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I've been feeling a similar feeling to what you describe at the start. I've been writing online for over 10 years but recently simply share ideas and values began to feel hollow (not saying it is at all...there is so much value in sharing ideas...but for me it wasn't enough anymore). I wanted to build something that was an embodiment of my ideas. I wanted to create something that people can actually interact with rather than just theorize about. I'm building a skateboard and art based after-school program that launches in January and I just began a men's live journaling club. It's taken my focus off of writing a bit, but the things that I do have to say feel much more vital and real to me.

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this is so awesome!! congrats on the new projects and on getting your ideas out of you and into the world :) not easy to do

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Thanks! And you too. I've only recently found your work, but I've been loving your perspective the last few weeks!

I relate most to what you said about integrating your ideas. I used to say that I don't feel I truly understand an idea until I've written about it, but I now feel that's incomplete. You need to have it manifest in action to fully integrate it.

I don't just want to learn ideas to know them or memorize them. I was to internalize them!

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This was a great read. Thank you, Isabel, for writing.

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Thank you for writing this Isabel. I'm navigating those waters of creating something which mixes the art that I recognize with myself and what I can offer the world as a service.

This was a great read for me. Wish you success with your business and love for your art.

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stay with the tension! the world needs your service :)

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You have no idea how much reading this felt like a synchronicity to me and a nudge to keep going. Thank you, and I'm rooting for you.

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follow the nudge! rooting for you too <3

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Damn this is good stuff

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I loved these reflections, especially: "Eventually these ideas always either die or get brought to life. In a way, even bringing them to life is a death. A death in the imagination to create life outside of you."

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As an Enneagram 4 (wing 3), much of this resonates with me.

I, too, feel this "inner split" of living what I preach. For me I'm working on this big bold vision that I would love to share with everybody. But my question was: "Why am I writing this?" Is it to truly help other people? Is it to show off?

That last insight was like a dagger to my heart. I realized that part of my motivation to write was to put forth an image of myself that may or may not be congruent with who I actually am.

"The only way out is through." Part of my journey was to accept that motivation for what it is (not deny it), and work with it, maybe even lean into it (since it's such a driving force), but doing so in a way that has integrity and self-congruence.

Lastly, I fully came to this realization too:

"It takes time, energy, sometimes money. It takes focus. Ah, the focus. Sooo much focus! Shocking amounts of focus. And patience, too. Creation takes all of these things."

Creating stuff takes a lot of freakin' work.

Great job, Isabel!

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Wow! This feels so surreal reading, partly because I have been going through a similar shift or the integration of masculine and feminine, though on a smaller level.

I have realized a healthy masculine energy is rooted in trust in myself followed by intuitive action. It comes from a place of deep sense of okayness, acceptance, and presence where I know I am enough and things flow from me.

This is in contrast to typical view of the masculine energy which is about forced exertion of willpower to make things happen. That force also comes with the goal of fixing myself or from a place where I feel I am not enough as I am so I need "to act and get my shit together".

Now, I see integrating healthy masculine energy as honoring the dance of feminine and masculine where the feminine says, "I am whole,” and the masculine responding, “Let’s build on that.”

I deeply resonated with what you said about the actualization of ideas and willingness to bring them to completion as the "ultimate act of integration". I feel that taking small steps every day is helping me integrate and build that capacity and willingness to actualize big ideas too.

What is so synchronous about all of this is that I too wrote and published about this shift- the dance of masculine and feminine energies- just 5-6 hours before you put this piece out!! :) https://vedsparks.substack.com/p/edition-159

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