ah.

what a relief.

I've decided to stop pushing myself to do the online business thing. This does not mean I won't be doing more courses, or that you can't sign up for coaching with me, because you totally can, but I am so completely tired of failing to live up to the requirements of doing online business. 

Every day, I hear the voices, shouting at me:
HUSTLE! GO AFTER YOUR DREAMS! GO GET MORE FOLLOWERS! BUILD YOUR LIST! DO IT NOW! STOP BEING ON SOCIAL MEDIA! BE ON THIS SOCIAL MEDIA! YOUR PHOTOS AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH! YOUR HAIR ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH!

I am someone who gets paralyzed by failure. I stop. I just can't go on. Two people, total, signed up for the last course I offered, so I didn't do the course. And then I didn't do it at all. For a year. I took a coaching certification course instead. 

My inability to keep up with the amount of work seemingly required to create an internet business and become an influencer and all of that, has allowed me to hide. It's a great excuse.

But when I was just doing it for fun, and wasn't trying to make it A Thing -- when it wasn't An Income Stream, and was just Sara Offering Something She Loves -- I was so much happier. And when I'm happy, I create more. 

So, I would totally love to work with you, to coach you and help you find your groove and your mojo and your sparkle and your magic. I am excited to offer another storytelling course this fall. I plan to do another fairytale workshop in person here, and my friend Margot and I are going to do a super cool event in Northfield this fall. AND I am done trying to "make it work." I'm going to get back to playing, and being delighted when people decide to join me.  I'm going to like what I like. 

What about you? What are you going to stop doing? 

Maybe you want to watch this beautiful little segment from Coppola's part of "New York Stories," which I watched over and over as a kid: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmtLJIlS8lQ

Where do you go to find yourself again? I was in deep conversation today, and I mentioned my time in England... so long ago now. 

When I was there, I was free to recreate myself. I was far, far from home, and few of my close friends from my home college were there with me on the year abroad program. I made new friends, and strengthened tiny friendships from before. I bicycled all over Oxford at all hours. I went to London with groups and alone. I dated delightful people, sang in choirs, performed in a play. I ate cookies and drank tea, and spent my holidays traveling. I joined clubs and societies, saw movies, drank in pubs, and partook of ancient festivals. I visited the White Horse, and Wayland's smithy, and circles of stones. I read in libraries built before my ancestors crossed the ocean. I cooked feasts for special occasions, and sometimes subsisted on toast, marmite, cocoa, and oranges.

I was young and free and alive.

I've lost that young woman. I catch glimpses of her now and then, but she seems so far away, so shrunken by distance that I could tuck her in a pocket. Or a locket. Or a nutshell.

Where do you go, when you've lost who you were?

Even reading back into the early posts on this blog, like this one, I can see her, dimly, behind the words. But she's been drifting farther and farther away over the past few years.

And now, I am looking for her. Looking for her trail of breadcrumbs, my finger reaching out for the invisible silken thread that will lead me, I am stumbling into the forest again. 

I call the voices of anxiety in my head "brainweasels," thanks to my friend Betsy. The brainweasel is a wily creature. Soft, agile, sinuous, it can creep into the tiniest corners of the mind. The brainweasels want me to be safe, but not really -- just safe from censure, safe from judgement. Their teeth are made of shame, hard as diamonds, and their lust for my attention is boundless. A fox in the hen house usually means the loss of a hen, perhaps 2, and some feathers left scattered. A weasel will take out a whole coop, for the sake of a few bites. Destruction for its own sake. The brainweasels do that, too. 

I'm working on training the brainweasels to give up control of my life, but they are so convincing. They are sure they are doing a bang-up job of it. But I want that joyful, vivid young woman back, so the weasels aren't aloud to drive anymore. They drive like 115 year old ladies, anyway, and then slay anyone who cuts them off.  Best to take their keys away, hmm?

Where do you go to find yourself again? Perhaps it's not a question of where, but of how, or of when? 

I don't have answers yet. Just more questions. But I'll try to share them with you, if I find them. In the meantime, I'll be here, on the overgrown path into the woods.