Pace and I are home sweet home. We had an amazing whirlwind honeymoon-turned-adventure romp through the Emerald Isle, 14 days of fun in the… cold wet wind. We loved nearly every moment of it, even the times with mortal peril and grueling physical challenge.

There were far more times with mortal peril and grueling physical challenge than we expected, and that’s no mistake.

I have several posts brewing on the lessons I learned and the ways I changed. There’s a lot. More than I imagined – after all, this was a honeymoon, not a vacation or a work trip! Funny how life decides and we think we get to pick, but really we’re just along for the ride.

I’m taking advantage of this moment, this calm before the storm, to again rain thanks and gratitude upon our incredibly awesome guest posters. You guys kept our blog alive while we were doing good to keep ourselves alive, and we really appreciate it. I was able to sleep far better knowing the blog was being enriched by the likes of you.

Megan Morris with Sink the Boat!

Marissa Bracke with An Ode to My Creative Spark: A Love Letter in Five Parts.

Nathalie Lussier with How to Live the Life of an Outsider and Enjoy It!

Victoria Brouhard with On Picking Your Friends.

Johnny B. Truant with How I’m learning to break the rules.

Bob Poole with Happy New Year!

Hayden Tompkins with Here There Be Awesome.

Leah Shapiro with Where the Juicy Goodness Lies.

And last but not least, Rudi Whitmore with Kindness goes to the dogs.

My heart glows with warmth and connection, knowing that these people are more than just my peers and co-workers (of a sort), but also my friends.

I hope you all enjoyed their posts – I sure did! – and we’re back in town and back on the blog. Woo!

Once, rather idealistically, I rescued a dog. I didn’t have dog food, or a dog carrier, or a place to put him, or even a home for myself. I was living in the residence halls of my college, and I was never, under pain of enormous amounts of complaining, to bring another stray animal home.

For about a week or so, I fed him, watered him, petted him – and refused to let him shower with me. All the kennels around us were full, but eventually, a friend’s sister adopted him and renamed him Goliath (I’d been calling him Padfoot; yes, I am that Harry Potter fan.) I dropped him off with her, and for over three years didn’t see the little guy.

Recently, when I went to visit Megan when she was visiting up here in Youngstown (I know you all know Megan – it’s her sister who now owns Goliath), I heard the barking and rustling of the dog pack coming at me, and instead of the “you’re a stranger” greeting I expected…

Goliath greeted me like an old friend, with attention hogging and nudging and showing me his belly.

No one else in the room was shocked that he remembered me and the kindnesses of attention, food, and shelter I’d given him for that one short week.

I won’t lie and say it was the allergies that had me a little fogged up in that living room.

It started me thinking about kindness and the way that we’re remembered. If a dog can remember something that was to me so trivial… Why can’t I be remember and react to those who are kind to me as well?

It can be easy to make a list of the small nice things that happen every day. A door gets held, a coffee on the house, a smile from a passing stranger, or a partner’s understanding hug. Remembering insult and embarrassment is much easier than remembering the good things people have given you, sure – but which is more productive? Which makes you smile more?

I spent a week conducting a little experiment on myself and the people I work with: I made a list of the people in my life who annoy me the absolute most and at the most frequent intervals, and made myself look for something good. Their act didn’t even have to relate to me, but I found that this helped. It made it easier to smile at them, to work honestly with them and with a lighter heart, too.

I’m not usually the animal-whisperer type, but this time, I think the dogs have it.

Rudi Whitmore is a girl who’s learning with everyone else how the world works, and in particular, how it works for her. She writes, loves, dances in the kitchen, and does nothing professionally. Yet.

Hey, everyone!

My name is Leah and I am a rabble-rouser.

I like to stir things up! I like to make you think, I want you to question stuff, I want you to try on a new perspective every now and again. I encourage you to try new things, things that interest you – and maybe some things that scare you.

I will challenge you to learn what feels good to you and to notice what does not work for you.

I want you to embrace the parts of you that are different, and instead of making them wrong…I want you to learn to love them. It’s all good here!

I want you connect deeply with yourself and make that relationship the most important one in your life.

What if you made your happiness your first priority?

Hell, I want you to take full responsibility for your own happiness (Oh My!) and let other folks be responsible for their own happiness too.

I want you to fly your freak flag high and proud, so all your peeps can easily find you.

Why do I want these things for you?

Because, this is where the juicy goodness lies……and maybe you want more of that?

That juicy, yummy, delicious goodness that makes your heart overflow, that makes life feel deeply meaningful and fun!

It is where the magic is and the easiest way to jump into your ever abundant flow.

Do you want some?

It’s waiting right there for you.

The surest way to bring more juicy goodness into your life is by deepening your own relationship with you. This is the most important connection that you can create; otherwise, how do you know what brings you happiness, meaning and success?

This is trickier than it may sound for many people, especially the freaky folks.

We live in a society where there are lots of expectations and pre-packaged beliefs around how we are supposed to live and who we are supposed to be in this world. When you don’t fit into the mold, it’s easy to feel like there’s something wrong with you. It’s easy to feel unworthy, undeserving, resentful – and a whole lot of other unpleasant emotions. It’s really easy to start making yourself wrong for being different.

The worst part is that you tend to settle for whatever comes your way because you think that you can’t have anything else. You’re so busy trying to be something that you’re not, there is no space to ask yourself “What would feel good to me?” or “What works in my life?”

But these questions are the key to bringing in more juicy goodness.

I know this sounds simple, but it can be very difficult to do. So many of us never learned how to ask themselves these questions.

When we’re young, we set our course for who think we are supposed to be in the world. This course is not necessarily based on who we are, but rather who we think we should be. So we spend our time trying to force ourselves in to a life that doesn’t fit rather than exploring and discovering who we really are and what feels good to us.

We end up in jobs that are dull and meaningless, in relationships that feel crappy, and feeling unsatisfied. In order to make ourselves feel better, we shop, eat, have sex with the wrong people, read self help books, and usually blame everyone else for our misery. We spend our time looking outside ourselves for the solution – but it is right there inside of us waiting to be discovered!

You are the only one who knows what is right for you. The key is being committed to deepening your relationship with yourself.

How do you do that?

Make a commitment to knowing yourself better. Get in the habit of asking yourself some of these key questions:

“What makes me happy?”

“What already works for me and feels good in my life?”

“What do I enjoy doing?”

“What do I want from _________________?” ( my career, relationship, health, sexuality, or any given situation)

“How do I want to feel when I _______________?” (am at work, in relationship, walk down the street, anything that you do)

“What would feel good to me right now?”

If you really want to get intimate with yourself, whenever you are feeling bothered, upset, irritated, or uncomfortable, ask yourself, “What about this is making me feel uncomfortable?”

Listen to the answers to all of these questions! Then, go out and use that information to create a life that is designed to suit your unique style. Surround yourself with people and things that support your happiness. Nurture your relationship with yourself as if you were your favorite lover. Give yourself everything you need to be happy and feel great.

You’ll be surprised at how easy it becomes once you get in the habit of asking yourself what you need. As an extra bonus you will discover that all the people around you will benefit from your happiness. Soon enough you will all be surrounded by all the juicy goodness that life has to offer!

Leah Shapiro is Head Rabble-Rouser at Defy the Box. She is not your typical Life Coach. “I teach you to be 100% you in your full freaky glory, and I show you how to use what makes you different to bring success, fun and meaning into your life.” All freaks are welcome!

Download a free copy of Leah’s special report : The Secret to a Life Full of Juicy Goodness!

“Awesome” is usually associated with all things kickass and 100% bodacious. Even the thesaurus can’t help itself, throwing down the fabulous with:

• awe-inspiring
• beautiful
• breathtaking
• magnificent
• mind-blowing
• wondrous

But sometimes something so amazing and ‘mind-blowing’ can be daunting…even terrifying. (Climbing Mt. Everest is pretty spectacular but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also formidable and massively intimidating.)

Sometimes it isn’t even the awesome itself that we find overwhelming, being haunted by the fear that we cannot possibly sustain something so incredible.

Sometimes we wonder if we will even create something special or extraordinary. What will our life mean if we leave no legacy? We fear having squandered our potential, of wasting every opportunity.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be so defined by our accomplishments that we aren’t able to see past them and eventually find ourselves living in that past. The moment passes even as we try to capture it.

But the question is: why?

Why are our accomplishments, achievements, and talents the source of our awesome? At the end of the day, at the end of our days, will it matter that we set a world record? Became a published author or multi-millionaire? Won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Our successes are most extraordinary when they are successes of our spirit, of our PURPOSE. When, being aligned with our deepest gifts, we are able to impact the world with the full force of our being.

That is the truth of your awesome.

Hayden Tompkins is all about rocking the universe and embracing the awesome! (Especially if said awesome is edible and traditionally served after dinner.) She writes a personal development blog at Through The Illusion.

When Kyeli and Pace first told me that my guest post would appear on January 1, 2010, I was like – WOW – happy – like bubbly happy! And, at the same time, I also knew that I’ve always been introspective on this day. Let me tell you why.

For years when I was much younger and celebrating New Year’s Eve by partying, I always felt disappointed by January 2nd. New Year’s Eve never quite lived up to my expectations.

I’m not even sure what I expected but I knew it didn’t happen. I felt like something was missing from my life and New Years had a way of shining a spotlight on the ennui I was feeling.

The truth is that I never felt like I was really a part of something and I didn’t feel like I was making a difference in the world. By many benchmarks, I was successful and had a rich and exciting life. But, true happiness for me was like a teasing tropical breeze you sometimes feel in early April in Pennsylvania – it feels wonderful but you know it won’t last.

And then I got really lucky. In the late nineties, I met Joann. Over the next few years (we got married in 2001) Joann never judged me or tried to make me something I’m not. She listened, laughed, and cried with me as I experienced the highs and lows of change in my life.

Intuitively, I knew that it was time to live my values and be the person I wanted to be for myself and not for someone or something else. I had spent most of my life trying to please others. First it was my father and later it was too many friends and lovers. I needed to please so I could be accepted and so I could find myself acceptable. It was a never ending cycle that was wore me out.

I realized that Love, Integrity, Justice, Honesty, and Authenticity are core values of mine that I wanted to live by, but instead of letting them guide me, I had been doing whatever it took to have others like me.

Something had to change. I asked Joann how she would feel if I quit the work that brought in plenty of money and, instead, started writing and working to help others by sharing what I’ve learned about business and life these past 60 years. It would require a big change in lifestyle – and it wouldn’t be easy.

I’ll never forget what she told me. She said, “You can spend all day dancing in the streets if that is what you want to do. I want you to be happy.”

And, so I began to dance. We both did a special little happy dance when I published my book in 2009. And, we both are looking forward to dancing together for many more years. I’m finally a part of something and someone. And, I finally know I’m making a difference.

Today, as Pace and Kyeli enjoy their honeymoon in Ireland, it seems like a good time to remember how important it is for all of us to accept and love ourselves, to live a live that has meaning, and to stay connected with each other.

Happy 2010!

Bob Poole lives his life following a path with heart. He is the author of “Listen First-Sell Later”, a father, husband, teacher and student. He writes about Sales, Marketing, Creativity and Leadership at Poole’s Water Cooler. He coaches and consults with individuals and companies who are following their own path and need someone to accompany them for a while.

He’s also a heck of a nice guy, sincerely warm-hearted, and fun to work with. He lives in Perkasie, PA with his wife Joann, two dogs, and three cats, and more friendly good nature than you can shake a stick at!

So I’ve finally realized why I like you freaks so much. It’s because you remind me in a very real way that a person can not toe the line, not follow the rules, not adhere to a dress code or a behavior code or whatever the fuck else… and still do just fine in this rather straightlaced society of ours.

Let me explain.

I’ve always been a pretty down-the-middle sort of a guy from all outside appearances. YES, I swear a lot and YES, I have some controversial perspectives on things and YES, I can be kind of “out there” in personality and sense of humor and whatnot.

But I have no tattoos. I have no body modifications. I’ve never dyed my hair an odd color, unless you count bleaching, once, in college, when I was “really crazy.”

Okay, so what? “Way to be surface level, Johnny,” you may be thinking.

But I’ve also never really bucked authority. I’ve never paid a bill late, or not paid it at all. I’ve never done something in a way that was patently WRONG according to every rule that our society has and then stood there and said, “Okay… so what are you going to do about it?”

And by now, you may be reading this and thinking that I have this perception of every reader of and contributor to this site as being a bunch of wild-haired, financially-welching anarchists who are ready to blow up the world. That’s not the case, but hear where I’m coming from: To this here rule-follower, who was always taught to do things in such-and-such a way OR ELSE, you are all reminders that the walls don’t come crashing down the minute one of those little arbitrary rules is broken.

The freaks of the world do things that are “wrong” by one commonly accepted rule or another.

The freaks of the world say, “I don’t agree with this. Let’s try it this other way, instead.”

The freaks of the world are more apt to ask WHY a rule is in place rather than just following it.

So this may all seem 1) really obvious and 2) naive and 3) like a super-shitty epiphany as far as epiphanies go, but for those of you who didn’t grow up in the world I grew up in, I’d just like to specifically enumerate some truths about the way “most people” believe. Really think about these, and really think about what’s behind them. Go deep. The sooner we can understand how to bridge the gap between freaks and line-toers, the sooner maybe this world can see some of that change we talk so much about.

Immutable laws of life:

RULE #1: You must act and appear in a way that others will like and accept.

Think really hard on this one. Because the knee-jerk reaction would be to say that the guy who wears a white shirt and blue tie to work is obeying this rule, whereas the girl with three nose piercings is not. But if the pierced girl’s circle of friends are all punks, then there’s a really good chance that she’s just adhering to the punk group’s rules about appearance and behavior, rather than simply doing what’s in her heart.

True individualism is wearing a white shirt and blue tie in a group of peers who have their faces tattooed, if it strikes you to do so.

True individualism is being in the Indie rock scene and admitting that you like Miley Cyrus.

Oh, and by the way, true individualism is also looking and acting exactly like the people around you — provided your motivations are truly your own internal thoughts and desires, rather than a sense of pressure to conform… even if what you’re conforming to is a dress code of nonconformity.

RULE #2: You must never, never, NEVER break an obligation… or else.

If you grew up in my world, you know that only a bad person would promise to do something and then not do it.

Sounds fair, right? We should all keep our promises. We should all honor our commitments. People who don’t are hypocrites. They’re assholes.

Well, that kind of thinking is all fine and good until you realize you’ve been doing a job that you hate because you told yourself you would. Or because you promised a spouse that you would. Or because you feel beholden to the company, that they’d be lost without you. Or because it’s what your parents want for you.

It’s all good until you realize that you’re stressed out of your mind because you’re holding on to a lifestyle obligation that is dragging you down, using up all of your time and not allowing you to see your family.

It’s all a solid concept, until you find yourself financially fucked like so many people in this recession, but you won’t cast off some ballast to save yourself because you’ve AGREED TO PAY. You look at a repossession as a horrible act, even though you’re drowning. A foreclosure is a massive failure. Bankruptcy is the ultimate tragedy. But if you let go? If you broke those obligations? Well, you’d be saving yourself — but you can’t do that because only criminals and super-assholes break their promises. It makes more sense to die a slow, painful death… while maintaining your integrity.

RULE #3: You must consume.

This, along with the tail end of Rule #2 above, has been on my mind a lot lately because I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of material about living life on a cash basis. Meaning: without using credit at all. If you can’t write a check or pull bills out of your wallet to pay for something, you don’t buy it.

Makes sense, right? Until you get deep into your head and you realize how deeply we’ve been programmed to consume.

We don’t need an apartment. We need a NICE apartment.

We don’t need books. We need a TV. Although, that’s not even right. We need a BIG TV.

We need an iPod.

We need a smart phone, because calls aren’t enough. We need email and internet, too.

I’m not advocating a stark life without any fun or niceties here, but I am saying: Stop and think about it. What if you didn’t have a phone at all? What if you lived in a stark space that was nothing other than warm and dry? Maybe you wouldn’t want to live like that, but could you?

Of course you could. And when you think about it, you know it without question. But on an emotional level, it never feels like that. So we buy and we buy and we buy and we buy. And we don’t even buy what we want. We buy what we are programmed to want.

Those are just a few rules off the top of my head. Dudes, I lived those rules. I still live those rules. We have our lives and our obligations, and then we have these rules that say what we’re supposed to do, and we accept them as immutable truth.

But I like freaks because they prove that you don’t have to play by the rules all the time. It’s not just your appearance, because I’m a freak in training and my appearance is pretty ordinary. What matters most is your attitude and actions. I do have a head start. I was a punk rock kid for a long time, but it’s easy to get sucked back in to the world of the normal.

Let’s take my hosts, the lovely Pace and Kyeli.

You’re supposed to pair with the opposite sex.

Well, what if we don’t?

If you were born a man, you’re a man forever.

Well, what if I’m not?

No matter what you do, you can’t get married that way.

Well, what if we do it anyway, and just don’t file the legal shit?

They’ve done so much “wrong.” But guess what? It all washes out. Life goes on. Nobody comes to the door to force them apart.

Then, after watching this example, you step back into my normal-guy shoes.

And you look at those two people, at their circle. And maybe, turning to yourself, you think about the dozen investment properties that you have in one of the worst markets in the nation, and you notice how you’ve been raping your future to find at least $2000 to throw at them each month, and you think of how the stress has to be taking years off your life. And you think about how, still, you have to find a way to keep them afloat because… because you made a commitment.

You have to.

Well, what if you don’t?

I’m just saying.

Johnny B. Truant is a generally deep-thinker who is somehow also a website guy specializing in Wordpress. In fact, he’s so incredibly cool that he’s setting up self-hosted Wordpress blogs for FREE until the end of December. You should totally read his blog and follow him on Twitter.

To some people, it might seem really obvious to hang out with friends who are supportive and accepting of who you are, however you are.

But for me, in school and in life, I tended to hang out with whatever group of people circumstances handed me. People in my classes. People in my department at work.

It wasn’t until just a couple of years ago that I realized:

You can pick your friends.

(And I’m not going to apologize for the “you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose” reference. Gross? Maybe. But this post just got a whole lot more memorable, didn’t it?)

It sounds like such a basic friend commandment, but how many people are in your life who leave you feeling drained and frustrated?

More importantly, how many people are in your life who really fill you up and help you feel good about yourself?

Freaky on the inside

I don’t look like a freak on the outside. I’ve got one tiny tattoo. I’m white, heterosexual, married, and own real estate.

But on the inside I always felt like there was something wrong with me, because I felt suffocated by all the things I was doing because That’s The Way It’s Done. All those things that nobody else seemed to have a problem with.

Eventually in my efforts to stop being miserable, I accepted the fact that my lucrative IT career was never going to fulfill my desire to make a difference. I had no idea what kind of difference I wanted to make, but I started looking for the next thing.

And soon I realized that the next thing wasn’t going to be a typical thing.

Simultaneously, I started to see that some of my apparent flaws weren’t flaws at all – they were just characteristics to be accepted. (What? I’m not defective because I don’t want to be told how to dress?)

Once I was able to accept some of those traits, it became clear I’d never be able to thrive in any regular job.

That scared the shit out of me.

And even scarier, I started to see that in order to thrive as an entrepreneur, I’d need to build my business from the inside out, which meant there was no real map for me to follow.

Yes, there were other coaches out there, but a lot of what I saw them doing didn’t feel like me.

The thought of trying to tell my so-called friends what I wanted to do made me nauseous. And the few times I did try to share it, it always came out wooden and stiff, because I didn’t feel safe enough to gush about it.

Barbara Sher says that isolation is the dream killer.

Damn right, it is.

Somehow, maybe simply by virtue of the fact that I was looking for supportive people to hang out with, I got hooked up with a group that included Kyeli and Pace.

That made a huge difference.

Was it still scary to “come out” to the world and say I wanted to be a coach? Absolutely. (In fact, I still choke on that word a bit, because it has some unfortunate connotations associated with it.)

But knowing that my friends were behind me, rooting for me, helped me to feel like I could do it anyway.

As I’ve talked with friends and clients, I’m understanding the importance of support at a deeper level.

Just as our families influence our sense of “normal” while we’re growing up, the people we surround ourselves with create our sense of “normal” as adults.

Before I knew Pace and Kyeli and people like Havi, Naomi, and Mark, the idea of supporting myself with my own business – in a way that wouldn’t leave me feeling like a sellout – seemed crazy.

Okay, sometimes it still seems a little crazy, but now that I know lots of people doing their own unique things to support themselves, it seems normal enough to try it.

And by seeking out the support of my true friends, the things that gave me the shakes before now seem like much less of a big deal. I have more energy to invest in the things that are important to me, because I’m not having to waste it on “fitting in.”

Maybe you have no interest in starting a business – that’s completely okay. Really this is about finding support so you can be the real you, whatever that may look like.

Who do you have in your life that helps you feel safe enough to be a freak?
How can you spend more time with them and less time with the people who don’t help you feel safe?

Victoria Brouhard is a former database programmer who decided to flick boogers at the Man and do her own thing after developing a solid support network. Now she works with clients one-on-one to help them find ways to do what they love without feeling like they’re jumping into an abyss. She tweets as victoriashmoria and blogs at http://www.victoriabrouhard.com/blog.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you sometimes feel like an outsider. Maybe you feel like a freak, left out, not quite like the rest.

That doesn’t mean you can’t live a great and fulfilling life. Actually, not to make you feel any less special, but chances are you’re not alone in feeling like an outsider.

How to Relate to Others

I first started “going off the deep end” as some have called it, when I started eating more raw fruits and vegetables. People didn’t know how to relate to me anymore, because I didn’t fit in the usual box. I didn’t eat the standard American diet, and I seemed perfectly happy not to chow down on a steak or a hamburger.

The first thing I had to learn was how to continue relating to others. You see, in my example, food is a super important part of the social aspects of life.

I can picture cavepeople gathering around some food and telling stories as they eat. Well, maybe that’s a little idealized and they were really just hiding in the bushes eating their own little shares.

Still, these days most social get togethers involve food and if you don’t fit in, then people get confused. If you let them get confused, or you allow their confusion to get to you, you’re just creating space for your mind and their mind to judge.

Judgment and persecution occurs when your mind needs to prove that it is “right”. Have you ever seen someone start an arguement because you were different, even though no one mentioned your difference? What happened was the other person felt threatened, felt that their decisions were being put on the spot by your mere presence.

How to Disarm the Judgment Before it Happens

The way to really enjoy being different, without causing tons of uncomfortable reactions is to address the situation overtly.

If you notice that someone is eyeing your tattoos suspiciously and about to comment on your piercings… maybe it’s a good idea to mention that you enjoy creating art with your body, but that it doesn’t mean you’re any less of a great person.

In my case, I like to address people’s most insidious concern when it comes to my eating raw food: that I prefer eating raw food because it taste good and makes me feel good, but that I don’t expect them to change their eating habits.

In fact I embrace the diversity, because we’re all different and that makes things exciting.

How’s that for diffusing a situation before it gets all prickly?

So hopefully I’ve given you some food for thought, when it comes to living the life of the outsider. I suspect that more of us feel like outsiders than we’d like to admit.

It’s just a matter of embracing our differences, loving ourselves for who we are, and letting the world know that we’re okay with their differences too.

Nathalie Lussier helps men and women who know they need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables when they don’t know how to get started, get over the cravings, and avoid family drama. She is known as the Raw Foods Witch, and you can also find her as @NathLussier on twitter.

Part I: In Which I Lose My Spark

There was a time when writing came easily to me. There was a time–and it was only a handful of years ago–when my appetite for delectable content and my ability to create were pretty evenly balanced. In the past year or so, that balance was tousled and my consumption of content skyrocketed. My creation of content… well, it nearly ceased altogether.

I’ve noticed this happening, but haven’t given it a lot of thought. After all, there’s a plethora of great content out there. Between blogs and Tweets and books and interviews with really smart, fascinating people, a Curious George like me could make a full-time job of doing nothing but keeping up with everything that interests me. So what’s the downside?

Wily little creative spark, flighty and mercurial. I wanted you to make an appearance, but for naught–plenty of other people out there were creating more than enough great content to make up for your absence anyway.

Part II: The Squelching of the Spark

The downside of this unending buffet of consumable content is what hit me when I sat down to write this post and found myself staring down a writer’s block larger and more looming than any I’d encountered before. After engaging in some de-blocking exercises born of maturity and self-awareness (read: “I kicked, screamed, and pouted, and procrastinated on Twitter”), I finally paused to ponder what it was that made up that formidable block standing between me and my written utterances.

And damned if it wasn’t a big ol’ pile of all of that wonderful content I’ve been consuming so voraciously over the past year or so. If my own creative voice is a spark, and stimulating, fascinating content is fuel to its embers, I’d managed to dump the equivalent of a mighty redwood onto my spark. And then got frustrated when I couldn’t figure out how to stoke the fire.

Poor little creative spark, smothered under a world of others’ input and thoughts. I berated you for abandoning me, but as it turns out, I kind of squashed you.

Part III: Awareness

I tweeted a few days ago that it’s a fine line between being inspired by other peoples’ content and being overwhelmed by too much input. What I didn’t realize is how much I’ve effectively silenced myself by constantly turning outward for inspiration, ideas and conversation. I’d simply forgotten to leave any space in my brain–let alone in my day–to listen to my own ideas, process all of my own snippets of information, and flesh out my own internal dialogue. I kept piling on more and more consumed content without leaving any room for me to create my own.

But then I realized, as I excavated the spark-smothering mass of consumed content, that my little creative spark was still there, a little pilot light that managed to stay lit. And the more I lifted the self-imposed pressure to write like the writers I enjoy, to be “as good as” the experts whose advice I try to heed, to create content that mirrors that which I consume in heft and in import (as judged by harshest-critic-me, of course)… the more that little spark flickered.

Resilient little spark, nestled at the bottom of this overwhelming pile of potential fodder and fuel. I fed you too intensely, when in truth, I needed to give you room to burn, big and bright and bold.

Part IV: The Renewal of the Flame

“Well,” I said aloud to the mental image of my creative spark, “looks like you and I have something to talk about after all.”

And damned if that potential-laden spark didn’t crackle up into a respectable creative flame.

Into the empty screen I’d stared at for hours earlier I suddenly poured the story of how I lost–and rediscovered–my creative spark. It’s neither keyword-rich nor particularly ReTweet-inducingly funny, neither list-formatted for easy skimming nor a how-to guide for easy online dissemination.

But it’s mine, and it’s heartfelt and real, and after all that pain of writer’s block battling, it actually feels really good to write.

Marvelous little spark, flames licking into the open space we created around you tonight, I tried so hard to consume enough great content to make you be great yourself, when in truth, all I needed was to give you space to BE.

Part V: In Which I Reflect and Intend

And so it is that I wrote this blog post for my dear friends’ blog, which became a manifesto of sorts, and a love letter to my creative spark. It being the time of year for reflections and intentions, I offer this commitment to myself: Embrace the exploration of others’ thoughts and musings, but respect the necessary space around my own spark; admire the power and humor and wisdom of others’ creations, but nurture the manifestation of my own.

Can you relate to this–to the writers block, the smothered spark, the feast of content consumed and famine of content created? If so, what’s your secret for finding balance between the input and the creation? How do you feed your creative spark without overpowering it?

Marissa Bracke is a Can-Do-Ologist who specializes in bridging gaps between small business owners’ to-dos and their can-actually-get-dones. When not solving collaboration conundrums or giving great email for her clients, Marissa is most likely creating a collage masterpiece, compiling the perfect eclectic playlist, or spoiling her two dogs (her Vice-Presidents of Customer Relations and Creative Napping, Ernie and Rosco).

If you don’t see the video, click here.

Megan Elizabeth Morris, or The Magnificent Megan M., [proper noun]: Superhuman font of knowledge, skill, determination & resourcefulness. Exudes enzymes that cause others to surpass their potential. Master thinker; writes, designs, manages, ideastorms, markets, inspires, connects, grows, teaches, makes things happen, changes the world, and throws a mean right hook. (Okay. Not the last one. Well! Not literally.)

Megan, also known as That Idea Blueprint Girl, writes at Personal Revelations of the Magnificent Megan M.