dormancy, deadlines, and doing a hard thing
time to pause the newsletter
Hey everyone,
It’s been a while since I last sent you a newsletter.
At the end of last year, I had big hopes for December. With most of my client work wrapped up, I planned to finally get to a few writing projects. But it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen.
Me: I’m going to get so much done in December!
My physical and mental health: Yeah, no.
Returning to my desk in January, after a restful holiday and some adjustments to my health, I expected a renewed sense of imagination and motivation for writing. But that hasn’t happened. The desire—and ability—to write, let alone on a weekly basis, seems to have evaporated. This isn’t writer’s block. It’s deeper than that. And while I can’t fully understand or unpack it all, I’ve come to slowly accept that I need to pause the newsletter.
After the last months of toggling between forcing and avoiding writing, it’s good to come to terms with where I’m at. For now, writing and content creation will be allowed to go dormant. [Two reflections on dormancy below…a few reminders that I’ve been keeping in front of myself these days.]
Rather than doing the slow fade, I wanted to make a clear decision and communicate it to you.
Friends, thank you for reading. It has meant a lot to engage with you in this way. There are many words on the internet—and, stacks on stacks of substacks. I’ve been deeply impacted (and surprised!) by your reading attention. Truly, thank you.
And if you’ve been a paid subscriber, thank you for believing in this project (and please do pause your payments now).
As the newsletter hits pause, the rest of my work in coaching and facilitation continues on. With the turn into a new year there is always an uptick of people ready for change work, and it’s my deep delight to work with people in this way. (If you’re looking to bring coaching into your organization, with your team, or for yourself, please reach out).
Lots of love to you all. And wisdom as you navigate your own starts/stops/pauses.
let’s stay in touch,
Lance
PS #1—
Don’t fight the winter. Co-operate with seasonal wisdom. Trees don’t rush spring. Rest. Hibernate. Consider what might need pausing. Common creative tips and hacks focus on how to generate more work, how to bring more creativity into the world. Sometimes the best way to do that, is to set it aside. Fallow before fruitful.
Katherine May in Wintering, writes, "Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They hibernate and migrate and store food. They accept it. They let it be. Wintering is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency, and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs."
Trust the underground work. Seeds do their most important work beneath and below. What looks dormant, is often deepening.
Rainer Maria Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet, writes, "Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity."
Everything, even us, is gestation and bringing forth. Creativity, like nature, goes into hibernation and unfolds on its own timeline.
PS #2—here’s a poem by 19th century poet William Channing, My Symphony.
