at 22, she was told she had three years to live and given a 35% chance of survival. But instead of giving up. So like a Jawad picked up a pen and began to write her way back to life.

Today, she's here to share a simple and transformative practice that can alchemist pain into power. It can turn confusion into creativity, and your story into something that saves you. You know, if you've ever felt super stuck or lost or like you're living in the in-between, this conversation could change at all.

So I just need to pull this up. This is my advanced reader edition, but, I'll be seeing this. It will be out. And you need to get yourself a coffee or five for yourself and the people that you love, because it is so gorgeous

and so powerful.

And this practice writing and journaling and just we are so much.

Okay, so for those who don't know your story, let's take it back. So there's the larger context of that summer when you were 22, everything changed. So if it's closer with you, I'm going to take it back. Just a few more beats. Yes. So I, was born here in New York City, in the East Village, to to immigrant parents.

And I think, like a lot of first gen kids, I had this self imposed pressure to honor the sacrifices my parents had made for me. And, my version of what that looks like pre age 22 was I was just someone who was constantly on the go. I was on the hamster wheel. I would define my sense of self-worth by my productivity.

And I had my one year plan and my five year plan and my ten year plan, and I was just all about my ambition. And when I graduated in 2010, I had all kinds of questions about the future, as one does when you're in your early 20s and all kinds of dreams and ambitions. But I think, you know, when you're that age, there's this sense of endless time, time to figure out who you are and what you want to do, and to plot the distance between where you are presently and where you hope to end up.

And almost exactly a year after graduating from college, I got diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia and that sense of endless time and all of those plans pretty much imploded, within, you know, the amount of time it took to utter my diagnosis. And I found myself, back home in my childhood bedroom with its embarrassing pink walls and boy band posters shuttling between there and the hospital.

And I spent the next four years in the hospital undergoing treatment. That more than a crash course and illness, I think that experience for me was a major wakeup call in terms of what I prioritized. The journalist David Brooks makes the distinction between our resumé virtues, which are the things that make us attractive in the modern marketplace and are eulogy virtues, which are, you know, the traits and qualities that were lauded for after and long after were gone.

Where we kind, where we brave. Were we loyal or, where we humble? And, as much as, you know, those values were things that were important to me, they weren't necessarily the kind of guiding, Northstar of how I was making my decisions and where I was investing my time. Let's talk about the notion of a 100 day project.

Yes, like the Yale professor, Michael Beirut. Is that where you perform a 101 creative act for 100 days? And this was so lovely to me because I feel like I love containers. Containers like, you know what you were describing as the child of immigrants. It's like productivity and your value being tied. At least mine. My own experience to output totally and achievement.

And so that can go wild if I don't have a container. And so something like 100 days, it's like oh wait that's ambitious and achievable. Tell me about what that first experience of 100 day project was for you and what was the impact? So, you know, even after my diagnosis, I was, I had this sense that I had to make something useful out of this experience because that's just the way that my brain works.

And so I entered the hospital, and ended up spending about eight weeks in the hospital. And when I first got admitted, I brought with me this suitcase packed full of books. And I told my dad my professor dad, that I was going to use that time in the hospital to read through the rest of the Western canon, which is just totally absurd to me now.

And of course, I did not read through the rest of the Western canon. I didn't read a single one of those books in my suitcase, and instead spent that summer feeling really depressed and angry and scared and attempting to set the world record for the number of Gray's Anatomy episodes consecutively. That's what I was doing with my time.

And so, you know, my friends and family were worried and they were looking for something, that we could do that could anchor our days around something other than just the next biopsy results or the next day's news. And this friend, you know, introduced us to the idea of 100 day project. And everyone's so excited because it was not only a thing that we could do individually, but it was something we could do in community.

I was not excited. I and, you know, my normal life before cancer would have been excited by a project like this for the very reasons you described. But I, at that point in my life, felt like I wasn't sure I was going to be well enough to do it. I did not feel inspired. I didn't need any more reasons to feel bad about myself.

And, you know, I as much as I had always loved journaling, which was what immediately came to mind as my 100 day project. It was also, you know, the person I think, like a lot of us, who buys a beautiful new journal with the best of intentions of filling it out. And I'll write in the first couple of pages and then leave the rest blank.

And then, of course, have to buy another journal because you have to start again fresh. That one's ruined. It contains evidence of your failure. But, you know, I think, to me, you know, there's always been something really eye opening about being in despair. Because there's also a kind of clarity that comes with it. It just strips away all of the

Yes. And as much as I didn't feel motivated, I knew that I needed to find something, that I could do within these new limitations, however frustrating they were. And so I decided to go ahead. And in order to kind of lower the barrier to entry, I made a couple of rules for myself. One was that I would aim for three pages, but that any amount would do if it was a paragraph sign, if it was a sentence, if it was one word, occasionally the F word like that was great too, and there was no wrong way to do it.

And so there really wasn't an excuse for me to fall off after 1 or 2 days. And the other rule I made was that I wasn't going to reread any of my entries, because I didn't want to bring that sort of sensors voice, to the work. And I needed the journaling to feel, as welcoming as possible.

It wasn't grammatical writing. It wasn't. I'm penning a masterpiece writing. It could be lists. It could be sentence fragments. Didn't matter. And so that's what I did. So I'm curious, was the communal aspect of it something that you grew up with, with your family? Like? I think that's such a beautiful thing. And I've been thinking a lot about families and gone through a lot of struggles with.

And I think that, just the notion, you know, and the other people around you were like, hey, this is something we can do together. That's something super foreign to me. And I'm curious if that was part of your upbringing or if that was something that emerged that felt organic to that moment. You know, I have a tight knit family and there were things that we did together, like dinner was mandatory every night, but we never really did group activities.

And I think that's the interest ING thing about having this ceiling cave in on you. As you know, it's that cliche that we need a village. And until you really need a village, it's hard to understand, that it's a cliche because it's true. And so that summer, you know, as much as we were there for one another, it's hard to talk about scary prognoses.

I think we were all trying to protect each other and to put on a brave face for one another. And we're not a family like cries. We. You know, I grew up in a pull yourself up by the bootstraps and, you know, have thick skin and, you know, be as brave as you can and keep moving.

And as great as that is, I also think inadvertently, we were more isolated, because of it. We weren't sharing. And our fears. We weren't sharing and our sadness. We were carrying that privately. And so I think that 100 day project was as much about finding a thing we could each do as it was about feeling connected to one another.

And that's that was really ultimately what made me to decide to do it. So you also wrote in the last year after treatment that you stopped journaling for a bit. What's so interesting? And then you fast forward through time that you drove back in which, morning pages have been a godsend to me. And one of the things that I read in this book that was really, similar between you and I is you had reflected that after a while, you started to find yourself in certain moods, and I've had that question.

That's why I'm, like, excited, by your book. Because I have seen in my own morning pages and, like, this

it sounded familiar. I was like, girl, you totally really go in here again. It's not necessarily like emotional stuff, like, yeah, my just observing and I guess there's value in that. In and of itself. But how my mind is wired, how the lists and around the to dos and around the totally and I and I was like know you have reflected you mentioned you were bored of the sound of your own voice.

I cannot tell you how many. Oh, I yeah. So I just want to talk about that for a minute because we've had Julia Cameron on the show. Yes. Just like folds over at I'm like dude, another book and I absolutely bow to it. So I love that. It's like oh my gosh this is our starting point.

And yeah having the self-awareness to be like okay amazing I've got the engines going. And maybe there's this other piece and you yeah, you found a new way to kind of add it into that. So let's just talk about that a little bit because it's so cool. So you know and I also I'm a huge Julia Cameron fan.

Love morning pages. And I was doing my three pages of day. I was so lost. I had just emerged from these four years of treatment. I was lost professionally. I was lost spiritually. I was lost in any way a person can be lost. And I had gone through this terrible, terrible heartbreak. And so I was doing my morning pages and all of my morning pages were, you know, contained the same elements, especially long, exhaustive rants about my ex.

And I was like, come on, it's time to move on. I don't want to be rehash this same old grievances. I want to be moving forward. But sometimes when you're stuck in your life, it's easy to get stuck in the same thought loops. And so I felt this urge to be prompted. And I'm not someone who I think would have responded, positively to the idea of a journaling prompt or a writing prompt.

I would have been like, absolutely not. This feels like homework. And so what I started doing was reading the journals and diaries of women I admired. I was reading Susan Sontag, I was reading Virginia Woolf and Frida Kahlo, and there was just something about reading a short little excerpt of something that felt kind of kaleidoscopic, just like twisted the barrel and the light fell differently.

And so that became my new practice. That combined with the Hunter day project, because I think the other challenge for me is I, as you put it, I love a container. I love to be able to tally things up or cross something off a calendar, and I need to feel like there is an end date that I'm working towards.

And so, I combine those two elements of the 100 day project and the reading something or being prompted in some kind of way and began to find that either, you know, in my reading, I would feel a flash of recognition and that would spur something. Or sometimes I would read something and be completely put off or even annoyed or enraged by it.

And that was interesting, you know, information to. But whichever way I was being prompted, toward a new train of thought, toward a new portal, into my intuition. I found it fascinating, too, that I forgot who said it, but someone had said it's like sticking a finger in a goldfish bowl, like a prompt. And I said, yeah, it's like, write about, you know, it's time.

It's also. And I feel my inner. Yeah, like, or I don't have anything to write like it's just for me. It's like a blinking cursor. I'm like, I got nothing absolutely so blocked and put on the spot. But I do love, this notion of reading a short passage or a short essay, being able for me, sometimes it's almost like getting an energetic alignment with that person's creativity or soul or perspective that unlocks something in me that I just didn't have access to before.

So I was like, this is so fun. Yeah, you're in dialog not just with the self, but, you know, with other creative beings. So let's go to 2020 down. And I thought this was so fun. Like the downward dog creative down. Oh my goodness. Where. And I was curious before you explain what that means, I was curious for you if movement or music opens up your channel, like in my world, I've talked about this a lot by all the time.

If it's a workout class, if it's a dance class, if I'm walking like some type of physical movement seems to be the magical key that unlocks. Yeah, absolutely. And like depending on. It's so funny. I was like, remember this? Remember this? Because, you know, you totally arouse a girl. Stick it in your head. Yeah, that happens to you.

That happens for me. Showers, walking, dancing and honestly, journaling. Journaling with paper and penmanship like may not seem like a lot of movement, but just not doing the stationary thing of typing on your computer. But actually, you know, feeling the paper under your palms, feeling the scratch, listening to the scratch of the pen, anything that gets me out of my cerebral mind and into my body is where I start to unlock interesting things.

With Carmen and with Carmen. Yes, like a lot of people, I had some surprise corn pod roommates. I my now husband John, my brother was quarantined with us, and my friend Carmen, who was supposed to be visiting for a few days and ended up staying for three months and we were doing some downward dogs. I was on book deadline, extremely stressed out, finishing grad school.

And our mutual friend Liz G. Describes the ill timed apparition of an idea as a mistress doing the dance of the Seven Veils. And that's really what this felt like, because my downward dog, I turned to Carmen and I said, I have an idea. So much of this experience of quarantining feels familiar to me. As someone who was in medical isolation, who had to wear masks, who lived with that sense of hypervigilance, and what if I took this idea of, the 100 day project of my own approach to journaling and made them accessible to my friends and family and whomever else is interested in joining.

And she was like, go write that idea down before you forget. And I was like, okay, cool, but I do not have time to do this. And fast forward 40 hours, I started, this community creativity project called the Isolation Journals. That's a subset. I did not go straight to Substack. I wish I had, I but I was on a different newsletter platform.

And, so it was delivered a newsletter form. But the only way I've ever been able to get myself to do anything is when I backed myself into a corner. So the reason I started this is because I wrote someone I admired tremendously, but didn't know well, which was in fact Liz G. Elizabeth Gilbert, and said, hey, we've met once.

You likely don't remember me, but she did not. And I said, well, you. But here's what I'm thinking of doing. And would you be interested in writing a short essay and a journaling prompt? And she responded and was like, absolutely. I'll have it to you later today. And then I was like, oh, crap, I actually have to do this and figure out how to make it happen.

And so that's what we ended up doing. It was a 100 day project for the different essay and prompt from, you know, a writer or artist or unsung hero or community leader. And I'll get back to the Substack thing in a second. Within 24 hours, we had over 40,000 people signed up, which is great, except that, on this other newsletter platform, I was being charged per subscribers, and I had had a really tough financial year.

I've just gotten my stimulus check, and I was terrified as I was watching all these subscribers come in, because I was also watching the cost of this newsletter plan increased exponentially to the point that I was like, please stop subscribing. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do. So that's how it started me using this story essentially for our audience.

We had so many beautiful creatives of every stripe and size and type and color and age, and most of us are, you know, building some kind of audience or community. So it's it's actually pretty hilarious. I no stop. But it grew really fast. I mean, in the book, you're learning how it's like it went from zero to I, you know, like tens and tens and tens of thousands.

Yeah. And so with that, this is just me from a creative standpoint, being super curious. It was a 100 day project. Did you feel like going so you got less and then were you just emailing out like crazy or did you say, hey, the next installment will be next week, or the lessons, like, how did you do it logistically?

Or you were just like, yeah, so 100 days I sent out a newsletter every single day, which I would not recommend. Like with a new contributor and prompt every single day. And, you know, because this came together and 40 hours, I was in fact emailing every single person I knew. And luckily lots of people were looking for things to do in the early days of the pandemic.

But it was coming together, you know, in the wee hours every single day. But it was also so exciting. And, you know, my dear friend Karen was there. And so from day one, I was like, I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. It felt like we were in this car hurtling down the road and like putting the tires on as we were flying down the road.

And, and I know you've had moments like this and anyone who's had a wild, harebrained idea that you somehow find yourself doing and wrangling has had this experience for you. Don't I didn't know what I was doing. I felt like I had my own crash score because I never, as a writer, you know, I spent a lot of time alone with my journal or my laptop.

I never had a team. I'd never built something like this. I never answered customer service emails that for us amounted to like these very lovely older people essentially saying, how do I use the internet? Where do I comment? Like I had never done any of these things. And as overwhelming as it was, it was so thrilling.

And I think, you know, what made it so thrilling is that journaling is a private practice. You know, it's something you do, in, in the privacy of, of of the notebook. But I think when you tap into that deeply vulnerable space, it creates a reverberation. And so, to my great surprise, people began sharing their entries with each other.

And we heard from so many people who were new to journaling, who were finding new meaning in it, but it was also kind of exploding. The old fashioned idea of what journaling is with pen and paper. So I had one young woman who would respond to the prompts every day with a video diary of her doing a different modern dance.

Another young guy was writing song lyrics and sending up videos of him playing the guitar. We had this, woman named Joel who had lost her 13 year old daughter and who decided that for her hundred day journaling project, she was going to use her daughter's old art supplies to create a visual diary entry every day. And, and that grief was so raw for her.

But she's the way she described it, was that she felt like she was in collaboration with her daughter, and that in a way, it had become, a grief journal, but not just about the sadness of losing her child, which is as unthinkable of a tragedy as it gets. But it was also allowing her to experience the joy of remembering her.

And so I was so moved, by the way, in which, this act of journaling that I've done for myself for so long now, was helping this community transform that sense of isolation and into a sense of, you know, creative solitude and community. I want to highlight something that you shared, new experience. I feel like for all of us, it's such a good thing to remember.

It's like not knowing what the hell you're doing is

it's amazing,

the act of, like, not knowing what the hell you're doing

just allows you to be like, let's do this. Let's go. And I think there is a lot of not only a lot of joy, but a lot of of Steve and magic that comes from just going fast. Totally. I mean, and like making it happen and not overthinking.

I know, at least in my own mind, the overthinking that can slow me down and the thinking through like, well, what if this happens? Or this one wants this or and it's just like when you just go numb that exists and you kind of you not only have to be porous in the sense that you're, you know, observing what's happening and reacting to it in real time and growing as you go.

But, you know, one thing I think about a lot in terms of entrepreneurship is you can spend a decade coming up with the most beautiful, detailed business plan in the world. But that essential question of, is this something that's actually one.

Wanted or needed is not

something you really know until you take the leap. So the advantage of going fast was I was getting real time feedback and that was informing the next step. And so it really felt like, I was actively building this thing day by day. And it was so fun and so dynamic, and I felt like I learned so much, not just from this community, but about what it takes to launch something like this and to sustain it.

And once the Hundred Days were done, was that when you kind of shifted to a new cadence? Because I know you have your Substack, which is gorgeous, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Was or were you like, okay, 100 days are done now. Like, how did that transition go for you? So that's really, you know, I never went into this thinking about how to monetize the newsletter or anything like that.

However, by the end of the 100 days, I had over 80,000 subscribers. So think back to what I was saying about the cost of my newsletter plan. So I was really in a state of financial panic, even though I was having this majorly exciting success. And I knew that given how vulnerable, this community had been and was continuing to be, it felt so weird to bring in some kind of sponsor or ad or whatever.

And so I was figuring, trying to figure out a sustainable model to be able to continue this not with a daily email, because nobody wants to receive a daily email from anybody. But on a weekly basis. And I wanted that weekly newsletter and contributor and prompt to be free. And that was very clear to me from day one that I wanted it to be as accessible as possible, and also because of, the enormous amount of work that went into it.

I needed a team. I needed help, I needed support, and obviously needed to compensate that team. And so we made the shift to Substack as a way to both honor the initial intention of the project, and also to have a model where this could be a reader supported publication. And so that's what we've done. And it's we just celebrated five years of the isolation journals.

It continues to grow and grow. And, you know, I say to Carmen, who's actually staying with me right now, I said, like, sometimes this feels like our baby, but also like a bit of a monster. Like how? What happened? It just took over our lives, but in the most glorious way. I love that so much. And like that, you know, it's anyone who creates anything.

It's like there's this beautiful balance that we need to find and dance with and continue to find it, because it takes so much, takes on most things. Yeah. As the work on it sometimes, that's like, oh, it looks so easy. I'm like, look at all, you know what I mean? Like, please, like I don't have the camera on all the time just because I can't handle it.

You know, I just like repeating it in my sweats all the time, but I'm like, it takes a tremendous amount of work to put things together. And anything on the outside that looks, at least my experience, that looks somewhat useful or simple. Like,

there's so much happening behind the scenes. So

totally. I love the bottle.

Like, you know, Liz with letters for love. And I don't have too much experience on Substack besides just being able to engage with people's work. But I love it. I love it that it feels a little to me, so I can tell it's about this kind of like the old days with the internet. Totally of town, USA, and it was so precious and fun and intimate.

And so yeah, I just think it's awesome. And I think, you know, to your point, in some ways, the easier it looks after, the more work goes into the ease. But yeah, you're so right. It does feel. I mean, the newsletter is one of the oldest written forms from the time of the Romans. And so there is something especially as like a 90s Y2K kid who loved LiveJournal has loved all of those things, like there's something so fun about it and scrappy eight that I really enjoy.

Totally. So one of the best things, I think, for me about morning pages and journaling in general has been just this opportunity, especially when I am co-host loops to just reexamine narratives that I had for a long time. Yeah, I start to get some distance from them and it helps me warm up to new possibilities. Like, oh, one of my favorite inner prompts that, I wrote about in my book, and I just often use a lot because it has a way of helping me open my aperture and the possibilities is, wouldn't it be cool if, I can kind of take that in any area, any facet of my existence that

feels like it's gotten a little dusty and needs a shakeup and

doing that journaling always helps me like I need a thought to new possibilities. Often. Yeah, I can get so entrenched in my ways, in my habits. Is it that way for you? Like, when you journal, do you start to kind of venture into new possibilities? And if so, is there any examples of like, let's say, a story that perhaps was entrenched for you, but that through journaling you were like, I can stop telling myself that.

Yourself more freedom. Yes. Well, so I have a couple of different prompts that I go back to again and again. The first that's in the book is the two feels, because I love to do lists. And often I'll find that I must have to start. I often feel tempted to start with my to do list, because then I can get to the fun stuff.

And so instead, I really try to start with a to feel list, where I write down what I want to feel that day, and different ideas for how to get myself there. So if I want to be present, what is it that gets me to being present? If I want to have fun, and to feel, you know, whatever it is.

Joy, what is it that's going to get me there? So that I've been doing. But the prompt that I return to the most, in part because I'm having a hard time allowing myself to dream big or to think to myself, you know, wouldn't it be cool if, as a prompt from my my dear friend Holly Jacobs?

That's in the book and it's called A day in the life of My Dream. And the premise of the prompt is that you are supposed to write about a day, five years out, just a regular every day from the time you wake up until you go to sleep. But the choices that you have to write it in the first person.

So I after a decade in remission, relapse three years ago and then relapsed again this summer. And when you're living with a life threatening disease, and certainly when you're going through, the experience of finding out that you have cancer for the third time, the future becomes a scary place. As much as I've always been a dreamer, you know, when I think even 3 or 6 months out, whatever cool idea or dream that comes to mind is very quickly followed by the fear that I won't get to exist in that future.

And so that prompt, that day in the life of my dream prompt is one that I have been doing, nearly every single day since I found out that my recurrence, in part because, I find dreaming to be frightening, and it feels kind of dangerous because there's, you know, always the temptation. I think, when you're experiencing some kind of loss, that you need to guard your heart, because to open your heart is to open yourself up.

Not just to the possibility of new dreams and new love, but also to new loss. So I'll give you a very specific example. Early pandemic. You know, my then boyfriend John and I were had been together for a decade. And I just turned, you know, 30 and all the big usual questions were at the doorstep, like, what are we doing?

Where is this going? And I had this feeling of like, you know. And he had it, too, like, we either need to, like, move to the next step or move on and, there was so much doubt and so much anxiety and, I was writing about all those present doubts and anxieties. But I wasn't really doing that hard work of and guarding my heart and allowing myself to kind of dream about different versions of what a perfect every day together or single, would look like.

And so I would write these entries every day, and, of it start, you know, when I woke up and I look over and there John was and it detailed this house I had, you know, as a kid who moved a lot, I always dreamed of owning my own house. And I would detail this house. I detailed the clawfoot bathtub by detail.

The old, you know, wide plank pine floors. And it was a farmhouse. And it had two dogs, one of which was my current dog, and one was a dog I had yet to meet. And on and on and on. Now, not long after I started doing that prompts, I learned that my leukemia was back. And it was, you know, this feeling, like I had at 22 of my world imploding.

Except the difference was, that when it happened, I, you know, by by that point had a clear sense of what I was looking for and what I wanted, from this journaling exercise. And so when the opportunities presented themselves, whether it was, you know, that perfect scruffy rescue pup that was dog number two or, you know, my dream, you know, farmhouse when I was in a place where I could buy my home, I was ready to leap and to take that leap and and to make that commitment.

And that ended up being true of my relationship as well. So many of those fears and anxieties were my own fears and anxieties that actually weren't about, it weren't about John. They were, you know, my own baggage that I was bringing into it. And it was just in the process of doing that daily journaling and putting myself in that that dream future place in the present tense that I was actually able, to inhabit what that would feel like without, you know, without the distraction of, of all my, my anxieties.

And so, I'll wrap this up by just saying that, you know, like a lot of couples during the pandemic, we had this notion that if we got married, we were going to wait until after the pandemic so we could have a big, you know, party. John's from New Orleans. We were going to do some kind of second line and music and dancing and good food.

And when I got sick, one of the very first things John said is we should get married. Which we did, we planned our wedding in 24 hours. It was in the living room of our house that we had yet to move in to. We didn't have a stitch of furniture, and we got flowers and candles, and we had three friends and ordered takeout, and had champagne.

And I don't think we even had rings. We had bread twists because there wasn't time. And I was being admitted to the hospital the next day. And he said, you know, he said, we had a plan and we're not going to let anything get in the way of that plan. And so that kind of defiant dreaming for me, has been so needed as I'm navigating all of these new unknowns and the place where I am able to do that dreaming is, is in the journal because nobody knows about it other than me.

And I have the freedom to just kind of follow a whimsy or a fantasy without worrying about where it will lead or what the outcome might be. You write so beautifully. These are your words. I just want to share them because it's right in this pocket. And I feel like, it moved me so much, share the events of my life and train me to expect the ceiling to cave in.

So I start to dream wildly and ambitiously. The voices down here immediately chime in that a fear driven life is one where I stop myself and dreaming, and at least ambitiously, it means living safe and small, always hedging against the worst case scenario. I don't want that. I want to live boldly. I want to hold the best case scenario at the forefront and have that by my decisions and actions.

And so my current modus operandi must be this I have to trust and find ways to delight in the mystery of how things unfold, even if it's not what I have planned, even if it's far from ideal. I have to believe it's possible that facing the thing you fear brings you exactly what you need. And just this notion of dancing with fear and dancing with dreaming big and making plans and the willingness to change gears when necessary.

It feels so rich and necessary to have a tool like this to be able to do that. Because I'm sure there are countless souls listening to this conversation right now that find themselves in their own version of whether, to use a phrase that that you shared life interrupted or sickness or loss or some other kind of heartbreak.

So that's why I'm so excited about this. Because your your doing this and demonstrating real time.

I think, you know. Navigating uncertainty is something that maybe all of us have done to some extent. But right now, at this particular moment in the world, there is so much angst around uncertainty, whether it's political or global or financial or personal and so.

In a way, figuring out how to swim in that ocean of uncertainty that has been my constant work, with each of these new relapses. And, you know, when I had this most recent relapse, I said to my oncologist, I was like, I just I don't know what to do with myself. Like, I'm so anxious.

There are all these butterflies. There are no statistics that I can look to that can give me insight into my prognosis. I just don't know how to make plans. Even with this book, you know, I found out about my relapse when, in the final week that it was due, and I had the afterword, still to write, and I, you know, I think, as one often does when you're finishing a book, there's this temptation to tie up the message of the book with this beautiful bow, and especially with the news of that relapse, I was like, I just there is I don't know how to do that.

And, you know, it occurred to me that in a way, you know, that's what the journal embodies. There are no need bows. It's about, you know, reveling in the mess, and puzzling, you know, puzzling through the questions. The, quote that opens the book is one of my favorite lines from the poet Rilke. And he says, live the questions now until someday you can live your way into the answers.

And so that's really what I've had to do. There will always be with us. And, you know, I may live a little closer to my mortality than some people. But the one certainty that we all have, is that we're not going to be here forever. That life is a terminal condition. And that may sound wildly depressing.

But there's also a kind of liberation and that, and so when I sift away from my fear of the uncertainty and to, the mystery of uncertainty, of all the unknowns, not just bad, but but good and surprising and wild. Then I get kind of excited. And so, you know, the counterintuitive thing about getting sick again is that it's given me a sense of permission to return to that creativity that we all as children, just have, and thus innately, that we lose as we get older, as we get self-conscious, as we start to feel like there's a right and a wrong way to be, and it's given me permission, to

experiment and play and to not now. And there's a relief and and not having to know and as we said earlier, making it up as you go along is so and can be so exciting. And so bring out the trip that you took with the 50 of the top thinkers and luminaries and I want to dive into that for a second and then get into a little more of, about journaling, because I know some some people hold themselves back and you've got some great tools and tips that can help people crack into this.

But first, so that trip that you got invited off right. And I laughed so hard when you're talking about just folks asking you, so what do you do? Can I tell you? Like that is my, I always hated that question. I still need that question to say, like, sometimes I'm out with Josh, who is an actor. And so we're in these entertainment circles.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Directors that, you know, I'm already sweating. I feel this so deeply. Of course they'll come. There also, are you an actor as well? And then I know it's coming because hormonally it's like, so what do you do? And I just, I basically like at this point sometimes I go and sometimes I'm like, are those shrimp?

Like, oh, is that guacamole? Oh my gosh, this looks so good. Because I just never have one good society for a dancer. So I was laughing so hard. Can you just share a little bit about your. Yeah. Your question, after the story is like, do I still know I you know what I've done? Like, I was just in an engagement party the other night, and if someone who knows me like, just, you know, we're acquaintances and she's like, oh, tell me more about your work.

And I literally said, Open Instagram. I love that it's proof of concept, like just experience. It's okay. Take us to that. Oh God. So I have feared this answer since I started writing. My very first writing job. Was a column in the New York Times called Life Interrupted that existed because of that first 100 day project. The contents of my journal became the source material and inspiration for that column.

But even then, you know, it was a column about being in my early 20s and navigating illness. And whenever people would ask me what I did, I felt kind of self-conscious, yes, about writing personal essays. So I always had this temptation to beef it up and make it sound more serious. So I'd say, like I write a column in the New York Times, Science section or something.

And so anyway, that that angst and fear and that inclination that you have to, like, be some exaggerated, more impressive, rigorous version of who you are is a chip that I have carried on my shoulder forever. And you would think that by now I'd be over it. But a year ago, I'm at this conference. And, you know, all these incredible speakers and then these breakout sessions.

And I found myself and this conversation with, like, some Nobel Prize winning scientists and some other, you know, intimidatingly impressive person. And, everyone was talking about, you know, their work doing artificial intelligence and editing genomes and whatever the

else. And I knew it was coming. And they turned to me and they said, so what are you working on?

And. I just kind of froze because I was working on this book, this distillation of a creative practice that has not only changed my life, but I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it has saved my life. And I said, you know, I'm writing a book about journaling, and I just watched that answer fall so flat, and I like, wanted to make it more serious.

I want to say I'm actually, you know, it's it's about the history of journaling, which I absolutely is not. But I was like, how do I make this sound more scholarly? And I felt so embarrassed. And the thing is, like, I know, I, you know, there is a mountain of evidence about the benefits of journaling from, you know, lowering stress levels to even improving your immune system.

And I know the applicability is that it's had on my life, on every aspect of my life from my work and my business to my relationship to just my own, you know, growth and, and, and development of self. But I just shrunk and, you know, I how do you. So when you feel that temptation to shrink and as someone who's married to someone in the entertainment world, I struggle with this, too.

It's like Glennon Doyle talks about her fear of walking down a red carpet with her wife where, you know, it take, you know, five minutes of photographs of her wife, and then she steps and then they take, like, 1 or 2 half hearted photos and they're like, next, next steps. But I'm curious, you know, to, to quote Brené, that that temptation to shrink or puff up, and the challenge of standing or sacred ground, how do you how do you resist the urge to shrink or puff up some better than others?

Like some days I'd be like for the shrug. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I don't have it in me. And other days, I'm able to just talk through it like, you know, do you know how, you know, there's small business owners who just want to have more customers and you can, you know, have love, and, you know, I can go there.

Yeah. So, like, I'm feeling like I, we had a great cup of coffee that, you know, I love it. I've never even though I know the value. Yes. Of having these wonderful quote unquote lines or, you know, having a few things that I could say I'm just not good at it. I'm like a much more spontaneous same.

I try and be as responsive and dance with the person. But I still don't have one society approved dance. Like I remember even in the early days when I was trying to throw up business and I was bartending and waiting tables and dancing, and I was just, like, feeling like such a loser because I was so guilty.

Yeah, but I didn't have that phrase yet. And, that phrase entered my consciousness, which I believe it's from, like the creator gods or god or goddess or universal consciousness, whatever magic exists beyond us versus like, you are a multi passionate entrepreneur. And I was like I am a multi passionate entrepreneur. So that meant but like and it gave me a new context and then people ask me what I did and I would say it I'm like well what does that mean.

I was like well Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm teaching hip hop and on Mondays I'm coaching, you know, and, and I just totally able to run through some of the projects I was working on. But, it's so funny because I was like, you were saying, I still am. It sounds like it still has that for you. I'm like, dude, this has been 25 years now, and I still have a great answer.

I, I love what you said now about not having a society approved answer, because when I think about the people I admire most, who I am most inspired by, none of them have society approved messages. You, as you included. I mean, I have heard you talk about the notion of being a multi passionate entrepreneur, and I relate so deeply to it because as a kid, I was someone who had so many different passions and I felt shame about it.

Right. The message from all corners, especially in the United States, is you have to find a singular purpose. You need to transform that purpose, into your passion, and then you need to transform that passion into your profession, and you need to become the very best at it. And you need to monetize it, etc., etc., etc.. And I never had a singular purpose or passion.

I still don't. And I will say, you know, in part, you know, thanks to my journaling practice, I feel like just in the last couple of years, I've been able to accept and make space, not just within the pages of my journal, but beyond it for for all of those beautiful, varied parts of myself. Yes. And I love that.

And I was on I'm rarely on social media, but whenever I'm having, amazing guests, I go with all the different hats just to, like, still got someone's energy and to be in it. And your visual art is so stunning. It actually really inspired me, because I know many of you don't know this, but like, when as a kid, I thought I was going to be a fine artist.

No, that was my first. I was like, okay, is the fashion designer? Is it just finally is it animated for Disney? So it was really, really beautiful. Like I saw the work. It was on Johns piano right? For the it was just like, oh, I can't wait to see more of it, of the visual art because it's so, so, so step one, it's a totally new thing for me.

I, three years ago when I had a second bone marrow transplant, I, I'm realizing as I'm talking how how not repetitive, the themes are, but just how consistent we are as human beings. Because I went into the hospital with a suitcase, not full of books of the Western canon, but full of journals, because I was like, cool, cool, cool.

I've got this. I'm going to do another 100 day project. It's fine. I'm gonna, you know, write my way through it. And within a couple of days of being admitted to the hospital, I had a complication that, impaired my vision for about 2 or 3 weeks, and I couldn't comfortably write. It wasn't useful, it wasn't cathartic. And I was having these really scary medication induced hallucinations and nightmares.

And, someone had given me a block of watercolor paper and paints and not a painter. I haven't painted from the time I was a little kid. But I knew from having been through this before that, you know, to hold to whatever plan you had, when the plan is just not going to happen as a recipe and just frustration and bitterness.

And so I decided to keep a visual journal, and I was painting these nightmares that I was having. And instead of feeling scared of of those nightmares, I was intrigued by them. They became interesting to me. And it's that shift that that kind of that, that sense of alchemy that I think, is what I find so miraculous, where you go from feeling a certain way to through, a creative practice, be it journaling or painting or whatever it is that speaks to you, you get to transform an experience, or some kind of pain point into something interesting and, useful and and maybe even beautiful.

And so that's how I started painting. By the end of that six week hospitals today, I had covered the walls of my hospital room and these watercolors and my nurses, led, you know, come in each morning excited to see, what was what what new thing had been put up on the wall. And they described it as like a weird hospital, art gallery.

And the woman who had come and cleaned the floors, said she would always clean them for longer than she needed to because she just felt good being in there. And so, yeah, again, that that mystery, I never thought at 33 that I would uncover a whole new.

Creative passion. And now it's all I want to do. It's what makes me feel most alive. And what I look forward to most. Painting is so exciting. I want to talk about, just for a moment, because around journaling specifically, I love the practicality of this. Like the fears and concerns many of us have, especially if, you're like, oh, like, I don't know how to get going or I have nothing to say or this feels really cringe or, you know, I don't have the energy or the inspiration to write one word.

What are some of the fears or concerns that you've heard when teaching this work? Of either tools or ways around some of those, feel inspired to obviously get the book to start their own 100 day practice, but then actually put pen to paper. Yeah. Yeah. So I think consistency is the biggest stumbling block. Like I said, a lot of people buy journals because we know it's like meditation or, you know, all kinds of different modalities.

It's something that's supposed to be good for us. And maybe you start out strong, maybe you, you know, get stuck before you even start. But it's just hard to keep going. And I think journaling, you know, much like exercising is not only a muscle that you have to develop, but you really only, in my opinion, reap the benefits of it when you're doing it consistently.

And when you, you know, kind of right through the fog or right through the resistance, that to me is where the interesting stuff happens. And so I've always been partial to that container, be it 30 days or ten days or 100 days. And the only way I know how to be consistent is to have some sense of accountability.

So I have a friend, Holly, who got a copy of the book, and, you know, she's in a book club, she's a mom of two young kids, and she's like, I don't have time to do this. And, I was like, go on your phone, please, and look at how many hours you spent on social media this week.

And she was like, no, I don't want to do that. And I was like, great, okay, you do have time, right? It's just what you prioritize. But also what more importantly, what makes you want to come back to it? And so she decided that she could not commit to 100 days. She could only commit to one prompt.

And I was like, cool, cool, cool. And she brought it to her book club. Because this gathering of of other young moms and they were like, I don't really want to do this. We have one hour or a month where we get to be together and to socialize. Why would we spend 15 minutes of our precious hour in silence writing together?

But they did it. And, you know, I think, It's so hard to find, to quote, the poet T.S. Eliot, like a still point in a spinning world. And to me, there's something actually really special about journaling with someone else, about finding that still point together. So much of our social interactions are around, like eating and drinking and talking, and to just get to be with other people, where you're not doing any of that is so rare and so sacred.

And so that's what they did. They read an essay and prompt they wrote together for ten minutes. They were not going to read their journal entries because it's not meant to be read, but they talked about what came up for them. And she told me later she was like, we've known each other for years, and we learn things about each other that we never knew.

And so for me, like I do, my version of that, with different people, I have my own kind of little journaling club where we gather and write together. And that's the thing I think that that kind of thing, whether, you know, you're using an accountability tracker or some kind of buddy system or some kind of book club journaling club, that to me, has always been necessary, to keep their practice going, especially when you don't feel you have it in you.

The other thing I'll say is folding it into a non-negotiable part of your routine for me, is the only way I, you know, I can ensure that I do it. So, my, And, you know, a non-negotiable part of my routine is my first cup of coffee in the morning, right? Like, nothing is going to happen until that happens.

And so that's when I do my journaling. Sacred like I o mornings. So much little magic time. There's been times when I go to bed specifically excited to wake up like that's me every single night. I'm like, that's exactly. I'm like, oh my God, I like my little journaling. A lot of times I feel like my special mug and it's just, it is legitimately that's I love that.

And I think the other thing that you wrote about in the book, which I love, is that if any part of you is afraid of someone reading it, it's like you can lock it up. Yeah, right. And like, burn it or get rid of it. Totally. That total sense of safety and that sense of privacy that all of us need, especially when exploring our lives and our selves and all of our stuff.

I want to talk about something you wrote not so long ago, and I love this. It's a two things give me joy right now are my dogs and my design project. This 1800s farm in the Delaware Valley. So I am obsessed. Anyone has any knows like real estate. Corn is my favorite. Same like I streeteasy of me.

I will tell brokers here in Manhattan about as they're like, wait, are you totally. Nope. I'm just in fact totally. By the way, I found a new, really fun piece of candy on Netflix. Have you discovered the Creation Agency? No. I'm scared it's just going to take over my life. It's so delicious. I don't know if you're into reading subtitles, but this has been so delish for me, and I've just introduced it.

This is the only other one I've told about it besides Josh, and it's just basically this real estate family in France. And like, they're not from luxury real estate, but they kind of develop this whole firm. And I'm just sitting there like looking at. And all I want to do is just enjoy it and bathe in it. Anyway, about a little bit about what ignited the move to the farm and, lentil and sunshine and, are there other there's river.

River. Okay. Like home decor, interior design, like all the things that's like my other love. Same I have to pornographic addictions, so to speak. Real estate and petfinder like Zillow and Petfinder. Actually. Sorry, I have a third Facebook marketplace. I just started getting the Facebook marketplace. Yeah. Okay. So you're. Oh, I will teach you all of the secrets.

So I, you know, I grew up moving around a lot. I went to, 12 different schools on three different continents. By the time I was ten. And all I dreamed about was having one key and one home. And, I've been obsessed, not just with the idea of having a home, but what my home would look like from the time I was very, very young.

I've been going through all of my old journals and a lot of my journals, even at age eight, are descriptions of what my future home will look like, because that was my way of trying on a version of a life. And, and my earliest journals, I talk about having a farm with multiple dogs and miniature donkeys, etc., etc., etc. and so I've also always loved design.

I think, like you, I love beauty and I've come to believe that, you know, beauty, even though it seems like, a luxury, is so essential to to how we find joy. I feel like my mom is one of my great teachers and beauty. She is the person who, like, cut a little flower from her garden and put it in a tiny little bug vase on my bedroom table every single time I come home.

It's just like a tiny gesture doesn't cost her anything. But it's that little act of curation and love. And so I've inherited, I think, that love from her. And, design for me is right now where my passion is. I, have furnished probably over 70% of our house from Facebook Marketplace and thrift stores and flea markets.

And I just love the act of scavenging for something and finding some unexpected treasure. And now, in a way, I think, you know, that's what we're all doing. And, and various aspects of our life, as is excavating, and seeking out the treasures, especially in the unexpected places. So, yeah, dogs design the farmhouse where you like we all looking and I have for certain friends, like I'm sliding over listings like nobody's business.

Like, once I know about a friend's having. Yeah, either a dream or a desire or they're like, yeah, I'm ready to move. I'm like, put me on the case, Jimmy, because on the we're totally for you. You know. Yes, for a while and basically knew the area you wanted to go. Were just plugging it. Murray, I have been looking at listings since I was 20 years old.

Like not just years, but like over a decade before it was even a financial possibility. So area or did you have multiple like I like in we're here in New York City right now. Yeah, our studio is but I have been looking I have one little radius, I call it the Shire. Yeah. And like I will not.

And everybody thinks I'm nuts and, like, I'm not nuts. I'm just specific, like, yeah, knows exactly where it wants to be. And I'm uncompromising and I'm willing I can be as patient. So that's why I'm asking these questions. Because I'm curious. Yeah. Like me, I, you know, I thought I knew where I wanted to be and I was utterly surprised by where we landed.

I ended up so I was a dancer, when I was younger. And I ended up, coming across a listing of an old bank barn that had belonged to a contemporary dancer who I admired tremendously. And I the only thing I love more than an old house is an old house with, like, good creative juju. And so we went and visited this place probably 5 or 6 times.

And John was like, this is so impractical. No, no, no, no. And I was like, no, no, no. I just like, bear with me. Here's, here's the vision, here's. And it's like, and I we've been looking for a place you know, close enough to the city that we can go back and forth, but also far enough to feel transported.

I think, like a lot of people, we learned, during the pandemic that were more country mice in some ways than we are city mice. And so I was like, we need a place where we can gather where we can have creative collaborators and and, you know, little by little we got there. And so that's where we've been.

And we have fallen in love with this house, fallen in love with that good creative juju. But I wasn't aware of was that by creative collaborators, I meant, not just humans, but many, many animals. So we've adopted three dogs. Our latest is a tiny, hairless senior, toothless, hairless senior named lentil, who we are absolutely obsessed with.

And over the weekend, John said to me, I think we need more animals. He's like, it's cow time, it's goat time, it's sheep time. So that is the llama route? No. So we have a place, in upstate New York, and there is a spa. Like there's a sanctuary, essentially. And I was, like, hanging out with the llamas, and I'm like.

Like, they're just magical. So, I'm here for all the animals because the. Yes, yes, yes, yes, celebration. Send food. I will do whatever. Because this sounds I love it. Okay. We need to look into llamas. There's this thrilling. Yeah. This is my new. My new day in the life of my dream involves, farm animals of all varieties.

Yeah, yeah. So, Okay, so that's awesome. So you were looking. You were like me. You look for a really long time, and then are you the person to, like, when I walk into any kind of space, I. It's emotional for me. Like, I'm like, you're like, this checks all your boxes. I'm like, not the sole one. Like, you can't totally check off a vibe.

You can't check off that creative juju or the feeling that you have, like in a space, because that is actually true for you as well. Absolutely. I have to be able to not just picture myself living there, but picture myself writing my next book there and having a whole range of experiences. Whereas my husband is much more practical.

He's like, what are the crime rates in this neighborhood? You know, who are their neighbors? What are, you know, X, Y, and Z. But for me, it's all vibe. And, you know, I think for, for both of us, we both work from home. And, and as you know, people spend a lot of time on the road, creating a home that not only feels beautiful, but feels like napa able and comfortable, and, and creatively inspiring.

It is so important to us. And so, yeah, we're always trying to figure out, and I think it's why I love Facebook Marketplace and free flea markets. I like the places where you can find things that have soul, that have stories. Yes, I like I love going upstate and, doing some antiquing. Places. And then especially to it's like really great because the contrast sometimes, like I've been in New York, you know, like over 30 years now and it's still eye popping prices for certain things.

And then you go to different parts and you're like, oh my goodness, someone doesn't want this anymore. And I think that this is amazing. And it's $10. I'm like, oh, Dukakis. Totally. That's me all the time. And and I think it like, stems from some childhood scrappy instincts where I'm like, I want that sofa. I'll look it up.

It is wildly unaffordable. Then I go on Facebook Marketplace and inevitably, with enough patience and rough scavenging, I find it, and it's, all the better because you've had to scavenge for it 100%. So you've built this beautiful creative life as continuing to navigate uncertainty and love and recovery and reinvention. Are there boundaries or, habits that are non-negotiable for you now that, your piece and, put this other context in there too, especially in a world where, again, you and I think share that DNA of like the impetus to create, to have output and production, which is awesome and beautiful and lovely in all the right ways.

But I know, at least speaking for myself, there's also a very real needs in my body to want to recommend the very real needs of my soul that wants space. If there's if that's what you see right now. So, you know, one thing I've noticed with every time I've gotten sick and, every time all of my plans have imploded as a result of, of those relapses is that they've also been my periods of greatest creative growth.

And then thinking more about why that is, it's because I don't have a plan. Because there is no expectation, there is no outcome that I'm measuring myself up against. I'm just doing the things that bring me joy, that nourish me. And I'm not overthinking it. I'm not trying to be good or bad at it. I'm just doing it because I want to.

And I think about that a lot, and how much we resist our own intuition because it doesn't fit in our plan or because, you know, maybe the plan sounded good but doesn't fully fit. But you're going to go forward with it anyway, because you've sunken in enough time and energy and resources that the idea of a pivot feels inconceivable.

And so I actually actively try to schedule unscheduled time for myself where I can do whatever I want. And sometimes that looks like a nap, and sometimes it looks like painting, and sometimes it looks like hanging out with a friend. But when I do that consistently enough, it always leads to the best ideas, which is to say, the ideas that are most aligned with my intuition.

And so this summer, you know, I am planning to take a whole month off, which I have never done before. I've only done it when it's in response to crisis, when I've gotten sick or something has forced me to take a pause. And I'm going to take the month of August to do nothing, to do whatever it is.

I feel like it is a tremendous privilege to get to do that. But it's something that I know, even though it seems unproductive, is the most productive thing that I can do. And I've learned that lesson again and again, and yet it's so hard to believe that and to trust it even when the work doesn't look like work, even when the work looks like, you know, dancing around in your underwear or, you know, spending all day on your couch.

Yes, I'm with you. This, I'm talking about a little on the show that just like I'm planning this, I've never done three weeks, three weeks. And in Italy, and, so I'm doing and I'm so excited about this trip, and I'm like, how the hell did I get to this age? And what kind of toxicity is in this program?

Yeah, yeah. If that's like, wow, three weeks in Italy. Meanwhile, I was I was at my stepson's best friend's engagement party. And so that I have like a 30 year old stepson just, you know, it has anyway, one of his best friend, they were he and his fiancee. They're taking nine months to travel. Wow. And I was just like yeah, like it, brought me so much inspiration and joy.

These two young humans, they are such lovely souls. They're so loving. They're so creative. And both of their careers at the same time. One of them was like the other one, kind of a similar situation. They're like, when do we get to do this? And it made it gave me so much joy, like helped me start to thaw some of my own ideas to anything.

You're like, totally. It's like, yeah, like I'm in here doing cartwheels for you and for. Yeah, fun throws. I, I love that. And, for me, I keep learning and understanding and learning and unlearning and it feels like a really exciting new phase. Totally like to to not. But, you know, I just grew up with the the pushing, the pushing, the pushing.

It's only going to happen if I make it happen. And like recently, so many things have been happening that I am not making happen. Yeah. So it feels like like, it's a whole new. Oh yeah. Yeah, I love it. I mean, you know, we talked about eulogy virtues like I and the moments when I've gotten scary medical news, like, I think about.

The things that I'm so grateful I did. And it's never, you know, working through the entire weekend or whatever it is, you know, or turning down the amazing trip with my best friends that I said no to because I was on deadline or whatever. Like, I'm never like, yes. So glad I did that. Right. It's taking the trip with my best friends and knowing that the work will get done.

And that, you know, and, and so I think about that all the time. I'm like, and again, maybe it sounds depressing, but to me it's really useful. I'm like, if I know, you know, I think it's a helpful thought exercise. Like if you were to get a terminal diagnosis, what would be important to you? And it's a question I ask myself.

And I have a terminal diagnosis, but I need to I need to prompt myself and that way to reroute my priorities to what really matters, because that programing is so deep that without actually asking myself that sort of a dramatic question, I'm just go, go, go worker bee, worker bee and I don't lift my head up and I feel like I don't have that permission to actually stop and and say no to whatever the opportunity is, or to slow down or to hit the pause button altogether.

Chris, we were talking on camera before we start recording. Chris Carpenter, you know, my my best friend, we talked about this a lot. She lost her dad, a few years back and can love you can, one of his lessons that she wrote about, in her most recent book was just like, the golden years of her.

Yeah. Great saying. Yeah. And so Chris and I talked about it or just like, dude, you know, anytime we see ourselves or notice ourselves or feel ourselves again slipping back into those same old patterns, like I'm always pulling the can card and really, really go like, hey, dude, clock's ticking. Yeah. And we, I talk about it all the time also because my partner is also quite a bit older than I.

Yeah, yeah. It's just like, got to get my

together. Yeah. And it's, it's inspiring. It is inspiring because I think we live in such a culture, especially here in the US, where it's very easy to get caught back in the slow train. Totally, totally. We're. Yeah, we're obsessed with productivity. You know, I mentioned earlier talking to my doctor about like, I'm like, how do I navigate these what ifs and the thing he said to me from day one is you have to live every day as if it's your last.

And that's, you know, the kind of advice that people give from the best of places. And I've always found it so panic inducing because I'm like, what does it mean to live every day as if it's my last? Like every interaction has to be meaningful. I have to carpe DM the

out of every minute and every day.

And that is an exhausting way to live. And I've come to believe that it's terrible advice and that if we were all to live every day as if it's our last, we'd be, you know. In total chaos, we'd be emptying our bank accounts and declaring bankruptcy, and we'd be, you know, cheating on our spouses and eating ungodly amounts of, like, who knows what would happen, but it's just not sustainable.

And so I've had to shift to this gentler mindset of trying to live every day as if it's my first, and to kind of wake up with a sense of curiosity and wonder that a little kid does naturally. And when I do that, it's not, you know, some race to cross off items on my bucket list.

It is, you know, indulging in an hour of bopping around Zillow or hanging out with our newest senior, a rescue on the couch, or giving myself permission to do nothing at all. This book and your work and you, most importantly, are a gift to so many as it relates to the book of Alchemy. What do you hope it awakens in the heart of the reader?

So, you know, I think a lot of people think that they're not creative. And if your day job is doesn't involve, you know, art or music or writing that it's something that you don't have access to or that you wouldn't necessarily benefit from. And so my hope is that this book helps people realize that creativity is a gift that we all have access to, and that we can all benefit from.

And that this practice that's shared in the book, helps people find their way to a richer, more meaningful or, more wonderful, creative life. You are such a joy. Oh, thank you so much. I am so excited for this. I'm so excited for the tour. I'm so excited for, all the things that you will continue to share and enjoy and be.

So thank you. Thank you Marie. Here's to not having what did you say? Societally approved. One sentence descriptors of what we do. And let's go antiquing together, please. Thank you.

Suleika do lot as an Emmy Award winning writer, bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms and the creative force behind the Isolation journals, her new work, the Book of Alchemy, is a life changing practice that can help you uncover wisdom and insight and a creative path forward.

She makes art, lives and loves deeply alongside her very magical pups and her very talented husband, Grammy and Oscar winning musician Jon Batiste.