I like to think of myself as a minimalist. To an extent, that is true. Back in 2010, I got rid of most of my belongings to the point that I could fit everything I owned into my car (a Honda Fit – cute, eh?).
Since then, I have fluctuated between gathering things to me and then paring down again later on. When I got married in March 2016, I gathered to me a husband, a dog, and an apartment full of stuff. My husband, the dog, and I have pared down a couple of times since then, but the process and experience of this expanding and contracting has caused me to re-evaluate what my relationship with “stuff” is.
Simple Isn’t About Quantity
I find that I don’t mind buying things and increasing the quantity of things I own if the items are useful. Living simply for me has become less about the quantity of stuff and more about the quality of it.
This is one of those things that seems obvious when I think about it, however, I have done my fair share of spending on stuff that seemed cool in the moment and then end up sitting somewhere and collecting dust and then being donated or sold at a loss because it served no tangible purpose.
I’m not saying I beat myself up over not using my money in the best ways, but when I realize that I haven’t, it makes me want to be more conscious in my choices.
Choosing with Purpose
To bring consciousness to my choices, I have to have some way to measure whether something is worthy of purchase or keeping. I want my dollars to serve my long-term life goals and not just my whims (which can be too easily manipulated by colorful advertising and catchy phrases).
And I don’t want clutter.
For me, I look at what my perfect day or perfect life would be like and see how the item fits into that vision.
I find it is also a good place to operate from as far as what I am willing to take on in my life. It gives me a good marker to determine when to say no to people and when to move forward with an idea. Very empowering when your time and resources are limited.
Simplicity Is Power (and Creative Fuel)
And, when your time and resources are limited and you’re in the mode of keeping things simple, I find you get really creative in how you get things done. Keeping things simple becomes maximizing what is available for the best result. That is the awesome sauce, people!
If you are an evolving person, and learning and growing, you are going to expand your life and things will try to get complicated. But, when I look at what I want my life to be, a lot of the distractions fall away because they don’t line up with that vision and it becomes simple and manageable.
I like that. And I’m grateful for my daily reminder.
I am more and more present to the fact that people have a really hard time being objective in their life and realizing what they need to do in order to help them get to a place where they feel fulfilled. I am not saying this like I have it all figured out, but I often see people stuck and making the same mistakes over and over and not getting any closer to the things they claim they want for their life and that makes me feel like something might be missing for them. Maybe they don’t see how they are caught up in a cycle or know how to get out.
I suppose I have been as guilty as most people in this and I have also found ways to get me back on track. I thought I would share a generalized version for the benefit of all:
Pay Attention to How You Feel
If you feel any negative emotion (sad, angry, frustrated), then you are probably off track with your purpose in life.
Nothing wrong with that. You just have to get to a point where you are present enough to acknowledge that you are off track. Realize it so that you can do something about it.
If you are feeling great and/or better and better every day, you are probably moving in the right direction. However, if you are off track, you are going to want to get back on track as soon as possible.
How do you do that?
Establish a Life Vision
You need some idea of what you want your life to look like.
You need a destination.
This destination or goal may be obvious to you or it may not. It took me a while to figure out what my ideal life would be and it is actually a pretty simple one. You can also use how you feel to hone in on this. If the vision excites you or makes you feel peaceful and content, you are probably in alignment with the direction you need to be heading.
Once you have this vision or goal in mind, you have a guide for your life. You can make decisions based on if it gets you closer to your goal or helps you learn something that will get you closer. Once you have this vision, if you can hold onto it and the feeling you get from thinking about it, you will undoubtedly want to take actions that move you towards it.
Whenever I am feeling off track – sad, angry, frustrated – I re-orient myself towards my goal. I don’t beat myself up for being off track. I don’t blame others for getting me off track. I just try to figure out what happened so that I can avoid that in the future. Then, I figure out what I need to do to get myself back on track, even if it is the teeniest, tiniest step.
Think and Plan
A vision is essential—but you also need strategy and structure.
That might mean:
Learning new skills
Budgeting for investments in yourself
Seeking out role models who’ve done what you want to do
You don’t have to copy anyone else’s path. But seeing how others got there gives you options—and confidence. And when something doesn’t work, you adapt.
Keep thinking. Keep learning. Keep adjusting.
Take Action
Do what you can and the more you do, the more you will find that you can do.
Progress compounds.
Act from a Place of Love
This is important to me and I think it is an important thing to implement in order to reduce drama in your life so that you can focus on your life vision.
For me, I realize that I have no control over how people react to anything I do, but I know that if I am acting from a place of love in my actions, then whatever someone else’s reaction is, it came from something in them – that they are projecting something onto me.
That doesn’t mean I ignore it or tell them they are wrong. Most times I just hear what they say and try to get why they interpreted it that way. Usually, there is nothing to do but tell them that I am sorry that what I said or did made them feel that way and mean it.
As an introvert, I have often felt alienated and outside the norm and I would not want to do something that would make someone feel less than the awesome that they are. Sometimes that is enough, sometimes not. This is not always easy and the places and people where it is most difficult are likely the places where you can learn and grow.
Real Talk: Cycles Will Still Cycle
I suppose there is a lot more that I can say about all this, but the intention here was to keep it basic and, hopefully, still useful.
I would love to see what the world would look like if people were all spiraling upward towards the life they want to live. I don’t think it would be perfect all the time. We would all still cycle through ups and downs. It is the contrast of things, after all, that help us distinguish the good from the not so good.
I do think we would be more productive, though, and efficient. Not that I think we would be working all the time either, or, if we were, it wouldn’t feel like work. We would all be creating and adding to the world and enjoying the game, the challenge, and the beauty of becoming something more than what we were the day before.
Need a Little Guidance on Your Journey?
My friend Dave Baldwin and I created the 30 Day Experiment: The Life Quest Playbook as a way for folks to work through some of the things we have encountered over our years of self help exploration. You can find it on in my shop or on Amazon.
Sometimes I have to ask myself? Why do I want to write stories?
I love to write? Stories are fun to make up? Creativity is my drug of choice?
Those things may be true, but when motivation and energy dries up. When the chemicals in the body are unbalanced and I just want to sleep or I’m staring at a blinking cursor thinking curse words. What then?
Down to the Root
First of all, self care is important. Gotta keep the body and mind ready for action. Rest it when it needs rest, though.
In the past, I have struggled with how to keep on keeping on. What I couldn’t see was that I didn’t have a great guidance system to help me stay on track. So, I had to do some work to get down to the root of the matter. It turns out that all I needed all along was a purpose for my writing. I needed something more than the idea of earning a living that way.
Once I uncovered what that purpose was, it has been the motivation to help me push through blocks that would have otherwise held me up for an indeterminate amount of time.
So What’s My Why?
In case you were wondering, here it is:
My purpose in writing is to create enjoyable stories that cause young readers to imagine and experience new and expansive ideas.
That’s the root of the matter.
Yeah, that’s pretty hefty. But, it’s fun. And inspiring to me. I may not be as great at it as I want to be at the moment, but I am working out the muscles. 🙂
This past weekend I received the transmission of Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya through Sadhguru and The Isha Institute. I’m not sure what I was expecting to get from it. Perhaps I hoped to be more focused or clear of mind. What I got that surprised me is a sense of peace and the feel of time slowing down around me.
When we are present in each moment, there is joy in being alive and the possibility that creates.
I find it amusing that as I take on stories to write that I begin to see similar lessons or challenges in my own life. My characters and I work through our issues in tandem. It’s the same with Goddess Game. Bethany, the main character, has taken the safe path her entire life. She’s not particularly unhappy, but bored and wishing her life was more. Of course, to make that leap, she has to do the internal work she has been avoiding.
In that respect, Bethany and I are different. I haven’t avoided the internal work. I was just making it so much harder than it needed to be.
I just published “Sentenced” and I’m already fleshing out my outline for “Goddess Game” so I can begin drafting it over the next few weeks. After “Goddess Game,” I have several more books lined up in the creative pipeline. Many of these book ideas I have had for years. I’ve done a lot of work in the past freewriting about them and creating outlines.
Why am I only finishing them now? What has changed?
The Fog Before the Flow
I spent a good part of 2023 (and probably 2022, if I’m being honest) feeling that while I had gotten myself in a job situation that felt secure and where I had a certain amount of autonomy, it also kept me a bit stressed. I did not have a consistent schedule and it was difficult for me to try to do the things that I wanted to do in my personal time because I felt like I had to decompress from the job and then figure out what I needed to do towards my creative aspirations. My mind was in a fog most of the time and I realized that something needed to change if I was going to make any headway in my life goals.
Getting Help, Finally
I was constantly looking at people who were doing something similar to what I wanted to do and people who were doing what they wanted to do in general – the types of careers that seemed to be true self-expression. I kept seeing over and over that many successful people had mentors or coaches to help them along the way. I talked it over with my husband and decided that I was committed to completing my books and to that end I would find a writing coach.
When I first started looking for a writing coach, I kept coming across people who wanted to help with editing or actual writing. That didn’t feel right to me. That is not what I felt I needed help with. I wanted to find someone who had already been down the path I wanted to go on so that they could help me stay on that path and actually get projects completed. I intuitively knew that there was something I couldn’t see about myself that was in the way and I needed someone to help me see it.
The Write On Purpose Shift
Back in 2019, I had participated in an experimental writing group organized by W. Bradford Swift. I remember writing a bit, but not getting much done in the short time I was a part of the group. However, as I was looking for a writing coach, it popped into my mind that W. Bradford Swift had mentioned something about being a writing coach. I went to his website and saw that was still the case and immediately requested an initial consult.
After speaking with W. Bradford Swift, I felt strongly that this was the route to go. Not only had he published over 30 books, but he had over 30 years’ experience being a life coach. The fact that he had merged those life coach skills into a Write On Purpose program seemed like a great fit.
My Write on Purpose journey began in November 2023. I published “The Resurrection Incident” by the end of December 2023. “Sentenced” only took as long as it did because of a lot of life changes in early 2024, including my husband and I moving to another state in April.
So, What Changed?
So, what has the Write on Purpose process changed within me that has me moving and shaking (and typing)? It has helped me uncover the purpose behind my writing and is helping me stay present to it. It has helped me uncover indicators of when I am on track and when I might be heading off into distraction-ville.
And, I know this process is working because I’m still writing and completing projects. It’s a great feeling. I have so, so many more to go.
I have noticed a phenomenon over the past decade or so of my life. It’s a strange feeling of growing backwards – or possibly realigning with a past version of myself in a new and more empowered way. It’s as if my life experience scooped out or buried part of who I am and I have since been in the process of filling that back up or uncovering it (choose your metaphor preference).
Wisdom I Wasn’t Ready For (Yet)
It brings to mind an experience I had during my early twenties. One of my professors recommended that I read “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. I did, expecting a great expansion of mind and consciousness. Instead, I was annoyed. Siddhartha had all the knowledge at his fingertips, but he left and did a bunch of stuff that seemed not useful to me. In the end, he found enlightenment but I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just learn it from his teachers and not have to go through a bunch of muck. (I know, I know. I was young and I liked to experience life from the safety of stories.)
In my early thirties, I finally understood the importance of actual experience in the world. I had a major shift in my life around that time. I ended a marriage with the only man I had ever dated (an eleven-year relationship). I sold nearly everything I had except what I could cram into my Honda Fit and I moved from South Carolina to North Carolina where I knew a handful of people I met in some self-development programs.
It has been quite a journey.
Expansion in the Spin
The few years I spent sort of free-falling and spinning my wheels were a time of incredible learning. It was often stressful because even though my natural inclination is to go with the flow and trust in myself and abilities, I didn’t have enough confidence to continue to follow that. I allowed myself to bend under what I thought was the knowledge of others. Their certainty made me doubt myself. In the end, I chose the safety of returning to “normal.”
It may not sound sexy, but going back to being normal (this basically boils down to taking on a steady job in my case) was a great choice for me. It allowed me to take full control of my life. That was around 2012 and since then I have gained the confidence in myself that I felt was missing before. And my life has gotten steadily better. Not perfect, but I fully know that I am capable. I know that if I fail at something, I can just reassess and keep moving.
Reclaiming My Younger Self
So what does all of this have to do with evolving backwards?
What I’ve noticed is that part of the expansion of my life is in letting go of past angers, it is putting back into place habits that served me so well in the past that it is mind-boggling that I ever stopped them. It is getting back to that place of joy and curiosity that fed my creativity as a younger Sheila. It is spending time with my family and loved ones without worrying about what needs to get done. It is about living into each moment as best I can and loving it.
In a lot of ways, it is like becoming a child again. Or, at least childlike.
I recently moved back to South Carolina. After the move, I’ve been going through old journals, old files, seeing what I’ve accumulated over the past fourteen years. I’m often astounded at how much smarter I was in my teen years and early twenties. I knew so much, but I didn’t have the experience yet to really understand it. I was also kinda naïve and silly as well.
The cool thing is that here I am feeling my soul vibrating back in resonance with the Sheila that thought her life would look a lot different than it has. It is as if this pulsing of energy is shaking off all the blockages that separated us from what we dreamed could be. We can be the best of both of us.
I’m sure many of us have thought about our younger selves, “If I knew then, what I know now…” The thing is we know it now and what are we doing with it? What will I do with it?
