On my heart this week.
I was on the phone with a new friend yesterday and she asked about my dissertation. It made me think about how I ended up in grad school in the first place. The short story is, the COVID-19 pandemic. After thwarted plans for a multi-city experiential tour in the Spring of 2020 brought me back to the drawing board, I was still craving a playground to test some assumptions around the next phase of my work.
I chose the academy to grow as a writer, have a container to unpack ideas I’d been considering about learning and talent development, and deepen my capacity to conduct and apply innovative research that’s useful to society.
Thinking about that choice brought me back to December of 2020 when the gracious team at WeTransfer invited me to share a few words “to live by, to create by, and to see off 2020” at their annual Big Ideas Salon. I opened up about my 5-word mantra -move from isolation to intimacy - and how it helped me begin to build the foundation for an honest, graceful, non-judgmental home inside of myself. A haven where I’ve cultivated even deeper intimacy with my craft, heightened my creativity, and fundamentally shifted how I define it. That talk felt like the perfect three for one special to share with y’all today — what’s on my heart, gifts for your growth and fuel for the week ahead all wrapped in one package (plus the Seven Bops playlist down at the very bottom ❤️).
So as promised in the micropodcast, here’s the transcribed version 👇🏾.
Like many of you, I had grand plans coming into 2020. My 2019 theme was “sow the seeds.” All last year, I focused energy on planting and nurturing my boldest ideas. This year’s theme was “rally the people”…in person.
So picture this:
Me and a team of my closest friends and collaborators…traveling around the world producing a multi-city experiential tour.
Each stop would include a smorgasbord of events designed to inspire and equip marginalized creators with skills to both fulfill their potential and thrive at work they love.
But the Universe had a different set of plans. After months of brainstorming, strategy sessions, negotiations, and God knows how many post-it notes scattered around my workspace, it all came to a halt when we got confirmation that what was previously dismissed as “just a little virus”…was in fact a global pandemic brewing.
On top of the glaring inequities it shined a spotlight on, it triggered a raincloud of doomsday language…
words like isolation, quarantine, lockdown, shelter-in-place.
It was within that language and the uncertainty of the moment that I found a 5-word mantra to help me weather the most difficult parts of the storm: move from isolation to intimacy.
At first I thought, yea yea - I can get creative and find new digital and safe in person ways to stay intimately close to the communities and relationships I was in. But when I interrogated the origin of the word intimacy — I knew there was much more work to do to honor the mantra.
When we consider the etymology, intimate comes from the latin word intimus — meaning, inmost — the very deepest within; farthest from the surface or external part.
For a long time, I used external intimacy as an escape from internal intimacy — literally isolating from myself. The pandemic forced me to accept two realities I’d been avoiding 1. choosing isolation over intimacy was stunting my creative capacity, and 2. I would never find the closeness I was seeking outside of myself.
So I decided, 🤷🏾♀️ intimus it is.
We all have varying gifts and growing edges, so cultivating self-intimacy looks different for each of us. For me it’s been 9 months of tending to my deepest mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical needs:
Sometimes it looks like audio journaling, somatic therapy, and childhood hobbies
In other moments it’s creating for the sake of expression, Kundalini yoga, and deep belly laughter
And in most recent months I’ve met with astrologers, mystics, shamans, and psychics to better understand what parts of me require undoing, embracing, and fine tuning
Through these actions I’ve experienced a new closeness. One that’s helped me build an honest, graceful, non-judgmental home inside of myself. A haven where I’ve cultivated even deeper intimacy with my craft, heightened my creativity, and fundamentally shifted how I define it.
Where I once got caught up in the hype of creativity being validated by whether or not it could be consumed or bought, I now define it as the use of imagination as an engine to visualize and realize new possibilities.
The cherry on top? Externally, I’ve noticed that my relationships are much healthier, conversations have more depth, and I’m making what feels like my best work yet. Right now I’m:
Dreaming up new talent development experiences, products and multimedia content at my creative studio.
Gearing up for a research residency with one of my favorite companies and
Writing a dissertation that will help imagine a more equitable future of work that champions self and communal actualization
It’s funny reflecting on this because culturally, we talk a lot about interior work and self care. And still, I would have never imagined that devoting this much time to Holley would drastically change the ways in which I engage with and contribute to the world. But it has. So, given the volatility of the reality we’re living in, as you consider how you’ll lend your creative gifts and talents to leave your mark, I encourage you to first find one activity where you can create a practice of intimacy with yourself. That’s where the impact truly starts - within us.
What are you willing to do (from where you are, with what you have) to get intimately close to yourself?
Fuel for the week ahead.
🎧 🎶 This week’s Seven Bops playlist is my favorite one to date. Had me dancing extra hard in my kitchen while I made lunch this afternoon. And in case you’re wondering, yes, my two-step is stellar 💃🏾. Listen to it on Apple Music or Spotify.
Have a brilliant week and I’ll see y’all next Monday.
Love always,
HMKM
From Holley, With Love • Monday, 081621