Wellness YouTube Playlist

 

Writing for Peace, Not Performance

 

Writing looks different for me now.

There was a time when writing felt tied to output. Posting consistently. Finishing what I started. Making sure it made sense, looked right, and said something meaningful to others. There was an unspoken pressure to produce, to show up in a way that felt complete, polished, and ready to be received.

But life has a way of interrupting performance.

Illness slowed me down. Recovery changed my rhythm. Grief shifted what I had the capacity to carry. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, writing stopped being something I did to share and became something I needed to survive.

I didn’t always have the energy to organize my thoughts. Some days, I didn’t have the words at all. Other days, the words came but they came heavy. Unfiltered. Unstructured. Honest. And instead of pushing that away or trying to clean it up, I started allowing it.

That was the shift.

Writing recently hasn’t been for performance, it’s been for peace.

Peace in getting it out.
Peace in not holding everything in.
Peace in allowing my thoughts to exist without forcing them into perfection.

Some days writing looks like a full blog post. Other days it’s a sentence. A voice note. A few thoughts captured before they disappear. And I’ve learned that all of it counts.

Trying to force creativity in a season of healing only created more resistance. But when I allowed myself to write from where I actually am, the words began to meet me there.

I didn’t force clarity.
I allowed truth.

And truth doesn’t always come polished. Sometimes it comes in fragments. In pauses. In reflections that don’t tie themselves together right away. But even in that, there is value. Because the goal is no longer perfection, the goal is release.

Writing became a way for me to process what I’ve lived through. To sit with my thoughts instead of running from them. To make sense of emotions that didn’t always have language at first.

It also became a way for me to return to myself.

Not the version of me that felt pressure to perform, but the version of me that simply needed space to be. Space to feel. Space to create without expectation. Space to simply be.

And in that space, something unexpected happened.

My voice didn’t disappear, it became clearer.
My thoughts didn’t scatter, they began to connect.
My creativity didn’t leave, it just needed a different environment to grow.

Writing for peace allowed me to stay present with my grief and my creativity at the same time—without asking one to disappear so the other could exist.

That, for me, is what makes this season different.

I’m not writing to prove anything. I have nothing to prove.
I’m not writing to keep up. I'm going at my own pace.
I’m not writing to perform. Rather to simply get my thoughts out.

I’m writing to breathe.

And somehow, in choosing peace, I found my voice again. 

Relaxing Music For Children - Be Calm and Focused (cute animals) | 3 Hours Extended Mix

This video is one of my favorite videos to use in the classroom. I've used it when students are completing quiet work, when students were coming back from lunch or when we were taking a moment to take a breath. 

Zen Meditation Music, Reiki Music, Chakra, Relaxing Music, Music for Stress Relief, Zen

 

Perfectly Packaged Series

    In January, I started writing about having a creative block. During that time I began to realize that I'm perfectly packaged. Perfectly packaged to me means that I'm a writer, I self-publish my books. I'm also an educator. I'm a mommy. I'm a Believer. I'm a daughter experiencing the first year without her father and I assist with caring for my mom. All of those things make me who I am.

    During the pandemic and even afterwards I heard a lot of people talk about niching down and just focus on that one thing. As a self-publisher, I have assisted several authors with releasing their books. What I found was that niching down wasn't working for me in the way that I thought it would. 

    So a lot of my posts on social media were about self-publishing and about the books that I have written. I created www.lindarinsights.com & I also have a Google site. I was doing all of the things. However something was missing.

    Through those experiences I began to realize that by niching down I was leaving out parts of me.  Those parts of me are just as important or even more important than just sharing about one thing that I do. I think that helping people to bring their book to life is incredible. I also know that my life experiences are incredible too.

    Below, I've included links to all of my blog posts in the perfectly package series. I hope that you enjoy reading each post. Know that you don't have to niche down. Your life experiences are designed to encompass the whole of who you are. You are creative and knowledgeable and I don't think you can set that aside just to niche down.

Releasing the Pressure to Niche Down

When “Niche Down” Costs You Parts of Yourself

Nothing Was Wasted

Leadership Without a Title

Hello Spring!!

This above all to thine ownself be true.

Gratitude Playlist - YouTube

 

I Hear You Say - Joann Rosario

 

Perfectly Packaged - Leadership Without a Title

    There was a time when I thought leadership came with a title. A position. A seat at the table where decisions were made and voices were heard. When those opportunities didn't pan out, I began to see leadership differently.

    Being let go and overlooked for leadership roles has a way of making you question yourself, your skillset and your abilities. You start replaying conversations. You wonder what happened, did I say something wrong or do something wrong. You wonder if your voice carried weight or if it simply carried hope. 

    Over time, those experiences began to have a reoccurring theme. That theme was that I didn't speak the same language as those who had the power to promote me. At some point I realized that my gifts were only valuable to be used by others, my voice needed to be quiet. Ouch!

    But life has a way of showing me what I could not see until I experienced it.

    Leadership didn't show up in a title for me. It showed up in hospital rooms and rehabilitation centers. It showed up in the quiet determination to get up when my body didn't want to move. It showed up in grief when my family needed strength and presence. It showed up in motherhood, in faith, in the decision to keep writing even when my voice felt fragile. And boy did it feel fragile.

    Leadership wasn't absent from my life. 
    It was simply happening in places that weren't being measured. 

    In the hospital. 
    In rehabilitation. 
    In my sons' schools and athletic endeavors.

    When you are navigating illness, recovery, and loss, there is no title attached to the resilience required to keep going. You just keep going. You do it for yourself and for your family. There is no promotion that recognizes the courage it takes to face uncertainty and still believe that better days exist ahead. Yet those moments require a kind of leadership that cannot be taught in a classroom or assigned in a meeting.

    They require lived leadership. 

    I've come to understand that leadership is less about authority and more about stewardship. Stewardship of your voice. Stewardship of your story. Stewardship of the truth that emerges from the life you've lived. 

    And when you begin to see leadership that way, something shifts.

    You stop waiting for permission to lead. 
    You stop begging for seats and constantly trying to jog the memories of others of what you brought to the table. 
    Honestly, sometimes you have to value who you are and remove yourself from the table. Even if it hurts.

    You stop shrinking the parts of yourself that carry wisdom simply because they didn't arrive through traditional pathways.

    What I thought was a company to help others share their stories has slowly revealed something deeper. It revealed that my leadership was never dependent on a title. It was already present in the way I listen, the way I write, the way I encourage others to find language for their own lives.

    Leadership without a title is quieter, but it is no less powerful.

    It is the kind of leadership that grows from experience instead of position. It is the kind that creates space for others to see themselves more clearly. It is the kind that reminds people that their story matters long before anyone else validates it.

    And that kind of leadership cannot be taken away, overlooked, disregarded or reassigned. It was cultivated both through life experiences and formal education. No longer will I allow my gift to be used at the expense of my voice not being heard. 

    

My Self-Publishing Journey