Last week, I talked about what September can still offer us before the end of the year. I also invited you to look back from this September to last September, wearing the glasses of gratitude for all you have accomplished, rather than focusing only on what you didn’t get done.
As I listened to my own words and took some of my own coaching, I realized a year ago, I didn’t know I could write a book.
And it made me wonder how many of us have decided what we’re capable of based on an older version of ourselves.
Last fall, I signed up for one of those free webinars that led to a five-day writing bootcamp. If I’m totally transparent, I didn’t think of myself as an author or even really as a writer, despite the fact that I sit down and write to you every single week. I hadn’t aligned with that identity yet.
On the first day of the workshop, we were given a prompt and told to free-write for five minutes. Unfiltered. Uncensored. Just write.
My first thought was, I don’t know what I could possibly write about for five minutes. Then the timer went off, and I wasn’t finished. I still had so much I wanted to say.
Sometimes we don’t know what’s inside us until we give ourselves the opportunity to find out.
When Passion Meets Timing
When the bootcamp ended, there was, of course, an invitation to join a writing program. I signed up.
I have a philosophy about life: when passion aligns with timing, amazing things can happen.
I had a passion for sharing the ideas I had been exploring with my coaching clients, but I wanted to reach women beyond what I could do one-to-one. And for the first time, the timing felt right. I felt willing to try it.
I was willing to devote the time and discipline to finding out whether I could actually write a book.
I didn’t know how to write one. I knew absolutely nothing about publishing one. I certainly didn’t know I would eventually record an audiobook. Maybe there was some benefit in not knowing what I didn’t know.
I simply kept doing the next thing.
One of the early writing exercises was to envision your reader and write directly to her. That’s exactly what I did. And it’s what I still do every Monday when I write to you.
When I sit down to write Monday with Meryl, I imagine you opening this in your email. I think about where you might be in your life and what you might need to hear that day.
So, I wrote the book the same way.
I wrote week after week, sharing my experiences, pieces of my personal life, stories from my work with clients, and the ideas that eventually became the CLEAR Method.
Where Did CLEAR Really Come From?
The CLEAR Method grew out of my own experiences and years of coaching, but there was one moment when everything came together.
I was teaching a five-day closet reset workshop. I had always used our physical spaces in relation to our goals, with the belief that our environment should support what we want to do and who we want to become.
Then, in the middle of the night, I woke up thinking about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Narnia.
I was so excited that I reached for the notebook beside my bed and wrote it down. The next day, I added the idea to the workshop. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because the wardrobe wasn’t really the destination. That became so clear to me. It was the doorway.
Suddenly, I could see what I had been trying to teach in an entirely different way. Our spaces can be doorways, too.
When we begin letting go of what no longer reflects who we are, we’re doing more than making a closet easier to use or a room look better. We’re creating space to discover what might be waiting for us next. There is always something on the other side of the door.
That idea changed my work. It changed my trajectory. And eventually, it became the foundation for CLEAR.
What the Book Gave Me
Writing a book is enlightening, but it’s also emotional. There are things you have to acknowledge when you write that you can otherwise choose to ignore. I learned a tremendous amount about writing, publishing, and recording an audiobook. There is a whole world on the other side of those books I have been enjoying that I knew nothing about.
But what surprised me most was what I learned about myself.
I’m still capable of learning.
I’m capable of doing new things at this age. I’m capable of walking into something uncomfortable without knowing exactly how it will turn out. And I’m capable of figuring things out along the way.
That may be one of the greatest gifts this book has given me.
The other is knowing that I can now share the CLEAR Method with women I may never have the opportunity to coach personally.
But you don’t have to write a book to discover something new about yourself.
Maybe it’s running your first 5K. Maybe it’s downsizing, starting a new job, retiring from one, taking a class, traveling somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, or finally exploring an idea that keeps coming back to you.
Many of us already know that we can rise when life requires it. We’ve cared for people we love. We’ve handled family struggles. We’ve made difficult decisions. We’ve gotten through seasons we weren’t sure we could manage. We’ve shown up because we had to. But there’s another kind of courage.
It’s choosing to show up for something simply because you want it.
Something fun. Something meaningful. Something that pulls you forward instead of requiring you to respond to a crisis. That kind of showing up can feel surprisingly unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
What’s Your Narnia?
In Narnia, the children walked through a wardrobe and into an adventure. They faced challenges, certainly, but along the way they also discovered more about who they were and what they were capable of.
As CLEAR gets ready to launch tomorrow, that’s what I find myself wishing for you. What is pulling you forward right now? What are you curious about? What would you like to learn, try, create, experience, or become?
Maybe your Narnia isn’t a book.
Maybe it’s something you’ve been thinking about for years.
You don’t have to know what’s on the other side of the wardrobe before you open the door.
Maybe you just have to be willing to open it.
What’s your Narnia this year? What adventure has been waiting for you to walk through the wardrobe?
Talk to you next Monday.
P.S. CLEAR launches tomorrow. This book began with that little five-minute writing exercise and grew into something I never imagined I’d hold in my hands. If you’d like to read it, CLEAR will be available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJMKXMMF. And if you know a woman who is standing at the doorway of her own next chapter, I would be honored if you shared it with her.
