HOW IT  WORKS: 

Each day, I’ll send out an email with a link to the challenge itself where you’ll find a new 15-minute recording.

I’ll keep the challenge open for a full week so that if you miss a day you can catch up and so that if you need to start a day late, you can still join us.

Here are some guidelines to help you make the most of these 15-minute practice sessions:

Each day in the early morning (Eastern US time), you will be sent an email directing you to a new 15-minute audio recording.

Each recording will include:

*5 minutes of meditation
*a writing prompt
*10 minutes of supported writing time

To prepare for these sessions, figure out where, when and how you will do the challenge each day:

WHEN:

Look at your calendar in advance.  Decide when in your day you are going to do the challenge and mark it on your calendar.

Don’t let your 15 minutes be interrupted. Take it as an important date with yourself. Turn off your phone. Tell people you are busy and can’t be interrupted for 15 minutes.

WHERE: 

Find a quiet and private place to do the challenge (you’ll be able to go more deeply into the meditations if you are in a private and quiet place).

Make sure you have a comfortable place to sit.

You can sit on the ground in a traditional meditation position.

You can sit in a chair. If you sit in a chair try to have both feet on the floor and a straight back.

Make sure your writing materials are with you when you start the challenge.

HOW TO WORK WITH THE MEDITATIONS AND WRITING PROMPTS: 

Even if you are new to meditation, try them. You can’t do them “wrong.”

The writing prompts are suggestions; they are meant to guide and inspire you. There is no wrong way to use them. If you want to write something different, please do. If you want to speak back to the prompts, please do.

Feel free to turn the prompts around. For example, if I ask you to write about the sky (though I won’t in this particular challenge) you might decide instead to write about the ground.

Trust your intuition. You are invited to be creative with the prompts if you want to.

You can use the prompts to do a new piece of writing each from each new prompt.

You can also use the prompts to go in new directions or to go deeper with a writing project you are already working on.

Trust the synchronicity that arises from the prompts. They will guide you where you are meant to go.

My main suggestion is to WRITE. For the ten minutes of supported writing time, put your critical, judging mind aside and write whatever comes to your mind, even if it’s just “I don’t know what to write.” Trust me, if you allow yourself to put words on the paper/screen, you will discover new things!

Of course, if you want to continue writing after the ten minute writing session, please do!!

EXTRAS: 

If you want to light a candle or make some tea to make the 15 minutes special, great! This is your treat for yourself.

GET READY….

With this practice, you can:

*stop procrastination

*get over writer’s block

*trust your voice

*quiet your nervous system

*enjoy the writing process

*put some wonder and magic into your life

All you need to do is take 15 minutes a day!

There’s still time to invite friends to join us. They can sign up here.

with love,

Nadia

I grew up surrounded by books and writers, and when I was in my early 20s I decided I wanted to be a writer, too.

But for a long time, writing was both a great pleasure and a frustration. Something about writing pricked me in uncomfortable ways: I would feel blocked, insecure, and ill at ease. I worried about what others would think of what I wrote (even if I didn’t show my writing to anyone else). My ego was getting in my way.

I had an Ivy League education, a BA from Harvard and a Phd in English from Columbia; I’d gotten all kinds of awards for my academic work and writing. After a while, my creative writing began to be published widely. But I didn’t feel at ease with my voice.

It took me years of searching and of exploring different practices to find a method of writing that allowed me to really get comfortable with my voice.

I needed to learn how to get comfortable with myself. Sure I had a lot of training how to put words on the page, but I didn’t have training on how to sit with myself.

I needed to learn how to drop, at least for a while, my worries about being “good.” I needed to learn how to put aside, at least for a while, my desire to please other people. I needed to learn how to be gentle with myself and tune into my body.

It took me decades to learn how to do this, and I needed to find my own path.

Learning to meditate was invaluable, but that was only part of the picture because stopping the thoughts and voices and coming into silence wasn’t enough: I wanted to come back to voice.

It was only when I learned to integrate the peace of meditation with the power of voice, the wisdom of silence with the wisdom of story that I came to my authentic voice, and my real power.

These short writing sessions are a very condensed version to help you get to that more integrated place faster.

In a world full of so much distracting noise, in a world of so many imbalances, these sessions help you center, rebalance, listen to yourself, and access a deeper creativity.

These short meditations and prompts and supported writing time seem simple, but they are the fruit of more than fifteen years of my work.

Be patient, work with them, stay with them, and see where they lead you!

I’m so excited to be on this journey with you!