Updates on this space and me

Hey there. It’s been a LONG minute. Walk with me?

I have been grappling with what I have to give this community in so many ways. The pandemic and the past couple years have dropped big questions on my doorstep – Where do I find joy online? What do I have consistent energy for? What has worked and what do I keep trying to force? Am I a needed voice in a conversation or are there better voices? Am I the same person who created this space and this discussion about a soulful approach to getting shit done and navigating life?

Just the small, easy questions.

COMMUNITY

Where I’ve landed is no longer aligned with feeling driven to create community that involves a hierarchical financial exchange, a space in which I am claiming and then held to a role of expert and/or leader rather than peer / fellow member, especially one with a soulful/spiritual component, which I’ll speak to shortly.

When it comes to community, I am ready to step back from leading spaces where I would like to simply be a member, and I find that paid communities are just not it for me. Paid classrooms? Absolutely. I believe in paying my teachers or anyone engaging in labor on my behalf, but at the moment I don’t want to be a teacher in this way.

I want to share a co-existing space that everyone is responsible for and everyone upholds to the degree that they are able. I do still want to share how I’m navigating planning, journaling, and other ways of just navigating the structure and the ritual that is life, but just from a place of sharing.

The blog / this feed will be offerings from my ongoing experience and what brings me structure and joy. It won’t fulfill a paid perk and it will be offered at an erratic, inconsistent pace that reflects the ebb and flow of my energy, joy, and engagement with all things planning and planful.

SOUL PATH

I’m also on a journey through a major evolving within my spiritual practice, unlearning a lot of shit I’ve been carrying as if it were mine, and I’m firmly in a subset of privileged white folks who don’t need to be guiding the spiritual path of others, regardless of any marginalized identities I also carry or training I’ve had.

Facilitating a paid community that includes those discussions places me in a position of authority that I have not earned, and one that I don’t think most (any?) white people are qualified to take on with integrity within the spiritual community.

I do want to keep talking through this evolution and the broader evolution of white folks seeking a valid and sustainable path and community, but that’s happening more quietly and in a de-platformed way.

If you’re a patron who’s enjoyed that part of the discussion, I’d love to be in dialogue with you informally, privately, as a part of simply being in healthy, supportive relationship. This entire part of my journey is simply less front-facing for me for the foreseeable future. I think this is as it should be.

If you’re looking for an accountable learning space with several ways to engage in learning and ethical, accountable spirituality, SLYSCA is a Patreon and Facebook space that I’m supporting and learning from, among others.

CONTENT

With all of the above in mind, what you’ll see from me on the blog / Patreon feed will likely be very similar in terms of planner nerdiness and organizational pondering and it will also likely still include the occasional first peek at a new oracle deck and some soulful musings around being planful, but there won’t be scheduled instruction, gatherings, or live calls with any regularity or baked in guarantee.

I’ll also sometimes be sharing the art, writing, and other creative projects that are an important aspect of my personal approach to being intentional / planful. I’ve been working on two oracle decks and other creative work that would be fun to share as they evolve. A lot of my paper planner enjoyment during the perpendicular/panini/panorama has been more artistic than logistic, so this won’t be a getting-shit-done space, not that I’ve ever leaned too much in that direction.

Just writing about all of this has me more eager to share with you already. A lot of content ideas have been ditched in the past year because of how unclear this space has felt and the story of inadequacy that I was creating around my urge to just share content as able and drop other pressures to gather or lead.

PATREON

What this means for now is that Patreon is simply where I’d like to share updates (I really love that Patreon posts can now auto-sync to the website now) and the server on Discord will be to share planning/planner/journaling/life and for everyone to coordinate virtual co-working/co-existing time with each other.

I won’t be teaching, facilitating, snail mailing, or wrangling. Posts will be to share what I’m willing to share and the server will continue to exist for as long as it’s useful (and in use). Subscribing as a Patron will simply mean that you’d like to help cover web/tech-related costs and/or you want to throw me a buck for web hosting because you enjoy what I have to share.

If my energy level or willingness to offer more changes, there will be Patreon updates/new tiers to reflect that.

THANK YOU

I’ve noticed that there has been almost zero change to folks’ Patreon support during the pandemic and every one of you could have opted out completely and moved on while I was dormant in this space, but you’ve been here, even if quietly.

That’s amazing and humbling to me, and I want to be really clear that continued Patreon support isn’t needed to continue to access my content or to remain in (or join) the Discord server going forward. You’re welcome to keep coming along with me without any financial obligation. If you’re still wanting to support in that way, I would encourage moving down to that $1 tier while this space is in a state of restful existing rather than active creation or specific paid offering.

If you’re reading this and you’re not a Patreon subscriber, you should be able to go here and click “follow” to receive updates without any financial commitment. To join the Discord server if you aren’t there already, message me.

Thank you for traveling with me through all the iterations of Soulful Focus, including those who are willing to keep hanging with me as it continues to evolve. This is an always-changing and often tender endeavor that is close to my heart. I’ve grown out of my judgments around that and learned to love how deeply the changeability of this space reflects… me.

And maybe some of you.