“A woman must be willing to burn hot, burn with passion, burn with words, with ideas, with desire for whatever it is that she truly loves.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Maybe you know this feeling — the feeling where nothing is exciting you, where no matter how hard you try to go through the motions, joy just isn’t showing up for you.
You aren’t alone.
Many of my clients have experienced this very thing.
Some call it languishing.
I call it your Season of Stagnation — this is a season that can last anywhere from a day to weeks or months where you feel like you can’t feel connected to your highest purpose and authentic core. You are trapped in place. You FEEL as if you must settle and suffer through in this time of life because so much is out of your control — family life, deadlines, bosses, marriages, home mortgage, weather, and even your own mindset and habits keeping you feeling stuck.
You can’t just head off to Bali and pet elephants to find your bliss.
You are stagnant in mind, body and spirit.
Thankfully, I have worked with women climbing out of this season for more than a decade and the solution is always to reconnect with yourself.
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Before I pivoted my business in late 2020, I had fallen into a serious creative rut and a stagnant season.
Nothing excited me.
Nothing brought passion.
Nothing allowed joy to awake inside of me.
I had lost the fire in my belly for life and, more importantly, my creative work — which is in all seriousness my highest order of self-care.
Why Bother doing anything?
When we are stuck in a stagnant season, there is a lot going on — much of which we can’t see because we are in the weeds of our own stories and lives. The antidote to snapping out of a stagnant season is often the opposite of what we choose to do.
For my new coaching clients, there is a very serious and concerning pattern of hiding and caving off when a stagnant season strikes — which only aggravates and perpetuates stagnancy.
For me, it’s something similar — I stop creating from my intuition and go quiet. And as a creative soul and entrepreneur this is the worst thing I can do for myself and my work.
At my worst, I had a whole lot of “why bother,” which my colleague Jen Louden talks about in her book, Why Bother.
- Why bother writing if no one will see it.
- Why bother sharing if no one is going to sign up for things.
- Why bother creating new programs if only a few are going to experience it.
And, as a creative who didn’t want to create I began to feel pretty resentful and trapped in the Land of Bitter and Sour.
That attitude, I recently discovered, was rooted in being out of alignment with my true self and soul.
- I hadn’t realized I reached creative burnout after eight full years of running a 24/7 membership community for which I created 80 workbooks all around the same dozen or so topics related to motherhood and family life.
- I hadn’t realized I would outgrow my own business.
- I hadn’t realized I needed to uplevel my own coaching program in order to keep myself engaged and interested in my own work.
- I didn’t know any of that until I threw the backpack over the wall and trusted myself and had faith that a new thing would be torn if I just let go of the old.
How to Know if You Are in a Season of Stagnation
For eight years, I was writing and coaching about one part of my life — motherhood and wellbeing.
But there was so much more to me — particularly my passion for business and creativity and how I wake up each day on a mission to help women shine and take up space.
When we are doing work that feels limiting we are playing too small for what we are capable of and not serving in our highest possible power.
Here’s several signs I have experienced and my clients have experienced that prove you may be out of alignment:
- Everything feels meh. You go through the motions of your life and work but something is missing: Spark. Passion. Joy.
- Energy is zapped. You feel unmotivated and uninspired to take action.
- Disconnection is rampant. You feel a disconnect to yourself and to others and you feel yourself pulling away when you know you need to move toward.
- Mediocrity moves in. You aren’t doing your best work. You feel like you are holding back or hiding.
- You’re in the Land of Bitter and Sour. Yep. You feel resentful likely from overworking and over doing while feeling underpaid and underappreciated.
Expanding Into A New Season of Possibility — and Finding Your Yes
Climbing out of a Season of Stagnation is less about doing more and absolutely about going quiet and listening to yourself.
In fact, the busier you are the longer your season may last.
And, of course, you also need to be willing to try to find a way out. If you are in denial, you will find it hard to create a new path of possibility.
The key, I have found, is going quiet and asking yourself powerful questions – and then listening for the answers — until the right next move shows up for you.
When you find Your Yes Project! — or your Brave Yes Leap — everything shifts and changes.
A Brave Yes is a clear move toward feeling more alignment, more abundance, more authenticity and toward audacious belief in yourself and your self-worth.
I see this with my clients every week.
- A YES Project!, goal or shift in how we live can often be the one thing that brings you back alive.
- A solid Yes Project! snaps you back to what is real and true for you.
- And, a Brave Yes is going to bring you back to yourself — your authentic self. It awakens your joy and opens up feelings of hope and inspiration — vital for wellbeing and happiness.
As soon as I let go of my old business model and created space for something new — my creativity was set ablaze. There was no end to my list of possibilities on what I could create, write, make or build.
Suddenly, so many ideas rose up and became possible — some ideas were Brave Yeses and others were just YES Projects.
The ideas are still endless — if not overwhelming at times.
Of course I know all this now — and this is why I am SO passionate about helping other women entrepreneurs and changemakers find your Brave Yes — or Yes! Project — so you can know what it feels like to live and work in alignment with your values, strengths and passions.