🧵 Thursday Thread | What Makes You Feel Useful, Alive & Strong?

Three questions to help you determine the course of your life

Hi, friends!

Thank you so much for the caring and love you sent my way yesterday in regard to Jon’s health. Hopefully the trip to Mayo next week will lead us closer to answers.

Meanwhile, in our ongoing effort to prepare our house and yard for the garden party we’re hosting for Max and Kaela on the morning after their wedding, I came across some old “journals.” I use the quotes because I don’t really journal, per se, but I do write things down in notebooks. I don’t know what the difference is other than my notebooks contain a lot of things that no one would expect in a traditional journal—things like to-do lists, work notes, drafts of letters I might or might not send, drafts of poems I might or might not finish, grocery lists, etc.

Sometimes, though, the journals contain real contemplation—a genuine record of my inner life at the time of the writing. I came across one such journal last night, wherein I was working through Danielle LaPorte’s Fire Starter sessions.

The whole thing is super interesting to me, but most of all what catches my attention is how powerful these questions really were/are. I can see that I worked hard in these pages—this was 2011—to ask and answer my deepest heart’s desires, and to identify the actions I could take (and stop taking) to help me become the person I wanted to be.

All of the questions I answered in the journal feel urgent and useful, but the three that really leap out for me are these:

What activities make you feel useful, alive, and strong?

When do you feel like a rockstar, a gifted contributor, a really useful human being, cool and purposeful?

What do you want to be known for?

It’s extraordinary for me to see what has come of my life in the fifteen years since asking and answering these questions. Note that in 2011, I had not finished my so-called novel (it became a lyric memoir, The Part That Burns), I had not applied for any MFA programs (or even writing workshops), and I had not taught any workshops or retreats of my own. Now, my book lives in the world instead of my imagination, I am about to sign a contract for a second book (shhhh!!! I will say more so soon!), and I have taught dozens of workshops, hundreds of classes, and mentored dozens of writers one on one.

In 2011, what I knew—what comes through clearly in the pages of this journal—was that the only way forward from where I was to where I am (and where, hopefully, I am going) was one word at a time.

But the questions I was asking and answering (thanks to the Fire Starter prompts) helped me to identify how I wanted to feel in my life, and why—and from there, the kinds of actions I needed to take to feel that way.

So, what about you? What might happen if you ask yourself these questions, allow yourself to answer them sincerely, and perhaps live one day into the answers? Should we try?

Feel free to answer one, two, or all three. Or, another question that’s burning for you. So many beautiful journeys begin with a question.

So …

What activities make you feel useful, alive, and strong?

When do you feel like a rockstar, a gifted contributor, a really useful human being, cool and purposeful?

What do you want to be known for?

Love,

Jeannine

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