If you’ve overcome something hard, if you’ve transformed self-harm to self-care, if you meditate every morning, say your prayers every evening, confess to therapists and friends on the reg and you still haven’t manifested your deepest desires, you aren’t doing it wrong. If you are doing everything listed above while also remembering that life is more or less ‘chop wood, carry water’ and YET you still harbor a secret expectation that is juicier than that tedious visual suggests, you aren’t doing it wrong. If you’ve done the ‘work’ and life is still pretty average, you aren’t doing life wrong.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always been optimistic. It is my nature, even as I’ve veered off into magical thinking (and ignoring truth). Before the books and the movies and the social movements, I was sold the Law of Attraction by the church of my youth. Buying into this came with a high cost: Ignoring the truth of my privilege, damaging my self-worth when bad shit happens (because I don’t care what kind of supreme manifestor you are, bad shit happens) and losing my connection to humanity.

The chamber I live in loves to broadcast a certain Marianne Williamson quote that, rest assured, I got plenty a kick out of too. The essence of this soapbox statement from A Return To Love is to own your power, your beauty, your fabulousness and doing anything other than this is playing small. But I’ve had some time to reconsider this and I’ve come to the conclusion that life doesn’t owe me anything, that I’d rather be compassionate and empathetic over powerful and fabulous, and I’m including the relationship I have with myself. I’m not entitled to anything except this moment right here, another moment to live my average life and make my mediocre art.

If you are making your mediocre art and you still have not manifested fame, fortune and success, please don’t let that stop you from your creative work. Don’t let your lack of manifestations put a ding in your self-value or the value of whatever creative work you pursue. You aren’t too old, it’s not too late, don’t let the Manifest Agenda tell you what success looks like. I, for one, need your mediocre art. It gives the rest of us permission to make our mediocre art. Hey, I’ll even be your biggest fan!

Maybe the manifest “live your best life” messaging never landed for you either, but you still need a little pep-talk, so here you go: your mediocre art is still worth doing, your ordinary work is still worth creating, your average life is still worth living. I’ll even have the audacity to say, the WORLD of middle-aged women need it. The real reward is that everyday, you get to show up curious. I want to be noticing, not manifesting and what I’m beginning to realize is that THIS is where true freedom lives.

Next week: Talent vs. Mediocrity

Last Friday, had my first photoshoot toward building my portfolio for my new project that will eventually be a new offering, targeting creative women over 40. I'm so excited about this I could explode. Jenn is transitioning from a pharmacist to an herbalist and I'm thrilled to help her realize her new vision. I have many more sessions booked this Summer and I look forward to sharing a few peeks and behind-the-scenes along the way.

As always, the Marketplace is open! Clothe yourself in luxury garments and accessories that are kind to your Mother Earth. xo.

It’s hard not to expect that life should be a series of fair and compensatory transactions. There’s an entire wall in every bookstore, enough podcasts to cover a coast-to-coast roadtrip and 1000s of social media campaigns to testify: Put in the “work”, your life can’t help but become glittery amazing. It’s all but guaranteed.

The opposite is true, right? People that live destructively suffer the consequences: They lose their important relationships, they go bankrupt, they go to jail and sometimes, they die. I lived destructively for decades and managed to skirt what’s considered the sludge of consequences, yet I felt bankrupt. When I finally dropped those destructive behaviors and started doing the aforementioned “work”, I expected the pendulum to then swing wildly towards the heavens. Maybe you’ve had the same thoughts? It’s what we’re sold. I’m reticent to admit it but yes, I really expected that life would rain down the rewards of putting in the work. But it hasn’t.

I’m not saying that life hasn’t improved. I’ve developed tools that have replaced my self-(harming)medication , I no longer self-report as spiritually and morally bankrupt, I’m alive. And maybe that’s the reward. I wake everyday NOT in jail, NOT hated by my spouse and children, NOT dead. THIS is it. But in the absence of glitter, what I get is an average life.

Doesn’t make for a very compelling podcast, does it? The title of the next NY Times bestseller isn’t going to be, “I Did Years of Work On Myself and All I Have To Show For It Is This Average Life”. You aren’t going to see giant marketing campaigns selling The Average Life™. If we all reported the truth, perhaps no one would get sober or scale or strive.

If this sounds like a rant, it’s not. If you’re asking, what happened to Ms. Optimism? Still present. I’m truly grateful for everyday that I wake up, period. But coming in on 9 years of sobriety and a whole lot of “work”, I’m finally waking up to my personal evolution: The very unsexy, unglittery work of Acceptance.

Next week: The Anti-Manifesting Agenda

I’ve added some new lovelies to my Marketplace, like four pretty silk bags. These bags are made from silk scraps and vintage ties. They are perfect for your tarot cards, crystals or other magical trinkets. Also, another silk duster and a few pairs of silk scrap earrings.

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The Anti-Manifest Agenda

Gimme some of that average life (said no one evr)