Showing up
I received my first official piece of snail mail with my new name on this week; and my first bank card. While I’ve unofficially been using this name for a while now, starting to officially change all my identification and documentation feels like an important step in showing up more as ‘me’ than ever before.
As a blended family, we are going through a tough time right now. We’re working through some really hard issues for one of the children who is having daily tantrums, violent rages and learning how to hold her own boundaries as well as respect those held with her. It is not an easy task and is taking almost all of our energy and strength to work through this with her, together.
Simultaneously we’re also trying to give our three other children the energy and airtime they deserve, but it’s tough and we have little left in the tanks at the end of the day. Sometimes just the thought of showing up each day is too much but as the saying goes…
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Being Seen
On top of this, my partner is also working through some of her own really deep stuff relating to her childhood traumas and patterns. This is the part of the process we both hate! Being seen in all our ‘glory’, the worst bits of us laid bare for the other to see.
For me, this has shown up as anger, rage and daily grumpiness; for her, this shows up as mistrust (of me) and meanness. None of these are attractive traits and neither of us enjoys being seen in this way AT ALL.
And yet we both know that the right, intuitive thing to do is to love each other through these difficult periods of being seen, and to show up daily to say: “I love you anyway, shadow parts and all”.
Standing Out
For a total change of pace, I’m enjoying being back on the email marketing bandwagon again. I recently joined a Telegram group dedicated purely to newsletters – topics of discussion typically focus on open rates, newsletter platforms and how to improve results from your newsletters.
It’s been a timely and valuable reminder that:
- Newsletters and email marketing as a strategy are powerful, and pretty easy to get started with (in fact, if I were launching something new, I’d opt for this over any other approach to grow and nurture an audience).
- Newsletters aren’t just a marketing strategy but can also serve as a business model in and of themselves (paid newsletters, sponsorship etc).
- It’s useful to treat a newsletter like its own product – with its own name/brand, sales page and unique positioning.
- I’ve always liked the idea of spending time creating really useful content and earning money from doing that. Still pondering this one…
The good news is that since I’ve been inspired to put energy and attention back into this area of my business, it’s really been paying off.
I’ve barely sent any newsletters out for months – neither from this website or location independent. Since re-committing, I’ve managed to find the consistency to send out two weekly newsletters (Great Things and The iWord) and one fortnightly one (Remotely Intimate).
For months, with no action and activity directed towards them, my subscriber lists have stagnated and barely grown. Since re-commiting, I’ve added already seen tens of new subscribers each week…just gotta move that into the hundreds again. I’m ready for my newsletters to stand out and become the stars of this business show