Women Branching Out Interviews
Women Branching Out: Nanci Panuccio
Today, I’m very excited to feature an interview with Nanci Panuccio of the Emerging Writers Studio. Nanci is a writer and creative writing coach. On the Emerging Writers Studio website she shares tips to help aspiring writers of short stories, personal essays, novels, and memoir improve their works and move toward publication.
In this interview Nanci talks about:
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• her new creative writing program Writer Unleashed
• her writing journey and background
• her experience as a creative writing coach
If you’re an entrepreneur who has been circling around creative writing and you want to stop circling and jump in this year, Nanci shares her best advice for taking that first step.
Enjoy the video or read the transcript below.
Leave a comment for Nanci below and please share the interview!
Nanci is a writer, creative writing coach, and founder of the Emerging Writers Studio. She mentors aspiring writers as they create, revise, and seek publication for their stories, novels, and memoirs. Her new program, Writer Unleashed unleashes Tuesday, January 31st, and is designed to help writers liberate their voice, dissolve creative roadblocks, and write with more joy, freedom, and power. You can follow Nanci on Twitter: @nancipanuccio and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EmergingWriters
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Transcript
Christie:
Hi! It’s Christie Halmick and I’m very happy to have Nanci Panuccio with me today. Hi, Nanci!
Nanci:
Hi!
Christie:
Nanci is from the Emerging Writers Studio. I will have a link to her website, her Twitter handle and her Facebook page below our video. I wanted to tell you a little bit about Nanci. Nanci is a writer, creative writing coach, and founder of the Emerging Writers Studio. She mentors aspiring writers as they create, revise, and seek publication for their stories, novels, and memoirs.
Today we are going to talk about Nanci’s online class Writer Unleashed which starts on Tuesday, January 31st. You can actually, if you go to her website on the links that we’ll have below, go ahead and sign up for that and be ready to start on January 31st. So, I’m going to let Nanci talk a little bit about who Writer Unleashed is for, what you can expect if you go through the class, and what kind of writing it covers, that sort of thing stuff. So, go ahead Nanci.
Nanci:
First of all, thank you so much for inviting me here.
Christie:
You are welcome.
Nanci:
Writer Unleashed is a four-week audio program. It has four modules starting on January 31st. Each week a different module will be released. Each module has about four sections, they are each about 15 minutes in length. Each module also includes a pdf transcript and lots of writing exercises.
The purpose of the program really is to help writers,get out of their own way, to dismantle some of the misconceptions they may have about writing and about the creative process, about their own potential, and the things that are really getting in the way of them creating their best work.
The way that this came about is, whenever I ask writers what they are struggling most with I’m always surprised by the answer I get. I expect something like “I’m struggling with writing dialogue” or “creating character” those kind of things “structuring my story, my novel” and so on.
But the common theme tends to be not that at all, not about technique, but about problems with motivation, staying inspired, keeping the creative juice going long enough to sustain a project from beginning to end. Because, you know, it really does take a lot of time to write a story or novel.
They also struggle with time. Time is a huge obstacle for many. Managing their energies and trying to integrate writing into a very busy lifestyle. Many of the writers that I work with started writing relatively late in their lives. They have full careers. They may have families. So this is a response to those obstacles that they face.
Christie:
Cool. So it starts January 31st.
Nanci:
Yes, it starts January 31st. Do you want me to go through the modules and explain?
Christie:
Yeah, let’s go through those a little bit.
Nanci:
The first module is going to talk about getting into the zone. How you get into the writers zone and how you reach a state of really high engagement with the work. Because, we really need to reach a sort of dream state when we write. But We also have to be awake at the same time. So we need to fully engage with the work and a lot of writers struggle with that. So this module is going to talk about how to anchor ourselves in our writing so we that can reach that flow state quickly and really stay focused. Then we’ll talk about how to create the conditions to nourish that flow state and keep it going. Because a lot of times the intention is there, but our environment doesn’t necessarily support it. There might be some rungs that are missing on the ladder. So we need an environment that supports that. We need to do away with distractions and interruptions and we really have to control the distractions and interruptions so that they don’t control us. So that module is going to discuss that.
The second module is going to focus on voice, the writer’s voice, the author’s voice, or the voice of the story or book itself. We are going to attempt to define what makes one voice different from another and we will also talk about some of the obstacles that get in the way of really … the way we self-censor ourselves with common misconceptions and doubts about the writing process. Sometimes we think that it’s supposed to be easy, it should be easier than this. The truth is, it’s not supposed to be easy, it isn’t easy. To me, writing is an art, just like any other art. It’s like learning to play the piano, or learning to dance well, it’s a rigorous practice. It requires a lot of tenacity. It requires a balance of persistence and patience. In that class we will talk about some of those mindset shifts we really need to make to start getting out of our own way.
In the third module we are going to talk about breaking the rules. Some of the mantras that we hear, a lot of the time, the most common writing mantras out there like: “write what you know” “show don’t tell” “your main character must undergo a change.” It’s not that these rule are wrong, or that they are bad, it’s just that they don’t go deep enough. What I want to do in this class is unwrap them a little more and just … Like for instance, “write what you know” is deceptively complicated. Of course we are going to write what we know, we have no choice that’s who we are. But at some point we have to write from what we know towards what we don’t know. In that not knowing we create space in the work and we give it some air and let it breathe. So that class will talk about some of those mantras. We are just going to explore them a little more deeply because I think that sometimes writers take those kind of rules at face value and it can be a little misleading and it can actually straight jacket your work and strangle their voice. So that’s module three.
Module four is going to talk about what we already know about writing. Because we take things for granted and I think that our basic human impulses require us to tell stories in our heads all the time. In a way we are always writing in our head, where these stories are running through our mind all the time. We create characters out of people we know, we fill in the missing pieces. We have imaginary dialogue with people that aren’t even in the room, you know. So all these things are happening all the time. I think that literature really is a written version of our natural human impulses.
So that’s the content of the course.
Christie:
Tell me a little bit about what you are working on in your writing practice right now.
Nanci:
In my writing practice right now. Well, for one thing it’s sales pages and blog content that’s part of it. But I am also working on a collection of short stories. So that I’ve been working on for a pretty long time. So, yeah.
Christie:
Tell us a little bit about your writing background, beyond what you are doing right now.
Nanci:
Beyond what I’m doing right now. Well, I started pretty young. I found pretty early on that writing was something that I could spend hours and hours doing effortlessly. I could just lose myself just in that imaginary process and so as a child I learned pretty early on that it was something that I just loved to do. Then as I grew older, of course, I got detoured from that because I didn’t … I bought into this idea that it just wasn’t a viable pursuit it was a hobby. I kind of danced around the desire for a while. I worked in advertising. I worked in publishing at a magazine and then I had a freelance writing business of my own for many years. But it wasn’t until I was about 39 that I actually said OK this is it. I sold my apartment, I moved to the Catskills and I pursued an MFA in creative writing. That allowed me the time to spend two years just writing full time fiction. Whereas before I had been writing full time for clients. So I had the routine and the practice down so I was able to do that.
But throughout my journey as a writer my the relationship to my writing was always changing. I know what it is like to have this feeling of great flow and focus. I know what it’s like to feel like you are just really on fire. I would get up at 2 a.m. in the morning and just write down a story because it just came to me. I also know it is like to feel like a dried up speck of dust with no soul and nothing to say. So I understand the struggles. I’ve gone through the whole gamut of experiences. I’ve had a lavish amount of time to write.
Then, once I figured all that out, I had a child and then everything was turned upside down.
So I had to relearn how to fit my writing practice into a very kind of chaotic household. I had to really think about how to be more productive within the parameters of having a family. Which was a huge challenge for me.
I think that’s where a lot of writers find themselves, in this space where they have so much going on. There are so many demands competing for their desire to write. How do you fit all of it in and honor your desire to write.
These are the questions I’ve been struggling with for the past five years, really. I’ve realized that it’s just different for everybody. For me what I finally had to do to get back to that place where I was when I was single …. and I had total solitude to write in wonderful space and just solitude and silence which I really crave as a writer … I had to get up really early in my house and that was the only way. And I found that if I gave myself those couple hours, or even one hour, the rest of my day felt so much easier. I wasn’t as cranky or irritable. I was just more present in the other areas of my life.
Christie:
I love that your experience is what has kind of born this class … this journey that you’ve been on with your writing life. You were talking about when you had your child and the changes and we talked a little bit about this earlier before we started the recording about entrepreneurs.
I wanted to ask you about those people who are in that spot of having their business and having that secret desire to write … maybe it’s not secret, but maybe they just have been dancing around it, like you were for a while. What’s a step, one step or two steps that they can start to take to do this?
Nanci:
Well, if I had to give one piece of advice I would say to find other writers to connect with. The best way I found was to join a workshop.
I think it is really useful to do that number one because it gives you the positive pressure to get something done and to actually make time. Because if you don’t have the deadlines you are probably going to just keep pushing it aside. Because everything else is more powerful really. Because there are just so many other things that we have to do as entrepreneurs including writing. There’s a lot of writing involved. So to make space for the creative writing, I think being in a live workshop especially and having a community of writers is really inspiring. It also turns you on to different writers, different authors, different books that become really great comrades in your journey as a writer and as you evolve technically as a writer and hone your skill. It also keeps you really sharp because you are giving feedback on other people’s work and you are required to submit something. When you have that kind of positive pressure on you you are going to really hone in and focus and really work on those sentence by sentence and word by word. It just brings you up to a different level. That’s what I would say, join a workshop or a peer group of some sort and make it a consistent practice.
Christie:
If somebody took your Writer Unleashed class and then wanted to work with you more you do also offer creative writing coaching. Can you talk a little bit about how that works.
Nanci:
Sure. Often writers come to me … they have been writing for a long time. They may have a full blown novel or they may have chapters of memoir in pieces or fragments, or they may have short stories or they may have a whole body of work. But what happens at some point in the writing process is they reach an impasse and they know that there’s a gap between their intention and their vision for the piece and with what’s on the page at the moment. So I help them fill that gap. I work with them on the manuscript over the course of weeks, months, maybe years sometimes. We just work on different element at a time so maybe we’ll work on characterization, or we’ll work on structure or we’ll work on the beginning.
But basically what I do a lot of the time is help them figure out why the piece matters to them. Why the story matters.
What is it about the piece that’s important to them? Because that’s really a key to what the center of the piece is and it makes it much easier then to structure the piece.
There’s always an essential question that every story asks, it’s not explicit, necessarily, but there always some question that the character or the author is trying to figure out.
It’s not that they need the answer, it’s the exploration that matters.
Once they get at that, which is really not easy to do. It sounds easy but it’s really not easy. Then everything kind of falls into place a little more and they can start to see patterns emerge in the piece. So it’s basically a way of getting the manuscript closer and closer to its highest version of itself and ultimately bringing it closer to publication. Which is what most writers really aspire to ultimately.
Christie:
Yeah. So I wanted to ask you what it feels like whenever somebody you’ve coached gets something published and they send you an email.
Nanci:
Oh! Oh! I love that! I have one writer who I work with in Israel and I’ve been working with her for a few years now and she’s just won an award in a memoir magazine. She’s just phenomenal and she’s getting published so much and every time she gets published she sends me an email. And wow! It’s… but I really also just love to see the progress my students make it’s just so amazing. They have such innate brilliance, it’s not always apparent on the first draft, it’s there but I just help them bring that out. They are all brilliant in their own way. It’s incredible. I love them! They are amazing.
Christie:
And so do you have a writing coach?
Nanci:
I have worked with writing coaches. I mean certainly in the MFA program I worked one-on-one with a mentor which really was for me a real turning point in my writing. Just having that close attention to the rythms of the way I write and really understanding my work. So working with a mentor for a long period of time I found extremely helpful. These days not so much. I do occasionally work with an editor to help me hone something because I tend to revise for a very long time before I give it up. I want to take it as far as I can and I reach a point where I just don’t know what to do with it anymore, I’ve taken it as far as I can I’ll have someone read it and give me the feedback and then I can just take it further. So yeah, yeah.
Christie:
Well, do you have anything else you’d like to add about Writer Unleashed or anything else?
Nanci:
Let me see. Well, Writer Unleashed again, it starts January 31st and it includes audio classes. There will be a component where the writers can join in a forum they can share their writing assignments, if they chose to, it’s optional. But they can also just ask questions about anything related to their writing or writing in general or their process, whatever. So it’s a space for them to just have an open dialogue about writing. So that will be a component of the class as well.
Christie:
Thank you so much for such an interesting conversation, it’s a great topic. I think there are lots of writers who could benefit from spending some time on their craft with your help. I will have Nanci’s website address and the link to Writer Unleashed the information on that so you guys can go check out all the different modules and go ahead and sign up for the class if you are interested in getting some fiction, memoir, and short story type work completed. Get it done this year. Thank you very much Nanci!
Nanci:
Thank you Christie.
Christie:
Thanks!
Nanci is a writer, creative writing coach, and founder of the Emerging Writers Studio. She mentors aspiring writers as they create, revise, and seek publication for their stories, novels, and memoirs. Her new program, Writer Unleashed unleashes Tuesday, January 31st, and is designed to help writers liberate their voice, dissolve creative roadblocks, and write with more joy, freedom, and power. You can follow Nanci on Twitter: @nancipanuccio and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EmergingWriters
Leave a comment for Nanci below and please share the interview!
Women Branching Out: Miki DeVivo
I met Miki DeVivo of The Still Space earlier this year when I took a photography course she offered called The ViewFinder. Even though I never settled down enough to actually finish the course’s assignments, I fell in love with Miki’s ability to talk directly to me as a mom and creative entrepreneur. Even today, the thoughts she shares on The Still Space about real motherhood feel like they are meant just for me. I’m sure a lot of you (moms specifically) will also feel that way when you see the work Miki is doing in the realm of motherhood. So I’m very excited to introduce you to Miki and her new program, Real Mom Compass (launching in January).
Enjoy the video or read the transcript below.
Miki is a writer, teacher, wife, and mama of two. She is passionate about building bridges—within the community of mothers, between mothers and their families, and between women and their inner knowing. She’s creating her own definition of Real Motherhood for herself and creating a wide, deep permission for other moms to explore who they are as well. Her new program, Real Mom Compass, will be available in January. Her free e-course “7 Encouragements for Real Motherhood” is available at thestillspace.com. You can follow Miki on Twitter: @MikiDeVivo for updates on Real Mom Compass.
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Transcript
Christie: Hi, it’s Christie Halmick of Jewels Branch Creative and I’m very happy to have with me today Miki DeVivo of TheStillSpace.com. I’m going to read a little bit about Miki: Miki is a writer, teacher, wife, and a mama of two. She is passionate about building bridges—within the community of mothers, between mothers and their families, and between women and their inner knowing. She’s creating her own definition of Real Motherhood for herself and creating space for other moms to explore who they are, as well. So, hello! Hi Miki.
Miki: Hi, hi!
Christie: So glad you are here with me today. We are going to talk a little bit about, or Miki is going to talk about, the group experience she is creating and offering in January called Real Mom Compass. She’s going to explain a little bit about what that is, who it’s for, what you can expect from going through that experience with Miki. And I’m going to let her go ahead and do that, Miki.
Miki: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
The key piece that I see moms like myself and moms that I talk to needing, and asking for really, in a variety of different ways, is a compass for themselves.
There’s a character in our society called the “ideal mom.” She’s out there she’s the one whose hair is aways perfect, who showers everyday, the house is spotless, the dinner is all organic, made from scratch everyday. She loves every moment of parenting, she loves every minute of being a wife, (phone rings) she remembers to turn her phone off before she gets interviewed. And you know, she has sex every night, the kids are always happy, you know…it’s this perfect thing. And we have this somehow, it’s come into our culture.
Our moms and our grandmothers fought really, really hard for lots of the freedoms that we enjoy today. We are very thankful for them, for the freedoms that we have and the opportunity that we have to even ask these questions. It’s a huge, huge gift that we’ve been given. But it also means that in a lot of ways the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Whereas we always had to be this one thing. Now we have lots and lots of freedom, which is great, but it becomes this heavy expectation on ourselves that in order to live up to this gift that we’ve been given, that we have to meet all of these roles. We have to be the perfect wife and the perfect mother and the perfect woman and gorgeous and beautiful and skinny all the same time.
Christie: and have a business.
Miki: oh, yeah that, too! Profitable, savy, smart, that piece…. and that’s fine that’s great, that’s ok.
But what I realized that I needed to do, because that was feeling like a really heavy burden for me, was that I needed to take a step back and look at whether or not all of these pieces were pieces that I wanted in my life. And what I actually wanted those pieces to look like.
So instead of just trying to reach for this external thing. Constantly reaching against that. Going: Is that me? Is that not me? I want to be that. I don’t want to be that. That’s me. That’s not me. I can do that. I can’t do that. I spent so much energy pushing on this external expectation that who I was inside and what I really wanted didn’t even enter the equation at all.
I got really burnt out and frustrated and angry and disconnected and resentful, lots of lovely adjectives. I couldn’t enjoy my kids in the way I wanted to. I couldn’t enjoy my husband in the way I wanted to. Everything looked like people were trying to mess with me, and get in the way of me trying to be this ideal woman. And I was like OK no, no.
So, the Real Mom Compass is a way for moms who are tired of feeling that overwhelm, who are tired of giving their energy to this external expectation, to take some time to really step back and decide for themselves decide what’s important to them, what they want. To put words to that longing. To name that for themselves. To claim this new identity for themselves.
Not in a way of having to throw out the mother with the bath water so to speak. But to really examine where you already are. What you already long for. What you already want that you might not have had the opportunity to name. And that wasn’t quite as important that you do name until you became a mom.
Now you go OK, um… you know it just changes the way we see the world. It throws everything into sharp relief.
The Real Mom Compass is a way to make that examination. To make sure that every moment we know … once we have this compass … we know then where we are headed and when we are off track. At any moment if we start to feel panicked or overwhelmed or we start to have those negative stories run in our heads, we have this compass that we’ve created for ourselves and we can say, “am I headed where I want to be?” or “am I headed off track?” And to know how to get back on track if we are off track.
It’s for moms who are looking for that type of exploration. That deep exploration about who they are and their purpose in the world, so they can stop feeling like they are playing the role of “wife” and “mother” and just be their whole self with every interaction.
It doesn’t really matter what age your kids are, it’s more about where you’re at and what you are ready to look at and make happen for yourself.
I’m taking a look at the content right now, I’ve got the workbook and I’m trying to decide whether it’s going to be eight or nine weeks. It will have a workbook where you do independent work, writing and discovery, personally and individually. There’s also a group component. There’s going to be an online meeting space where people can give feedback and support. Mostly just support. So that we can know that we are not alone in our journey. Then there will be group calls where we can talk through some of this issue, strengthen the sense of community. Also I’m working on a group of guest speakers who can talk to us about specific skills to live that authentic life.
Christie: Great! Can you give us an idea of time frame when you are going to have it up for sale, when to watch for that.
(phone rings)
Miki: No body ever calls me! Excuse me. …
Timeframe. Right now if you go to thestillspace.com there are a series of seven encouragements for Real Motherhood. That’s a 14-day, 7 bit e-course to help, right now as my gift to moms, just sort of laying the ground work and honoring the work that we do everyday as mothers. That’s available now and the course the Real Mom Compass is going to be in January. So we’ll get ready to start off the New Year right because we don’t need to have another year go by before we can start asking for what we want and what we need and getting really clear on that.
Christie: I’m glad you said the group component. I’ve found that just having a space where I can go say “I’m experiencing this” … I have a space where I can go for my business and say, “I’m experiencing this in my business” and other people will say “OK I’ve been through that.” So it’s a safe space and I’m glad you are including that because they are so helpful. I don’t have a lot of support around here, around the local area, so finding that online has been very helpful to me. So I can see that that would be a good component of what you are doing, too.
Miki: I think as moms, it’s really important like you said, we can feel pretty isolated, even if there’s another family in the house right next door. This ideal mom thing, kind of, can prevent us from approaching other moms and saying “oh my god, are you going through what I’m going through? I can’t take it anymore.” Or I have this really great success story. We’re also not really allowed to brag about what we’ve done well or to celebrate what’s working well in our families, too. So we’ll have this online space where we don’t have to posture or pose or put up any walls about who we are and what we are trying to do. We are all on the same page and on the same team.
You know there’s that whole mommy wars thing. “This is the way to do this thing.” and “This is the way to do that thing.” If you don’t do it this way you’re not a good mom. I’m really tired of that I think that it diverts our energy away from the real issues: are we doing that we want to be doing and following what we know is best for our own families. So the space that we’ll create, we’ll spend some time at the beginning just creating that safe space so that we can be comfortable. And it’s not going to be that catty, infighting, mommy wars thing.
Christie: How did you get to creating this particular course? Let’s frame it this way, what did you do before you started doing this? What are the jobs you’ve had?
Miki: Well, when my daughter was born I had a really tough time adjusting to my new role as a mother. I had worked really hard and achieved a lot of things and a lot of those things were in my control. Then I became a mom and very little was in my control. Or my understanding of what I could control and what I couldn’t control kind of drove me nuts because I was trying to control the things that I couldn’t do. Not taking control of those things that were in my power.
So I had this longing in myself, I needed something more and it was surprising to me that being a mom left me with more longing. I thought there was something wrong with me because of that. But I’m finding that a lot of moms feel that same way. They become moms and then they go OH, OH, OH!
One day I picked up the camera and was taking some photographs of my daughter and in that moment the way I saw her changed and instead of becoming a constant ticking time bomb of poop, and feeding needs and stress, I could really see who she is. Who she was and the beauty in there.
It took me a couple more months to realize. But I realized I could be a photographer and help other families have that same experience of beauty and being more in love with their families. So that idea about bringing more love and more connection and more awareness to the families … I realized I could bring that to an online space and just go straight to that. Photography is beautiful and I am still passionate about doing it. But by offering space and asking questions and helping moms come to their own answers, it seemed a more direct route to achieve a more powerful result.
Christie: Cool! That’s a good journey.
Miki: Yeah, but you know everybody says that, you listen to interviews and “oh my gosh, she knows everything” … When you are in the middle of it … when you look back on it it’s all very, “that’s how I got here” but in the middle of it was a process of asking myself those questions about: Is this really what I want to be doing? Is this the best way for me to express my gifts? Is this the best way for me to enjoy what I’m doing?
Christie: So, I wanted to ask you have some advice for, a lot of my audience are women entrepreneurs who are doing the business thing, a lot of them are doing the business and mom thing. Any words of wisdom for them?
Miki: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I’ve come to be aware of and surrender to is that that motherhood and business owner can be part of the same thing.
You don’t have to be the business woman over here and be the mom over here. And have them fight. That our creativity comes and goes in waves and that being a mom can actually help with that. Because one of the things that allows creativity to flourish is the borders and the boundaries. If you had all the time in the world to run your business or do your art or make things. You wouldn’t be living your life so you’d have nothing to draw from to make your art or no problems to solve as you are running your business you wouldn’t have that experience to draw on.
And so as the creativity comes and goes the motherhood also allows there to be boundaries on it. The painting is made beautiful by the confines of the canvas. If you are going off, it becomes too much. So finding the balance and not trying to compartmentalize, but know that each feeds the other is a really important thing.
When we are working on something creatively, when we are trying to solve a problem, if we push and push and push against it it actually raises the level of noise in our head and we can’t hear the insight that comes to us.
Being a mom requires our full conscious awareness and attention. Not always possible. So when we come into the mothering and put our full conscious attention on our families it can allow our subconscious to work on those things that we were struggling on in our business. And vice versa. So they go back and forth.
That’s one of the major things that I’ve discovered about the balance for me. And to really embrace what works for you instead of saying, “all writers write eight hours per day with no distractions.” That might have worked on Walden Pond but that’s not the life that we live. So to stop struggling against what is and figure out what works best for you, or works best for me is another thing.
I think something that we have a particular gift with, as women, like you were saying, creating this community and using multiple voices and multiple pieces of awareness and multiple stories to create the truth. As opposed to it being one truth. I think that being able to tap into that. To know what you bring to the table and to tap into the large community is a particular gift that we have as women. The benefits that we have now with social media and the internet and that we can bring people together and create community to bring all of us forward.
Christie: Cool. Was there anything else that I forgot to ask you or anything else you wanted to say? If not I have another question for you.
Miki: Let’s hear the other question.
Christie: So, eight year old Miki, what did she want to be when she grew up?
Miki: Oh, I wanted to be Annie. And I think in relation to Annie, I wanted to be an actor. A lot of my life was focused on that for a long time. I have a bachelor’s in acting. Before I went to college I said, “OK you’re about to focus your life on this and it’s going to cost you a lot of money, why are you really doing this?” And what I discovered was that I really liked the community that is created when a bunch of people where working on something that is higher than themselves, that the whole was greater than the sum of it’s parts.
That’s a through piece that as I got older I realized that the world of actually performing has an element of cut-throatness and level of rejection that I was not interest in going through. But that element of community. My mom was a teacher for many, many years when I was growing up and I always helped her at preschool. Always during summer vacations I would help teach. So working with children has always been something that’s important to me.
I feel like now that I’m a mom, and I have my own children, working with moms is another way of leaving the legacy. Making sure that the next generation feels special, by making sure that the mothers are mothered. That the mothers are taken care of, that we are taken care of.
That we have enough support, internal and external support, which is strong enough, which is important in and of itself. That reaches out into leaving a legacy for our kids. Making sure that people feel special and understood. And know that they are ok, and enough and good enough just as they are has always been part of my theater training and part of my educational philosophy.
Christie: So it’s interesting to see that because, everybody that I ask that question to they always have an answer that actually ties back into what they are doing. So it’s neat to see that because I’m watching my girls now and all the different things that they want to be and I’m just excited to see how that pans out for them, what that looks like whenever they’re moms.
Miki: yes, which pieces of the puzzle fall away and which become a through line for them to hold onto, a touchstone.
Christie: Thank you so much Miki for stopping by and doing the interview. I will have links to The Still Space below the video.
Women Branching Out: Hannah Marcotti
So happy to kick off the JOYful holiday season with Hannah Marcotti of Mama Space. Hannah blends a background in holistic health with a love of marketing and a generous helping of joyful living to coach holistic entrepreneurs and moms to create gorgeous lives.
In this interview we chat about:
• How Hannah got to this point in her coaching business.
• The Holiday Joy Up: 10 days of inspiration November 26th to December 5th
Cost: Pay what you can. You’ll receive daily letters from Hannah that include: recipes, guest contributors, soul work, and affirmations.There’s a Facebook group to support you, too. (afilliate link)
• Doing It All A free call for holistic health and wellness entrepreneurs, Monday Dec. 12, 2011 at 8:30pm ET.
• What the holidays look like at Hannah’s house.
• Hannah’s advice for momma entrepreneurs as we head into the holidays.
Enjoy the video or read the transcript below.
Hannah Marcotti believes that you + joy = the gorgeous life. The gorgeous life is the sparkle, the joy, the magical moments. It is your food intuition, your deep body knowledge, your desire. It is space, it is touch, it is yours. She is the coach who will guide your course there. Hannah can be found dancing in the joy of her own life surrounded by three kids, a puppy and a beautiful man she has had the pleasure of being with for 18 years. Writing, business coaching and helping others discover their joy in this world is her purpose, proving that we can take action on whatever our heart is willing to dream up. Dream, define and take the action your heart desires is her daily mantra.
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Transcript
Christie: Hi everybody! It’s Christie Halmick with Jewels Branch Creative and I’m very happy today to have Hannah Marcotti with me. Hi Hannah!
Hannah: Hello.
Christie: I wanted to read a little short bit from Hannah’s website. Hannah is a…I would call her a life and business coach for women and holistic entrepreneurs and umm …. I’m losing my train of thought, so I’m going to read what I have. OK.
This is what Hannah says on her website, about when she’s coaching you, what it’s like.
“I will ask you from a place of wanting your gorgeous life to unfold, to look at the tough stuff. To simplify. To not let yourself off in easy ways, but to walk through your fears and discover how all of your challenges become your gifts in this life. This gorgeous life.”
I love that because I think it sums up Hannah very well. The only thing that’s missing from it is this little piece, Joy.
So, I wanted to let Hannah talk a little bit more about what she does, who she serves and a little bit about the path that got her to where she is with her business right now. So go ahead Hannah.
Hannah: O.K. So by training I am a holistic health coach which means that I look at someone’s entire being entire self, entire world, not just the food they eat but their life that they are living. That’s how everything started out for me.
What I started to notice was that we would talk about food, but then we wouldn’t talk about food. We would be talking about passion and purpose and how those were all related.
It would always tie back into the weight that we were holding on to and just all the decisions that we were making in our life if we were feeling void in our passion and our purpose. Especially for women, especially for mothers, who were often taking time at home to raise their children and feeling like something was missing.
What I started to discover was that everything that we were working on could be looked at from the place of joy. Are you feeling joyful?
And I remember the defining moment when it happened.
It was in one of my groups and we were talking with a woman, we were going around the group sharing. She was talking about how unorganized she was and how she was going to school full time and she was raising her kids and it was just like so much. And I said, I asked her what do you think you need to do? What steps do you need to take? What’s causing all this difficulty?
And she said, I think I need a planner, I think I need to get a planner. And I said, “Really. A planner. O.K. So a planner is pretty sexy stuff. Let’s talk about this planner a little bit. Has it worked for you in the past?” So we started talking about the sexy planner. I said what if one day you picked your kids up from school, you put on your favorite pair of heels and your jeans that you love and you show up at the playground as kind of hot sexy mama picking up her kids at the playground. How do you think that would feel?
So that’s kind of where this whole think came from. Let’s not look at the planners because they are not working if we are not feeling joy in our life.
From there everything started to shift a little bit more. The other piece of it, I went to a school that is very large, and a lot of moms go to the school. Institute of Integrative Nutrition and they come out and they don’t really know what they are doing. They really fear marketing and not feeling like they have any clue how to run a businesses.
Over the course of the last few years. I’ve really fallen in love with marketing, and not your typical marketing, marketing that’s done more from the heart and that’s very much inline with who you are as a person.
I’ve sort of integrated these two different worlds. The world of holistic health and joyful coaching and creative business coaching. And that’s where I am right now.
Christie: That’s great. One of the things that’s come up over and over again as I’m doing these interviews is self care. One of the interviews was with Andrea Lewicki and she talked about curiosity, using curiosity as self care. One thing she brought up is joy as a from of curiosity or curiosity could be called joy. Part of what I think about when I think about you is using joy as self care, as a way to take care of yourself.
I found that I needed a reminder, so whenever I come to your website there’s always something there that reminds me to look at this bigger picture and to get away from my planner if I need to and be present where I am with my family, with my business. So I have found that to be…that’s one of the reasons why I come to your site. Because it gives me that feeling whenever I come there. So one of the things that….when did you do Joy Up, the original Joy Up?
Hannah: that was in August.
Christie: o.k. August
Hannah: the beginning of August
Christie: Can you tell us a little bit about that (Joy Up) and then talk about the next one that is coming up, the Holiday Joy Up.
Hannah: So the Joy Up ran when Mercury was in retrograde. It was planned for this time when I knew a lot of people were going to be feeling out of sorts, really just off and confused and really not able to make big decisions. Or big, you know, big moves in their business, or anything like that because they were going to be kind of trapped. And I knew it was sort of risky for me to be doing that because I did have a lot of technical problems happen, but I felt like it was the prefect time to support people around this idea of joy.
It’s funny that program I always say it felt like it was sort of channeled through me, I knew that it was going to happen. and I knew that it was my next big thing but I really didn’t know what it was going to look like or what was going to happen. So I had to have a lot of faith. And really the idea was can you increase the amount of joy in your life in 10 days?
That was the question that I put out there. And I knew that the answer was yes. I knew that we could do that. You hear a lot of talk about 21 days and longer amounts of time and for me it’s about creating rituals so if in 10 days you can pick one thing and turn that into a ritual in your life, so we started with things like drinking lemon water in the morning, or making your bed. Very simple things that you don’t align with joy normally you don’t think of. Just like you were saying curiosity is joy. There are so many things that can bring you joy because what you are doing is taking care of yourself. And you are focusing on just being present to where you are. So things like making your bed in the morning is your present self taking care of your future self. So when you go to bed later that night and you walk into your bedroom, which should be your sacred space, and there’s this beautiful made bed. That brings you joy. It’s such a simple joy and you say wow thank you I am so glad that I did that I’m so glad I took care of myself because now when I climb into bed I know that I have that power, I have that ability to take care of myself in the future and that’s really powerful.
Christie: So from that, you um…there was a Facebook group that supported that. And there was a lot of great conversation there.
You have coming up now the holiday portion of Joy Up. Can you tell me what you have planned for that? And when that starts.
Hannah: Yes, absolutely. So that (Holiday Joy Up) starts November 26th. It actually starts whenever you sign up because you can be part of the tribe. I like to send emails you know, here and there, so you never know when one’s going to come. So when I was doing the Joy Up, I knew that the next step was going to be the Holiday Joy. I had run a program last year during the holidays and it was one of my most popular programs and I was surprised by it I couldn’t believe the amount of interest in it because we feel really isolated and alone during the holidays which is the exact opposite of how we should feel. We’re spending too much money and we don’t want to. Our kids are getting gifts that we don’t want them to get and we have this…I should be there, but I don’t want to be there, I want to be here. So much conflict and so much stress and it should be the season of joy.
Everyone keeps putting pictures up that they are finding in all of the stores joy, joy, joy, joy, joy, joy that’s the message that’s coming, but we feel out of alignment with that message at this time.
So that’s the next program and it’s really just an extension of the Joy Up. It’s taking those same fundamentals that we worked with in the Joy Up adding a few more. So layering it in just a little bit more and anyone can join. It doesn’t matter if you’ve gone through the first 10 days or not the support is there regardless. A beautiful new tribe is joining the original tribe and it’s just really beautiful to watch it all sort of unfold every time I see.
It’s a “pay what you can” program. It’s hard for me to put a price on joy. I took that pressure off myself, I said I don’t want to do this. So many people in the world have monetarily have so much, and so many people do not. In my mind, if you can pay what you can to feel accountable for yourself to go through this process so that you will do the work, then that can look like whatever it does for you.
It’s been this beautiful shift, you know of those who have so much being very generous, and there are people who are telling me “I just lost my job” and I’m so grateful that I can still be part of this group.
And that is just like…that’s my joy.
Christie: So if you sign up for the Holiday Joy, kind of give us an idea of what you can expect if you are newbie coming in what can you expect to get from you and that kind of thing.
Hannah: Absolutely, so its 10 days. Everyday for 10 days I send out a letter and it’s very… it’s a format. So everyday you know what to expect so it’s not like you have to rediscover the whole thing all over again.
A quote, a letter from me, the day’s soul work (which is the most important part) which you can just take in or actively do. Then there’s a guest or two each day. There’s a recipe and they are as healthy as possible, though in the holiday season we do add a little sugar and butter. They are all gluten free because I am. Then a daily affirmation. So each day you have this letter that you can sort of unfold in any way that works for you. You can take it all in or you can go slowly. Some people saved them up and went through them at the end, just took like an intensive day and went through them. So everybody has their own process. Which is really beautiful. Then the connection in the joy tribe which is on Facebook where we have a private group.We just share and talk and support and it’s just really lovely place to be.
Christie: It feels like getting a little care package each day whenever you get the email. Because it’s all about you, it is all about taking care of yourself and being present. So they are a lot of fun, from the Joy Up this summer, it’s fun to get those and see what your joy assignment is for the day.
What’s next? What’s next after Holiday Joy Up for you Hannah?
Hannah: So we have a …my partner, who I run a program call Mama Coach with, we have a free call coming up on December 12th. It’s at 8:30 eastern.
We are just going to be talking about doing it all. What it means to do it all. So raise a family, have a business, love your partner, spend time with them, exercise, eat well, everything. We are going to kind of throw that myth out the window and talk about what really happens inside of doing it all.
Then in January we will be launching something that we haven’t announced yet, so something’s coming. That’s just to support women and mothers who are running holistic businesses. Because we all need as much support as we can get. There’s a wealth of just amazing women with information that when we gather together it’s really incredible when that happens.
Christie: So what do the holidays look like at your house?
Hannah: That’s a good question. So for me the holidays are all about the magic and the tradition. So a lot of traditions that we’ve kept from when I was a child and a lot that we’ve had to make new to make our family work. For me, you know, it’s like sparkly lights and a Christmas tree and eggnog. And just trying as hard as possible to stay in the presence of what the season means and to not go too crazy with feeling obligated to be everywhere and to do everything. I haven’t sent Christmas cards for years and I may not do it again. Just taking things off my list so I can really enjoy the time with my kids and allow them to start to grow new traditions on their own. Not to be so locked into what I want to do. But to give them some breathing space so that they can create their own magic of the season, too. So that’s what it looks like.
Christie: On thing my daughters started on their own was an Advent calendar. We’d never done that, I’d never done that, my husband had never done that. They saw one somewhere and said what’s that and so we kind of explored that whole tradition and have brought that in. Every year they say it’s time for the advent calendar. Oh yes, I would forget if you didn’t remind me because it’s not so firmly entrenched in my mind as a tradition that I have. But it’s definitely their tradition that they’ve brought into our holiday celebration.
Hannah: Oh, it’s so nice to be able to give them that space. To have their own joy.
Christie: Their advent calendars are highly geared toward stickers so it pulls in the love of stickers that 8 year olds have. So it works on many levels.
What else would you like to say?
What kind of closing remark would you have for the mamas and the mama entrepreneurs out there as they head into the holidays?
Hannah: For me I’m back in this place of stepping outside of the rituals that keep me grounded. When I do that I start to feel sick and I get crabby and I start yelling and I don’t want to do that and I don’t spend time with my husband.
So right now I’m in that place of just finding my center again and to do that it’s through ritual. Making sure that I have my tea and things like that. I go and I do the dishes when they are piled up. I take time to sit down read so many stories that my bigger boys can’t read anymore to my little ones.
Really just going back to those rituals that ground me and center me and then my world opens up and so much is possible.
So that’s really how I think you can to reconnect to self care if feel that you’ve lost your way a little bit.
Christie: O.K. great. I thank you so much Hannah for stopping by and sharing a little bit of yourself with us today. Everybody I will have links to Hannah’s site which is Mama Space, which you can find at hannahsharvest.com. I will have that below the video as well as information on the Holiday Joy Up, which I highly recommend you do. Information on the call that Hannah mentioned the Doing It All (or not doing it all) call that Hannah is going to have in December. So I’m going to sign off. Goodbye Hannah, thank you very much.
Hannah: Thank you so much.