A new lease on…everything

Once again, I am surprised at how long it has been since I’ve met you here on The Miracle Journal.  These last nine months have been anything but predictable.  But that unpredictability has, in its own way, worked very much in my favor. 🙂

Last fall, I was burning the candle at both ends.  In fact, I added extra ends to my candle, just so I could do a few more things at the same time!  I was burning out, and I knew it – but I didn’t know what to do about it.

And then Mom received a cancer diagnosis and it suddenly got very easy.  Nothing mattered except her.  I stopped everything except the absolute necessities.

That enforced break helped me to regain my balance.

Which is humorous, given how incredibly exhausted and out of balance I felt at the time.  On days that I wasn’t with her, I crawled out of bed in the morning in time to make it to work, finished my eight hours, and crawled back into bed.  It was all I was capable of doing.

But while my body and psyche were exhausted, I began generating ideas for projects that TOTALLY EXCITED me.  As they were happening, I could tell that they were some of the best ideas I’d ever had.  And I absolutely, positively knew that I wasn’t going to act on them.

At least not until I began to get my strength and energy back.  Which I knew was going to be a whole bunch of months in the future.  Which meant that the ideas had time to germinate and mature.  That’s a luxury that I have never allowed myself before.

In the meantime, something else happened that was remarkable : I was inspired to return to my roots.

Ten years ago, I facilitated a writing and performance workshop for breast cancer survivors that was, until recently, my crowning achievement in this life.  Over the past decade I have often looked back at that and wondered if I would ever do anything else that wonderful.

At the end of May, a conversation exploded online about gender equality, gender violence, and the state of womanhood in today’s culture (you can find lots of information by Googling “#YesAllWomen”).  I quickly decided to organize a writing workshop for women on this topic. But I made one major change from my earlier workshops: I did it as an online video conference so women from around the world could participate.

There is much more to tell – it has been an utterly remarkable experience.  But for now this is what I want to tell you: We are publishing a book of our writing next month. And it is Fan-Flippin’-TASTIC!

These women have completed re-ignited my passion and my excitement for the work that I do…and I can’t wait to do more of it!

The book will be on sale soon, and I’ll let you know as soon as you can get it.  Until then, I want to whet your appetite with a few video clips featuring a few of the writers reading their own words.  Seriously amazing stuff.

There are more trailers yet to come, so subscribe to the YouTube channel and you’ll be notified as they’re posted!

Leah Niblett:

Mercedes Vasquez:

Elizabeth Devine:

Leah Carey (yes, me!):

Elizabeth Devine, part 2: