safe little introvert hermitude as soon as the spotlight shines too brightly.

And so here I am once more. Wedged between the proverbial rock and that terribly uncomfortable hard space. Knowing that this is, as it always is, a dilemma of my own making.

And here I am, committed to doing things differently. To invest financially (even when that investment stretches me far out of my own comfort zone) in the support and expertise that I needed to succeed and in a dedicated space to work from. To stare down the demons and this massive to-do list, and to push through the blocks that have kept me from meaningful creation.

No mistake – this is my week of reckoning. At the end of it must lie a solid amount of work done, content and funnels created with sustainable income potential solidly in place.

Today I arrived at my new co-working ‘office’, supplies in hand, quad almond milk latte and freshly blended green smoothie at the ready, intentions clear. Ready to work. I had, as my own teenager daughter suggested – a real no bullshit talk with myself the night before.

I had laid out the work to be done and exactly what was on the line. I had made a tenuous sort of peace and a reluctant surrender to the fact that another corporate job might really be in the cards in upcoming weeks and months. And, with the peace and surrender present and fully felt – I decided I wasn’t going down without one hell of a fight. I set some fierce intentions and committed fully to the path ahead.

And yet this morning I sat there at my new office, and I did nothing meaningful, resistance gripping me so fiercely that I felt my brain begin it’s familiar path of distraction, skittering from one disjointed thread to the next – like the countless open tabs on my web browser.

For an hour and a half I allowed myself to slip into the patterns of distraction and fear that had landed me in exactly this place. And the voices in my head began speaking loudly. And I started listening.

I’m no good at this.
I can’t focus.
I’m not cut out for business.
I lack the drive and the motivation.
There has GOT to be something wrong with my brain.
What am I so damn afraid of?
I’m a fraud. Soon I’ll have to get a job and they’ll all know it.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?

And then, I took a breath. And a drink of water. And I decided that it was time – past time – to do something differently. And I put on my headphones and I found a good playlist. I closed all those open tabs and I reminded myself of why I was there and what needed to be done.

And then…well then I fucking did it.

I got almost everything on my list done, and then when the co-working space closed I drove home, picked up the dog and headed to my friend’s house for our weekly evening co-working date to began again. I didn’t stop till I was done. Done with every last thing I had set out to do that day.

I still don’t know if it will be enough, or if it will work. Maybe I’ll have to get a job. Maybe I won’t. But I’m reminding myself right now that if I’m the one who got me to this place, I’m the one who can get me out. And it all comes down to sitting down, silencing the demons and doing the work.

It comes down to believing in the art. Creating. Dancing with the muse, welcoming her home to play. Breathing into the expansiveness right in front of my face.

It comes down to making the art, dammit.

Wherever you find yourself tonight, and whatever demons are chasing you, whatever you’ve gotten yourself into and whatever resistance has you frozen, I get you. I feel you. And I’m here to remind you that you don’t have to stay there. That no, it won’t be easy – but that moment by moment and day by day, you can move yourself out of where you are, and at least one tiny step closer to where you want to be.

Hell. If I can do it, anyone can.

xo.

J.

PS: Are you in an epic stare down with demons or resistance? Are the negative voices speaking loudly and freezing you in place? Are you ready to get fierce with intention? Are you here to create? Reply and tell me all about it – after all, for all that the journey is solitary, we’re in this together. Let’s walk this one hand in hand. All of your emails mean so much to me. I welcome you to continue this conversation on resistance and the voices that try to keep us small. On struggles and blocks around money and income and art.  On the fears and the hold back.  Let’s walk this path together.

P.P. S. Within the next few weeks I am planning to create an online conversation where we can all get together via Zoom to continue this conversation in real time. Make sure you subscribe to my email list so I can send you a link to join our tribe live on the call.

The post Creative Resistance: What I’ve learned in the last year. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

The inhibited artists.

Those who only dance in the dark and secret corners when nobody is watching.

You’ve got canvas and paint stacked in the closet and an entire novel bursting at the seams of your soul. You burn with the need to make things, but still – somehow do not.

Your doubt speaks loud and clear,  but not loud enough to drown out the insistent call of your muse.

You’ve something to say but the power of that message makes you want to shrink and hide.

What could happen if you unleashed it all? What would change? What would you lose.

What would they say? Who would you be?

So you don’t. And you hide. And you avoid. You get caught in the loop of perpetual busyness and debilitating self-doubt and priorities that put your call to create near the bottom of the pile.

You ignore the calling. You negate the gift. You aim for perfect and fall short and you speak unkind words directed only at yourself.

You try to content yourself with everything but that terrifying thing that you are meant to do.

That thing that is your purpose. Your passion. Your art.

Enough.

Enough already.

You are here to create.   And it is time to show up.

***

Show up for yourself.

Show up as yourself.

Show up on your own time. In your own way.

Show up with your wild broken open heart.

With your tear stained face.

Show up with ink on your hands and paint on your clothes.

Show up terrified and full of doubt that this will never work.

With all your hopes and every last thing you can no longer believe in.

Show up to announce your letting go.

Show up with whatever scraps you have left.

Show up full force, guns blazing.

Show up ready to burn that shit down.

Show up heart red and pulsing, ready to rebuild.

Show up to break the chains, to smash the cage. To say once and for all, I am done with restraint.

Show up to create.

Show up with your paint and your canvas. Show up with your words of honey and wrecking ball and sunflowers and broken things.

Show up with your hips slow spin.

With your wild and crazy and impossible dreams.

Show up to map the wilderness

Show up to get eternally lost and found deep inside the empty that comes when you spill it all.

Show up naked.

Open your arms. Let your voice ring clear.

Tell them here I am. All that I am. Tell them that you won’t play small for one more day. Tell them you’re here for a reason.

Tell them the resistance is over. The walls have fallen. The people are dancing in the streets.

Show up and change their minds.

Show up and change your own damn mind.

Just show up.

Everything changes when you do.

{an invitation}

Are you ready to blast through the resistance, slide around the excuses and really get writing?

Join me for a FREE 10 Day Challenge designed to help you create a sustainable practice dedicated to the ACT and the ART of writing. 

10 days.
10 practices.
FREE YOUR STORY

FREE YOUR STORY
Completely complimentary - my gift to fuel your writing revolution. 

10 days. 10 practices. Get writing. 

Name

Email

GET WRITING!

No spam. Just concrete writing practices and profound essays on love and life. I promise.

Powered by ConvertPlug

The post you are here to create {an invitation} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

Is it the same for you as it is for me, does the music hold the key to all your memories?

I surround myself with green and growing things here in the desert to remind me of the dedication it sometimes takes to survive.

I crave the darkness and the solitude and the candlelight and sad, sad songs.

Why, when the words tumble inside my head all day long, is it still so hard to write?

There isn’t an ocean for miles and miles but I can always hear the sea.

I keep a bit of creosote in my shower, because even for an ocean girl like me, there is nothing that reminds me of joy like rain in the desert.

Sleep often eludes, but I’ve built my life so that respite exists along the edges and in the quiet corners and right there in your eyes.

I carry guilt etched hard in my bones. Those bones would read like stories if you laid them out in the sun.

I have an affinity for the wolf and the wild moon that I cannot quite explain but that I trust more than anything.

My heart pulses something that sounds much like redemption.

There is a grace inside the ache, and she is one of my greatest teachers.

Love. There’s not much else, really.

My neck and shoulders and left elbow ache and pulse with pain.  I crave strong hands on them to work out all that is held in those muscles. I crave yoga, and the continuous opening found inside my breath.  I crave the mountain and the way it is prayer.

I could listen to your stories for hours.

My want is holy, holy, holy.

I write with a fountain pen whenever I can. The way the pen glides on paper and the ink spills effortlessly into beautiful lines and curves reminds me of what it is to choose the ease and flow.

I like it when my hands are stained with ink. It is proof that the life and the stories are one and the same.

I carry my pain in the right side of my throat. When it hurts there, I know that there are words waiting to be spoken. When I cry, I raise my hand there and it feels like holding my pain in my palm. It is one of the many ways my body speaks to me.

Humanity, in all its messiness, is a glory and a wonder to me.

Sometimes it is the disappearance of a thing, finally, that bring you to peace. Even when you held on to whatever sliver remained with every desperate breath – when it finally goes, you find that you are free.

But still, some nights the ghosts, they are relentless.

She’ll come home in an hour and a half, at a time when most of the city is tucked in bed. She’ll come home and she’ll shower after 12 long hours of doing good and true work. And she’ll slip into bed and wrap me in her arms and it will all be worth it in that moment. Every last bit.

Sometimes, when I light the candles and find the music and pour the whiskey and feel it burn down and the words still don’t come – I force myself to sit and just write what I know.

The older I get, the less I know.

The less I know – the more the world opens up, wide and waiting.

This is how I have come to understand the taste of freedom.

I am filled with resistance. But still, I am here.

One letter on this screen at a time, I am here. Neck aching and back bent and eyes burning, I am here.

This is what it means to show up.

This is what it means to trust the calling.

This is what It means to write.

And the candles burn and the whiskey goes down smooth and there is a song playing that stirs something wild and deep. And my fingers are clicking on the keyboard.

I am writing.

And it’s the farthest thing from a masterpiece that I can fathom. But I’m here. I am here. Alive. Heart beating and blood pulsing with memory and relentless hope.

Show up. Start with what you know. It’s as simple and raw and messy and hard and as impossible and as necessary as that.

Because we have stories to tell.

Write Your Revolution

The post Start with what you know. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

[hr] It’s the truth that sets you free, right?  Coming clean, that’s what I preach.

I don’t always tell you everything. Did you think I did?

You want the truth of me right now? Tonight? Should I tell you that right now there is no compassionate mother in me. I am snarling and impatient and snappy. They pull me from this. And this is what compels me.  I don’t want to mother. Not right now.

I’m not supposed to say that. It doesn’t fit within the selfless narrative I am called to embody.

Right now I want a shack by the beach and I want to create and I want to be fed green grapes and bittersweet chocolate by pretty girls with nothing better to do. And I want to toss back shots of whiskey at an old bar with men whose skin has been worn to leather from a life on the sea. I want to weave my way steady to the bow of a boat and let the spray encrust me with grit and the waves fill me with the sound of home. And then I want to return, to my weathered wood cottage, and turn the music up loud and light incense and candles and cigarettes and lap dance for the muse until she puts the fuck out for me every single time I ask. Because it’s hot, what I’m making, and even she – fickle as she can be – doesn’t want to miss a second of this flame.

I’m probably not supposed to say that either.

I want a bike with a basket big enough to get the food I need, and the chocolate and the whiskey and the wine and cigarettes.  I want endless miles of coastline to ride along, until my legs ache from honest exertion. I want to let go of the handles and remember just how good my balance can be when I trust it.

I want a bonfire right outside my front door. Where the lovely girls and pretty man-boys cavort and dance and strip off all their clothing to tumble into the sea where the kisses always taste like salt.  I want this every single night. Until even my skin is permeated with the burn-down-rise-up scent of wood smoke and sand and sea. I want to be singed with the heat of it. I want it, saturated, in my pores until my breath feels gritty and real again. Until the skin on skin gives off the heat of flame. Until even the words burn as they are birthed.

I know I’m not supposed to say all of that.

I’m not supposed to like this about myself. This selfish that lives inside. Supposed to keep it hidden.  Soften it for you. Take the rough off my edges. Round out my sharp corners. I am told they are wrong.   The wants. The excessive need for solitude. For life on my own terms. Not ladylike. Not generous.  Not mother. That I’m not who you knew. Not who you know, even.

I don’t like it. But then I do. My wants speak to my needs which translate the terms of my survival.  The compulsions of art that will drive me and put me at war and seduce me into the crucible at the center of pure creation. There’s alchemy in owning it all.  Unabashed. Unapologetic. Without shame.

Oh, I know I’m not supposed to be shameless. This world, it’s got all kinds of words for women like me.

But there’s more to this than just me.

Because I have daughters. Because living on my own terms comes down to more than just my own survival.

My girls, they will know me as human. As creatrix as much as mother. As ugly and dirty and real as much as calm and patient and loving. See my struggle as well as my bliss. My unmet longing as counter to my grace. My deep rooted insecurity and my narcissism. My hard fall of tears as much the sweetness of my laugh. The way we all can storm and cry and flail and then fall into my big marshmallow bed, a tangle of limbs and heart and tears, and fall asleep intertwined, secure and at peace.

And they will know what it is for a woman like me to live in fullness with herself. To fight for it. To know she is within choice at each moment. To make contracts with self as the path to wholeness, even when this comes at great cost. To find the integrity within that space, even if that looks different than what the world would call true. To understand that even fullness can sometimes feel dark and bleak and empty.

That even regret and unmet hopes bring untold richness to what will be born. That it can be a raw and primal thing, this unceasing drive to make something from within one’s self. That great art is birthed of both great pain and great joy and sometimes directly as we navigate the tenuous space between the two. That we birth our art as we birth ourselves. Both, often, in the midst of struggle.

I think I’m probably not supposed to say that either. I’m supposed to make it gentle.  Pretty it up a little for everyone.

But I want them to know well the selfish and the selfless that lives within each of us, and the delicate dance between the two. To experience the wilderness of reclamation and the surrender of relinquishment that is a part of every negotiation we will walk as women who burn and ask and risk.   Who refuse to follow the rules given us by culture and upbringing and expectation.

I want them to know it’s okay to exist from the center of absolute unknowing. To live the ugly and the confused and the sad and the broken,  honest and out loud. That it’s equally okay to dive into the bliss.

I want, by the very root of my life, to show them a narrative that diverges from the one this world would have them live.

A narrative that is bloody and powerful and full of heat and sweat and sex and a sweet, holy joy that is owned and chosen. And a grief and teardown that is owned just as fully.  And an autonomy of self that rushes from within their goddess center, and a voice that rings true and tells the stories that will be key to their survival.

Stories that can be lived and written and told by no other voice but their own.

I cannot teach this from within a container of acceptable and predictable.

Because if they feel trapped or small or lost at 20 or 30 or 40, I hope they shall take the freedom to run for the sea and to heed her wild call. To hear the whisper through mountain top pines speaking ancient truth and knowing deep in their bones that the forest will hold their scared vows. I want them to burn sage and creosote and speak ancient incantation and call forth the goddess. I want them to splash paint on canvas under full pink moon while the coyote howl and the fire rages and to not fear the wild power that wells up from within on such a night.  I want them to own their sex as holy.  To know their desire as a divinity. To place a ring on their own ring finger and make promises that they will never speak to another. Unless they want to, and then I want them to do exactly that. To know it’s all in them, as it has been in all of us, all along.

And me.  Their mother?

I am never more than a sliver of space from the center of the paradox. From the glorious reality of complete contradiction. Not unbalanced, no. The {im}perfect center. Point and counterpoint. I seek it others. And when I look deeply enough, I find it in myself.

I don’t want to be where I am, but I cannot be where I belong. I am always searching for home, always seeking the next idea, the next embodiment of what may be. I am broken, and I am whole.

And yes, there is an unrest there, an ceaseless searching. A wolf who comes calling, whispering, howling. She leads me to hunt and prowl and burn. And she guides me to that delicate sliver of space, right at the core, that is pure peace.

I am opened finally, to a relentless sort of hope. For that forever love that the movies try to prove to me is real. And I believe. God damn, after all this time and all this ache, I actually believe.

But I also want to be pressed hard against a rough wall by someone who has the right not to give a fuck who I am or was or ever will be. I want a family of kids and grandkids and chosen souls and a 40-year partner in crime to surround me until the end of my days. And I want to be left the hell alone – to get old and grow gray and soft with the company of books and seagulls and worn wooden floors and chipped pottery that holds my morning tea. To take lovers when I want and discard them when I don’t.

I’m probably not supposed to speak that, am I? Not supposed to honor the way they swirl together, am I? That contradiction between the safe and the wild that lives in all of us. We are to choose one or the other and not look back. If we feel a pull to that which we’ve left behind or that which we have not yet found, we are to ignore and suppress and forget. There are truths that are easier for others to bear if we commit to never speaking them aloud.

Once upon a time I silently agreed to do just that.

I cannot.  Not any longer.

Tonight I feel the glow of the candles on my face and the cool of air on my back and the peace of the rain that falls and falls and falls outside. It quenches the packed, dry earth of desert and something in me as well. Taking what was hard and making it soft. Liquid. Inevitable. The way water flows. Just like it was the last time my body met another body and current met current and it all flowed into mystery. The way I move when I stop fighting my nature.

Until it’s all liquid alchemy. Wet heat. The way home.

I don’t care anymore what I’m supposed to say. This is my story. You can listen if you want. You can join me if you will.

Because these words and this life are my own.   Even when I contradict itself.  Even when I make every sense and no sense at all. Even when it changes from minute to minute. Whether they ring true or untrue. These things are nobody’s but mine.

And I’ve got a story to tell.  And so I begin and begin and begin.  Again.

 {images by iamchanelle photography}

The post The Truth Of A Woman Like Me appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

The stories burn for release.  We are writers by birth and by destiny and by intention. Not by choice. If we never scratched another word on a coffee shop napkin, this would not change.  A writer is not someone who does. A writer is someone who is. Denial will result in an unceasing ache and a relentless empty.  Our words are the truest way we serve the world.

Truth:   We will always have another mistress

Her name is Muse. We serve her with devotion. Do anything to please her and keep her close. Courting. Seduction. On our knees, desperate pleading. And when she leaves us, as she always will, we must write our way back into her graces. She responds only to action and dogged intention.

Truth:  We will stop at red lights

Pull over onto the dusty side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere. Gas station parking lots. School pick up lines. We will leave your arms at 3am after hard, hot sex. We will write with whatever is available and on any surface that presents itself. When the words come burning clear and true, we must answer.   Sometimes the words will be lost anyway. Gone into the ether as if they never were. We will mourn them like a lost child, convinced they were our most brilliant.

Truth: It is terrifying sometimes, having so many words living inside 

They beat snare drum steady in our chest. They burn and scratch and push and pull. They are thirsty for freedom. They crave the danger of the edge. They want someone to promise safety. They don’t give a single fuck. Sometimes we can subdue and tame and become master of this beast, but often we are at its mercy. The words are their own living, fire-breathing dragon. We must get out of the way, and give them space to work through us and birth themselves.

Truth: There are days when writing is survival

On these days the spilling of words on page is the only thing that will save us from the demons and from ourselves. The only path to burn down and rebirth. The only way out and through. The very thing that keeps us alive.

Truth: We need to write more than anything

It is the most relentlessly driving force. But many days we’ll do just about anything to avoid having to write. We will hide and run and resist with every last bit of strength we can muster. It’s the ultimate dichotomy of the creative soul.

Truth: We live nestled snugly inside paradox

We inhabit our contradictions. We are both walking peace and writhing confusion. Our only certiantly comes from the solidity of mystery. Creativity thrives on ultimate possibility and infinite potential. We couldn’t do it if we were any more sure of anything.

Truth: We’ve been writing since we were 8, or 11 or 15  

Or forever in lives long since past. We likely began with sappy, hopeful, angsty, rhyming odes to boys and girls and sunsets and ocean waves and bus stop daydreams. Mostly about love. These days we’re not so concerned about rhyming. But most of us are still awfully preoccupied with love.

Truth: You spill blood, we hemorrhage novels

Our cuts seep with the precise cadence of our lover’s sigh as our fingers slid from ribs to waist. They feel like a grieving mother hitting the ground, tearing her hair out with the wail of centuries of torn from her chest. They taste the way the ocean feels on bare skin, like salt and wet and cold and freedom. Sometimes we need to cut ourselves, clean slice across soft expanse of skin, force it all to rise to the surface – just to access the truth pulsing through our veins.

Truth: We live in metaphor as much as in reality

There are endless ways to draw our own blood. We know them all. We also know that the best way to staunch the bleeding is the exact same way we are both emptied and filled. To sit and spill our guts and our grief and our joy and our sex and our longing and our wanderlust and the time we finally found our way home. To write until we are spent. Until the words are done with us.

Truth: Don’t wait up

Rise yourself over the city at night and look. The lights still burning at 3am are those of night workers and insomniacs and the broken hearted.  And writers. Always, the writers. The witching hours between midnight and dawn belong to us. To the candles and whiskey and the sex and cigarettes and the ink and the click of the fingers against keys and the stacks and stacks and stacks of paper scrawled with layers of truth and bullshit and true love and glory and vice and battle. In the quiet time when the ghosts dance the real work gets done.

Truth: We have learned to speak in the spaces between words

In the infinite pause at the top of the incline, in the curve of the comma. In the expanse of the inhale. In the silent slide of lips along clavicle and the closing edge of teeth on hipbone. We know that one almost imperceptible moan can contain an entire love story. And that tears can be the personification of the erotic and that the metallic bite of copper is the exact taste of grief. And that in these soundless spaces we say more than could ever be conveyed with the smooth slide of pen across page and the words of a hundred languages at our disposal.

Truth: To be an artist is to be both archaeologist and surgeon

We dig deep, unearth all of the broken and discarded and fractured pieces. Pottery and garbage and bones and beauty. We dust them off and lay them out and step back to look. We study your history and make sense of your story and then splice you back together into letters and paragraphs and chapters. And on our pages you are more than the sum of your parts and yet exactly what you’ve always been meant to be. This will be disconcerting. And beautiful.

Truth: If you love us, even for a time, you won’t walk away unscathed

Loving a writer will fill you and buoy you and shatter you and save you again and again and again. You will become the muse and the one thing standing in her way. We will love like you’ve never been loved and tell stories you never wanted told. We will push past your boundaries and call you safely home. We will love you with wholeness and fullness and notes on scraps of torn musical scores and with the way we whisper your name in the darkest night. Even our touch will feel like a story. You will never be the same.

Truth: Lists like this are utter bullshit

We are infinitely variable, us writers. The beast and the scotch over ice and the muse and the love and the blood and the 3am incantation and homecoming and the paradox  – all of it – these are my words, and my naked heart projected on this screen. Nothing more than that. And if you are a writer you have your own pulsing, beating, brutal, brilliant heart. And your own muse and ritual and truth. And only you will know exactly how it loves and lives and breathes your art into life and builds your life into art.

And you will know that there is only one thing you ever really need.

To write.

Don’t let me stop you. Don’t pay the slightest attention to my ramblings. These are nothing but midnight meanderings fueled by a hard shot of whiskey and romanticized by a blood red candle flame and filled with the unceasing longing of my own ocean heart.

But you? All you need is a blank page and a good fucking pen. Light your candles and pour yourself a drink.  Séance your ghosts and seduce your muse. Dance only for yourself. Make it hot. Feel the truth of your bones leading the way.

And don’t let me try to tell you a single thing about your own truth. Or your life or your creativity or the ways and hows and whys of your loving or your life or your words. You know how it is for you. You’ve always known.

So quit the excuses. Sit down. Breathe deep. Own that burning drive inside you.

And write the fuck out of your life. 

The post 10 Truths Of The Writer’s Soul appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.