GRATITUDE + CONSCIOUS LIVING Page 1 of 22

What is the meaning of life?

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A good while back I received a curious note from a stranger named James, inviting me to be part of a project he had begun a few years before, when he was living in a caravan feeling down on his luck. James had started wondering what the point of everything was, and on a whim (and inspired by a similar project by Will Durant from the 1930s) started writing letters to all kinds of people – astronauts, prime ministers, artists, neuroscientists and so on – asking them one question: What is the meaning of life?

He was writing to me to ask if I’d like to offer my own response. To be honest, James had me at ‘letters’. I went for a very long walk, thought of my answer, sent it off, and forgot all about it.

The other day there was a knock at my door, and the postman handed me a yellow padded envelope, heavy with the weight of a hardback filled with substantial ideas. The Meaning of Life: Letters from Extraordinary People and their Answer to Life’s Biggest Question had been published, and James had sent me a copy. It was a solid, important-looking tome, covered in the names of famous people who had also responded to James’s invitation. Ahh, he sent me a copy as a consolation prize for not having made the cut, that doubting voice in my head was quick to say, but I gladly received it anyway, always happy for book mail. I turned to the Contents page to see who else James had managed to intrigue with his question. It listed all the contributors, starting with Scientists & Environmentalists (like Dr Jane Goodall, astronaut Helen Sharman, and founder of The Eden Project, Sir Tim Smit), and including people from all backgrounds including Survivors & Campaigners (like Simon Weston, Sir Terry Waite and Chris Moon), Athletes & Adventurers (such as Dame Ellen MacArthur and Sir Ranulph Fiennes), Artists & Entertainers (like Joan Armatrading and Glastonbury founder Sir Michael Eavis), Political, Religious & Business Leaders (including a prime minister, a former Archbishop and an American President) and so on.

I was curious about the Writers section of course, having been asked to submit something but not actually expecting my name to be there. And just as I had expected, it wasn’t. But the names of some of my favourites were, including the likes of Pico Iyer, Jodi Picoult, Rupi Kaur, Dame Hilary Mantel and co-founder of Lonely Planet Tony Wheeler, so I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down to read.

Hours went by as I witnessed all these minds reflecting on their lives, and trying to extract words to articulate what it all means. I made notes, stuck Post-It Notes on the pages, and then, when I got to page 352, I spat out my tea.

There was my name, and the piece I had written all that time ago, and sent off to James, grateful for the opportunity to ponder this magnificent question. But my piece wasn’t in the Writers section, which was why I had missed it. It was in the Thinkers, Philosophers and Futurists section. I was floored. Since my late teens I have been fascinated by philosophy, drawn to the work of deep thinkers, and I spend much of my time pondering what will become of this world, but in all that time I have never given such a label to myself. I kind of like it.

But if writing and philosophising and thinking – about the past, present and future – has led me to realise one thing, it’s that the labels we cling to, or covet, or parade around, really are of no consequence in the grand scheme of things.

Sometimes the wearing and owning of a label helps us step forward in the direction of our dreams, giving us an identity to hold on to (to steady ourselves as we step into the unknown, perhaps).

Sometimes it helps others to get a sense of what we have done with our lives, what we enjoy, or have experience at, and that can be a doorway.

Sometimes the label gives a sense of meaning to our individual lives, but it is wholly unconnected to the meaning of life itself.

Any identity is a construct of the ego, just as fear is. I always think that if claiming a specific identity helps you make time for it, and draws others towards you in a meaningful way, then sure, wear your badge with pride. I happily say that I am a writer – and now I might even describe myself as a thinker, a philosopher or a futurist (thank you James!) – But we don’t really need any label at all.

We just need to do the thing – to write, to create, to sing, to connect, to philosophise, to love, to live fully, pondering questions like this, while we can.    […continued]

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Click here to read the rest of this essay, see some peeks into the book and find out what I wrote in response to the question What is the meaning of life?

 

What is wrong with me? A vulnerable share about friendship

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When my children were very young I read an article about female friendship, which gushed about the unique blessing of small circles of besties, and interviewed a number of mothers who said they had only made it through those early years thanks to late night Whatsapps with ‘the girls’. I remember wondering what was wrong with me, that there I was in my early forties, not belonging to any such WhatsApp groups or having a tight knit group of girl friends to call my own. Later that same day, my youngest daughter came up to me, caught hold of my arm, looked up with big innocent eyes and asked, “Mummy, you have friends?”

We had moved back to my hometown when she was a few weeks old. I only knew a couple of people, and was worn thin with the dual demands of parenting small children and building a business. My mum lived round the corner and did all the toddler classes while I worked on my second book. I did have friends but most of them were people I had collected on my travels and various iterations of my life overseas, and they lived hundreds – if not thousands – of miles away. Even here in the UK, my husband and I have been itinerant, moving house once every three years or so ever since we met. It’s a strange habit we have, which is great for variety, not so great for building bonds, or staying in the lives of those we move away from.

My daughter’s question stung, not so much because of my lack of local friends – I had become numb to that – but more because I worried what I was modelling for her. I was a work-obsessed hermit and she could see it. I wondered whether that was how it would always be, whether I had reached an age where I had met my quota of potential friends and not done such a good job of making the most of them. Sometimes it made me sad but mostly I didn’t have time to think about it.

Not long after that we moved (again!) to Devon, near the sea where the community is strong, people have more time for each other and I am in a slightly different life phase. I am still slow to form friendships but am grateful for each one that has come into my life these past few years. I have also been stunned by the deep connections that have been forged through the world of writing, and I would love to go back and tell my younger doubting self that there is no need to worry, some very special people will soon arrive carrying armfuls of books and joy.

One of those people is Holly Ringland, who you might know as the award winning author of two of my favourite novels, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding. Holly isn’t local to me. She lives in Australia. But she friends like someone who lives down the road and getting to know her has been a revelation. I shared one of her books on social media about five years ago, and have recommended them many times over since. That led to us striking up a conversation via Instagram DMs, and last year, when she was heading back to her second home of Manchester she dropped me a friendly note suggesting we meet up for a coffee if I was ever in town.

We ended up meeting last August. It was the strangest thing – all week I had been horizontal on my hotel room floor, or hobbling around the city with terrible back pain, and could not sit for more than a few minutes. But then I met Holly in the bar at my hotel, ordered a mocktail, started snorting with laughter at one of the hilarious things she said, sat down and stayed there for hours, absolutely fine. I see this as evidence that Holly is a magical being. I would go so far as to say I was bedazzled by her, in that her light landed on me like a sticky jewel, and never left. It was the most joyous meeting, and soon after she came down to visit us in Devon. I’ll never forget watching her sitting on a deckchair holding up a beach pebble and explaining the essence of storytelling in the simplest, most beautiful of terms to my youngest daughter, who went straight back home, started writing and didn’t stop until months later when she held in her own small hands three hardback copies of her first book, which she got printed on Snapfish with her own money.

Holly has returned to Australia now, but we text often, marvelling at all kinds of coincidences and serendipitous overlaps that seem to happen in our lives, and I am so grateful, not just for our Whatsapp group of two but for her stories, her authenticity, her hilarity and magic and for her generosity as a human being. I want you to know her too, so I have invited her to share some words here with us today. As it happens, without knowing what I was going to write about to introduce her, she wrote us an essay called ‘The Language of Strangers’ – it’s a love letter to the weirdo in each of us, and it makes me wonder whether it isn’t those inner weirdos seeing and knowing each other that is the foundation of a true friendship, and the stories that we exchange weirdo to weirdo which bind us together.

As for making friends in later life, I’ll share what my mother told me in her last days, when I asked her for friendship advice. I remember, because I wrote it down. She said, We have different friends for different life stages, and different kinds of friendships in each one. Good friendship takes work. You have to keep up with it. Going for coffee. Calling them up. Spending time. There are some times in your life when you just don’t have as much time for that as you want. If you can make the time, great, but if you can’t, don’t worry too much. Just do the best you can. If it’s just you doing the work, it’s OK to let the friendship go. More friends will come. And right now you are in a really busy life stage. I want you to have as many lovely friends as you want, but I also want you to know that when the children are older and you have more time, different people will arrive and you will be glad for them. There is no rush.

How right she was.      [… continued]

 

Click here to read the full essay including Holly Ringland’s piece ‘The Language of Strangers: a love letter to weirdos and our stories that connect us‘.

Because life is too short not to do what you love

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From my first ever photoshoot in 2016!

Friends, what a year, How are you doing, friend? The world has been rumbling these past days. I hope you are doing OK. Today’s note is a reminder that whatever life throws at us, we still get to choose how we respond to the happenings of the world, what information we take on board, where we focus our energy and attention, what kind of support systems we build, how we make a living, and ultimately what we do with each day of our precious lives. And to celebrate, because celebrating is important.

Over the years I have come to understand that doing what you love is often an act of quiet rebellion. There are opinions to ignore, norms to step around, conformity to resist, expectations to let go of, and freedom to be had. If ever there was a time for doing what you love – making art, writing books, following your heart – as an act of rebellion, surely it is now? And if not for that reason, why not do it simply because life is too short and precious not to?

Today I invite you to take a moment to step away from it all and think back to what you were doing fourteen years ago. November 2010. How was your life different? What were your dreams back then? What has come into being since then? What do you still dream of? I’d love to know.

Why November 2010? Because fourteen years ago today I registered my company, Do What You Love, and a few days later carried that certificate into a local bank branch and opened a business bank account. At the time I was still working in the corporate world as a consultant, but I had a sense that something was changing, and I wanted to get out ahead of it, and do my own thing. I had no idea what I was doing, or how I would do what I wanted to do, but I knew that I had to do something, and setting up the company was the first step towards that. Since then I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that ‘do what you love’ is terrible advice, because people have mortgages to pay and obligations to fulfil. And yet here I am, fourteen years later, grateful that I ignored them all, and that so many of you joined me along the way. Thank you, friends.

Making an important point about something or other (or trying to think straight with a toddler and a new baby in tow, back in 2016!)

When I look through the names like yours on my mailing list, or the names of people commenting on my Instagram or more recently my Substack, I recognise people who have been with me for years, some even since the beginning – people I have known longer than I have known my own children. That is wild, and a huge blessing. However you found me, whenever you became part of this community, thank you. I appreciate you more than you will ever know.

I have witnessed so many of you making brave changes as you have navigated your own paths – changing careers, moving countries, going from shy creative to flourishing business owners, or from writing your first poem since school to publishing a book. It has been an astonishing journey of growth and expansion, both my own and yours, and as I take this opportunity to reflect on these past fourteen years, I invite you to do the same.

Back in 2010, when I handed over a few pounds to open that bank account, with nothing more than a laptop and an idea and Mr K’s support, things were very different. It was the year that the iPad was born, and Instagram was first released. A billion fewer people had mobile phones. I wasn’t yet married, I didn’t have any children, hardly anyone worked from home, almost no-one taught online, and blogs were only just starting to become a thing. Fourteen years and one pandemic later and although things have been tough in many ways these past few years, it has never been easier to work flexibly, or make the most of technology and online tools to connect with other people and thrive online.

If you know that you want to make a change in the coming months, to do more of what you love, be more creative, write more – write a book even – check out my courses here, or read my essay Doing What You Love in the Age of AI here. What might you be grateful for fourteen years from now, if you make a big decision today??

Wow I look young in this one. A lot has happened in the past eight years since this photo was taken, never mind the past fourteen since I set up the company! I wonder what has happened in your life in that time?

If you aren’t quite sure what would be the best fit for you, feel free to drop me a note at learning [at] dowhatyouloveforlife.com with some info about yourself and where you are in your life right now, and what you are looking for, and I will personally get back to you with some suggestions.

Whatever you decide, I want to take this opportunity to thank you so much for being part of this gorgeous community, and for allowing me to do what I love, as I support you to do the same. May we walk this path for many more years together.

Much love to you,

Beth Xx

PS Did you know The Calm Christmas Podcast is back? You can hear it on iTunes/Spotify etc or via its new Substack home at calmchristmas.substack.com.

Life, death and life again.

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A glimpse of my new book KOKORO 心: Japanese wisdom for a life well lived

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Tip your ear to the sky and you’ll hear echoes of ancestral birdsong telling the story of a slain emperor, a fleeing prince and a mystical three-legged crow, a yatagarasu, guiding him to safety. Follow the whispers of the wind and you’ll discover that the tomb atop this mountain venerates that prince, who remained in this forest and gave his life to mountain worship, as the crow gave its name to the land.

Put your ear to the earth and you’ll hear this mountain speak of gods and ghosts. Press your skin to the bark of this old tree and you’ll learn of the strange shadow that once passed over this place and the cloaked man who ran behind it.

Come as a pilgrim, offer silence as you climb, and you might just hear a welcome.

‘Yōkoso. I am Black Wing Mountain.’

As one of the three sacred mountains of Dewa Sanzan, Hagurosan (lit. ‘Black Wing Mountain’) is said to represent the present and earthly desires. People have journeyed to Hagurosan for centuries, often travelling hundreds of miles on foot, to pray for health and good fortune in this life. This is where our story begins.

As I read these words aloud on day one of recording the audiobook version of my new book KOKORO, I had an out-of-body experience in the small black booth. As I spoke I was back on the first of the three sacred mountains I climbed during the toughest year of my life, feet in jika tabi (split-toed white boots), scrambling, grieving, unravelling, and at the same time I was in the kitchen of our small cottage, making cheese on toast. Wild woman and domesticated mama, everything overlapping, forming and reforming in strange rhythm like a pumping heart.

People don’t really talk about audiobook recordings, but in some ways, they are even more personal than paper books. It’s me, in your ears, sharing encounters, confessing secrets, whispering words of hope.

Recording for three days straight in a small soundproof booth is full-on. It reminds you of the preciousness of every single word. And there is nowhere to hide.

In KOKORO you are invited to join me on a pilgrimage deep into the Japanese countryside and into our inner lives. It has mountains, moons, and even a sprinkling of actual magic. For the three days I was in the studio I was back there in Japan listening, watching, chanting, questioning, seeking, surrendering. Back there at my mother’s side as she faded. Back there asking the questions that other people do not ask, being open to whatever answers might come.

During the recording there were tears, laughter and even some dancing. There was Xavier Rudd. There is always Xavier Rudd.

KOKORO: Japanese wisdom for a life well lived is the follow up to my earlier book WABI SABI: Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life. Five years in the making, tracing wisdom that goes back more than a thousand years, it’s hard to believe that after so much shapeshifting she is finally, at last, almost here.

On Friday I hung up my headphones and closed the door on the booth one final time. My producer made us a cup of tea, and we joined a colleague who was busy searching for the perfect bell sound to use in the recording.

‘So now this one is done, what are you writing next?’ he asked me, casually, in between gongs and temple bell samples.

‘You know what, I have nothing else to say right now,’ I repled. ‘I poured all of it into that book.’

Before we began recording I had asked a favour of the producer who would be spending the next three days in the adjacent booth listening to my every word, and would be the first person in the world to hear KOKORO spoken out loud. I had asked him to tell me, at the end, what lingered.

True to his word, when we had finished, he looked me in the eye and said, ‘The depth of wisdom, the reverence for Japanese culture, and the immense feeling of calm that came over me, that’s what has lingered.’

The cover of Kokoro shows Gassan (lit. ‘moon mountain’), known as the mountain of death and the past – the second of the three sacred mountains of Dewa in a remote part of northern Japan – beneath a full moon. I lived and worked in the shadow of Gassan half a lifetime ago, and returned following the death of my mother last year. It is the perfect image for Kokoro in so many ways, and I am so grateful to my publisher for this beautiful design (which has navy blur foil to catch the light which I hope shines out of the book).

In KOKORO you will find sorrow, but also much joy. There is a reckoning, but also a renewal. There is darkness, but with it, much light. I hope you absolutely love it.

Having done the audiobooks for each of my written books, I know that it is both as nourishing and as exhausting as three days spent in deep conversation. You come up for air at the end and everything is slightly blurry. It takes a while to get used to the world again, and knowing this, I decided to take the weekend off by the sea in Brighton, to sleep in, poke around vintage shops, drink coffee and meet up with old friends.

Well that was my plan, except on Saturday I started walking after breakfast and didn’t stop for eight hours. In a city which probably has more coffee shops than the entire county I live in, and one I know well from living there for several years, I could not decide where to stop and sit, so I just kept on walking. No lunch. No tea break. Just pavement pounding all day long, unable to make a decision. It was the strangest day.

As I walked along the seafront, listening to the familiar call of seagulls and watching waves batter the old pier, I sensed something behind me. I turned to glimpse a faint memory of my eldest daughter on her first birthday, laughing in a tiny Santa suit as Mr K pushed her along. I walked past a park where an echo of my mum was reading her stories as they sprawled out together on a picnic blanket. I saw my reflection in a shop window, younger, pregnant, in a bright yellow coat, smiling but tired on the inside.

I walked past our old house, more house than we could afford, and I remembered the meltdown on a beautiful wooden floor, which arrived when juggling work and children and paying for all the things all became too much. I remembered how, in that moment, I dreamt of my old life, back when I travelled the world and felt free, and I know now that it was the beginning of my midlife unravelling, which coincided perfectly with my parenting journey, and my entry into the author fray.

Fast forward seven years and I only recently realized that I have written my way through midlife, starting with FREEDOM SEEKER at 39, then WABI SABI at 40, and three more books in the following three years until this one, KOKORO, where the rumbling beneath the surface of my days became too loud to ignore, and just as I turned to face it, my mother died and everything turned to dust.

This book is mostly about what happened next. It’s about what happens when we navigate a major life transition, whatever that may be, whatever life stage we may be in.

Writing it changed my life. Reading it might change yours.

This week Stylist magazine named KOKORO on its list of best new health and wellness books. I am honoured, but I also want you to know that this is not a book of life hacks and quick solutions. It’s a book to change the way you navigate the world, to truly wake you up to the brevity and preciousness of this thing called life, and help you shed all that does not serve so you feel better within your life each and every day.

This book is my heart. I hope you absolutely love it, and that it lingers long after the final page.

Beth Xx

PS Thank you to everyone who helped shape the back cover blurb for Kokoro a couple of months ago, and thank you also for the incredible response to my previous essay about notebooks + dreaming. That is the kind of support makes things happen! I will keep you posted…

Four years since Wabi Sabi came out. Over 200,000 copies sold. And not a visionboard in sight. Wait, what?

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Hello friend,

Four years ago today I was wandering around London with my then editor Anna Steadman, plying booksellers with Japanese treats from Minamoto Kitchoan, and telling them all about my book Wabi Sabi. It was at once excruciating and amazing, which is an odd combination that tends to lead you to eat your ramen way too fast… Anyway, today I am celebrating Wabi Sabi’s four year anniversary, and the fact that well over 200,000 copies have been sold. That absolutely blows my mind. That’s one copy of Wabi Sabi sold every five minutes since it was published four years ago today. That’s Wembley Stadium filled twice over with readers, and tens of thousands queueing up outside. (And I worked at Wembley Stadium for a while. I can imagine it filled with people holding up books instead of being dressed in football kits, and that makes me smile) This has been mostly thanks to word of mouth – that’s YOU. Thank you so very much.

And can I tell you a secret? I didn’t have ‘bestseller’ stuck on a visionboard for this book. In fact, it was after learning a lot about the pointlessness of fixed desire with the experience of my first book Freedom Seeker, that I let go of any desire for a particular outcome of releasing Wabi Sabi into the world, and so many good things I could never even have imagined have unfolded as a result, not to mention all the books I got to write since then. The importance of desirelessness is one of the radical things I explore in my new book The Way of the Fearless Writer. It goes against a lot of what we are taught about goal setting and bestseller obsessions, but I can tell you it’s a whole lot easier on the spirit, and the words just keep on flowing…

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I have a lovely Japan-related giveaway to celebrate this precious anniversary where you can win a HAUL of Japan-related goodies I have gathered for you. To enter please go to my Instagram @bethkempton and look for the image of me holding a map.

To every single one of you who has read, spoken about, shared or gifted Wabi Sabi, THANK YOU. I love you. And please remember, you are perfectly imperfect, just as you are.

Beth Xx

PS Do you know which are the most frequently shared words from Wabi Sabi? These:

 

Wabi sabi teaches us to be content with less, in a way that feels like more:

Less stuff, more soul. Less hustle, more ease. Less chaos, more calm.

Less mass consumption, more unique creation.

Less complexity, more clarity. Less judgement, more forgiveness. Less bravado, more truth.

Less resistance, more resilience. Less control, more surrender. Less head, more heart.

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This was sent out in my weekly newsletter this week. If you’d like inspiration in your inbox from me, please sign up here!

 

Images Holly Bobbins Photography

How to cope with the guilt that comes with doing what you love

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A few days ago I got a Direct Message on Instagram from someone asking me an interesting question which is relevant to so many of us, so I thought I’d share my response here in case it is of interest to you, too. The DM said, “I feel like I have wondered into another chapter of my life that I didn’t know was waiting for me. I am trying to make space for myself but all of the space I create by necessity, takes me away from the family I decided to have, the job I wanted etc, so it gives me a huge amount of guilt. A large part of what you do also has to be on your own or in quiet places or with contemplative people. Do you struggle with time being split between your family and partner and the things you perhaps need and enjoy or allow you space? And if so how do you balance that?”

This question is essentially, “Don’t you feel guilty about doing what you love, and if you do, how do you cope with it?” I have a lot of thoughts about this – here are a few of them:

(1) A lot of my quiet time is not separate from my job, it’s necessary for my job – both in terms of my writing and the businesses I run. For me ‘doing what you love’ is a lot about how you spend each day, both in work and outside of work, and the work I choose requires quiet time which I love, hence my choice to do it. In theory I should no more feel guilty for it than anyone should feel guilty for going to work in a more conventional job. No-one ever asks a plumber if they feel guilty going to work, but our societal conditioning somehow makes us think that if we love it, and it’s creative, it can’t be real work which is sad and ridiculous, but also the state of things. Having said that, because it often doesn’t feel like ‘work’ in the way we are conditioned to think about work, the truth is I do feel guilty sometimes, so this is a fantastic question.

(2) I have worked on this parental guilt a lot, and talk about it in my new book The Way of the Fearless Writer because it can be a huge obstacle for getting to the page, and doing anything creative. Here’s the thing: I have come to understand that I am a better everything (mum, wife, friend etc) for having written or spent time with the ideas calling to me. By better I mean more present, patient, and awake to my life. My family knows this and we talk about it. Me doing my thing is good for all of us in many ways, and it might be the same for you. Recognising this can be a game changer in terms of getting the support you need to make time and space, and not feel bad about it.

(3) I make sacrifices. I often choose to spend time with my ideas instead of with friends in real life. Not always, but often. The truth is that these past few years I have put more effort into writing new books than making new friendships. I rarely meet up with people for coffee in the middle of the day because I’d rather be on a long walk in the hills or by the sea figuring out the idea for my next book. This doesn’t mean I think less of friends, I just don’t hang out with them all the time. I am sure this means I miss out on things, but a book (like art, or a new business) is the result of hundreds of tiny decisions to work on it, rather than something else. That’s a personal choice. It has not always been this way, and it might not always be this way, but it’s how I feel at this point in my life, so I’m going with it.

(4) I get up really early most days. Mr K gets up early too. We do our own thing for a couple of hours – me writing, yoga, walking etc and him pilates or running – and our children don’t even notice because they are sleeping. It’s bliss.

(5) Outside of ‘work’ I make room for creative time with a few choices – I don’t iron clothes (sorry Mum). I almost never watch TV (except for Grey’s Anatomy, currently still on season 13, no spoilers please). I batch cook food in winter and eat a lot of salad in summer. I don’t spend much time consuming social media (even when I am active on my own accounts). These simple things free up a lot of time.

(6) I encourage my husband to do stuff he loves too, away from me and the girls. He loves to go on long runs, sometimes to the pub, sometimes paddleboarding etc. He teaches pilates and doesn’t feel guilty about the time spent doing that, which reminds me not to feel guilty about the time I spend doing things I love.

(7) I think I am sending our girls an important message doing what I love, and turning formless ideas into food on the table, not to mention teaching them that quiet time and space matters for our well-being.

(8) There is a season for everything. I often write my books in winter which requires big chunks of time away from others. At other times I am much more available to everyone and it helps us all to know that.

(9) Sometimes it helps to work backwards. What’s your ideal day and how can you reconfigure your life to make that support your work and family as well as your own health and creativity? It’s just possible that in the end everyone will be grateful that you did.

(10) Life is short. You might as well do what you love, not just in the big scheme of things but inside every day. Just sayin’

If you have questions like this about doing what you love I’m always open to them. I love pondering them and might share in a future post so feel free to drop me a DM on Instagram @bethkempton.

Beth Xx

PS This post was originally sent as a newsletter to my community. If you’d like to get love letters and inspiration like this direct into your inbox just hop on the list for free here.

PPS It has been a big week for my Book Proposal Masterclass graduates over here – one graduate is deciding between multiple agents wanting to represent her, Emma S just landed an agent for a book idea I adore, and Ann Garcia’s How to Pay for College was published. We have just opened registration for the next class (February 2023) with an early bird discount of 30% off and an instalment plan, because I know some of you wanted to spread payments over several months. If you want to join me to get your non-fiction book proposal done in February, you can book your spot here.

NEW BOOK ALERT!

Metamorphosis, in front of my eyes.

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A month ago the postman knocked at the door. “You’d better open this one soon,” he winked, handing a brown box to our six-year old birthday girl. “Are they dead, mummy?” she asked wide-eyed, carefully lifting the clear pot out of the box and staring at the five motionless hairy caterpillars inside, sprawled across some pale brown gunk. “Erm, I think they are sleeping,” I hoped, quietly wondering whether it was legal to send living things in the post.

A week later those caterpillars had eaten all the gunk at the bottom of the jar, quadrupled in size and crawled up to the underside of the lid, to dangle like a showoff doing one-handed tricks on monkey bars. Over the next couple of days they seemed to grow a cocoon, as if it was their own body thickening up, rather than spinning a web around themselves as I had always imagined. When those chrysalides hardened, we carefully lifted the lid off the pot, creatures still attached, and transferred it to the pop-up net habitat that had arrived with our unusual package. Over the next few days the chrysalides darkened and texturized into charcoal grey beads flecked with gold.

I became obsessed with them, watching for the slightest changes in their outer layer, imagining I could see the imprint of folded wings pushing against the hard casing. One sunny morning we went to the beach for a couple of hours, and piled back into the house all noisy and sandy before someone cried, “Look!” Three butterflies had emerged, and were clinging to the wall of their net home. Their shed skins remained attached to the lid at one end, the other end burst through in that moment of emergence.

They began as caterpillars and emerged as butterflies. I knew it was likely to happen. Of course I did. I had learnt about it in primary school forty years ago. But still I’m not sure I believed it would actually work. It seemed unfathomable. How did the caterpillars know what to do? How was that brown gunk enough to create something so beautiful? Where were their wings hidden? Surely they didn’t just spin them like fairy fabric in a matter of days? And how on earth did three of them emerge within an hour or so of each other, after all that time? (The other two had been disturbed when we moved them to their habitat and had fidgeted for a while. That must have taken some of their energy reserves, and they were the last to emerge a couple of days later)

Perhaps what amazed me the most was the realization that the caterpillar doesn’t actually turn into the butterfly, changing its whole body and so on. Rather it simply grows wings. I don’t think I knew that before, but having studied them so closely before they became chrysalides, I recognized their caterpillar faces as butterflies. Close up they were the essentially the same. From a distance they were completely new. When we released them, they instinctively knew what to do.

Their period of retreat had been an intense period of growth, away from the world, still and silent yet intensely fertile as they spun potential from their own bodies. What emerged was not another creature, but the same one, changed. The same face, but with the courage and confidence that wings can bring – wings they didn’t have to think to grow, but rather wings that grew on them, when they surrendered to the process, and trusted. Metamorphosis, just like that.

I am sending this to you from a short writing retreat where I too am surrendering to the process. It isn’t easy, or comfortable, but my winged friends reminded me that I don’t have to work so hard at it. Instead I just need to get quiet and wait. Then I’ll know what to write, or I perhaps will be written.

Have a good week friends,
Beth Xx

PS Did you know I have a brand new course starting on Monday? It’s called Excavate Your Life: writing towards clarity and direction. This extraordinarily rich five week life-exploration/personal development/writing course is a unique opportunity to discover what you really want from life. And as a special treat to celebrate its launch you can get 30% off with the code DIGDEEP if you register here by Monday.

(Butterfly images: Holly Bobbins Photography. Lotus image: Unsplash/Zoltan Tasi)

Excavate Your Life (brand new personal development + writing course!)

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For months now I have been working on a brand new course which combines personal development and writing, as a way to navigate life. Excavate Your Life is a rich online course which offers a unique opportunity to explore what you really want from life, while honing your writing skills. Join me, bestselling self-help author Beth Kempton as I guide you on a wild and beautiful journey towards clarity and direction. Each weekday for five weeks you will get a juicy lesson (audio, video, journaling worksheet and writing challenge) to help you go deep and stretch your writing. By the end of the course, the alchemical nature of it all will ensure you have a stronger sense of what really matters to you, and a clearer idea of where to focus your time, energy and attention. Not to mention having much more confidence in your writing after all that practice…

This is a very special hybrid writing and personal growth course which I have designed to help you find clarity and direction, both in your writing and in your life. I have spent more than a decade helping people to navigate change and reconfigure their lives to do what they love. I have also written a series of self-help books, all connected by a thread of making the most of this precious life.

It’s so easy in the rush of the modern world to go through the motions of each day without stopping to think what it’s all about, whether we are actually awake to our experience, and how we want to make the most of whatever is left, without knowing how long that will be. Personally I find journaling and writing incredibly powerful tools to help me tune in to the world, to my life, to other people, and to myself. I have brought all of this together in this course, with the aim that by the end of it you will be inspired, motivated and ready for whatever might be next.

To celebrate the launch of this brand new course you are invited to join with a 30% discount – just use the coupon code DIGDEEP when you register here by Monday August 23 (when class begins). Sign up now and start excavating your life. You never know what goodness you might find.

Beth Xx

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Who’s it for?

This is for you if any of the following are true:

  • You want to make a major change in life
  • You are wondering ‘What should I do with my life?’
  • You need help figuring out what you really want
  • You want to shake things up and get out of a rut
  • You want to mine your life for its most valuable lessons
  • You are looking for a sense of meaning and purpose OR
  • You want to write a memoir or a book that explores the human experience

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What’s included?

The course has been designed as a five-week intensive class, and includes:

  • Daily Spark audios to get your creative juices flowing
  • Daily video lessons, each guiding you to excavate your life from a different perspective
  • Daily journaling worksheets to guide you gently through the excavation process, seeking out clues and patterns to help you envision what kind of life you want to create
  • Daily writing challenges to push you out of your writing comfort zone and explore what you are really capable of
  • PLUS Along the way I include a host of insights into my experience helping thousands of people to navigate change, and writing five self-help books

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About your tutor

Beth Kempton has spent the last decade helping tens of thousands of people find creative ways to live well doing what they love, through powerful online courses and workshops as founder of Do What You Love. Beth writes self-help books which have been translated into 24 languages.

Her bestselling book ‘Wabi Sabi: Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life’ has been recommended by TIME Magazine, British Vogue, The Telegraph, and Psychologies Magazine, described as ‘a truly transformational read’ by Sunday Times Style. She is also the author of Freedom Seeker: Live more. Worry less. Do what you love., Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year and most recently, We Are in This Together: Finding hope and opportunity in the depths of adversity’ (Piatkus) which she wrote in sixteen days in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis. Mother of two adorable girls, she lives a slow-ish life in Devon, UK.

Important note

Please be aware that this is not a replacement for clinical therapy. Please seek professional clinical advice if you need it. Please also note that this class does not include specific advice on writing technique or any feedback on individual writing samples. It is a self-paced course so there is no direct interaction with Beth. It is also designed as a very personal experience so there is no private community with this course.

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FAQ

Do I have to be online at a certain time to join in?

The classroom will open on August 23, 2021, and content will be released from that date. You do not have to log on at a certain time – you can follow the course at whatever pace suits you. You will have classroom access until January 31 2023 and most of the content is downloadable anyway.

Can I join if I live outside of the UK?

Yes you can join from anywhere.

Any other questions?

Drop the team a line at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to help.

Comfort + joy in winter

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Nourishing your mind at this time of year can look as simple as turning away from overstimulation—to-do lists, screens, loud music, bright lights, toxic conversations—and making your way into nature, open spaces, fresh air, peace and quiet. Try counting the shades of evergreens, inhaling the aroma of wild herbs, listening for signs of life. On cold, sunny days, look for berries, or different leaf shapes, or visiting birds. Seek out hardy plants emerging from cracks in the pavement. Make bark rubbings with a little person. Fill up a feeder for the birds. I find the ever-changing sky a powerful tonic for the soul. For you, it might be the nearness of water, or the bare bones of trees, stripped of their leaves. Seek whatever you need. Document your finds. Photograph them. Sketch them. Forage a few samples for your bedside table. Or nourish your mind with words—write about your day, take time out with an inspiring podcast or a good book, or settle in for a long conversation.

With England heading back into national lockdown today, and tensions high for so many people, it seems like a good time to look for ways to find comfort and joy in winter. This week’s episode of The Calm Christmas Podcast is all about that, and it’s out now on iTunes, on Spotify or here on my website.

I also invite you to join my Winter Writing Sanctuary, a two-week online class starting on November 23. Given all that is going on in the world right now I have decided to make this completely FREE. Book your place here and join me and hundreds of other writers from all around the world as we escape into a cosy world of words this winter. All levels welcome. Hope to see you there!

Take good care
Beth Xx

 

Writing is medicine and it can help us get through this together.

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How have you been doing lately? I have been thinking about you, in your corner of the world, dealing with the things that have been thrown at you, and I have been quietly sending love.

We all deal with difficult situations in different ways. For me, writing always helps.

Whether that means journaling to get something out of my head, penning poetry to find beauty in the darkness, exploring ideas on paper or channelling my fire into a new book,

I always find that words are my medicine.

We are all grieving something right now. Lost loved ones, lost freedoms, lost jobs, lost rites of passage that will never take place, old pieces of our lives that will never return in the same form.

Collectively, our healing is going to take a long time, but we can begin where we are, putting words onto paper, and letting our hearts speak.

That’s why I have created ‘Words Heal’, a short writing class, offering gentle guidance, inspiring prompts and an insight into the writing life, to help you write your way through this. You can join me for this live class over two weeks in June (worth £20) for FREE when you pre-order my new book ‘We Are in This Together: Finding hope and opportunity in the depths of adversity’.

Writing can be medicine, and we need it more than ever at times like this. This short online class will equip you with tools to help process some of the complex feelings that bubble up in a crisis, stabilise your ship and find reasons to be hopeful. It will also help you hone your writing into something deeply personal which will help you connect with others.

If you want to join me, it’s simple:

  • Pre-order We Are in This Together on Amazon. If you are in the US/Canada, the audiobook is here. The ebook will be available for pre-order from early next week so please check amazon.com then.
  • Click here and fill in the short form with your details. That’s it! Then you’ll get my new book as soon as it is out, and I’ll see you in the writing class on June 8.

Much love at this time

Beth Xx