It’s been a wild week. Change came sooner than expected for me and several folks in my circles, and I’m curious: has this been showing up for you, too? I’m thinking of you — of your heart, your spirit, and how you are navigating this time we are in. What has your week felt like?
I’d been considering several shifts in my work ecosystem that were potentially exciting, but only possible with a series of brave leaps, so I put them on the calendar for 2026. Lol. It’s like I thought I could throw a dinner party for Change — make a party plan, send an evite, and go on about my merry business.
But then this week, months before the scheduled date, Change waltzes into my living room in a chaotic flurry with her best friend, The Unknown. They rearrange all the furniture, turn the lights off, and turn the music up. Then, they invite me to dance.
I love dancing, but did they not see that this was supposed to be a dinner party not a dance party and also is their google calendar broken? I did not want to dance. I wanted to usher Change and The Unknown out of my house as quickly as possible and remain unscathed.
At first, I willed myself to achieve the culturally endorsed but actually impossible version of change (unless you’re a robot) — instant, uncomplicated, mess-free. Lol. Then I got sick, which isn’t surprising, and I realized my body felt like bricks and I had forgotten the most important/only thing I know for sure about change which is that it is a creative process, not a linear event.
I was wracked with the urgency of How do I solve this right now instead of giving myself space to wonder — How is my life is trying to speak to me? What am I not seeing? What is trying to upgrade? Who do I need to be as I navigate this?
I was trying to manage Change and her bestie from the frequency of what has been — stagnant and comfortable — instead of stepping into the frequency of what could be: alive, possible, expansive.
To do this, we need every creative muscle we have — curiosity, intuition, play, vision, wildness, courage. We need our ability to encounter the unknown, our courage to bet on what is not yet, and our willingness to be in the mess. Let me say that last part louder for myself in the back. All of these muscles already exist within us. The question is — are we willing to use them?
Invitation #6: RECLAIM YOUR PROCESS
I would have declined this invitation a week ago because I didn’t want process, I wanted results! Until I took a game-changing walk around my favorite duck pond and realized that I feel like so much more of myself when I am leading from a creative center instead of some kind of fake performative certainty I have decided is required when I am CEO-ing, mom-ing, and adulting. I realized there were so many more exciting results waiting for me if I could free myself up a bit, turn the stressful ultimatums into experiments, and, while I know I risk exhausting this metaphor, say yes to Change’s invitation to dance. Because that is really how I want to live my life.
The space between where we’ve been and where we’re going is alchemical, if we let it be.
After my walk, I felt space and aliveness in my body. The body compass never lies, I remembered for the millionth time. There is nothing convenient about Change showing up right now, but she is bringing me into greater alignment, and I’m ending this week with a feeling of real possibility about what could be.
5 prompts to explore change as a creative process:
1. What is trying to change — even I don’t feel ready? In what ways is my life trying to speak to me, even if it feels inconvenient or disruptive?
2. When it comes to the changes I am encountering – What do I know? What don’t I know? Can I respect both answers equally?
3. What leaps have I been trying to control or plan? What happens when I let go?
4. In what areas or spaces of my life do I need permission to be in process?
5. How would my most creative self move through this?
This week, consider letting yourself approach change from your creative center. Here are 12 of my favorite ways to explore this:
1. Give yourself permission to change
2. Trust the whispers
3. Bring forth what is within you
4. Make space for all of you
5. Prioritize questions over answers
6. Play more. Play bigger
7. Welcome grief and other shadows
8. Immerse yourself in beauty and art
9. Move at the speed of safety, trust, and your future self
10. Make experiments, not ultimatums
11. Replace pressure with radical love
12. Be very curious about who you’re becoming
Which of these instructions speak to your process?
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I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but the invitation to reclaim your process also means permission to give yourself massive amounts of grace in your process. Especially because even though we are experiencing more change than in any other generation in history, our culture is still so strangely averse to the actual process of change.
We are culturally insignificant until we’ve arrived (whatever that means), and are encouraged to hide the appearance of the unglamorous, bewildering, middle.
Instant transformation does not exist in humans or nature, but our before/after obsessed culture expects it of ourselves and others. As creators, we know what the world really needs to remember right now —
Everything beautiful is birthed in chaos and darkness.
But given this context, giving ourselves grace is the real flex. We can consider how we would talk to a friend who is in our shoes:
We remind them of their worth and lovability, and we trust their process.
We give them permission not to have all of the answers.
We keep the faith even when they can’t.
We remind them that the best is yet to come.
We remind them that they are beautiful in their process, and may I remind you that you are beautiful in yours —
Keep going.
Love,
Liz
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3 Resources:
⚡️ Findhelp.org — an essential resource for anyone affected by food insecurity as a result of the government shutdown.
⚡️ Here’s a list of ideas from Whitney Alese to offer mutual aid in our communities
ICYMI: October Resource Round-Up:
Here are all of the resources I’ve sent this month:
- 10 Commandments of Defiance is a a living document filled with actions, resources, ideas & more on how to defy facism
- If a plan would help → Listen to Stacey Abrams outline the 10 Ways to Save Democracy (And read the 10 Steps here)
- Money with Katie and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman on what it costs to be a woman and a person of color in our culture
- Watch my incredible client Lorena Martinez’s beautiful Tedx about the life-changing joy that comes from reconnecting to the magic of our inner child
- The Committee For The First Amendment – this movement for free speech is relaunched from The McCarthy Era — you can join here if you are in the entertainment industry
- A must-read to-do list for how cis people can show up for Trans people right now from lawyer and activist Chase Strangio
- Fall of Freedom is a nationwide wave of creative resistance being organized here in the US this November, founded on the idea that art and creativity are necessary for preserving democracy. You can organize an event or participate in one.
- Here’s a toolkit on how to boycott Home Depot, and demand they denounce ICE raids on their properties and declare their stores safe spaces
- I loved this keynote from Bryan Stevenson, founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative, of the power of art, justice, identity, and hope
Quotes on my heart and mind:
1.
“Nothing changes without imagination and bravery.”
— SUE MONK KID
2.
“What is perfection anyway? It’s the death of creativity, that’s what I think.”
— DIANE KEATON
3.
“So at the end of this day, we give thanks for being betrothed to the unknown.”
— JOHN O’DONOHUE
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A note about AI and this letter:
This letter is a labor of love written by yours truly.
