Day: October 20, 2025

  • 🌿 Yin Practice: Listening, slowing down to speed up

    🌿 Yin Practice: Listening, slowing down to speed up

    Society values the push — the doing, the achieving, the forward motion.
    But this week, we’re turning our attention toward being.

    Thresholds and the Parts That Resist

    As we bring awareness to thresholds, it’s normal to feel some fear or anxiety.
    Like Leeane shared about Monja — at the end of the sweat lodge she said she could do more than she thought. She surprised herself: “Look at that — I got through.”
    It leaves you with that quiet sense of wonder: I wonder what else I can do?

    If you think back to the thresholds you’ve already crossed, they often carry that same feeling of strength — each time something in us breaks open: an old idea, a fear, a long-held family belief.

    This week, notice your relationship to thresholds — the ones you’ve crossed and the ones still waiting.
    They show up in our everyday lives as much as in the big cycles.

    As we move through these inevitable challenges, we also meet the parts of us that say, “Hell no, I don’t want to go.”
    Get curious about the small (and maybe big) things you hold back from.

    A small example: I know I need to get myself exercising, but something in me doesn’t want to.
    If you gave that voice space, what would it say?

    Maybe: “Rest is important right now.”
    That might be valid.
    Or maybe: “I can’t let myself be seen like this — unfit, not worthy.”

    We can listen with curiosity to these stories. They often lead back to earlier experiences when not going felt like the only way to stay safe.

    A Story from My Own Pages

    I remember one of my earliest experiences of not going was to karate camp.
    I was seven, and there was an older kid who bullied me. I went, but I bunked most of the weekend, and shortly after, I quit karate altogether.

    It became a threshold I didn’t cross again — the one that taught me to avoid physical difficulty.
    Over the years, I’ve learned to help that young part of me — to put down the burden of feeling like it was his fault for not getting through.
    He really did the best he could with what he had.

    And I helped him find new thresholds to cross — but this time, we looked for mentors, people who had gone before and could show us how.
    What a difference that made to a boy who had few men taking an interest in him.
    He loved that idea. Deep down, he knew he couldn’t do it alone.

    This Week’s Invitation

    As we explore thresholds, check in with your parts:
    What do they need to cross?
    What gives them strength?
    What will help them?

    These are very different questions from what society teaches: Push harder. Be stronger.

    This week we’re inviting more being — the yin quality.
    Slowing down, even for a few minutes, and listening.

    It may look like:

    • Reaching for your phone less
    • Giving yourself a few moments each day that are non-directional
    • Letting yourself walk with less of a need to get somewhere
    • Letting play arise — not to get anywhere, just to be.

    If you find this hard, no problem.
    Just notice it — and put it in your pages.

  • 🌿 Morning Pages: A Practice in Clearing

    🌿 Morning Pages: A Practice in Clearing

    Writing as a way of listening — a gentle daily practice for clearing the noise and meeting yourself on the page.

    The Mind Is Noisy

    The mind is noisy. Morning Pages are a way to clear that noise — three pages, first thing, before the day begins.

    What Are Morning Pages?

    Morning Pages, developed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, are a daily writing exercise designed to unblock creativity and foster self-awareness.
    They’re a stream of consciousness on paper — three longhand pages written before the day starts.

    You write whatever comes to mind, without censoring or editing.
    Even if it’s “I don’t know what to write; this feels pointless,” — that’s what you write.
    The process is as simple, and as profound, as that.

    Why Morning Pages Matter

    Each time we return to the page, something small reveals itself. Patterns emerge. Clarity deepens.
    The practice builds trust — not in having all the answers, but in your ability to meet yourself honestly.

    Morning Pages help us stay with what’s unfinished. They create space for what we’ve been carrying to shift into something more life-giving.
    There’s no end goal — only the slow work of becoming clearer about what’s true.

    And sometimes, when we can finally say something clearly enough, we find we’re no longer holding on to it quite so tightly.

    How to Do Morning Pages

    1️⃣ Write first thing in the morning.
    Before checking messages or engaging with the world, give yourself this space to meet your own mind before it becomes crowded.

    2️⃣ Write three pages by hand.
    Julia Cameron insists on longhand for a reason:

    “Velocity is the enemy. It takes longer to write by hand, and this slowness connects us to our emotional life.”
    The slower rhythm invites the deeper voice beneath the surface chatter.

    3️⃣ Don’t worry about grammar or structure.
    Let it be messy. This is about honesty, not performance.

    4️⃣ Don’t aim for art.
    Morning Pages are not “art.” They are a clearing — a space to empty what’s been stored inside so that something new can move through.

    5️⃣ Keep them private.
    They’re for your eyes only. This privacy makes honesty possible.

    6️⃣ Be consistent.
    The magic happens over time. Some days will feel alive, others dull — both matter.
    It’s the act of returning that builds trust.

    7️⃣ Use them to explore or vent.
    Write about what’s on your mind — your worries, hopes, lists, dreams. Over time, clarity deepens.

    8️⃣ Don’t overthink it.
    If you’re stuck, write about being stuck. Keep the pen moving. That’s the only rule.

    Writing as a Way of Listening

    In Parts on Paper, we call this writing as a way of listening.
    The focus isn’t perfection — it’s hearing what’s actually there beneath the noise.

    You might write something simple, like I take you as you were, Dad.
    At first, they’re just words. But when you stay with them — day after day — something shifts.
    Meaning unfolds, and what began as clutter becomes clarity.

    This is the work — not forcing clarity, but allowing it to emerge through repetition and return.
    What begins as scattered thoughts gradually becomes something you can see more clearly.
    And in that seeing, something releases.
    Clarity becomes its own reward.

    Permission to Be Honest

    Byron Katie says, “Judge your neighbour.”
    It sounds strange, but it’s a permission slip for truth-telling.

    Let yourself write the judgments you normally suppress — the person who irritates you, the friend who let you down, the family member who drives you mad.
    Brené Brown calls this the SFD (Shitty First Draft) — and that’s exactly what Morning Pages are for.

    When we write our judgments down, we can see them clearly instead of acting them out unconsciously.
    Sometimes they’re valid; sometimes they turn around and reveal something about us.
    Either way, they move from the shadows to the page — where they can breathe.

    A Note on Community

    Though Morning Pages are private, sharing the experience of the practice can be powerful.
    In our Parts on Paper groups, each person writes alone — but reflecting together on what the practice brings up reminds us we’re not alone on the journey of self-discovery.

    Final Thought

    Let yourself watch the words pour out of your pen.
    The more you do, the more you’ll see — you’re not really doing the writing.

    Writing, like breathing, just happens.
    You catch the current and let it flow.

    What a strange and beautiful thing — to witness life pouring itself through you. 🌿