Hello, my Soulful Collective family. 🩵

I’m feeling especially grateful for all of you right now, and for the beautiful way this community has wrapped its love around Tanis and her family in prayers and thoughts. We’ll be holding her especially close tomorrow as her dear family gathers to honour precious Elena.

And for me, this makes our gathering this Sa…

Read more

Dangling her legs off the edge of the little wooden dock, toes dipped in the cool clear pond waters, she sat dazzled by the tiny tadpoles beneath the surface, black, wriggling. A frog hopping to the shore caught her eye and she wondered how many of the babies were hers. Was she a ‘she’? How could that little blob of head and swish of tail grow to become a fat body, arms and legs with webbed ends, and a long tongue, to catch those icky flies? Her mom told her it was possible, but she wasn’t sure she believed it.

A sudden burst of wind through the apple trees swooped down, loosened a piece of her hair and she moved to tuck it back behind her ear. A chubby, fuzzy bee wearing a sweater that always made her giggle buzzed by. How could it fly? The wings didn’t look nearly enough to carry that weight. Marshmallow, named for his puff of white and sweet ways, her favourite cat, came meandering down the path, leaping as best he could from time to time, to catch the butterfly teasing and attempting to land on his nose. I wonder how big the wings would have to be for Marshmallow to be able to fly? She pictured him taking to the air and laughed out loud. Imagine how frightened that butterfly would be then? Not so saucy and sure it could flit away.

A horse snuffed and neighed in the distance. Lucky and the others would want their hay now, well, maybe they’d want the sugar cubes she carried in her pocket more. She hoped she’d kept them dry enough not to disappear in a puddle. This was a going concern. Putting her hand in her pocket she could feel the stickiness but still in square form, although perhaps slightly smaller. Whew.

Up she popped. Off she skipped. “Bye tadpoles! Don’t grow too quick. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.” “Come on Marshmallow. You don’t have to fly; I’ll carry you.”

She reached down and scooped him under his belly and although he weighed nearly as much as she did, she managed and he kindly conceded. Independent as the wind with anyone else, he had a soft spot for little Jenni.

“Coming Lucky, Vicky, Gypsy … you too Dolly, but don’t you nip this time,” she called out across the field.

As she felt the warm sun on her face, watched the billowy clouds cross the bright blue, smelled the tall wheat wafting sleepily, she smiled, filled with a feeling of foreverness, she and her friends, growing, wandering in a lazy day, nibbling at the ordinary of it all. Just this moment, with the anticipation of sharing a treat with her besties and licking the sweetness from her fingertips.

One might wonder from within … could life, does life, get any better than this for a whimsy girl as she?

Marshmallow and Jenni in the 100 year-old farmhouse of childhood,
“Gable Glen” during renovations.

She stood at the front of a room filled with twinkling lights, a flip chart with Welcome in a burst of colour, a spread of treats across the back table, and another one with art supplies to set the tone for intrigue.

All had been laid out carefully, including her newest book, The Art of Storytelling | Bringing Your Words to the World Guided Journal, in hopes of bringing a sense of retreat to the room. The sea of eyes searching hers were brimming with wonder, anticipation humming beneath the surface.

At one time she would have been nervous in front of an expectant crowd. But those jitters had melted into memory as she deepened her connection to this calling, as she learned to surrender to the whisper from within, with all she’d seen of clients who followed their hearts to here and beyond. What was left was a pure joy to get to know these storytellers, to bring to light their ideas, their knowing, that they too can hold their words in hand and deliver their majesty, their callings, to others.

The Sleeping Giant watched on from the window. The blue sky and sparkling Superior offered ancient wisdom, an inexplicable weaving of connection and love through those who revel in her beauty and know of her timeless power. The group slipped into silence, let their minds wander, hearts dream. Then took to the trail leading to Spirit Park and they gathered by the shore.

In a circle of sharing, souls spoke, tears brimmed, a deep well of understanding tapped, aching desire found its way to expression and in moments all felt like they belonged, like anything could be possible … healing, truth in recognition, setting sail on that shining lake, soaring straight into that sky. The storyteller in all was called forth and honoured beyond any words.

One might have felt stirred from within to see … this was just a beginning. As creators, all began to stretch limbs, grow wings that would hold, and to taste the sweetness of what can be when we lift one another in hope, in love, and dance in the whimsy of life, together.

*In celebration of the most recent workshop held in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. And living a life of conscious whimsy, each and every day through our choices, our words, our works, always.

© Jennifer M. Maki 2026

Showing off our soulful stepping stones, in celebration of all we gleaned at
The Art of Storytelling | Bringing Your Words to the World workshop. Aug 2026.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨recap: our whimsical gathering Sun Aug 16th

What a beautiful reconnection with our SoulFull Collective members, new kindreds along The SoulFull Way and those participants I just spent time with in Ontario at The Art of Storytelling workshop. Oh to find more of ‘our people’ on the planet and gather to talk about whimsical, soulful bits of life.

Here’s your link to our YouTube Channel to catch the recording:

✨what’s whimsically up next?

Mark Your Calendars:

✨ Sunday, August 23rd

Creating with Whimsy

SoulFull Sessions LIVE | Sunday, August 23 | 10:30 a.m. PT

What happens when we take the whimsy we’ve begun noticing around us and bring it into what we create?

This Sunday, we’re exploring Creating with Whimsy and how lightness, curiosity, imagination and a willingness to follow what stirs can breathe new life into our stories, our work, our businesses and the things we’re bringing into the world.

We’ll share some of what we’ve been discovering through our own creative and storytelling work and consider where a little more whimsy might open possibilities we haven’t imagined yet.

Come gather ’round the soulful fire with us. 🩵✨

Click to … Join Us LIVE-Sun Aug 23 10:30 a.m. Pacific

✨ Saturday, August 29th

The Soul of Whimsy Workshop

Saturday, August 29 | 10 a.m.–12 p.m. PT
Optional Stay, Sip ’n’ Chat | 12–12:30 p.m. PT

A two-hour immersive online experience exploring what becomes possible when we bring more whimsy into the way we see ourselves, love, relate, create and serve in the world.

Together, we’ll take whimsy out for a spin, moving beyond the idea of whimsy and into the ways we can consciously bring more wonder, lightness, imagination, joy and possibility into our everyday lives.

Our flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation and centering
✨ guided introspection through your Whimsy Guided Journal
✨ exploring what whimsy means uniquely to you
✨ noticing where wonder, delight and possibility already live in your life
✨ considering how whimsy can deepen the way you love and honour yourself
✨ exploring whimsy within your relationships and the way you connect with others
✨ bringing more imagination, lightness and possibility into how you create, work and serve
✨ soulful conversation, reflection and meaningful connection in small groups
✨ choosing where you want to take whimsy out for a spin next

Then, for anyone who wants to linger around the soulful fire, we’ll stay for another 30 minutes to sip, connect and soulfully chat about whatever has emerged.

Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Way.

Spaces are intentionally limited to support meaningful conversation and connection.
Message via Substack or email me at jennifer@jennifermaki.com
for details & to reserve your place.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a donation to match whatever offering is within your means, this is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

Until next time, may you follow what stirs, leave room for the unexpected, and let a little more whimsy light the way. 🩵✨

✨jenni

The clock ticks 11:11 as we make way through hill and valley, scorched sentinel survivors steady, as ash falls like soft snow and the red moon whispers that something is afoot in the fiery distance.

We are specks in a surging world of Mother Nature, feeling the pressing in of our fleeting existence in an ancient world.

Still, the search for adventure stirs in our veins; road tripping by horse, buggy or SUV is in our blood. And somehow the reminder that our days are numbered, that we control little of our shuffling on or off this mortal coil, makes the moments we share all the more precious.

Eight hours in the confines of a careening box on wheels will either bring you closer or tear you asunder. The attitude of travelling companions matters.

Luckily these ones are keepers.

Conversations ebb and flow, but the flow is magnificent and the themes emerge and cover the gamut: from the new-beginning excitement and ancies for our son launching into first year at uni, the feisty and fabulous nature of our family and how we honestly navigate change, assimilate challenges and each regulate and find soulful centre, and the majesty of this time to unplug and meander the BC Hwy 97 enroute to our Liam and 20th bday celebrations.

Sometimes ventures span the world; sometimes the locale is inconsequential. It’s all happening simply because we consciously, collectively decided to simply be together.

Sometimes adventure looks like a passion realized, ideas to form, love made manifest in a project or precious person or sweet self.

We’ve been adventuring all over the place lately, within and without and most delightfully with a whole gaggle of kindreds of like spirit, wildly brilliant and creative and we’ve been gathering round the soulful fire often.

We’re so glad you pulled up a chair.

And boy are you in for a soul-tingling treat. This month in our special edition of The SoulFull Way — The SoulFull Collective — we are welcomed into the adventurous perspective of four unique and delightful creators.

These values we hold dear are the very foundation of our lives. Spending time each month, honing in on one at a time, encourages you to immerse, attune, and this changes you.

I’ve been shifted in the absorbing of what these beautiful humans have to say, and I know you will be too.

InJoy … jenni

If you’re new to The SoulFull Way, we are a community of co-creators, exploring month-to-month the values that shape our lives. We know that what we focus on, we get more of and we want the good stuff. And we get that it is waaay more meaningful (and fun) doing it together.

If this sounds like you, you’re in the right place. We create touchpoints to keep our eyes and hearts on the soulful prize, with a weekly newsletter, live talks, and a deeper-dive gathering/workshop and private community chat of transformational support and connection. Next workshop, The Soul of Adventure, Saturday, July 25, 10:00-12:00 PT - free to paid subscribers, complimentary to new (includes The Soul of Adventure Guided Journal).

Simply reach out to reserve your spot and receive the private Zoom link!

Subscribe or Upgrade 4 Bonus Tidbits

The SoulFull Collective: Special Edition on Adventure

So thrilled to introduce our contributors for this month!

Thank you …

✨to the delightful Sarah Newton-John, who always alights the ordinary with extraordinary, brings wit and wonder to the fore and makes you wish you could simply sit and sip, wander to the chicken coup, walk the dog, and wile away the hours chatting together.

✨to Miles Hack for your deep dives, deliverance from all things expectant, keeping us on our toes, stirring our minds with philosophical conundrums and questions and our hearts by demonstrating what following your inklings looks like in this life.

✨Anira the Cycle Breaker, my name sake Jennifer, brave soul, wild intuitive, passionate tree lover like me, woman on a mission to empower the release of trauma and the embrace of self love and gracious community and genuine connection. And first-time fab author (check out her book!! and take a moment to congratulate her)!!

✨and dear Lis of Savor Life, a woman of heart who not only brightens our world day by day with images and thoughts to delight, but carefully, loving curates the Creator Spotlight each week featuring in detail a precious soul so that we may catch a glimpse of their magnificence.

Here are their eclectic and soulful perspectives on Adventure, that will surely stir your own:

For me, the word “adventure” conjures up action, travel and exploring the unknown. There have been four times in my life where I have travelled far away from all that is familiar and explored—had an adventure, ranging from a few weeks (2000) to a couple of years (2003–2004). As an expat from Australia with Spanish residence, I am still really on an adventure, while now settled in a partnership, a home, a village, a community, and a new country since leaving Sydney in July 2018.

I also think amazing adventures take place in relationships, jobs, reading, music and in learning curves, for example. But let´s go back to the traditional adventure! I will write about the first one, in 1989.

After graduating age 23 from Sydney University, I took off to London on my own for a year, as many young Australians do. I flew via Los Angeles to see my half-sister for a month, and had Sydney friends offer to put me up in London. The flat was small: I soon moved out to a shared room above Evergreen´s pub in Covent Garden, pulling pints and serving meals. Long story short, my year in London was a series of jobs and accommodations and it was an adventure! I sold music at Our Price Records in Victoria Station, I worked in the bar at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, I made pizzas in Soho and I worked briefly in a railway florist and a British Gas call centre. I walked 12km to work on the morning of a Tube strike and I attended a group writers´ course in the home of Agnes, whose hair looked like lambswool!

I had a boyfriend from Paris that I had met in Sydney. I visited him for a month in the winter and did most of the tourist things solo as Jean-Marie had to work during the day. I was on the Metro with my schoolgirl French, feeling very grown up indeed! Jean-Marie would visit me in London some weekends on his Goldwing touring bike. I was pillion. Very grown up! (I realised Jean-Marie and I would not work quite the way lovers are meant to work in the movies. He contacted me on Facebook in 2015 and we caught up, he had married a Lisa; I was with Heather since 2002. We wished each other well.) But I digress…

My flatmate, Riyad the beautiful Jordanian, became my best friend. We made pizzas in Soho together. That was 1989. He is gay, so am I, we were not so sure back then. His mother came one day and collected him and took him back to Amman. I cried all afternoon following his departure and booked my flight back to Sydney in due course. Adventures have their lonely bits. Riyad had escaped Reading University and worked in Selfridge´s shoe department. He eventually achieved a PhD in anthropology and a life partner, Michael. They run Glastonbury Festival and we are invited. We are not festival types. But we stay in touch.

I breathed in the warm Sydney air coming off the plane from London after that year away—no expensive phone calls home, no email, no face time, only occasional letters with photos. Mum was pleased to see me, and me her. She is in Heaven now and I visit Sydney as a non-resident. Life is one big adventure!

To explore more of Sarah’s wondrous words and world, connect Here.

Adventure has not sat with me as an idea of exhilaration like it did in the days of my early youth, & perhaps that’s true for a lot of us. The very definition of the word implies a series of events that are either exciting and/or dangerous experiences. So many moments I would call adventures now were relatively unsafe, confusing ordeals back then, & also ill-advised by the more rational among us. This phenomenon of ‘Questing’ for humans has always fascinated me.

We are cultured to negate adventure out of our lives as we age because it sheds light on the nature of uncertainty as a psychological force in the world. People desire a daily rhythm that they can depend on, with comfort of convenience, & a routine that is optimized for efficiency. But adventure is embedded within people & places that might be none of those things.

The idea itself is a challenge — an opportunity — that beckons one forward into the unknown. It can herald danger, yet also produce adaptations never deemed possible.

I had so many attempts to make the visible way forward work for me in life, & was so often disappointed.

It is in such regrets of experience that our true need for adventure emerges. I began forging a completely different way forward, leaving my aspirations for the art world aside to explore homesteading, homeschooling, animal husbandry, innovative gardening, & transformational empowerment.

It created two sides to me: one that preferred the known & another that dared to know. This often brushed me up closer to concepts of mishaps, failures, or disaster, but they did not faze me as much as they used to. I had already birthed the acceptance within myself to try new things without knowing concretely where it was going.

As things often do, it comes full circle back to what you remember as home — a familiar place in the world that is as real on the inside as it is on the outside.

The artist who was left behind returned not in the pages but in the plants. The rebel that was almost convinced he was permanently excommunicated from society now sees appreciation & acceptance in the eyes of those he impresses. The uncertain kid who met the path & returned to himself a man.

The adventure is a psychological phenomenon of the life cycle, and our dynamic human consciousness brings it even closer to the foreground of our lives. It is a tool of becoming, meant to test your aptitude at intuitive guidance, emotional expression, & courageous trekking. It has been my companion in many instances, & brought me much joy, friends, & memories, of which I am very thankful.

Fondly, Miles

Explore more of Mile’s thoughts and soulful exploits Here.

The Courage to Come Home

Last year, I took one of the scariest leaps of faith of my life: I went on a medical leave.

I have travelled the world. I have lived in another country. I have said yes to adventures that took me across oceans. But nothing prepared me for the courage it would take to say yes to myself.

My gut was telling me to finish writing my book, my anxiety was wreaking havoc on my body, and my heart was telling me to slow down. I find it absolutely fascinating that the scariest thing for me at the time was truly taking care of myself. Why was I so scared to truly heal?

That answer took time to fully emerge.

Slowly, every day, I chose myself instead of everyone else. I created safety for myself with loving, necessary boundaries. I became more and more honest with my needs. I learned about the rhythms of my writing. The cycles of my feminine side. A side of me that I had rarely been able to tap throughout my life. This space also allowed me to reconnect with my inner child, and she taught me about creativity, unconditional love, play, fun, and joy.

Living with constant anxiety had trapped me in certain ways of being. I was constantly scared of disappointing someone or saying the wrong thing. No wonder my anxiety felt like it was choking me.

This healing journey helped me reconnect with my body. To understand why the pain existed there. Years and years of holding back exactly what I wanted to say had created unhealthy patterns of dimming my light.

My precious light.

So, I built myself back up again. I had always been horrible at sticking to something, and I finally learned why. I had so many people distracting me and pulling at my energy. As I created boundaries, more space opened up. At first, that space felt uncomfortable, but over time, I realized it was expansive.

I had been on so many adventures in my life before this, like travelling the world and living in another country. I thought adventure meant movement or saying yes to the next opportunity, the next experience. Yet, for some reason, really sitting with myself in the ordinary moments was what terrified my soul.

Developing consistency and learning how to build trust within my heart scared me because I was so used to abandoning it. Through years of conditioning, I had learned that my needs were too much for the people who were closest to me.

I am still learning how to come back home to myself. Every day, it becomes easier and easier. The space I am creating is expansive, it is full of unconditional love, and it has reminded me that my life is worth living.

A year ago, listening to my body was one of the hardest things for me to do. Now, listening to my body creates ripples into the Universe. It brings me magic, connection, and so much love.

Jennifer Daniells aka the Creator of Anira - Diver of the Tides ✨

To glean more from Anira and to buy her book 😃✨, visit Here.

When Adventure Arrives on Gifted Wings of Grace

Adventure has been a gentle theme throughout my life, and I’ve had the good fortune to embark upon many, both alone and with loved ones. Cycling across the United States to raise awareness for people experiencing homelessness, exploring ancient ruins, and swimming in warm tropical waters are just a few.

Several months ago, however, the most unexpected and perhaps most soul-filling adventure arrived unannounced. It required no passport, luggage, or camping gear and could be enjoyed from home.

The Discovery

My husband and I were strolling along a trail in a nearby state park when a gorgeous painted rock caught our attention. This was no ordinary rock. It featured stunning colors, a whimsical multicolored dog, and artistry that hinted at Picasso.

We did not take that first rock, but it planted tender seeds that soon sprouted and carried us into experiences we never imagined.

As a recent retiree, I was searching for a meaningful project that would nourish my heart, soul, and spirit while reaching the hearts of others. Every single project fell flat.

Until one day I wandered along our local beach, gathered a few intriguing rocks, and headed home feeling as though I had just adopted a puppy.

A little research revealed that painting rocks would require time, effort, and patience. Thankfully, retirement had gifted me an abundance of all three.

Sharing Your Rock

The Kindness Rocks Project began with Megan Murphy, and its concept is beautifully simple. Someone paints a rock with a kind message or image and leaves it for another person to discover.

Eureka! This simple act of kindness was exactly the way I had hoped to share a little more joy with the world.

The Greatest Gift of All

After painting a few rocks of my own, I noticed my husband becoming curious. Before long, we were sitting together at the table discussing our favorite rocks, choosing colors, dreaming up designs, and deciding where each treasured creation would be left.

What I didn’t expect was that every step of the journey would become its own adventure. First comes the delight of searching for just the right rocks while spending time outdoors. Then comes the creative process of preparing, painting, and imagining who might one day discover them. Finally comes the quiet joy of placing each finished rock along a favorite trail, waiting for a stranger to experience an unexpected moment of kindness.

I never imagined that painting rocks with my beloved would become one of life’s most meaningful adventures. It is wonderfully different from the adventures that have filled decades of marriage, child-rearing, and world exploration together.

This unexpected journey has reminded me that the rhythms of life ebb and flow like the changing tides. When we remain open to new experiences, we may discover that the greatest adventures are not always the ones that carry us to distant places. Sometimes they quietly arrive on gifted wings of grace, waiting to transform both the giver and the one who receives.

To experience more of the gifts Lis offers, and to read her amazing Creator Spotlight, visit Here.

💫Last SoulFull Bits …

The SoulFull Collective is a monthly exploration of one living theme — woven through this collaborative edition, our Sunday SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversations, and a deeper workshop at month’s end. Each month we choose a thread and follow it with intention. This month: Adventure. Next month: Whimsy. The circle continues.

If something in you feels stirred - to write, to reflect, to enter the conversation more fully - reach out. This is a place for thoughtful voices, essential conversations, and curious minds willing to walk the long arc of becoming.

Join us on Sundays. Step into the dialogue. Pull up a chair. Share the love on and on.

Pull Up a Chair 🪑🔥

✨And remember your invitation to our interactive workshop: The Soul of Adventure, Saturday July 25th, 10-12 Pacific.

✨Reach out and we’ll get you the private Zoom link.

Jennifer M. Maki is a writer, speaker, retreat facilitator, and coach to entrepreneurs and storytellers with a passion for exploring the human spirit. Drawn to thoughtful questions, authentic dialogue, and services that empower alignment between conscious action and soulful values, her work weaves together communications, psychology, and lived experience to support people and organizations in leading from inner wisdom. She is the author of Just One Soulful Thing: A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom and the voice behind The SoulFull Way, where she shares inspired gems for soulful living and serving.

Get Your Copy of JOST

A shift up in today’s SoulFull Way, but in keeping with our Adventure theme all the same. Within you’ll find a wee poem, a wondrous article from my hubby and delight of a kindred Todd Maki (his debut on Substack!), and an invite n’ link to join a circle of life adventurers this Sunday and the recording of our fabulous SoulFull Session last Sunday.

If you’ve ever desired, delved into or wanted to explore boredom and all the adventures that bloom in that listless light …

this is for you, kindred soul.

And now …

✨a case for lollygagging

You called me to the miniscule,

the minutiae,

the mundane of a day,

red running veins in leaves of deepest green,

fuzz of sunshine and jet black on the backs of buzzing bees,

the hum and flutter of birds drawing nectar from brilliant trumpets,

the cadence of wind softly rising across forests of ancient pine,

and brook trickling will and way over ancient boulders to hushed pools.

In the laze of a summer afternoon,

spread wide across soft moss beneath,

I swear I heard the fairies whisper in wonder

of such a large lump of being such as me.

Time ticked into hours,

my mind wandered through truths,

into visions and worlds that left me breathless, weightless, limitless.

You made me lay down all plans to be purposeful,

and in the stillness and endless boredom of it all,

I,

privy to majesty existing only here,

was never more alive.

Oh boredom,

best friend and insatiable beast,

how you awaken an unfettered desire to

loiter here for eternity.

© Jennifer M. Maki 2026

✨How I Changed my Life through Boredom

By William Todd Maki

Some things are contagious. Some things are intuitive. Some things come from that voice in your head – the good one, not the one that tells you to double down on a pair of threes. Do you catch wanderlust by sharing a popsicle with someone that is interesting, or is it ingrained in your DNA? Maybe a combination of all of these, maybe none of these.

Who am I to say. I’m not a shaman. But I think there is more to it than having a metaphoric anvil dropped on your head by the Roadrunner. It is more like finding fuel to spark a fire.

Like creativity, I believe you are born with an adventurous side, but it manifests when people tell you things like ‘you can’t make a living by creating art’. Or, with the number of people making it to the NHL being so small, that it is almost statistically impossible to become a pro. At 18, we are told over and over that the goal of life is to find a vocation that pays well, has a good pension and has some chance for promotion. I always thought that this was solid advice for other people.

I would say I have an adventurous side. You couldn’t tell by looking at me, but it’s there. You can see adventure as a sparkle in the eyes of others. And when you connect – sparkle to sparkle – the fun begins. Sometimes the spark to the flame is another Mad Hero that is not content with just a solid, responsible life. I think I’ve hidden my Mad Hero side well most of my life. Respectable career, paucity of tattoos, plethora of conversations smiling through the monotony. These are the hallmarks of many adventurous people. My better half has that sparkle and together we have had many adventures. Some I can even tell you about. Remember there is a big difference between arrested and convicted.

But I think that, in addition to having a partner in crime, there is something else that is necessary. Boredom and feeling stuck are actually our friends. These are the prerequisites of a life bordering on being a ne’er do well.

I heard Margo Timmins interviewed on CBC Radio years ago. For those of you that are not Canadian, and are not of a certain age, you might not recognize that name. She was the lead singer of a band called the Cowboy Junkies. They were a great alternative country band that formed in the mid 80’s.

In the interview, she was asked about why she thought there were so many great Canadian songwriters. Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Ron Sexsmith, Robbie Robertson were mentioned (I highly recommend listening to Ron Sexsmith). She gave a very thoughtful answer. She said it was because of the distance between gigs. She was talking about how long it was to drive between cities in Canada before you were a big act and could afford to fly. What did she mean by this?

Canada is the second largest country in the world. The cities are mostly lined up within 100 miles of the US border. So, you had to drive long distances between cities. Outside of Southern Ontario, you had to drive 6, 8, 12 hours between gigs. You sat and looked out the window and were forced to examine your life without real distractions. When I grew up, if you drove between Toronto and my hometown Thunder Bay, there were long hours of driving where, if you hit the search button on your radio (I know, I’m dating myself), it would literally scan for hours without finding a station.

So, you thought, you dreamed, you were self-reflective. And if you were Canadian, you were probably self-deprecating in your approach to life. These are the moments that the voice inside your head wakes up and says, “You should study History at University”, or “You should just move from a city of 120,000 in the middle of nowhere (it wasn’t the end of the earth, but you could see it from there) to the ‘Big Smoke’” – a city with a contiguous population of about 12 million. “Nah, you don’t need a job lined up. There must be lots there.” This is the thinking of someone with a bachelor’s degree in history.

But what a ride. When I was 17, I thought, I’d like to play in a band. I bought a bass guitar and an amp and was in a band in two weeks. Playing in front of crowds in three months. The boredom lowered my inhibitions and opened my eyes. At every step, getting stuck in a rut causes you to come alive, causes you to think outside the box and you look for a friend with a sparkle in his/her eyes.

The adventure comes just after you turn off your phone and look out the window until you have focused on what is around you and discover what is lacking. Once you get to Boredom Street, turn left onto Adventure Avenue and don’t stop until you have something to write about.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨your invitation for Sunday July 19th

So here's to a little more lollygagging, a little less rushing, and a whole lot more listening to that wise voice within. If you're feeling called to explore what adventure is asking of you, we'd so love to gather with you around the soulful fire this Sunday.

✨ Sunday, July 19th — Special LIVE Panel Conversation

The Call to Adventure

A Conversation About Living Our Yes! Life

Join us for a lively and heartfelt conversation with:

✨
✨
✨

There are moments in every life when something calls to us.

A dream. A possibility. A new direction. A quiet knowing we can no longer ignore.

Together, we’ll explore the adventures within and in the world; the invitations that changed our lives, the leaps we almost didn’t take, the adventures that shaped us, and what happens when we trust ourselves enough to say yes to the paths calling us forward.

We’ll reflect on courage, possibility, purpose, and the unexpected places life can take us when we follow what feels most deeply true.

Whether you’re standing at the edge of a new chapter, contemplating a leap of your own, or simply longing to live more fully, we hope you’ll join us around the soulful fire.

Your Zoom link: HERE.

✨ Wednesday, July 22nd

The SoulFull Collective Special Edition of The SoulFull Way

Living Our Yes! Lives

A special collaborative edition of The SoulFull Way featuring writers, creators, entrepreneurs, and adventurers sharing stories of courage, meaningful risk-taking, unexpected turns, life-changing decisions, and the remarkable places life can take us when we answer the call.

Together, we’ll explore what happens when we trust ourselves, embrace possibility, and say yes to the adventures that shape our lives.

✨ Saturday, July 25th

The Soul of Adventure Workshop

A two-hour immersive online experience exploring how to cultivate a more adventurous spirit and create a life aligned with your deepest values, longings, and possibilities, followed by an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

Flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation
✨ guided introspection through your Adventure Guided Journal
✨ identifying the adventures currently calling you
✨ exploring the fears, stories, and assumptions that may be holding you back
✨ uncovering your personal definition of adventure
✨ soulful conversation and reflection
✨ meaningful connection in small groups
✨ creating your next courageous step forward

Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Way.

Spaces are intentionally limited to support meaningful conversation and connection.
Message me for details and to reserve your place.

✨ If you missed our Sunday SoulFull Session July 12th

here’s your recording …

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your week of boredom, sweet boredom and all the blissful creative insights and flowy ideas that come of just that. See you Sunday!

✨jenni

✨the globe

The sound of bees in the blackberry bushes humming through the cracked window brings the taste to my mouth and the memory of the prickles, always worth the sweet reward.

But this morning, I have the privilege of sitting in my favourite room in our farmhouse, my daddy’s office: where business is conducted, bills paid (of which I know nothing at six), and poetic words pour to page (that I will come to cherish in my writing years ahead).

However, in this moment, although my grandfather’s desk intrigues me, the leather chairs swallow me up making me feel cozy, and this room with five sides of glorious glass with the sun streaming and sparkling through makes one feel of the towering forest surrounding, I’m not here for any of this really.

My spirit ignites with the sight of one spherical object that holds the mysteries of my imagination and the future that awaits me, although I little know this now.

Ever since daddy put me on his lap, pulled forth the globe, and told me stories of his travels across the world — climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower, dining at The Waldorf Astoria, hiking and canoeing in the wilds, of living with my mother in South Africa for three years, meeting elephants, their puppy catching snakes to keep them safe, waking from camping one eve to find a gorilla had swiped at, and cut through, their tent — I’ve felt truly alive.

Here is where my longing for adventure was born.

I know in my soul I was meant to explore. Long before I had the words for it, I carried the heart of a wanderer; mesmerized by maps, enchanted by distant horizons, and irresistibly drawn to the promise of adventure waiting just beyond the edge of the known.

✨the leap

With the sorrowful loss of six of my friends before the age of 26, I felt compelled to live for all of us, to do those things one dreams of but doesn’t often embark on because of fear. What is there to fear really, if you’re keenly aware that death is inevitable and days are numbered? This wasn’t a morbid thing; it was a wake up call I welcomed. Coupled with my father’s guidance in all things pertaining to awareness of self, the divine in all living things and experiences and study of the power of the human mind from a tender age, I decided early that …

Life is a game to be played.

I wanted to see if visualization could lead to manifestation, if dreams intended and momentum through massive, consistent action could tip the scales on achievement. And most essentially if meditation and inner listening could unleash an innate wisdom that would guide me through obstacles, empower me to adapt and reroute when necessary, and inspire me with quality of experience beyond mere quantity of things acquired.

And see and experience I did, beyond all my wildest envisioning – because when we surrender to that wise voice within and follow where it leads, it takes us to heights even we couldn’t have at first imagined possible. I followed that voice across the world, quite literally, and an adventurous calling has been at the heart of it all.

Just after university and in the thick of a relationship that had all of my loved ones thinking (including me) it was headed for the altar, I had an incident with some hangers in our walk-in closet that clinched the deal on a need for change.

So often the niggly annoyances, and downright anger we feel in life can be the tell-tale signs of our misalignment with our calling, with our very soul. So often we move through episodes that surprise or upset us and quickly blow them off as just a moment of insanity. But oh how sane that voice within and those nudges to recalibrate are.

I had a creative, brilliant, sparkly, prodigy-esque artist of a momma who pushed her feelings so far down they erupted and nearly blew us all away, on the regular. So, I knew the pitfalls of feigning ignorance. As I sat in a puddle of tears, in a heap of tangled hangers, I realized I was miserable. I felt trapped by a life I hadn’t agreed to. And despite the hurt, perplexed faces that met me as I announced I was moving to Grand Cayman for a time, I hopped that plane to ensure I did not make the same mistake my mother did by ignoring the need to sort self before building a family.

This eventually ended my relationship with my boyfriend but allowed the one with myself to truly begin.

✨attuning within and to a life of YES!

I spent three and a half years in Grand Cayman running a restaurant and a nightclub, organizing promotions that included breakie upon a 150-foot yacht, Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance choreography for our staff adorned in skeleton costumes and sparkly top hats for our Halloween bash and every manner of excursion from learning to scuba dive to parasailing. I took it all out for a spin.

Then came public relations/marketing school in Canada and a quick turnaround to San Diego to work with an agency there to learn the ropes on a business that would bolster my career beyond measure. With my mom having a stroke and listening to the voice that said after years away, “It’s time to go home … now.” I listened and followed.

This led to me fulfilling a dream to run a camp for children, and in becoming the director, while I was hiring the 75 staff from across Canada, I could run a respite program in the off season that allowed me to be with my mother throughout her rehab. So much healing and love and deeper understanding in having this time together, alongside applying my PR skills toward a non-profit that needed support.

Had I listened to my (amazing) boss in California who tried to convince me to stay, I would have missed eight months with my mom before she died that summer.

When the camp season ended, off I was again this time to a village in Austria to stay with a friend, I met in Grand Cayman, and his family. The whole community welcomed me in a way that changed my life on so many levels. Swooshing down the slopes along 95 miles of ski trails, sipping Jägermeister with the Austrian soccer team in a beehive bar entirely made of glass, dancing the evenings away to my favourite euro dance hits. And then a near month-long tour through Europe, from the White Cliffs of Dover to Calais, Brussels for mussels, along the Rhine River through Germany, Switzerland, western Austria, Italy – from the glory of Venice to the dazzling beauty of the Island of Capri, Southern France to the Eiffel Tower just like my papa, and back up to England. Adventures in every village along the way, too many to account for here (and still have you reading on).

This set the tone for my life. When I did come back to Canada to run the head office for Easter Seals, that owned the camp I had run, I had no idea where adventure would lead me next, but it had bitten me indeed.

Luckily (aka serendipitously), I met the man of my dreams. We knew near instantly that this is what we’d been waiting for, and in six months we were engaged and off – to move from the city of Toronto where we met playing beach volleyball, to the mountains of Canmore, in the province of Alberta where we would marry and I would give life, first to a business of my own, and then, and most wondrously, to two angelic, soulful boys.

We weren’t done yet though. One last jaunt back to Ontario had us adventuring with our parents as they found their way in their final years and gave us the privilege of caring for them until they made that final journey beyond the veil. And when that was complete, Calgary called us back for a time and eventually to the place we now call home, British Columbia.

✨our greatest Adventure of all

The greatest adventure of all, in all of this, became parenting – learning more than I ever thought possible about myself and the values that deeply matter, so I could authentically guide these little gaffers with soulful wisdom and unconditional love. In this, I felt compelled to take the inner-leadership and values work I was doing in the fields of healthcare and education and with non-profits, into my home and lead our boys. I chose then to LifeSchool and launch The Mad Hero Project that would see us on many Missions of the Me and We kind (a whole book coming on that called The Mad Hero’s Handbook for Life).

And now … all this applied to, woven within and offered through The SoulFull Way, my own business, Jennifer M. Maki Consulting & Coaching and the business my Todd and I have created together, Mad Hero Productions & Publishing.

These three veins of contribution are wild, challenging, spectacular adventures in and of themselves each and every day.

As we gather more and more souls from around the world who long to put Values First in their precious lives and let all else flow from that intentional, conscious, playful place …

we are keenly aware that this game is designed in favour of us all.

Together, we can counter the intensity of the world,

we can create a safe haven to bolster us for the crusade to make this world better,

we can affect change through discourse and community and love.

And this is the greatest adventure of them all.

The adventure that begins within, ripples out to those we love, the strangers who become friends, and the excursions that ignite our spirits in the world.

If you’ve read to here, you must need a nap. But don’t we all after a good adventure. Hee hee

Thank you for reading, for being here with us and ohhhhh do we have a month of awesome—sauce for you!!

Might be time to get yourself a good ole globe if you don’t have one.

We’re going to be reminiscing about all that’s brought us to here, but also … dreaming and scheming about where we should launch our Yes! Lives next!!

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨adventures ahead for July

Each month along The SoulFull Way, we explore one theme together and provide meaningful touch-points for living that theme more intentionally in our everyday lives.

This month, adventure is calling.

We’re grabbing rucksack n’ spirit and setting out on an exploration of Adventure.

Adventure is often associated with faraway places, winding roads, mountain peaks, and passport stamps. Yet some of the greatest adventures begin much closer to home.

A courageous conversation.

A leap of faith.

A dream pursued.

A new chapter embraced.

A quiet inner knowing finally honoured.

Together this month, we’ll explore adventure as a way of living; saying yes to possibility, trusting our inner guidance, venturing beyond the familiar, and embracing the rich experiences waiting both within us and in the world around us.

Flowing through the month:

✨ Weekly Newsletters

Stories, reflections, poems, practical insights, and soulful invitations exploring adventure in our relationships, work, creativity, personal growth, and everyday lives.

✨ Please Note - No SoulFull Session LIVE on Sunday, July 5th ✨

✨ Sunday, July 12th — SoulFull Session LIVE

The Great Adventure

What Makes Life Feel Adventurous?

Join Todd Maki and me around the soulful fire as we explore what adventure really means.

Is adventure found on mountain tops and distant shores, or can it be discovered in everyday moments, courageous choices, meaningful relationships, and following the quiet nudges of our soul?

Together we’ll explore the many faces of adventure and uncover what makes a life feel vibrant, expansive, and fully lived.

The Great Adventure | SoulFull Session LIVE
Sunday, July 12, 2026
10:30 a.m. PT

Your link to join us HERE.

✨ Sunday, July 19th — Special LIVE Panel Conversation

The Call to Adventure

A Conversation About Living Our Yes! Life

Join us for a lively and heartfelt conversation with:

✨ Sarah Newton-John
✨ Dr. Tanis Gaitens
✨ Miles Hack

There are moments in every life when something calls to us.

A dream. A possibility. A new direction. A quiet knowing we can no longer ignore.

Together, we’ll explore the adventures within and in the world; the invitations that changed our lives, the leaps we almost didn’t take, the adventures that shaped us, and what happens when we trust ourselves enough to say yes to the paths calling us forward.

We’ll reflect on courage, possibility, purpose, and the unexpected places life can take us when we follow what feels most deeply true.

Whether you’re standing at the edge of a new chapter, contemplating a leap of your own, or simply longing to live more fully, we hope you’ll join us around the soulful fire.

Your Zoom link: HERE.

✨ Wednesday, July 22nd

The SoulFull Collective Special Edition of The SoulFull Way

Living Our Yes! Lives

A special collaborative edition of The SoulFull Way featuring writers, creators, entrepreneurs, and adventurers sharing stories of courage, meaningful risk-taking, unexpected turns, life-changing decisions, and the remarkable places life can take us when we answer the call.

Together, we’ll explore what happens when we trust ourselves, embrace possibility, and say yes to the adventures that shape our lives.

✨ Saturday, July 25th

The Soul of Adventure Workshop

A two-hour immersive online experience exploring how to cultivate a more adventurous spirit and create a life aligned with your deepest values, longings, and possibilities, followed by an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

Flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation
✨ guided introspection through your Adventure Guided Journal
✨ identifying the adventures currently calling you
✨ exploring the fears, stories, and assumptions that may be holding you back
✨ uncovering your personal definition of adventure
✨ soulful conversation and reflection
✨ meaningful connection in small groups
✨ creating your next courageous step forward

Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Way.

Spaces are intentionally limited to support meaningful conversation and connection.
Message me for details and to reserve your place.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your week of courageous leaps, unexpected turns, and saying yes to the adventures calling your name.

✨jenni

✨We are curious creatures you and I

From first breath and cry into the world, stretching tiny limbs to loving arms, wailing for our wants, testing all manner of boundaries, learning from bruised bodies and aching hearts, ever yearning for more: picking up, dusting off, skipping or limping, onward.

Our perpetual “Why?” with time, and gems of wisdom consciously gathered, becomes “What may I glean?” We crave exploration, be it inward or outward. And if we cannot find purpose or prize, we are so wired to advance that should we be shut down times enough, we will seek anything to numb the pain and dull the senses.

Curiosity must be followed or stifled to an inch of its life. But ever lives within, whispering, nudging, surging up through the unguarded mind in the wee hours of the morning, leaving us sleepless, breathless.

Curiosity drives us to distinction and toward delightful distraction.

It is the very foundation of our being, our presence, our way, across every industry and artistic unfurling, dabbles in the hearts of all, no matter colour of skin, calling of spirit, belief or ideation. Curiosity touches every single creature, from the bunny that sniffs out the choicest leaves or danger, the shark that watches on through centuries of evolution, to humans in first fire light and now, searching for a way to bring us all back from the brink of an earth suffering and a world weaved and gripped by so much discourse, so much sadness, we all, never more connected, never more alone.

Curiosity has been our bright light and will be our saviour, because if we can ask rather than assume, wonder instead of whirl in worry, humble ourselves enough to know we don’t know more than what we’ve come to know to here, that there is more to the story, the person, the perspective, more space between than matter revealed, more that connects us than divides us … then, then, there is hope for us all.

Curiosity is revealed in countless creations throughout our history. Within the mystery, the questions themselves break wide our shell of detachment and make us want to wander back to childhood when anything was possible and all of life was before us.

Oh to suspend what we ‘think’ is to make space for what may fantastically be. We can stir and embrace this in myriad ways, by choice: wandering in a forest allowing ancient trees to infuse us with the wisdom of eons, drinking from a mountain spring filling our bodies with the waters that have cycled to sky and earth and nourished throughout time, pausing to appreciate the song of a bird, a butterfly a-flutter, the sound of a loved one’s voice, experiencing it all anew.

Or we can take the time to step back in wild awe and reflect on art that reflects the human soul and the precious, precarious, wonderings of those called to follow curiosity to the outskirts of their imagination and artistic calling, to the ends of the earth and far beyond, to worlds of their creation.

Let’s follow them down the rabbit hole, shall we? Allow ourselves to be wooed by wonder?

Perhaps, just perhaps, their curious creations will inspire us to open hearts wide to “What else?” and a “What if?” that spurs us to envisage and conjure curious creations all our own.

Throughout history, artists have been among curiosity’s most devoted companions. They have followed questions into forests of imagination, across oceans of possibility, through mysteries both personal and universal. They have peered through keyholes, wandered into fog, sailed toward distant horizons, and invited us to sit at tables where the rules of logic loosen and wonder takes the lead.

The five works that follow each explore a different facet of curiosity. Together, they invite us into discovery, mystery, exploration, possibility, and connection. More than masterpieces, they are reminders that curiosity has always been one of humanity’s greatest gifts: the courage to ask, to seek, to imagine, and to remain open to what may yet be revealed.

✨Curious by Nature: Alice at the Door

Created by illustrator Sir John Tenniel for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, first published in 1865, this iconic image captures the very moment curiosity tingles us through, invites us, not just to look but to enter in.

There Alice stands before a very curious little door. What is this? Where might it lead? Is that where the rabbit went? How may I follow, if I’m so big and it’s so small? Where is the solution to this ‘big me’ problem?

For more than 150 years, readers have recognized themselves in this moment. The illustration has become one of literature’s most enduring symbols of curiosity because it captures a universal truth: every adventure begins with questions and a desire to follow where the answers may lead.

What makes this image so compelling is not what Alice finds. It’s the choice she makes before she knows.

Curiosity often arrives in much the same way in our own lives. A chance encounter. A conversation. A book. An invitation. A possibility glimpsed through a doorway just barely ajar.

Alice reminds us that we are curious by nature. We can see life as a grand adventure. We can choose to be curious. Perhaps the most life-changing journeys begin not with answers, but with the courage to simply, soulfully open the door and allow ourselves to be amazed by what we find.

✨Curious in Nature: The Garden of Earthly Delights

Painted by Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch between approximately 1490 and 1510, The Garden of Earthly Delights is widely considered one of the most fascinating and mysterious paintings in Western art history.

For more than five centuries, scholars, artists, historians, and curious observers have peered into its extraordinary landscape searching for meaning. Strange creatures roam. Exotic animals appear alongside human figures. Peculiar structures rise from the earth. Every corner seems to contain another question, another symbol, another possibility waiting to be explored.

What makes this painting so enduring is that no one fully agrees on what it means.

Each viewing reveals something new. Each observer is struck by something different.

One could spend hours wandering through its details and still leave with unanswered questions.

Perhaps that is precisely the point. Life itself often unfolds this way.

The more closely we look, the more we discover there is to see. The more we learn, the more we realize how much remains unknown.

As we explore curiosity in nature, Bosch reminds us that the world is far more mysterious, complex, and wondrous than we often allow ourselves to imagine. There is always another layer. Another perspective. Another question waiting patiently to be asked.

Perhaps curiosity is not about finding all the answers. Perhaps it is about learning to delight in the mystery.

✨Curious in Nature: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

Painted in 1818 by German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog has become one of the most recognizable and beloved images in art history.

At first glance, the painting appears remarkably simple. A solitary figure stands atop a rocky outcrop overlooking a landscape shrouded in mist. Mountains emerge in the distance. Peaks rise and disappear. The horizon remains partially hidden.

This is perhaps why the painting continues to captivate us. We know not what lies beyond the fog. Neither we nor the wanderer can see what awaits beyond it. He stands where certainty ends and possibility begins.

For more than two centuries, viewers have found themselves drawn into the scene, imagining what the figure sees, what journey brought him there, and what path may still lie ahead. The painting invites us to stand beside him, if only for a moment, and contemplate the mysteries that stretch beyond our current view … to be lost and found in the wonder of the glorious fog.

As we explore curiosity in nature, Friedrich reminds us that wonder is discovered in the willingness to pause at the edge of the unknown and remain open to what may yet be revealed.

Curiosity may then simply be the courage to keep moving forward, even, or especially, when we cannot see the entire path. Be open to the majesty yet to be discovered.

✨Curious to Nurture: The Voyage of Life–Youth

Painted in 1842 by American artist Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Youth is part of a celebrated four-painting series depicting the journey of human life.

In this scene, a young voyager travels along a winding river toward a radiant horizon filled with possibility. The waters are calm. The sky is bright. The landscape unfolds with beauty, promise, and wonder. Ahead lies an unknown future, yet the traveler moves forward with hope and anticipation.

For generations, viewers have been drawn to the painting’s sense of adventure and becoming. It captures a season of life when dreams feel boundless, horizons seem endless, and curiosity pulls us toward experiences we have not yet envisioned.

What makes this work so compelling is not the destination, but the delight discovered in the willingness to begin.

The voyager does not possess a map revealing every turn of the river. He cannot see all that awaits beyond the bend. Yet he journeys onward all the same.

As we explore curiosity to nurture, Cole reminds us that curiosity flourishes when we trust ourselves enough to follow possibility. Not every question requires an immediate answer. Not every path needs to be fully revealed before we take the next step.

Herein curiosity is the companion that keeps us moving toward the horizon, helping us remain open to the adventure of our ever becoming.

From Alice’s tiny door to Bosch’s mysterious landscapes, from Friedrich’s fog-covered horizon to Cole’s winding river of possibility, these works remind us that curiosity has always been woven into the human story.

The artists who created them dared to imagine beyond what was known, to explore beyond what was visible, and to give form to wonder itself. Their creations invite us to do the same.

Perhaps that is why these works continue to captivate us centuries later. They awaken something ancient within us. A longing to explore. To discover. To understand. To imagine. To become.

We are curious creatures, you and I.

We always have been.

And perhaps in a world that so often rushes to certainty, assumes before asking, and divides before understanding, curiosity can be our saving grace. An invitation to wonder instead of worry, to explore instead of retreat, to seek connection instead of separation.

This is why we gather as we do at The SoulFull Way. It is where our values meet our daily lives. Each month, we choose a theme, a value, and explore it together through reflection, conversation, creativity, community, and conscious practice, allowing it to enrich not only our understanding, but the way we move through the world.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨ wanna get curious together?

✨ Saturday, June 27th — The Soul of Curiosity Workshop

A two-hour immersive online experience exploring curiosity as a pathway to wonder, connection, possibility, and personal expansion, followed by an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

Flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation
✨ guided reflection through your Soul of Curiosity journal
✨ exploring the questions, possibilities, and curiosities currently alive within us
✨ uncovering assumptions and discovering fresh perspectives
✨ meaningful conversation in community
✨ small-group connection and shared wonderings
✨ identifying the invitations, adventures, and opportunities waiting just beyond the familiar
✨ creating one curious next step to carry forward into life

Free for newcomers, paid subscribers, and always for those who may need a little extra support.

Spaces are intentionally limited to support meaningful conversation and connection.
✨Message me for details and to reserve your place.✨

✨Want more on Curiosity from this month?

Here are the links to deepen your wonder and way in the queries:

✨Curiouser and Curiouser: Following Wonder Wherever it Leads

✨The Curious Heart: SoulFull Session LIVE gathering Replay. Exploring curiosity, connection, listening, assumptions, understanding, and the beautiful things that happen when we become more interested than interesting.

✨The SoulFull Collective: A Collaborative Edition on Curiosity ~ Featuring voices and wonderings from kindreds along The SoulFull Way.

Each month along The SoulFull Way, we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it within ourselves and in the world.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your week of wonder, rabbit holes, meaningful questions, and the beautiful discoveries waiting just beyond the familiar.

✨ jenni

Curiosity led me right here … to imagine a world where mad-desirous souls and creative kindreds could connect and celebrate one another. Wellll, Substack brought it to the platform (whoot whoot and thank you!).

But for as long as I can remember, I've been a gatherer—of experiences to understand and of people across the world, and wildly curious about how all this game-of-life business works and my little stardust place within it.

First I sought solace and wonder in the fields, trees, horses and still waters of our pond as a little girl, enamoured by the beauty about me and the whisper within me.

Next I went in search of the reason why I lived when six of my friends passed by the time I turned 26. This took me on a journey for eight years to islands, and villages, jobs that exhilarated me and nearly drove me into the ground, people who fascinated me, and places that make you weep in awe.

And finally home, when I realized I need not go to the ends of the earth to discover myself, that would come from learning how to love deeply and care passionately for myself and honour the collective spark of the divine in us all.

It guided me to LifeSchool our boys and launch The Mad Hero Project to put our creative joys and mindful ways to use.

And through questioning everything and being open to what keenly matters, we dug a well with those experiences, together, in hopes that our boys would forever possess a place within to draw from: to continue to feed their own curious lives, consider themselves with grace, others with compassion and to lead with love.

In knowing they’re launched and wondrous, I now find myself here, with my precious husband Todd, curious to see where life leads next as we expand and gather and do our best to counter the intensity of the world with space: for stillness, thinking, listening within and learning to trust that where that whisper within leads will always bring us back to more fabulous questions and more kindreds gathering in community.

Curiosity led me here … to ask these courageous, brilliant, insightful souls to share with you their take on all this.
And in taking time in your busy life to pause and ponder right here, you will be wildly enriched by their reflections … and they, in turn, will undoubtedly spark those memories, inspired ideas, and madly beautiful desires all your own, anew.

Thank you for gathering here with us. And if you feel moved, please do celebrate these amazing contributors by seeking them out, sharing and restacking their words on and basking in The SoulFull Collective experience
for a moment or joining us as a member.

There is always room for another treasured curious soul to pull up a chair around the soulful fire.

If you’re new to The SoulFull Way, we are a community of co-creators, exploring month-to-month the values that shape our lives. We know that what we focus on, we get more of and we want the good stuff. And we get that it is waaay more meaningful (and fun) doing it together.

If this sounds like you, you’re in the right place. We create touchpoints to keep our eyes and hearts on the soulful prize, with a weekly newsletter, live talks, and a deeper-dive gathering/workshop and private community chat of transformational support and connection. Next workshop, The Soul of Curiosity, Saturday, June 27th, 10:00-12:00 PT - free to paid subscribers, complimentary to new (includes The Soul of Presence Guided Journal).

Subscribe or Upgrade 4 Bonus Tidbits

The SoulFull Collective: Special Edition on Curiosity

This is one of my favourite parts of our work here in The SoulFull Collective: gathering kindreds around the contemplative, soulful fire; creating space to pause, listen, and be changed by the wisdom shared. To feature the writers and creatives who inspire me so deeply.

This edition is an invitation to rekindle your connection to the kid within who was innately curious, asking questions to drive adults to the brink, wide-eyed with wonder and quite certain that life was unfolding just for you.

Pull up a chair round the fire. Reach out. Stack on these brilliant Substack co-creators. Together, let us create more space for curiosity in a world, illuminating it with words and ideas, poetry and notes, brushstrokes and broad strokes of imagination, lighting The SoulFull Way for all.

Now … For Our Featured Creatives:

I’ve had the extraordinary pleasure of having Tanis as both a business coaching client and incredible soul sister over this past year+. She is a glorious blend of brilliant mind, conscientious researcher, and authentic being. She is Glow Life personified. From the whole-health products and G.L.O.W. rituals she recommends to her chapter in The Awakened Feminine, Dr. Tanis is a well-th of inspiration on how to embrace your vibrant life inside and out.

Dr. Tanis Gaitens is active on many social media platforms but she is now launching her new publication on Substack. Please show her some love by subscribing and keep an eye out for her posts on health, wellness and living your glow life. You can find her new pub here: Glow Life by Dr. Tanis.

And this is her curious piece for you, readers.

The Gifts of Curiosity

With Father’s Day coming up next weekend, reflecting on curiosity naturally led to thoughts of my dad, who gave me the gift of curiosity. Or maybe more precisely, the gift of nurturing my innate curiosity. We are born curious beings, but not everyone maintains their natural curiosity. But when that curiosity flame is fanned, it can be the gift that keeps on giving. Curiosity can help us see not only the world as ever-new and fresh, but also our relationships as well. It can be the root of the scientific process. It can lead us to become good problem solvers who ask good questions. And thus ultimately can be the source of ongoing wonder in our lives!

My dad taught us to explore, and to be curious about what was around us. Our walks and hikes were “mushroom hunts”, as we scouted for mushrooms around us. He was a master storyteller whose bedtime stories held us rapt and curious about the twist that was about to come. He created an environment in which each day was an adventure, and in which learning through exploring and through reading, both fiction and non-fiction, was fun! There was a sense of discovery, adventure and fun rolled into the curiosity, that became linked with learning, and staying open to new experiences and skills.

I realize that curiosity is innate, not just taught to me by my dad. In the words of Albert Einstein: “We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” As anyone who has had children knows, to be attuned to a baby or toddler, to see the world through their eyes, means living in a world of curiosity, discovery, and wonder. Things we have taken for granted for years, simple things like butterflies and airplanes and gravity, become new and exciting! To me this is one of the joys of parenthood and grandparenthood!

Which brings me to the idea of how curiosity, novelty and relationships are related. To not be curious can be to assume and can lead to taking things for granted. Our brains are wired for novelty, as Dr. Amit Sood, neurologist and former head of Integrative Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, has written. And thus the people closest to us can become as interesting as our toothbrush to us. To avoid taking our families for granted, Dr. Sood recommends actively searching for novelty on our way home. By training ourselves to see novelty, when we see our loved ones, we are more attuned to the novelty in them. Which is another way of saying, get curious about the people we are in relationship with. That curiosity can keep our novelty-seeking brains engaged and interested and our relationships fresh!

One of my guiding principles is to find the opportunity in every obstacle. Examined from the lens of curiosity, I see that my technique of looking for the opportunity, the gift and the learning in every obstacle, is another way of being curious. Curious about what the gift can be. What learning can there be in this very difficult challenge? What opportunities could be found in this challenging situation? These are questions, and questions are about curiosity!

It has been said that the quality of our lives is related to the quality of the questions that we ask. As a former child psychiatrist who is very interested in how what we think and say to ourselves affects our feelings, actions, and ultimately our lives, I am very interested in the questions we ask ourselves, because they prime our reticular activating systems (RAS). We cannot possibly take in everything going on around us, so our RAS is like a filter. And we can prime that filter by asking questions. Questions like “I wonder what wonderful thing is going to happen today” are always rooted in curiosity. Curiosity and wonder are intertwined!

Curiosity and questions are also at the root of the scientific method. Observing, wondering, and asking questions are where hypotheses are formed, and science starts. For example, a year ago I noticed that my contact lenses have “UV blocking” written on them. As someone with a family history of macular degeneration (MD), a condition leading to blindness which is connected to sun exposure to the back of the eye, I wondered if wearing these contact lenses would help to protect me from MD. I wondered if there had been any studies about this, and couldn’t see any. I was very surprised when my optometrist showed no curiosity about this relationship when I asked her. Seems like a great start to scientific research to me!

As Randy Pausch said in his famous “Last Lecture”, “Never lose the childlike wonder; show gratitude”. Keeping our childlike curiosity is a gift in so many ways and ultimately, even gratitude is connected to curiosity: “I wonder what I can be grateful for right here, right now?” Asking good curious questions can enhance our relationships, our ability to solve problems and to bounce back from tough challenges, and can even inform the scientific process. I’m definitely going to keep using this lens of curiosity!

To explore more of what’s to come of Dr. Tanis’ new pub and to help her launch with verve, subscribe Here.

This gorgeous creative soul has graced my Substack journey since nearly the beginning. A teacher of young minds by trade, a weaver of tales in all her in between moments, lovely Lia is a wonder and curious by nature. Her fiction stories will have you transported and her authentic and inspiring reflections on life always leave one wanting to know more and considering life on a deeper level.

In this piece, Lia opens the door for us to a world of questions and perspectives that encourage us to see beyond what is to what can be. She weaves in so beautifully all the themes we’ve been exploring this month … and empowers us to realize, through her life’s precious examples, that being interested, indeed, makes us far more interesting.

Curiosity Was the Thread

Today was the last day of what seemed to be an endless school year.

Still, as it always does, it arrived more quickly than anyone expected. There were hugs, tearful goodbyes, laughter, promises to keep in touch, and the familiar realization that another year had quietly come to an end.

As I reflected on the year, I found myself asking what had made it meaningful. It certainly wasn’t the lesson plans, the endless deadlines, the piles of reports, or the countless late hours spent preparing classes and projects.

The answer, surprisingly, was curiosity.

Not curiosity about subjects, teaching approaches, or facts, but curiosity about the people in my everyday life.

As usually happens, I began the year immersed in the logistics of a teacher’s everyday life. I thought about objectives, assessments, and desired outcomes. Somewhere along the way, cold facts gave way to another question, a far more important one:

Who are these young people sitting in front of me?

Each student arrived carrying a different story and background, a different set of strengths and insecurities, different dreams and different fears. It has been my experience over many years in classrooms that the more curious I become about them, the easier it becomes to teach them.

Not because I have discovered some revolutionary method. Far from it.

It is easier because teaching stops being about merely delivering knowledge and information and becomes about a genuine wish to understand these young souls.

I spent less time trying to become interesting and more time trying to be interested.

Interested in what motivated them.

Interested in what discouraged them.

Interested in the ways they learned, struggled, grew, and surprised themselves.

Long, heartfelt discussions during lessons. Spontaneous confessions during break time. Moments when frustrations, fears, and insecurities surfaced as tears or angry outbursts, only to become opportunities for understanding, trust, and respect.

Looking back on today’s farewells, I think they sensed that curiosity.

The sincerity behind it.

Perhaps that, more than anything else, is what students remember.

Yet my curiosity did not stop at the classroom door.

This year tested me professionally in ways I had not anticipated. I was entrusted with a leadership role in a major European school collaboration project. The workload was immense. I found myself working late nights with unfamiliar software, managing projects whose final shape I could scarcely envision, and trying to balance all of it alongside the constant demands of teaching eight classes.

There were moments when I felt completely out of my depth. Moments when frustration and my temper ran high.

Curiosity became my lifeline.

The initial question, “Can I do this?” gradually became “How does this work?” and “What’s the next step?”

Every obstacle became an experiment.

Every inevitable setback became an opportunity to learn something new.

Many late nights later, the projects were completed. Not perfectly, perhaps, but well enough that I could look at them with satisfaction. More importantly, this process taught me something about myself: that the boundaries of our abilities are often far less fixed than we imagine.

Yet if curiosity ended up shaping my work, it transformed something even more precious.

My relationship with my daughter.

At nineteen, she stands on the threshold between adolescence and adulthood. Studies, the difficulties that come with entering the workforce, relationships, difficult choices, exciting possibilities—all of life seems to be opening before her at once.

As parents, myself included, we often mistake guidance for wisdom.

We rush to solve, advise, direct, and protect.

I am certainly guilty of that.

This year, however, I decided to try something different.

To listen.

I asked fewer questions and offered fewer answers.

Sometimes the most important thing I could say was simply, “And then what happened?”

Or, “Tell me more.”

It required far more discipline than I had expected.

But slowly, I discovered something beautiful.

The less I tried to steer the conversation, the more she shared. The more curious I became about her thoughts, her experiences, and her perspective, the closer we grew.

There were serious conversations about the future.

There were discussions about work, relationships, and identity.

And there were countless moments of laughter—those absurd, unexpected moments that seem insignificant at the time and later become treasured memories.

I realized this past year that perhaps the most difficult curiosity of all is learning to be curious about the people we think we already know.

Curiosity shaped my friendships as well.

It helped me build deeper relationships with colleagues. Some became dear friends. Others became trusted companions and confidantes on the more difficult days.

It guided me through conversations on Substack, where I found writers whose work challenged and inspired me. Writers whose experience far exceeded my own.

Though intimidated at first, I found myself becoming curious.

How did they do it?

What made their writing resonate?

What could I learn from them?

I read closely. I asked questions when I could. I experimented. I failed. I tried again.

Most importantly, I became curious about my own willingness to be seen.

It was never an ambition of mine. Yet I felt compelled to explore visibility, even imperfectly, despite the countless questions and doubts.

How much of myself was I prepared to place on the page?

How honest was I willing to be?

What stories was I still reluctant to tell?

In many ways, this curiosity led me not only toward other writers, but toward my own voice.

Looking back on this school year, I expected to remember the projects, deadlines, reports, and accomplishments.

Instead, I find myself thinking about questions.

The questions I asked my students.

The questions I asked my daughter.

The questions I asked colleagues, friends, and fellow writers.

And the questions I asked of myself.

Perhaps curiosity is not merely the desire to know more.

Perhaps it is being open to the belief that there is always more to know.

About the people we love.

About the work we do.

About the world around us.

And, if we are brave enough, about ourselves.

Curiosity was the thread that connected every meaningful part of my year. Every lesson learned. Every precious human connection forged.

And while my insecurity told me I should strive to be interesting, I was ever so happy to discover that being interested is far more rewarding.

Explore more of Lia’s wondrous creations and connections here.

Sylvie is a brilliant writer, artist and dabbler in all things that enrich life with contemplation, colour and exploration of the soulful kind. As new kindreds on the journey, I am ever amazed as she brings her authentic experiences of past, pain, pleasure, lessons and desirous heart to page, through poetic phrase, humour and wisdom shared, that keeps us all wanting to dive ever-deeper into the pool of understanding.

Here is Sylvie’s curious reflection for you, friends.

What Was Inside:

On curiosity, creativity and the darker side of wanting to know

The only light comes from the crack in my bedroom door and headlights that pass sometimes scar the ceiling above the curtains. I creep towards the little artificial Christmas tree that has been placed in my bedroom. It is decorated with tiny presents fixed to the branches in shiny green and red paper.

I unwrap one slowly, expecting treasure, but inside there is only a square of polystyrene. I am not satisfied, so I open every single one, fully aware there will be consequences. It should have cured me.

Maybe that was the first Christmas my mother learnt to wrap my presents in old clothing, odd boxes and misleading shapes, because I would always peek. I did not simply want the present. I wanted the before-knowledge. I wanted to know what was hidden, what lay beneath the surface.

That impulse has followed me everywhere. I once applied for a job that required six months of developed vetting, even though I already knew I could not keep it. I had children, and I knew I would not be able to leave them for long. I did not care about the prestige or the idea of doing good. I wanted to know. I wanted to see inside the building. I wanted to understand how that world worked, what its corridors felt like, what kind of secrecy held it together.

The irony, of course, was that security is mostly organised around not knowing. You only learn what you need to learn. Curiosity, in that setting, has nowhere to go.

I have taken random jobs for the same reason. I have learned languages because I wanted to hear the world from another angle. I have read private diaries, wrongly, because I wanted to know what was inside another person’s locked room. I once dug up a dead bird because I could not understand how something could look so perfect and no longer be alive. I have broken into an abandoned church and climbed the bell tower to see what history had left behind: dust, rope, silence, forgotten things.

Curiosity is often treated as an uncomplicated virtue, especially when we talk about creativity. We praise the curious mind, the artist who asks questions, the child who keeps looking. But curiosity is not always innocent; it can be too hungry. It can cross thresholds. It can mistake access for intimacy and information for truth.

Still, I do not think I would write without it. Writing begins with the same question that made me unwrap the fake presents: what is inside? Inside the room, the memory, the body, the lie, the grief, the joke, the locked drawer, the beautiful surface.

I know I will always want to peek behind the curtain of life. The difference is that now I understand that sometimes the breeze lifts the fabric a little in its own time. There are things we are only meant to know in time, and that timing is not always ours to force or unwrap. What is revealed is not a secret to possess, but an invitation to wonder more deeply, to create more truthfully.

I am still not cured. I am just a little more curious about what lies beneath my own surface.

To find more of Sylvie’s words and wondrous exploration of self and life, visit here.

Izabella is a fabulous Brazilian poet, a seeker of all things crafty and passionate about stretching her creative wings in myriad ways. Most recently she took to the online stage for the first time last month and joined us for our panel discussion on Creativity and last week took to the physical stage to share her poetry for the first time. Izabella is a delightful soul and a talent to inspire us all.

Here are her honest and raw reflections on curiosity for you …

Writing about curiosity …

has been a challenge for me.

I have started this article several times, thinking about a main question:

Is curiosity something you’re born with or without? Whether you are a new information seeker or someone who does not care about discoveries? And what I’m concluding (personally) is that no, it’s not a certain gift, nor the lack of one.

Curiosity, in my opinion, is totally “acquirable.”

You can water your own way into it once you decide that it will lead you, sip by sip, to something we all look for: wisdom. And, like almost everything in our lives, I believe it’s a reality that we can create by making different choices.

I am, this I can confirm (lol), a naturally lazy person, so for me it takes a bit of mental effort rather than excitement to actively search for new facts, information, articles, etc.

But recently, through therapy and exercises of self-awareness, I realized this flaw within me, and now I’m actively working to change that reality. I have included in my routine tools like Wikipedia and books beyond my areas of interest, as well as new habits like watching informative YouTube channels and following global and political news (I try to read it for at least 30 minutes per day).

And beyond that, what I’m working to change within me is the mindset behind it all: to become an explorer of knowledge beyond my comfort zone and to always look for the why’s and how’s behind things in this beautiful and infinite universe.

We are all so, so, so little and fast here, might as well absorb everything we can, enrich our soil with new experiences and theories, explore meanings and examples of things, and stretch our points of view toward the beautiful art of the ⊹ unknown ⊹.

Katrina and I have found ourselves new friends. An inquiry that I posted about doing a Storytelling and Publishing workshop in our community brought her straight to my door and she leapt right into all this SoulFull Way unfolding. She is a deep dive of delight, passionate about those she loves, a hopeful creative on myriad levels and sells the oils of the olive tree when she’s not writing or composing songs.

New to Substack, you can connect with her and confirm what I’ve told her … this is the most supportive and wondrous place for the creative heart to bloom. Here’s her link to sub and watch as her publication unfolds.

This was the curious, creative piece she wrote for us …

Curiosity…. What is it?

It’s when you allow yourself to explore an unknown willingly.

Curiosity… to seek and find, to come to learn something new,

to be innovative. A chance in the moment to discover it, create it, to

grow personally from the inquiring mind.

Curiosity… to trust in an experience of a new feeling that leads to deeper

interest. Maybe it is how to embrace a new possibility or solution in one’s

everyday life?

Curiosity… allows us to better understand others and things around us.

In human nature, curiosity removes fear momentarily to make way.

Opening our minds to ask more questions, allowing our spirit to join the world

of fascination. Curiosity paints opportunity to stretch ourselves in this lifelong

journey…. a gentle freedom to express a need to know. Remember to always

keep open to learning… it is a valuable and precious gift.

“Curiosity killed the cat” is a saying we’re likely familiar with… so to speak of the

need to keep balance in one’s search for curiosity with some caution, but

“The cat came back” has been said in life, so maybe some risks are worthwhile …

I believe we must all stay humble, so we continue to grow and evolve. As a

child or an adult, let CURIOSITY be your forever building block to learning.

Maybe when you’re passionately curious about something…

more energy aligns and it’s like another door opens

to another door, curiously. So believe in the impossible with an open heart.

Remember to pause… stop to smell the flowers. It can bring about

a memory needed to be thought of in that moment, and listen to others’ stories….

they may bring you true enlightenment by listening curiously.

C for courage

U for understanding

R for reflection

I for inspiration

O for being open to new ideas

S for seeking

I for imagination

T for thinking creatively

Y for yesterdays

💫Notes on the Curiousness of Life

And here we connect you to the curious Notes of those dabbling in this topic of wonder, incredulity n’ discovery.

This man has dazzled and warmed my heart from the start. This is what superb relationships on Substack look like. He is a voice of reason and way for so so many, living with chronic illness and embracing their authentic lives, and is inspiring beyond measure.

Skott is a creative at heart, from the photos he features and deep reflection on what it means to be alive in this human experience, to composing and playing a piano tune to melt and uplift your spirit … this is a soul you want to know.

Here is the beginning of his Note. Don’t forget to click and connect to the rest (psst… even comes with a cute baby elephant pic). And all of Skott’s wonder

as answers increasingly become consumed through clicks rather than conversations, may we never stop dancing to the delight of why.

although it’s the last type of question we acquire, how quickly it becomes our favorite. and contrary to adult opinion, we incessantly ask it not from a place of nuisance but need. what a big world for such a little soul to make sense of: why can’t i have dessert first? why is it bedtime if i’m not tired? then as we grow into adulthood, the answers only seem to stump us more: why did i earn a degree for something i didn’t want to do in the first place? why can’t i just travel the world for a while? and finally, when the simpler puzzles have been satiated: why do you love me? and why am i crying before i even hear the answer?

sometimes life feels like we spend as much time unlearning as much as learning. and as we continue asking why, let us not forget about its dance partner, the dark brilliance of why not? this underestimated tutor can offer unusual insight we might not otherwise glean. and as the truest teacher of a … Read On Here.

I’m new to Kate’s creative works and ways. Her work in hospice drew me to her, with my own experience as a hospice volunteer, many heart-expanding stories of my own, and having had the privilege to see my own parents through the veil. And now, I devour all her creative dabbling on here. I know you will too.

Curiosity is one of life’s most underrated gifts. When logic tells us to stay where we are, curiosity pulls us forward. It inspires us to read one more book, ask one more question, visit one more place, meet one more person, maybe even join Substack. We follow a question, a hunch, an interest, a dream, and find our life renewed.

What if curiosity is not random? What if it is By Design? What if the people, places, and things that quietly call to us are actually navigational signs placed along our path of destiny?

Author John Powell says, “In the garden of humanity, what is not growing is dying.” Curiosity draws us forward until we’re willing to take a chance. We find ourselves … Be sure to Click and Read her whole Note and see the beautiful poster she created for you Here.

💫Last SoulFull Bits …

The SoulFull Collective is a monthly exploration of one living theme — woven through this collaborative edition, our Sunday SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversations, and a deeper workshop at month’s end. Each month we choose a thread and follow it with intention. This month: Curiosity. Next month: Adventure. The circle continues.

If something in you feels stirred - to write, to reflect, to enter the conversation more fully - reach out. This is a place for thoughtful voices, essential conversations, and curious minds willing to walk the long arc of becoming.

Join us on Sundays. Step into the dialogue. Pull up a chair. Share the love on and on.

Pull Up a Chair 🪑🔥

Want more on Curiosity from this month? Here are the links to deepen your wonder and way in the queries:

✨Curiouser and Curiouser: Following Wonder Wherever it Leads

✨The Curious Heart: SoulFull Session LIVE gathering Replay. Exploring curiosity, connection, listening, assumptions, understanding, and the beautiful things that happen when we become more interested than interesting

✨Your invitation to our interactive workshop: The Soul of Curiosity, Saturday June 27th, 10-12 Pacific.

Jennifer M. Maki is a writer, speaker, retreat facilitator, and coach to entrepreneurs and storytellers with a passion for exploring the human spirit. Drawn to thoughtful questions, authentic dialogue, and services that empower alignment between conscious action and soulful values, her work weaves together communications, psychology, and lived experience to support people and organizations in leading from inner wisdom. She is the author of Just One Soulful Thing: A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom and the voice behind The SoulFull Way, where she shares inspired gems for soulful living and serving.

Get Your Copy of JOST

that begin with a simple question and somehow leave us seeing the world differently.

This morning’s SoulFull Sessions LIVE gathering, The Curious Heart, was one of those conversations.

Together, we explored curiosity, connection, listening, assumptions, understanding, and the beautiful things that happen when we become more interested than interesting.

We reflected on how often assumptions quietly shape our relationships, how curiosity creates space for deeper understanding, and why some of the most meaningful conversations begin with three simple words:

Tell me more.

And WoW, what a heartfelt, spontaneously-flowing, connection and conversation this morning. This was one of my faves thus far!!There were stories shared, laughter exchanged, perspectives expanded, and beautiful reminders that behind every person is a story we have not yet fully explored.

A soulful thank you to these curious kindreds:

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and everyone who gathered around the soulful fire with us today.

Your reflections, stories, curiosity, and willingness to explore together are what make these conversations so impactful … and yes Interesting with those oh-so-Interested!

If you’re catching the replay, here’s a little of what you’ll find inside:

• why curiosity strengthens relationships
• assumptions versus understanding
• becoming more interested than interesting
• curiosity in marriage, friendship, parenting, and everyday life
• the questions that create deeper connection
• how listening can transform relationships
• practical ways to bring more curiosity into the week ahead

🎥 Watch the replay above, or find us on YouTube here:

And if you’re looking for a community exploring what happens when values meet life through meaningful conversations, weekly reflections, SoulFull Sessions LIVE, and immersive workshops, we’d love to have you join us.

Pull Up a Chair at The SoulFull Fire

✨ The world changes when we become more interested than interesting.

Oodles of love,

jenni ✨

Get more from Jennifer M. Maki in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

✨just when you think …

you have a day planned, a trip worked out, your career sorted, life in the palm of your hand, wellll, that’s just when the topsy-turvy of existence calls us to something deeper, wider, wilder than we had anticipated, isn’t it just?

Some of the most beautiful moments, or at the very least teachable ones, have come from the unexpected, gifts disguised as upheavals. Oh, if we’ll only learn to see it so.

Sometimes, a miss is a wondrous hit.

“Mom, I missed my bus. I’m standing right here, on the wrong side of the street, but I’m here. I can’t believe it. $70 for that ticket. I don’t know that there is anything anyone can do, but I called in case you had any ideas.”

I don’t know if all moms, or friends, are like this, but I have to admit, I love these calls. Not because I want others to experience upsets in their world, but because I feel a little tingle in my heart that I might be able to do a little something to alleviate and make a lil lemonade. This is particularly true when it’s one of my sweet boys.

I had a seemingly full day of meetings and a long list of to-dos, but my babe needs me, so poof, changes are made, events shifted, calls taken on the road, and suddenly I feel that surge of joy …

Road trip! (Did you feel that too?)

My Liam responds, “Really mom? But that’s 4 hours there and back. You can’t really do that, can you?”

I felt tears of gratitude catch in my throat for the life and business I have built, no matter how challenging it has been at times to wander this wonky road less travelled, for exactly seconds like this.

“Of course my love. Are you kidding me? To have an extra day with my boy. You just gave me the greatest gift ever! Whoot whoot … we’re road trippin’ babe!!”

He laughs and I can hear the relief in his voice. Is there a greater feeling than to be able to do this for someone, the way we hope they would do for us, when the chips are down and you need a bail out - guilt-free?

My hubby and I scooted home, he packed up snacks and bevies, and we hit the road. I dropped him at hockey and off I tootled for a day my son and I will ever remember.

The sun was beaming, the mountains breathtaking, we soul talked, cruised in sweet silence, listened to his favourite song, and Liam got to drive the Coquihalla Highway for the first time (and we lived - lol). We stopped for the best burgers we’ve ever had at a little spot in Merritt called Curbside Cookhouse: this little hut in the middle of the park and eats to live for. And every single second was like a precious, unexpected vacation that neither of us will ever forget.

This is curiosity spilling forth in the midst of shift.

Rather than “Oh nooooo”, it’s “That’s interesting”.

Rather than “Are you kidding me?” it’s “Okay, surprise me.”

The shift’s gonna happen anyway, it’s only a matter of whether you’ll rage against or ride it out. One brings frustration. One makes way for wonder and maybe, just maybe, one of the best days of your life.

Sometimes following a curious possibility down the rabbit hole is precisely what is called for.

✨oh just what if …

this is why curiosity matters so much?

To take us on radical rides into the unknown, to discover ourselves and others anew.

To take us beyond the limits of our human, singular, momentary focus and reveal the wonder and majesty of what is unfolding in the grander mosaic of our existence.

We stand forlorn when we miss the bus, the job falls through, that crazy driver cuts in front of us and we miss our exit. But what if that wasn’t our ride, our career move, our exit?

What if this was the Universe taking us on a grander adventure?

And if life is already busy rearranging the furniture, perhaps our work is simply to stay open long enough to discover how dazzling the new colours and features of this unexpected space may be, and how they might speak to us, stir our soul anew.

To follow the breadcrumb trail.

To trust there may be something here we cannot yet see.

To become curious enough to let the story unfold.

Again and again, life has nudged me toward paths I never would have chosen for myself.

Again and again, I have found myself standing in moments I would never have chosen, only to discover later that they were carrying me somewhere I could never have imagined.

The stranger who became my angel, helping me find my way back to Vienna when I got kicked off the train in Prague because my travel agent had been wrong. Turns out Canadians actually do need a visa.

When my PR grad school advisor told me I couldn’t work for Robin Sharma for my internship, regardless of his job offer, igniting my determination to work and live in California.

The position that imploded in Edmonton, Alberta, making way for my hubby and our wee boys to return home, spend precious time with my mother-in-law before she passed from lung cancer, and later allowing me to care for my dad when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Curiosity creates a little space between what is happening and the story we immediately tell ourselves about it.

It invites us to look again, question, re-envision, and consider, just consider, if this change might be opening a door we cannot yet see.

At the very least, it encourages us to conjure courage, trust ourselves, and take the next step along a path we never expected to walk.

To greet life’s curious happenings with a gentle,

“Hmmm...”

“I wonder...”

“Let’s see where this leads.”

Because some of the most beautiful chapters of our lives begin exactly where our oh-so-solid plans end.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨ sunday soulfull session LIVE

Curious Happenings
When Life Has Something Else in Mind

This week, Todd and I are gathering around the soulful fire to explore those unexpected twists and turns that changed everything.

The missed bus.

The cancelled plan.

The opportunity that disappeared.

The chance encounter.

The wrong turn that somehow led us exactly where we needed to go.

Together we’ll reflect on the curious happenings that have shaped our lives, the moments that made little sense at the time yet revealed gifts, lessons, friendships, adventures, and possibilities we could not have imagined.

We’ll explore what happens when we loosen our grip on certainty, meet life with curiosity, and become willing to see beyond our immediate perspective.

Because perhaps life is not merely unfolding around us.

Perhaps it is quietly guiding us toward something deeper, richer, and more aligned than we can yet see.

Bring your stories, your wonder, and your curious heart.

Let’s see where the conversation leads.

Your link to join us HERE.

✨ inside the soulfull way

Each month along The SoulFull Way, we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it within ourselves and in the world.

This month, we are exploring Curiosity.

Curiosity has shaped every great adventure, discovery, invention, relationship, work of art, and new beginning. It invites us beyond assumption, beyond certainty, and into a richer relationship with ourselves, one another, and life itself.

Together, we will explore curiosity as a doorway to wonder, connection, possibility, growth, and becoming.

Flowing through the month:

✨ Weekly Newsletters to set the tone, share stories, poems, reflections, practical insights, and soulful invitations into living Curiosity in everyday life.

✨ Sunday, June 7th — SoulFull Sessions LIVE: Curious Happenings

A playful and thought-provoking conversation exploring synchronicities, surprising turns, unexpected opportunities, and the curious ways life often nudges us toward new possibilities when we remain open enough to notice.

✨ Sunday, June 14th — SoulFull Sessions LIVE: The Curious Heart

An exploration of how curiosity deepens relationships, expands understanding, strengthens connection, and helps us remain open to discovering ourselves and others anew.

✨ Wednesday, June 18th — SoulFull Collective Special Edition: Curiosity

A collaborative publication featuring writers, creators, entrepreneurs, and explorers reflecting on the questions, discoveries, adventures, and moments of wonder that have shaped their lives and work.

✨ Sunday, June 21st — Special LIVE Curiosity Panel Conversation

A beautiful collective of humans exploring the questions they are living, the discoveries that changed them, the curiosities they continue to follow, and the unexpected paths that shaped their journeys.

This gathering will take place live on Zoom. Here’s your LINK to attend.

✨ Wednesday, June 24th — Where Curiosity Leads

Our final monthly newsletter exploring the invitations, possibilities, and next steps that emerge when we follow curiosity’s breadcrumbs and remain open to life’s unfolding.

✨ Saturday, June 27th — The Soul of Curiosity Workshop

A two-hour immersive online experience exploring curiosity as a pathway to wonder, connection, possibility, and personal expansion, followed by an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

Flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation
✨ guided introspection through your Gift Guided Journal
✨ exploring the questions currently alive within us
✨ uncovering assumptions and opening new perspectives
✨ discovering where curiosity is inviting growth, connection, and possibility
✨ soulful conversation and reflection
✨ small groups, beautiful souls, meaningful connection
✨ identifying the invitations, adventures, and opportunities waiting to be explored
✨ creating one curious next step to carry forward into life

Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Collective.

Spaces are intentionally limited to support meaningful conversation and connection.
Message me for details and to reserve your place.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your week of wonder, imagination, playful expression, and listening closely for the creative spark calling quietly from within.

✨jenni

✨in the hallowed halls of my soul …

it whispers.

she whispered

as the sun shimmered on the dew, nudged me to stir

to traipse beneath open sky, across fields of wheat waving good-day to the moon,

through emerald forest of towering kindreds smiling on

to imagine a world of my own devising.

he whispered

as the storms and shouts and aching hearts raged on,

calling me to shelter, seek solace in the wonder of my own heart,

belief in my courage, tenacity in conscious plans and maps

to forge a path in the direction of my dreams.

they whispered

of the whimsical, timeless beauty, to see love everywhere,

in hearts of stone, clouds across a cobalt sky, leaves upturned,

the fellow seekers and guiding hands along the way,

to make magic of the moments of my life.

“living a creative life is not something to ‘do’,” it said.

“it is who you are, my darling.”

to weave words into worlds, reflect on the majesty of your day,

paint with no purpose at all, turn a phase on stage or across keyboard or strings,

to grasp earth in your desirous hands, splash in a puddle of God’s joyous tears,

spice n’ serve up a dish to delight the senses, rip paper to allow image to emerge,

let stickers and sentiments to set your childish heart to giggle,

carve, and stitch and weave and wander.

“our whispers speak of ancient pacts, you made my dear. to enter here and simply live.

in times when you cease to hear us know,

tis only that the sounds of this world have drowned out the silence of your soul …

still and listen

and there we will ever be,

reminding you of exactly

who

you

are

and

how

much

fun

it

is

to

play.”

jennifer m. maki

✨in playfull preparation …

allowing for percolation … this where it’s at for we creatives (that means us all BTW).

an idea into form begins in the depths of your being. it needs time to breathe, simmer, slosh around in your day to day, and find light (very often) in the gentle waking moments of drifting into morning.

then, it can expand through stillness, meditation, a wander into the wild woods, when you pick up your guitar, or whistle while you make dinner to song that reminds you of the preciousness of spaciousness.

sometimes you need to pick up pen and a journal made of paper that makes you want to devise something wondrous, that stirs your creative juices …

and suddenly you’re whisked away to a retreat of your own devising, in any room …

and then, the beauty of what’s been floating and flowing sets to bud and then, with patience and enough conscious, purposeful love …

burst into bloom.

the poem i began with, began here.

what is your process for percolation,

simmering,

setting idea into rich soil for the wait?

it doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to start.

want to play with us and see where your creative spark will lead you next?

you can pull up a chair with some kindreds,

✨week-to-week, where we dabble in and celebrate the values we cherish …

✨and/or join us tomorrow, on Saturday for our monthly workshop (details below)

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨ happening tomorrow | The Soul of Creativity

a workshop on imagination, expression, wonder, and creative living ✨

Throughout this month, we’ve explored creativity through history, imagination, storytelling, healing, courage, wonder, self-expression, music, nature, photography, writing, and the many ways the creative spirit moves through our lives.

Now, we gather to bring all of those threads together.

The Soul of Creativity is more than a workshop about art or creative practice. It is an invitation to reconnect with the creative essence that lives within each of us. The part that imagines, dreams, expresses, nurtures, creates, explores, and brings meaning to everyday life.

Together, we’ll spend a soulful morning exploring creativity through reflection, meditation, journalling prompts, conversation, and gentle experiential exercises designed to help us listen more deeply to ourselves and the creative wisdom already present within us.

We’ll explore creativity as a pathway to wonder, self-trust, well-being, and aliveness, and create space to reconnect with the ideas, inspirations, and possibilities waiting quietly within.

We’ll also have an optional Soulful Show and Tell for anyone who feels called to share journals, writing, art, photography, music, sketches, creative projects, or any of the beautiful creative bits they’ve been exploring lately.

And truly, however you arrive is perfect.

Share if you feel called.
Listen if that feels right.
Reflect. Wonder. Explore.

Come exactly as you are.

✨ Saturday, May 30
✨ 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific Time
✨ Optional linger afterward for coffee, connection, and conversation around the soulful fire

I would love to have you join us.

Your link to join us on Zoom HERE.

✨ Inside The SoulFull Way

Each month along The SoulFull Way, we gather around a single value and explore it together through stories, conversations, reflection, community, and lived experience.

This month, we explored Creativity.

Together, we wandered through imagination and wonder. We explored the Roots of Creativity throughout history, the Courage to Create that’s required to bring our ideas into form, and the many ways creativity shows up in everyday life through art, writing, music, nature, entrepreneurship, problem-solving, healing, relationships, and self-expression.

We reflected on the creative spark that lives within each of us.

We celebrated it through stories, conversations, community, and our recent Creativity Panel featuring beautiful humans expressing creativity through their work, passions, gifts, and lives.

And now, as the month draws to a close, we gather once more to bring all of those threads together through our Soul of Creativity workshop.

Throughout the year, members of The SoulFull Collective enjoy a rhythm of soulful touch-points designed to help us live each monthly theme more fully:

✨ Weekly newsletters filled with stories, reflections, practices, and inspiration

✨ SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversations exploring each month’s theme

✨ Guest interviews and panel discussions with inspiring humans

✨ Monthly Soul of Workshops with guided journals, reflection, meditation, conversation, and connection

✨ A caring community of beautiful souls exploring what it means to live with greater intention, alignment, and presence

Newcomers are always welcome.

And if support is needed, please reach out. We never want finances to stand in the way of belonging.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To wonder, to whimsy, and to the whispers that remind us who we are.

✨jenni

that feel less like conversations and more like a remembering.

A remembering of wonder.
Of imagination.
Of beauty.
Of the creative spark that still lives quietly within us beneath the noise, the urgency, the responsibilities, and the speed of modern life.

Sunday’s SoulFull Sessions LIVE panel conversation, Creativity in Full Colour, became one of those expansive and luminous spaces. It was like a coming home to who we were, to kindred souls who deeply, wildly understand our hopes, desires and visions for evolving into the next version of our most authentic, creative selves.

Together with , , , and , we wandered through poetry and photography, music and memory, storytelling and healing, earth connection and imagination, grief and beauty, childhood wonder and creative expression.

The conversation unfolded like a tapestry.

Stories weaving into stories.
Memories awakening memories.
Reflections opening new ways of seeing ourselves, one another, and the lives we are stitching, in all their brilliance, day by day.

Again and again, we returned to something quietly essential:

Creativity lives everywhere.

In the photographs we take to hold onto fleeting moments before they disappear.
In the songs that carry memory and love across decades.
In the ways we move through grief and beauty at the same time.
In the stories we tell.
In the spaces we create for others to feel seen, inspired, comforted, alive.

Creativity is not reserved for artistic pursuits alone.

It lives in how we notice.
How we love.
How we remember.
How we imagine.
How we remain open to awe in a world that so often asks us to rush past it.

There was such beauty in hearing these reflections unfold through music, storytelling, photography, poetry, dance, yoga, scrapbooking, parenting, healing, memory, imagination, and the ordinary sacredness of being human.

And beneath it all was this invitation:

To live more awake.
More expressive.
More imaginative.
More connected.
More keenly attuned to the miracles within and around us.

To Greta, Melissa, Izabella, and Todd — thank you for your precious insights and ‘wild’ inspiration, your honesty, your stories, your creativity, and the extraordinary spirit each of you brought to this gathering.

And to everyone who continues gathering with us here at The SoulFull Way — thank you for valuing this kind of space in the world.

Spaces for reflection.
For meaningful conversation.
For wonder.
For soulful connection.
For remembering what matters.

🌀 wander in to our soulfull conversation here

And prepare to be stirred in your own memories of childhood, moved to consider new ways to reignite your own creative spark (and then join us for a play date! hee hee):

✨ What’s coming next

🌀 The Soul of Creativity Workshop | Exploring Expression, Wonder & the Art of Living

Saturday May 30 | 10:00 to 12:00 p.m. Pacific | Free-flow sip n’ chat following

Join us for an immersive and interactive SoulFull workshop exploring creativity as expression, imagination, healing, reflection, storytelling, connection, and the art of fully inhabiting our lives.

We’ll move through guided reflection, meditation, journalling, meaningful conversation, experiential exercises, community sharing, and creative exploration designed to help us reconnect to wonder, curiosity, inspiration, and the creative spark within and around us.

Together, we’ll explore creativity in all its forms … through writing, music, photography, storytelling, memory, movement, everyday rituals, imagination, and the ways creativity helps us shape lives aligned with what soulfully matters most.

This gathering also includes space for soulful show-and-tell and reflection on what emerged for us throughout this month-long exploration of Creativity within The SoulFull Way community.

Bring your journal.
Bring your ideas.
Bring your stories.
Bring your reflections.
Bring the parts of yourself longing for more expression, beauty, vitality, imagination, and aliveness.

Come as you are. Bring your wonder. ✨

Your Zoom Link to Join us on Saturday May 30th.

Step Into Our Zoom Room

💫 be part of it all

The SoulFull Way is where values meet life.

Each month, we explore one guiding value through:

• weekly reflections
• SoulFull Sessions LIVE
• meaningful conversations
• a monthly workshop

Join freely.
Or step more deeply into the experience inside the SoulFull Collective:

Connect or a SoulFull Upgrade

What an absolute treasure it is to wander this SoulFull Way together.

I look forward to hearing how creativity sparks anew in your beautiful lives and to sharing soulful space with you round the fire again soon.

jenni ✨

✨ If something in this conversation stirred within you …

If you’re longing to align your entrepreneurial vision with your values and create a more soulful, sustainable, meaningful path forward …

If there’s a book within you waiting to be written …

If you’re feeling called to shape your life stories, ideas, wisdom, or experiences into something that could genuinely serve and inspire others …

I’d love to explore what’s possible together.

✨ Book a complimentary SoulFull conversation here:

Book Your SoulFull Session

From the second we come bursting onto the scene in this world, our essence, our voice, our spirit and soul long to be known.

We cry for love and wail if we don’t receive it. Boxes are castles.

Any manner of nature from the bumble bee, slimy toad, and soft kitty to the willow tree, spongy moss, drifting clouds and rushing brook, are our personified friends.

Towels are capes, couches tall buildings. Climb into a toy chest and it’s a secret cave or a teleporter to wild lands.

Paints, of the finger, acrylic or oil kind, markers, or the guts of a bug or squished strawberry for that matter, hold the colours of our imagination.

And as wee ones we never doubt our ability to bring magic alive by simply thinking, saying, drawing, playing it out to be so.

We are creative by nature and our lives, our vibrant, beautiful expressive and soulful lives, depend on our keeping this knowing and trust alive.

Instinctually we get this, but adulting, busyness, distractions in the name of efficiency or success or escape can take over and we begin, individually and as a species, edifying productivity over play. We can forget that crative exploration is how we got here, has driven every discovery, every heart-expanding art form, every architecturally dazzling building, melody that makes us remember the moments of our lives, and as we age can even make us remember who we are.

Creativity isn’t just a theme for the month of May at The SoulFull Way. It isn’t simply a value that we should hold dear, although it is that.

It is the core of what makes us human. It allows the dreamer within to step forth. It makes us believe in love, in majesty, in miracles, in each other.

And no matter what form it takes, it is worthy of our time, of our vigilant regard for carving out moments to drift, to dabble, to dream.

Each month we feature those desirous of embracing, creating, experiencing what matters most in this life - not just to survive in it, but to thrive.

Featured Articles

I am wildly grateful for you to adventure with six extraordinary souls as you traipse:

✨across creative page to watch an art piece transform from conception to glowing in evening light

✨into the mind of possibility, reimagining what can be when we reignite, realign with creative vision

✨into the heart of a family in a time of loss, soulful reflection and healing.

Featured Notes

And then you’ll tap the postings of those who’ve offered a reflection on creativity or who I felt called to connect you to because, well … they stirred and tickled my mind n’ fancy.

✨A wander in the garden with a soulful creator.

✨A sample of a song to bring your creative essence back to life.

✨A space of the tiny and artistic nature to make you consider your own.

All below and all here to move you, to inspire you to dress up, dance it out, play and remember …

You Were Made for This.

If you’re new to The SoulFull Way, we are a community of co-creators, exploring month-to-month the values that shape our lives. We know that what we focus on, we get more of and we want the good stuff. And we get that it is waaay more meaningful (and fun) doing it with kindred spirits.

If this sounds like you, you’re in the right place. We create touchpoints to keep our eyes and hearts on the soulful prize, with a weekly newsletter, live talks, and a deeper-dive gathering/workshop and private community chat of transformational support and connection. Next workshop, The Soul of Creativity, Saturday, May 30th, 10:00-12:00 PT - free to paid subscribers, complimentary to new (includes The Soul of Presence Guided Journal).

Subscribe or Upgrade 4 Bonus Tidbits

The SoulFull Collective: Special Edition on Creativity

This is one of my favourite parts of our work here in The SoulFull Collective: gathering kindreds around the contemplative, soulful fire; creating space to pause, listen, and be changed by the wisdom shared. To feature the writers and creatives who inspire me so deeply.

This edition is an invitation to bust out your camera, coloured pens, paints, to dance wildly in the kitchen, craft lyrics to a song, get down n’ dirty in the garden, cook with abandon, doodle freestyle, laugh long and loud and dream, dream, dream.

Thank you to our ahhhmazing contributors, those brave enough to trust their inklings and go for it — to the delicious and inspiring benefit of us all. And to you, dear reader, I hope you gather small treasures here, tucking them into your heart, carrying them into your conversations, your pauses, and all your moments of using all the colours in the box, waaaaay outside the lines.

Pull up a chair round the fire. Reach out. Stack on these brilliant Substack co-creators. Together, let us create more space for creativity in a world, illuminating it with words and ideas, poetry and notes, brushstrokes and broad strokes of imagination, lighting The SoulFull Way for all.

Now … For Our Featured Creatives:

Greta stole my heart from the first. Her creative spark, soulful storytelling, pure joy for her family and enthusiasm for embracing the community at The SoulFull Way … bring such a light to the world. She is a woman of many creative talents and trades, brilliant in her compassion and tenacious in her desire to live a life that makes her children proud and inspires the world.

I could not be more honoured to have her as a member of our SoulFull Collective and to feature her insights on the opportunity for us to reconsider our take on Creativity in reshaping our world and her beautiful photography from around the world.

This is her piece for you, readers.

Beyond the Multiple-Choice Life

Why it’s time to stop looking for “the right answer” and
start building a world we actually want to live in …

It’s time to recreate our world, to dream big, and create a reality aligned with our highest vision for ourselves and humanity. Creativity is emerging as an essential skill for both individuals and society as a whole. We are moving into an era begging for our creative sparks to catch fire.

We often treat creativity as a rare gift—a lightning bolt that only strikes the “artistic” among us. But in reality, creativity is simply the ability to connect two previously unrelated dots. Whether you are an engineer rethinking a bridge, a parent navigating a schedule, or a neighbor organizing a community garden, you are exercising a creative muscle. It is our most renewable resource.

When I think of creativity, my mind immediately goes to paints, arts and crafts, molding clay… but there are so many facets of creativity to explore. Creativity plays a pivotal role in driving innovation and inspiring positive change. We are experiencing a wide range of global challenges, including climate change, social inequality, and environmental degradation.

This is a crucial time for creativity to “enter the room.” But how do we invite it? It starts by protecting the space for NEW ideas and unconventional approaches, stripping away the paralyzing fear of failure. To truly unlock this potential, our organizations and educational systems must shift from teaching “the right answer” to cultivating the right questions.

Think about it: For decades, our systems have been designed for efficiency and replication. We were taught to find the single “right” answer on a multiple-choice test. While that served the industrial era, it leaves us ill-equipped for a world where the problems are fluid, and the answers haven’t been written yet.

Cultivating the Creative Mindset

Unlocking this potential isn’t about waiting for inspiration; it’s about building a practice. It requires us to intentionally “cross-pollinate” our lives—reading books outside our expertise, engaging with people who challenge our worldviews, and giving ourselves the grace to be “bad” at something new. We must move from a culture of gatekeeping to a culture of curiosity. When we lower the stakes and view every challenge as a prototype rather than a final exam, we give ourselves permission to innovate. It is in this messy, trial-and-error space that the most profound breakthroughs are born.

Instead of asking “What is possible?” Let’s see what we can imagine. Let’s build the reality we’ve only dreamed of—one creative spark at a time.

To explore more of creative wonder and spark of Greta Mae, you can find her inspired works and reflections Here.

It was pure Luck O’ the Irish that had me saddle up in the pub next to this sparkle of a soul. From the second our eyes met and we tried to share/shout a soulful conversation over the clinking pints and cheerful racket, we felt a kinship. In fact we were sure it wasn’t the first time we met — that’s the way it is with soul sisters. Since that time we’ve gathered for a quieter spilling forth of life’s unfolding, motherhood, and found we share a deep connection to the earth and its creatures, health, desire to perpetually evolve in spirit and love … and a giggle and a tear in being mamas to beautiful boys.

Melissa and her vision of Earth Medicine by MeliAgrios are destined to empower seeking souls to tether to the earth and all its healing power and to the magnificence of their own innate knowing.

As a member of our SoulFull Collective, you’ll be seeing a lot more of Melissa and her work here on Substack and in Skool as she builds her programs and courses. As she has just begun building here on this platform, it would be so wonderful if you could help her build her readership here, sweet friends.

Here’s Melissa’s Creativity piece for you, lovely reader.

Our God-Given Gift

The “creativity” theme sparked so many ideas in me related to art and expression.

And then life hit and reminded me of the most important truth about creativity – we are the creators of our entire world.

Creativity is our God-given gift and tool to shape our experience on this Earth.

Recently I had an opportunity to use this gift to soften my experience of grieving and to facilitate healing when my beloved old dog of nearly 12 years passed away.

He started deteriorating quite suddenly and quickly and within a week he had passed and I was left with a hole in our family, my heart hurting, and a pile of beautiful memories as the only tangible part of Percy I had left. I’d shared many of those memories on social media over the years, so it felt appropriate that I should share about his passing. A photo and some words would not be sufficient. He was special. I needed to create something special to honour him.

I poured through the over 3,800 photos and videos of him on my phone and somehow narrowed down to footage that would fit into a 3 minute reel to encapsulate all that he was. Tears flowed down my face as I edited a visual transformation of a life that genuinely transformed mine. I relived adventures, feelings, and quiet moments of connection just between me and Percy.

Many memories of Percy are interwoven with memories of my three sons growing up, and grief for the end of their childhood spilled over into my grief over losing Percy. They were one, and now they are both gone. Music has always been healing and integral to my life so I created a blend of three songs to accompany the reel that complemented the visual journey of Percy’s life. I used the art of words to enhance and caption the reel, completing the creative tribute to my fur baby. The swells of emotion I felt through this creative process of grieving and honouring were deeply therapeutic for me. Creativity was my medicine.

Leaning into the medicine of creativity to support my grief with losing Percy has reminded me to use creativity as I grieve what is already lost or leaving, encourage transformation and change, and ensure what is left is truly of my own design in all areas of my life.

As I build Earth Medicine by MeliAgrios, I am creating a completely new world. There is always grief in change, but creativity supports our healing and gifts us a way to process and find peace and purpose within the grief. In every little detail, every grand experience, we are the artists and the architects of our own world.

Looking back, I wouldn’t change anything about our time with Percy – his life was an adventure filled with love and everything that matters, from start to finish. His memory will forever remind me how we must always intentionally create the same magic in our own lives.

Explore more of Melissa and MeliAgrios, and find her new Substack here, or wander over to Skool and explore her creations there.

Maria and I are new friends on Substack, but I came across the unfolding of her beautiful butterfly emerging from concept to creative expression and flow in the beams of day’s last light and was mesmerized. I know you will be too. And this piece of art is just one small part of her vast array of creative expressions. I know you’ll appreciate how she presents this piece and encourage you to wander over into her studio at Overlay Art.

Here is Maria’s reflection for you, friends.

The Emerald Queen

What comes to your mind when you think of the color emerald, see it or feel it?

Is it mystical, enchanting, captivating?

I once noted, after a fresh coat of paint on a wall in my home, a color called “deep emerald” that I believe my soul is deep emerald, instead of the dark-humored term I have heard referenced many times: “Black like my soul!”

Colors hold a powerful connection to feelings; they all represent different emotions and meanings. While red feels sensual and passionate, blue feels calm, sometimes otherworldly.

Green holds a deep connection to nature and its magic.

Inspired by this deep emerald color, I knew I wanted this new painting to be very green and display a beautiful emerald stone. Sketching out ideas, this luna moth, datura, jasmine, and gingko were coming to life on the paper.

To add extra magic, I painted green leaves with metallic paint, and wow do those leaves shimmer in the light!

This piece has surprised me. In different lighting, it appears to transform. In the morning light outdoors, the colors appear cool and calm, the purples flowing with the garden flowers, the greens of the foliage inhaling it in.

Then in the evening light in my studio, with the lighting entering the window from the west, the painting became warm. The sunlight danced along the canvas.

This piece is the first of more to come, a series with each work including a beautiful gemstone. Each with a new color as its symbol and emotion.

To find more of Maria’s beautiful works, all the photos of her extraordinary Emerald Queen project, and her book that will be launching in the months ahead, visit here.

💫Notes on Creativity and a Look Inside an Artist’s Tiny but Oh-So Glorious Studio Home

For you - these writers and creative Substack souls offering you a Note of sparkling creativity, to ignite your own along The SoulFull Way.

✨From Sylvie Muir … An excerpt from her article on Companion Planting

“… A gardener understands roots, spread, resistance and recurrence; she knows what happens when you pull too sharply and leave the living thread behind, and she knows that some things must be loosened carefully before they can be lifted in one piece.

Perhaps creativity begins there, in the moment one kind of knowledge leans towards another and recognises itself in a mirror, not as the same thing, but as something that shares likeness, something alive in the spaces between.

This is an idea that returns to me, less like a weed and more like a perennial.

Why do we put knowledge in pots like those in my greenhouse, encircled by rigid terracotta walls that let things grow, but not interact? They cannot reach out a little tendril or whisper the secrets of their own creation. This pot for science. This one for art. This pot for mothering. This pot for grief. Who decided this?

The artist and the scientist must both imagine a … read on here.”

✨də … Notes to Embrace You in Oneness

“Everybody Enbody is my dance song of oneness. I try to infuse this living sense of the human spirit into electronic dance music. The essence of oneness, I feel, is the reality that we are all connected to every other being, the earth and the universe.

“Sun to moon, earth to flesh, we are all one consciousness”

I write songs with repeating vocal hooks that invite us to sing, chant, hum and groove along. Music immerses us in vibration as we vibe together to feel the oneness. EverybodyEnbody, hear it here.”

Living Big in a Tiny House

Chelsea Lomandra’s ahhmazing post that caught my eye and got my creative juices on what we will create for our family next.

“Almost two years ago, I had the incredible experience of being interviewed by Bryce for his and Rasa’s tiny home design YouTube channel ‘Living Big in a Tiny House’. It was just the push I needed, to finish off a few final touches in my tiny home build. Until they contacted me, I had shared very little about my living circumstances publicly.

It was a big challenge for me to step onto a global platform (which I had learned so much from while researching tiny home living) to share my story and open my home to the world.

At the time I had so much fear of how people would respond, I had seen so many fancy tiny home designs, which were so far out of my reach. I was nervous that people would judge my little affordable DIY bus home as a… less than desirable version of a tiny home.

The response on the video was overwhelmingly positive and incredibly supportive. What was I so afraid of? I realised that the usual negativity online is not an accurate representation of the bulk of people (thank goodness). I also realised, there are so many people like me out there who need an affordable housing solution. I am so glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and shared my tiny home design.

While we in Australia are making our way in this housing crisis, I hope to inspire as many people as possible, to consider a tiny home of their own. I’m working on a ‘design a tiny home in a bus’ course, let me know what questions you have. Also, here is a link to their video if you would like to check it out. They did a fantastic job!

The incredible interview and wander inside Chelsea’s wonderful tiny-but-expansive world … here: youtu.be/pyIiT3yAdqc

See all of Chelsea’s incredible photos, art and reflections on living the creative life, here.

Thank you to our contributors this month! So lovely to share soulful conversations and space together and look forward to more.

💫Last SoulFull Bits …

The SoulFull Collective is a monthly exploration of one living theme — woven through this collaborative edition, our Sunday SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversations, and a deeper workshop at month’s end. Each month we choose a thread and follow it with intention. This month: Creativity. Next month: Curiosity. The circle continues.

If something in you feels stirred - to write, to reflect, to enter the conversation more fully - reach out. This is a place for thoughtful voices, essential conversations, and curious minds willing to walk the long arc of becoming.

Join us on Sundays. Step into the dialogue. Pull up a chair. Share the love on and on.

Pull Up a Chair 🪑🔥

Want more on Creativity from this month? Here are the links to deepen your connection and practice with the present moment:

✨Exploring the Roots of Creativity through history, imagination and expression. Recording of our SoulFull Session LIVE.

✨The Inkling Always Leads: On creativity, nurturing, and bringing what lives within us into the world.

✨The Courage to Create: Handwritten reflections, imagination, art, play and ideas to spark your own.

✨SoulFull LIVEly Session on the Courage to Create: meditations, remembering those who inspire us and setting intentions for taking creativity up a notch.

✨An Invitation to Our Panel Convo with Wondrously Colourful Creatives this Sunday, May 24th, on Zoom.

An invitation to our interactive workshop: The Soul of Creativity, Saturday May 30th, 10-12 Pacific.

Jennifer M. Maki is a writer, speaker, retreat facilitator, and coach to entrepreneurs and storytellers with a passion for exploring the human spirit. Drawn to thoughtful questions, authentic dialogue, and services that empower alignment between conscious action and soulful values, her work weaves together communications, psychology, and lived experience to support people and organizations in leading from inner wisdom. She is the author of Just One Soulful Thing: A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom and the voice behind The SoulFull Way, where she shares inspired gems for soulful living and serving.

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Sunday’s SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversation …

became a rich exploration of creativity as healing, expression, imagination, vitality, courage, and human flourishing.

Together, we explored the transformative power of creativity through neuroscience, psychology, music, storytelling, lived experience, and community reflection.

Todd brought beautiful stories into the conversation, including Harrison Ford humming the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme music to reconnect to creative energy on set, John Goodman’s journey through self-doubt into creative trust, and reflections on music, colour, rhythm, and expression through artists like Janis Joplin, Sting, and Harry Styles.

We explored what happens when we trust ourselves creatively.

What happens when we make room for play again.

What happens when creativity becomes less about performance and more about aliveness, curiosity, expression, and connection.

One of the most moving moments of the session came through a guided reflection on the people who inspired creativity within us and the ways their imagination, encouragement, artistry, and way of moving through life continue to live through us still.

The conversation that unfolded in the chat was so enriching. Todd and I glean so much from all of you as you share … the next best thing to actually being in the room with you all. Thank you!

If you missed the live gathering, here is the live video and we hope to have your energy with us next time indeed.

✨ You can watch above, or find us on YouTube with all the archived videos of our Sunday SoulFull Sessions.

✨Come as you are - in every second of life. And bring your wonder. ✨

jenni

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✨this month, creativity asked me …

to slow down enough to pick up black-tipped markers, coloured pens, my imagination again.

To wander.
To doodle.
To colour and live, outside the lines a little (okay a lot), physically, metaphorically.
To handwrite thoughts instead of typing them into neat little boxes.

So this week’s newsletter arrived differently.

In journal pages and scribbles.
In pulling painted mandalas of the past to the surface and celebrating the stitching and art my son added to his coolio shoes.
In candlelight, coloured pens, wandering thoughts, and the beautiful reminder that creativity is not reserved for artists alone … it is part of what makes us gloriously human.

What follows is less an article and more a creative unfolding.

A remembering.

An invitation back into imagination, play, expression, and the courage it takes to create a life from the inside out.

✨throughout my life, I have loved …

the majesty and spark of creative play.

In life-schooling our boys, creativity was never treated as an extra, but woven into the fabric of everyday living. Sketchbooks appeared at the table, coloured pens spilled across counters, ideas became stories, drawings, inventions, stitched shoes, painted symbols, and imagined worlds brought lovingly into form.

I have always believed creativity is part of how we listen to the soul.

In the quiet of morning, I set tone and place for creative space before the world arrives. Candlelight. Music. Pens to page. A lingering conversation with God and the ideas that flow from divine essence into shape, colour, movement, and meaning.

Over the years, I have also slipped away on retreat to create in concentrated stillness, gathering pieces of myself through art, reflection, imagination, and prayer.

This collage gathers just a few of those moments.

The mandalas were created alongside the boys during seasons of exploration and wonder. One became a visioning mandala, with equanimity at the centre and the outer circles holding the life I hoped to cultivate and experience: healing, openness, trust, creativity, silence, abundance, connection, adventure, and love.

My son’s shoes last week became tiny travelling canvases (as they often do), scribbled with stories, symbols, fave song lyrics, and imagination carried into the moments of an ordinary life.

And in keeping with our first SoulFull Session — The Roots of Creativity: from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, I am reminded again how essential it is that we create space and place for these expressions in our lives.

The world will rarely hand us spaciousness for wonder, imagination, art, or reflection.

We must become vigilant guardians of it ourselves.

We must hold fast, even in seasons of ache, longing, uncertainty, exhaustion, and responsibility, to the understanding that creativity is not frivolous.

It nourishes us. Restores us. Helps us see beauty again. Helps us move through difficulty with vision, tenderness, meaning, and hope intact.

Creativity reminds us we are still alive inside our lives.

Together, these pieces remind me that creativity is not separate from living.

It is one of the ways we remember who we are. And this Sunday, you too can join us for an essential conversation on aligning our lives with what longs to emerge.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

✨ sunday soulfull session LIVE

The Courage to Create
Come as you are. Bring your wonder.

This Sunday, Todd and I invite you into a playful and soulful conversation on creativity, imagination, expression, and the courage it takes to create a life from the inside out.

Together, we’ll explore the creative spark that calls us toward beauty, meaning, artistry, innovation, play, and deeper self-expression … and why making space for creativity is not indulgent, but essential to being fully alive.

Bring your thoughts, your ideas, your curiosities, the dreams nudging quietly at your heart, or simply your presence.

Sunday, May 17
10:30 a.m. PT

Your link to join us HERE.

✨inside the soulfull way

Each month along The SoulFull Way, we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it within ourselves and in the world.

This month, we are exploring Creativity.

Together, we are making space for imagination, expression, wonder, artistry, play, and the courage it takes to bring what lives within us into form.

Flowing through the month:

✨ Weekly newsletters to set tone, share stories, poems, reflections, creative practices, and soulful invitations into living Creativity in everyday life.

✨ One SoulFull Session LIVE already behind us, where we explored The Roots of Creativity through history, imagination, the movement from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, and the beautiful role creativity plays in shaping humanity and culture.

✨ Mother’s Day Sunday, May 10th — a gentle pause in our LIVE gatherings as many in our community celebrated, rested, reflected, and gathered with loved ones.

✨ Sunday, May 17th — SoulFull Sessions LIVE: The Courage to Create
A playful and soulful conversation exploring imagination, expression, curiosity, creative becoming, and the ways we reconnect with the creative spark within our own lives.

✨ Sunday, May 24th — a special live Creativity Panel Conversation featuring a beautiful collective of humans living creativity through their art, storytelling, entrepreneurship, healing work, service, writing, leadership, and lives.

This gathering will take place live on Zoom, with details and links shared through Substack LIVE and upcoming newsletters.

✨ Last Saturday of the month — The Soul of Creativity Workshop
A two-hour immersive online experience exploring creativity as soulful practice and expression, followed by an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

Flow includes:

✨ a sprinkle of meditation
✨ guided introspection through your Gift Guided Journal
✨ soulful conversation and reflection
✨ small groups, beautiful souls, meaningful connection
✨ creative exploration and playful expression

Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Collective.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your week of wonder, imagination, playful expression, and listening closely for the creative spark calling quietly from within.

✨jenni

🫧the mother-of-creation in us all

The inkling always leads.

A tingle of a thought, a flicker of knowing in our soul, the idea sparks an inexplicable desire, an undeniable urge.

Our vibrant life depends on our listening and what we do with what the muse so sweetly offers.

I’ve been witness to those who ignored, and ached as I watched their worlds wither.

I’ve been privy to the brave in others, in myself, as we followed despite the toil, the grappling, the hours or decades that brought idea to seed.

The tender nurturing required, asks much of us; honouring these callings is not for the faint of heart. As our babies—be they flesh or fur, on canvas or page or spreadsheet or song sheet, conjured with head or spirit—require all of us, present and purposeful if they are to be of deep and lasting worth.

As they live within us, as we find our way from mess to message, and ready them for the release into existence, we are never closer to God. We are never more alive, as we stand on the brink of the unveiling. The pain of preparation melts away and we are sure that this, this, is what we were made for.

Then comes the birthing, the release, the first second when what we adore, what we’ve kept safe, close, growing, is exposed to outside light. Suddenly, the opinion of the masses enter in, those settled in their own truth and intent to uplift, and those inclined to break down what is of innocence, of whimsy, to distract from their own lack.

This all is both a wonder and of worry. Perhaps the first time fear has truly gripped us, because what is born of soul can only ever be profoundly personal to the humans that we are.

Next, in wanders trust, asking us to believe that what we’ve carried to here is strong enough to endure, that what we’ve done is … absolutely … enough.

And finally, we watch them set to soaring, into the hearts of others or beyond the veil, we gaze on as their essence sets another to weep with joy, to experience a union that can only be divine.

As they find their way, stretch their wings, oh how we want to follow, to hold tight, sometimes dream to set back the clock, but alas our job now is to surrender.

They are on their own—their next—glorious adventure and it is not for us to go.

But to listen again for the inkling

and where our creative,

courageous soul will lead us next.

This Mother’s Day weekend, I find myself reflecting not only on motherhood itself, but on the creator within us all. The part of us that nurtures, tends, guides, protects, encourages, imagines, and brings life to what longs to exist in the world.

✨ stories brought to life

This past week, Todd and I have also been profoundly honoured to celebrate the upcoming May 26th launch of The Awakened Feminine and The Awakened Masculine, two anthology collections featuring the stories and voices of many courageous writers, brought together by Melanie Vanhawk and supported through our work at Mad Hero Productions and Mad Hero Publishing.

These stories were lived long before they were ever written. Carried quietly through heartbreak, healing, questioning, becoming and brave reckonings with truth, before finally finding their way onto the page and out into the world.

There is something deeply moving in witnessing humans gather the courage to bring what has lived quietly within them into the light, and this launch feels especially meaningful as we begin our exploration of Creativity together.

If you’d like to follow along on the journey toward launch day, you can join the launch list here:

The Awakened Feminine: https://awakenedfeminine.carrd.co/

The Awakened Masculine: https://awakenedmasculine.carrd.co/

🌀the dark ages and the renaissance

During our first SoulFull Session LIVE on Creativity, we explored the movement from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance and what it reveals about the human spirit and our relationship with creation itself.

History reminds us that when life narrows into survival, creativity is often one of the first things set aside. During seasons shaped by fear, instability, exhaustion, or mere endurance, humanity tends to focus on what is necessary to make it through. Yet creativity never truly disappears. It waits. Quietly. Patiently. Beneath the surface of our lives.

And then, when space opens once more, when curiosity, wonder, safety, and possibility begin to return, creativity rises with astonishing force. The Renaissance was not merely an artistic awakening, but a remembering of what had always lived within humanity.

Perhaps we move this way as individuals too.

You can find that Sunday SoulFull Session on The Roots of Creativity: Here.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

🌀sir ken robinson and the courage to create

We also revisited Sir Ken Robinson’s beloved TED Talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity?, a reflection on imagination, education, and the importance of protecting the creative spark within us from a very young age.

One of the beautiful invitations within his work is the reminder that creativity is not reserved for a talented few. It belongs to all of us. It lives in problem solving, storytelling, caregiving, building, experimenting, listening, cooking, gardening, designing, parenting, dreaming, and daring to try again.

This month, we hope to gently nurture that remembering together.

Here’s the link to Sir Ken’s Iconic TED Talk.

✨ creativity in the everyday

One of the beautiful reminders that emerged during our SoulFull Session LIVE this past Sunday was that creativity does not belong solely to painters, musicians, writers, or performers. Creativity lives in the quiet ways we engage with life itself.

In trying something unfamiliar.
In walking a different route home.
In making a meal by instinct instead of instruction.
In rearranging a room, tending a garden, beginning again, solving a problem, speaking honestly, dancing in the kitchen, or allowing curiosity to lead where certainty once stood.

This week, I also shared a reflection and a Wild Wisdom card pull centred on Create, speaking honestly about what this season of creativity has felt like in my own life and the courage it asks of us to follow what stirs within.

Here’s that video, sweet souls …

I would truly love to hear from you.

What have you been doing to cultivate creativity in your own life?
What has been calling for your attention, your care, your imagination?

Feel free to share in the comments, through Substack Notes, or by sending a message our way. ✨

✨ a reminder for this mother’s day sunday

There will be no SoulFull Session LIVE this Sunday as many in our community celebrate Mother’s Day weekend in their own meaningful ways.

Still, throughout the week we’ll be sharing reflections, prompts, videos, and creative invitations across Substack, Facebook, and social media spaces to keep the spirit of Creativity moving and alive among us.

We would truly love to hear from you.

What are you creating?
What is calling for your attention?
What quiet inkling has been asking to be followed?

inside the soulfull way

Each month along The SoulFull Way we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it, within and in the world.

• Weekly newsletters to set tone, share stories, poems, reflections, and soulful invitations into living this month’s value of Creativity.

• One Sunday SoulFull Session LIVE already behind us, where we explored The Roots of Creativity through history, imagination, and the movement from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance.

• ✨ Mother’s Day Sunday, May 10th — no LIVE session this week as many in our community celebrate and gather in meaningful ways.

• Sunday, May 17th — SoulFull Session LIVE exploring personal creativity, the ways we reconnect with expression, imagination, curiosity, and the creative spark within our own lives.

• Sunday, May 24th — a special live creative panel conversation featuring a number of beautiful humans living creativity through their work, art, service, storytelling, and lives. This gathering will take place live on Zoom, with details and links shared through Substack LIVE and upcoming newsletters.

• Last Saturday of the month — The Soul of Creativity Workshop — a two-hour immersive online experience plus an optional stay, sip n’ chat afterward.

  Flow includes:

  ✨ a sprinkle of meditation
  ✨ guided introspection through your Gift Guided Journal
  ✨ soulful conversation and reflection
  ✨ small groups, beautiful souls, meaningful connection

  Free for newcomers, those in need of support always, and paid subscribers of The SoulFull Collective.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your week of listening for the inkling, following curiosity, and allowing creativity to meet you in unexpected places.

✨jenni

🌳have whistle, will adventure

My tiny legs could barely carry me fast enough to the towering oak—my tree, my friend, my haven in a confusing, uncertain world. I could tell she was waiting. I’d grab tiny whistle, my mother’s one safety rule for solo wandering, and off I’d take. Through the sliding glass doors, over the patio hill, down the lane toward the barn, hands running over the shafts of wheat, wind in my hair, each step quickening my little heart with the kind of joy I only knew travelling this path. Gypsy, Dolly, Lucky and Vicky, right on cue, lifting heads from trough, began the trot to the fence line. Expecting that my pockets were filled with carrot stubs and sugar cubes was not unwarranted. But they could wait. I needed her, could hear her, or God, whispering on the wind, or perhaps from within, that I had a stop to make first.

I arrived breathless and plopped down, lay back, spread arms and legs to cover more soft-grass territory and set eyes for the branches and the sky. My little body knew it needed earth’s warmth, its settling; my soul knew I needed all the rest: the humming of the heat bugs, twittering of waking robins, crickets rubbing, sun beams on my face, a scene that soothed my aches, like home, of love, quivering leaves, brilliant green, wild blue and shifting clouds of white.

Presence was all I knew as a child, and it saved my life. I could endure anything, if only I could bust out of the walls of man to find the halls, the calls, the gloriousness and simplicity of creation.

No matter the turns of life, I return here, in my mind’s eye, hear the echoes of my Being and bring the memories of then, to the seeking out of the miracles between, in the now.

Finding solace in presence isn’t a nicety for any of us; it is a necessity—for the living, for any semblance of a real life.

A thousand poets, references, seekers and guides draw us back to the truth of this. And it isn’t new, it is a remembrance, a recognition within our essence, that … they … are … right.

And so, as we bring our month of Presence to a close at The SoulFull Way, we deepen and tether rituals to our days. We do not move on as we embark on May in the search and delight of Creativity, we bring presence along, now and forever, evolving and evolving.

We set tiny legs to running, straight into her ever-loving arms.

🌀a reflection on the presents of presence

This month, we wandered gently through the landscape of presence together.

We explored ancient wisdom and the roots of present-moment living. We reflected on the science of awareness and the ways our minds, bodies, and nervous systems respond when we slow enough to truly arrive. We gathered in conversation with Steffi Black around heart, energy, and coherence. And we shared space inside The Soul of Presence Workshop, where reflection became practice.

Presence revealed itself in many forms.

In quiet pauses.
In attention.
In the breath.
In the heart.
In the simple returning to what matters.

Below, you’ll find reflections, conversations, and resources from this month’s journey — a gentle collection to revisit whenever you feel called to return to presence in your own way.

• Tethering to Presence: The Illuminating Moment of Now

• Tethering: SoulFull Session LIVE

• The Science of Being Here: What research reveals about how presence shapes well-being

• The Practice of Presence: A conversation with Steffi Black (recording for you)

• The SoulFull Collective: A Collaborative edition on presence

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

Free or Paid for SoulFull Collective

🌀five facets of presence

Five ways we return to ourselves, again and again.

Presence is rarely one thing.

It moves through us in different ways.
Sometimes through thought.
Sometimes through feeling.
Sometimes through the quiet knowing that asks us to slow enough to notice what is already here.

In Just One Soulful Thing: A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom, these reflections became a way of understanding the many places presence touches our lives.

Beyond a checklist. Beyond something to master.

Simply as invitations.

A remembering of just this moment.
Just this breath.
Just this life we are living.

✨ Presence of Mind

Presence of mind is the gentle practice of returning.

To notice when thoughts drift ahead into what comes next, or behind into what has already passed.

The mind is always moving.

Presence asks us to soften our grip and come back to just this moment.

To what is in front of us. To what is true, what is real, now.

Mantra:
I return to just this moment with clarity and calm and let … it … BE.

✨ Presence of Body

The body often knows before the mind does.

It speaks in tension, fatigue, ease, breath, hunger, stillness.

Presence of body is listening.

Rather than pushing past what we feel.
Rather than abandoning ourselves in busyness.

Simply noticing.

Just this inhale.
Just this exhale.
Just this body carrying us through the world.

Mantra:
My body carries wisdom. I choose to listen.

✨ Presence of Heart

Presence of heart is how we arrive with others.

It is attention without distraction.
Listening without preparing a response.
Connection without rushing.

The heart asks us to be here.

To meet another person through warmth, curiosity, and care.

To offer just this moment of true presence.

Mantra:
I meet this moment with an open heart.

✨ Presence of Soul

Presence of soul is quieter, subtle.

It is the place beneath expectation.
Beneath noise.
Beneath the version of ourselves we sometimes believe we should be.

Soul presence asks:

What feels true?
What restores me?
What brings me home to my soulful self?

Sometimes the answer is simple.

Just this walk.
Just this pause.
Just this knowing within.

Mantra:
I honour the wild wisdom that lives within me.

✨ Presence of Spirit

Presence of spirit reconnects us with aliveness.

With wonder.
With joy.
With the moments that remind us life is still unfolding.

Spirit often lives in ordinary beauty.

Sunlight through trees.
Music drifting through a room.
Laughter shared around a table.
The feeling of being fully awake to a moment you did not want to rush past.

Presence of spirit is allowing ourselves to receive just this life.

To notice what lifts us.
To honour what brings lightness.
To remember that joy, too, is a form of presence.

Mantra:
I allow joy to guide me back to my life.

🎨✒️📖🖌️creativity is coming🌳🎵🎸🎹

This May, we step into Creativity.

Creativity lives in far more places than we often realize.

In the weaving of words, the tinkling of ivories, fingers moving across guitar strings, paintbrushes meeting canvas, gardens tended with care, stories unfolding on paper, photographs captured in passing light, meals created from instinct, hands building, shaping, stitching, arranging, restoring.

Creativity is expression in all its forms.

It is curiosity, imagination, experimentation, and the quiet pull toward making something that feels alive within us. It asks us to listen more closely to what wants to be created through us.

Join us week-to-week as we explore this value that is so profoundly fundamental to each of us, and all of us.

SoulFull Session LIVE | Sunday, May 3

🌀 The Roots of Creativity: Tracing the evolution of human expression

This Sunday, we begin our exploration with a conversation about where creativity comes from and how it has moved through history.

Together, we’ll look at creativity through the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, explore how culture shapes expression, and reflect on Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk, Do Schools Kill Creativity?

A thoughtful beginning to a month devoted to imagination, expression, and the many ways creativity lives within us and longs to be played into the world.

Join Us HERE.

inside the soulfull way

Each month along The SoulFull Way we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it, within and in the world.

• Weekly newsletter to set tone, share stories and poems and tips to inspire.

• Two Sunday SoulFull Sessions LIVE on how this value plays out in the world, in relationships, especially with that gorgeous one in the mirror. *Mother’s Day - May 10th - No Session.

• A Sunday SoulFull Session Interview with one living ‘It’ in how they create and connect in their service and life.

• Last Saturday of the Month - SoulFull Workshop - 2 hours plus an optional stay, sip n’ chat. Flow is:

  • A sprinkle of meditation, time for introspection using your Gift of a Guided Journal, and community conversation.

  • Small groups, beautiful souls.

  • Free for newbies and those in need of support always and paid subscribers.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your day of wandering intentionally with presence, and feel a tingle of anticipation for the creativity you will explore ahead. See you Sunday for a time of reflection and play.

✨jenni

Ancient sages, spiritual masters and wise beings of today, no matter what path they walk, agree on one singular truth: presence is the only place where life is truly lived.

Oh we can think that we’re comprised of a thousand sparks of memory and hard-wired in the future plans we envision, but this breath, and that, and that—you here, word by word, heartbeat by heartbeat is what life simply, profoundly, is.

The purpose of this SoulFull Way is to tether myself, those I love, and all those I can wrap my arms around, in the values that forge the foundation of our deeper existence. In a world of whirl and worry, constant unsettling and mass confusion, our lifeline is to consciously, simply, creatively keep what matters alive. Each month, we live, eat, sleep, breathe, wander in and through, a theme. We attune to it, watch it grow in the light of our awareness, and discover the Universe nudging us into action to meet the wonder of expansion.

This month, Presence became the pulse echoing through my days: the glistening dewdrop on a daffodil petal, the eagles circling every time I needed a reminder to keep soaring, the pang of a mother’s ache mixed with bestie’s pure joy as my son headed to the ferry and turned to wink and wave good-bye, the steam from my cup and silence of an early morning. I listened more deeply to voice messages, wrote a love note to my husband, saw the stranger passing who needed a smile, felt the cleansing breath as I inhaled the ocean, woke to feel the stirring of renewed hope as I met the day, sipped and savoured and sank sweetly into the depth of the moment.

Here is where we live, you and I, and these seconds you’re spending right now, investing in the consideration of presence … they are precious and worth it.

So I invite you to soften your gaze, breathe slowly in and out, in and out, centre yourself in the just-this and then let’s talk a walk together, in spirit, with these kindred spirits whose thoughts are truly worthy of our sacred time.

If you’re new to The SoulFull Way, we are a community of co-creators, exploring month-to-month the values that shape our lives. We know that what we focus on, we get more of and we want the good stuff. And we get that it is waaay more meaningful (and fun) doing it with kindred spirits.

If this sounds like you, you’re in the right place. We create touchpoints to keep our eyes and hearts on the soulful prize, with a weekly newsletter, live talks, and a deeper-dive gathering/workshop and private community chat of transformational support and connection. Next workshop, The Soul of Presence, Saturday, April 25th, 10:00-12:00 PT - free to paid subscribers, complimentary to new (includes The Soul of Presence Guided Journal).
Learn more here.

Subscribe or Upgrade 4 Bonus Tidbits

The SoulFull Collective: Special Edition on Presence

This is one of my favourite parts of our work here in The SoulFull Collective: gathering kindreds and pulling up a chair around the contemplative, soulful fire; creating space to pause, listen, and be changed by the wisdom shared. To feature the writers and creatives who inspire me so deeply, and who so generously offer their reflections on what it means to be fully here, feels like a sacred act of presence in itself.

This edition is an invitation to slow down and savour. To linger with insights and ideas that stay with you long after the reading, gently weaving themselves into your days. My hope is that these reflections help you notice more, feel more, and return more often to the quiet beauty of this moment.

Thank you to our ahhhmazing contributors, those brave enough to pour soul onto the page, to trust that your words can stir awareness, connection, and belonging in another. And to you, dear reader, I hope you gather small treasures here, tucking them into your heart, carrying them into your conversations, your pauses, your ordinary moments of noticing.

Pull up a chair round the fire. Reach out. Together, let us create more space for presence in a world that moves too quickly, illuminating it with words and ideas, poetry and notes, brushstrokes and broad strokes of imagination, lighting The SoulFull Way for all.

Now … For Our Featured Presence Co-Creators:

From the moment I came across this VedicSoul, I felt a stirring, a connection to something remembered in my soul. Each reflection, each gem of wisdom, causes pause, a call to presence. The graciousness, the truth telling, the spirit with which this gentle, powerful being delivers is rare and yet reminds us of that which exists within us all. When I reached out to ask if he would contribute, this man, this kindred soul, was just as I imagined. His authenticity is what resonates and inspires all who cross this path. Thank you A. Bhardwaj for what flowed forth as you considered my request - one so aligned with all you share and are.

This is his piece for you, readers.

Before It Becomes Thought: On Presence ~ VedicSoul, By ~ A. Bhardwaj

There are moments when nothing is missing. The breath is still moving. The body has not yet decided what any of this means. No effort to adjust, no movement to become. Just this, as it is. They pass quickly, or so it seems. The mind returns, naming, shaping, placing everything back into its familiar order. What was simple becomes something to understand. What was whole becomes something to hold. And yet, something in you recognises those moments. Not as rare, but as quietly true.

Before any thought arises, before experience is organised into meaning, there is a kind of openness that does not ask to be improved. It is not something you create. It is what remains when the movement to define has not yet begun.

This is what we call Presence.

We tend to overlook it, not because it is distant, but because it is near. The mind is trained to move, to interpret, to conclude. It does not easily rest where there is no problem to solve. So even Presence becomes an idea. Something to practice. Something to return to later, when the day is less demanding, when the mind is quieter, when life allows. But life rarely arranges itself that way.

In the middle of a conversation, while responding to a message, while reaching for your phone without thinking, there are brief openings. A pause before replying. A breath that is not taken deliberately. A moment where nothing is being added. It is subtle. Almost invisible. And yet, in that moment, there is no sense of lack. No urgency to become something else. The mind may return immediately after, but for that brief instant, there is a completeness that does not depend on what happens next. The ancient teachings have pointed to this without urgency.

“You are the awareness in which all thoughts appear and disappear.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

To notice this is not to reject thought, or to attempt to remain in some sustained silence. That effort itself becomes another movement of the mind. Instead, it is a simple recognition: what you are does not depend on the next thought, or the previous one.

Modern life does not pause to make this easier. It runs on speed. On response. On the next thing that must be addressed. Notifications, obligations, conversations, decisions, each one asking for attention, each one reinforcing the sense that what comes next matters more than what is here. And so, this is missed. Not because it is absent. Because nothing in it insists.

The pause is still here. Before the reply is sent. Before the reaction settles into identity. Before the moment becomes something to carry. It does not last. It does not need to. Even the briefest glimpse is enough to see: You are not moving as quickly as your thoughts suggest.

What is here does not arrive with thought, nor leave with it. And perhaps that is why it is so easily missed. Not because it is hidden, but because nothing in it asks to be found.

To explore more of the mystery and wisdom of life with VedicSoul, A Bhardwaj, you can find him here. To connect with his wondrous new book, The Fire We Never Offered ~ to “Remember what has always been”, you can find his post on that here.

Pepe was a kindred spirit on Substack from the outset. His wonder, his wit, the way he weaves words and poetry and wields sketch pencil, all provoke thought and leave you feeling like you’ve discovered someone who ‘gets’ you - if you’re that sort of curious, soulful cat. Rich life, much wandering, deep love of family and experience: all these gems make Pepe a living, breathing master of the moment.

Thank you for taking on the adventure with me, in the SoulFull Collective of it all, and in the personal friendship we’ve built behind the scenes. I am wildly grateful.

Here’s his Presence piece for you, dear reader.

My Walking Thoughts on Presence ~ by PepeWrites

My awesome friend Jenni, in her beautiful kindness, gave me the opportunity to be here with all you beautiful souls. And I want to start a discussion about something we often seek like a goal to be attained: presence.

Like myths of old, back in the day, presence was just granted in our existence. It was our way of being (as it is thought). We didn’t know any other state. We didn’t have a choice. There weren’t many distractions.

Nowadays? We have separate worlds. Digital world, physical world, the real world... We have even come up with a fake one, too! We have all these compartments of what life is. Professional life, sexual life, married life, single life, adult life, childhood, etc. Everything has become a category.

And you have to be aware that you’re switching between them like you switch channels on TV. “Now I’m activating this mode. Working mode, activated. Responsible husband enabled!”

What does that do? Imagine a big river. You put barriers in it. The flow gets disrupted. The water won’t flow as smoothly, it gets stuck, may dry on the way and never reach its destination. It’s not that precious seamless thing of oneness, going from birth in the mountain to union with the sea.

Now, I may be skeptical of this whole idea that presence has been lost in our age.

I agree it’s an art form and needs to be practiced. But I disagree that it’s something unique to creatures of old. They were also thinking about the past and future. They got excited about a marriage or a war or the beautiful smell of freshly baked bread from the neighbour. They had preoccupations. All these things make your mind ruminate. You’re not grounded.

So being fully present is almost an impossible duty… ALMOST!

Look, I’m not saying presence is impossible. That would be stupid. I’m saying full, total, absolute presence – the kind where you have zero thoughts, zero ruminations, zero anything except the exact moment – that’s probably not real, and if it is, it is not for humans anyway. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be present enough. Present enough to not be completely lost. Present enough to feel the thing you’re doing. Present enough not to miss your daughter’s smile and treasure it deep within your heart. That exists. And that’s worth something. As long as you’re human, you have ruminations, and those won’t stop, but you won’t give up either, will you?

Here’s something I personally struggle with. I used to correlate being present with wasting time. That’s a symptom of our sickness. We associate being fully present with doing nothing and doing nothing with wasting time. But being present doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means being fully immersed in whatever you’re doing. Breathing. Staring. Thinking. Reflecting. That’s experiencing the moment. Modern people call that the flow state. And paradoxically, flow robs you of time—because it makes time light and ethereal—while boredom makes time eternal.

So here’s my summary, in case you’re busy but still want to join the discussion.

Presence is being involved in what you truly believe needs to be done at this moment. Distractions have been human for as long as humans have been human. It’s not a modern problem; it has just been amplified by modern society.

Compartmentalization of life.

So stop dividing your life into bite-sized chunks.

It’s just one flow of water from the mountain to the sea.

Stay true to yourself. And allow yourself to be distracted.

You can find beautiful thoughts in your distractions.

Now let me be careful here. There are two kinds of distractions. One is the shallow kind – switching between TV channels in your head, checking your phone while someone talks, jumping from work mode to parent mode to lover mode without landing anywhere, and in completely different times (i.e., lover mode delivering a work presentation... you get me?). That’s the compartmentalization stuff. That kills presence.

But there’s another kind. The deep kind.

Getting lost in a tangent that actually absorbs you, almost fully. Following a thought down a rabbit hole because it’s genuinely interesting. That’s not fragmentation, that’s immersion. It just happens to be immersion in something you didn’t plan. And that? That can be presence enough too. So don’t beat yourself up for getting distracted. Just notice what kind of distractions you are indulging in. Shallow? Gently come back. Deep? Ride it. You might find something beautiful.

What does presence actually feel like? Is it the same as flow? I think they’re different. You can be present in your suffering. Especially suffering is very, very real. Nothing like a pinch to come back from a dream. Suffering keeps you here—raw, unfiltered. That’s hyper presence, in a way. But flow? Flow is like being in a tunnel. You only see the end; there is nothing else going on, and if there were, you can’t see it. You don’t even care about the end goal, it just happens to be the only thing there is. You just go forward. Once you leave, you think, wow, what an experience, what a ride! The whole world was going on around you, but you didn’t notice it. You’ve merged with the action. You’re not present within your own body. You’ve become the verb.

What about meditation, understanding and staying in your body? Do we need to be present within our own body? Sometimes. Just don’t do it too much. You may lose yourself in your body and then there’s no way out. The inside is felt only when it hurts. I got carried away, forgot to mention what PRESENCE actually feels like, but I think you already know it. You’ve been there. Likely in childhood, then you probably got too busy pretending to be an adult… Play more if you can… presence is found in play.

These are just my walking thoughts. I’m no professional. I write from an absolute lack of knowledge. What I think and believe today may change tomorrow depending on how much I ate before bed, how many hours of sleep I got, and how annoyed I’ve been by my neighbor’s barking dog.

So don’t take this as gospel. Live as you see fit. Engage with it, if you will. It’s a worthy intellectual pursuit. Take care. Stay present 🙂

Explore more of Pepe’s wandering, willful, wondrous ponderings here.

Monica’s a new kindred spirit that I’ve come across in the last few months. She’s a Celebrator and I love and honour this so! What I mean by this is, at any given moment as you cross her feed on Substack, you’ll see her highlighting, genuinely, thoughtfully, the expressions and creations of others. In a world that seems to have lost the power-of-the-pause when it comes to the sharing of others (in long-form, not the 140 character quip), Monica is the engager, as well as being a fabulous writer all her own. She’ll never miss an opportunity to weave words that complement your own if she feels that stir within. She’ll jump on the chain-letter of celebration and link you to new and soulful creators and don’t be surprised to find yourself featured there one day. She offers Layers of Shimmer indeed.

I’m deeply grateful she said, “Yes!” to offering these thoughts to us.

Entering Presence ~ by Monica A. Leyva

Presence is often described as a form of attention; however, attention alone does not capture its full depth. Presence involves not only noticing but also sustaining engagement with what is already occurring.

In everyday life, many moments pass without full recognition. Conversations move forward as attention divides, and tasks progress even as subtle shifts occur beneath the surface. Such moments rarely disrupt momentum; they allow it to proceed uninterrupted.

At certain points, however, the flow pauses: a change in tone, a hesitation, or a smile that does not align with what appears to be said. These signals are easy to disregard, yet they often mark the threshold of presence.

I have come to understand this most clearly through my own experience. I often register what is not explicitly stated, such as how someone enters a room, the cadence of speech, or the distance between what is expressed and what appears to be withheld. In those moments, I feel a familiar impulse to move on. Instead, I treat the cue as an invitation to attend more carefully.

Over time, I have learned to trust that initial recognition. Rather than moving past it, I slow down in small, observable ways. I pause before responding, ask a clarifying question, or allow silence to do its work. The moment feels less rushed, my focus sharpens, and what is present becomes more discernible.

This practice extends across contexts. With loved ones, it may mean pausing long enough to sense that something remains unresolved even when the conversation seems complete. In professional settings, it can involve adjusting my communication when I notice that a message has not fully landed. In both cases, the aim is not to fix the moment immediately but to stay with it long enough to respond with accuracy and care.

Awareness brings into view what might otherwise remain unexamined. What follows is a choice: to return to momentum or to stay with what has emerged. When I remain, I engage in the moment differently and my response aligns more closely with what is occurring than with what I anticipated.

In this sense, presence becomes a pathway to connection.

At times, this shift extends beyond the individual. Another person may register it as well. A conversation deepens without being forced, a pause is sustained, and attention becomes jointly oriented toward what is unfolding. In those instances, I am reminded that presence is not only an internal posture; it is also an interpersonal condition shaped moment by moment through how we listen.

These experiences often linger. Offering comfort, extending kindness, or sitting with someone in silence carries weight because it responds to what matters in that room. Often something shifts in return, and I leave altered by the encounter.

These interactions are not recognized as consequential in the moment; they are easy to overlook. Nonetheless, they accumulate over time, shaping how connection forms and how understanding develops.

Presence is not a sustained state so much as a practice entered briefly, often in moments where very little is required to miss what matters and very little is required to hold it. For me, it begins with a small interruption of habit.

I pause, choose to listen, and remain willing to let a seemingly minor detail carry its full weight.

Presence matters because it shapes what we notice, how we respond, and what we carry forward.

To find more Layers of Shimmer with Monica , connect here.

During our weekly SoulFull Sessions LIVE we explore how the theme of our month is playing out in the world and community, in relationships and within ourselves. We dabble in topics that keep us aligned week-to-week and then on the last Saturday of each month we gather round the soulful fire together for a deeper dive and discussion in community.

This month has been all about Presence from the perspective of ancient masters and the neuroscience and psychology of well-being to an interview with a woman living it through her Qigong and coaching practice, Steffi Black.

This gem of a soul Janine Lattimore, often shows up—although at a crazy hour on the New Zealand clock—and after many of our sessions surprises us with Gems of Reflection.

Thank you Janine!!

A Reflection on Presence

I boosted the start of my day by tuning into Jennifer M. Maki and William Todd Maki on their SoulFull Session LIVE: Tethering to Presence.

My head is normally swirling with to-do’s and ideas when I wake up and it was grounding to begin my day tethering to presence with these two lovely souls - and the other lovely souls connected in the chat.

Here’s a sample of her beautiful Gems of Reflection of things our collective crew shared (more in her Notes below).

To connect with Janine’s precious Presence Notes, find Part 1 and Part 2 here. And be sure to explore her myriad reflections and offerings that bring us all to more vibrant wellbeing.

💫Notes on Presence and Centring on Our SoulFull Way

For you - these writers and creative Substack souls offering you a Note of sparkling presence, of finding your path to perspective and the present moment along The SoulFull Way.

✨From our Ordinary Therapist …

It’s in the presence of myself where time slows down and reveals what’s happening between the layers of the universe. The cracks appear and I get to walk through moments more clearly, noticing what’s actually here instead of what I’m rushing past.

The world asks us to live outside the now. To move faster. To think ahead. To be more, to be less.

But what if, for a moment, we didn’t.

What if we just stayed. Long enough to notice what’s happening inside. Long enough to let things settle instead of constantly moving through them.

So little asks us to just. be. here.

So even if it’s brief… just be here. Even for a moment.

Link to her Note and Find The Ordinary Therapist Here.

✨Presence by Dora

Presence is the quiet rebellion against time.

In a world obsessed with becoming, it is the courage to simply be.

Not yesterday’s memory. Not tomorrow’s promise.

Just this breath—arriving without apology.

Here, nothing is missing and nothing is in excess.

The ordinary reveals itself as sacred, and a fleeting moment opens into eternity.

Presence is not found.

It is remembered.

And in remembering, we finally come home.🤍

D.✨

Find more of Dora’s creative connections and writing, here.

Thank you to our contributors this month! So lovely to share soulful conversations and space together and look forward to more.

💫Last SoulFull Bits …

The SoulFull Collective is a monthly exploration of one living theme — woven through this collaborative edition, our Sunday SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversations, and a deeper workshop at month’s end. Each month we choose a thread and follow it with intention. This month: Presence. Next month: Creativity. The circle continues.

If something in you feels stirred - to write, to reflect, to enter the conversation more fully - reach out. This is a place for thoughtful voices, essential conversations, and curious minds willing to walk the long arc of becoming.

Join us on Sundays. Step into the dialogue. Pull up a chair. Share the love on and on.

Pull Up a Chair 🪑🔥

Want more on Presence from this month? Here are the links to deepen your connection and practice with the present moment:

✨Tethering to Presence: The Illuminating Moment of Now

✨SoulFull Session LIVE: Rituals and Practices for Present-Moment Living

✨The Science of Being Here: What research reveals about how presence shapes well-being.

✨SoulFull Conversation with . Living Presence: Attuning to the Beauty and Value of Now

✨An Invitation to Saturday April 25th, 10-12 Pacific ~ The Soul of Presence

Jennifer M. Maki is a writer, speaker, retreat facilitator, and coach with a passion for exploring the human spirit. Drawn to thoughtful questions, meaningful work, and honest dialogue, her work weaves together communications, psychology, and lived experience to support people and organizations in leading from inner wisdom. She is the author of Just One Soulful Thing: a Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom and the voice behind The SoulFull Way.

Get Your Copy of JOST

Thank you , , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! and for the patience as we worked through the initial Substack glitches. For those arriving to catch the replay, we’re so glad you’re here.

This is the recording of our recent gathering — a space of reflection, conversation, and lived experience.

There was a depth in this space that could be felt.
A shared exploration of what it means to embody presence in our everyday lives.

✨ The conversation

In this session, I connected with Steffi Black, a long-time soulful friend whose path has moved from media and corporate work into a life rooted in presence, energy work, Qigong, and coaching.

We spoke about the real shifts that happen when we begin to listen more closely to what feels aligned with that innate wisdom and whisper within.

Together, we explored:

• the transition from externally driven paths into what feels aligned and genuinely fulfilling
• listening inward to discover and rediscover what brings peace, contentment, and meaning
• how questioning can draw out the authentic voice within
• how we choose to show up in the world and in service to others
• the foundations of Qigong, including Spring Forest Qigong
• simple, accessible Qigong practices to connect with breath, body, and energy
• the connection between heart, energy, and awareness, and how coherence supports presence
• developing sensitivity to energy and the signals that guide us back to ourselves

Presence here is cultivated through the heart.
Through awareness of energy.
Through practice.

🌀 Join us here

Settle in and join us here:

💫 As promised, insights from Steffi

Below are the resources and references Steffi shared during our conversation for those who feel called to explore more deeply:

🌀Foundational Work (Mind–Body–Energy)

Dr. Joe Dispenza

Website: https://drjoedispenza.com

Focus: Neuroscience, meditation, healing, and rewiring subconscious patterns.

Recommended Books: Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself; Becoming Supernatural; You Are the Placebo.

🌀Podcast & Consciousness Conversations

Marie Manuchehri – Energy Intuitive Podcast

Focus: Intuition, energy awareness, emotional and spiritual healing.

🌀Advanced Energy + Consciousness Exploration

Dr. David Clements with Pam Gregory

Platform: Patreon – Infinite Source Creations

Focus: Consciousness, frequency, and expanded awareness.

🌀Intuition & Spiritual Development

Sonia Choquette

Website: https://soniachoquette.net

Recommended Books: Trust Your Vibes; Ask Your Guides.

Focus: Strengthening intuition and living a spirit-led life.

🌀Integration Through Practice

Steffi Black Coaching

Website: https://www.steffiblackcoaching.com

Movement Medicine Sessions – Qigong, energy medicine, and nervous system regulation.

Tuesdays at 7:15 PM Eastern

Saturdays at 9:00 AM Eastern

🌀Closing Reflection

Knowledge opens the mind, but practice transforms the body. True change happens through embodiment.

✨ What’s coming next

🌀 SoulFull Collective, Special Edition (Wednesday)

This week, we are sharing a special edition of The SoulFull Way featuring voices from within our community. Writers and creators living this work in their own way.

🌀 The Soul of Presence Workshop

Saturday | 10:00 to 12:00 p.m. Pacific

This is where we move into practice.

Together, we step into:

• embodied awareness in everyday life
• presence in connection
• practical ways to stay anchored in what matters
• practices from my book Just One Soulful Thing: Fill to flowing meditations and those integrating ancient masters.

Includes The Soul of Presence Guided Journal before it goes to print. First workshop, joyfully complimentary.

Message me for more details or get them in our SoulFull Collective special edition of The SoulFull Way.

💫 Be part of it

The SoulFull Way is where values meet life.

Each month, we explore one guiding value through:

• weekly reflections
• SoulFull Sessions LIVE
• meaningful conversations
• a monthly workshop

Join freely.
Or step more deeply into the experience inside the SoulFull Collective:

Connect or a SoulFull Upgrade

What an absolute treasure it is to wander this SoulFull Way together.

I look forward to you experiencing presence through our authors in this week’s SoulFull Collective special edition, and to sharing space with you in community at next Saturday’s workshop.

Jenni ✨

fragile to flow

I woke feeling fragile, like a ping against my psyche could shatter me in an instant. Nerves raw and a primordial urge to defend myself pulsed wildly through my veins.

From what?

No logical explanation for that, just humanness playing out. Truly at its core, my life is a beautiful unfolding that has taken years to cultivate, to manifest. At the start, shifting from surviving to thriving was fought for and hard won. In years of late, life is in simple, aligned flow, a precious dance I am keenly aware of, and I am deeply loved, by self, my precious husband and boys and kindred spirits aplenty.

Although my health is shifting in mid-life as my hormones rearrange the closet of my physical existence, I’m happy to purge, auction off what no longer suits and realign, and I’ve always taken up the torch for natural healing and preventative measures. But I do recognize trauma of the past runs deep indeed.

On some days reaching for what IS, is just tougher and this is when we really need to listen.

This is not unique to me; the myriad clients and friends I wrap my arms around deal with heaviness and challenge in wildly varying degrees. That’s the thing about struggle; it’s a unique and relative affair.

Presence though, presence plays a role for us all as we look to find space, hope, perspective in the breath of an instant.

I’ve been running hot of late. A zillion ideas and inspired bits springing forth and I’ve loved the creation and the connection for its own sake. On this day though, my soul didn’t whisper it screamed, “Enough. Not today sister, not today.”

So, I rearranged that to-do list in my mind (because it really only ever exists in the mind) and headed for the beach … literally.

Now, I’m a gal who genuinely enjoys the energy from and with others, but I’m also a soul who needs silence and solo refilling often. Haven’t had a lot of time for this with boys to care for, running a communications and coaching biz, and the launch of all this beautiful SoulFull Way vision.

I truly thought I was getting recharged in the doing of what I love. Apparently not.

As I drove and had alllll the feels, an old shadow-self appeared and she was having some kinda pity party. Weird, been a while since she showed up. Counter to her, my Warrior-self stepped in. “Hey, what’s happening here friend? Where is this coming from? This what you want? No? Well then, let’s get a semblance of perspective going here k?”

And into my mind popped a spark of a thought from that way of my Warrior,
“Let’s engage the Yes/No Truth Bomb Tactic.”

And then the questions sputtered forth.

“Is this how you want to feel today?” Me: “No.”

“Do you want to have a pity party?” “No.”

“Ready to leave the victim of this moment at the door and do something that acknowledges and honours how you are feeling in your nerves, bones and heart?” “Yes.”

“Good. Ready to recognize that you’re giving a lot to others right now and while it may feel out of balance, it is absolutely not their fault, it’s your choice?” “Yes.”

“You know that those you love would give you any space, fulfill any need you have, if you just asked, right?” “Yes.”

“Awesome. Ready to have a day reconnecting with you and put all this angsty stuff in perspective?” “Oh Yes.”

And then the opened-ended questions came and the soulful answers followed.

“What would fuel your body for health, your mind for peace, your spirit for joy?”

Off I went to the health-food store. Bought myself a picnic of delights. Headed to the ocean with beach chair, journal, tunes in tow, a sigh of relief in my heart and a giddiness in my stride.

I listened to the waves, the gulls, sparrows, watched the eaglet and his parents play and soar right above my head. I talked to the three crows that joined me for lunch. And I wrote and wrote and found my way back to me, thankful to my Warrior, tapping my Wise Sage, delighting in My Lover and wildly grateful for the Presence that paved the way.

There are signs when we need a reset, to tag in the divine to take over for a bit and make precious way for presence.

What we seek, calling from the depths of our being, is indeed seeking us and when we ask, listen, surrender and flow … it surely finds us.

This isn’t just my inkling—although those have never steered me wrong, and neither have yours—this is science.

Let’s get a little geeky about what’s a-happenin’ here.

the scientific case for Presence in the NOW

Ancient inward watchers and wise sages knew best, but now we’ve got the credible studies to back it up. Here goes.

1) presence helps interrupt mental drift and emotional overload

One of the most cited studies from Harvard researchers found that people’s minds wandered frequently, and that mind-wandering was generally associated with lower happiness. That does not mean every future thought is harmful, but it does support a simple newsletter-level truth: when attention is repeatedly pulled away from lived experience, well-being tends to suffer.

2) presence supports the nervous system by lowering reactivity

NIH’s overview says mindfulness-based treatments have been shown to reduce anxiety and depression, and there is evidence they can help lower blood pressure, improve sleep, and help people cope with pain.

Harvard Health also summarizes research showing improvements in mood and emotional regulation after about eight weeks of relatively short daily sessions.

3) presence appears to affect the brain systems involved in stress, memory, and emotional regulation

This is where the research gets especially interesting, but also where wording matters.

Harvard Health notes that mindfulness research suggests benefits for stress, chronic pain, mood, thinking, and memory.

A well-known 2011 study found that participation in an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program was associated with increased gray matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.

A 2019 review in Psychosomatic Medicine concluded that early randomized trials suggest mindfulness interventions can improve pain management and may influence biological pathways related to stress and physical health.

A 2024 meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials found that mindfulness-based interventions improved aspects of cognitive functioning, especially executive function and sustained attention accuracy.

Mindfulness training is associated with measurable changes in brain structure and function related to attention, memory, and stress regulation.

4) presence may improve our relationship to pain, sleep, and daily habits

The NCCIH summary is especially useful because it is balanced. It reports evidence that mindfulness meditation practices may help reduce insomnia and improve sleep quality, and that mindfulness-based stress reduction has shown short-term benefit for some pain conditions, including low-back pain.

Harvard’s more recent coverage also points to improvements in attention, memory, mood, and emotional regulation, while NIH notes possible benefits for blood pressure and coping with chronic illness.

5) the strongest research case is for well-being, not miracle claims

This matters. NCCIH explicitly says much of the research has been preliminary or methodologically uneven, and some findings may have been interpreted too optimistically. It also notes that about 8 percent of participants in a 2020 review reported negative effects related to meditation, most commonly anxiety and depression.

The majestic unfolding of our lives, through the ebbs and flows of challenge and delight, loss and liberty, is held in living presence, consciously, moment by moment.
All the sweeter as we glean individually and gather in community to share soulfully.

a reflection on tethering to presence

This past Sunday’s SoulFull Session felt like the next level, a space where we came together, shared, reflected, and experienced presence in real time. These are some of the gems I promised to bring forward for those who joined us live, tapped the recording, or are finding us here now.

TETHERING TO PRESENCE – this is what is guiding me, us, perhaps you too. Create your own and share. We’d love to hear.

Turn Off to Tune In – a gentle turning away from noise, a returning to what is already here

• cell phone down, reconnect with surroundings

• pause from typing, turn and tether to the nature out my window: the trees sway, birds twitter, an owl calls

• simply stop and turn all my attention, seeing it all in its remarkable beauty

Soulful Connection – moments of contact that bring us fully into the second we’re living

• consciously reach over to Todd, take his hand, and allow it to tether me right into the second I’m in

• pause in receiving a note from a friend and read or listen to it fully, consciously

• put my hands on my son’s face as I kiss his cheek and look right into his eyes, his soul, the way he used to do for me with “Mama, here’s a favourite kiss for you”

• listen to conversations without wandering, coming back again and again to the words and the energy within them

Wild Attunement – a listening inward, where rhythm replaces force

• in thoughts: what is working, what isn’t, what feels like a grind, what feels effortless?

• in action: where can I align, shift, with ease and grace, right back to the moment

Just This – with the task at hand, the foundation of my book staying with what is in front of you until it reveals itself fully

• stay with what I see, fully: the flower budding, the eagle soaring, the pineapple on the counter, the flowers Liam and his girlfriend gave me at Easter that sit on the table—see, pick up, smell, taste, feel, be

• snap pics to solidify the moment, to linger in it

• in all tasks, from the mundane and messy to the miraculous

These reflections and more, found within Just One Soulful Thing: A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom. Find your copy HERE.

To meet us ‘round the soulful
fire as we align our living with the values we cherish ...

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the invitation into presence

It’s that time again to gather ’round the soulful fire 🔥

This Sunday I’m joined by Steffi Black for a SoulFull Sessions LIVE conversation…

Living Presence: Attuning to the beauty and value of now

Steffi’s journey has moved from the corporate and media world into a deeply personal exploration of ritual, energy work, and Qigong. Today, she supports people in reconnecting with themselves, attuning to their own rhythm, and finding their authentic voice.

There is something deeply grounding in her approach. A reminder that we don’t need to become something else. We return to who we are.

In this conversation, we’ll explore:

• presence as something we live, not something we try to achieve
• ritual as a pathway to healing and connection
• embracing our unique voice and way of being
• simple practices that bring us back into alignment

🌀 Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Pacific
We’d love to have you with us.

https://open.substack.com/live-stream/166418

inside the soulfull way

Each month along The SoulFull Way we explore one theme together and provide key touch-points for staying attuned and aligned to experience and create it, within and in the world.

• Weekly newsletter to set tone, share stories and poems and tips to inspire.

• Two Sunday SoulFull Sessions LIVE on how this value plays out in the world, in relationships, especially with that gorgeous one in the mirror.

• A Sunday SoulFull Session Interview with one living ‘It’ in how they create and connect in their service and life.

• Last Saturday of the Month - SoulFull Workshop - 2 hours plus an optional stay, sip n’ chat. Flow is:

  • A sprinkle of meditation, time for introspection using your Gift of a Guided Journal, and community conversation.

  • Small groups, beautiful souls.

  • Free for newbies and those in need of support always and paid subscribers.

This month, in addition to this Sunday’s SoulFull Session:

💫Sun. April 19, 10:30 PT ~ Our interview on Sunday is with Steffi Black coach, speaker, and Qigong practitioner whose work weaves presence, healing, and authentic self-expression through both ancient practices and lived experience.
Your Link to Join Us: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/166418

💫April 22 ~ The SoulFull Collective, special edition of The SoulFull Way. A collaborative newsletter featuring some of the most precious hearts and minds on the value of presence.

💫 Sat. April 25, 10:00 PT ~The Soul of Presence: Exploring Practices for Present-Moment Living.
A 2-hour SoulFull Workshop centred on connection, conversation, and shared experience, where we gather ‘round the soulful fire to explore: presence through gentle movement, guided reflection, and real-life application in how we live, relate, and dance with life in each moment.

Message me or reply with request and I’ll connect with any details you need.

Spots are limited to keep this space intimate - first time is joyfully complimentary.

💫 Theme Ahead:

• April = Presence

• May = Creativity

• June = Curiosity

• July = Adventure

• August = Whimsy

• September = Discernment

• October = Transformation

• November = Calm

• December = Giving.

Or if you’ve already found precious value here and would like to make a small donation, that is always deeply appreciated.

Appreciation with a Donation

To your day of caring deeply and honouring yourself. See you Sunday for a time of reflection and connection.

✨jenni

sources for a deeper delve in:

NIH News in Health
“Mindfulness for Your Health”
Excellent for accessible, government-backed summaries on anxiety, depression, sleep, pain, blood pressure, and quality of life.

NCCIH, NIH
“Meditation and Mindfulness: Effectiveness and Safety”
Best source for balanced evidence, limitations, and safety cautions.

Harvard Health Publishing
“Mindfulness practice for focus”
The attention, mood, and emotional regulation angle.

Harvard Health Publishing
“Can mindfulness change your brain?”
Helpful for the brain-language bridge, with appropriately careful framing.

Science / Harvard researchers Killingsworth & Gilbert
“A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind”
Excellent for the human truth that wandering attention often disconnects us from well-being.

PubMed: Hölzel et al., 2011
Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density
Useful for the structural brain-change point after eight weeks of MBSR.

PubMed: Creswell, 2019
Mindfulness Training and Physical Health: Mechanisms and Outcomes
A body-health and stress-mechanism overview.

PubMed: Zainal et al., 2023/2024 meta-analysis
Mindfulness enhances cognitive functioning: a meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials