Whew, we made it to April. March was an incredibly busy month for me. I was out of town March 14-17 for a conference called Alt Summit, and then again March 22-30 for another conference called AWP. Even before leaving for both those trips I was asking myself the question: was that the best decision? To commit to going to two conferences back-to-back?
Last year when AWP was in Kansas City, I was one year post-relapse and new treatments but still had a lot of lingering symptoms. So instead of attending the entire conference for 3 days, I stayed just 2 nights and my priority for being there was the off-site reading event that I have been hosting for 9 years now with three other nonfiction publications.
In this episode:
how it was such a relief to still attend the conference in a way that works for me
why I was in no condition to travel and had to skip the AWP conference in 2023
when we don't have the capacity, bandwidth, energy to deal with, yes travel and logistics, but also our creative lives
how I'm able to get my monthly medication infusions at home
even getting my treatments at home, why the infusions in February and March went badly
what I learned from two bad infusions in a row & why this was such an eye-opening experience
how this lesson came up for me again when attending the Alt Summit conference
the anxiety that came up for me around needed additional support to do the things that I used to be able to do on my own
learning to be okay with the reality of being dependent
how leaning into asking for help and accepting support directly impacts creative work
how to cultivate self-awareness, advocate for the support you need, and have the conversations you need to have with people in your life
if you have been learning lessons the hard way, what do you need to do to make change?
Links mentioned in this episode:
Alt Summit: https://altitudesummit.com/
AWP conference: https://awpwriter.org/
follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jannamarlies
follow Under the Gum Tree on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/undergumtree/
Question for you:
How can you advocate for the support you need with the people in your life? How would your creative life change, for the better, if you were able to cultivate self-awareness around what is that would help things be better and improve for you, then advocate for it and have the conversations that you need to have?
If you have been learning lessons the hard way, what is it that you need to do to make change?
Leave a comment to share your thoughts, or just say hello. Questions welcome, too, I will answer in a future episode.
Thanks so much for listening and for being here! xo
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