The Magic of Letting Go: How Forgiveness Helps Your Writing

Over the last few weeks I've been engaged in a new process for me: forgiveness.

If you had asked me a month ago if I had things to forgive, I'd have blinked at you and said, "I don't hold grudges." (I really excel at denial.)

When my Dreambook Planner asks me every Sunday as I'm looking ahead at the new week: "Who do you need to forgive?" I often leave that space blank.

That's because I've been focused on who I need to forgive in my current every day life. And it's true -- I am pretty good at practicing forgiveness in the here and now. When something comes up I usually take care of it. But it has not always been so.

As I began working through an online class I'm doing (Money Bootcamp for Women by Denise Duffield Thomas and it's FANTASTIC if you happen to have any money hangups) I encountered an entire module on forgiveness. When I got into the work I realized I was dragging around years of baggage over hurts both large and small. It kinda felt a bit like this:

Thing is, I didn't even know they were there. I was so used to working around them that I thought the whole time I was free.

So I started a very simple practice of repeating the forgiveness mantra Denise teaches (I'm going to share it with you in a minute) whenever one of these people or incidents popped up. No pressure. No need to feel a certain way, or wait to forgive perfectly.

The name would come up. I'd repeat my little mantra, let it go, and move on.

I'll admit there were tears involved around some names and situations. But it felt so amazing to release all of that weight and let it go.

So then I started thinking. The act of forgiving is really for US, not for the person we forgive. In fact, in this forgiveness practice, those people are never even going to know whether we forgave them or not. It's all about clearing away all of that clutter. It weighs us down and holds us back. It can present as chatter from our internal critic.

And there is one person, sometimes the hardest to forgive, who needs to know I've forgiven her. And that person is - myself. She needs to know that I forgive her everything. All of her inconsistencies and faults, failures, and foibles.

I need to forgive her for years she wasted, for not always doing her best work, for procrastinating and avoiding, for missed opportunities and falling short of goals.

This, my dear one, frees up so much energy to move forward into deeper creativity, deeper relationships, and more joyful living.

The mantra is simply this:

I forgive you.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
I love you.

(Note: You may have some people in your life, or in your past who have done heinous things to you and maybe they don't deserve to be forgiven. In that case, this kind of forgiveness may seem insurmountable to you. Remember this, though: Forgiveness is for YOU. And YOU deserve to be able to let it go. Sometimes it helps to start very small. Sometimes it helps to have a professional person to walk through this work with you.)

I plan to continue this forgiveness work on a daily basis, but this does seem to be the perfect time of year to focus in on it and give ourselves the gift of beginning the new year free and clear.

So, I'm running a free online Clear & Create group on Thursday, December 13, to take us through the process of letting go of our own perceived failures and creating intentions for 2019. This is an interactive Zoom room session involving guided imagery, free writing, and letting go of old baggage. I'd love to have you join us!

I’m also taking this work deeper as part of a brand new coaching package that will transform your creative process - and your life - within the space of 30 days. I believe in this so strongly I’m offering a guarantee.

You can get a free taste of how this works in the Clear & Create group, so I hope to see you there!

Get Your Magic BHAWG for 2019

Okay, my writer friends. I’m on a soap box today. It is time for us all to:

• STOP falling short of our writing goals.

• STOP the endless hours procrastinating on Facebook and watching never ending
  re-runs of soulless TV.

• STOP feeling desperate, hopeless and on the brink of giving up altogether.

BHAWG Magic, taking place live on December 6, 2018 at 4 pm PST is here to save your soul. (Well, okay, that might be a little over the top.)

Sign up here: BHAWG MAGIC

Hey, I’ve been in the procrastination trenches right along with you and I know how miserable it feels when you’re not getting to your writing and falling short of your goals. As a bestselling author and a Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coach, I’ve learned some amazing secrets about getting to my writing consistently and with joy.

And I want to share some of my best secrets with you. I can’t wait to walk you through setting a Big Hairy Ass Writing Goal (and share my best secrets for having fun reaching it) on December 6, 2018, at 4 pm PST. (Don’t worry - sign up to watch the replay).

Learn how to pursue a Big Hairy Ass Writer Goal (BHAWG) without succumbing to anxiety, avoidance, procrastination or ugly meltdown moments so that you can get your writing done with joy and ease and HAVE FUN DOING IT.

You've been gifted with the passion to write and it's time to live up to your potential. You'll be a better person for it, and – trust me - your friends, family, and readers will be too.

So be sure to nab a space, stock up on your fave snacks and have a plentiful supply of coffee! It’s going to be epic.

Oh, and the best part?
You don’t have to part with a single penny. Not one cent, absolutely nothing.

So there you have it….one simple click away from changing your writing life forever.

To make that happen, you need to take the first step and sign up for BHAWG Magic at the link below:

Sign up here: BWHAW MAGIC

PS - I can’t GUARANTEE the unicorns will show up. But I can tell you that magic happens when you write at the edge.

Write at Your Edge - The Art of Setting a Motivating Goal

I've been thinking a lot about goals lately, for a lot of different reasons.

For one thing, I'm taking a look at my own goals right now, because when I quit my day job a couple of weeks ago I told myself that I had a year to build a self sustaining writing and coaching business. And now that I'm lucky enough to get to do writing and coaching every day, all day, I'm so incredibly in love with life and I want to keep doing this FOREVER. Literally. If you're hoarding some secret elixir of life somewhere, I really need to get some from you because I need about another hundred years to do all of the things I want to do.

I'm taking a class right now that asks us to create what they call a BHAG - which stands for Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. I have (naturally) flipped this to B-HAWGs - which stands for Big, Hairy-Ass Writing Goals. They feel a bit like being mooned by a troll. Or, maybe more like this:

Yes, you can conquer this hairy beast!

One caution before we proceed. B-HAWGS and B-HAGS need to be treated with finesse and caution. If they are too big and too hairy, they can immerse us in overwhelm, fear, avoidance, and procrastination. But if they are too tiny, then we can just lie around on the couch with a drink in one hand, muttering, "I can squash you like a bug, any old time I want."

With that understood, let me ask you a question. Do you have a creative goal? Is it well-defined and time limited? Does it give you a little buzz of adrenaline when you think about it?

Here's a hint: if your goal has got the word "someday" in it, it's not a BHAG or a B-HAWG or really even a goal - it's just a wish.

These tend to sound like this:

Someday I'll write my novel.
Someday I'll quit my day job.
Someday I'll lose weight.
Someday I'll learn how to make candles
Someday I'll call my mother. (This one is for me, because I've been forgetting for like three days now and maybe I need to actually put it in my planner.)
I've got a book in me, somewhere...

If you are a nebulous goal setter, I challenge you to set yourself a real goal. Make it one that raises your blood pressure a little bit. Give it a timeline. Write it on a calendar. Say it out loud.

BUT - be careful not to make your goal TOO hairy.

Once you have a good, real, adrenaline inducing goal, fear might kick in. I maintain that a teeny tiny little bit of fear is motivating. But too much fear drives us into overwhelm and fear paralysis. So if you're stuck or blocked and you DO have a goal, take a minute to see if that needs to be tweaked.

Is it realistic? Are you being fair to yourself? Are you making allowances for other things going on in your life?

Maybe you've got a chronic illness or you have a change in your living situation and you can't accomplish as much right now as you used to be able to, or as you might be able to do a few months from now. Consider adjusting your goal to reflect what is realistically possible for you.

HINT: This changes with health, grief, family circumstances, and the weather. It's okay to tweak a goal when the situations change. As my good friend Wes used to say: "Drive as fast as the road conditions allow, always remembering that you are part of the road conditions."

What are YOUR road conditions? If you're in a place where it's foggy or snowing or the road is washed out, then you need to rethink the timing of your destination.

There's an art to setting a good creative goal - finding the edge that motivates you without shutting you down.

Listen to the podcast version here: Creativity Quest with Kerry Schafer, part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network

If you are a writer, and you want a B-HAWG of your own, I'd love to have you join an exclusive group for writers with serious, BHAWG goals for 2019: Write At Your Edge. (If you don't have a big scary goal yet but you want one, I can totally help with that! Email me to set up a goal setting coaching session, or wait and take the goal setting class I'm going to offer in January.)

Write at Your Edge offers support from me and other writers, weekly write ins, a monthly writer group, discounts to classes I'll be offering and more. Join Before January 1 to get the Intrepid Writer discounted rate and a special journal to help you on the way.