I am a recovering perfectionist, productivity chaser, and people pleaser, coaching women to disrupt old thought patterns, let go of behaviors that keep them stuck, and make their joy an everyday priority.
🚶🏻‍♀️ Walking Into 2025 Like... 🚶🏻‍♀️
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Guten Tag, Reader, Here we are again, the liminal week that the Germans call “Time Between The Years.” Neither here nor there, neither now nor then. I was going to mention the term “lame duck,” often used to describe the time between one administration and the next. But then I thought it was lame imagery, so let’s move on. This is the 100th letter. The first one came out in January 2021 as a continuation of the inaugural email advent calendar. If you’ve been here since then, thank you, Danke, for still hanging out with me. If you are brand new, welcome, Wilkommen, to the journey. My ego obviously wanted 💯 to be a super duper extra special letter. The one you’d print out and frame. The one you’d forward to everyone you know. The one that would make you put hundreds of dollars into my tip jar. You know what happened? NOTHING. Or let’s say a whole lot of things happened that had nothing to do with writing this letter.
You know what I mean, especially if you’ve ever faced a blank page that your ego decided to turn into your breakthrough piece of writing. Lucky for me, this is not the first snowball fight between my inner perfectionist, my imposter syndrome, my ennuied writer, and the wild child who just wants to play with words as if they were magnets on a friend’s (or perhaps better, an enemy’s) fridge. The fight probably involved a few more committee members in my head, but the candidates above were undoubtedly the loudest. So, again, I quieted them all by calling on the one member we’ve all agreed to always listen to: Curiosity. She simply asks the best questions. Like:
The answer to the last question was New Year’s Resolutions. Why? Let me count the ways: A) Because everybody writes about them this week, B) Because I have written about them again and again and again, C) Because I don’t like them (in case you haven’t figured this out by reading what I’ve written about them). When I re-visited my past musings on the matter, one part of last year’s letter stood out to me: It tracks what my Acupuncturist and Qi Gong teacher tell me and what indigenous wisdom teaches us: winter is the worst time to begin anything new. Instead, it is a time to come inside. Preserve energy. Tend to our Qi. Rest. Reflect. What if we didn’t resolve to be different/better/more? What if that’s what we have in common with my 100th letter? A celebration of what is, the path that took us to the here and now, the wisdom we assembled along the way, and trust in the enoughness of it all. Calling Midlife Women to AdventureIf the above is how you want to walk into 2025, consider the Winter Session of the Midlife Wilderness Expeditions. It will feel like a gathering around a warming fire. In two monthly group sessions (via Zoom) plus self-paced invitations (via Email), we’ll explore the stories that made us, limit us, and allow us to expand into the kind of joyful midlife we desire** ​Details and Registration (open until Jan 9) This will be the last chance to enter the Midlife Wilderness Expeditions in their current form. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out. I will see you back here in 2025. If you liked this letter, please forward it to a friend. Always on your side, truly, *I did NOT google it because I use Ecosia as my search engine, and you, too, could plant trees with your search queries. **These are the kinds of questions we will ask: 📚 What are you telling yourself about your Self? Where are the doubts, fears, resentments, and criticisms coming from? Who wrote them? And when? 📚 What are your shoulda-coulda-woulda stories keeping you from thoroughly enjoying midlife? If-only storylines are the villains, and we shall defeat them. 📚 What is the story you want to write into being about yourself and the world? You are the protagonist and the author. You have all the resources to create your best ever-after. p.s. If you got something from today's letter, why not buy me a coffee? I am keeping my writing AI-free, so I put much work into it. You can leave me a tip here. p.p.s.: If you want more of me than a letter every other week, you might enjoy hanging out with me on social media: |
​Welcome to my Joy Letters
I am a recovering perfectionist, productivity chaser, and people pleaser, coaching women to disrupt old thought patterns, let go of behaviors that keep them stuck, and make their joy an everyday priority.
Notice what's happening in your body. How does your nervous system react to a coneflower shadow on snow? Guten Tag, Reader, Bitten ;tldr: Regulating your nervous system is an essential mental health skill. For a nervous system reset, join me and fellow Nature Therapy Guide Angie on the Rogue River in September. Okay, remember how I wrote about asking what we need last time? I want to tell you that the universe will always reward you for doing so. Alas, that’s not this week’s story. Or is it?...
I asked D for a dog-free walk, got what I needed, and didn't even know how much I needed it until I heard the birds singing from the snowy trees. Guten Tag, Reader, How often do you get what you want? How often do you ask for what you want? How often do you NOT ask for what you want? Don’t just read on. Actually, think about it. Then, do it again and replace the want with need. How often do you ask for what you need? How often do you not? And here is another question: How often do you know...
Even my tea had something to say about time. Guten Tag, Reader, It’s not often that I get as many reactions to a letter as the previous one. You hit reply, put money in my tip jar, and booked coaching sessions. Here are just a few of your responses: You motivated me to update a resource I haven't talked about in a long time. DO LESS. BE MORE. (Previously called How To Start Wasting Time and Be Less Productive). Download it here: do-less-be-more-sylke-laine.pdf To share with friends, please...