Sometimes You Just Need a Little More Time

by Joanne Fedler | Apr 9, 2019 | Newsletter

Sometimes You Just Need a Little More Time

If you ever want to learn how to build a successful business, grow your team, create online programmes, become a publisher and burn yourself out in a few short years, just follow my example.

Since 2014, I’ve been on an exhilarating, heart-opening, community-building trajectory – and it’s felled me. I’m talking marrow-sapping weariness. I knew I was burning out a year ago – the bigger my business grew, the faster the pace of my life became. I slept little. I talked about ‘taking a break’ but I didn’t know how to stop the ride. So mid-December last year, my body stopped it for me.

I don’t mean to ever glamorize suffering – and if I ever do – please just slap me (not physically, I’m anti-violence, but you know, just let me know what utter bullshit that is). But I do know that our worst experiences – while they bully us out of our strengths and break us into itsy bitsy pieces – herald a new era.

And thus begins mine. Which, I’m excited to say, has some benefits for you. Today our new website goes live. You can go to it here, but let me share what we’ve prepared for you.

My team and I have grown so much in the past few years, we’ve learned a hell of a lot from all of you, our beloved community – through the feedback we’ve received, that we’ve rethought, rebranded and reworked our offerings to give you:

more time,
more options,
more free stuff.

About Joanne

Joanne Fedler is an internationally bestselling author of 10 books, writing mentor and publisher. In the past seven years, she’s facilitated 12 writing retreats all over the world, mentored hundreds of writers (both face to face and in her online writing courses), set up her own publishing company, Joanne Fedler Media, and published four debut authors (with many lined up to follow). She’s passionate about publishing midlife memoirs and knows how to help people succeed in reaching their goal to become a published author.

Here are the highlights:

1. You can now do the 7 Day Free Writing Challenge – anytime and at your own pace. It’s available all year round. No rush, no stress, just in your own sweet hours (but don’t procrastinate on your writing, please). Feel free to do it again if you’ve done it before, or have a crack at it for the first time now.

7 day FREE writing challege

2. You can choose what kind of help you’re looking for based on what you’re writing and where you’re at in your writing journey (beginning, somewhere in the middle, memoir, self-help…)

3. You can help yourself to a library of free resources we’ve stacked in here for you including our free Author Potential Profile Assessment.

4. At any time, you can reach out to our team for a free one-on-one chat to help you when you’re stuck.

We hope we’ve mapped an experience that guides and supports you like never before. Please let us know what the user-experience is like, we’d love your feedback.

the midlife memoir breakthrough

After the success of The Midlife Memoir Breakthrough just a few weeks ago, we’re planning a few live events/retreats in 2020 (when I’ve had a proper Sabbatical and written my new book, which is called…. The Sabbatical). If you want to be the first to know when and where – please reach out to Norie so we have you flagged: [email protected]

We launched Michele Brown‘s book This Kind of Silence in Sydney on 31 March – and what a day that was. You can catch the speeches here and buy a copy of her astonishing memoir here.

Now – it is time for me to switch off. My team is still here, and ready to help at anytime. Meet them all on the new website by clicking here.

Come and Join Joanne for the next 7 Day Free Writing Challenge

Where do we start when we want to write?
How about right here?

I designed this 7 Day Free Writing Challenge for people just like you who have always wanted to write but don’t know where or how to begin the journey.

Click here to register

Writing About Writing About Writing

by Jennifer Pownall | June 18, 2018 | Guest Blogger, Inspiration | 2 Comments

I have recommitted to writing. This is the anthem I have been singing for the last two-thirds of a year—a requiem for wasted time, claimed during the approach of my son’s first birthday. I was in a place of relative peace as this promise to myself was made, and I...

On Returning to the Home I Grew Up In

by Joanne Fedler | December 11, 2017 | Articles | 1 Comment

We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. ―Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon I sit and watch the sun come up over Johannesburg...

Bringing Inequality Back into the Bedroom

by Joanne Fedler | January 29, 2018 | Articles | 0 Comments

I came to marriage by a circuitous route. As a radical feminist, I avoided it, certain it was for unintelligent girls who had no aspirations to travel or write books. I was never going to be ‘given away’ or called ‘Mrs’ Someone Else’s Surname. Working with abused...

The Art of Shutting Up and Keeping Secrets

by Joanne Fedler | March 12, 2018 | Inspiration, Writing Tips | 0 Comments

When we start writing, we get excited and want to share our happy news like a newly pregnant mother-to-be. We want to blab to everyone, ‘Hey, I’m writing a book.’ It’s hard to keep a secret as big and beautiful as this. But we must. If we care about what we’re doing,...

Artist-in-Reticence

by Jennifer Pownall | January 30, 2019 | Guest Blogger, Inspiration | 0 Comments

A month ago, I found out that I was going to be a literary artist-in-residence. I was shocked and delighted, but also uncomfortably pleased with myself for managing to secure such an opportunity. I felt honoured. And excited. Yet an underlying sense of hubris was...

The Joy of Midlife

by Joanne Fedler | December 3, 2020 | Inspiration | 0 Comments

Nearby is the country they call lifeYou will know it by its seriousness.— Rilke A certain age arrives where you believe yourself to be post-surprises. With enough been-there-done-that lodged in your bones, you may find yourself saying out loud, ‘Nothing could...

Swimming with Details

by Michele Susan Brown | Mar 13, 2019 | Debut Author

Swimming with Details

I just returned from a family trip to the Big Island of Hawaii where we celebrated my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. We experienced vast views of lava-filled fields against turquoise waters, watched white puffs of whale blows, cheered breaches of power, savored sunsets and colorful skies, and golfed on fairways frequented by goats.

One morning, we drove south of Kona to a beach commonly referred to as Two Step because of its easy gradation for swimmers into a popular, vibrant snorkeling destination. After carefully stepping barefoot over mounds of black lava brushed with a dust of golden sand, four of us sat on a mossy ledge at the water’s edge. With sunshine beaming on my shoulders, I put on my fins, mask and snorkel, and joined the gentle surf, returning to the warm, refreshing Pacific Ocean with a glide.

Swimming out, my neck became a swivel of curiosity, marveling right away at the colorful life below. White coral, purple leaves, schools of bright yellow tang, and sharp spines of black sea urchin filled my view. I studied hidden openings to see creatures darting in and out, parrot fish lingering, and a large school of black fish shuffling by.

I ventured out further after noticing where the sharp shelf of reef fell off to introduce a deeper, less color-filled, more barren territory. Drawn to ray beams of light that cut through the empty water to create an angelic-like display, I explored the place of open serenity. This new scene seemed like nothing compared to the brilliance of the reef, until I glanced to my right.

About Michele

Michele Susan Brown is the author of This Kind of Silence: How Losing My Hearing Taught Me to Listen. She is a writer and a speaker based in Northern California, where she lives with her husband, two dogs, and the wild birds that visit her backyard feeders. Michele enjoys connecting with others and engaging in deep discussions about the importance of listening to our own intuition, being brave and vulnerable, and the freedom found in authenticity and truth.

You can connect with her at www.wisdomwithinworkbook.com, and/or write to her at [email protected]

Facebook

A pod of at least sixteen Spinner dolphins were suddenly beside me. Several seemed to greet me with inviting eyes, and I instinctively placed my hands behind my back, clasped them, and gently kicked my fins to increase my pace and join them. With grace, we all swam together. They gradually joined me near the surface where each took their conscious breath.

I stared at their pointy rostrums, their dark-lined flippers, the subtle shade changes on their bodies from belly to pectoral fins. I became one with them for moments that folded into minutes. My heart expanded, my eyes filled, and a surge of awe moved through me at the utter sense of oneness. We were the only beings that existed, and I enjoyed their company for as long as they allowed.

Later, sitting in a beach chair on uneven lava and feeling reflective, I started thinking about being a writer and the importance of being able to create vivid, strong scenes. I realized how my experience in the water could be an effective example and a reminder of how to do that. And I began to ponder deeper into how I might communicate the nuance in every moment, regardless of whether it is common or exceptional.

When I want to write important scenes, it helps me to visualize writing it as if watching a movie.

The “pan out” or larger view set-up, and then the zoom in and focus on specific action and detail. If I can think of myself as a movie director watching a scene unfold, I can ask myself questions like:

Where are we in space and time?
What’s visible and noticeable that calls to be captured?
What sounds do I hear?
What sensations are evident?
What details beckon to speak?
What emotions arise?

If I can linger there, draw out the experience by immersing myself in it with full presence, and capture it with visceral words, then I can link arms with my reader and take them on the journey with me.

Just as the dolphins drew me right into full presence alongside them.

Michele has just launched her book, This Kind of Silence, on International Women’s Day.

To learn more about the book and to watch Michele’s interview with Joanne Fedler, please click the button below.

About This Kind of Silence

“A beautifully written book that instills hope in the great mysteries of life and reminds us of the powerful connection between the body, mind, and soul. This story will return you to the deep wisdom of your own knowing. It may even make you believe in miracles.” —Joanne Fedler

The Art of Shutting Up and Keeping Secrets

by Joanne Fedler | March 12, 2018 | Inspiration, Writing Tips | 0 Comments

Bedrock

by Joanne Fedler | August 14, 2017 | Short Stories | 0 Comments

Virginia can’t say if she is claustrophobic herself. She’s never been this far inside a cave before. The little spelunking she did as a child along the coast of the Western Cape was hide-and-seek with bare-footed cousins, in sea-carved rocky alcoves.

Why Writing about Your Experience Is Not Narcissistic

by Joanne Fedler | September 18, 2017 | Writing Tips | 0 Comments

As writers, we sometimes shirk away from writing about our own particularities because we don't want to be ‘narcissistic,’ or ‘self-involved.’ It's a good point. Our internal musings about our childhood, illness, divorce or particular form of heartache may bore and...

I Am Well if You Are Well

by Joanne Fedler | February 26, 2018 | Articles, Inspiration | 0 Comments

I was a week away from my due date. I was enormous and uncomfortable as I stood barefoot on the deserted beach. I had survived the past year. Barely. Grief and sadness swirled in me like aurora borealis. Birth demands hope. You have to be an optimist to bring new life...

Without Self-Compassion, Why Should Anyone Trust Us?

by Joanne Fedler | December 21, 2017 | Writing Tips | 0 Comments

Celebrity drag queen Ru Paul sings, ‘If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?’ Amen to this when it comes to the act of writing. All writing begins with self-compassion. To write, we have to own our voice and our right to write. I...

The Turning: Reflections on Reaching 50

by Joanne Fedler | August 17, 2017 | Articles, Inspiration | 0 Comments

I am taking the business of turning 50 terribly seriously. I am dedicating the twelve months since my 49th birthday to this incongruous milestone, given that the actual age of my physical body – half a freaking century – and how I feel inside couldn’t be further apart...

Spotlight on Michele Susan Brown

by Joanne Fedler | Mar 8, 2019 | Joanne Fedler Media Spotlight, People with Passion

Spotlight on Michele Susan Brown

Happy International Women’s Day.

I hope you’re going to make some time for yourself today – to listen in to your heart, and to reconnect with the life inside you that is only yours. Maybe do something kind for your body. Give it a compliment. A massage. A dunk in the ocean.

I’ve been working on being nicer to myself. We all go through times when we hate our bodies (trust me, I’ve been struggling with this for the past few months after my disc prolapse). We berate their frailty, ‘fight’ our illnesses or infections; and get mad at them when they don’t look the way we’d prefer or display weakness.

But what if our bodies are actually on our side? What if pain, illness or infirmity was not an obstacle, but a call to heal – not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually?

It’s an edgy question – most of us outsource our power to trusted doctors with medical degrees and medication you can only purchase behind the counter. But what happens when doctors tell you they can’t help you? Would you be called to a deeper internal inquiry?

She came all the way from California to join me on a writing retreat in Fiji in 2014 even though her husband tried to talk her out of it – surely, there were other writing retreats and mentors a little closer to home? For some reason, Michele knew she wanted to travel half way around the world to meet me. And both our lives changed when she did.

When I first heard Michele’s story, I got that weird, warm feeling when you sense the mystery that surrounds our lives beyond rational explanations, right in front of you. Here was Michele, a living example of everything I try so hard to believe about how healing happens.

Michele wasn’t sure she had a ‘story’ or could write a book about it – but I knew if she did, it would console, comfort and change readers’ lives. Because it’s remarkable, a little miraculous and simply true. It had the same ring to it as one of my favourite books – Tim Parkes’ Teach Us to Sit Still (which if you haven’t yet read, you really should).

After five committed years of writing, rewriting, editing and re-editing, Michele’s debut memoir, This Kind of Silence comes into the world (well, Australia, officially) and your hands. My team and I could not be more proud that Joanne Fedler Media is its first publisher.

I’ve always believed in this book – but just this past week, we’ve secured an international rights agent to represent it worldwide. It’s big – huge, actually – for both Michele as an author and Joanne Fedler Media as a new publisher (it’s always so gratifying to get the recognition from impartial, quality-conscious agents).

Trust me when I tell you, you really do want to read this book.

Get a Copy

About THIS KIND OF SILENCE: How Losing My Hearing Taught Me to Listen

Michele was a successful thirty-two-year-old school principal and married mother of two, when she woke up one morning and could no longer hear.

Doctors could offer no explanation. She spent three frustrating and desperate years searching to make sense of the medical mystery, but doctors told her there was little chance she would ever hear again. Even as she came to accept this bleak diagnosis, she never stopped looking for answers. Why would this suddenly happen to a fit young woman in her prime?

Then one day, a colleague asked, “What is it, perhaps, that you don’t want to hear?”

Michele was intrigued by this question. From that moment, she opened herself with curiosity to a path of self-discovery which led her back to the many silences of her childhood in which she had left parts of herself behind. As she began to tune in to her inner voice, her well being flourished. She began expressing herself in new ways and speaking up. But her twelve-year marriage began to unravel.

What began as a mission to regain her hearing became a journey of facing unspoken truths and breaking the silences that keep us trapped in the past.

This Kind of Silence is an inspirational story about gratitude for the small blessings in life, learning to listen again, and the quiet joys of stillness amidst the noise.

Get a Copy

About MICHELE SUSAN BROWN

Michele Susan Brown is a writer, author, and speaker based in Northern California, where she lives with her husband, two dogs, cat, and the wild birds that visit her backyard feeders.

A former elementary school teacher, principal, and district-level administrator for eighteen years, Michele now spends time following her passions: writing, meditation, exercise, time in nature, swimming with wild dolphins in the Bahamas, and traveling on unique adventures all over the world with her husband, Gordon.

Michele enjoys connecting with others and engaging in deep discussions about the importance of listening to our own intuition, being brave and vulnerable, and the freedom found in authenticity and truth.

Michele has created a companion to This Kind of Silence – a workbook called Wisdom Within – to guide seekers through reflection, help with self-care, and focus more on listening to our inner voice of truth. She is also facilitating an interactive Book Club experience on Facebook for readers.

If you want to learn more about Michele, you can visit her website at www.wisdomwithinworkbook.com or check out her Facebook page.

book, tablet, wisdom within by michele susan brown

It’s always wonderful to hear author’s speak about their writing journey,
so here’s my People with Passion interview with Michele.

This Kind of Silence is also available in hardcover.

We Gather Stars in the Dark

by Janell Meier | July 23, 2018 | Community, Guest Blogger | 0 Comments

My whole life changed when, at the age of 27, I was suddenly diagnosed with breast cancer. At a time when my husband and I should have been focusing on our future, we filled our days with managing the side effects of my chemotherapy. Instead of starting a family we...

Vision Quest

by Jennifer Pownall | August 17, 2018 | Guest Blogger, Vision | 0 Comments

When I was two, I almost went blind in my right eye. A close friend of my mother`s had noticed that my left eye was not tracking properly. It was turning out so that it appeared misaligned, and so a trip to the eye doctor`s was quickly arranged. I was examined and...

On Backstory, Flashbacks and Character Memories

by Joanne Fedler | June 8, 2018 | Writing Tips | 0 Comments

Writing question: When and how do I use backstory, flashbacks and character memories? To bring a character to life, to make them complex, sympathetic and richly conceived, they need context and history. We want to know where they’ve been, what they’ve experienced and...

Catching Up to the Stories Inside

by Elana Benjamin | December 27, 2018 | Guest Blogger | 0 Comments

Catching Up to the Stories InsideI recently went to see A Star is Born at the movies: the remake with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Bradley Cooper directs and also plays the lead male character, Jackson Maine - a singer/songwriter and alcoholic.The morning after...

The Write Time

by Simone Yemm | February 28, 2019 | Guest Blogger, Inspiration | 0 Comments

When is the right time to write? Or do anything for that matter?There are proverbs, quotes, and metaphors galore, to justify time management – be it an excuse to procrastinate, or a drive to be productive.To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose...

May It Happen for You

by Joanne Fedler | November 28, 2019 | Inspiration, Newsletter | 0 Comments

Sometimes Sometimes things don't go, after all,from bad to worse. Some years, muscatelfaces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well. A people sometimes will step back from war;elect an honest man, decide they...

Allow Me to Disappoint You

by Joanne Fedler | Feb 19, 2019 | Newsletter

Allow Me to Disappoint You

You wouldn’t believe what an excellent track record I have in not disappointing people.

I like to think it’s because I try hard to be a half-decent person. But what if it’s the consequence of pathology? A damaged neurological wiring that causes me to default into doing anything to avoid the ire or displeasure of others?

I hate to be hated – whether it’s personal (in the way breaking someone’s heart, not being the friend someone wants you to be or holding certain opinions about Trump or Harvey Weinstein is) or impersonal (given inherited and chosen identities – being Jewish, white, privileged, a feminist and the like).

But despite this, I don’t want to be so likeable as to be universally liked.

Such popular appeal makes us boring. If people can’t see our shadow because we’re hiding it, we’re doling out palatable versions of ourselves in search of likes, follows, retweets and invitations to dinner parties. That’s when we’re exactly the sort of person I don’t want to be.

I’d truly rather be thought of as a harridan than a ‘sweet person,’ have lunch with a lunatic than a ‘good guy,’ hear a sex worker talk than a life coach. I’m well over playing safe, hedging my bets and fence-sitting (sorry about that trio of clichés). I want to be the weather – to affect peoples’ temperature – one way or the other. As writers, artists, creators, lukewarm is as good as no reaction. We have to know how to turn people on, as well as off.

Allow Me to Disappoint You - Joanne Fedler

The fastest way to polarize people is to learn to say NO.

No, I don’t like Jane Austen.
No, I don’t eat animals.
No, I can’t speak at your event.
No, I don’t like your skull tattoo.
Thanks, but no thanks.

About Joanne

I have crazy-high standards of myself. They’ve served me well in the past – they got me a Fulbright scholarship, a Yale law degree, ten published books, an online business, a publishing company …but they are also the source of my suffering. Anything short of excellence, impeccable execution and over-delivery feels like devastating failure to me. When I show up, I do it drag-queen style – all in, hyper-enthusiastic; dazzling. After I’ve done my thing, I want to leave you breathless.

I am not surprised (just annoyed) that my body has conspired to teach me how to let myself and others down. When I prolapsed a disc eight weeks ago, I didn’t realise I’d need months and months to recover. I figured (as I did after giving birth to my daughter by Caesarean and flying to Cape Town 6 weeks later with her at my breast to make a presentation in Parliament), that I’d fix it quickly and get b Joanne Fedler ack to business as soon as possible.

But my body isn’t having any of it. It’s refusing to give me a single clue about when I will be ‘back to myself .’ It’s buggered up all my plans for the year. It’s forced me to let down three writers who wanted Joanne Fedler Media to publish their books – I’ve had to pass them on to other publishers. That has hurt.

It almost made me postpone my long-awaited Midlife Memoir workshop in mid-March. Through tears I wrote – but did not send an email to the ten writers who’d paid, booked tickets and accommodation letting them know I wouldn’t be able to go ahead. It felt like breaking up with someone who has only been good to me (not that I’m even good at breaking up – I’m still in friendly contact with every boyfriend I ever had.)

But once I’d sat down with what it feels like to disappoint others, something weird happened. I suddenly saw how I could do it – just in a different way: without over-delivering; over-preparing or overwhelming everyone. All I needed to do is show up, even if a bit disheveled, hobbling, quietened by infirmity.

As soon as I admitted in writing how frail and capable of incapacity I am,
the illusion I’ve always had about myself (invincible) shattered.

The trance broke.
The spell was undone.
I was porous with relief.

As soon as I said ‘No, I can’t…’ I worked out a different ‘Yes.’

I said NO to my old way of doing things, and YES to a more vulnerable, imperfect way of showing up. Knowing I may disappoint people has given me the chance to break; the space to heal, and the humility to admit I need to do both.

Now I get to discover who I’ll be now that I am not who I was anymore.

In the meantime, my team and I have been working on a completely revamped website to make navigation, support for your writing and resources to help you easily accessible. We will soon have dates for the next online 7 Day Free Writing Challenge and the Author Awakening Adventure (email [email protected] to register your interest), and more information on the exciting new releases from Joanne Fedler Media for 2019. And if all this sounds like I have not learned my lesson yet – just watch. I’m going to be delegating, taking more downtime to write my new book, and drawing on the incredible team I have to bring you these offerings.

Come and Join the Midlife Memoir Breakthrough

A Five-Day (18-22 March) Live Event in Sydney with Joanne Fedler

In this hands-on, intimate workshop (an eclectic mix of teaching, instruction, writing exercises, meditations, ritual, sharing and other joyful activities), I will teach you how to take the material of your life – the moments that counted, no matter how shattering or modest – and weave them into a memoir that makes sense of it all.

Click here for more details

6 Unexpected Gifts of Well-Being That Flow From Writing

by Joanne Fedler | January 1, 2018 | Writing Tips | 0 Comments

'Words have helped me understand who I am - all of me, not just the loveable parts I present to the world in a curated Facebook profile.' - Joanne Fedler, Internationally bestselling author and writing mentor I didn't start writing to become a better person. Back...

People with Passion Interview with Xanti Bootcov

by Joanne Fedler | November 8, 2018 | Inspiration, People with Passion | 0 Comments

'I'm terrible at spelling and my grammar is horrible,' Xanti said to me. 'I think I am even dyslexic. But I have a story I need to write, and I need your help.' It has taken two and a half years of dedicated commitment, but finally, today, Joanne Fedler Media is proud...

Catching Up to the Stories Inside

by Elana Benjamin | December 27, 2018 | Guest Blogger | 0 Comments

Twelve Things Your Mum Was Right About

by Joanne Fedler | September 28, 2017 | Articles | 0 Comments

There’ll come a point in your life when you’ll suddenly have a flashback to your childhood. And it will be your mother’s voice. And you will concede – graciously or otherwise – that all those irritating things she used to say to you when you were a kid were actually...

9 Spiritual Principles to Boost Your Creativity

by Joanne Fedler | November 9, 2017 | Writing Tips | 0 Comments

So many people tell me, 'I'd love to write, but I'm just not creative.' They speak as if creativity is an innate IQ or EQ or an extra nipple some people are born with which precludes the possibility of acquiring it. I think of creativity as a way of seeing, a...

Memoir Is a Moving Target

by Barbara Matthews | October 22, 2018 | Guest Blogger | 0 Comments

I thought I knew what my memoir was about. I was there after all. I thought it was a matter of working out where to start and where to end so I could settle my story down somewhere in between. How difficult could it be? So I started writing, in earnest, in the place I...

Ouch – a Painful Start to 2019

by Joanne Fedler | Jan 15, 2019 | Newsletter

Ouch – a Painful Start to 2019

I rushed to South Africa mid-December, when I got that call. You know the one. Your father is critically ill. During the 14-hour flight, I prayed. Please let him live. I cried when the lights went down. I didn’t know what I was flying back for. A protracted, drawn-out recovery? A father incapacitated? A funeral?

I went straight from the airport to the hospital to see my great big lion of a father lying unrecognizably helpless and attached to a squadron of machines that go ping.

It will be a good story someday. But it wasn’t when, later that night, I prolapsed a disc in my back, and ended up in the same hospital as my father for treatment. Two days after that, my older sister nearly fainted and was admitted to hospital for a week with labyrinthitis. We were dropping like soldiers on the frontlines of a poorly planned military expedition. I spent Christmas, New Year and all up four weeks in physical pain that brought me to tears; dosed to the max on painkillers, anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants, unable to visit my father again while he recovered slowly in hospital.

Pain is a strict teacher. She demands attention and doesn’t let it stray from the present moment. While everyone was making bold New Year resolutions, I just wanted my body back. Facebook was torture – it was excruciating to see everyone’s celebrations, overseas holidays, or simple joys when I could barely make it to the loo. I learned just how sorry I can feel for myself when I am not upright, strong, capable, dependable, a fixer, a do-er, a person others can rely on.

With each passing day, I was shown a different side to myself, and I struggled to like her.

I’ve known for some time that I’ve been shuttling at a warping pace. I have needed to slow down. Well, here it was. Enforced rest. Enforced nobody-ness. I became someone who could barely stand on her own two feet. So I did the only thing I could – I lay on a bed and worked on my new book.

About Joanne

Sometime during this season of horizontality, I wrote this poem:

How to console
the bruised animal of the body
become the kind of hero
you never really want to be
because who would ask
for this pain
even in the name of
transformation and self-development?
Then to find
the spare change of compassion
a true charity
for everything in you that is broken
and may never be fixed
to seek metaphors
for the injury
try to see it through God’s eyes
not take it personally,
this affront to the ego;
trust the story
that is telling itself
through your wretched hours
and call in the happiness
of small mercies
like the water
on your skin;
the sun shaft through the window
that lands on your face.

My friend Gabriela asked what I wished for 2019. ‘Just to be free of pain, strong and healthy,’ I said. To which she wisely responded, ‘None of us will ever be pain free in this life…. Perhaps wish for pain you can handle. Or even better that your faith in a higher power changes your perception of pain so greatly and gives you other things to prioritize that you forget about your own pain. Or even better yet…that you are able to soothe the pain of so many other souls that yours becomes infinitesimally negligible. Right there is a prayer worth praying.’

Harder to bear than the pain itself, was the treacheries of my own consciousness. I wanted more than anything to trust these words of Mary Oliver:

‘All things are inventions of holiness, some more rascally than others.’

My family and I have had a rascal of a time. But perhaps I am exactly where I am meant to be as I learn to love the parts of me that are no ‘use’ in the world; the person I am when I can offer nothing to anyone; when I feel small; unaccomplished; terrified.

If You Can Write, You Can Draw - Dov Fedler

I had hoped to write a different kind of New Year email to you all – to inspire, lift you up, tell you of the great plans I have for 2019 and the opportunities I want to open up to any of you who want to write. I still hope that email will be written. But now is not the right time as I navigate the uncertainties of the coming weeks – like whether my father and I will both be well enough for us to launch his book If You Can Write, You Can Draw, and how I will manage the flight back to Sydney at the end of January.

My incredible team have rallied around me, and assured me that they will make sure we are able to offer the 7 Day Free Writing Challenge again to anyone who didn’t finish it or would like to redo it. We’ll be launching my brand-new website soon with heaps of beautiful resources, materials and courses. I will be so ready to offer The Midlife Memoir Breakthrough workshop in Sydney in March (I think we have one or two spots left).

And as soon as my body releases me from solitary confinement, I hope to bounce back into the world, with renewed insights, offerings and energy.

I wish you all a sense of belonging – to your body and soul – no matter what 2019 brings your way.

Come and Join the Midlife Memoir Breakthrough

A Five-Day (18-22 March) Live Event in Sydney with Joanne Fedler

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You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Joanne Fedler | June 27, 2019 | Newsletter | 0 Comments

I wanted to share a story that always gives me strength and faith to keep working for a better world, even when it seems pointless and hopeless.

People with Passion Interview with Tanya Savva

by Joanne Fedler | October 5, 2018 | Inspiration, People with Passion | 0 Comments

'I love this part the best,' I said to my husband this morning. I had just finished nominating Tanya Savva's new book, The Adventures of Kenzie-Moo for the NSW Premier Literary Awards. There's something deeply happy-making about helping other people reach their...

How to Stop the Great Unravelling at Midlife

by Joanne Fedler | October 26, 2018 | Inspiration | 0 Comments

We have two lives, and the second one begins when you realise you only have one. - Mario de Andrade You will wake up one day and without looking at your iPhone, you’ll know that you are running out of time. This bolt of insight will have less to do with your age in...

Sometimes You Just Need a Little More Time

by Joanne Fedler | April 9, 2019 | Newsletter | 0 Comments

If you ever want to learn how to build a successful business, grow your team, create online programmes, become a publisher and burn yourself out in a few short years, just follow my example. Since 2014, I’ve been on an exhilarating, heart-opening, community-building...

Paths Are Made by Walking

by Joanne Fedler | November 2, 2017 | Writing Tips | 0 Comments

One of the most important books I ever read as a law student was Professor Patricia Williams’ The Alchemy of Race and Rights. The book opens with this line, ‘Since subject position is everything in my analysis of the law, you deserve to know it’s been a bad day.’ What...

Dueling with a Four-Year-Old

by Joanne Fedler | August 31, 2017 | Articles | 0 Comments

There is a world, a ‘place of tomorrow,’ Kahlil Gibran writes, in which our children’s souls dwell, which ‘we cannot visit, not even in our dreams.’ That world of fairies and elves my daughter inhabits is a familiar, beckoning place. I delight in her lilting musings...

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Sometimes You Just Need a Little More Time

Come and Join Joanne for the next 7 Day Free Writing Challenge

Swimming with Details

Spotlight on Michele Susan Brown

Happy International Women’s Day.

About THIS KIND OF SILENCE: How Losing My Hearing Taught Me to Listen

About MICHELE SUSAN BROWN

It’s always wonderful to hear author’s speak about their writing journey, so here’s my People with Passion interview with Michele.

Allow Me to Disappoint You

You wouldn’t believe what an excellent track record I have in not disappointing people.

But despite this, I don’t want to be so likeable as to be universally liked.

The fastest way to polarize people is to learn to say NO.

As soon as I said ‘No, I can’t…’ I worked out a different ‘Yes.’

Now I get to discover who I’ll be now that I am not who I was anymore.

Come and Join the Midlife Memoir Breakthrough

A Five-Day (18-22 March) Live Event in Sydney with Joanne Fedler

Ouch – a Painful Start to 2019

Come and Join the Midlife Memoir Breakthrough

A Five-Day (18-22 March) Live Event in Sydney with Joanne Fedler

Categories

It’s always wonderful to hear author’s speak about their writing journey,
so here’s my People with Passion interview with Michele.