let yourself be seen

There's this space between all the roles and the chatter in your head and others' expectations and misunderstandings and wonderings. There's this space that exists between the inhalation and exhalation. A pause you can find if you slow down enough.

If you pay attention.

On the days when you might be wearing the same clothes you wore the day before, when you need a shower, when the way things are isn't quite the way you thought they would be, find that pause. And then another. And then another after that. See if you can find you - the you who isn't buried by the shoulds - in that space.

And when you do, take a photo and let yourself be seen (by the one person who knows you best of all: You).

This is what Inner Excavation is all about.

the grief and the joy (yet again.) (always.)

Millie, back in 2005 

In late April, it was the middle of the night and I was driving home from the airport. While driving, I started to imagine pulling up to the house and walking up the steps and then in the front door to our golden retriever Millie's face right there waiting for me. I had the thought, "I hope Jon's still up to help me carry my bags in."

And then I remembered that I was driving home to our new house and I'd be pulling in the garage. No steps. And then I remembered that Millie died earlier that month.

My breath caught in that way it does when the grief rushes in.

I turned up the radio and sang country songs at the top of my lungs the rest of the way home.

Earlier in the day, I'd been talking to my friend Lori about, well, everything, and I remember saying something about how the quiet way I'm holding my grief for Millie reminds me of a line from a poem I wrote about the days after my grandmother's death - "the open wound that people saw as me."

(Have you ever felt that way?)

The day after Millie died, we got the keys to our new home.

The joy and the grief. Hand in hand.

The new house is full of so much light. And space for this business of mine that has grown. And enough room for entertaining again and for Eleanor to run in the backyard and for Jon to have a little space just for him and for guests to feel comfortable in their own space. And the walls are painted blue now and they make me so happy I could burst.

And yet as I write these words sitting in my favorite chair, my faithful friend isn't curled up on the floor beside me snoring like she's always been when I write here on my blog or send newsletters to you.

The beauty and the sadness.  

As I watch the news and am surprised yet again that Trump's words can shock me, as I wonder why we are so divided but also see (some of) the reasons why, as my heart hurts thinking about it all, as I miss Millie, as I get news of a dear friend's cancer returning, as I hear of sadness in loved ones' lives, as I listen to Prince, as I wish I'd said things differently, as I hold space for so many stories, I sometimes wonder if perhaps a part of us is always an open wound of sorts. 

And then just as I begin to think that's true, someone sends me a lip sync video or Eleanor tells me a story about her stuffies or Jon takes my hand and squeezes it or I literally clap with glee hearing Jimmy Fallon tell a story about playing ping pong with Prince or I find myself dancing in the kitchen of my new house because I just can't stop myself as Fleetwood Mac spins on the record player or I notice the flowers in the backyard that are finally starting to bloom.

Because even when we hold so much grief, joy finds us.

Today, I just really want you to know that I deeply believe that joy is out there even when it feels far away, even when a part of us feels like an open wound. I hope you can believe that too. And if you can't today, I'm sitting right here beside you believing it for both of us. 

(Some of this post previously appeared in a newsletter love note. If you'd like to receive notes like this in your inbox, sign up here.)

ask the questions

If I was writing the introduction to Inner Excavation today, I would include the quote above because this idea of asking the questions and then answering them through self-expression and play and words and photos and journaling and color and connection - that is what my book is all about.

When I think about the timing of things - when the book came out, where the online world and social media were five and a half years ago, where we were in our relationship to self-portraits (that we now call selfies!), where I was in my own understanding of how to launch a book and run a business - combined with Ellie's birth and her surgery - I sometimes want to go back into that path behind me and just pluck my book right from the timeline and then come here and say:

Dear beautiful soul,

I wrote a book just for you. It's about cultivating a relationship with the one person who knows you best of all: you. It's about practicing self-care through writing and taking photos and sometimes getting messy with paper and color and paint and glue. It's about holding out your camera and looking at yourself in the eyes and saying, "Yes, I see you." It's about creating a foundation to help you build a bridge between daily life and the longings inside you.

This book contains so many practices that you can turn to again and again throughout your life so that you are always deepening your relationship with yourself (and in turn your relationship with others and all that is greater than you).

I hope you'll check it out and give yourself that gift of exploring and opening up to the stories inside you.

Love,
Liz

Today, I can't go back in time.

But I can stand behind these words and invite you to still come along. I have a stack of books here in my studio just waiting to get into your hands. I have a free ecourse (and a free private Facebook group) that begins June 27th. And I'd love to walk beside you.

Let's ask the questions and get messy and have fun exploring our answers.

Together.

Because you aren't alone over there as you find your way and long to tell your stories.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Sign up for the Inner Excavate-along right here. And you can get Inner Excavation right here in my shop.

welcome to the and space

Hello Beautiful Soul,

It’s here. My new website is really really here.

It’s been a labor of love for months now as the extraordinary Evan Leah Quinn has worked her magic, listened to me, and synthesized my ramblings into this new home.

And I love it!

For several years now, I’ve been talking about how on any given day we have permission to hold beauty in one hand and the grit life hands us in the other. And I've mixed in this image that we can build a bridge between the routine of daily life and the longings we have inside us. With my new site, I want to introduce you to phrase that encompasses all that this idea means to me: The And Space.

The And Space is where:

• You're sitting in front of the evening news and can’t believe what you’re seeing, and five minutes later a text arrives from your best friend saying she just got engaged.
• You're at the kitchen table surrounded by the joy of listening to your daughter tell you a story, and the grief of wishing your grandmother could have known her taps you on the shoulder. 
• You're in the midst of a phone call that is about to change everything just as you notice the cherry tree is blooming in the front yard. 
• Your to-do list is stacking up, and you stop just for a moment to wish you could just rest.  
• You're in line at the grocery store exhausted from a long day at work, listening to the chatter around you, and you're smiling to yourself because you know when you get home you're turning up Johnny Cash and making your famous enchiladas. 

The And Space is where most of us live. 

And it is beautiful and overwhelming and amazing and messy.

What I want you to remember is: You aren’t in it alone. (I’m here with you.)

My hope is that this site will feel like a place for us to be in conversation: 

• As we sift through the stories of where we’ve been and choose truth and love.
• As we name and claim the dreams of what the future might look like.
• As we make the choice to just set it all down and sit in the quiet for a little while.

I’m so glad you’re here. And I look forward to navigating The And Space together.

Big big love,

Liz

photo credit: Lauren Oliver Photography

it's just paint.

When we moved into our house 12 years ago, I was a big fan of Trading Spaces. And sage green. I'd never owned a home before or painted a wall. I carefully chose the living room color to match my couch (a color called mochachino) and a happy yellow for the kitchen because it has a deep blue tiled counter. But the rest of the house I just went with what I liked.

Which is how I ended up with a minty green bedroom that didn't look like sage at all with a deep purple Trading Spaces inspired accent wall.

And I pretty much hated it for 12 years.

The wall was supposed to be kind of like a headboard. But I didn't measure and it turned out that when the furniture got there the bed and nightstands didn't work on that wall.

Ooof.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have stopped as soon as the first wall started to dry and said, "wait! I don't like this color." Because it wasn't sage at all and I knew I would't love sleeping in that room.

But I didn't say that. Because we were only going to live there a couple of years. And then 12 passed by and we never repainted.

It's now this really gorgeous gray and I hope the people who will buy this house and make it there own magical home feel serenity in that room.

Of course this is more than just a story about paint colors. It's really about listening to your gut and asking for help and the ways we get trapped into old stories and how sometimes the change we need is right in front of us but we just can't seem to shift enough to make it happen.

My new house is painted in shades of blue that feel like an invitation to take a deep breath. I went about choosing colors in a totally different way. And some might say there's too much blue. But gosh I feel at home.

But that's not really the story either.

It's really about how sometimes it takes 12 years of stuckness to realize you've been free all along. 

gosh i miss you like crazy.

The stories are stacking up inside me, and instead of thinking about all that I should be sharing or what this blog should look like now that I've got a bright shiny new website coming out, I just want to share some of the little snippets of stories that I'm trying to catch. Like this one, shared over on Instagram earlier this week.

It's my last day in my 30s and I woke up with questions for my grandmother. I've lived a decade plus of birthdays without her voice singing in my ear. I've lived more than a decade of mornings unable to call her to say all the things.

So I walked around my yard this morning, like she did every day at her South Carolina home, and checked out the new growth. Letting in the crazy beauty that is this life.

And if I could, I'd call her and say:

I think these might be big purple blooms whenever they're ready. And the little pink guys, like the neighbor's have, are hanging in there. I want to plant a butterfly bush to invite in your hummingbirds. Mom says she thinks the two little ones under the maple are peonies and we've got to move them when it's not so hot because they don't get any sun. Imagine if I have peonies? The noise from the busy road is loud this morning. All those people zooming to work. I'm in the studio alone today. Writing and making a few things. It's a good life over here, even when it feels upside down. You'd love the light in this house. Might even change your mind about this part of the country. And oh how you'd love the energy and wit of the six year old living here. Gosh I miss you like crazy.

inner excavate-along 2016

Join me this summer for another round of the InnerExcavate-along! We start Monday, June 27th!

It's the read-along meets create-along six-week journey into my book Inner Excavation. 

It's my way of helping you take my book off of your shelf and actually work through it so you can get all the juicy goodness and learning you can out of it. Yes! 

All you need is the book, the course itself is FREE! We'll share our stories and what we're creating and finding in a private Facebook group. 

And for a limited time, Inner Excavation is just $16 plus shipping (list price $24.99). You can find it right here in my shop and then sign up for the read-along below.

I hope you'll join me and invite some friends to come along.

A Little More About the Book

In Inner Excavation, I gathered up many of my favorite ways to unearth pieces of who you are using the mediums of poetry, photography, and mixed media.

This book is really about using self-portraits to tell our stories.

Through the prompts and examples in this book, you'll be inspired to take photos of the everyday beauty around you (and even turn the camera on yourself), find the poet inside you, play with the art supplies you probably already have in your home, and take time to seek stillness in your daily life.

Most importantly, you will explore new ways to dig deeper into the stories just waiting inside you.

How the Inner Excavate-along Works

Each week you'll receive 3-4 emails from me that follow along with the chapters. I've chosen one prompt to dive deeper inside each week, and you can play along with that one or choose the one that speaks to you the most from that chapter. I share some more words about the chapter and my take on the prompt I've chosen to explore. There are videos that I recorded during the first round of this course a couple of years ago, and the course also includes some updates from when I played along last summer. And of course, there will be some new surprises along the way as we journey through it together again.

I can't wait!

What you'll need:

A copy of Inner Excavation

A journal to hold your responses to the prompts

A camera

Simple art supplies if you'd like to play with the art prompts in the book (here's a peek at what I took into my dig site last year)

How to sign up:

First you need the book. After you have the book in your hands, all you need to do is sign up below. (And after the course is over, you'll receive my (almost) weekly newsletter about more adventures in telling our stories and creative self-care, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.) 

If you signed up last year and want to come along, you'll need to sign up again.

Join the Inner Excavate-along

Join the Inner Excavate-along

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

Be sure to take the time to confirm you signed up via the confirmation email you'll receive from me via MailChimp. This step is really important or you won't receive the course emails. 

To answer a few questions I've received:

Is this only for people who buy the book from you now?

If you already have the book you are invited to come along! I'm so delighted to have those of you who have had my book from the very beginning join us. You can also check my book out from your local library and you might even find a copy at a used bookstore. You can also buy Inner Excavation online at Amazon and other online bookstores.

What supplies do I need?

I've listed a few above, but all you really need is a notebook and your curiosity and an open heart. You could just work through the writing prompts. You could use your phone to have fun with the photography prompts. And you could take simple art supplies like crayons and colored pencils and magazines to dive into the art prompts. 

Let this be simple.

I will share supply resources as I share my own responses to the prompts along with a brief supply list of items I'm carrying with me into my dig site. 

Do I really need the book? 

We'll be reading through the book together, so the stories being shared and prompts people will be responding to in our Facebook group are all in the book. They won't be listed somewhere else.

And, there's an energy exchange here that is really important to me (and hopefully is to you too). Meaning, I gathered up all these juicy prompts and shared stories in the book and asked a few artists to join me, and I put them all together in a book that I'm holding out to you right from my heart. And now I'm inviting you to come along and dive into it all with me in a private Facebook group where I'll be holding space and cheering you on. So yes, the course is free, but having a copy of the book from whatever means works for you feels right to me. If you don't have the book and don't plan to get a copy, this course really isn't for you.

What if I'm traveling during the course?

The awesome thing about this course is that the emails arrive in your inbox and you can work with them whenever you have time. So you really don't get behind, you just go through the course at your pace. The Facebook group will remain open indefinitely, so you can share and connect whenever you want to. 

I signed up but I haven't received any emails yet. What's going on?

Your first email should come within hours after you sign up. If it hasn't arrived, be sure to check your promotions folder. Often course emails appear in different folders in your inbox, so be sure to watch for it there. Also check spam and even do a quick search for my name to see if your email is hiding somewhere. Because so many of us check our email on our phones, often it's been accidentally deleted or archived. Also, if you use a plugin like unroll.me, you might not receive the emails due to your settings, so be sure to check them.

Why is the course free?

One of my biggest hopes is to help women get out of this loop: Buying more "stuff" and ecourses and books to help them tell their stories and live their dreams only to watch them get overwhelmed and not actually do the "stuff" they want to do. 

This is my way of saying, "Let's take one of the books off of our shelves and really dive into it in community and see what we find. Let's get out of the gathering of ideas phase and actually get to the doing. Let's hold hands as we go so we can gently hold each other accountable and help one another push throug the hard moments." It's my way of helping you build a bridge from your daily life to more really good days.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I hope you'll come along.

xoxo,

Liz

the peonies are here.

My love affair with the peony continues.

Last year, I tried to articulate why they affect me: "These huge heavy bursting blooms are an access point to wonder, to that unwavering truth that spring comes again even when our hearts try to convince us it won't."

This year, I find myself just whispering, "Yes, yes" whenever I walk by them in my new house.

Follow along on my love affair with peonies on IG at #allpeoniesallthetime. 

xoxo,

Liz