Roots and Branches

Only 2 spots left for Reiki I: Use the code MANIFEST for 40% off when you sign up!

Paid subscribers, scroll to the bottom for 60% off Reiki I training, my Bloom writing practice workshop, or anything else on Roots + Branches and at the Culinary Curiosity School this month

Finding a lower-intensity creative flow that works for you

I usually shy away from the word ‘discipline’ because talking about consistent practice, devotion, and showing up usually convey the same or similar meaning without the baggage. But discipline itself is not a bad thing: It’s a way to describe the kind of devotion and motivation that keeps us showing up to our writing desk, our easel, our laptop, or our kitchen even when energy and motivation are low.

What’s important, though, is that this doesn’t look the same at all seasons of life and in all stages of a creative project. What serves me a month before a book deadline may not serve me when I’m in the dreamy stages of outlining something new. Or when I’m planning a retreat or teaching a class.

Let’s say you’ve handed in the book. The deadline no longer looms. You crave the excitement of creative, intellectual stimulation, but you don’t want to dive right into something with that same intensity. So how do you create a discipline that’s not too disciplined?

The key for me is adaptability: We apply the same creative ecosystems principles I’ve been talking about for years, but how we apply them shifts.

Maybe your goal, rather than word count or hours spent in practice, is to just show up at your desk and be present, however that looks, for half an hour or an hour. That presence might manifest as an outline, journaling, some doodling, or daydreaming while you stare at the wall. But you’re present and focusing your attention on your creativity, and consistently, even if the goals defining that time are less rigid.

Stay connected to your creative ritual. It doesn’t have to be complex to be powerful (and it’s actually more powerful the more accessible it is), but the ritual we engage in around our creative time gets us in the headspace to enter our creative practice and consistency helps us reconnect to that practice more easily. But leaning into the joy of the ritual, the pleasure of the simple actions you’ve chosen to bookend your creative time, serves you better over time.

Part of the power of practice is that we predispose ourselves to connect certain activities to certain feelings and outcomes, or to certain chains of events. When our creative ritual becomes all about pleasure when we have the space to focus on that, we weave that pleasure into our creative time even when time and energy are more tight.

The most important, to me, is to continue centering your creative practice within your days: I feel like I sound like a broken record about this but that’s only because it’s so important. You can’t live a creative life without creativity being the thing at the center. What fills you, keeps you curious, keeps you active and trying new things and going deeper into the callings you’ve already discovered.

You can go back through this newsletter (or for folks who’ve worked with me before, our various course and coaching resources) to dive into this more deeply, but however ‘centering creative practice’ looks for you it’s critical even and especially when the work is more fluid.

There are three ways to play with this with me right now:

A custom coaching container created just for you, your budget, and your schedule:

Rather than prebuilt coaching packages, my current focus is on custom-building nourishing spaces for individual clients.

That means we include (or don’t include) whatever you need in a given moment, like:

Live calls, email/text support, workbooks, magic, energy work, full-day or part-day strategy sessions, idea doula sessions, and even calling in support from additional experts (like, if you need coaching from me and another service, like SEO support for your website or copyediting, I can handle setting that up for you).

Think of it as a container I build and hold specifically for you and the unique work you’re stewarding into the world. Something that can expand and shift to hold you, built by someone who’s been there and gets what it means to have an evolving practice.

Because these spaces are entirely customized, they don’t have a set price, which means they can range from ~$200 a month up to $10,000 or more.

The only way to get these right now is to set up a free call in my calendar or to email me (julia@root-kitchens.com)

Energy work: Energetic support for your relationships to work + life, and power that runs in the background

Last month I quietly started offering a new kind of energy work, where I run energy and do Reiki attunements specifically on your relationship to something.

So rather than attuning you, as in a teacher-student relationship, what I do is attune the space that connects you and a creative project (or your home, or your pet, or your visibility and expertise, or whatever else. This works for anything).

Right now I’m offering these for cheap so people who are curious can access them: Either as a live Zoom call ($60) or as an asynchronous energy work session with a recorded voice note and email summary after ($25).

If you decide to try either one, I’ll also give you $20 off every month for Body of Work, which is asynchronous, done-for-you energy work that happens every month without you having to remember or contact me. I just do the work, and send you an email with everything you need to know once it’s done.

For those who join in the next month, paid subscribers also get this $20/month off (please email me if that’s something you’d like).

Send me an email (julia@root-kitchens.com) if you want to sign up.

Reiki I: Come home to yourself starting November 2

I see Reiki as less about learning a new skill from the ground up, and more about remembering a skill already innate to us.

I’m leading my first Reiki I training and certification this November, and the theme is “come home to yourself” because that’s what this level of Reiki work embodies to me.

In it, you’ll receive Reiki healing in a group, online setting, along with resources on the history and practical how-tos, related practices to weave alongside your Reiki practice, and of course, your Reiki attunement so you can continue to practice Reiki independently after our time together has ended.

For those that desire certification, that’s available too (but not required: You still get the benefits of being a Reiki practitioner either way).

Reiki I is typically considered self-Reiki (though some people also do informally practice it with friends and family too), Reiki II is a level suitable for practicing on clients and others who aren’t in your immediate circles, and Reiki III is a level of mastery that allows you to teach and to attune others (in other words, you become a lineage and tradition bearer as well as a practitioner).

I’d love to work with you in this way, whether you’re new to Reiki or looking to reconnect with this gentle, yet powerful, energetic frequency.

Join below or reach out with any questions!

Paid subscribers, scroll down for 60% off Reiki, Bloom, or anything else on Roots + Branches creativity coaching or Culinary Curiosity School this month