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The question is not IF you journal, but HOW?

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Tiffany Eckhardt, master of reinvention, author and certified life coaching helping midlife women answer the question, what's next.

My question this week is not IF you journal, but HOW do you journal?

After publishing The Four Stages Of Reinvention Journal, I have attracted more journal loving folks into my life.  I LOVE sharing the virtues of journaling with kindred spirits and learning all the creative ways to express our inner world on paper.

The point of journaling is to get your thoughts out of your mind and connect to the parts of your soul often ignored or silenced by the demands of life.  How you journal is just as personal as your inner thoughts.  

My journal practice

I enjoy a quiet morning ritual sitting in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee.  It’s my time to catch up on the world and journal.  Although, I am spending less time scrolling through the chaos, preferring to understand what I’m thinking first.  

My journal practice is eclectic, and sometimes moody.  At times I am devoted to the trinity thoughts (A brag, gratitude and a desire), while other times I simply vent my random thoughts in a mind dump.  

I have a formula I put my thoughts, feelings, actions and results into.  This is the secret sauce to understanding how I want to think or feel about any circumstance.  

I wish I was more artistic, but creativity does find me during these morning moments.  Ideas flow from a managed mind at peace.  

Always open to new journal practices, I was excited to be introduced to a couple new ones.  

Future Self journaling

I recently had the opportunity to take part in a master mind session called Meeting My Future Self, where my new friend Miriam guided an amazing meditation to meet the woman I will be in the future.  

Miriam invited me to envision a path that opened up to my future home.  I envisioned the breath taking castle owned by Darcy in Pride And Prejudice.  A confident woman led me through her beautiful home on a picturesque property with a huge pond and winding driveway.  We hung out in a room with tall windows overlooking an English garden.  I took a peak at her office, a white room with book shelves with no clutter.  She gave me a very special gift that signified that I no longer needed to wait for permission to achieve my dreams.  

There is no way to to convey the impact this meditation had on me, most of which was symbolic.  Since that experience, I have questioned wether my confident future self would spend time worrying about my daily stresses, or would she get to work solving the problems?  

Miriam encourages a daily practice focusing on your future self.  I couldn’t agree more!!!!

Future self journaling gets you out of the rut of obsessing about the past or worrying about the future.  You can’t do anything about the past, but you can create the future.  Allow your imagination to guide you!  

Cosmic Smashbook

I could really use a dose of this whimsy!  Another new friend, Jillian McGill leads workshops creating cosmic smashbooks.  I love the idea of learning to express my inner life through works of art.  

The concept is similar to the focus boards I used to create, and has inspired me to add art inside my journals.  I will start with pasting magazine images onto the pages, and maybe allow myself to doodle.  

Search the hashtag #cosmicsmashbook for ideas to create your own!

Do you do creative journaling?

How do you get started?

Well, like the old Nike commercial encouraged…. JUST DO IT.

Activate your imagination

Set aside a few minutes daily

Create your own practice with the ideas I’ve shared

I can help!

My clients love my journal prompts designed to ask questions that get to the heart of what they’re navigating. 

I’d love to talk to you about the benefit of personalized coaching.  I invite you to visit my calendar link and pick a date/time that works for you.  

My new journal, The Four Stages Of Reinvention offers journal prompts with each stage.  This self-paced journal will help you find your future and answer the question, what’s next.

You can purchase The Four Stages Of Reinvention on Amazon, or click the link provided! 

P.S. A Cosmic gathering to be announced this week!

This week I will be announcing an awesome collaboration Jillian McGill has organized with expert authors, coaches, artists, teachers and speakers from all over the world (including me).

As I have mentioned, I have been attracting like minded women who want to thrive in the season we know as midlife.  I am honored to be in the company of so many extraordinary women.  

Stay Tuned for the exciting news!

Here’s to thriving y’all!

~Tiffany

And the birds fluttered around her writing “YES” in the sky

Are you boring?

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Skipping down the yellow brick road….

How can midlife possibly be boring???

What I’ve heard from clients….

They finally broke free from the J.O.B., ditching the demanding schedule. 

Their kids are finally off the pay roll and living productive lives.  

They’ve planned for retirement and can finally breathe a sigh of relief.  

So… why does their new found freedom possibly feel empty, lonely or boring? 

What piques your curiosity?

I like to say that an empty nest is not boring because I live there.  Jeff won’t have to worry about a boring retirement.  There will always be a constant flow of ideas demanding his energy.  

I’ve been binge watching a YouTube channel, Roots and Refuge.  This sweet couple is living their dream publicly and sharing what they know about homesteading.  

This piqued my curiosity.  I wonder why I had never saved seeds?  Could this help me expand my garden?  These questions led to designing a new garden for all my new seeds and propagations.  

Guess what Jeff was doing this weekend????  

See full REEL on Instagram…. @2flownthecoop

Let loose your playfulness

Has your curiosity led you down a yellow brick road lately?  

From Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book Goddesses Never Age, around age 60 women’s fertility stops being about having children and starts being about what she can create for herself and for those around her.  

“They’re exuberant about life and they let loose their curiosity and playfulness.”  Dr. Northrup

That’s curious!  

How do you let playfulness and curiosity loose?  Here are a few ideas that came to mind….

  • Don’t wait to have a little one in tow to visit the museum or zoo.  
  • Join a Meet-up group (from eating out to fasting challenges)
  • Get a library card
  • Plan solo travel – I’ve done this in Costa Rica!  
  • Take dancing lessons
  • Learn to cook an exotic meal
  • Start a home apothecary (endless discoveries with this one!)
  • Take an interest in your genealogy
  • Invite an acquaintance to lunch or coffee
  • Attempt a cartwheel in the back yard (yep I occasionally do this to see if I still can)

Let me know if you either tried one or thought of one of your own!

How can I help?

“Curiosity is the insubordination in its purest form.”  Vladimir Nabokov

Still feeling stuck in boredom?  I can help you rebel from that mindset!

I offer several tools to get reacquainted with your youthful imagination.  

*Take advantage of my free guide, Rise Above Your Own Midlife BS.  I wanted to create a guide for women who think they are too old to change or create something completely different. 

*Get your copy of my recently published journal on Amazon, The Four Stages Of Reinvention.  This journal will help you discover there are predictable phases of change and build a road map for your future.    

*Take advantage of personalized coaching with me.  Not sure what that entails?  I invite you to find out if coaching is a good fit for you by scheduling a consultation.  Simply go to my calendar and pick a date/time that works for you.  

Here’s to letting loose curiosity and playfulness, and yellow brick roads!

~Tiffany

And the birds fluttered around her writing “YES” in the sky

What I learned from my new hat

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Tiffany Eckhardt; master of reinvention, certified life coach and author. Helping midlife women answer the question what's next?
photo credit Ellen Renee Photography

What I learned from my new hat

I have a new hat to wear.  It’s actually the new title of published author.

I’m excited to announce my newly published journal, The Four Stages of Reinvention Journal, A Journal For the Journey on Amazon.  

Good thing I love hats, I have many.  My personal hats are of a wife, mother, daughter, sister, Fancy (aka grandma), niece and loyal friend.  Professionally I wear the hat of a certified life coach, but prefer to be called master of reinvention. My beloved guest house owner hat hardly feels like work.  Heck, you could say I have an abundant collection of hats!

My new hat accentuates my passion for helping women find their future, to believe their best years are ahead.  The Four Stages Of Reinvention walks you through the stages of resistance to resilience with journal practices to compliment each stage.  

Now that I’ve survived the process of publishing a journal on Amazon, I am ready to share what I’ve learned.

Get help from friends with amazing hats

Abundance is relational.  Thank God I’m abundantly blessed with people willing to help me.  The classic book Think And Grow Rich teaches the importance of building a network of support.

I could not have completed this project without my bestie, author Dawn Gardner.  First of all, she is the amazing photographer I used for many of the graphics.  As if that wasn’t valuable enough, she offered design suggestions, helped me format my pages for the journal and the cover, and was an invaluable beta reader.  

An awesome Master Mind leader and coach, Peg Wedig graciously offered editing suggestions, line by line and word by word to correct grammar and help fine tune my message.

I had several friends who read the journal before publishing, including a new friend Jillian McGill.  I’m honored to be included in her upcoming Empowered Woman’s Summit and love the review she offered!  

“Made me think quite a bit. For me, it seems that with a BIG life challenge I’m currently moving through, I dance between the four stages.  The inquiries and journal prompts are rich and robust. It’s beautifully put together.”

Wear an editor’s hat often

I will just admit it here.  I have poor grammar and spelling skills, which most likely frustrates my teacher and author friends.  The grammar police on social media has given me many citations over the years. 

In my haste to publish, I misspelled the word whether, the first word on the description page.  UUGH!  I discovered the misspelled word after I announced the journal on my personal Facebook page.  As a result, I learned how to properly correct copy on Amazon’s publishing, which took me several days.  Forgetting the first “h” in whether set me back about a week.  

Again, in my haste to share the journal, I sent out an email to 600 subscribers in the third person.  I had copied and pasted the the description page on Amazon.  It was too late to do anything about it.  I apologize for that one!  I was just too excited to edit my email properly.  

Live and learn!

Practice patience

Yeah, I don’t have much.  Can you relate?

I did practice patience in the creation stage of the journal, taking the time to recruit beta readers and painfully editing the journal.  Gratefully, my patience produced a beautiful journal.  

Publishing the journal tried my patience.  I love graphic design, but learning to format pages with bleed was frustrating.  {Thanks Dawn for getting me through that!}.  Waiting for the journal to go live was nerve-racking.  Waiting for a correction on the description page was gut-wrenching.  Finally, waiting for the first report on sales to post had me in knots. I’m hoping the journal will be well received, and to have a Sally Field moment, “You like me!  You really, really like me!”

Learning curve

I will continue to be a student of the publishing world, occasionally frustrating the grammar police on my blog and social media posts, and bugging my fiends for input on my grand ideas.  My work will gradually become polished as I learn from all the mistakes along the way.  

I am embracing the learning curve with humility and proving that age does not dictate what can be done or experienced. 

I share all of my imperfections in the hope of inspiring you to step out of your comfort zone.  

What are you waiting for?

Let me know how I can help!  

If you are resisting change in your life, let me encourage you. Once you’ve mastered the four stages or reinvention, you’ll never waste time fighting change again. 

You are capable of wearing multiple hats and learning to wear new ones.  

If you need help moving through a big life challenge, let’s connect.  I can help you dance through the stages of reinvention.  Check out my calendar for a free consultation!  

AND… check out my newly published journal on Amazon!  

Here’s to new hats!

~Tiffany

And the birds fluttered around her writing “YES” in the sky.

The miracle of journaling

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Here I go again… touting the virtues of journaling.  In fact, this time I will go a step further by offering the miracles of journaling.  I’ve discovered the practice of gratitude journaling actually reveals miracles.  

The scoop

This is a very trying time, I’m going to assume it is for you too.  I have had several set backs and a huge life altering decision heavy on my heart, to the point I actually felt heart sick.  At the same time, our family has so many rich blessings to celebrate. 

The pages of my journal are a bit schizophrenic lately, celebrating the joyful highs and then diving deep into despair.  I am not afraid of feeling the wide range of emotions available to our human heart, but this gave new meaning to having a torn heart.  

I practice gratitude, but this time I was crying out for miracles. 

Getting connected 

There are two ways to live life:  One as if nothing is a miracle, the other as if everything is.  ~Albert Einstein

Let that sink in.  

Are you connected to the miracles in your life?  

Journaling is the perfect way to get connected to your life.  In fact, as I was lamenting my need for miracles I had an epiphany.  Instead of journaling gratitude, what if I create a list of miracles?  Could I find a miracle in my life?  Could I come up with ten miracles?   

The miracle

And just like that miracles opened to me.  

Miracle:  an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. {I’d like to add intervention in human hearts}

Miracles aren’t rare, reserved for the special people.  If you are aware, you will start seeing extraordinary events unfold in normal every day life.  

Heck, YOU are a miracle.   Statistically you have a one in 400 trillion chance of being born.  

“That’s a pretty big number,” I thought to myself. If I had 400 trillion pennies, I could probably build a decent-sized penny fortress with it. ~ Mel Robbins

The miracle of journaling challenge

Join me in a journal challenge to list ten miracles you’ve experienced recently.  Start a list that you can add to on a daily basis.  

What could be considered a miracle?  

  • LIFE is a miracle
  • A beautiful rainbow or sunset… how do those beautiful colors appear in the sky?
  • A marriage enduring life’s most difficult seasons
  • FaceTime calls from grandkids when you really miss them
  • A call from your son with the big announcement that he proposed to his girlfriend
  • Connecting with a kindred spirit on a FB group who becomes a cherished friend
  • Watching seeds you planted in your garden mature to a harvest
  • A chance conversation at a party that leads to a beautiful opportunity
  • The miracle of resilience after a very hard season

Still struggling to see miracles in your life?  Let me offer that anything you are grateful for has the seed of a miracle planted within it.  

Open your heart a little to see how extraordinary life really is.  

Are you curious about your miracles?

I want to hear from you.  

Will you take the challenge?  If so….

What in your daily life presented itself as a miracle?  

How difficult or easy was the challenge?

Do you feel more connected to the miraculous?

Do you agree with Einstein that you are capable of seeing everything in life as a miracle?

Lets connect

It’s my passion to inspire woman to lead miraculous lives, with abundant possibilities.  

Hearts grounded and souls free!

Abundance is relational.

If you’re a woman of miracles… let’s connect!  

If you long for miracles… let’s connect!  

Let’s band together for a collective mission to rise above all the BS!  

I offer several ways to connect with me…. 

Join my Tiff’s Tidbits, an encouraging weekly email with special offers

Follow me on Facebook – daily encouragement

Follow me on Instagram – encouragement and wacky videos

Schedule a consultation – I invite you for a zoom chat!  

So here’s to discovering the miracles and as the poet Derek Walcott writes, Sit and feast on your life.

~Tiffany

And the birds fluttered around her writing “YES” in the sky