The Shift

Hello Reader, Sweat glistens on my upper lip. I dab my forehead with a folded washcloth. Sigh heavily and lean back into the pillow. Even though I birthed my book in December 2024, I’m still feeling waves of exhaustion and delight. I started writing Welcome to the Creative Club in November 2023. I’ve learned so much from writing and publishing my story. I can’t believe I buckled up for this wild ride almost two years ago. As I’m entering a new phase with the audiobook launch, looking back and...

Hello Reader, The first time I kissed a boy was memorable in all the wrong ways. We were playing a game of tag and kiss in the schoolyard in Montreal. I was torn between hoping I wouldn’t get caught and hoping I would. A bunch of twelve-year-old looking for forbidden thrills. Wondering what the fuss was all about. I accidentally bumped into Costa as we rounded the building, my hands grabbing his Lacoste sweatshirt, twisting the alligator, and we were it. My heart beat fast as his lips met...

Hello Reader, Meditation in the jungle. Palm trees swaying with legs in yoga poses. Foam-crested waves lulling me into an afternoon nap on white sand. This is how I imagined Bali. When I arrived at the crowded Denpasar airport and weaved through hours of traffic to get to Ubud, my driver overtaking cars like he was playing GTA, I realized the Bali in my mind was more fantasy than reality. Isn’t this often the case? Yet, it delivered exactly what I needed: a change in routine. A hard stop. I...

Hello Reader, What stops us from evolving into our next creative venture? Maybe the question is, what blocks us from becoming the version of ourselves who creates something new? We’re constantly changing. Our cells regenerate on average every 7-10 years. A photo of myself in high school, teased AquaNet bangs, safety pins in my jeans, and plastic pink hoop earrings, shows me that. Yet, at some point, the ability to ride with change and uncertainty diminishes. Maybe because the spaces between...

Hello Reader, I woke up this morning with the urge to get going. Most mornings feel like this. I’m a Type A who doesn’t need an alarm. I pop up and out of bed like an Olympian pole vaulter. I hear the usual voice, the one that feels like parents in the 1990s scrambling for Cabbage Patch Dolls in the pre-Christmas FAO Schwarz mania in Manhattan (I did end up getting one). “Let’s fucking go.” A feeling of scarcity. If I don’t get started, then I won’t get whatever it is I might be after. God...

Hello Reader, I used to believe in perpetual summers like love in romcoms and LED face masks. Especially as entrepreneurs and creatives, we’re taught ideas are always in bloom and business grows exponentially, daisies running rampant in a field of dreams. That’s, of course, a myth. Life is cyclical. Seasons change. The moon wanes and waxes. Nothing in our world stays the same. So why would our business or art be any different? Since I’m notorious for manufacturing summers - UV light and...

Hello Reader, We’re in the dark recesses of COVID. I’m not sick, but the blue laptop hue makes me look unwell. Small faces stack like a weird Hollywood Squares episode, but instead of celebrities competing for charity, we’re a group of middle-aged (ish) women gathered together in a coaching certification course. Wiebke, our teacher, with her brown pixie cut and piercing blue eyes, loves cats and freedom (she changes homes frequently). Now, she’s live from Spain, her tabby making the...

Hello Reader, I had an epiphany this weekend: I’ll never get it all done. There will never come a time when I'm scot-free, task-less. That imagined state is like Narnia. It doesn't exist. I've been wrestling with this lately as my book, Welcome to the Creative Club – part memoir, part manifesto, part gentle rebellion – makes its way into the world. It's the first time I've truly stood for my work like this, a vulnerability that summons creativity vampires. What's blocking my creative flow? An...

Hello Reader, You're not going to feel like doing it all the time. Creating. Making. Writing. It won't always feel good either. Especially when we want it to be amazing right out of the gate. Genius to spill out of us like blood. An endless flow of brilliance. And when that doesn't happen, the channel can get blocked. Some days, it will feel like pulling out your own wisdom teeth. You'll have to squeeze in creating between meetings. Type ideas on your notes app and save them for later, when...