Handling Business
It’s the day before my 31st birthday and before this site officially goes live. Remember in my last post, “Take Care,” when I said a wellness retreat wasn’t in sight at the top of the year? Well, I am headed to a wellness and writing retreat next week in beautiful Kingston, Jamaica. Life works fast, but my God is always several steps ahead! What a beautiful way to celebrate my birthday, my official New Year, aka the Spring Equinox, and the start of a new energetic season— recovery and blossoming. At the time of this writing, I am listening to one of my favorite Soulection Radio episodes, #653, with Soul Sugar Takeover. The vibe is right, the incense is going, the windows are open, and the words are flowing.
Amid all this ease I’ve curated, I am also handling business.
In this season of recovery and blossoming, I am hypervigilant about naming and defining things, ideas, beliefs, and behaviors for myself. I will admit that my original idea for this blog post was to recount my time in Philly, where I produced and hosted a podcast for my 9-5. And we’ll get to that, but something happened while I sat in the makeup chair before jumping in front of the camera and behind the mic. My beautiful makeup artist, Marteen, started talking about his family, upbringing, and life in New York City (I miss you, girly). And in true divine fashion, we landed on wellness practices. He opened up the Insight Timer app, a beloved resource of mine, and put on a guided breathwork meditation as he curled my hair and I reviewed the questions on my notecards. This wasn’t my first rodeo when it came to hosting, but I realized at that moment that I had yet to develop a pre-production ritual/practice to ground myself in the space or work. Your girl loves a ritual, so I was a little taken aback but also taking mental notes to CiRCle BaCk once we wrapped.
How does this relate to handling business? Well, dear reader, I’ve recently agreed with myself to slow down. It is a foreign concept to an Aries and yet essential to my overall well-being and to creating this life of ease. As with any new agreement, it takes practice before it becomes a habit, and grace is a requirement. My moment with Marteen reminded me that in the hustle and bustle of being on set, wanting to do an amazing job, and adhering to time restraints because… budget, our well-intentioned agreement and practices can easily become an afterthought if thought of at all. And yet, we can always slow down and make time to get our energy right, giving ourselves what we need to handle our business. Sometimes, that looks like a three-minute breathwork meditation, putting on your headphones and listening to a song by Beautiful Chorus, or if you’re assertive like me, letting your team know that we can insert a pause button, take a collective deep breath and reset because urgency won’t get the job done well.
Returning to this podcast production, I was taught another life lesson that was right on time! If you are familiar with production of any kind, podcast, documentary, event, or what have you, you know that things tend to fall apart in the days before showtime. This production was no different. Two of my interviewees had to drop out at the last minute. Lesson one: It’s not enough to have a plan B— we need plans C, D, E, and F. Lesson two: You can plan everything you want, and things are going to work out as they are supposed to. I knew it would be time wasted to panic because I have faith not only in my team but in my creative prowess. Before we tried to scramble to replace the previous guests, a lightbulb went off to use what we already had access to. And guess what? It all worked out better than we originally envisioned. Of course, it did!
Slowing down, trusting, nurturing, and having faith are all ways I handle my business.
And that brings us back to remembering that where we start is not where we end up. It may seem simple, but this writers’s retreat came at the PERFECT time. Between making new agreements to recover and blossom, thinking of how I wanted to spend my birthday and celebrate the Spring Equinox, I was coming up empty on what it was going to look like. However, my mind, heart, and spirit were wide open. Dwntwn Brwn is a recovering, connecting baclto writing is a recovering (more on this in the coming weeks), autonomy and agency are a recovering. What it looks like I don’t have the particulars. But thanks to imagination, the possibilities are truly endless. In this instance, it looked like scrolling on Instagram and seeing a post about a writer’s retreat and taking a mental note and going about my business. A gentle reminder landed in my inbox one Sunday morning and going on a limb to apply then and there with no attachment to the outcome. It looks like getting confirmation the day I wrap production on a project while waiting for a table in Philly to celebrate over dinner, having just a little more to celebrate.
Did I mention I also made an agreement to be open to receive?
If you can’t tell, I’ve been handling my business lately— this whole time. These days, I’m clearer about what that looks and feels like to me. It will continue to evolve as I do. My gentle reminder to you is that it is all working in tandem to serve you.
Let your business serve you!
With Ease,
Lauren
