Figuring out what I really want to do when I grow up has been a journey… one that I’m still on. There have been a lot of speedbumps, U-turns, potholes and forks in the road, and I suspect I’ll be encountering more along the way.
For the majority of 2022, I felt confused, anxious and had a lot of mind chatter. Whenever I tried to understand what was happening, the more confused I became. When reading through my journal entries, it’s interesting — and a bit unnerving — how many times I wrote about the Death card or the Tower card or the Ten of Swords during my morning ritual. Deep work was happening below the surface. Work that I had no awareness of while in the midst of it. It simply felt like something was nagging at me and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
In hindsight, it’s clear that the cards were telling a story. A story of death and rebirth, endings and beginnings.
After a good bit of inner turmoil, I have finally found my path. I know what I want to create. Prior to now, I had been going through what I think was an identity crisis. The question of “who am I” kept coming up. I suspect it was all the fiery energy from the Knight of Wands back in January that kickstarted the crisis. I’m still surprised that I followed my intuition and signed up for those challenges. I’m against rushing into the new year with a laundry list of goals and to-do’s ready to be implemented on January 1st. I think it’s more practical and aligned with nature to ease into the year. After all, nature is still slumbering in January, so why aren’t we? Are we not part of nature’s rhythms and cycles?
Nevertheless, I went full steam ahead.
Once those challenges were over, I took time to reflect and debrief. Through reflection I realized that what I had been doing was not what I truly wanted. Do I regret taking part in the challenges? Absolutely not! Experimenting is part of life, and I learned a lot about myself and the work I want to put out into the world.
After pumping out content consistently for 31 days, I was exhausted: physically and energetically. I couldn’t even go forward with the experiment I set for myself on Instagram. I didn’t have the energy and to be honest, my heart wasn’t in it. My brain was telling me to keep going because I was seeing positive results from my efforts. But my heart wasn’t onboard with that plan. It wanted something else.
So I took a step back and spent February trying to figure out what that was.
I didn’t force anything. I simply went about my regular routine and allowed my intuition to show me what I needed to learn. This meant putting away my devices to shut out outside noise and intentionally being silent and still; something I’m exceptionally good at. Some days I would pull cards. Other days I would meditate and write my thoughts afterward.
I chuckle about it now as my card for February was the Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel of Fortune is about change, cycles and transition.
Our intuition is always sending warnings and enlightenment but often we are too busy to notice. Allow your mind to wander and be open to what comes to you — feelings, thoughts and/or words.
What came through surprised me. That nagging feeling I had all through 2022 came to the surface, loud and clear. My own writing and creativity had fallen by the wayside. After putting all my creative energy into creating content for the apps, I had nothing left for my personal writing projects. A handful of people said to me, “What do you mean? You’ve been writing this whole time.” Technically, this is true. But writing captions for Instagram and/or Facebook didn’t count as “real writing” because it wasn’t for me. At least, that’s what I told myself. That was me getting caught in a serious bout of shiny object syndrome and trying to keep up with all the “shoulds” that we are told to do.
We should be posting daily, and at minimum, three times a day to be seen. We should check our phones every 15 minutes to reply to comments and check for likes. We should give value.
But what does giving value really look like? And is there another way to go about it?
Through being quiet and sitting still, I realized that I had contributed to what I call fast-food media. I say fast food because it always feels lukewarm at best, can be consumed in under three minutes depending on how hungry you are and leaves you dissatisfied and wanting more.
I am a writer, not a content creator.
I no longer want to contribute to fast-food media. I want to engage in “real writing.” I want a cozy place where it feels calmer and easier to share my words. A place for creative writers and deep thinkers like me, who enjoy and have deep appreciation for long-form writing.
With that being said… allow me to introduce From the Desk of a Book Druid: Writing + Mysticism.
Going forward, this will be a curated space with topics centered around writing, connecting to your intuition, the challenges writers face in the creative process, mindset and more. My goal for this space is to noodle and ponder and write thoughtful pieces that hopefully, you can connect with.
Why “From the Desk of a Book Druid”?
Initially, I was referring to myself as a mystic. But at some point, someone began referring to me as a druid because I enjoy and work with fantasy authors. And I guess it stuck because they kept calling me that and somehow others began calling me that too. I simply put “book” in front of it since I am, after all, a book coach.
I’ve been hiding for quite some time out of fear of what people would think of me or whether I would be accepted. Part of being a mystical person is connecting to my intuition as deep wisdom can be found there. Intuition is a powerful tool and allows us to tap into our creative potential. Had I not listened to my intuition, I would have never signed up for those challenges back in January. And had I not listened during my debriefing period, I would have never come to the realization that I did.
Had I not listened to my intuition, I would still be hiding my true self.
I’m relaunching this Substack as a way of embodying my identity as a druid/witch/mystic (whatever you wanna call me) and a writer. My ideas aren’t fully formed, and I haven’t planned everything out. And if I’m being completely honest, I’m a bit scared. The world isn’t very accepting of mystical people like me. The biggest lesson I learned in 2022 — despite the confusion, anxiety fear, and mind chatter — is that confidence follows action.
If I wait until I feel confident and have everything planned out, I will be waiting forever. So this is me, taking small, simple action.
For now, my goal is to send this free newsletter at the end of every month with my musings and reflections on what worked and what didn’t, behind the scenes of my coaching business and writing projects, and other news.
As this is a reader-supported publication, there is also a paid subscriber option. But this will be for extra content and not for the newsletter itself, which will always remain free. I haven’t fully decided what I want the extra content to be (my ideas are still forming), but I’m noodling on the idea of writing personal essays. I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m very excited about it.
There’s no obligation to join or upgrade your subscription as a paid subscriber. I will always offer my free newsletter on a monthly basis.
But if you would like more, then you are welcome to it.
I do hope you are inspired to continue the journey with me.
Yes I can relate to anxiety and identity crisis. I pulled all Swords and Tower a lot when I was in the thick of it....it was hard, but the tarot constantly reminded me that it is all in my head, so maybe I shouldn't think so much.... 🤗 what deck is the card in the middle?
I’ve reached the same point, same conclusions for myself. It means that to write what I truly want to write, I need to create less content for social media. It’s scary to agree to that but I believe it’s the right path. I’m encouraged to see other writers and creators making similar choices.