84 Lori Synder

One of my absolute favorite words right now, in terms of moving into this world that we want in terms of anti-racism in terms of building new structures and new systems is the idea of re-imagining all of this. And that's the word. Um, Valerie Cower, who is, has the revolutionary Revolutionary Love Project and has a fantastic memoir called See No Stranger.

She uses that word a lot, the reimagining world word. And I feel as though. That part of ourselves, that imagination part is a part that patriarchal white supremacist culture does not want there because imagination is what leads to freedom from bondage and of all kinds. All, all, all bondage, basically.

Yeah. And freedom, like true freedom is not very conducive to people buying a whole lot of more crap that they don't need or doing what they're told is just not, or, or, you know, not thinking for themselves when, you know, freedom involves contentment and it involves. Imagination. And it involves being able to think for ourselves.

And so the reclaiming of that part of ourselves, the embodied imaginary part imagination based part of ourselves is in fact, can be looked at as not just work for ourselves and not just work for our art, but work for the world to re-imagine the systems and to move us into systems that are in fact based in an equity and inclusion and in compassion and kindness and in.

In truly caring about the wellbeing of humans and the planet and not based in greed and selfishness and scarcity.


Monica: [00:00:00] Welcome to the revelation project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project and what gets revealed it gets healed.

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode. The Revelation Project Podcast. I'm with Lori Snyder today. Lori is the founder of the writer's happiness movement created to bring more joy. Psychic space and financial support to all writers so that they can do what they do help make the world a better place by writing whatever it is.They write about an author herself. Laurie is also a long time. Yoga teacher leads, writing and yoga retreats. And as a former Marine biologist, her middle grade fantasy, the circus at the end of the sea. Out this fall 2021 from Harper Collins. HeyLori,Lori: [00:01:13] Hello.

Monica: [00:01:15] Tell me more about the circus at the end of this. See, before we do anything, because that is so interesting.Lori: [00:01:22] Thanks for asking. Um, it is my debut novel. It's very exciting. And it is coming out this fall from Harper Collins. And it is what it is, is my love letter to Venice, California, which is one of the great loves of my life. And it's a story of a 12 year old girl who has never known her parents who discovers the magical streets circus.Is Venice beach only. It's a literal magical street circus, and also finds out that she might be the only one that can heal the circus from what's wrong with it. And it's the adventure. She goes on to the end of the sea to do that. My goodness. And for, for any people out there who are listening, who have wanted something very badly for a very long time, I will just tell you that this has been literally a 23 year journey.

To get to a debut novel. It has been, uh, seriously writing, uh, writing many different books that didn't sell of all that kind of thing. So if you are somebody out there who is working towards something you wanted for a long time, just don't quit. You got this. 

Monica: [00:02:19] I love that message. And it's exactly what I needed to hear right now.

I was just telling what a struggle it's been to write. Having wanted to write a book since I was little and just continuing to self affirm exactly the work that I teach. Right. It's like radical self approval and just continuing to be. My own biggest champion. I mean, I know that I can lean into so many women out there, but let's face it.

I think in order to really do anything that is like one of our biggest dreams. Sometimes it does take a village. 

Lori: [00:02:54] It absolutely takes a village. And, and it's interesting, cause I think it takes a village of support and like-minded people and people you can talk to. And then there's also this thing that happens.

Where are the faith in yourself and in the process at some point kicks in and all the advice you've gotten swirls around in there, but it becomes very clear the path that is right for you in terms of what you want to do, particularly if you're doing something out of the ordinary or that people around you don't quite understand, there's this sense of.

There's a sense of stepping deeper into ourselves that comes from the village that supports us, but also has to come from ourselves where we are willing to sort of tear it open and be very clear about this is who I am, and this is what I'm creating. And it's something different. Other people are creating and it doesn't look the same and it shouldn't look the same and I'm going to have complete faith that it's going to be the right thing.

Monica: [00:03:47] I love that. And I, I love what just came up when you were saying that it's like, I'm finding my way. And then I'm like, oh, and I'm finding my way. That's that? Place where again, I have just, as you said, had different people's advice and it's been helpful, but there's a way that as I go, I'm continuing to find my way of doing it and then being like, great, then do it your way.

And sometimes for me, what I've even been finding is that. If that means going and taking a walk or meditating, or even like opening a book and reading the first line as some way to inspire me, you know, like I'm just trying to find different ways to kind of get it out of me. And it all is kind of been fascinating..

Lori: [00:04:31] But one of the things that I've been saying for so long that I think is one of the challenges, I think for all the arts really kind of for being human and creating anything in the world, but certainly for writing is that the things that we have to do to create what we want to create, look to the rest of the world, like quote, time off.

And our culture as much as it tries to pretend it does. It does not like people having time off it just doesn't and it's looked upon as, oh, you're going for a walk. Must be nice to have that kind of time or, oh, you have time to meditate. It must be nice to have that kind of time. And there's this real, there's this real culture of using busy as currency.

And, but to create anything of any meaning in this world, whether it's a podcast or a book or a piece of art or a new kind of business, That's psychic space that you read in my, in my introduction that psychic space is actually a term from a friend of mine. Who's a writer who said at one day, just about needing the psychic space to write.

And it just clicked so much with me because that's what we create when we do those things. You're talking about. When we go for walks, when we open a book and read the first line, when we sit in meditation and without that, the magic. Happened the same way. Yeah. And we forget that that's true for everything.

It's those, I mean, in yoga, it's the moments of rest that let us move into the moments of action. And it's the moment of the deep rest at the end that lets our whole self integrate what just happened. And so we may not feel the benefit of it while we're doing it, but the magic comes afterwards. It's so fascinating too, because one of the things with this particular book, when I was writing this particular book, I knew this was the book that was going to sell.

I knew this was the book that would find me an agent, and it would finally sell after all this time, it was still not a fast journey to get there, but I knew that was going to happen. But one of the best things while writing this book was I suddenly began to have faith in the process. And like you say my process, which means I don't always write every day because it just doesn't always work in my schedule with other work I have and things going on and that's gotta be okay.

Even though. There's so much wisdom that says you have to write every day. And I might need to spend my time, my writing time going and sitting and staring at the ocean or going for a walk. So I can come back to it with some fresh eyes or something that pennies to percolate for a little while. And I have to have faith that if I do these things that I know I need, and then I sit down at my computer and actually sit there and do that also that's the magic will happen.

The process will happen. The book will come, even if it's a slog for a lot of it. And that faith in the process. How it is for each of us is I think one of the most powerful things that can happen in our habit of showing up for whatever we do. 

Monica: [00:07:05] You're making me kind of think of so many different truths that are showing up such as. I just the other day I had this whole kind of revelation around the word enough and saying that actually being a really incredibly powerful word, that creates expansion actually for me, when I can say enough, like that's enough laundry, that's enough. 

Lori: [00:07:32] I love that everybody wants to sit down

Monica: [00:07:36] that's enough laundry damn-it.

You know, but it's knowing when to say enough is enough so that we can move into moments of expansion. We can move into more spacious moments that allow, that allow us to be nourished that allow. Space for revelation that allows space for creation that allows space for receiving. And I don't think, you know, it's, we, we do, like you said, we put so much emphasis on the.

Doing doing, doing, and yet the processing, the receiving, even when I think of the word receive, I think of an antenna receiving, even the receiving, it's like, it's a different way getting to where we're going. 

Lori: [00:08:32] Absolutely. While you were talking, it made me think of. That idea of a enough and saying enough is enough, enough laundry, enough, enough, whatever that is by the way.

Brilliant. I love enough laundry. It made me think of one of my absolute favorite things that you might've heard this before, but the author E.B. White who wrote Charlotte's web and a bunch of other books who I adore, he's just this amazing person. He was invited. To be part of the Eisenhower commission. It was like the Eisenhower arts and literature committee or something like that.

And he got this formal invitation to be part of this presidential committee. And the letter he wrote back is my favorite decline and enough. And there's enough of all time he wrote back and he said, thank you so much for this invitation to be part of the Eisenhower arts and literature committee. I must decline for secret reasons yours truly.

So now in my head that every time I feel like I have to justify why I'm saying no to something or something I get invited to, or even something I feel like I should do. I say to myself, I must decline for secret reasons using that forever. Right. And lastly, climbed for secret reasons. 

Monica: [00:09:46] Oh my gosh. You know, that just brings, it brings me to back to.

Okay. So when I look at what you're up to, and even the title of your book, and I first want to talk about this, and then I am going to take this conversation in a whole nother direction, right? The title of your book. Tell me again, the title, the circus at the end of the sea. So, so one of the things I've really been playing with is.

The playful, right? That, that getting back into our imagination, our creativity, I I'm starting to really realize it. We're starving for it. And there's, I've really been paying a lot of attention to our imagination as the creation place. Meaning here we are in. The pandemic still. And I really am seeing the, the emergence of what I'm going to call the new world that we are building together.

Lori: [00:10:53] Yes.

Monica: [00:10:54] And I really have started to invite people to start. Reconnecting to that imaginative side of ourselves, because there's a way that we can use our imagination of course, to bring like levity and laughter and all of that. But like, I was an expert at imagination when I was little and there was a part of me that it came with such ease.

But when I disembodied, when I kind of went into maidenhood and became a woman, My body became emotionally uninhabitable because of what was going on around me. And so like many women I left my body. Well, what became really fascinating about that is I lost my capacity for imagination because I wasn't in my body.

And I just really make that connection too. Sometimes how hard it is for me to write is allowing that part of me to like take up space again, you know, to have agency, I look at people like you with the kind of imagination it takes to write something like the Circus at the end of the Sea. And I'm like, oh, I so.

I want that. And I also want it for all of us as women, because I think our imaginations are what the world needs now, because I truly believe if we can't imagine it, we can't narrate a new story. And it's the story that we can imagine that gets to be written. That gets to be real. Is that makes sense?

Lori: [00:12:32] Absolutely. I love everything you're saying. And one of my absolute favorite words right now, in terms of moving into this world that we want in terms of anti-racism in terms of building new structures and new systems is the idea of re-imagining all of this. And that's the word. Um, Valerie Cower, who is, has the revolutionary Revolutionary Love Project and has a fantastic memoir called See No Stranger.

She uses that word a lot, the reimagining world word. And I feel as though. That part of ourselves, that imagination part is a part that patriarchal white supremacist culture does not want there because imagination is what leads to freedom from bondage and of all kinds. All, all, all bondage, basically.

Yeah. And freedom, like true freedom is not very conducive to people buying a whole lot of more crap that they don't need or doing what they're told is just not, or, or, you know, not thinking for themselves when, you know, freedom involves contentment and it involves. Imagination. And it involves being able to think for ourselves.

And so the reclaiming of that part of ourselves, the embodied imaginary part imagination based part of ourselves is in fact, can be looked at as not just work for ourselves and not just work for our art, but work for the world to re-imagine the systems and to move us into systems that are in fact based in an equity and inclusion and in compassion and kindness and in.

In truly caring about the wellbeing of humans and the planet and not based in greed and selfishness and scarcity. And so I think what you've just brought up is this incredibly powerful piece of everything, everything. I mean, how many of us have left our bodies at some point or, or just been like, and it happens in both realms.

It happens in the realm of too much trauma and I'm leaving the body, but there's also this sense. That can happen. And then those sort of spiritual bypassing side of things where I'm above that. And I'm, I'm above being in a body, but we live in this material plane. We are in bodies. We have, we have things and that's really important to come back to unity and include all of it the way, the way that is challenging in our culture to do 

Monica: [00:14:51] Yes. Yeah. So much. Yes there. And I love. I will love imagination is freedom from bondage, such a powerful statement. And I also want to say that I feel like imagine nation is also the place where miracles happened because we, I don't think we can logic our way out of this. And in order for us to, you know, again, kind of really.

We, we need to employ both our masculine and our feminine and kind of getting into this a little bit here as, as we start kind of venturing into this territory because the patriarchy of course, how you just brought up is not about men. It's about a system of oppression and yes, it's led by men, a few men.

And there's many of us women that also benefit from the patriarchy once we start, you know, waking up to what's been going on, but there's also these very, we need both, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. We need the logical, you know, and the practical, as well as the creative, the imagine. Tive because we have to innovate new solutions.

And so these energies need to be able to lean in on each other. And this is where I, I really love what I'm seeing as the feminine returns to all of us, to all of us. There's such an awakening because we're receiving, I think, you know, when I think of where awakening comes from, where consciousness comes from it's it gets to be a really interesting question.

You know, like I'm receiving, am I becoming conscious from the inside out? Or is there kind of an inner and an outer way that that's kind of awakening me? And of course we know that oftentimes we're not awakened until we do see something out there that has us go inside. So that's a key can be a catalyst.

So there's both, but yeah. Laurie, anything else you want to say about it? 

Lori: [00:17:03] Um, well, there's a million things I could say to what you just said is also, I, this is so fascinating to me. I love this kind of conversation we do as humans live in relationship to not just other humans, but the world around us. So I do feel like there's this constant play of inner outer that happens for almost all of us and the awakening piece and the imagination piece that has to obviously has to be an internal.

Something that we cultivate internally and it can be incredibly strengthened or broken down by things that happen on the outside if we allow those things in. So with the receptivity to it's part of that, knowing what to receive and what to say, I must decline

Monica: [00:17:48] So good. I knew that was going to come back. 

Lori: [00:17:51] I love to, I just love last thing I'll say about this piece is I just love that you said we need both, because I think this is an issue that can happen. Is that we do like to think in dualities, in, you know, as humans, that that is something that comes very easily to most of us.

And so it's easy to say the heart is better than the mind, or if you're in a different system, you know, the logic is better than emotion. When in fact, all these things are really important. They're all part of the human experience and who we are. We need all of them in whatever balance is required for the situation at hand.

If we can't think things through, if we don't have an ability to think critically, we end up with huge conspiracy theories and things like that. That we feel are true, but that don't actually aren't and they don't actually make sense. And if we are just in our minds and not in our hearts and bodies, we end up with greed and we end up with selfishness and we ended up justifying anything really that we want to do.

And if we're just in our bodies, we ended up, we could end up with addictions or things like that. Cause our body might be, I really want, yeah. Being over there. I really want those 10 cocktails or whatever it is. And the mind has to say, no, no, no, you can't have those. Right. So there needs to be this beautiful interplay between everything.

And I think what we're seeing as a world, as we imagine is exactly that. 

Monica: [00:19:04] Yes.

Lori: [00:19:04] I think so many people are saying. We can't cut out these parts of ourselves. They're all part of it. Let's imagine something where they're all, let's imagine a world where there are in fact in balance and in unity and working together towards something that's really beautiful and meaningful.

But is that, that is something that is beneficial for everything, for everything, not just for one group of people or one part of the planet, but for everything and everyone. And I think that is spectacular.

Monica: [00:19:32] I do too. I do too. And that, those. That that working together, it's like they're complimentary, they belong together.

It's, you know, as we make our way back to wholeness, we're remembering literally like how powerful this can be. I say we're remembering heaven on earth. Yeah. So Lori you're doing something really extraordinary in the world and talk about it takes a village. That'll be, that'll be my lead in for what you're doing.

Tell us, tell us 

Lori: [00:20:12] So right before the pandemic hit or right before the pandemic hit here in the states in February of 2020, I launched something called the Writer's Happiness Movement and the writers happiness movie. My biggest challenge with it has always been how to explain it. I'm honestly still not good with a short elevator pitch for it.

So I'm going to take a minute to explain what it is. I want to live in a world where kindness and the art. Are the foundation and where they matter immensely. And I want those things to also be rewarded. I want people who create art to be able to do so without being worried about how they're going to do it or how they're going to eat or where the, where they will find the time.

And I want community to grow for the sake of. Community and not for the sake of regrowing around a product like this is a community based around this product or this thing that we have to spend money on to do. And so the writer's happiness movement is my way of trying to build that world and what it is, there's, there's two different pieces to it.

The first piece is. That I create for writers things. I call happiness tools for writers and it's things such as I teach yoga a couple times a week online for writers, just short 30 minute gentle yoga classes or meditation and breathwork class. Every other month, I lead a free online retreat for writers.

That's an online version of the ones I do in person, obviously with COVID. I haven't been doing any in-person retreats. And so the online retreats are the best, the best I can approximate that. So there are three days long, there's an opening circle and a closing circle. There's yoga and meditation providers throughout there's chances to be in community and talk to other writers.

And then there's writing time. So it's basically. Time to write with a yoga chaser. And so those happen every other month. There's five minute writer's happiness exercises that go out every week that I pull from mindfulness traditions and happiness science and pop culture and creativity studies and things that I think are really fun and cool.

And I mash them up into a little five minute prompts for writers that is really intended to give writers a baseline of. Coming home to themselves from which to move forward and right. And there's a bunch of other things in the work that are in the works that are those kinds of happiness tools. So those are all free to anyone who wants them.

Anyone who signs up for the mailing list for the writer's happiness movement, the classes, the retreats, the happiness prompts, um, down the road, there'll be more one day retreats. And I have a whole list of things I want to start implementing. Those are all free to anyone who wants them right now. There's also little micro grants.

I call them through the writers happiness movement, which are. Twenty-five dollar grants. They're teeny tiny, and they go to a writer who is nominated by a friend of theirs. There's a nomination form on the website and the only requirement to be eligible for the grant. When you nominate someone, is that they are a writer of any kind published unpublished.

They write poems in a journal. It doesn't matter if they're a writer. And that the person nominating them thinks they're a fabulous human and there's a little place to explain why you're nominating them on the farm. And the idea of this is just, you know, you know, writing is a very, obviously it's solitary, but even when we are lucky enough to be surrounded by writing community, it can feel sometimes like, why am I doing this?

This is it's a lot of time and energy to write something that ever brings in any money is rare. When it does bring in money for most of us. It's, you know, if you look at the hour spent, it's not, it's not that kind of a trade it's something we do cause we love, but it can feel really discouraging, especially if you're juggling a day job and a family and trying to write it can feel very isolating and very discouraging time.

And the idea of the micro grant is it's just like a little bit of money to cheer a writer on and say, you're doing a great job. Someone thinks you're amazing. Keep going. So those go out two of those Guatemala, the $25 grants, and those have been going out since February of 2020. And then the second part is as the writer's happiness movement grows, I want to be able to build.

Things like co-living spaces for writers and residencies where writers can go for a month and have everything taken care of. And I really want to build retirement homes for writers because most writers have no form of retirement savings to fall back on a lot of some writers do, but it's more common that they don't.

And I want this all to be funded by the writers happenings movement, completely funded. So it's free to everybody. And the economic system, the financial system that supports all, this is what I think of as an alternative open-handed community-based economic system. So the way it works is that anybody who wants to support this vision of the world and wants to see these things happen or help make things, things happen can if they want to.

And they're able to can become a patron of the writer's happiness movement. There is one official tier it's $5. And I set that because I really wanted to try to do something without a hierarchy, even, even at hierarchy of donation, because I know for myself, when I go to donate or to support an artist that I love or something like that, and I want to either support them on Patrion or through another system.

And there's different tiers. I'm always really sad. I feel like I'm not doing the right things in my life to be able to afford, to support them at a higher tier. If I can only give $1 a month or $5 a month. And I. You know, and there's a reward system for higher tiers, which I think is great. I want to create a system and economic system where it's not, I give you this, you give me this money and I give you this thing.

Like, it's not that one-on-one exchange. I wanted to create a system that is, I want to support goodness for writers everywhere. And I might get something out of it and I might not. And here's this $5 a month to go toward that. And so that's the plan for it. And. Right now. It's really interesting because I started this in February, 2020.

I always intended there to be an online component to it, but I was going to put off doing that for a while. Cause I didn't know how the teach online retreat. I can't, I have to cancel all my in-person retreats. I'm guessing now is the time to learn how to deal with these online things. But because of everything that's happened for all of us in 2020, you know, I also, I'm a freelance editor and that's a big chunk of where my income comes from.

So I have editing work that was coming in a lot. I was writing my own book and getting my books out there. I've done zero. Literally zero promotion for the writer's happiness movement. This is the first place where I'm actually talking to somebody who I hadn't met before about the writer's happiness movement, other than the people who have found me through word of mouth.

And it's been amazing to see how it has grown. I have the idea for it really dropped into my head fully formed. Although I, I will say to be honest, I've spent my whole life trying to figure this out, but it did after a very intensive. Months of teaching where I wasn't thinking about anything like this at all.

I was in the shower and all of a sudden boom, there it was. And I'm like, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I've been trying to figure out. And I knew, I knew in my gut that there were so many of us who felt who were looking for this kind of a thing I knew there were, I knew this was going to work and yeah.

It's a hard thing to explain to people because it's not, I tried to find a system that was, I tried to find people doing a similar thing. I spent so much time searching and I will tell you like you, I just found so many people doing so many amazing things. It was incredibly fantastic time of research. I kept bookmarking things, right.

And left and try and really look at what this person's doing and look at this amazing organization and look at this, but I couldn't find anything even close to what I wanted to do. So it was sort of created. The words for how to describe it because they don't exist yet. It's not an easy thing where I can say, because you're the visionary behind it.

Monica: [00:28:13] Right. You're the one birthing it into the new world. And so, right. It's like the buck stops here. Damn right. Yeah, I know. 

Lori: [00:28:20] Right. Well, I will say as, because it's grown so beautifully, the, you know, the, the mailing list is only about a thousand people right now. It's not. But considering and there's 75 patrons and there's also lots of people who donate through other means not through that's through Patrion on 75 patrons. And some of them have donated more than $5 a month. Cause you can manually bump it up if you want to. And then there's people who just throw money in the tip jar sometimes, which is an option also.

And. It's been amazing. It's been amazing. And my goal is in by 2026 or 2027, I was saying from when I officially start getting the word out about the writer's happiness admit, which might have to start right now. So five years from when it starts. So maybe, maybe, you know, may of 20, 26. I, my goal is to have a hundred thousand patrons at $5 a month.

That's a hundred thousand writers around the world at $5 a month. And I can build these things then. And the one thing. The one thing that I really want to make clear too, is my ideas. Not that it's a community coming together to do the work together, right? The work is on me. Like these are things I know how to do.

I just, you know, and I will partner with people who know how to do the things. I don't know how to do the idea is that it's taken care of for the writers. So writers don't have to think about it. That writers were also busy. And I, I really try not to use that word, but again, the time to write is so precious that I don't even want to be.

I don't want to add any more time to that for people. I want to just say here's things that will be helpful for you. Here's things that might help. And so the idea is, is that everything is taken care of for everybody, even my vision, my vision for like the co-living spaces or my vision for the retirement homes is that, you know, there's, there is a live in chef.

There's a live in yoga teacher. There's all these things because I feel like, again, we can imagine anything we want for these systems. We're making. So there's no need for them to look like things that we have right now. There's no need. In fact, they probably shouldn't. 

Monica: [00:30:19] And back then probably shouldn't. I love that.

I love that Lori so much. So couple of things that I want to, as I knock the microphone over a couple of things, I want to mirror back to you. So I hear creating a new normal around how. We spend our money in the world in ways that are soulful in ways that support the values that we hold. Those human beings.

I talk about Lynne twist all the time, but I'll just do it again. One of her exercises is if you want to see where your priorities are, take out your checkbook. Take out your credit card bill and see where your money is going, what you're really supporting. And I found that so powerful because honestly, Until we really notice we don't change things cause we have to be intentional.

We have to first kind of have the revelation in order to alchemize that old behavior into new behavior. And what I really want to do is to be able to look at my credit card statement or look at my, you know, checkbook and see my values, see that I'm supporting artists and. Light makers and change makers and people who are doing incredible things for the environment instead of.

Consumer bills such as another Gap bill or another Banana Republic, or there's a way I think we spend money mindlessly and it's in service to more and yet we don't get more. From having those things that actually the more is associated with the joy of supporting the things we care about and using our money in service to create the world.

Lori: [00:32:36] We say, we want, I love that. Yeah. And one of the things I'm really hopeful about this time, for those of us who are lucky enough to have made it through this pandemic, one of the things I'm really. Hopeful for is this well, first of all, what's going to come out of it in terms of that, but is this, this.

Again, re like reassessing how we use our money, looking at the systems that we have in place, both in our culture, but in our own lives and seeing what serves us in the service of our values and what we care about most and not in service of things, we don't actually care about that much or are just mindless.

And I feel as though for people who are willing to do it, the kind of shakeups we've had last year on every realm can really lead to recognizing that what we thought was. Just the way things are in the world is in fact the way we see it through our own lens and our own worldview, and even being able to recognize that we have a worldview and other people have their own worldviews and that it's not just the way things are, is huge.

It's huge. And from that, being able to look at what it is we really care about. How that manifests in our lives, what actions that results in, in our lives or doesn't result in, in our lives and how we can start making these really, they can be small shifts. It doesn't, I mean, we, we, we tend to sort of think, or at least I do in very big grand, grand ways of thinking and forgetting sometimes that really small shifts make a huge difference, especially when a lot of people do them.

Lori: [00:34:09] So these little shifts of how am I going to think about. Making a living, how am I going to think about writing? How am I going to think about my money and this, you know, and what can I really afford and what can I really not afford? And those kinds of things, these little shifts, I feel like can make such a huge difference.

And I also feel like that one of the ways we've we've as a culture, sort of seen the world is in terms of economic structures that are in place around the world. It's all been either this or that. When in fact there's really beneficial. Pieces, we can live in a capitalistic culture and bring in elements of other things and create something that exists within a capitalistic culture that uses the good things from that that are beneficial for people, but also tempers them with the things from other systems that are beneficial and create something brand new.

And this is where imagination comes back. That's so true. Well, I love too that you're pointing to. Knowing the true worth of something. Right? Hello. Um, and the other thing I was coming in. And I also want to say, I love the fact that you were like doing a walking meditation to, you know, for so many years, and then it kind of dropped it in there shower, which is where we always have those moments.

Monica: [00:35:30] I just want to say it, you know, like the shower is where I have my most, my biggest revelations where it's just like, boom, it's right there. After I've been trying to, you know, Put so many miles in like walk out. I took it, you know, it's funny. 

Lori: [00:35:48] What's so funny. One of my best friends, who's also in my, my writing critique group and is brilliant at critiquing writing.

She is the same way. And she says, when she's writing a book, she'll take three or four showersa day. Just because she gets our best ideas. 

Monica: [00:35:59] Thats's so great. It's just, yeah, you're in the flow. Literally water is such a conduit, so, uh, so, so good. Okay. The other thing I wanted to say that I loved is I'm also going to have a shameless plug for another podcast out there that I have been.

Geeking out on excellent. Which is called, called breaking down patriarchy. And she's doing almost like an essential texts, but club. And she has a partner on each episode and they are reading her story. And the whole thing she's talking about it. How women have not been able, we have to keep recreating the wheel because we don't teach this in our schools.

So basically what she's done is very gracefully, very eloquently without bashing. She's just really been deconstructing and breaking down. Not only it from an understanding. Perspective, but she's hoping that it also breaks down patriarchy literally. But my point is that the other day she was diving into Virginia Woolf's a room of one zone and Virginia Wolf as a writer was pointing to the fact that we need to hear the voices of so many more women. But in order to hear their voices, they need to be able to write. And they, if they need to be able to write, they need to be able to support themselves. And so there's this way that I really see how that can be so that that need can be fulfilled, that we can celebrate and amplify the voices of writers whose voices need to be heard, who have wonderful ideas.

It also kind of leads me back. And this is something I've been really working to disrupt with the podcast is that we tend to really keep amplifying the same celebrity voices when there's so many other people that have worthy ideas and genius conversations that they're revealing to the world. And so.

Maybe that means the podcast is on the slow train to getting out there in the world. But I say that it, you know, in some ways gets to grassroots, get out there in a way that is exactly on time for whenever it gets out there in a bigger way, because the conversations that I'm having are different, you know, and your ideas are.

Precious and amazing. And I feel like the more people that hear them, the more people say yes, me too. 

Lori: [00:38:47] Yeah. And I love that with the podcast. I feel like you're really, that's really true. My experience during the research to see if there was someone else doing something like this and all the people I'd never heard of doing amazing things, amazing things.

And that's just a fraction of the people out there doing amazing things and all the people whose voices don't get amplified. Yeah. It's it's, you know, I feel like one of the big things for me with writer's happiness movement was I was really clear from the beginning. Everything was had to be free.

Everything had to be free. If someone's got an internet connect. It's all available. And I talked to a lot of people about this in the beginning and over and over was told that's never going to work. That's, you know, people aren't going to pay a few creative things for free and try to get people to pay for them.

It won't work. And here's why also, you know, maybe if you become a nonprofit because the writer's happiness movement is not a nonprofit on purpose. I worked in the nonprofit world, in the environmental world for most of like, for a decade almost. And fantastic. Loved it. Most nonprofits, not all, but most of them come from this place of scarcity.

And there's this fear in the scramble that underlies everything because of trying to bring in the money that you need to do what you need to do. And that just, wasn't what I wanted. And I also, I mean, I also really want to prove that you can build something that is for the good of everybody and actually make a really great living.

That's part of what I want to prove with this. I plan to pay myself and I salary when this takes off. And I, and I'm very transparent about that because that's part of, what's important about this is that it's got to cover everything. It's got to be the whole thing. So there's one of the things that you mentioned that I really wanted to comment on too, and I'm forgetting what it is, so I'll let that go.

Monica: [00:40:29] That's okay. Yeah. I, uh, I agree, you know, back to imagination, we'll just keep coming back to imagination because there's. No, it goes back to what you said about having an artist, be able to do their work and be well compensated that no longer do the words belong together. Starving artist, like it's such a frigging, it's a myth, it's a myth.

And it's our belief system that actually drives. The money, the flow of money. It's not, it's not because the money's not there. It, it literally is like a life sentence. You know, if you are going to put yourself in that jail, then. That's what you're going to get. It's like we get what we tolerate. But I think again, as we're starting to recognize that these two things can stand together and that the, and it's also, again, daring to imagine how good can it get, right.

Like how good can it get in just playing that game? Which actually is something Dr. Valerie Rein recently in our podcast episode, that's the game she plays, but I was like, God, that's brilliant. It's like play the game of like, how good can it get? I love that because you know, there is no scarcity there. 

Lori: [00:42:02] I love that. I just, I mean, that, that question asking yourself that question. How good can it get? And that's an imagination practice as well, because how, if it's up to, to like, imagine how good it can get, how far can you let yourself go? Yes, let's keep going. It's so good. 

Monica: [00:42:22] It reminds me of a game we played in coaching certification. And what you do is you listen to what somebody says, and then the next person has to say no matter. What I love about that and add onto it. So it's a game again, that kind of just stretches you to think bigger, bigger, and again, even if you don't necessarily like an idea, it's a way to just say that's awesome.

And what I love about that and then build on from there. So it just, it's just fun to expand that aspect of ourselves that kind of has a little atrophy, like there's that muscle that really needs to be. Built in so many of us and, you know, maybe that's where our card comes back in, you know, is because when I think about, so you guys, we chose an Oracle card today and it was from Dorian Virtues, Goddess Guidance.

And I feel like spirit is always telling me go outside. Right. And when I think about, when I think about the invitation to go outside, it's like, wow, Parents would say, like go outside and play. So when I hear go outside, it's like, and play is always part of that in a way. And that's, I think what else we need to do is we need to allow for more, play more pleasure, more.

Laughter more levity, more breathing, more being, 

Lori: [00:43:51] Yes. Play is so key. And again, that looks to the rest of the world, like time off and it's so vital and it is something that as adults, I think most of us have just taken out of our repertoire. It's just, we may be doing something we love. Like I love to stay.

So I go out and skate all this. And yes, it's play. And, um, there's always a little piece of me going, oh, it's exercise. It's good for you

Monica: [00:44:15] And measuring it,

Lori: [00:44:17] Right? Yeah. And one of my, one of my friends, uh, Tamiko buyer, who's an extraordinary poet and just had a new book of poetry come out in a social activist.

She does a monthly newsletter on things she's been thinking about and play and reclaiming play was the last one. She did. 

Monica: [00:44:30] Ah, you have to forward that to me.

Lori: [00:44:33] I will, because through it all, she also. To all these people who are doing all this work and reclaiming play. And it's, I learned so much from her newsletters.

It's spectacular. It's called Starlight and strategy is the name of her newsletter. And it's just beautiful. And I read through that and she mentioned that like, when's the last time she did something that she didn't quantify in some way in her mind as why it's important that she spent her time doing this, like something we do purely for play.

And I've really been thinking about that since I read her newsletter because I. I do take, you know, I I've been teaching yoga a long time. I have a meditation practice and those things can easily fall on my to-do list. In fact, they often do fall on my to-do list. There's something very wrong about that.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's something so liberating about the idea of play for the sake of play and then recognizing kind of like pulling out your checkbook or your credit card and recognizing. Wait, do I, I don't do I do that. I don't know that I do that. And let's start doing that. But then what does that even look like?

And we're so out of the habit, go outside and play we're. So out of the habit and what an amazing gift to give ourselves. That alone, even if it's 10 minutes a day, giving ourselves 10 minutes a day to play,

Monica: [00:45:52] It also makes me think of like deposit withdrawal. Yes. Are you making a deposit into your bank of me, of who I'm becoming or did you make a withdrawal?

Yeah, we just need to rethink, and I think what's below all of this is that we're asking. Questions now we're asking we're, we're interrogating some of these beliefs and asking some powerful questions and questions will always lead us to disrupt the trance.. 

Lori: [00:46:25] That's beautifully said that's so too. I love that.

Monica: [00:46:29] So, so I know we're kind of almost at time, which is hard to believe because I feel like the spin, like a hot second, but. I know, right. It's like, it always goes so fast. So it's just been such an enjoyable, enjoyable and nourishing conversation. I'm so grateful me as well. My question to you is like, so how can this community support you?

What, what else do you need us to know? And how can we be allies in amplifying your work in the world? 

Lori: [00:47:03] That's beautiful. Thank you for asking me. I am such a big believer in kind of in things growing organically and spreading the word. If you are a writer or know a writer that might resonate with any of this, just letting them know this is here, passing it along.

I feel like I'm just starting to get to the point where I'm starting to do some partnerships with people in other organizations, which is really exciting. And for example, there's a amazing. Coffee company called Reveley coffee, which is a black and veteran owned coffee company. But what they do is their mission is to create financial and economic equity in the world.

Lori: [00:47:44] One coffee farm at a time, and they work directly with coffee growers and the farmers that they, they know personally, they go out there and meet them and sell their coffee. To the wider public. And I'm I met the owner through a very funny fluke is too long a story right now, but it was one of those fantastic, weird coincidences.

And we are now partnering where he is the official coffee supplier for the writer's happiness movement, because coffee and writers are, oh my gosh, the amount of coffee we go through. One of my in-person retreats is. And so there's a discount. Anyone who's part of the writers, happiness movement gets a discount on any coffee date or, and he works with something like 20 farms around the world.

Each farm makes like five or six different blends of coffee and it's an amazing amount, but also an additional 10% goes into a grant fund for a writer that they'll will be a Reveley coffee grant for writers. That will be a larger grant. And when we hit a certain number that will go out and Calvin, the owner of Beverly coffee will determine like what kind of writer he wants to give the grill.

And, and then I'll get the word out through betters happiness. So if you're somebody listening to this who is interested in doing some kind of partnership, it's, you know, they're very casual. We don't have a whole lot of, we actually have zero paperwork to do something about that one day, but, and it's just a way to, to bring together and support each other.

You know, he's a B Corp, he's part of 1% for the environment, all these different, amazing organizations to support other people in places that are doing. They're they're building businesses and building things based on the same values. So I feel like in terms of support for what I do and for the work I do that support for all of us.

I think looking at where we spend our money is huge. I think that's one of the best votes we have and really looking at the businesses we support and making sure that they support our values. I think those things are huge. 

Monica: [00:49:31] They are huge. They really are. And I love knowing that's so great. What a great of course, partnership with the coffee company.

And there's just there's again, back to like the, yeah. You know, re-imagining, you know how these partnerships work and I say, you know, yeah, let's re-imagine paperwork too, while we're at it. 

Lori: [00:49:53] You know, honestly, we're probably never going to get the paperwork and I'm partnering now with another, another friend of mine who does this, she's a journalist and she does this incredible book, subscription box.

That's a novel about something happening in the world and her journalists. Background information on it and then little gifts from that part of the world we're partnering. And there's also a bookshop in local to me here. Does amazing work in the community and is Latin X own the, and really supports that community of writers and we're partnering.

And none of us have any paperwork and none of us really feel inclined to do it because we all trust each other because we're all coming from the same place. And I don't mean to say that paperwork isn't important for a lot of things. It is. It absolutely is. And there's times where you can just take that extra work off your plate. Cause it doesn't matter that much. 

Monica: [00:50:34] Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And we're not operating off of gentleman's handshake anymore. Anyway. Right, right, exactly. That, um, you're here. Yeah, no that you yourself have a mailing list. And I wanted to invite you to share that with our audience. And of course, we'll make sure to have the links to your website in the show notes and some of these other great things that you've mentioned, like your friend's newsletter that I totally want to check out.

Lori: [00:51:05] Yes. So

Monica: [00:51:06] yay to that. Do you want to tell us those links? 

Lori: [00:51:09] I'd love it. So the best, the best thing is to go to the web writers, happiness movement website, which is just writer's happiness.com. And if you go to writer's happiness.com, the first thing you'll see is a little explanation of what it is and a place you can join the mailing list, and you'll get a little pop-up of check boxes, where you can choose the kinds of mailings you want, because we are all overwhelmed with email.

And it's really important to just to get the things that you actually want. You can also on there. You can read more about the history of the writer's happiness movement. You can nominate somebody for a micro grant. So that's all on the website. The website is the best place to find me. I, I'm not very active on social media because I find that social media, for me personally, it makes me feel not good.

And I want to include myself in the happiness portion of writer's happiness movement. Right. So anything that I do to promote it has to feel like I love talking to you, Monica. This is great. Like it has to be exciting for me and fun and enjoyable. However, a very lovely person who is a writer who is part of writer's happiness, just volunteered.

Build some social media. So there may be social media, I think Instagram and Twitter. And I think it's at writer's happiness. For Instagram and writers happy for Twitter. Cause the other one was too long, but there's, I don't think anything there yet. If you to look for me there, you're not going to find much.

Monica: [00:52:26] That's okay. This is great. And you know, and congratulations to just the, you know, with your book coming out, I'm so excited. I'm so excited for me. 

Lori: [00:52:36] I'm so thrilled about it. Um, it's available for pre-order I'll put a little plugin for the book it's available for pre-order anywhere you buy a book. And if any of you are interested in.

And you'll get this information. If you're part of writer's happiness movement on that email list, we'll be doing a pre-order campaign starting in August or so. The book comes out October 19th with my local Venice bookstore, small world books on the Venice boardwalk. And if you order from that pre-order campaign, there'll be a bunch of swag.

Some really cool stuff like temporary tattoos that go with the book and the fun stuff. 

Monica: [00:53:07] And, and again, I'm going to just say the name of the book one more time, because it gives me pleasure the circus at the end of the seat. Uh, I love it so much. 

Lori: [00:53:17] And just to let people know, it's a middle grade book ages eight to 12, although it's on the excuse to the higher end. Or maybe even a little older. 

Monica: [00:53:23] All right. Great. So, so good. And Lori, just thank you. This is just been such a delight and I love hearing, I just love you. Thank you. You've been totally, just such a great conversationalist, obviously a brilliant, you know, creative ally in the world for all of us who are re-imagining the world.

So. Thank you again for your work. And I thank Rebecca gold for making the introduction. 

Lori: [00:53:56] Thank you, Rebecca. 

Monica: [00:53:57] And yes. And for our listeners more to be revealed, we hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes.

We thank you for your generous. And as always more to be revealed.