In my mind's eye, I'm sitting on a log underneath the vast expanse of a navy blue wilderness sky. Crisp mountain air fills my lungs and then leaves as small clouds swept away into the night. More stars come into view the longer I stare up at them. It's beautiful. I want to take it in and remember it. But there's a tightness in my chest pulling me out of the present moment. I'm distracted by the cold. The campfire has died down; it's nearly burnt out—only collapsed ashy fire logs, and they’re barely smoking now.

But there's an intermittent breeze. When it comes, embers glow, and a couple of rogue sparks fly out.

I see the opportunity to work with that breeze, to fan the sparks into flames. With just a bit of combustible material, I'd have a stable fire again. Keep feeding the fire, and it will keep you warm. I know this, but I have been resisting it.

I've felt so far removed from my creative self. Does that part of me even exist anymore? Can that part of me exist in this phase of life? But I keep getting nudged.

So I got up and stoked the fire.

I rekindled.

And whoosh! Like a gust of wind bringing fresh oxygen to a fire, I found myself coming back into my body, revitalized. I was present, paying attention. It gave me hope that I would find my way through that metaphorical dark night in the wilderness. I would see the sunrise. I would feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I would hear the birds chirp to greet the day. I would see the beauty around me and be compelled to capture it, reflect it, in art again.

Creativity is a gift. It's a life force that works through us to make meaning of things, connect to others, and understand our place in the world. I've always been "creative," but over the last several years, I took that for granted.

It started about 8 years ago when I published my book. While I believe the book's creation was guided by pure creative energy, what followed wasn't. I got attached to the idea of the book making an impact, being read and used by many people. So, I worked to build a business around the book. I marketed it to churches and youth groups and pitched the idea of coming to speak. I achieved my goal of three paid speaking gigs alongside bulk book purchases and hosted my own workshop in the year following publication, and earning a Publisher’s Weekly Review. But by the time that year ended, I was burnt out. I felt dissonance between the subject matter of my book and my life experience. For a time reference, this was in 2017, as the #MeToo movement was in full swing.

My book, Tell It Well, is about How to Discover, Own and Share Your Story Well. It is saturated with an Christian worldview (read: "your story" is your testimony of Jesus saving you from sin). I was young when I wrote it, publishing it when I was 24. While there is truth in the writing, I now hold different perspectives about the world and my faith than when I wrote it.

I imagine I'll share more of my reflections on spirituality, religion, and God in future newsletters because they directly correlate to creativity in my experience. But for now, I can trace this to being the first wedge between myself and my creative power.

At the start of 2018, I launched a project called Feminine Foresight, which was born out of a supernatural download and sense of calling. Upon reflection, there were some problems with the name since there were too many disparate expectations of what perspective I was writing from. But I'm a sucker for alliteration, so I went with it.

I was working full-time and, by that point, had been consistently working at these side hustles without generating any income.¹ I absorbed all the messages flooding social media about being a #girlboss and running an online business. I set my focus on achieving that goal.

The most logical pivot I saw from my state then (a one-person content creation mill) was career coaching. I had organized and led a meetup for creatives for a few years and wrote weekly about career and leadership topics in Feminine Foresight. I was struggling with the meaning of work and felt the acute tension of wanting to quit my day job but needing it for financial stability. I hoped to find the way out and then circle back to free others.

In May 2019, I did leave my day job and launched my business, Career Foresight Coaching. This was a year to the month from when we moved from Tucson to Albuquerque. I expect this move and its jarring impact on my life will have cameos in future newsletters, too. But to keep it simple, I was not happy in Albuquerque. My body was tortured by new environmental allergies that onset literally the day we pulled up in the moving truck. Over time, it left me feeling like a shell of myself—always run down, lethargic, gross, and sick.

Starting a business was hard. During those first few months, all my time was going toward marketing. Putting myself out there was so uncomfortable, trying to pander to the masses using social media marketing tactics. I hated it. Unsurprisingly, I became depressed.

I started getting consistent clients trickling in by October 2019, but something in the balance was off.

Then, in January 2020, I made the bold decision to leave Instagram altogether.² This decision was fueled by creativity and a sense of divine guidance. I launched a pilot program called Beyond the Gram in conjunction with leaving the platform myself to inspire and equip other female business owners to ditch the soul-sucking rat race of Instagram in pursuit of more stable business growth methods. Beyond the Gram fizzled out, but my personal transformation set off in a new direction.

Suddenly, I was ready for a baby! I had hit a stride in my business and figured that after another 9 months, I'd have the perfect lifestyle business to support an arrangement where I'd spend most of my time with my new baby.

We were at a bar called Drake's in Oakland, California, when my husband and I decided to start trying. We flew home that Sunday evening, and on Monday, New Mexico shut down due to COVID-19.

No one could have predicted the changes Covid would force on the world over the coming months and years. And I couldn't have predicted how hard pregnancy would be for me. I was so sick. I spent most of the first 23 weeks sitting or laying in bed all day, listening to the church bells across the street chime to keep track of time. My momentum crashed.

In the fall of 2020, the tech job market was hot, and demand for career coaching was high. Thankfully, I felt well enough to capitalize on it before my baby arrived. I built the bones of the business I had dreamed of. When I became a mom in January 2021, I only worked about 6 hours/week, split across Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

This next decision will also be untangled further in future newsletters because it's complicated. In August of 2021, I decided to try going back to full-time employment. I was enamored by the excitement and craze in the tech industry, and I felt if I didn't join back in with the pack now, I'd be left in the dust. Knowing what we know now about the forthcoming recession, this was probably an accurate assessment. I started a new remote position for a Silicon Valley startup in November 2021. I'm still there.

Since returning to full-time employment, and maybe since becoming a mom I have really struggled to invested in my creativity (outside of all the creativity that comes with being a parent, that is!). I hadn't even journaled since I got pregnant with my first son. I wanted a job that I could do well, get paid well for, have benefits, security, and, importantly, be able to disconnect from work at the end of the day to be with my family. I got/have all of that. And it was a great solution for a while. But in retrospect, it didn't take long for it to start cracking.

My desire to be creative is like a weed pushing up through the crack of a sidewalk, seemingly so small but strong enough to bevel the cement until it breaks through and looks like a tiny volcano. I tried to patch over the disruptive urges for something more, hoping to keep everything smooth. But eventually, I had to admit that something in me was trying to grow and would break free one way or another.

In 2022, I got pregnant again and had a similarly challenging pregnancy. I looked forward to the postpartum stage to, of course, meet and bond with my new baby, and also to start feeling like myself again. Maternity leave is not a break, but it is a break from employment work. I decided to use that time for guided self-exploration through therapy and mindfulness training. I started to journal again. I bought a couple of new books to read. I met with a creativity coach. I let myself ask the question, "What if?"

Ideas were flowing! It was like throwing dried leaves on a fire; they'd light up with a blazing flame and then be ash the next second.

And then, Rekindle came to me. Like a holy spirit breeze inviting me to work with it to keep the fire going. I have not been able to push the idea of Rekindle out of my mind since it showed up. I know I'm supposed to write this, and I'm curious about where it will go.

Rekindle is both a personal practice and an invitation to stoke your creative fire. I welcome you to join me on this journey to explore and to seek to better understand the creative force.

Warmly,

Jennifer